The MONTH at Goodspeed’s Book Shop (May 1930, Vol. I, No. 8), by Norman Dodge
Just one of the many delightful issues of the “PAMPHLET concerning books, prints and autographs” found in the famous Boston book store Goodspeed’s Book Shop, this slim staple-bound tract shows off brilliantly the lucent prose of Norman Dodge, whose trenchant wit, catholic knowledge, and wry observations made every number of this catalogue from the past a treasure perhaps more worthy of esteem than some of the books which The MONTH detailed. The store, alas, is no more; the owner, George Talbot Goodspeed, finally closed the doors in 1995, hoping to move to an online business, only to pass away himself two years later. And so the storied bookstore, first opened by George’s father Charles Eliot Goodspeed in 1898, became defunct, a mere three years shy of the century mark, ending an era, perhaps only a small era in the larger era which sees the final extinction of all bookstores and perhaps all books.
Some bibliographical distinctions may seem of small consequence to those who prefer to do other things than unmask an elusive anonymity or a puzzling colophon, yet the process of solving the mystery of a book’s origin frequently leads to the discovery of facts of unquestioned importance in the history of printing or of literature.
You buys your ticket and you takes your chances
But something of Goodspeed’s Book Shop lives on in these tiny almost monthly (The MONTH was published ten times a year) pamphlets, and somehow one can almost smell the delightful scent of aging yet well tended paper when reading the brief notes and observations about the books, prints, and ephemera which wended into the Boston book shop. The love of the products of the press is obvious in every word, every wry remark, of Mr. Dodge, supported by a large team of experts in the various departments of Mr. Goodspeed’s stores. The editor’s erudition is obvious, and perhaps to be expected in an antiquarian bookseller (and graduate of Harvard), but what is a continual surprise is the humane irony with which Dodge views the products he finds at hand. While honestly describing the products he is (very gently) hawking, he never fails to connect each piece to the larger tapestry of books, history, or even human nature, of which each is a part.
on the South Sea atolls the native sons and daughters were lazy, benighted, and happy. They had never been obliged to make virtue of necessity nor confer nobility on labor. There was little cookery, fewer clothes, some art, small science. Now, we have heard, they shiver in overcoats.
Oh, the power of civilization
Norman Dodge was the editor of this unique antiquarian resource for the entirety of its forty year run, beginning in the year of the Great Depression, 1929. I only have a portion of the complete set, fifty-eight issues from 1930 to 1939 (alas, my collection begins with the seventh number, so I have to content myself with observations following the Great Disaster, not those of the Disaster itself). The entire set is available on microfilm, if you know what that is beyond hearing about it in Cold War movies. The catalogue—or rather, the survey of selections—is still prized by bookpeople for the historical information about prices contained therein, in addition to the many and varied notes about various editions and states passing through Goodspeed’s. Always scrupulous and honest, Dodge spends a little time, for example, in the tract we’re considering now, detailing the various points of difference between the true first edition of Sense And Sensibility and the particular mongrel copy that somehow came to be in the Boston book shop and under the study of the experts at Goodspeed’s. After showing that the book sold in 1912 as a first edition for $175 cannot possibly be so, he speculates as to why various pages were grafted into the volume at hand, and offers the old-but-not-quite-old-enough book for $40. How much this drastic price cut is due to the defects of the book itself, and how much due to the Depression, is a question to which I am ignorant of the answer.
It is amusing to think that instances of carelessness or ignorance are nearly always the causes of the “points” in the most sought books. An author, perhaps being young and more poet than grammarian, misspells the name of a Sanskrit deity. His manuscript goes to press and it is not until the small first issue has been dispersed that some roving eye in a wagging head fixes on the offending letter. In subsequent issues the fault is corrected, but the original sin remains to vex the poet and delight the bibliophile who harries relentlessly all blemishes. From a taint the misspelling becomes a distinction and a badge of priority.
Now the cause is autocorrect, and the mistake will never be corrected
In this one tiny tract we learn about Julia A. Moore, the “Sweet Singer of Michigan”, the Texian Navy (which invites autocorrect to blemish its name), The Daniel Catcher (a poem from 1713 anent the life of the prophet), Enrico Caruso’s caricatures (by, not of), an actual Pequot Indian harpooner, the famous Lord Timothy who authored A Pickle For The Knowing Ones, and McDonald Clarke, who seems to have been the Damon Runyon of early 18th-Century Broadway. As well, there are brief mentions of the Rogerenes (q.v.), Audubon (whom Goodspeed’s were one of the first to notice), and much more.
Clarke resembled Villon with his trick of turning the gossip of the Main Stem to metrical account, yet he differed also, because they say Clarke had no vices. He attended Grace Church, married an actress, was drowned in a cell of the city prison, and done in an oil
Runyon, on the other hand, smoked incessantly and married a dancer, briefly
There are many books in each edition of The MONTH for which modern collectors would give their eyeteeth (or more likely simply extend themselves through the medium of Visa), as well as many offerings for which we must remain puzzled as to why anyone ever—ever!—paid so high a price, especially in 193os dollars. Among the latter are the many prints and etchings being sold hundreds of dollars whilst finer 19th-Century books may be bought for a mere sawbuck. Somewhere in between these two extremes are such works as that mentioned briefly above, and discussed at fair length in this issue of The MONTH, the book which pushed Julia A. Moore into American awareness, The Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public. This book of bad obituary poetry by one of the most famous bad poets of all time—and surely the most famous bad American poet—is described in the leading article of this pamphlet with the same anguished love that caused Mark Twain to become devoted to the execrable Mrs. Moore. In May of 1930, you could have bought this terrible poetry book for the same $10; now I see a copy in much worse shape for sale at €750. Alas, that for lack of a time machine we are all forced to live in these pestilential days.
So much poetry! But this is the May number. But so much execrable poetry! Then we can be more certain that you haven’t read it before.
The final remarks from this issue of The MONTH
Unfortunately, one of the rusted staples has just broken off entirely, so I need to put this pamphlet into protective material. Until next time.