The Millionaire and the Bard

by Andrea Mays

  Rosenbach recognized that he had Folger at his mercy. For years, the oilman had quibbled over Rosenbach’s high prices, often demanding discounts or refusing to buy at all. Now Rosenbach would offer Folger a Shakespeare treasure so exquisite that he knew that Henry could not refuse it. For this item, Rosenbach decided, he would charge Henry the highest price that had ever been paid for a book. He tantalized Folger with several of Perry’s choicest items, and then offered what he described as “the greatest prize of the Perry collection.” It was the earliest known compilation of Shakespeare quartos: the legendary Pavier Quarto—the notorious, pirated “false folio” published in 1619, and whose publication had been suppressed by the King’s Men. The quartos had been assembled and bound at the time of their publication in a “charming fat little volume in plain brown calf, with the name of a well-known seventeenth-century book-buyer Edwin Gwynn, stamped in gold, on the covers.”9

  Folger responded to the offer exactly as Rosenbach had expected. Henry coveted this volume. He knew all about it—how Jaggard had printed these nine plays just three years after Shakespeare’s death, four years prior to the publication of the First Folio; how the King’s Men had enlisted the help of the Lord Chamberlain to prevent the publication of the Pavier Quarto; and how it was the first attempt in history to print a collection—albeit incomplete—of the plays of William Shakespeare. Folger also knew that the volume was one hundred times more rare than a First Folio—only two copies of the Pavier “false folio” had survived the vicissitudes of censorship and three centuries. It would, he decided, join the Vincent First Folio as one of the two most precious items in his collection. Folger was savvy enough to know that the dealer had him in the palm of his hand. Whatever stratospheric price the dealer asked, Henry would have to pay it. It was too dangerous to haggle. If Folger refused Rosenbach’s price, Huntington would meet it.

  The dealer informed Henry that of course the book was “priceless.” Then he delivered the bad news: $100,000. The figure astonished Folger. It was nearly twice the amount that he had paid in secret in 1903 for the Vincent Folio. It was double the $50,000 that Huntington had paid in 1911 for a Gutenberg Bible printed on vellum, setting the public record for any book. It was the highest price ever asked for any item of Shakespeariana—for any rare book in any field. Rosenbach was shooting for the moon.

  The price was so high that under different circumstances Folger would have haggled, using his favorite tactics of disparaging the price, making a series of counteroffers, and engaging in protracted correspondence. But there was no time. Henry Huntington, a far wealthier rival, lurked in the shadows. On July 21, Folger mailed payment to Philadelphia: “Enclosed please find check for $100,000.00 as agreed. You certainly did good work in putting the deal through, and are to be congratulated.” For the second time in his life, Henry Folger had set the world-record price for a book. It was the most expensive thing he had ever bought.

  On July 23, 1919, Rosenbach wrote to Folger, vacationing at the Homestead, in Hot Springs, Virginia, acknowledging receipt of $100,000 on account, against his bill of $128,500 for a total of fifty-seven items he purchased from the Perry collection. No price was recorded for the Pavier Quarto alone. On July 28, Folger wrote a second check, this one for $28,500, to the book dealer. Rosenbach, in his typical obsequious language, congratulated Folger for “obtaining, what I consider, the FINEST SHAKESPEAREAN VOLUME IN EXISTENCE, and upon which no price can be placed, namely the GWYNNE VOLUME of 1619.”10

  A week later, on August 1, Rosenbach courted his other major Shakespeare client by wiring Henry Huntington that he had just “purchased for stock” the Perry library. Rosenbach dangled before Huntington the “first offer of Shakespeare quartos not in your collection” which included “three of the earliest known published in 1591 and 1592.”11 Rosenbach, conjuring the illusion that Huntington would get the pick of the litter, insisted on secrecy as the Perry collection’s sale was not yet public knowledge. “Please consider Perry purchase confidential,” he requested.

