THE RISE AND FALL OF JACK SNOW’S LIBRARY
by Michael Gessel
Originally published in The Baum Bugle, vol. 32, no. 2 (Autumn 1988), pgs. 20–21
Citations
Chicago 17th ed.:
Gessel, Michael. “The Rise and Fall of Jack Snow’s Library.” Baum Bugle 32, no. 2 (1988): 20–21.
MLA 9th ed.:
Gessel, Michael. “The Rise and Fall of Jack Snow’s Library.” The Baum Bugle, vol. 32, no. 2, 1988, pp. 20–21.
(Note: In print, this article was supplemented with images that have not been reproduced here. However, typographical errors have been left in place to accurately reflect the printed version.)
As a child born in L. Frank Baum’s lifetime, Jack Snow undoubtedly accumulated first editions of some Oz books. However, it was not until 1940 that he made a serious attempt to collect Baum first editions and rare Oz memorabilia.
Though he lived in Dayton, Ohio, he was able to get to New York during vacations to buy from bookseller Howard S. Mott, the leading Baum specialist of the time. He also sorted through the wares of the secondhand book dealers that used to line New York’s Fourth Avenue book row. His collection grew quickly. By early 1943, he owned two letters from Baum to William Fayall Clarke and W. W. Ellsworth, both editors at the Century Company, publishers of St. Nicholas Magazine, discussing Queen Zixi of Ix. He also had a watercolor of the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman John R. Neill painted for Snow.[1]
In May 23, 1943, the book review section of the New York Herald Tribune ran a short notice by Snow about a proposed biography of Baum and asking “to hear from any one having letters, manuscripts, books, photographs or other material or knowledge relating to Mr. Baum and his work and life.” That was the beginning of Snow’s great collecting success.
The notice was spotted by a cousin of Henry B. Brewster, son of Baum’s sister, Mary Louise Brewster. The connection was fortuitous. Ultimately, Brewster offered Snow his Baum collection, including at least 22 titles inscribed by Baum to Mary Louise Brewster or the Brewster family. Snow ended up purchasing most, if not all of the items. Among the books offered was Mary Louise Brewster’s copy of Mother Goose in Prose which contained the Baum inscription, “. . . to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one’s heart and brings its own reward.”
When Snow moved to New York after World War II, he combed the city’s used and rare book stores looking for additions to his collection. He frequented the Fourth Avenue booksellers as well as the more expensive midtown dealers such as Mott and the Seven Gables Bookshop. He also corresponded with book dealers outside New York, and even planned his vacations to visit bookstores in other cities.
In a 1946 letter to Edward Wagenknecht, Snow described his collection of Baum material as “the most complete collection of his first editions and inscribed copies in existence. I have more than 30 inscribed, presentation copies of Baum books—two of the Wizard in the correct first issue—one to his mother, the other to his sister . . . I have also gathered personal letters, family scrapbooks, book posters, reviews, advertisements, photographs—anything and everything about Baum.”
While Snow was probably unaware of the extensive material still in the Baum family, his collection almost certainly ranked along with C. Beecher Hogan’s library as the most complete outside the Baum family. Because records have not survived for either collection from this time, it is impossible to prove Snow’s claim.
In letters written in 1946 through 1948 to fellow Baum collector William G. Lee, Snow described other items from his library which included a presentation copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz first edition in dust jacket, accompanied by four Neill illustrations for the book; one of only a handful of known copies of The Rose Lawn Home Journal, the newspaper Baum published as a boy; an unpublished Baum poem written to his sister, which Snow printed in The Shaggy Man of Oz; two copies of By the Candelabra’s Glare, including one inscribed to Baum’s mother; The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors; The Woggle-Bug Book; a pre-publication dummy of Father Goose: His Book; and several Baum first editions in dust jacket.
