My worst fears about the rare book trade in India—or rather the lack of one—was confirmed by the American dealer and collector, Glenn Horowitz, when he told me that not a single antiquarian volume of note in his enticing rare book collection on India (now held in the Lilly Library) was found or purchased in India. The best or the most interesting rarities were bought mainly from European antiquarian bookshops, many from British dealers and the rest from the Americas. Whenever the collector turned up the odd rare volume in India, it was in such poor condition, it was uncollectable.
In 2004, when Horowitz first visited India, he was already an established and famous Manhattan rare book dealer, but it wasn’t until his second visit that the idea of beginning to trade books here came to him.
Surely, he thought to himself, there must be so much exciting and undiscovered rare book material here! He was in India accompanying his wife, Tracey Jackson, who already had “an abiding interest in the country”, and who had written the screenplay of The Guru ( 2002), often described as the first successful Hollywood-Bollywood crossover.
Complicated story
As he deplaned in Delhi, Horowitz says he “spontaneously fell in love with India.” Soon came the realisation that rare books-dealing in India could be complicated.
Initially he thought he would sell rare books and manuscripts to Indians but it quickly struck him that his visits would be short, and the distance between New York and India was too great to build a proper bridge with customers. And then he alighted on this obverse thought: “If I can’t sell books in India I’d buy books in India. Alas, that idea was also extinguished promptly when I grasped that the guiding aesthetic principles of rare books-dealing in the West hadn’t taken hold in India.”
When Horowitz made this remark, I immediately understood what he meant, but it wasn’t without the sinking feeling that he would now confirm all my long-held suspicions about the utter lack of an antiquarian book collecting culture in the country.
Somehow, while we had paid attention to other forms of heritage —paintings, antiques, and architecture—restoring, conserving and curating them attentively, we had neglected to take care of our heritage manuscripts and books.
“Where we pride ourselves on the condition of the books we sell,” Horowitz pointed out, “the Indian booksellers I met didn’t have a good grasp of the difference between fine and poor copies, and their prices reflected that lack of knowledge.
“In the West, the provenance of copies of rare books is essential; in India, the concept was little understood. None of this is said pejoratively but, without a tradition of dealing, it’s impossible to amass a collection of serious books.”
But now he’d been bitten by a big collecting bug, and he couldn’t shake the idea that the history of India had been told in books and there had to be some way for him to collect material that narrated both the indigenous Indian experience and the intersection of India with the English and other European nations.
So from his perch in New York, Horowitz began to scour the trade in hopes of finding someone with real expertise in the subject of Indian books and manuscripts.
“At first,” he said, “no Virgil presented himself to me… eventually a small number of sophisticated dealers who buy and sell ‘exotic’ imprints—books printed, regardless of their subjects— began constantly digging deeper to unearth the earliest examples of printing in India for me, keeping an eye out for Indian imprints and they were a rich resource as I went forward.”
Collecting adventure
“I think over the years I bought material for the collection in almost every continent, except, curiously, Asia. Europe was by far the most fertile region, followed by North America. But I got books in Australia, Latin America, even out of Africa.
“But I don’t recollect ever buying anything of consequence in Asia, and certainly nothing notable in India. When I visited India and went to the few shops I could locate I never encountered material that lived up to the standards of condition that were central to my vision of what a book should look like.”
The book collecting adventures of Horowitz in a largely new and untapped line of collecting —“Indiana” (rare books and manuscripts related to India) — should awaken in Indian bibliophiles and collectors a desire to pursue rare or scarce Indian imprints.
The books are there but they are scattered all over. They need to be brought home. It’s high time our book dealers, collectors, institutions and scholars begin lavishing attention on our antiquarian books, so we can raise and nurture a viable, vibrant rare book culture of dealing, collecting, preserving and exhibiting here.
And while we’re on the subject, some thanks is due to Horowitz for showing us that if we want it, it is there.
The writer is a bibliophile, columnist and critic.