  Rosenbach, without revealing that he had already sold the single best item in Perry’s collection to Folger, along with a number of other books, warned Huntington that time was of the essence: “Telegraph me at once as would like to give you first opportunity before offering elsewhere,” he wrote to Huntington.12 Rosenbach advised the railroad magnate that he was traveling to California, and asked whether he could visit him and show him a suitcase packed with treasures. On August 19, Huntington purchased eleven quartos from the Perry collection for $121,000.13 Rosenbach also sold other items from the collection to collectors William Andrews Clark Jr. of Los Angeles and Joseph Widener of Philadelphia, who bought Perry’s First Folio.14

  Folger intended to keep secret his purchase of the Pavier Quarto, just as in 1903 he had suppressed all publicity surrounding his purchase of the Vincent Folio. Through the summer and fall of 1919, he kept his acquisition of the “false folio” out of the news. Then, on October 28, the New York Times surprised him with an unexpected headline: “FOLGER PAID RECORD PRICE. Standard Oil President Gave $100,000 for Unique Shakespeare Edition.” The Times knew everything: “The Shakespeare collector, who paid the Rosenbach Company of Philadelphia . . . the record price . . . for the only known copy of the first collected edition of the famous dramatist’s works, is Henry Clay Folger, Jr., President of the Standard Oil Company, of New York.” The newspaper even added a bibliographic description of the book: “It contains nine quarto plays of Shakespeare and was printed in London in 1619, for Thomas Pavier by William Jaggard, who in 1623 printed the first folio.” Then the Times revealed Henry’s whole collection: “He owns what is regarded as the finest library of Shakespeareana in America, comprising more than 20,000 volumes.” The publicity outraged Folger. Only one man in the world could have been the source of the story: Rosenbach.

  One of the most compelling figures in the history of the rare book trade, Rosenbach had at least two personalities. He was a brilliant scholar of breathtaking range who had mastered the intellectual content and historical importance of rare books and manuscripts in many fields. The breadth of his knowledge allowed him to pounce upon treasures that had gone unrecognized or underappreciated by other dealers or collectors. He possessed an uncanny ability to recognize the connections that linked apparently unrelated books, an almost occult talent at discovering Shakespeare’s printed sources and allusions to him. When dealing with wealthy collectors, Rosenbach adopted the persona of a charming, professorial, and obsequious courtier. He loved associating with captains of industry and enjoyed the splendors of their world, where he proved himself a delightful social companion and conversationalist.

  Rosenbach had another side. To those he considered lesser beings he could be imperious, rude, bullying, or condescending. He ignored colleagues whom he dismissed as unworthy of his time, and scorned collectors whose resources did not equal the first rank of American bibliophiles. He possessed an American brashness that offended his British peers. He thrilled at placing exorbitant and unprecedented prices on the choicest items, believing that anything he consecrated should have special value simply because he said so. On one occasion, he bribed Henry Huntington’s personal secretary to conceal from the millionaire a confidential list of the prices Rosenbach had paid for items he had inadvertently included in a shipment of books to California, fearing that his exponential markup would infuriate the railroad magnate. Like many dealers of the era, Rosenbach was not immune to exaggerating or on occasion even misstating the significance or condition of an item. Rosenbach was vainglorious and boastful, and he coveted publicity. As soon as Henry Folger read the New York Times story, he knew that Rosenbach had sold him out. As a client, Folger could not have been more different from Rosenbach. Folger wished to keep his purchases private, but Rosenbach could not restrain himself from bragging about the record prices he had received for the Perry treasures. Rosenbach was determined to make his handling of the Perry collection a historical event in the annals of bookselling
. An article about the details of the sale would announce his success as a scholar-dealer, able to sell the most valuable parts of the Perry collection for more than $350,000 within three short months of purchasing it.15

