Epilogue

This chapter follows how Charles W. Frederickson became a legend in a white linen jacket and pockets stuffed with books whose sentimental library of association copies, first editions, presentation copies, and autographs included eleven volumes from the library of Charles Lamb. It discusses how he began his book collecting with Shakespeare, and examines the ongoing disputes about the authenticity of the plays and other texts and objects related to the bard that caused him to sell off his Shakespeare collection. The chapter also reviews how Frederickson entered the transatlantic book world at a turning point, when tastes were shifting from the kind of bibliographical rarities and specimens of early printing that had been coveted in the grand era of British bibliomania to a sentimental preference for relics of English literary tradition. It concludes by emphasizing that sentimental collecting in America began before Lamb's books were sold in the Astor House.