Henry E. Huntington, who died last Monday, left behind him, the wise in such matters agree, the greatest private library ever assembled in the history of the world, and one that, in respect of items of the very first importance, is a match for many famous public collections.  Yet Mr. Huntington only began to figure seriously as a book collector in the short period of sixteen years.

Mr. Huntington was fifty when he turned his attention to the building of a great library.  In succession to his uncle, Collis P. Huntington,  he had been largely concerned with the building of railway, and at the time was known as the leading street car magnate of the Pacific coast.  That his method of collecting books was on a large scale was to be expected.  His practice was to buy whole libraries - accumulations of other collectors already famous for the treasures they had assembled.  Thus the Huntington collection of books now housed in the fine building in San Marino, Cal., along with the equally celebrated Huntington art collection is an assemblage of one group into at least half a dozen libraries of the first importance - libraries so important in fact that mere "duplicates" found in the process of coordinating groups have sold for more than $500,000.

It is this library which becomes, by the arrangement made by Mr. Huntington some years before his death. the property of the public and which is to be made ever more valuable by the $8 million fund provided in connection with it for the endowment of researches into American and English history.  THe Huntington collection is especially rich in Americana and the English backgrounds of Americana.  Indeed, it has been more than a matter of sentimental regret not only in England but in Virginia, Massachusetts and New York that a journey all the way to California is required to see books and documents whose closest historical associations are very much nearer home.  However as Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach has said Mr. Huntington "was the greatest book collector in the world" and what he wanted he got - no matter where it might sentimentally belong.

 
                                                              Some of the Notable Items

The Huntington Collection includes not only rare historical books and original papers but some of the most important printed and manuscript treasures of English literature - treasures, many of them duplicated if at all, only in places like the British Museum or the libraries of the English universities.  Among the most notable items is a manuscript of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" on vellum handsomely illuminated and supposed to have been written in 1405, five years after the author's death.  Another is a copy of the first book printed by William Caxton in the English language entitled "The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye".

The Huntington collection of Shakespeareana is the finest in the world including a compilation of six first editions - from the library of the Duke of Devonshire - containing the Hamlet quarto of 1603.  All the other quartos and numerous copies of the four folios are likewise included.  The Gutenberg Bible is one of the seven known copies on vellum of this first book printed from moveable type.  This copy was purchased at the Robert Hoe collection sale for $50,000, a record price in those days - J.P. Morgan had paid $29,000 for his copy.

Yet another of the items of very first importance is the manuscript of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography in Franklin's own hand - the last pages in a very trembling script of a mortally sick man.  This manuscript once belonged to John Bigelow, after passing through the hands of William Temple Franklin and of a French friend of Franklin's, M. Veillard, who perished by the guillotine during the Terror.  The money value of such a treasure may be anything - it is invaluable because it is irreplacable.

The first long step in building up the collection was taken in 1911, when for $1,300,000 or thereabouts Mr. Huntington purchased the library which  E. Dwight Church of Brooklyn had spent fifty years assembling.  This included many important English and American items - among them a perfect copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets.   Another copy of this edition, not quite so fine it was said came into Mr. Huntington's hands when he bought the famous Bridgewater House collection of the Earl of Ellsmere.  However, this was not till 1917.  The year after he acquired the Church collection (1912) Mr. Huntington bought for $500,000 the Beverly Chew Library which was rich in English literature.  The same year, when the library of Robert Hoe was dispersed, he spent another $500,000 upon selected items from a collection which was especially notable for fine bindings and rare editions.  In this lot was the Gutenberg Bible. 

                                                                Paid a Million for One Collection  

The next large purchase - for, of course, Mr. Huntington's agents were picking up single treasures and smaller collections as opportunity offered - was in 1914 when $1,000,000 was spent acquiring the library of the Duke of Devonshire.  This was a family collection which was one of the most important in England and had been associated for generations with Chatsworth House, the Duke's seat.  At the time it was the greatest English library which so far had been brought to America.  Many of the best Shakespeare items in the Huntington collection came from this ducal store.  It also included twenty-five beautifully printed Caxtons among them the "Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye", and twenty volumes from the library of Grolier whose fame as a binder of books has never been excelled.  In 1915 Mr. Huntington annexed the 20,000 volumes of the collection which Frederic R. Halsey had spent thirty- five years in making.  This library contained valuable Dickens and Poe items and was rich also in French literature.  The price paid for it was $750,000.  The following year's important annexation was one of the oldest and most distinguished in England.  It was the cream of the Pembroke Library which had been founded by the Third and Fourth Earls of Pembroke in the days of Elizabeth - "the incompara pair of brethern" to whom the first folio of Shakespeare was dedicated.  This collection cost $100,000.

The biggest prize of all, however, was the Bridgewater collection which came into Huntington's hands in 1917, the purchase price of which was said to be in excess of a million dollars.  The library of Bridgewater House was begun by Sir Thomas Egerton, who was Lord Chancellor under Queen Elizabeth and King James I and became Baron Ellesmere.  When he died in 1617 he left his large collection of books and documents to his son, John, the first Earl of Bridgewater, who added substantially to it and passed it on to the Second Earl, also named John, a studious peer who carried on the good work of his father and grandfather.   Thus through three generations, when England was producing extraordinary literature, the Egertons were perfecting the library that would eventually belong to an American millionaire and find a home on the distrant shores of the Pacific Ocean.  As a matter of fact, the heads of the family for the succeeding generations - down to the time of the First Earl of Ellesmere - who belongs to the first half of the nineteenth century - took care to preserve and enrich so auspiciously begun.

