A Rare 21st Century Americana Incunablum
An Extraordinary Rarity – A Collector of 21st Century Americana Contacts Our Office in Dire Need
Recently an important collector of 21st century rare Americana contacted our office. This was a book collector desperate to procure a printed rarity she described as having remarkable significance.
The book was unknown to us. A quick look through our bibliographical references and we found the book:
An Account of the Life, Travels, and General Activities of Ian Brabner… [Del?] 2007. O 64 [?] wps dd. Howes 6735b. Graff Jr. 3376b. — “An unauthorized, unoriginal, if not likely spurious account of this Americana specialist. The Clements copy (defective) is the only known copy. The Wagner-Camp collation is in error.”
For only one copy to be recorded – held by the esteemed Clements Library at the University of Michigan – was surprising. With a publication date of 2007, it could be imagined several examples would have survived, with at least one auction record from one of the major houses being known. Curiously, as we researched this rare book, none were to be divined.
What could explain the works rarity? Was it the Great Recession of 2007? Publishers, printers, paper manufacturers; were all of their resources stretched so thin during these economically perilous times that An Account of the Life… barely pip-squeaked its way into existence? What was the mystery behind the pseudonymous nature of the work by this author, this self-styled Amicus Brabnericus?
Had Graff Junior’s rather damning critique of the work as being unoriginal and spurious quickly caused the pulping and removal from the marketplace of whatever small printing run this title might have been able to muster in 2007?
How many copies could have possibly have been printed? 100? 200? And if pulped, and extracted, you might say, from the rare book marketplace then by whom? And why with such great avidity?
Had the advent of the Internet and the great push to digitize the printed word and create “digital surrogates” been the final indignity? Was it the last blow that struck at the very footings of the foundation of this artifact, this outdated relic of ink and processed tree matter and adhesive?
These questions dogged and perplexed me throughout the days following the rather urgent phone call we had received.
With rare book collectors their motivations and reasons for collecting can often be mysterious. In this instance, the woman was a collector at the forefront of 21st century rare Americana. Whether rare book, pamphlet, broadside or handwritten diary, she was an active and formidable foe to all who challenged her collecting resolve in either the rooms or on the floor of any major antiquarian book fair.
Several weeks passed and I received a communication from the collector. The woman had put out the clarion call to other American booksellers and had secured (by donation) a single leaf, upon either side were printed the opening two pages from the Preface. She enclosed, in the form of a cheaply-executed facsimile, a copy of the great rarity’s Preface.
The book collector had secured only a fragment from this notable rarity, but truly it was an authentic fragment. I transcribe it, thus:
IN presenting to the Public with an account of the life and mercantile activities of Ian Brabner, antiquarian bookseller, purveyor of manuscripts, dillywagger of printed and visual oddities, of the most curious and striking nature, I feel an especial anxiety to ward off the charge of presumption, for such an undertaking.
I hope, therefore, to have credit for a declaration, that nothing but the earnest solicitations of the subject, himself, who knew of my strongest affection for him and his wisely-chosen stock, and my unabated regard for his reputation, could have otherwise prevailed upon to me embark upon a literary career, so foreign to the habits of my life, for the last sixty years now elapsed, thirty since emigrating from the shores of Albion to New York.
If this brief account proves hastily written I hope the Reader will indulge upon me my sincere expression of the distrust I have of my own efforts. I am anxious to guard against extravagant expectations in them, and any lack of discernment in myself.
AMICUS BRABNERICUS
[From the Preface of An Account of the Life, Travels, and General Activities of Ian Brabner…]
Slowly, I made the words appear on the screen as I transcribed; trying to feel the same urge and desire to collect this work as my advanced collector, and knowledgeable customer, was so eager to share with me.
And then, it happened. It was a slight flicker, a twitch of my left lower cheek muscle, an urge; the desire to find that which can not be found, but must be found.
Surely someone, somewhere, had preserved, collated, and squirreled away a complete copy of this Americana incunablum. A collector or librarian of yore who had felt the stinging rebuff perhaps of others who did not collect, but engaged in birding or golfing instead: those who did not understand. Those who did not collect.
This prescient individual would have placed this carefully kept copy of An Account of the Life, Travels… into a small modest four-flap enclosure, safely ensconced in a climate-controlled room, except for in August when it was impossible to safeguard against its relentless humidity.
I suddenly felt optimistic. It was early January. There was time. The year 2414 had only just been rung in. The game was on.
An Account of the Life, Travels, and General Activities of Ian Brabner… [Del?] 2007. O 64 [?] wps dd. Howes 6735b. Graff Jr. 3376b. — “An unauthorized, unoriginal, if not likely spurious account of this Americana specialist. The Clements copy (defective) is the only known copy. The Wagner-Camp collation is in error.”