Excerpt from The Library of the Late Beverly Chew: English Literature Before 1800, Manuscript Horae, Printed Horae

T has Often been said that book collecting goes in waves and that the dispersal of every celebrated library means the beginning of several new ones. The death of Beverly Chew marks the end of a group of American book-collectors who can never be replaced. The influence of such men as Robert Hoe, William L. Andrews, Theodore Devinne, S. P. Avery, Charles B. Foote, E. H. Holden and Beverly Chew on the collecting world has been great, and their consistent stand for all that is best in book-building has helped to mould American standards in such matters.

Now the last of that group has left us and with him has gone a wealth Of literary and bibliographical knowledge, an enthusiastic and never-failing interest in all that pertains to books, a kindly and courteous willingness to help younger seekers after truth and to share his unequalled knowledge of both the insides and outsides Of books. All of this we shall sadly miss, and truthfully say: He was a man, take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again.

The loss is ours; the library is to be dispersed and it is for those who are left to carry on his work Of studying and pre serving the original editions of works in English literature and, as far as they may, to devote themselves to the accumulation of that literary wisdom, without which book-collecting becomes a mechanical pursuit.

The collection here presented to the public does not consist Of Mr. Chew's earliest purchases, but is along the lines of his first and strongest literary love. As a boy at Hobart College in the late sixties, he studied the English poets under the late Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe, himself a scholar of no mean repute, and began to acquire copies of the Pickering editions Of his favorites.

Later, when he was established in business in New York, he continued to gather English authors in earlier editions, but at the same time brought together a fine collection Of American First Editions, which he sold privately in 1900 and which passed en bloc into the collection Of J. C. Chamberlain. From that time he devoted all his energies to English literature, dividing his collection into two sections, books before and after 1800. The latter group has grown by gift and purchase and will be sold by The Anderson Galleries some time in January. The English books before 1800 (about 2200 titles in all) were sold to Mr. H. E. Huntington in October, 1912, and many Of them stillform part of that famous library. The remainder were resold in the Huntington duplicate sales and a number have found their way back into their Old home, to reappear here, in this his latest library.

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