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The Bookplate Society Holds Super Summer Auction

May 22, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

Morton Stephenson (c.1885 - ?) was a British cellist
and composer for orchestra and the theater.

The Bookplate Society, the international association of collectors, bibliophiles, artists and others dedicated to promote the study of bookplates, is holding its summer online auction. The bidding is open now through August 4, 2013.

Five hundred lots are being offered, with examples from the eighteenth century through the twentieth. The auction is intended for members of the Society but is open to all, member or not.

The entire online catalog can be viewed here. Below, a few choice specimens:

Lovell Latham was a sometime writer who contributed to
the London weekly newspaper Pick-Me-Up (i.e. Oct. 26, 1884)
and The Literary World (i.e. Sept. 16, 1892).

 




Who How?
(Designed by "M.S."?).

Given How's motto, "Let There Be No Envy Or Ill Will;"
the two oil wells in the background; the Texas longhorn
at the figure's (How?) left foot; the happy-sad faces
flanking the figure, How was likely a rich Texas oilman
and happy but didn't want to cause offense. It made him sad.

Matilda Constance Schieffelin Ismay (1877 - 1963) was the wife
of Charles Bower Ismay of Hasselbach Hall, Northamptonshire, England,
who, with his older brother, J. Bruce Ismay,, founded the White Star
Shipping Line, which built the Titanic. J. Bruce, aboard the T,
jumped ship to his everlasting shame and infamy.

The artist's monogram at lower right appears to be
that of Gertrude Hudson (1878 - 1958).

Ethel May Newbold (1882-1933), D.Sc., was a fellow of the
Royal Statistical Society and author of many papers while
coordinating and supervising medical and industrial statistical
inquiries for the Medical Research Council.


No, not that JFK.


We don't yet know who W.E. Stanley Merrett
was but he, apparently, had books on the brain.
His motto was "Practices passionately pursued become habits,"
here presumably referring to his love of book collecting.

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All images courtesy of The Bookplate Society, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Bookplates in a Printer's Library Part I.

Bookplates in a Printer's Library Part II.

Bookplate Special On Menu at Bonham's.

Menacing Bookplates (Don't Mess With This Book!).

The Only Bookplate Designed By René Lalique. 

Authentic G. Washington Bookplate Comes To Auction.

The Man With The Bookplate Jones.

Virginia Library Serves Up Bookplate Special.

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The Girl & The Faun, A Bookbinder, And Citizen Hearst's Last Word

May 23, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


Front cover.

It is written, though the story may be apocryphal, that on his deathbed on August 14, 1951 - just eleven days before I was born - legendary newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst uttered one final, cryptic word:

"Stikeman."

What he meant has baffled scholars ever since. But, because his death ushered in my birth, I took it upon myself to divine the mystery and am pleased to report that the puzzle is solved. 

There is, alas, no deep psychological meaning to reveal, only that c. 1916 Hearst commissioned famed New York bookbinder, Henry Stikeman, to bind a copy of Eden Phillpotts' The Girl and the Faun, published in that year in London by Cecil Palmer and Wayward. I will resist commentary on a publisher named "Wayward." 

Upper doublure.

One of the great and most prominent American bookbinders, "Henry Stikeman’s career virtually paralleled the heyday of art bookbinding in America beginning toward the end of the 19th century, into the beginning of the 20th. A Stikeman binding from the 1880s through, say, 1918/1919, represents the best work of the firm...During its prime, Stikeman & Co. was capable of turning out a stunningly large volume of high quality work. They did the large majority of the special publisher 'sets' of the period (for Scribners, Harcourt, Riverside Press, etc.), likely looking upon that type of work as their bread-and-butter...What’s apparent in this American (specifically, New York) work... is that the binders were a small group, sharing ideas, working together, and intent on creating an American Style. Stikeman and Macdonald both worked at Matthews, Stikeman eventually taking the firm over, MacDonald leaving before then and starting his own firm around 1880" (Jeff Stikeman). 

While publishers' sets may have been the bindery's bread and butter it was their custom, one-off work for wealthy collectors like Hearst that won the firm critical acclaim. Stikeman went whole hog for Hearst on this binding, and it's one of the most magnificent works by Stikeman I've yet had in my hands.

