Malahide Papers

James Boswell was an 18th Century Scot who was fond of the bottle and of great men's society. Because he was also a writer of talent and because he turned his admiring passion to such good account, he wrote what is still the world's best-known biography (The Life of Samuel Johnson). Like all literary men Boswell left behind him quantities of manuscript and unpublished writing. Boswell's descendants were gentry, and did not propose to add any more fuel to their ancestor's reputation, already to their minds a little too lurid. From one respectable generation to another Boswell's manuscripts mouldered, first in Auchinleck Castle, then in Malahide Castle, Ireland, whither Lord Talbot de Malahide, Boswell's great-great-grandson and heir, transported them.

Ralph Heyward Isham is a 45-year-old American (though he looks and talks like a Briton) who is fond of 18th Century books and of having his own way. Because he also inherited a sizeable fortune and because he was willing to spend large chunks of it to buy what he wanted, he has one of the world's best collections of 18th Century English literature. Like other collectors he had heard of the Malahide papers. Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach, Philadelphia's famed dealer, had cabled a bid of $250,000 for them. Lord Talbot had appeared at the U. S. Consulate in Dublin carrying the cable like a soiled handkerchief, had sniffed: "Who is this person? Please ask him not to correspond with me. We have not been introduced."

Collector Isham was a onetime lieutenant colonel on Sir Douglas Haig's staff, Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He sent no cables but appeared at Malahide Castle in person, and over the teacups the deal was done. Isham had promised Lord Talbot not to persuade the family to sell anything, and he stuck to his word. But when Lady Talbot asked him if one of the papers (a letter from Goldsmith) had any value--"What sort of thing? A hundred pounds sort of thing?" --and he replied, 'I think ten times that more like it," the fat was in the fire. What Collector Isham actually paid for the Malahide papers he refused to say; guesses run from $300,000 to $500,000. That was in 1927. Because he cannily bought all the Boswell papers in Malahide Castle, when Lady Talbot three years later discovered another lot in an old croquet box, Isham got them too.

But family feeling died hard with Lady Talbot. Before letting these heirlooms out of her hands she conned every page, neatly inked out every passage, every word that she considered indelicate. Her labor of love cost experts a year and a half to delete the deletions. To edit this treasure trove for the press proud Collector Isham imported scholarly Author Geoffrey Scott (Portrait of Zelide) who died in harness, leaving the long job for Yale's Frederick A. Pottle to finish.

Backbone of the Malahide papers was Boswell's Journal, longer than garrulous Samuel Pepys's. Besides that were 150-odd letters from Goldsmith, Burns, Voltaire et al. Remainder of the hoard was fragmentary Mss. of the Life of Johnson, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, etc. First volume of the Malahide Papers appeared early in 1929 and by January 1934 those who had $900 to spare could buy the complete 18 volumes. Though they had not sold quite like hot cakes, last week the Oxford Press reported that only 40 of the 570 sets remained.

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