of the prominent Irish Gothicist Le Fanu and knew of his great influence on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but I had never read a word he’d written.
To my chagrin I was discovering that the Haider library contained earlier, far more valuable first edition copies of books which I’d proudly acquired for my library—a signed first edition of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1899), where I had only a first, unsigned edition; a signed first edition of Algernon Blackwood’s The Empty House (1906), where I had only an unsigned second edition; signed first editions of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, The Woman in White, No Name —where I had only unsigned, later editions. And there was Edgar Allan Poe’s The Imp of the Perverse in a slender, much-worn volume, dated 1846—one of that troubled genius’s later, little-known works of fiction in the guise of memoir; or, was The Imp of the Perverse memoir in the guise of fiction? How paltry the acquisitions of Andrew J. Rush were, set beside the Haider collection. (Yet more shamefully, I have to confess that I’d read less than one-tenth of my library, in fact. I had done my voracious reading as an adolescent and as a young writer in my twenties. In later years it has become the possessing/displaying of books that mattered to me, and not the actual reading of any book however masterly.)
Elsewhere on the shelves, of lesser interest to me, were leatherbound sets of the old, dutiful English classics— Collected Works of Shakespeare, Milton, Thackeray, Dickens, Sir Walter Scott . Volumes of verse by Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Hardy, Matthew Arnold. Still, there were oddities—a dozen books by a writer of whom I had never heard, Ivy Compton-Burnett; at least a dozen by Iris Murdoch of whom I’d certainly heard, but had never read.
Of course, I told myself that the Haider family was a very old New Jersey family, dating back to pre-Revolutionary times; one of the Haider ancestors had been an aide of General George Washington, another a governor of New Jersey in the early 1900s. As C. W. Haider had inherited this property in a still-distinguished neighborhood in Harbourton, so she had inherited these precious books. Perhaps her father or her grandfather had been a serious collector. No credit was due to her.
Seeing the caretaker through a window, earnestly raking in the overgrown backyard, I slipped several of the rare books into my duffel bag—volumes I and II of Frankenstein , The Lair of the White Worm, The Turn of the Screw; cleverly, I rearranged the books so that there were no gaping absences on the shelves.
She doesn’t deserve these books! She has not glanced into them in years.
To the victor, the spoils .
By this time the silky black cat had jumped down from its perch on the sofa, to approach me with a hoarse, somehow jeering yyyow —still swishing his tail, and still glaring with its eyes like gold coins.
“Nice kitty! Are you—‘Satan’?”
I laughed, for the name had come to me out of nowhere.
“‘Satan’? Are you? Kitty-kitty?”—I stooped to pet the cat, for it was very beautiful and seemed to be inviting me; but it miao’d angrily, bristled its silky back like a Hallowe’en cat, and bared its teeth in a way that did not seem welcoming.
“Go to hell, then—‘Satan.’ Where you belong.”
The rebuff by Haider’s cat was hurtful for animals are always fond of me—dogs especially. Cats of course are notoriously less predictable, despite their beauty.
As I explored the room more thoroughly, I saw that it opened into a kitchen (high-ceiling, old-fashioned fixtures) at one end, and a drawing room (shrouded furniture, dank odor) at the other. The degree of clutter here suggested hoarding, or rather the onset of hoarding: stacks of aged newspapers, magazines, advertising circulars and brochures. A singular stack rising from the floor, like a stalagmite, of old books including what appeared to be books from the Harbourton Public Library, long
To my chagrin I was discovering that the Haider library contained earlier, far more valuable first edition copies of books which I’d proudly acquired for my library—a signed first edition of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1899), where I had only a first, unsigned edition; a signed first edition of Algernon Blackwood’s The Empty House (1906), where I had only an unsigned second edition; signed first editions of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, The Woman in White, No Name —where I had only unsigned, later editions. And there was Edgar Allan Poe’s The Imp of the Perverse in a slender, much-worn volume, dated 1846—one of that troubled genius’s later, little-known works of fiction in the guise of memoir; or, was The Imp of the Perverse memoir in the guise of fiction? How paltry the acquisitions of Andrew J. Rush were, set beside the Haider collection. (Yet more shamefully, I have to confess that I’d read less than one-tenth of my library, in fact. I had done my voracious reading as an adolescent and as a young writer in my twenties. In later years it has become the possessing/displaying of books that mattered to me, and not the actual reading of any book however masterly.)
Elsewhere on the shelves, of lesser interest to me, were leatherbound sets of the old, dutiful English classics— Collected Works of Shakespeare, Milton, Thackeray, Dickens, Sir Walter Scott . Volumes of verse by Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Hardy, Matthew Arnold. Still, there were oddities—a dozen books by a writer of whom I had never heard, Ivy Compton-Burnett; at least a dozen by Iris Murdoch of whom I’d certainly heard, but had never read.
Of course, I told myself that the Haider family was a very old New Jersey family, dating back to pre-Revolutionary times; one of the Haider ancestors had been an aide of General George Washington, another a governor of New Jersey in the early 1900s. As C. W. Haider had inherited this property in a still-distinguished neighborhood in Harbourton, so she had inherited these precious books. Perhaps her father or her grandfather had been a serious collector. No credit was due to her.
Seeing the caretaker through a window, earnestly raking in the overgrown backyard, I slipped several of the rare books into my duffel bag—volumes I and II of Frankenstein , The Lair of the White Worm, The Turn of the Screw; cleverly, I rearranged the books so that there were no gaping absences on the shelves.
She doesn’t deserve these books! She has not glanced into them in years.
To the victor, the spoils .
By this time the silky black cat had jumped down from its perch on the sofa, to approach me with a hoarse, somehow jeering yyyow —still swishing his tail, and still glaring with its eyes like gold coins.
“Nice kitty! Are you—‘Satan’?”
I laughed, for the name had come to me out of nowhere.
“‘Satan’? Are you? Kitty-kitty?”—I stooped to pet the cat, for it was very beautiful and seemed to be inviting me; but it miao’d angrily, bristled its silky back like a Hallowe’en cat, and bared its teeth in a way that did not seem welcoming.
“Go to hell, then—‘Satan.’ Where you belong.”
The rebuff by Haider’s cat was hurtful for animals are always fond of me—dogs especially. Cats of course are notoriously less predictable, despite their beauty.
As I explored the room more thoroughly, I saw that it opened into a kitchen (high-ceiling, old-fashioned fixtures) at one end, and a drawing room (shrouded furniture, dank odor) at the other. The degree of clutter here suggested hoarding, or rather the onset of hoarding: stacks of aged newspapers, magazines, advertising circulars and brochures. A singular stack rising from the floor, like a stalagmite, of old books including what appeared to be books from the Harbourton Public Library, long
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