Stamped-signature to lower doublure.


It was bound by Stikeman & Co. in contemporary full brown crushed morocco with multiple gilt-rolled borders and French fillets enclosing a broad gilt decorated frame. Doublures of dark and light brown morocco elegantly gilt rolled and tooled and with an elaborate gilt centerpiece and gilt decorative devices with green and crimson inlays highlight the work. Moiré burnt orange silk endleaves, gilt decorated compartments, gilt rolled edges, and top edge gilt finish the binding. 

Illustrated By Sir Frank Brangwyn.

What's the story with The Girl and the Faun? It's a timeless plot: faun meets girl, faun loses girl, faun gets screwed:  One fine Spring day in ancient Greece, the faun Coix falls in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Iole, a shepherd’s daughter. Alas, she throws him over for a human. Heartbroken yet determined to win her back, Coix beseeches the god Pan to transform him into a human so he can love Iole as she desires to be loved. But when his wish is granted, Coix awakens without his memory - and without Iole. The timeless moral: Be careful what you wish for; fugetaboutit.


Illustrator Sir Frank William Brangwyn (1867–1956) was an Anglo-Welsh artist, painter, water colorist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator, and progressive designer. He contributed four color plates to the book and designed it, with decorative text borders and title page.

"If I ain't then God help me."
This is how a shepherd's daughter typically spoke in ancient Greece.

"I will help you and do your bidding for ever. I love you..."
This is how I typically speak on a first date.

Laid into this copy are two signed autograph letters by Phillpotts.


The first, written by Phillpotts to the editor of The Gipsy on April 30, 1915, declares "a new work of mine...'The Girl & the Faun' is a quaint thing, of which I'll say nothing save that I should much like you to see it."


The second, dated July 25, 1915, discusses the illustrator: 

"My dear Savage, I am sorry to report that Brangwyn doesn't like the thought of 'The Girl & the Faun' being published serially before our book publication after war. I have only just heard this & as it would be a serious thing of he chucked it, I will ask you to let me have it again. I feel this a great deal, for publication in your distinguished paper would have been a joy; but I was committed to F. Brangwyn a long time ago & it will be rather a serious thing if I don't go through with him. Of course he has no claim & if you think it worth while raising the question I will; but I expect you've got plenty of good stuff & can let me have 'The Girl & the Faun without difficulty. Sincerely yours, Eden Phillpotts."


You doubt the Hearst provenance? Laid into the book is a bloviating letter from auctioneer Hammer Galleries dated March 1941 attesting to the book's ownership by Hearst.

What is omitted is the solid that in 1916 Hearst recited from this seductively bound copy of The Girl and the Faun while riding his sled, Murray, while wooing nymph, Susan Alexander, er, Marion Davies, she holding tight: "If I ain't then God help me."

And so Hearst's last, thankful word.

Title page.

[STIKEMAN & Co., binder]. PHILLPOTTS, Eden.The Girl and the Faun. Illustrated by Frank Brangwyn. London: Cecil Palmer & Wayward, 1916.

First edition. Quarto (9 7/8 x 7 3/8 in; 251 x 188 mm). viii, 78, [1, blank], [2. adv.] pp., partially unopened. Four color plates. Decorative titlepage and borders. Two autograph letters, signed, bound at front. Letter of provenance laid in. Bound by Stikeman & Co.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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William Burroughs' Intro To Naked Lunch At $175,000

May 28, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


Calling Dr. Benway:

The first and final draft corrected typescripts of William S. Burroughs' Introduction to the first American edition (NY: Grove Press, 1962) of Naked Lunch (Paris: Olympia Press, 1959), his seminal, controversial work and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature, have come to market. The asking price is $175,000.

From the collection of his friend and editor, Alan Ansen, they are being offered by Glenn Horowitz, Bookseller, the New York City dealer who has made a habit of pulling literary rabbits out of his hat. Within that context these typescripts may be fairly ranked as the rabbit who ate Cleveland.

The first, titled "Postscript" in Burroughs' penciled holograph, is comprised of five recto-only leaves corrected by Burroughs in black ink, with page numbers in same. It is unknown when, exactly, he wrote it but it appears to be c. 1960.