  According to Rosenbach’s biography, one man, the wrong man, happened to read the leaked newspaper account of the $100,000 book. Rosenbach claimed that Folger recounted to him a cautionary tale. John D. Rockefeller, who on the golf course usually forbade all discussion of business, money, or philanthropy, cornered Folger on the links, admonishing him: “Henry, I see from the papers that you just paid a hundred thousand dollars for a book.”16 Folger demurred, claiming that the newspapers were prone to exaggeration. “Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, Henry,” Rockefeller replied. “We—that is, my son [John D. Jr.] and I and the board of directors—were disturbed. We wouldn’t want to think that the president of one of our major companies would be the kind of man foolish enough to pay a hundred thousand dollars for a book!” That was just a fraction of his total purchases from the Rosenbach firm alone. In fact, over a period of ten years he spent $1,388,990 with Rosenbach: $421,705 at auctions, and the rest from stock. The story may be embellished or apocryphal. It cannot be traced back to any original writings of Rockefeller or Folger. Moreover, it would be out of character for Rockefeller to have said such a thing, given his close relationship with Henry. Long before 1919, Rockefeller had absolute trust in Folger’s character, prudence, and talent. He knew all about his protégé’s Foliomania, having abetted it more than once with loan guarantees and personal banking references. It is unlikely he would have insulted Folger’s business acumen based on his purchase of a rare book—whatever the price.

  The New York Times was not finished publicizing what Folger considered his private affairs. Two months later, in an article published on December 18, it revealed Folger’s involvement in the record-breaking auction of rare quartos at Sotheby’s: “Henry E. Huntington said yesterday that it was for himself that [the dealer] George D. Smith paid $75,000 at the Britwell Court library sale at Sotheby’s in London . . . for the fourth quarto edition of Shakespeare’s ‘Venus and Adonis,’ bound with ‘The Passionate Pilgrim.’ ” The Times reported that it was the highest price ever paid in England for a book, and exposed Henry as the underbidder: “His principal competitor . . . was Henry Clay Folger, who owns one of the finest collections of Shakespeareana in the world.” The newspaper reminded readers that Folger still held the world record: “Henry Clay Folger, President of the Standard Oil Company, recently paid the Rosenbach Company of Philadelphia $100,000 for the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, dated . . . before the first folio of his works appeared.”17

  The coverage embarrassed Folger, and he denied its veracity. When a fellow Amherst alumnus, W. B. Mossman, wrote to Folger and enclosed a clipping of an article about his purchase of the Pavier Quarto, Folger lied about the price. On December 2, 1919, he dispatched a letter to “Dear Mossman”: “Thank you for your notes with the clipping from the Transcript of Saturday last; I had not seen it. I did buy the book referred to, but paid only a fraction of the price named—as you doubtless had guessed, knowing me as you do. It hardly pays to deny such newspaper statements, as I find very few people notice them.” Folger accused Rosenbach of exaggerating the price. In a sentiment unworthy of him, Henry blamed the confusion on Jewish merchants: “I have bought the book out of a collection which is being sold by a Philadelphia firm with some Hebrew members, who apparently think the only way they can justify the prices they are asking for other items they are trying to sell is by advertising this, which happened to be the best item in the library.”

  But the publicity would not die down. In the December 28, 1919, issue of The World Magazine, Stuart Baldridge mocked Folger’s purchase:

  The price of books is evidently going up. But if any ambitious young author wishes to command fame by having his works sold at some figure above the famous $100,000, let him destroy all but one copy of his work . . . then die, moulder in his grave, and bid his soul be patient. For though he may starve in a garret while he lives, some future generation is sure to consider him “curious” enough to pay the price.

  From the fall of 1919 through the winter of 1920, newspapers around the world circulated stories about the American collector who had paid $100,000 for a book. Even Folger’s own college newspaper reported his purchase. The Amherst Student of February 9, 1920, headlined the story “Mr. Folger, ’79, pays record price for Shakespeare” and added that “Henry Clay Folger, Jr.,’79, is the Shakespeare collector who paid . . . the record price of $100,000 for a unique copy of the first collected edition of the famous dramatist’s works.”

  The April 10, 1920, issue of The Literary Digest criticized the purchase and damned what it called “bibliophilism”—“people who love books not for the literature but for love of title-pages, imprints and colophons.”

  Henry did not care what others thought. The newspaper publicity, and the chuckling in some circles that he was a fool to pay so much for a single book, did not cause him to question his judgment. He could always make or borrow more money. But he could never find another Vincent First Folio, a first quarto of Titus Andronicus, or a Pavier “false folio” again. Folger might agonize over a high price, and he was not too shy to bargain, but once he had a choice purchase in hand, he didn’t second-guess himself, and never regretted paying too much. He regretted only the occasions when he had offered too little for a great rarity and, by failing to act decisively, had lost the book to a competitor. Although Henry hated the limelight, publicity offered certain benefits. After he became famous as the man who had paid the highest price in the world for a book, no canny seller in the world would offer a Shakespeare rarity for private sale without contacting him.

