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I HAVE never been an ardent collector of old boys’ books, mainly because I realised years ago that we who loved them were an ever-decreasing band. Old plays and playbills have been more to my taste. Until a keener collector coaxed them from me, I had the original playbills of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The playbills of Turner’s Opera Company I have yet.
J. W. M. Turner was an old man when first I heard him sing. He had then little enough agility for the hero parts, but to the last his singing of “O, let me like a soldier fall” thrilled our boyish hearts and set us longing to be operatic stars ourselves. We also sang, as likewise does the corncrake.
Valentine Smith’s playbills are also of interest. Good old Val was a tenor with a high pitched voice, and on the bills it says this:
“And when he reached his immense high C his victory was complete.”
Hamilton’s Diorama took the local theatre for months at a time and gave us the eruption of Vesuvius on every bill and at every performance. If they had missed it out there would have been a riot. We kiddies used to get in for 2d. on a half-price ticket, which was ribbed with coloured stripes and looked like a glorified railway-ticket. The more of those you collected, the bigger buck you were at school.
My father saved for me the playbill of my first pantomime. I hadn’t started school—I was five—but I can recollect disillusionment because Dick Whittington’s cat had a live man within its skin. That, I explained to father, wasn’t playing the game. Anyhow, there wasn’t much of Dick or his cat; mainly the night was occupied by the harliquinade, whose principal chorus was this:
There’s a couple up above
That’s always making love,
The people in the parlour say their prayers;
There’s an old bloke in the garret
Just like a talking parrot—
There’s another jolly row downstairs.
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Later on, melodrama gripped and held me. I have the playbill of “The Silver King,” which started with a robbery and a murder on a darkened stage—quite an Edgar Wallace effect. Other playbills concern “The Grip of Iron,” “The Face at the Window,” and “A Girl’s Cross Roads,” all stupendously popular attractions in my youth.
Often I laughed in the wrong place and was abashed by the cries of “Shurrup, tha fatheead” from the miners at the back, who showered orange peel from the gallery. Melodrama was all very real to these simple-hearted working people, so that when the villain tiptoed stealthily behind the hero to stab him, an old girl in the front shrieked out: “Look art lad, he’s behind thee!”
While cherishing my playbills at home, I used to dream in the auditorium and sigh for a chance, at some remote time, of writing a play that would be performed on the professional stage. Never did I believe it possible, of course, but it came to pass at last. I am now the proud possessor of playbills advertising my own Yorkshire comedy, “The Farmer’s Daughter (Our Bessie),” which has been professionally toured and was recently played for a week in the Queen’s Theatre, Dundee. There are many wealthy collectors of playbills; my collection is but a trifle, though made roseate for me by happy memories.
R. A. H. GOODYEAR
105
AT the conclusion of your interesting and valuable article on the above subject, you are good enough to pay me the compliment of saying I might add to your own fairly exhaustive list. Very well, and I am only too proud to add a slight addition.
In the Boys of Britain published by William Cate, (Hogarth
House)
Then we have “Dick Turpin” by Henry Downes Miles, published
by T. White,
“Turpin’s Ride to
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The oldest Turpin relic in my collection is a chap book, published 1800-20, but as clean as if just issued. The title reads: “The Life and Adventures of Richard Turpin, a Most Notorious Highwayman, comprising a Particular account of all his Robberies, His Ride to York, and his
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trial and execution for Horse Stealing,
One of the more original yarns was “The Schooldays of Dick
Turpin” which first appeared in Guy Rayner’s Boy’s Champion Paper,
Then we find Turpin as the principal or sub hero in a whole host of other highwaymen stories, such as “Red Ralph, a Romance of the Road in the Days of Dick Turpin,” “Nan Darrell, the Highwayman’s Daughter,” “Tom King and Jonathan Wild,” “The Night Hawks of London, or: the Noble Highwayman,” “Hounslow Heath and its Midnight Riders,” ”Sixteen String Jack,” and so on, but I have given you all those that I can call to mind, over and above those you have already dealt with that have as their title “Dick Turpin.”