The heavily corrected typescript is Burroughs' first pass at his extended essay, Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness, that would serve as the introduction to the American edition of Naked Lunch. “Postscript” discursively explores the themes and sentiments which motivated Burroughs to write the introduction; it is the text upon which the polished, buffed, and published version was based. 


Bits and pieces of “Postscript” can be found throughout “Deposition,” as well as in its final post-postscript, and the relationship between “Postscript” and the published introduction is immediately obvious. For example, page one of the “Postscript” typescript includes the following notes:

"Hasheiesh [sic], Mescaline, LSD -- ? under the title what is? Who must have junk to live in the structure? When there are no addicts carriers will disintegrate - virus opium."

"Talk exact manner in which junk virus controls words in monkey considered sacred by those who purpose to keep the virus of numbers or remove the bottom number street to cover basic frequency."

The published introduction directly addresses the points noted above, concerning the difference between hallucinogens - hashish, mescaline, LSD  - and heroin. Burroughs writes in part, “There is no evidence that the use of any hallucinogen results in physical dependence. The action of these drugs is physiologically opposite to the action of junk. A lamentable confusion between the two classes of drugs has arisen owing to the zeal of the U.S. and other Narcotic departments...” The introduction also sets forth upon “the exact manner in which the junk virus operates.” 

Within the five-page “Postscript” is a handful of dialogue and a paragraph referring to “Mr Bradly Mr Martin,” a character appearing in the novels of Burroughs' Nova Trilogy: Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket that Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1964). In part, they read:

“Light in eyes and I saw the brains...no time to stop and eat switch fuzz behind me...I told him I'd do it I told him if I catch you on the West Side push you on the tracks...hustle your own mooch...”

"And he looked at me over the blade caught the tarnish black and white subway dawn..Old photo..Couldn't reach me with the knife and fell on the tracks I told him he would and he rushed for I – overcoat I held there teaching him the cloth in the turnstile and learned the cloth stuck there like star fish smoking and switch fuzz whistling down the iron stairs and I caught an uptown cold sore…"

"Mr Bradly Mr Martin teaching him the cloth in the junk hold saw the brains fuzz the rail…"

Neither the dialogue nor the narrative made it into the Introduction and appear to be unpublished.


The final draft appears in three typescripts:

• “Deposition. Testimony Concerning a Sickness,” (ca. 1960), a corrected ribbon typescript of thirteen recto-only leaves (including the one-page “PSS or PPS” noted below), with Burroughs’ holograph corrections in blue ink and copy-editing notes in red ink.

•“Deposition. Testimony Concerning a Sickness,” (ca. 1960), a corrected carbon typescript of eleven recto-only leaves (lacking final page) very neatly incorporating in another hand the changes to the ribbon typescript above, either by erasing the type and replacing it with the correct text or interlined with Burroughs’ text.

• “PSS or PPS.” (ca. 1960), a one-leaf corrected ribbon typescript with Burroughs’ holograph corrections in black ink. It is stapled to “Deposition” above. 


These are a ribbon typescript and carbon copy of Burroughs’ introduction, "Deposition,” as published by Grove Press. The thirteen-page typescript is corrected by Burroughs and his changes are incorporated into the carbon copy as well as the final text as published. Burroughs’ holograph annotations include clarifications to language, e.g., “these notes” becomes “the notes which have now been published,” “measurable” becomes “accurately measurable,” etc., and include corrections to spelling and changes in emphasis with the addition of underlining.

The one-page “PSS or PPS” was not included in the book but did appear with “Deposition” in Grove Press' Evergreen Review (Volume 4, Issues 11-12). It was introduced “as a late post-postscript - a newspeak précis.”

Alan Ansen ("Rollo Greb" in Kerouac's On the Road) was a poet, playwright, and close friend of many Beat Generation writers. Living in Tangier, he spent time with Paul Bowles, Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and others. He lived in Greece during the last forty or so years of his life

Considered to be the only man capable of shaping the hundreds of random pages generated by Burroughs into publishable form, Ansen was brought in by Ginsberg to help edit Naked Lunch. He later preserved the Ginsberg-Burroughs correspondence along with many of the photographs from the period.

