07.02.2026 @ 11:10:33

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/ 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"                /
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