Rare Book Monthly
The Historical Auction Series No.1 The Henry C. Murphy Sale March 3-March 8, 1884
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By Abby Tallmer
While it is not all that unusual for select newspapers to cover a contemporary art auction, it is uncommon to the point of rarity for the same or like newspapers to cover the results of an antiquarian book auction, unless the owner is famous, the circumstances scandalous or an important item branded a forgery. The recent Steve Forbes American Manuscripts Sale at Christie’s last year fits within the disclaimer about “a famous American personality” and thus it was covered by some, if not all, newspapers and periodicals. But today such acclaimed auctions are as rare as the books that are sold at them.
It wasn’t always this way. A search of American newspaper archives of the 19th century reveals that book auctions were once important news. Books of course in that era held a higher and less contested place in America’s pantheon of values. With no phones, faxes or emails to contend with books were the talisman of literacy that was for the first time approaching “universal” status. Into this golden age of book collecting many of America’s best, brightest and ambitious pursued the collecting of books to complete their journeys from the nascent industrial America to extraordinary wealth and attainment in a single lifetime.
Henry C. Murphy was one of these men. He has achieved a certain small print immortality as a book collector and was of course much more, the Mayor of Brooklyn, a Congressman, a State Senator and the President of the East River Bridge Company that built the Brooklyn Bridge. No doubt rusting plaques in tough neighborhoods continue to carry his name into the future.
Murphy collected for most of his life. It is not recorded if he was a reader, an accumulator or both. But he did undeniably did accumulate a very large collection. A typical book auction in America these days may contain 400 lots whereas his collection divided into more than 3,000 lots and was collected when rarities, if not common, were still accessible. (Editor’s Note: the 3,142 records from the Murphy Sale are contained within the ÆD and can be called up by indicating “Murphy” in the Source Field.) Murphy’s timing was superb. Alas, as it is with most book collectors, it is a solitary game. Lacking a collecting heir his death returned his books to the auction rooms where many of them found permanent entombment in libraries and other public institutions. Many of these books may never see the sale rooms again.