To have fresh Burroughs autograph/typescript material enter the marketplace (ABPC records no Burroughs typescript/manuscript material coming to auction within the last thirty-six years) at this late date is somewhat miraculous; all that could be found had, it seemed, been unearthed. But that was before The Amazing Horowitz waved his magic wand, said "abracadabra," and conjured this material out of nowhere and into and out of his hat.

• • •

And now, a treat: Burroughs recites passages concerning Dr. Benway - the Marcus Welby, M.D. from Hell who "performs appendectomies with a rusty sardine can" - from Naked Lunch in his deadpan nasal monotone mashed-up with footage from an episode of Dr. Kildare, and behold! Burroughs' voice coming out of Richard Chamberlain's mouth. Oh, to hear Burroughs croon Three Stars Will Shine Tonight, the 1961 TV show's hit theme song.


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All images courtesy of Glenn Horowitz Bookseller with our thanks.
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Three Visually Arresting Modernist Judaica Posters

May 29, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

Designer Unknown.
"M". c. 1931.

We revisit the Swann Galleries Modernist Poster sale held May 13, 2013.

The linocut poster above is for the original release of film director Fritz Lang's "M" at the Moghrabi Theatre (built in 1930) in Tel Aviv.

After a distinguished career during the silent film era, Lang's first talkie - considered to be his best film - starred Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert, a hunted, haunted by "this evil thing inside me" child murderer who whistles Grieg's ominous In the Hall of the Mountain King when approaching his prey. 

Due to the lurid nature of film's subject matter Lang, who had made his films at the celebrated and artistically influential German studio, UFA (Universum Film AG), worked with Nero Films for this movie to deflect the political pressure bearing down upon him from UFA, a government-supported entity. When sound arrived UFA routinely released versions of major films in several languages. Given that Jews were  persecuted in Germany soon after the movie's release and, later, exterminated wherever Nazis found them, it is fascinating to learn that UFA felt the need to release a version in Hebrew to cater to the audience in then Palestine. It was strictly a financial decision. With the advent of sound movies and language barriers the studio could no longer depend on easy distribution and box-office receipts throughout the world.

Designer unknown.

This same, stark image of a hand, emblazoned with a red "M," appeared on the original German poster but did not have the repeating motif of the letter against the background.

Abram Games (1914-1996).
Give Clothing For Liberated Jewry. 1945.

As a Jew who had been exposed to Nazi atrocities through British war films, Abram Games (1914-1996) was in a unique position to be able to channel his horror in a manner which could potentially assist the decimated Jewish communities of Europe. His Give Clothing For Liberated Jewry (1945) starkly and dramatically captures the desperate plight of concentration camp survivors. (Abram Games: His Life and Work, fig 219).

Abram Games, one of the twentieth century's most influential British graphic designers, believed in using the simplest possible design to create the greatest possible impact.

Beginning as a commercial artist, when WWII broke out he was recruited as an Official War Artist and in that capacity designed over a hundred posters, later creating the symbols of the BBC and the Festival of Britain.

He experimented with "unusual juxtapositions of illustration and typography. Games strove to ensure that his wartime posters were as striking and seductive as the best commercial art.

The "Blonde Bombshell."

"Sometimes Games’ work was deemed too seductive, notably the glamorous ATS girl dubbed the 'Blonde Bombshell' which was criticized by the House of Commons for being too glamorous. Games favored stark, simple and, therefore, all the more arresting images produced by sticking to his philosophy of deriving 'maximum meaning' from 'minimum means'" (Design Museum).

Abram Games (1914-1996)
DP / Over 200,000 Displaced Jews Look To You. 1946.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, Games designed "posters which demanded, rather than appealed to, the Jewish public to give aid to the refugees . . . [In Displaced Persons] two eyes stare out of the initials DP with an appalling urgency; the vestige of a face an embodiment of despair. The lettering underneath . . . is by contrast plain and tiny: no words are really necessary. This is Games at his most powerful" (Abram Games: His Life and Work, p. 177, and fig. 220).  

“All Abram Games’ designs were recognizably his own. They had vigor, imagination, passion and individuality...And he was lucky - and clever - in contriving, over a long and creative working life, to keep on doing what he did best” (David Gentleman).
 
