The son of a bookseller uncovers a treasure trove of famous ephemera
By David Murray
Photos copyright George Friesen, used with permission, all rights reserved
Book by book, letter by letter, a collection of books and documents that lay hidden for 50 years is offering fascinating glimpses of St. Louis history.
The collection includes playbills from the Crystal Palace, a once-famous Gaslight Square venue for performers just starting out, as well as a graphic novel that anticipates the works of today’s artists like Frank Miller—from 1929.
This historical bounty is emerging from the collection of a former St. Louis bookseller named Herbert Friesen, who died in 1950. Friesen’s unsold books, documents and letters lay undisturbed until his widow died in 2002 and are only now being excavated by Herbert’s son, George Herbert Friesen.
Coming to St. Louis from Hillsboro, Kan., Herbert Friesen flirted with radicalism and hung out at a famous bohemian haunt called the Blue Lantern, located where the Arch grounds are now. He emerged from Washington University with an English degree at the height of the Depression, in 1932. His son recalls that the only job his father could find was unloading lumber from freight cars. Of the five-man crew, Herbert Friesen had the least education; the other members included three M.A.s and a Ph.D.
Friesen’s bookshop, which George says never prospered greatly, operated between 1935 and 1945 at the corner of Taylor and Olive, in an area that was then considered “silk-stocking.”
“I really loved the neighborhood at the corner of Taylor and Olive,” the younger Friesen says. “Walking from our bookstore to Grand Avenue to go to one of the five beautiful theaters that were all grouped within five blocks on Grand was a great adventure. Gaslight Square wasn’t to appear for 20 years, and Olive Street was lined with antique shops that made for absolutely intriguing viewing for a curious 10-year-old.”
Friesen says he’s been through two-thirds of his father’s collection. He consults rare-book websites and auction sites like eBay to get an idea of the value of pieces. But does he want to sell them all? He says he would be open to donating some pieces to the right museum.
Among Friesen’s finds:
- A signed first edition of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, now a staple of women’s-lit classes. George Friesen estimates its worth at $8,000.
- A signed copy of a book by Susan B. Anthony, dedicated to a Mrs. Chaney, who, says Friesen, was the first female captain of a commercial vessel on the Great Lakes.
- A signed copy of a German-language edition of a Thomas Mann novel, Königliche Hoheit. The autograph page is slashed, which usually decreases value. But this razor-slash comes with what experts call “provenance.” George Friesen remembers his father telling the story of how he stopped a customer from cutting out the signature.
- A handwritten letter from Countess von Keyserling, granddaughter of Germany’s Iron Chancellor Bismarck, regarding payment to her husband for a Post-Dispatch article he wrote. The Countess claimed that on December 18, 1927, the Post-Dispatch had incorrectly calculated the dollars-to-marks conversion, shortchanging her husband by $8. (Her husband, an Estonian count who lost his estate to the Russian revolution, was a best-selling philosophical author in his day and founder of a “School of Wisdom” that drew from every religion.)
- A June 20, 1927, letter from British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s secretary regretting that his employer could not write a requested piece for the Post-Dispatch.
