Love in a Dream

Slumber wrapped the great international bibliophile, Dr. Abraham S. Wolf Rosenbach, last week, when a telephone call from London jangled in his Philadelphia home. Pajama-clad, Dr. Rosenbach answered. Did he want to buy, asked the voice of his London agent, the first Aldine Press copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a 15th Century Latin romance which Elizabethans translated as The Strife of Love in a Dream?

Wide awake at such a question, Dr. Rosenbach rapped that he did want the Flypnerotomachia, that he had cabled instructions to buy it before going to bed. From London a nervous voice apologized--the cable must have gone astray. From Philadelphia the rich tonal syllables of Dr. Rosenbach wafted mention of an unctious sum. Scurrying, his agent was able to bid in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili for -L-3000 ($14,580)--plus $75 for three minutes telephoning.