Lewis Carroll's Library - first find

There is nothing like having children to focus the mind of a book collector. From the pecuniary point of view this helps to tame the beast that is acquisitive collecting, in my case from 1993 to 1997. In 1998 I joined the world on the information highway and found sites such as ABE and forthcoming auction search engines, online booksellers and Ebay. Collecting would never be the same again, clicks of the mouse being easier than the traumas of searching bookshops with an empty stomach and full bladder.

And so with much joy one day , as the term “Dodgson” was tapped into the search box on a forthcoming auctions search engine, I learned that Christie’s in New York would be auctioning the famous Norman Haskell Library. The only item of relevance to my collecting was Lewis Carroll’s personal copy of  On Obscure Diseases of The Brain and Disorders of The Mind by Forbes Winslow, and was furthermore the only Dodgson item in the whole three part sale. The book, in original plum cloth, with Dodgson’s signature, and previous owners’ book labels, in a solander case, would be mine I hoped. The estimate was around £500. With my medical background and interest in Lewis Carroll’s library and influences I “ had to have” this as people say. With a naivety matching perhaps that of a hedgehog attempting to cross the M5 I took to the telephone and bid live for the book, as did one or two other keen fellows and the book fell to me at £2,622  including premium. looking back I don’t think that I had anticipated the strength of the forces that operate in a bidder in a live auction situation. It’s like an emotional tug-of-war. Never the less owning the book has been a pleasure and led to collecting several more books from Carroll’s library at  Christ Church, plus a picture that hung there with his notation on the back.