BARRY ONO
SCARCE “DREADFULS”
IN THE BARRY ONO COLLECTION.
3rd. LIST.
(Continued from No. 5.)
“Captain Macheath, or: the Highwayman of a Century Since,” 17 numbers. F. Hextall, 1842.
“Captain Macheath, the Bold Highwayman,” 27 nos. G. Purkess, 1862.
“The Black Mask, or; the Mysterious Robber.” 30 nos. G. Purkess, 1850.
“Paul Jones, the Pirate,” 68 nos. G. Purkess, 1852.
“Nightshade, or; Claude Duval, the Dashing Highwayman,” 60 nos. J. Dicks, 1863.
“Black Rollo the Pirate, or: the Dark Woman of the Deep,” 93 nos. Newsagents’ Publishing Co., 1861.
“The Ocean Child, or; the Wanderer of the Deep,” 104 nos. H. Lea, 1859.
“Rose Mortimer, or: the Ballet Girl’s Revenge,” 25 nos. Newsagents’ Publishing Co, 1852.
“Mysteries of Bedlam,” 10 nos. S. Chauntler, 1858.
“Life of George Barnwell, or: the
“George Barnwell, the City Apprentice,” 15 nos. G. Vickers, 1857.
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“Money Marks, or; the Highwayman of the Seas,” 19 nos. G. Vickers, 1868.
“Mysteries of the Court of Denmark,” 30 nos. H. Lea, 1859.
“Ruth the Murdered Child,” 15 nos. G. Vickers, 1867.
“Wallace, the King of
“Handsome Harry of the Fighting Belvedere,” 24 nos. C. Fox, about 1876.
“Cheerful Ching-Ching,” sequel to “Handsome Harry,” 12 nos. C. Fox, about 1876.
“Daring Ching-Ching,” 6 nos. Chas. Fox, about 1880.
“Wonderful Ching-Ching,” 12 nos. C. Fox, about 1882.
“Young Ching-Ching,” 24 nos. C. Fox, about 1884.
“Slapcrash Boys, or: Young Ching at School,” 12 nos. E. Lucas, 1890.
“Wild Adventures of Eddard and Jam Josser,” 12 nos. E. Lucas, 1891.
“Turnpike Dick, or: the Star of the Road,” 60 nos. C. Fox, 1878.
“Guy Fawkes, or, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot,” 12 nos. C. Fox, 1886.
“Crusoe Jack, King of the
(To be continued)
None of the above
are for sale, only inserted to interest readers of “The Collector’s Miscellany.”
DEAR SIR,
The amazing volte face of Mr. Frank Jay, once a “booster” and now a “knocker” against the old boys books, judging by the indignant letters I have received from collectors and dealers, has come as a blow in the face to them. This erstwhile high Priest of the Cult, who wrote such a monumental treatise as “Peeps into the Past,” (verily a clever collection of data, for which I have the highest respect) and who must have spent half
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a life time in ransacking the
Again, who does Mr. Jay think he is deceiving? He informs us he bought Boys’ Standards, Boys’ Leisure Hours, etc. at 2/- a volume. Lucky man! But may I enquire what happened when he sold them? Did he in each instance turn the S of shillings into the £ of pounds? Quite a few of us know a lot about that, in fact our circle is too narrow to keep those kind of things quiet. Small blame to Mr. Jay for buying in the cheapest market, and selling in the dearest, but why try and spread this 2/- and 2/6 doctrine to the attempted detriment of those still operating just because he happens to have sold out, and at such advantageous prices?
