m died a wealthy man, having amassed a million dollars in trade and
by rise in real estate, as he owned the land on which the Parker House
stands in Boston.

Among Philadelphia dealers in second-hand books, one John Penington was
recognized as most intelligent and honorable. He was a book-lover and a
scholar, and one instinctively ranked him not as a bookseller, but as a
gentleman who dealt in books. On his shelves one always found books of
science and volumes in foreign languages.

Another notable dealer was John Campbell, a jolly, hearty Irish-American,
with a taste for good books, and an antipathy to negroes, as keen as the
proverbial hatred of the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book
entitled "Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was set
forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at book auctions, where
his burly form and loud voice made him a prominent figure.

Of notable auction sales of books, and of the extravagant prices obtained
for certain editions by ambitious and eager competition, there is little
room to treat. The oft-told story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471,
carried off at the Roxburghe sale in 1812, at L2,260 from Earl Spencer by
the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years after at another
auction for L918, has been far surpassed in modern bibliomania. "The
sound of that hammer," wrote the melodramatic Dibdin, "echoed through
Europe:" but what would he have said of the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg
and Fust (1450-55) sold in 1897, at the Ashburnham sale, for four
thousand pounds, or of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 2d ed.
1459, which brought L4,950 at the Syston Park sale in 1884? This last sum
(about twenty-four thousand dollars) is the largest price ever yet
recorded as received for a single volume. Among books of less rarity,
though always eagerly sought, is the first folio Shakespeare of 1623, a
very fine and perfect copy of which brought L716.2 at Daniel's sale in
1864. Copies warranted perfect have since been sold in London for L415 to
L470. In New York, a perfect but not "tall" copy brought $4,200 in 1891
at auction. Walton's "Compleat Angler," London, 1st ed. 1653, a little
book of only 250 pages, sold for L310 in 1891. It was published for one
shilling and sixpence. The first edition of Robinson Crusoe brought L75
at the Crampton sale in 1896.

The rage for first editions of very modern books reached what might be
called high-water mark som