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Images courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, with our thanks.
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The Small Press / Mimeograph Revolution 1940s - 1970s

May 30, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

Jim Schock. Life is a Lousy Drag.
Unicorn Publishing, Co., 1959.

A remarkable research collection of small press magazines and other printed matter representing the growth and proliferation of avant-garde and small press publications, often mimeographed, has come to market via Granary Books in New York.

The Outsider, no. 1. 1961.
Jon Edgar Webb, ed.
Complete run.

The collection is based upon (but not limited to) A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, the New York Public Library's acclaimed 1998 exhibition and catalog that explored the explosive and fertile period of intense innovation and experimentation in American literature and publishing that occurred below the mainstream's radar during the 1940s - 1970s.

The Insect Trust Gazette, no. 3. 1968.
Robert Basara, Leonard Belasco, Jed Irwin, William Levy, eds.
Collection includes nos. 1, 3.
Merlin, no. 1. Spring 1952.
Alexander Trocchi, ed.
Collection includes vol. 1, nos. 1–3, vol. 2, nos. 1, 3.

The individual - a reclusive New Jersey inventor - who amassed the collection joyfully suffered from that dreaded of all maladies, libri legendi aegritudinis, the book collector's disease: he "became obsessed with the secretive nature of the world contained in the exhibition's catalog."  He used the catalog as a guide and thus put together a singular library, one that he augmented with important ancillary material focusing on the West Coast scene.

The Illiterati, no. 4. Summer 1945.
Kermit Sheets and Kemper Nomland, eds.
The Digger Papers. [1968].
24 pp. Published by Paul Krassner.

The Beat Generation, Counterculture, New York School, Venice West, San Francisco Renaissance, Wichita Vortex, Black Mountain, Mavericks, Hippies, Diggers, and related manifestations of the swirling undercurrent of creativity of the era are all represented in the collection, which includes complete runs and significant examples of Angel Hair, Beatitude, Big Table, Black Mountain Review, C, Caterpillar, Fuck You, Gnaoua, Grist, The Hasty Papers, Insect Trust Gazette, J, Kulchur, Locus Solus, Matter, Measure, Miscellaneous Man, Merlin, Mother, Now, Open Space, The Outsider, Pacific Nation, Poems from the Floating World, Renaissance, San Francisco Earthquake, Set, Some/thing, Tree, Trobar, Whe're/, and Yugen.

[Wallace Berman]. Frammis.
Jack Hirschman and Jack Mueller, eds.
Published by Artaud’s Elbow, Berkeley, 1979.
Edward Leedskalnin. A Book in Every Home:
Containing Three Subjects: Ed’s Sweet Sixteen,
Domestic and Political Views.
Self-published, 1936.

Edward Leedskalnin was born January 12, 1887, in Latvia.
At 26 he was engaged to wed a girl 10 years younger whom
he called his "Sweet Sixteen." She broke off the engagement
the night before their wedding and, brokenhearted,
he moved to North America.

Around 1919 he purchased a small piece of land in
Florida City and over the next 28 years constructed
(and lived in) a massive coral monument dedicated
to his "Sweet Sixteen" called "Rock Gate Park."
Working alone at night, Leedskalnin eventually dug
up and sculpted over 1,100 tons of coral into a monument
that would later be known as the Coral Castle.
He would often be asked how he was able to move such
huge boulders and replied:
"I know the secrets of the people who built the pyramids
(being those at the site at Giza in Egypt)."

A Book in Every Home is the longest of Leedskalnin's books
and is a treatise on moral education. He also wrote theories
on magnetism and electricity, including what he called the
“Perpetual Motion Holder.” He went to the grave
refusing to reveal his secret knowledge of the Egyptians.

The '60s West Coast scene is represented by samples of The San Francisco Oracle, The Southern California Oracle, Communications Company (the publishing arm of the Diggers); items relating to the explosive San Francisco music scene including a collection of handbills and postcards from Family Dog and others; newspapers and magazines of radical politics such as The Berkeley Barb, Ramparts, The Realist; uncommon pre-zine self-published journals of offbeat commentary such as Horseshit and Jack Green's Newspaper; and a wide assortment of pamphlets, magazines and diverse additional obscure and rarely seen publications from the period.

