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Oregon Trails — Booksellers Real and Fictional Column Editor: Thomas W. Leonhardt (Retired, Eugene, OR 97404) <oskibear70@gmail.com>
O
n the occasion of my acquisition of the crowning jewel in my Christopher Morley Collection, a first edition of Parnassus on Wheels, I emailed Brainerd F. Phillipson, the bookseller who had furnished my new treasure. Upon shipment, he had thoughtfully informed me when to expect the book and explicitly told me how it was wrapped to avoid damage. I wrote to him in response, telling him that the book had arrived in perfect condition and I signed for it a day earlier than predicted. My reply, meant to show appreciation for what for me was more than a mere business transaction — trading money for something of value — contained several references to booksellers I have known, both real and fictional, men who depend on readers for a living — courageous or foolhardy? — and who are readers themselves and also scholars in the best sense of the word. The best of them are also what libraries used to call reader’s advisors and perhaps still do in the more enlightened sanctuaries. Christopher Morley (1890-1957) was a writer (poetry, essays, fiction) who could slip the words “hebdomadal” and “sanhedrin” into a sentence without it seeming the least bit affected or pretentious, but still making the reader reach for an unabridged dictionary. I don’t collect Morley because of his extensive Against the Grain / February 2020
vocabulary (possibly enriched during his years at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar) but because I feel a strong connection to him — his humanity and his love of literature and of all things Books — writers, publishers, publisher’s reps, booksellers, librarians, and readers. The book that first endeared me to Morley is Parnassus on Wheels, published in 1917, about an itinerant bookseller, Roger Mifflin, working from a horse-drawn wagonful of books that he deemed worthy of sale. He would frequent rural areas bereft of bookstores and libraries. He would engage his customers in conversation, recommend books to them, and on occasion refuse to sell a book before its time. “Last time I was there [a farm] he wanted some Shakespeare, but I wouldn’t give it to him. I didn’t think he was up to it yet.” Roger Mifflin’s philosophy was simple: “…when you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue — you sell him a whole new life.” In 1919, Morley wrote a sequel called The Haunted Bookshop, that Roger Mifflin established in Brooklyn to better accommodate his marriage and increasing age. “The Haunted Bookshop was a delightful place, especially of an evening, when its drowsy alcoves were kindled with the brightness of lamps shining on rows of volumes.” continued on page 62
<http://www.against-the-grain.com>
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