“Only Death Put an End to Mr. Howe’s Collecting”: The Bibliophile behind Nearly Half of the Berg Collection

Abstract

W. T. H. Howe (1868–1939) was one of the most prominent book collectors and literary patrons of the Golden Era of book collecting, yet his efforts have been largely forgotten. This piece strives to correct that oversight, providing information about Howe’s life and situating him among American book collectors of his period. Fellow collectors such as Barton Currie and Richard Curle lauded his foresighted purchases of Poe and Hawthorne works at the famous Wakeman sale of 1924; later he made splashy purchases of Lewis Carroll first editions that positioned him as a major contributor to the 1932 New York “Alice” exhibition. Howe accumulated a huge treasure trove of literary manuscripts and rare books that he kept in Cincinnati, where he was president of the world’s largest textbook publisher, the American Book Company. Friends with rare booksellers such as Walter Hill of Chicago and Alfred Goldsmith of New York, Howe shaped collecting trends to emphasize nineteenth-century and contemporary writers. When Howe died suddenly without a will, his collection was slated for auction, but bookman Mitchell Kennerley brokered a deal with Alfred Berg, who purchased the library en bloc and donated it to the New York Public Library. Ironically, this saved Howe’s collection intact, but obscured his role in building the foundation of today’s Berg Collection.