Gnaoua, no. 1. Spring 1964.
Ira Cohen, ed.
Sole issue, no. 1]
Measure, no. 2. Winter 1958.
John Wieners, ed.
Collection includes nos. 1–2.

The writers, artists, and photographers who contributed to these magazines include a who's who of  American (and, to a lesser degree, European) arts and letters in the second half of the twentieth century,  the wrecking crew whose adventures and experiments upset the status quo and built the foundation for a new American post-War culture, a once alternative fraternity now in the mainstream of Postmodern America with a degree of acceptance that they could never have imagined, once outside, now venerated, 21st century insiders:

Now Now. 1965.
Charles Plymell, ed.
Collection includes nos. 1–2.

Robert Duncan, Kenneth Patchen, Denise Levertov, Alex Comfort, William Everson, William Burford, Alexander Trocchi, Christopher Logue, Patrick Brangwyn, Alfred Chester, H. Charles Hatcher, James Fidler, Patrick Bowles, Richard Seaver, A.J. Ayer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, Robert Creeley, Jack Kerouac, Edward Dahlberg, William S. Burroughs, Gilbert Sorrentino, Lenore Kandel, ruth weiss, Philip Lamantia, Gregory Corso Richard Brautigan, Joe Brainard, Ted Berrigan, Andy Warhol, Gerald Malanga, Frank O'Hara, John Thomas, Charles Bukowski, Neal Cassady, George Bataille, Ed Ruscha, Antonin Artaud, Brion Gysin, Sinclair Beiles, Michael McClure, Bruce Connor, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Bruce Connor, Wallace Berman, Dennis Hopper, Robert Bly, Gary Snyder, V.R. (Bunny) Lang, Leroi Jones, Alfred Jarry, Peter Berg, Emmett Grogan, and Paul Krassner.
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All images courtesy of Granary Books, currently offering this collection, with our thanks. Inquiries can be made here.
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Judy Garland Spots James Mason In Rare 1805 Book

May 31, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


The original, unsigned and undated, artwork for a series of satirical prints, Symptoms of Drilling, signed on the published prints as  "Designed & Etched by H.B.H. Esq. 1805" without imprint, recently fell into my lap. Bound by Riviere and Son c. 1900 - incredibly with misspelled title, "Symptons," on the upper cover - it was from the collection of the great film  director, George Cukor, and bears his celebrated bookplate designed by Paul Landacre.

Bookplate by Paul Landacre.
"For George / I came across this book & spotted James Mason. Judy"

It was a gift to Cukor from Judy Garland, inscribed, "For George/ I ran across this book & spotted James Mason / Judy." The book was likely presented and the message likely written c. 1953-54, the years that Cukor's production of Garland's star-vehicle, A Star Is Born, co-starring Mason, was shot and released. 

Symptoms of Drilling / Fall in Gentlemen!- heads up! - eyes right!
Ready! -p'sent! - wait Gentlemen, wait for the Word "Fire!"

The watercolors, in a style similar to Thomas Rowlandson, depict a motley crew of comical recruits engaged in soldier's training under the direction of a drill sergeant. The captions have been added by hand in the sky above the heads of the recruits. A bookseller's description tipped to the front endpaper mistakenly attributes them to Rowlandson but the only surviving copies of the published prints, at the British Museum (incomplete set) and Brown University (complete set), bear the signature and date at noted above.

Shoulder Arms.

It remains unknown who "H.B.H." or "H, H.B." is, and the published album is unrecorded by Tooley or Abbey.

March!!!- Cock-up there!
To the Right - face!

The series might well have been titled, "1st Division, Wildly Divided, Amateur Army... Chaos on the March!!!" If someone looking like James Mason is part of this platoon of British Gomer Pyles I don't see him. Miss Garland was clearly poking fun at the British actor who, in A Star Is Born, portrays washed-up movie star, Norman Maine, to Judy Garland's rising star, Esther Blodgett / Vicki Lester, the two in a heartfelt yet disastrous marriage.