  Oil and Shakespeare were not Henry Folger’s only passions. He had a third one, which he shared with John D. Rockefeller: golf. Henry took up the sport as early as 1899. Glen Cove, on Long Island’s Gold Coast, was the locus of many Standard Oil executives’ homes, including the Pratts—père et fils—with whom the Folgers socialized. Henry and Emily joined the Nassau Country Club in 1899. In 1903, Folger won the Adams Cup in a member golf tournament. In 1926, he won a tournament at the Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia.

  Rockefeller played golf often as he began to step away from day-to-day operations of the company. He invited Folger to play Mondays at 10 AM, mostly at the Apawamis Club in Rye, New York, a short trip from the titan’s compound in Pocantico Hills, near Tarrytown. Henry also played at Nassau on Saturday mornings, and eighteen holes in the afternoons. Rockefeller had the habit of rewarding accomplishments by friends and strangers with shiny dimes—when Henry sank a difficult putt, for example. Rockefeller presented the coins to tire mogul Harvey Firestone and to President Herbert Hoover. Henry and Emily saved a fistful of the dimes, and she had them fashioned into a silver bracelet watchband.

  Folger played golf with the same quiet, understated determination that he applied to his business life. A small and slight man, he focused his attention on his short game. He invented a new kind of putter, and perhaps the highlight of his golf avocation was his appearance on the cover of the October 8, 1921, issue of American Golfer, which pictured Folger in his odd, signature stance, preparing to putt using a croquet stroke. Henry declared, “I’ve tried ’em all, and this is the best way.”18

  The private correspondence between the two oilmen reveals their love of golf, and their friendship. In a note to a messenger who would see Henry in person, Rockefeller wrote: “Please say to Mr. Folger, [that] Mr. Ferris and I just played Mr. Murphy and Mr. Inglish. We had a splendid game and beat them out of their boots. Hope the day will be pleasant and that we shall see you Saturday morning. Wish you could come tomorrow morning.” Rockefeller often wrote letters to Henry telling him that he wished they were together. In a letter to Folger written from the links in Ormond Beach, Florida, in January 1919, Rockefeller said, “I wish you were here for a game of golf this morning
. . . . I am just starting out.” The last sentence of the note shows how much business authority Rockefeller had delegated to Henry and is shocking in its deferential understatement: “May I ask what the result of last year was, how much cash you have on hand, and if there is anything especially new?”

  The month before Henry Folger bought Marsden Perry’s copy of the Pavier Quarto, he discovered what he believed was another great treasure. In June 1919, he received from the venerable London bookseller Maggs Bros. catalogue #377, The Drama and Music. Scanning the booklet, Henry made note of several interesting but not spectacular books that he considered adding to his library. Then he spotted item 594. It was a First Folio. At first glance, it sounded like a humdrum copy. Maggs, a careful bibliophile, had described a number of condition defects, and the dealer also noted several missing leaves—important ones at the beginning and end of the book—that had been supplied in facsimile. From the description, it was obvious to Folger that many of his First Folios were superior to this copy in both condition and completeness. The price was cheap—only £850—and there was no apparent reason to buy such an inferior copy. Except one.

  Despite this folio’s imperfections, the Maggs catalogue described it as “a Copy of special interest, as probably it originally belonged to Samuel Gilburne, one of the celebrated group of Original Shakespearian Actors, as his name is written next to his printed name on the leaf ‘Names of the Principall Actors.’ ” Indeed, the preliminaries of the First Folio did include a page that listed “The Names of the Principall Actors in all these Playes,” including John Heminges and Henry Condell. On this page, the first name at the top of the second column of this list is Samuel Gilburne. We know little of him other than that he was an apprentice to, and was mentioned in the will of, Augustine Phillips, who is listed as the fourth of the “principall actors.”