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Here's one of the great little vignettes that Franklin Garrett scatters liberally throughout his master-work on Atlanta's history. Perfectly done and on a subject I hope to touch on soon: I'm hoping to interview my favorite vintage book dealer soon who's been in business in Atlanta since the early 1980s. Anyways, here's the master:
One of the all-time unique citizens of Atlanta, who resided in the city from 1919 until his death at 59 on January 26, 1929, was Charles W. Treat, book dealer and bibliophile.
He was a native of Cleveland, Ohio. He received his formal education in the public schools there, graduating from high school, where his work was characterized by a natural and almost uncanny aptitude for mathematics, combined with an intense dislike of the subject. After graduation he taught school for a number of years on the north Pacific coast, in Oregon and Washington. Tiring of this, he entered the governmental engineering department, passing a civil service examination with perfect ease after a short period of home study.
It was while engaged in engineering that Mr. Treat began his intense devotion to books and laid the foundation for his later collection. Following the Metropolitan library auctions closely, he submitted bids by mail, bidding in many a collection from Anderson's in New York and Sotheby's in London.
Finally deeming his collection sufficiently large, he opened a book store in Chattanooga, later moving the business to Indianapolis. He came to Atlanta in 191 and opened his hop at 106 North Forsyth Street [today this is to the left of the main entrance of the Central Library].
Prospective customers were never annoyed by over-solicitous attentions. In fact, it was one of the idiosyncrasies of the proprietor that he emphatically preferred that people should roam through the stacks and find their own books rather than distract his attention from some volume he might be examining, by questions and requests.
A bibliophile in the true sense of the word, Mr. Treat loved first editions with a consuming passion, and at various times had in his possession valuable editions of Kipling and Twain and rare copies of other writers.
A first edition of Longstreet's Georgia Scenes, picked up in Philadelphia, was sent by him to England to be beautifully and expensively bound. He treasured the copy for years, but was finally forced to part with it because of financial difficulties.
Woe to the unsuspecting customer who offered to remunerate Mr. Treat for breaking a set of books to sell one volume. With cries of "Vandal!" and "soulless destroyer of fine things!" the enraged proprietor would express bitter regret that he had ever allowed the miserable person to cross the threshold of his shop, and would then attempt to drive him from the store, making it necessary for Thomas E. Longworth, his business assistant and associate, to come hurrying to the aid of the bewildered offender.
The devoted bibliophile lived his entire life among his volumes. He slept and cooked his meals in quarters at the rear of the establishment, never leaving the premises except to buy provisions or to attend to matters of urgent business.
Only rarely did he read one of the books which constituted so big a part of his life, rather devoting his time to examination and comparative study of the various formats and bindings on his shelves. He sat up until all hours of the night to pore over bibliopegic monographs and to study photographs of rare and rich bindings. Quite often his business associate would find all the lights in the shop burning and Mr. Treat still at his studies upon his arrival at work in the morning.
That others did not harbor the same passion for rare works as he, served at time to incite him to fits of uncontrollable anger. Time and again he would startle a shop full of customers by unexpectedly roaring, "I would rather sell one $10 volume -- a rare volume and a beautiful one -- than $1000 worth of this trash which lines my walls."
This policy he pursued faithfully throughout his business career, much to his financial detriment. As debts accumulated, he was forced to part with one after another of the beloved volumes, which he had so carefully hidden away from his customers and for which he had refused large sums in earlier years.
In 1927 he finally sold his share in the business to Mr. Longworth, and retired to a basement shop underneath. Here, with most of his treasured volumes gone, he turned to steel engravings and prints, in the last few months of his life developing a special interest in color prints of birds, volumes of travel, flower illustrations and the like. He had already sold his Audubon collection of life-sized color prints of birds, a ponderous and beautiful affair and long the apple of his eye. Only a number of steel engravings, which he spent house in cleaning, and a small supply of books remained when he died. He left only one relative, a sister, Mrs. Harry Kavanaugh, of Cleveland. Fore a quarter of a century now, Charles W. Treat, irascible but sincere book lover, has rested in an unmarked grave in Atlanta's Greenwood Cemetery. Comments |