Anent his remarks re. Hodgson’s Sale Rooms not taking such
trash. A most unlucky “faux pas” as a
sale took place that very week at that very place of the very commodity he said
could never happen there. I am divulging
no confidence when I say that in the interim Mr. Jay has written to me, stating
that he has thoroughly investigated that sale, ascertained the price each lot
fetched, and finds that it works out at 1/6½d. per vol. The authenticity of his calculations can be
judged, when he gives me the number of each lot and the alleged price it
fetched. He thus quotes
Another lot he mentions is
Well Mr. Jay, you know something about these books, and now according to you, as they have slumped to nothingness, you should know how and where to find them cheaply. Come along, walk up, I’m an easy victim. I will give you £4/10/0 for a nice clean copy of “Wild Boys of London” (never mind 1/6½d.) and if you can get me four at that price, then in four
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places I will re-sell them at £8/10/0 per volume, so I shall do very nicely out of it. I will give £7/10/0 for a nice copy of “May Turpin” and will buy all books of like category at like prices. Assuming you to be right, then I must be an imbecile. Anyhow, you buy for 2/- and sell to me for £2 and we’ll both be pleased, but I suggest you cannot find them, neither can I, neither can any of us. While I must admit I have never got the fantastic price you got for volumes of the only semi-scarce Boys of England that you sent to Australia, still I have done too well at the Old Boys Book game to start crying “stinking fish” now.
Of course it might be a wise move to do so now, and scare those who trusted my opinion into parting with their cherished items till I had again cornered a large supply, but I should scarcely think it an honest one. I am not for one moment suggesting that Mr. Jay is doing this, but I do certainly think parting with his collection has left him jaundiced, and that if the motive was to knock the bottom out of the market, the attempt will be a signal failure as the ardent collector, thirsting for a fine copy of “Blueskin” will not be deterred in his quest because of Mr. Jay’s friendly admonitions (?) that “Blueskin” is tripe, and not worth more than a shilling a sackfull, etc. You see, the said ardent collector happens to know, by virtue of his own failure to find one good copy, that good old “Blueskin” doesn’t exist in sackfulls, and as he happens to badly want a copy, he’ll pay a stiff price rather than lose the chance of possession, should the opportunity occur.
Finally unless Mr. Jay repents of his role of renegade, if he wants to “knock the market,” he will have to shift to America, because that is where they are all gradually going. I find quite young American men are losing their taste for “Diamond Dick” and “Beadle and Adams,” and are paying quite imposing prices for our scarcer English “bloods.” They are keen judges, and know all about the Brett and Hogarth House remainder stocks, so any attempt to sell them a “gold brick” is doomed to failure. But for the right goods they will pay the right price, and all the “knocking” will not deter them.
Apropos the Hogarth House remainders I find I ante-dated Mr. Jay by four years in his alleged “discovery” of them, and if he could not sell them for 3d., 4d., or 5d. each, that keen dealer, the late J. J. Wilson used to point to his £1,000 house on the sea front at Waterloo, and say to me: “This house was bought out of my profits on Hogarth House.” As to 3d., 4d., and 5d., I am open to give 20/- for a nice clean copy of “Tyburn Dick” or 10/- for vol 1. This is a Hogarth House. I hope Mr. Jay finds one on the waste paper dump, to send to me as quickly as possible.
These I hope are my last words on Penny Dreadful Values, but if the controversy must go on, I am quite willing to take on “Battling Jay” or all comers. I suggest friend Jay looks at the reproduction of my “May Turpin” on the front cover of the stout little Collector’s Miscellany. What will he give me for it?—1/6½d?
CLAPHAM, S W. 4.
BARRY ONO
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DEAR SIR,
I have been a collector of old “bloods” and boys’ journals for the past five years and do not agree with Frank Jay’s letter in your August-Sept. issue. I shall never regret the day I started collecting old romances and penny dreadfuls as their value increases every year, and if a collector wishes to add to his collection some of these rarities he will willingly pay top price. One cannot purchase to-day ”Varney the Vampire,” “Wild Boys of Paris,” “Cartouche,” Boys of London and New York, Boys’ Leader, etc. For all these I paid top prices and will buy all rare “bloods” and old boys journals. Had Frank Jay offered me all the 50 vols. Boys of England I should have paid him well for them. I have never seen any of these bargains written about as going so cheap.