Authentic Judy Garland autograph material is difficult to come by - studio publicists routinely signed still photographs - and her signature mutated over the years, her autograph from the 1930s - 1940s quite distinct from later examples. As odd as her signature appears here in contrast to earlier ones there is little doubt that this inscription is genuine. Why would someone make the  effort to deceive with this obscure, one-off album, and why would it be in George Cukor's possession? 

Had she remained in character the inscription would have been tear-stained and signed, "Mrs. Norman Maine," how Vicki Lester accepted her Academy Award after dearly beloved husband Norman Maine took a long walk off a short pier and journeyed into the drink for a final, dramatic exit stage-right to continue his full-time drinking into eternity.
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[H.B.H. or H., H.B.].Symptoms of Drilling. N.p.: n.p., n.d. [1805]. Oblong octavo (5¾ x 16¾ in; 145 x 427 mm). A set of five original watercolor illustrations folded in two.

1. Symptoms of Drilling. Fall in Gentlemen!- heads up! - eyes right!
2. To the Right - face!
3.  March!!!- Cock-up there!
4.  Shoulder Arms
5.  Ready! -p'sent! - wait Gentlemen, wait for the Word "Fire!" 
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Mr. O'Squat And The Widow Shanks Schlep To London

June 3, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz
 
Published 1822 (titlepage; 1823 imprinted on outer drum plate).

The misadventures of the recently married Mister O'Squat and the Widow Shanks, whose honeymoon journey to London, immortalized in A Trip To Town, a boxwood drum panorama published in 1822 by William Sams, was strewn with comic pratfalls and perils, is the subject of today's episode of The Newlywed Game.


We present the panorama as Exhibit A. It contains twelve hand-colored engraved panels, each introduced with verses as captions.


The prospect of vegetating in the countryside was too much for the couple to bear. They had social and cultural ambitions that could not be satisfied unless they ditched their rustic digs and high-tailed it to London. Fate had other plans for them; Robert Scott's disastrous South Pole expedition had better prospects.


It's one catastrophe after another, and the nearer to London they get the less chance they have of  arriving with their dignity - and derrieres - intact. Their marriage and tendons and ligaments are strained by the trek.


Little is known about A Trip To London's publisher, printer-bookseller William Sams, "Bookseller to his Royal Highness the Duke of York opposite the Palace." OCLC notes over a hundred titles (some duplicates) published by him 1818-1842, From Poetical Rhapsodies to Brian, The Probationer, or The Red Hand.

It pains me to report that shortly after taping this episode of The Newlywed Game Mr O'Squat and the former Widow Shanks' marriage went kaput. She fell into the doleful dumps and withdrew from society, he split the scene and hasn't been seen since, nor, it appears, has the print record of their travails, A Trip To Town. It is not found in Tooley or Abbey, has no copies recorded by OCLC/KVK in institutional holdings worldwide, no copies at auction since ABPC began indexing results in 1923, no copy in the collection of the British Museum, nor is it found in the annals of our sister TV series, Divorce Court. It is an incredibly scarce item, as rare as a Taylor Swift long-term relationship.
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Title page.

[PANORAMA].A Trip to Town. Published by William Sams Bookseller to His Royal Highness, The Duke of York. Opposite the palace St. James Street, London: 1822 (1823 on drum plate).

Drum panorama of twelve hand-colored panels, 310 inches in length when fully unspooled. Drum height: 7 inches. Drum diameter: 2 3/4 inches. The title page measures 3 3/4" (95.25 mm) length x 5 1/4" (133.35 mm) high. With twelve panels all measuring 5 1/4" (133.35 mm) high. The other panels have various lengths. Their measures are: Panel 01: 27 3/4"  (704.85 mm); Panel 02: 28 1/8"  (714.375 mm); Panel 03: 28 3/8"  (720.725 mm); Panel 04: 28" (711.2 mm); Panel 05: 28 1/4"  (717.55 mm); Panel 06: 27 5/8"  (701.675 mm); Panel 07: 28 1/8"  (714.375 mm); Panel 08: 28" (711.2 mm); Panel 09: 28 1/4"  (717.55 mm); Panel 10: 28 1/4"  (717.55 mm); Panel 11: 28" (711.2 mm); Panel 12: 27" (685.8 mm). Each panel is introduced with brief text as extended caption.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Pigmy Revels: Laughter For the Languid, Fun For the Feeble in a Boxwood Drum.
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A Glutton Of Literature Hungry For Learning But Starved Of Wisdom

June 4, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848).
 The following is excerpted from Isaac D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, originally published in 1791 and expanded to multiple volumes in 1793, 1807, 1817, and 1823 (Second Series). A compilation of literary anecdotes and lore, this piece appears as Article 121, a cautionary tale about the dangers of reading too much, thinking about it too little, and thus becoming "a living Cyclopædia, though a dark lantern."

