By Ross Edmonds
Barry Humphries’ life, in one way or another, has been extraordinary and his book collecting is no exception. As noted by Charles Stitz in the Introduction to volumes IV and V of Australian Book Collectors, while most collectors were happy to provide information for an entry, there were a few who were not. Colin Steele, in his excellent review of this book (Biblionews 395-396, September-December 2017, p 143), says that one of those prominent collectors who did not respond was Barry Humphries. Later he suggests that:
While Charles Stitz may have laid down his bibliophilic baton, there may be scope for others to pick it up in the future . . . Biblionews has been a very useful source over the years and hopefully will continue in recording major collections and collectors.
And so, with more than a little help from articles posted on the internet, but regrettably no help from Barry, I have decided to pick up the bibliophilic baton and respond on his behalf.
In an article in National Post (April 2015),Robert Fulford relates the following story.
Long ago, in a dusty bookshop in a dusty Australian town, Barry Humphries spotted a slim volume of poems that excited his interest. It carried a rather idiotic title, Babbling April, but the author’s name was Graham Greene. A book collector since childhood, Humphries was well aware that a first edition of a distinguished author’s first book will always be eminently collectible. Whoever ran the store had put a cursory price on it, unaware of its value. Humphries bought it and went away happy.
Moving forward a few decades and Humphries learnt that he was going to meet Greene.
He took the book along so that he could ask Greene to sign it. At what he judged the right moment, he drew it from his pocket. ‘Damn’ said Greene when he saw it. ‘I thought I’d burnt every copy of that bloody thing!’ Babbling April appeared in 1925, when the author was a student at Oxford. It was poorly received and turned out to be both the beginning and the end of his career as a poet. Yet he agreed to sign it and even wrote a few lines of spontaneous verse on a blank page. That made it an even more cherished possession for Humphries, who is now known to book dealers on at least three continents as a serious collector.1
This anecdote, I think, encapsulates a lot of what book collecting is about: namely, having the knowledge and initiative to take advantage of a situation when the opportunity presents itself. Fulford goes on to say: ‘Now a much admired comedian and actor, he’s best known as the physical embodiment of his own invention, the delightful lilac haired Dame Edna Everage, a satiric monument to the age of celebrity.’ He is also the man behind other characters, such as the politically incorrect Sir Les Patterson who could be an amalgam of some of the worst Australian prominent politicians, such as Sir Robert Askin, Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Russ Hinze.
Humphries was born in 1934 in Melbourne to Eric and Louisa, nee Brown. Eric was a construction manager and Barry grew up the eldest of three children in a well-to-do family. His childhood was seemingly uneventful; however, in his teens he began to rebel against the conformity of conservative middle class suburbia in late 1940s and 1950s Australia. He attended Melbourne Grammar School with Rodney Davidson, who also went on to become one of Australia’s greatest book collectors. Together they haunted Miss Gill’s bookshop in South Yarra while still at school, laying the foundations of what was to develop into an abiding passion. Upon matriculation Humphries went to the University of Melbourne where he studied Law, Philosophy and Fine Arts while developing some of the surrealist and Dada stunts that shocked and amused some of his fellow students and teachers – but shocked and outraged others, including, no doubt, his parents. After leaving university he did some theatre work in Melbourne before moving to Sydney in 1957 to join the Phillip Street Theatre where he appeared in several successful revues over the next two years.
During 1959 Humphries moved to London which became his home for the next decade. He worked as a comedian in various West End theatres and became friends with many English comedians such as Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. He contributed to the satiric magazine, Private Eye, his best known work being the cartoon strip, ‘The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie’. Later, this was published in book form. Its satirising of the worst features of Australians abroad was found very funny by some Australians but offensive by others who felt that Humphries was portraying his countrymen in a very bad light – and the book was banned for a time. Predictably, this increased the fame of both book and author who was delighted with the government’s response.
In 1971 Humphries returned to Australia and teamed up with Phillip Adams and Bruce Beresford to create a film version. Titled The Adventures of Barry McKenzie starring Barry Crocker, with Humphries playing three roles, it was panned by most of the critics but became a huge hit with Australian audiences.2 There was also a sequel, Barry Holds His Own, which proved popular with audiences.
Humphries now divides his time between London and Melbourne, regarding both as home. In an interview for MO magazine,he says:
I always travel with paints. I love painting and I’m actually rather good, so I get pleasure from my own work. I’ve had exhibitions . . . Painting is a form of meditation for me. If you are painting, just sitting there looking at a landscape, you can’t really worry about anything. You can’t think about tomorrow, you can’t think about yesterday – so you are living in the moment.
I’m a major book collector. I have a big collection of ghost stories and 19th-century poetry, and some books of the 1920s and Oscar Wilde. I’ve got a large collection of his stuff, often signed; manuscripts and things like that.3
He also has a choice collection of books written and/or illustrated by the English Decadents of the 1890s: Men like Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons and the others whose work appeared beneath the covers of The Yellow Book and The Savoy. On a trip to Newcastle (NSW) in the 1990s he called at The Cooks Hill Bookshop and purchased books from the 1890s, including one (probably The Sphinx) with an exquisite binding designed by Charles Ricketts. The books were priced lower than comparable ones in Sydney but this didn’t stop Humphries asking for – and getting – a discount!
About 20 years ago Humphries apparently decided to either downsize his collection, or maybe just to get rid of some duplicates, as a few of his books have come onto the market. These are identifiable by his bookplate inside the front cover showing a naked couple doing something or other (see above image). I have one such book that I purchased at least 15 years ago when I was also collecting books by the English Decadents. I can’t remember where it was bought, though the price is marked as £25 so it most likely came from England via the internet. The book is Bernard Muddiman, The Men of the Nineties (Henry Danielson, London, 1920).
In 2011 Humphries was elected a member of the Roxburghe Club, Kelso, Scotland. This is a very exclusive club whose members are limited to 40 in number and whose wealth, knowledge and good taste have allowed them to build a collection of the first rank. Founded in 1812 in London, following the sale by auction of the Duke of Roxburghe’s superb collection, each new member is expected to sponsor the publication of ‘a rare or curious volume’ and a copy is then given to each member. As members die, occasionally one of these volumes comes on the market – at a prohibitive price, of course.
The April 2013 online edition of the newsletter of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers, Bookfare, announced that Barry Humphries had been appointed Patron of Honour of the International League of Booksellers. It went on to say that this was in recognition of his major contribution to the antiquarian trade. (I’m not usually a cynical person but I can’t help thinking that Humphries’ contribution was basically in the form of large amounts of money spent on rare and desirable books and manuscripts even though he has spoken on various occasions about the joys of book collecting. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong.) The article mentions that he is ‘A self-proclaimed “bibliomaniac”, whose house in London supposedly contains some 25,000 books, many of them first editions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.’
Humphries’ collecting of rare objects is not confined to books. He has long had an interest in art and has built up one of the best collections of Charles Condor’s work in the world and even managed to track down a few people who knew Condor. He has also written articles about the artist.
So, what is to become of this great collection? Rather than have it locked away and probably neglected in an institutional library, my prediction is that Humphries will eventually send his collection to auction or sell it to a dealer so that others may also experience the enjoyment of owning them for a time like he has done. I hope so.
Notes
1. Robert Fulford, National Post, online, April 2015.
2. See the Barry Humphries entry in Wikipedia for more details on his early life, or his autobiography More Please, Viking, 1992.
3. MO Magazine, online, July 2019.
From Biblionews 413, March 2022, pp 20-23