Books
The Book Collector
by HENNA SINGHAmong those who know the owner, few would have any inkling that in this neat and cozy home in a quiet Toronto neighbourhood, there lives a giant collection of First Edition books. Rare, hard to find, and often priceless, these books are treasured for the fact that they existed before anyone knew of them. To own a First Edition is to hold a piece of history in your hand.
Every book ever published - millions of them to date - has a First Edition. But it is only when a book survives the test of time, historical relevance, critical scrutiny, public interest and approval (or the lack of it), and the vagaries of an author's career, that it enters that rarified realm where, because of added factors such as antiquity and diminishing numbers, it becomes valuable. And therefore, a collector's item, and to some, even a worthwhile financial investment.
Bhupinder Singh Marwah collects them the way you and I collect stamps or coins - for the sheer pleasure of it. And he has, it appears, thousands of them.
Better known by his nickname, Lally Marwah, he is a statistician by trade, but who could guess that this unassuming man would have his house filled with a different kind of numbers.
The truth is that he sort of fell into book collecting. It turns out that books have followed Marwah all his life. He grew up in a small town in the State of Bengal in eastern India, where his mother owned the largest book collection in town. The collection contained more than any school or library did. She then owned, for example, the entire Everyman series of classics at a time that most people were only able to get their hands on a couple of titles. From Austen to Zola, this collection had it all. Effectively, hers was the library that the neighborhood frequented most and she encouraged everyone to borrow whatever book they found of interest.
Before he even knew it, it had Lally Marwah hooked for life!
His reading days were certainly not over when he left home for higher education in the technical field. When speaking of his university days, Marwah describes a time when education was not limited to the curriculum, and learning was not confined to the classroom. In the final year of his undergraduate degree, Marwah recalls he spent the night before his chemistry finals discussing a fiction classic with his chemistry professor.
As for collecting books - well, finding a rare book is based on luck and luck was on Marwah's side. He bought his initial First Edition when he was still quite young - in his early 30's perhaps and just beginning a new job at IBM. He had recently moved to Canada. It was in the early 70's and the rare book scene was anything but what you would call "established". There were no rare book shops to speak of and instead there were "used" bookstores. Marwah immediately found that the owners of these book stores were quite knowledgeable and had an eye for rare or valuable books. If they found something of note, they would keep it and perhaps feature it on a single cabinet labeled "rare". Those in the know would frequent the shops and visit those special shelves.
As time went on, Marwah kept adding to his collection one work at a time. His day job would take him to other cities on business, and whenever he was outside of Toronto, he made it a point to stop in at a local rare or used bookstore.
At first he only bought works that he personally had read and enjoyed. One day he was offered a first edition of Darwin's The Origin of Species, a landmark 19th century text that revolutionized the way we think of human development. Marwah turned the work down. Looking back, he recognized it as a bit of a blunder, and soon afterwards he decided that perhaps it was a better idea to focus on works that meant something in the context of literature or world history.
As he grew older, his interest also shifted to collecting works related to Sikhism. He began to appreciate his own culture and heritage and so tried to find early manuscripts. The added beauty of many of these works, he points out, is that they are illustrated. In the late 17th and 18th centuries, paintings were not made for the sake of being hung on walls. Rather, they were made to illustrate text.
It turns out that an illustration can sometimes make a difference in whether the book is worth buying or not. A gem from the Marwah collection is a manuscript of the Mahabharata. The interesting thing about this piece is that it was produced for Hindus living in Punjab - thus the whole text is written in Gurumukhi! Additionally, in deference to the main religion of Punjab and the fact that the Sikh Scripture has numerous mythological references to the epic, the manuscript's first page is actually a painting of Guru Nanak.
Marwah also owns a 1777 copy of a Janam Sakhi (biographical manuscript) of Guru Nanak. It was displayed as part of the renowned "Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms" exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto a few years ago.
Owning and learning from these manuscripts has also encouraged Lally to seek and gain access to things few people have a chance to see. On a trip to London a few years back, Lally recalls, he decided to stop by the British Library. Though open to the public, items in the special collections are usually only available for review to those doing research and who have obtained prior clearance and permission.
Lally hadn't. He made a beeline for the main desk and asked to speak to the curator. The curator spoke with Mr. Marwah for perhaps five minutes and saw that this man knew what he was talking about; that he was a serious collector and had a real interest in seeing a certain item in the library's possession; and that this was no passing whim.
The curator then led him into the heart of the section where the gems of the British Library Collections are kept. Hardly anyone enters this room, but this was a special case. The rare book lay behind glass - Mr. Marwah could only see one page. Could the curator take it out from behind the glass, please, and let Lally see it? Of course. Lally was allowed to examine the manuscript at length. And that is how Lally Marwah was able to handle what most people could never even get access to. He was able to peruse and read at his leisure the personal gutka (or prayer book) which had once belonged to Maharani Jindan, the widow of Ranjit Singh and mother of Duleep Singh.
Aside from the Sikh works mentioned above, today Lally Marwah's book collection includes many well known and oft-studied books from the 20th century. Perhaps the jewel in the crown is a First Edition of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland". First appearing as part of a collection of poems, "The Wasteland" was later printed separately in small quantity. Finding the work in good condition is extremely rare. The collection also has tomes from the full gamut of the 20th century - everything from Nabokov to James Joyce (including several versions of Ulysses).
Marwah is also a huge fan of Graham Greene and owns a First Edition of almost everything he has written. Also included in the collection are several signed editions of Mordecai Richler's works, including Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, a title many will remember fondly from their childhood years.
Richler is one of many Canadian authors who appear on Marwah's bookshelves, which also boast works by heavy-weights such as Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje. Similarly, American writers have not been left out either. Marwah has works by John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Sylvia Plath and, of course John Updike.
If you like books, perusing through Lally Marwah's collection is an absolute dream. It seems that he has the best of the best and he enjoys them with a passion. Well-informed and well-read, Lally is the collector par excellence. Though he has more books than he has space for - "There's too much to show you just today!" he told me when we began - it is unlikely that he will ever stop collecting. It seems that it is the books that find him.