For many years, my principal collecting interest has been American ornithology, with a particular focus on Audubon and Alexander Wilson. But many collectors have similar material, and one goal of collecting is to plant a flag on unclaimed territory. Collectors highly value the unique items that no one else possesses. For that reason, I also collect collectors. Material once owned by a prominent ornithologist or ornithology collector has special resonance and connects you in a mysterious way to the great chain of collecting.
In ornithology, several collectors have assembled important collections in years past: Dr. William Braislin, John E. Thayer, John Lewis Childs, Dr. Evan Morton Evans, Ralph Ellis, S. Dillon Ripley, and – towering above them all – H. Bradley Martin (1906-1988). Born to wealth and privilege (one grandfather was Andrew Carnegie’s partner and the other a prominent New York socialite who lived much of the time on an estate in Scotland), Martin started collecting English literature while an undergraduate at Oxford. He later branched out into French literature and assembled important collections in both fields. But ornithology was where he really made his mark. The 1989 auction catalogue for his collection at Sotheby’s comprises nine hard-bound volumes, of which four are devoted to ornithology, with one devoted solely to Auduboniana, including a Double Elephant Folio and many letters and manuscripts of Audubon’s texts. Martin’s entrée into ornithology was via an unusual route. Around 1929, he came across The Purple Land That England Lost (1885), a novel by W.H. Hudson (1841-1922).
A prolific author known today primarily, if at all, for his fantasy novel,Green Mansions (1904), Hudson was born in Argentina to American parents. While in Argentina, he took an immense interest in its bird life, though, as was common among 19th century ornithologists, he lacked formal scientific training. After moving permanently to England in 1874, he published some 31 books, including novels, memoirs, and many nature studies. In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway called The Purple Land “a very sinister book if read too late in life,” referring to its account of “splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfect English gentleman in an intensely romantic land, the scenery of which is very well described.” Whether Hudson’s influence on Martin should fairly be labeled “sinister” is a matter of opinion. But, as Robert H. Taylor noted in The Book Collector (Vol. 12, No. 2, Summer 1963), the result of Martin’s his encounter with The Purple Land at age 23 “aroused his interest in ornithology and led to his forming one of the best collections on the subject in private hands.” At the same time, Martin assembled perhaps the largest-ever collection of Hudson’s works, including letters, manuscripts, and association material – perhaps the only such collection ever assembled by a bibliophile.
Hudson’s 1913 work, Adventures Among Birds, is typically Hudsonian, a set of essays combining keen observation with a strong inclination toward the pathetic fallacy. It is, frankly, not a book I would have purchased for its scientific significance. But this was H. Bradley Martin’s copy, with his characteristic small bookplate depicting an eagle atop a globe. I have other books from Martin’s collection, but somehow this one by W.H. Hudson connects the great collector to his inspiration and, as an object if not as a text, is a treasured link in the chain.
Artificial Flower Makers and Women Entrepreneurs
As a Brown University undergraduate, I curated a small exhibition about the history of artificial flowers at the John D. Rockefeller Library. It was inspired by Professor Richard Fishman, who had recently bought at auction the remains of Calart, a Providence-area crepe paper flower-making company. I soon encountered one of the foundational how-to handbooks on flower making at the Library of Congress, written by a mysterious Frenchwoman, one Mme B.***. This was a c. 1850 edition of the Art de Confectionner les Fleurs Artificielles, which she dedicated "aux Dames," her presumed main audience. That particular copy had a pressed flower in it, somewhat unexpectedly a real one! I of course had to include the book in my exhibition, but while I could borrow a volume of Diderot from the John Hay Library, there wasn’t a Madame Blocquel to be had in Rhode Island. Luckily, I was able to secure a nouvelle édition, c. 1880 myself, though this exemplar included no plant specimens. Like many similar handbooks of the same era, the book both contained descriptions of flower symbolism and functional plates outlining the shapes of petals and leaves for their construction. Other plates showed the completed flowers in carefully arranged bouquets. An unpaginated section at the end even advertised the tools and materials flower makers would need. Gradually acquiring other books on this topic, I was able to convince the Stillwell Prize judges of its bibliographical coherence as a collection by my senior year.