Chats on Autographs

Chats on Autographs

Mr. T. Fisher Unwin has asked me to "chat" on autographs and autograph collecting. Fifteen years ago the late Dr. George Birkbeck Hill "talked" on the same subject in compliance with a similar request. Still more recently Mr. Adrian H. Joline, of New York, has given the world his "meditations" on a pursuit which another American unkindly describes as "that dreadful fever," but which Mr. Joline, as well as the present writer, regards in the light of "the most gentle of emotions." Mr. Joline expressed, on the first page of his interesting book, a profound conviction that nobody could by any possibility be persuaded to read it unless already interested in the topic with which it so effectively deals. One of the principal objects of the causeries I have undertaken to write is to reach, if possible, a public to which the peculiar fascination and indescribable excitement of the autograph cult are still unknown, and to demonstrate (to a certain extent from my own personal experience), the practical utility, as well as the possibilities of{8} material profit, inherent in this particular form of literary treasure-trove. For the benefit of the uninitiated (and in this case the uninitiated are in a vast majority) it is necessary at the onset to differentiate between the "Autograph Fiend" (the phrase is, I believe, American in its origin), who pesters, often with unpardonable persistence, well-known personages for their signatures in albums or on photographs, and the discriminating collector who accumulates for the benefit of posterity either important documents or the letters of famous men. "Nothing," writes Horace Walpole, "gives us so just an idea of an age as genuine letters, nay history waits for its last seal from them." Adopting the words of one of the most gifted letter-writers who ever lived as a text, let me clearly define an autograph for the purposes of these pages to be: A letter or document written or signed by any given person. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 52112
Author: Broadley, Alexander Meyrick
Release Date: May 20, 2016
Format: eBook
Language: English