The Bookseller, the Library, and Volapük

The late news from Paris

Among the many volumes in the Bancroft Library, the special collections library of the University of California, Berkeley, are two books on Volapük, the Hand-Book of Volapük, by Charles E. Sprague, and the Abridged Grammar of Volapük; Adapted to the Use of English Speaking People, by Auguste Kerckhoffs, and the only question I have is: “did they end up in the library because of Bancroft’s younger brother?” The Bancroft Library is named Hubert Howe Bancroft, a California bookseller and amateur historian who amassed a substantial library which he later sold to the State of California.[1]

Why not the older Bancroft? Well, they might have been his, but he doesn’t seem to have thought much of Volapük. In an essay on “Early California Literature,” he noted that while “a universal tongue must in time prevail,” he felt that English “need fear no competition from such artificial substitutes as Volapuk, of uncouth aspect.” No Volapükian he. But his brother is another matter altogether.

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