                                                                  Specialized in Americana

One of the Earls of Bridgewater, the third, was colonial secretary and as such interested in America.  He accumulated many documents dealing with the West Indies and the Colonies on the coast - thus fitting the library
more particularly for its American destination.  The First Earl of Ellesmere also made important additions.  At the time of the sale the Library of Bridgewater House contained 4,400 printed books, exclusive of pamplets and tracts and broadsides, 200 manuscripts many of them illuminated, and 9,000 historical documents and autograph letters.  Among the manuscripts was the Chaucer already mentioned known as the Ellesmere Chaucer. 

Since the founder of the library was alive in Shakespeare's day - a current dramatic author at the Globe and Blackfriars - the Bridgewater House Collection is one of those which have contributed chiefly to the pre-eminence of the Huntington Library in Shakespeareana.  The four folios and quartos are included all in good condition, besides the works of many of Shakespeare's contemporaries. predecessors and followers.  The series of English plays was kept up partly through John Larpent, who was Inspector of Plays under the Lord Chamberlain in 1788.  Larpent kept copies of plays that came to him officially and it seems of others - from 1737 to 1824.  His collection, numbering 2,000 in all, became part of the Bridgewater House Library.  Among the authors included are David Garrick, Sheridan and John Dryden.  The Titus Andronicus 0f 1600 is another item of prodigious importance to book fanciers - aside from any attribution of the play to Shakespeare - because it is one of two known copies.

A curious part of the Egerton collection is the leather and wood case containing the traveling library of the founder of the library, Sir Thomas.  The Elizabethan Chancellor it seems went nowhere without his favorite books.  Forty-four small volumes were his constant companions and were disposed in a space somewhat smaller than the modern five foot shelf which is supposed to make culture compact.  His Lordship's traveling library was contained in a case two feet long, a foot wide and about five inches high.  Among the contents duodecimos prevailed.  Political, classical and religious authors are included.  In the list are Homer, Virgil, Epictetus, Caesar, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and the Bible.

                                                                   John Smith's Handwriting

Another special treasure of the Huntington Collection is the so-called Cloverdale Bible - the finest known copy according to the experts - which is the first complete Bible in English dated 1535.  Of a different quality of interest is the autograph letter of Charles Lamb proposing marriage to Miss Kelly.  A bit of Americana has picturesque as well as historical interest.  This comes too from the Bridgewater Collection.  It is a presentation copy of Captain John Smith's "Description of New England" printed in London in 1616.  It was given to Baron Ellesmere - or Sir Thomas Egerton - when he was the Chancellor and bears the handwriting of the explorer, whose title was "Admiral of New England".  It shows spelling in those days to be a go-as-you-please matter especially wtih soldiers.  In this connection may be noted a copy of the Bible in the collection which is described on the flyleaf as having been presented to Richard Topcliffe M.P.  by no less a person than Sir Francis Drake.

The mention of John Smith recalls the fact that among the Huntington treasures is a considerable collection of books, documents and papers covering the history of the Old Dominion and the relations of Virginians with other parts of the country.

Other valuable Americana in the Huntington Collection are the library of Judge Benedict, the Lincoln collection of Ward Hill Lamon, who for many years was Lincoln's law partner, and the Grenville Kane collection of Washingtoniana.
 
Another of the important reservoirs from which the Huntington super-library has been drawn is the Britwell Court Library in London which belonged to S. R. Christie-Miller.  Sales from this collection took place from time-to-time and Mr. Huntington was as usual a buyer of important items.  Besides a number of items of less importance he bought from it the only extant copy of the fourth edition of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis".   For this precious volume, which is 3 inches tall and 2 wide, he paid $75,000.  The total of purchases from this collection amounted, according to figures quoted by John Farrar in 1920, to something like $350,000. 

For many years a great part of the Huntington Library was located in New York - in the big house on Fifth Avenue at the southeast corner of 57th Street, only recently torn down.  There Mr. Huntington had a large staff of workers presided over by George Watson Cole, who were constantly engaged in going through the material as it arrived, arranging it and eliminating duplicates.  Later all of the books were taken to California where among the live oaks of the Huntington Estate near Los Angeles, the special building was erected to house both the library and the art treasures.  It is a white stucco affair in the Italian manner, designed by Myron Hunt, a California architect. with a frontage of 210 feet and room for 200,000 volumes besides the art collection.

Among those who use the building will be the students of historical research for whom the new Huntington foundation provides.  It is work of this kind which will lead to a vast deal of undigested material in a form that the general public can make use of.  In fact, the Huntington Collection will be indispensable to the men who must write our history from now on - especially those who will rewrite that history in the light of added facts which it makes possible to discover.  Time was when the student of American history went to Europe to get his facts - to the British Museum and such places.  Now the Britisher often has to go to California to get his facts.