It was my good fortune the other day to purchase 50 vols of the London Journal, uncut, unopened, unread, in publishers’ cloth. These will rise in value as they contain stories written by the best authors of the day. Wishing your journal all the success it deserves.
FOLKESTONE
G. MEREDITH
Mr. F. Jay’s letter has aroused quite a storm of protest from collectors of “bloods” and old boys journals, and the two letters published are but a fraction of what has been received, and we have also received a further letter from Mr. Jay. Lack of space forbids their publication, but we think that sufficient has been published upon the subject to denote the true opinion of the majority of collectors—Editor.
DEAR SIR,
As recently as May 1933, a Dick Turpin story appeared in Newnes’ “Adventure Library” No. 19 under the title of “A Knight of Evil.” It is worth reading as the plot is entirely different to the usual run. Just prior to the war the Daisybank Printing and Publishing Co. added the “Life and Adventures of Dick Turpin” to their little penny booklets once so common on the market stalls. This booklet, together with other penny criminal histories are now listed by a bookseller at 2/6 each.
NELSON
F. THORPE
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Wanted For Sale Exchange
Wanted: Fox’s Boys Standard, Boys Leisure Hour, Boys Champion Journal, Halfpenny Standard, Vol 7 and 8 Boys Comic Journal, Vol 37 Boys of England. Also Young Ching-Ching, Green as Grass, That Rascal Jack, The School on the Sea, Cheeky Charlie. Robert Dodds, 3 Garngad Hill, Glasgow.
Wanted British
Bloods and Penny Dreadfuls, in volumes or runs, also old songsters, sheet
music, broadsides, playbills, etc. James
Madison, 465, So. Detroit Street, Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A. London references furnished.
IF YOU COLLECT American first editions, newspapers, magazines, California items, sheet music, songsters, theatre playbills, American ‘bloods,’ autographs, prints, subscribe for—THE COLLECTOR’S JOURNAL published quarterly, 6s. per year; single copies 2s. “An excellent publication” JOSEPH PARKS. Send orders to the publisher, James Madison, 465 South Detroit St, Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A.
116
Wanted For Sale Exchange
Wanted Best for Boys Library, 3d. & 6d. nos Ching-Ching yarns published by T. Harrison Roberts. For Sale Jack of Warwick, Sword of Fate, Jack O’ the Cudgel and Wat Tyler. E. C. Wells, 60 Stopford Road, Upton Manor, E. 13.
Wanted. Newnes
(3d) Dick Turpin Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 19, & 20, Newnes (2d) Black Bess Library (small
series)) No. 16, Aldine Robin Hood (2d) Nos. 37, and 38 6d each offered. All old Aldine Libraries, Boys Friend
Library, (A.P.C.) Robin Hood Library, Henderson’s Rob Roy, Marvel, Pluck, Penny
Poplar, etc. Parks, Printer, Saltburn-by-Sea,
Wanted. Boys Papers 1850-1916 Boys Standard, Boys Comic, Sweeny Todd, Ching Ching, and hundreds of others. Report all titles. To be published by Subscription E. Harcourt Burrage’s own lifestory author of Ching Ching, Lambs of Littlecote etc. etc.—Write for particulars, Simpson, 92 Welford Road, Leicester.
Just Acquired, the late H. Rickcord collection, 3d. for list. For sale or exchange Merry Wives of London, Work Girls of London, Mendicants of London, Woman With Yellow Hair, Boy Detective, Claude Duval, Newgate, Jessie the Mormon’s Daughter, Numerous Boys Journals, etc. etc. World’s biggest collector and buyer, Barry Ono, 100, Ferndale Road, London, S.W. 4.
Wanted. “Penny Dreadfuls” and fierce Boys Journals 1840 to 1900. Large collection ditto for Sale or Exchange, 3d. for list, World’s Biggest Collector, Buyer, Exchanger. Barry Ono, 100 Ferndale Road, Clapham, London.