_________________________________________
/ The Least Successful Collector          \
|                                         |
| Betsy Baker played a central role in    |
| the history of collecting. She was      |
| employed as a servant in the house of   |
| John Warburton (1682-1759) who had      |
| amassed a fine collection of 58 first   |
| edition plays, including most of the    |
| works of Shakespeare.                   |
|                                         |
| One day Warburton returned home to find |
| 55 of them charred beyond legibility.   |
| Betsy had either burned them or used    |
| them as pie bottoms. The remaining      |
| three folios are now in the British     |
| Museum.                                 |
|                                         |
| The only comparable literary figure was |
| the maid who in 1835 burned the         |
| manuscript of the first volume of       |
| Thomas Carlyle's "The Hisory of the     |
| French Revolution", thinking it was     |
| wastepaper.                             |
|                                         |
| -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic    |
\ Failures"                               /
 -----------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||