Other Baum items that Snow owned included a 16-page autograph letter from Baum to his brother, Dr. Harry Baum, later described by Mott as “probably the most important of the very few L. Frank Baum letters extant.” The letter discusses the sales potential of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Baum’s feeling of insecurity as a writer at this pivotal time in his career. Also Snow owned Baum’s own photograph album of his Hollywood house, Ozcot; a scrapbook assembled by Mary Louise Brewster containing the telegram from Maud Baum about L. Frank Baum’s death; and a first edition of Dot and Tot of Merryland, in-scribed to Mary Louise Brewster, containing a page of Baum’s manuscript.
In a 1948 letter to Lee, Snow wrote that he owned 200 original drawings by W.W. Denslow, including “several complete sets of original illustrations for several of Denslow’s nursery rhyme books, the original drawing for his own book-plate, the original water color cover for The Pearl and the Pumpkin, and the same for his Night Before Christmas—also a dummy-book that Denslow made him-self to go to the printer to guide him in setting up The Pearl and the Pumpkin.” He also owned illustrations for Dot and Tot of Merryland, The Jewelled Toad, the “Scarecrow and Tin-Man” comic page, and all 46 drawings for Billy Bounce—the only known complete set of original illustrations for a major Denslow work. By 1948, Snow wrote Lee, “My Baum efforts have almost reached the point where it is no longer a matter of collection but of replacement with finer copies.” Snow was even replacing inscribed copies with better inscribed copies.
In his letters to other Baum collectors and to dealers, Snow wrote proudly of his treasures and of the Baum biography which was to evolve from this mass of accumulated material. In fact, the dust jacket flap of Magical Mimics in Oz devotes more space to Snow’s collection than his writing background. Undoubtedly, his books brought him great pleasure, and much needed diversion from an often troubled life.
About 1950, with the Baum biography hardly begun, Snow sold his collection. He had fallen out with Mott so instead he sold his most important Baum material to Gabriel Engel, a bookseller and former concert violinist. He sold the Denslow drawings to the bookseller Biblo and Tannen, and he peddled the remainder of his collection on Fourth Avenue, a few books at a time.
Engel sold the material from the Snow collection to Mott, though Engel might have held onto some drawings. Mott first sold some of the books privately, with the best material going to his friend C. Beecher Hogan. Soon afterward, Mott issued “An American Wonderland: A Superlative L. Frank Baum Collection.” This contained 56 lots made up mostly of the remaining items from Snow’s library, but also contained material from Mott’s own stock.
As Snow’s fortunes picked up, he went back to his old book haunts. However, in the time that passed since he began collecting, prices and competition for Baum material had in-creased, and Snow never again had the opportunity to buy the kind of spectacular rarities he once owned.
The loss of his collection was a bitter blow to Snow. Years later, Martin Gardner remembered Snow’s visit in 1956 to the Columbia University library exhibit for Baum’s centennial. In the introduction to the 1978 catalog of the collection of Justin G. Schiller (which contained a number of items once belonging to Snow), Gardner wrote, “I could see the sadness in Jack’s eyes as he bent over the displays of volumes so familiar to him and which he no longer possessed.”
When Snow died, little remained of the collection. The only Oz books left were the current editions he used to write Who’s Who in Oz. His estate also included the Neill watercolor, a Woggle-Bug Book, and a small book poster with Baum’s photograph. The most valuable item left was a large color poster advertising The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which hung framed on his wall, dominating his small apartment. To the very end he never sold this fine poster, of which only one other intact copy is known.[2]
The largest part of Snow’s library is now owned by Yale University, donated by C. Beecher Hogan. Additional items are at Columbia University. Many of the Denslow drawings are owned by the San Francisco Public Library. Most of the remaining books, drawings, and posters, have passed into the hands of private collectors, offering them the same delight in Oz which once belonged to the great collector Jack Snow.
[1] Reprinted on the front and back covers of the Winter 1986 issue of The Baum Bugle.
[2] Snow’s copy was reprinted on the front cover of the dust jacket of The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was by Martin Gardner and Russel B. Nye. East Lansing: University of Michigan Press, 1957.
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