History Time: Salem's Fragment of the Divine (Part 2)

A. Edward Newton (1864-1940) from The Pennsylvania Gazette (1922).

By Maggi Smith-Dalton, Globe Correspondent

Was it a horrifying work of vandalism, or a generous boon to civilization?

The northwest corner of Twentieth and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, where Alfred Edward Newton was born in August 1864, was a world apart from Balassa-Gyarmat, Hungary, where, in January 1862, Moritz and Helene Pissk Weiss welcomed their son, Gabriel.

Newton’s English ancestors sank their roots in America before the Revolutionary War. Immigrant Gabriel Weiss, though a master of eight languages, deeply interested in philosophy, could speak very little English at all when he arrived in Boston at age 30.

Yet these men would become colleagues, among the most important and influential of their generation in the competitive and rarefied world of rare books and manuscripts. Both would, by their essays, articles, and activities in the "book-collecting game," reinvigorate interest in important yet neglected authors and preserve works of literature and art which might otherwise have disappeared forever. In the years between 1910 and 1930 they were key players in that era's book-buying boom.

Newton’s witty essays (nine volumes) were internationally celebrated, and his library boasted a particularly important collection of 17th- and 18th-century British authors.

Bookseller Weiss–rechristened as "Wells"–welcomed his clients, Newton remembered, with "open arms and a good cigar" to his elite bookseller's perch at 489 Fifth Avenue in New York City, overlooking the New York Public Library.

"It is eminently the part of the antiquarian dealer to offer and distribute his stock with a preferential regard for destinations most adapted to serve the cause of culture," wrote Wells in an issue of American Book Collector.

Throughout his long career he stayed true to mission, though the means he sometimes employed could–and did–stir hot debate.

You might think buying and selling books is a quiet, genteel, rather conservative pastime. Not so! Controversy and rivalry in the book trade was (and is) endemic and some clashes became legendary.

The fruit of one particular controversy eventually wound up in Salem, and here it is that we return to the subject of the Gutenberg Bible.

  "The first Gutenberg Bible," Newton wrote, "[was] dispatched in 1847 from London by 'Henry Stevens of Vermont' to James Lenox…."

Lenox, at first, was apoplectic at the cost–he had neglected to give his agent a "cap" to what he might bid for the book–but the magic of owning it won in the end. Newton possessed archival correspondence describing the origin of the "romantic national folklore" surrounding the Gutenberg Bible's arrival in America.  

"[When] … the second Gutenberg Bible … [came] to this country, twenty-five years later…. Mr. Stevens secured the book and dispatched it … with this note of comment…. "Please suggest to your deputy that he uncover his head while in the presence of this great book. Let no Custom House Official, or other man in or out of authority, see it without first reverently raising his hat. It is not possible for many men ever to touch or even look upon a page of a Gutenberg Bible."

This should give you a picture of the reverence in which this Bible historically has been held. As Newton stated, it was regarded as a "divine thing."

So when this notice was posted in 1921, you might imagine the effect:  

"…an opportunity which in all probability may never recur is here offered to obtain at a moderate price a Genuine Leaf (2 pages) of this monument of early printing…. Had the copy not been lacking a number of leaves, I should have regarded the disseveration of such a precious book as the Gutenberg Bible as an act of sacrilege; but as the book was incomplete at the time of purchase, I decided to break up the two volumes and to offer each leaf separately, being desirous of pleasing as many collectors as possible, rather than to sell the item as a whole…."

Each was bound with a "printed title-page,' and was placed in a "full morocco" binding accompanied by an essay by A. Edward Newton.

Northern Illinois University's William Baker writes in his biographical article on Wells, "A Noble Fragment: Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible 1450-1455 With a Bibliographical Essay by A. Edward Newton (1921) sold for $150 to $500, depending on the leaf included. Newton's preface defended Wells's action, while acknowledging that it seemed "an act of vandalism to remove the leaves from the almost contemporary leather covers which have for ... many centuries protected them." Wells's treatment of the Gutenberg Bible represents his entrepreneurial side, but it also demonstrates his generosity, since he gave some of the leaves to the New York Public Library to complete the defective James Lenox copy, the first Gutenberg that had been brought to America."

The Bookman’s Journal and Print Collector (1922) echoed the contemporary view of many when it stated, "Whatever objections might have been made to the breaking up of a Gutenberg Bible have been silenced by the chorus of approval from those who have thus been enabled to secure" a precious fragment " of this book.”  

Whatever one's view of Wells' action, among those fortunate cities possessing a precious fragment to cherish is Salem.

Perhaps we should let Mr. Newton have the last word:

"Reader, pause awhile, for you look—and it may be for the first time—upon an actual page of a Gutenberg Bible, the most precious piece of printing in the world; and, admittedly, the earliest. Truly, a noble fragment!"

Author's note: No one at the Peabody Essex Museum's Phillips Library could give me the details or dates of the acquisition of our own "Noble Fragment" (the library is currently undergoing renovation). However, it can be seen until Nov. 26, 2012 in the "Unbound" exhibit at the museum.

Musician, educator and lecturer, Maggi Smith-Dalton is the president of the Salem History Society. Author of “Stories and Shadows from Salem’s Past: Naumkeag Notations” (The History Press, 2010), she is working on her second book of Salem history for 2012. She and her husband, Jim Dalton, are also co-authoring a book on music in Salem's history and have released two new albums of 19th-century music. Reach her at http://singingstring.org. For information on joining the Salem History Society, go to http://salemhistorysociety.org.

The cover of the folio enclosing Newton’s essay, bound with the Bible leaf. Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. From Unbound: Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM. On view November 12, 2011 to November 26, 2012.

Gutenberg bible leaf 1450-1455 (Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum) from Unbound: Highlights from the Phillips Library at PEM. On view November 12, 2011 to November 26, 2012. More info: Leaf from the Gutenberg Bible (Isaiah XVII-XIX), Printed by Johannes Gutenberg and Peter Schoeffer, about 1450; Mainz, Germany; Ink on paper; in commemorative portfolio; Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum.