Old is Better Than the New

    There must be several men of spirit and experiences akin to mine who remember that little book-shop opposite Portland Road Station. It had a peculiar character; the books were of a solid kind—chiefly theology and classics—and for the most part those old editions which are called worthless, which have no bibliopolic value, and have been supplanted for practical use by modern issues. The bookseller was very much a gentleman, and this singular fact, together with the extremely low prices at which his volumes were marked, sometimes inclined me to think that he kept the shop for mere love of letters. Things in my eyes inestimable I have purchased there for a few pence, and I don’t think I ever gave more than a shilling for any volume. As I once had the opportunity of perceiving, a young man fresh from class-rooms could only look with wondering contempt on the antiquated stuff which it rejoiced me to gather from that kindly stall, or from the richer shelves within.  My Cicero’s Letters for instance: podgy volumes in parchment, with all the notes of Graevius, Gronovius, and I know not how many other old scholars.  Pooh!  Hopelessly out of date. But I could never feel that.  I have a deep affection for Graevius and Gronovius and the rest, and if I knew as much as they did, I should be well satisfied to rest under the young man’s disdain. The zeal of learning is never out of date; the example—were there no more—burns before one as a sacred fire, for ever unquenchable.  In what modern editor shall I find such love and enthusiasm as glows in the annotations of old scholars?
   Even the best editions of our day have so much of the mere school-book; you feel so often that the man does not regard his author as literature, but simply as text. Pedant for pedant, the old is better than the new.

George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987; 1903), pp. 32-33.

Milton Preferred Old Books

    That he read many of the moderns is improbable, since he nowhere alludes to them. Ben Jonson, we know he reverenced, though he was never “sealed of his tribe”; William Browne and the Fletchers and other Spenserian-pastoral poets influenced him; but the literary crowd that hung round the court and stage he probably troubled little about. They went their way, and he his. Deep in the Greek and Latin, medieval and Elizabethan writers, he could spare little time, and had little taste, for the moderns.

Rose Macaulay, Milton (London: Duckworth, 1934), pp. 36-37.

An Old Bachelor’s Books

 The rest of the pretty sitting-room—looking into the orchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was filled with books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the table. He was evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in this respect. They were of all kinds—poetry and wild weird tales prevailing. He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own tastes, not because such and such were classical or established favourites.

Mrs. Gaskell, Cranford (London: W. Foulsham, n.d.; 1851-1853) p. 35.

A Literary Imbalance

Lydia Davis, Essays Two (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), p. 94:

What had been bothering me, as an incongruity, an imbalance, was that whereas artwork of the eighteenth century and further back, to the beginning of discovered painting, is readily available, at least in reproduction, and enjoyed by the general public, not just scholars or specialists, and likewise the music of the eighteenth century and earlier—though as one goes back through the centuries, the numbers of listeners does drop off—the great works of literature before, say, Jane Austen, are mostly unread, even by writers. Here, too, of course, the further back in time we go, the smaller the readership becomes. There are shelves and shelves full of fresh and surprising language and convivial company that are ignored by writers and completely unknown to most of the same people who may crowd New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and who then, on their way out of town, may hear a little Vivaldi from the loudspeakers of the Port Authority Bus Terminal or Penn Station. The language of earlier writing is certainly a barrier, and yet some adventurers learn Arabic, Hebrew, and Swahili, and many more learn French, German, and Spanish. But those avid language-learners don’t as readily try to cross the barrier to James Boswell’s English, or John Donne’s, or further back to Chaucer’s or Beowulf’s (at which point the English is admittedly a more or less foreign language). But maybe the barrier is something other than the language; maybe it is the sensibility or the worldview that changes too much, as we travel back in time, for us to understand it, or, if we understand it, to feel any sympathy for it. But if the language

Never Touch A Book By Any Author Who Had Not Been Dead At Least 30 Years

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood, translated by Jay Rubin (London: Vintage, 2003; 1987), p.38; p.39:

   "This man says he has read The Great Gatsby three times," he said as if to himself.
"Well, any friend of Gatsby is a friend of mine."
   And so we became friends. This happened in October.
   The better I got to know Nagasawa, the stranger he seemed. I had met a lot of weird people in my day, but none as strange as Nagasawa. He was a far more voracious reader than me, but he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years. "That's the only kind of book I can trust," he said.
   "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short."
[...]
   "That's why I read them. If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That's the world of hicks and slobs. Real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that. Haven't you noticed, Watanabe? You and I are the only real ones in this dorm. The other guys are crap."

The Golden Age of Modern Literature

 “I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (London: Everyman's Library, 1991; 1847), II, p. 174.

Golloping Books

Philip Larkin, Letters to Monica, ed. by Anthony Thwaite (London: faber & faber, 2010), p. 366 [13 October 1966]:

   ‘It’s a nice feeling, being good at being fond of books. You watch him [C.S. Lewis] golloping them down, & getting a living out of it, & finding more books to gollop. I wish I could have done it. I don’t think I really liked books, not old books anyways. I could never feel that Chaucer was as real as the Daily Mail, & so I was never an academic.’

Fossilised Books

Certain genera of animals, once flourishing, but now extinct and known only by their fossilized remains, are described by paleontologists. Literary historians recognize also certain genera of literature, once flourishing, but now extinct and known only to a few specialists who care to delve into books which, gathering dust on library shelves, are all but forgotten and virtually fossilized.

Johannes A. Gaertner, ‘Latin Verse Translations of the Psalms: 1500-1620’, The Harvard Theological Review, 49.4 (1956), 271-305 (p. 271).