BOOKS AND PRINTS
SPECIALLY WANTED TO BE PURCHASED
- BY -
WALTER T. SPENCER,
27, NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
(Opposite Mudie's Library and near the British Museum).
Telephone No. 5847 Central. Telegraphic Address- "Phiz, London." Private Address- CULVER HOUSE, THE ESPLANADE, SHANKLIN, ISLE OF WIGHT.
Bankers - LONDON & COUNTY (New Oxford St. Branch).
Any Parcels of Books sent, I willingly pay carriage both ways, if we do not come to terms.
Cash always sent by Return Post. Established 1884
→ Shall be glad to hear of Imperfect Copies or Odd Vols of any Books or odd plates in this List.
Many of the books were very rare even then - especially anonymous pamphlets put out by the Romantics and items such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning's impossible first book Battle of Marathon. Spencer's list encapsulates bookseller wisdom of his age and rarities passed down from 19th century book sellers. These were the 'sexy' books of his day and some of them are still appearing on wants list, some no longer wanted or too easily found (e.g. Charles Lever, Frank Smedley, Walter Scott.)
Spencer, known in the trade as 'Tommy', wrote a memoir "40 Years in my Bookshop" (London 1923) that reveals part of his story. Spencer's dates were possibly 1866-1964, he is unknown to Wikipedia and the DNB but these old booksellers lived long lives. He was a major book seller of his time, a friend of forger Thomas J. Wise and appears to have dabbled in forgery himself. His shop was at 27 New Oxford Street and he dealt in prints, plate books, bound sets, the Romantics, Americana, first editions of his time (Wilde, Conrad, Galsworthy, etc.). A big Dickens man, popular with visiting American plutocrats like pickle king Henry J. Heinz and numbering among his customers, Sir Henry Irving, Gladstone, George Meredith, Andrew Lang, Gissing, Pater, Swinburne, and Richard Jefferies. Specialist bookseller (1890s) Tim D'Arch Smith recalls Spencer trading from Upper Berkeley Street in the late 1950s. He even remembers his bookseller code - 'TWICKENHAM' with T standing for one, W for 2 etc.,
O.F. Snelling wrote in a book trade memoir '...much of what he knew has certainly gone into limbo...some of the best tales I ever heard of Spencer's dealings never got into his book.' He was a constructor of false provenances, involved with some fake Shaw letters, a maker up of questionable sets of Dickens in the parts and would also 'sophisticate' books with unacknowledged facsimiles. His 1920 wants list (undoubtedly effective) could, to a great degree, have been the source of his fortune. It partly answer bibliophile A.E. Newton's remark- 'How he does it, where he gets them, is his business.' There is often an ingenious trick or stratagem behind fortunes made in the book or art trade.
The first book mentioned Absurdities In Prose & Verse is illustrated by Alfred Crowquill (pic by him above) with 13 hand coloured plates and now goes for £150 + in nice condition, for the ninth book in the list - A Declaration of the State of Virginia (1620) sells for circa £15000. It is likely that Spencer put many standard collector's books in his list to hide the occasional devastatingly valuable book.
| Absurdities In Prose Verse, 1827 Account of New South Wales, 1804 -Any Books published by him, with coloured plates Actors by Daylight, 1838-9, 55 Nos. Actors by Gaslight, 1838, 37 Nos. Adair (J.) History of American Indians, 1775 Adam (R. and J.) Works in Architecture, 3 vols, folio, 1778, &c. Addison (J.) Damascus and Palymyra, 2 vols, 1838 A Day's Ride, second edition A Declaration of the State of Virginia, 1620 A Dialogue in the Shades, 1766 Adonais, an Elegy on the DEAth of John Keats, by P. B. S., Pisa,1821 Adventures of a Post Captain, with coloured plates, d (1821) Adventures of Count Fathom, 2 vols, 1753 Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaesv, 2 vols, 1762 Adventures of Ulysses, 1808 Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the Navy, 1818 Adventures of Mr. Ledbury, 3 vols, 1844 or 1846 Advice, a Satire, 4to, 1746 |