"Anthony Magliabechi, who died at the age of eighty, was celebrated for his great knowledge of books. He has been called the Helluo, or the Glutton of Literature, as Peter Comestor received his nickname from his amazing voracity for food he could never digest; which appeared when having fallen sick of so much false learning, he threw it all up in his “Sea of Histories,” which proved to be the history of all things, and a bad history of everything. Magliabechi’s character is singular; for though his life was wholly passed in libraries, being librarian to the Duke of Tuscany, he never wrote himself. There is a medal which represents him sitting, with a book in one hand, and with a great number of books scattered on the ground. The candid inscription signifies, that “it is not sufficient to become learned to have read much, if we read without reflection.” This is the only remains we have of his own composition that can be of service to posterity. A simple truth, which may however be inscribed in the study of every man of letters.

"His habits of life were uniform. Ever among his books, he troubled himself with no other concern whatever, and the only interest he appeared to take for any living thing was his spiders; for whom, while sitting among his literary piles, he affected great sympathy; and perhaps in contempt of those whose curiosity appeared impertinent, he frequently cried out, “to take care not to hurt his spiders!” Although he lost no time in writing himself, he gave considerable assistance to authors who consulted him. He was himself an universal index to all authors. He had one book, among many others, dedicated to him, and this dedication consisted of a collection of titles of works which he had had at different times dedicated to him, with all the eulogiums addressed to him in prose and verse. When he died, he left his large collection of books for the public use; they now compose the public library of Florence.

"Heyman, a celebrated Dutch professor, visited this erudite librarian, who was considered as the ornament of Florence. He found him amongst his books, of which the number was prodigious. Two or three rooms in the first story were crowded with them, not only along their sides, but piled in heaps on the floor, so that it was difficult to sit, and more so to walk. A narrow space was contrived, indeed, so that by walking sideways you might extricate yourself from one room to another. This was not all; the passage below stairs was full of books, and the staircase from the top to the bottom was lined with them. When you reached the second story, you saw with astonishment three rooms, similar to those below, equally full, so crowded, that two good beds in these chambers were also crammed with books.

1848, all in one volume edition.

"This apparent confusion did not, however, hinder Magliabechi from immediately finding the books he wanted. He knew them all so well, that even to the least of them it was sufficient to see its outside, to say what it was; and indeed he read them day and night, and never lost sight of any. He ate on his books, he slept on his books, and quitted them as rarely as possible. During his whole life he only went twice from Florence; once to see Fiesoli, which is not above two leagues distant, and once ten miles farther by order of the Grand Duke. Nothing could be more simple than his mode of life; a few eggs, a little bread, and some water, were his ordinary food. A drawer of his desk being open, Mr. Heyman saw there several eggs, and some money which Magliabechi had placed there for his daily use. But as this drawer was generally open, it frequently happened that the servants of his friends, or strangers who came to see him, pilfered some of these things; the money or the eggs.

"His dress was as cynical as his repasts. A black doublet, which descended to his knees; large and long breeches; an old patched black cloak; an amorphous hat, very much worn, and the edges ragged; a large neckcloth of coarse cloth, begrimed with snuff; a dirty shirt, which he always wore as long as it lasted, and which the broken elbows of his doublet did not conceal; and, to finish this inventory, a pair of ruffles which did not belong to the shirt. Such was the brilliant dress of our learned Florentine; and in such did he appear in the public streets, as well as in his own house. Let me not forget another circumstance; to warm his hands, he generally had a stove with fire fastened to his arms, so that his clothes were generally singed and burnt, and his hands scorched. He had nothing otherwise remarkable about him. To literary men he was extremely affable, and a cynic only to the eye; anecdotes almost incredible are related of his memory. It is somewhat uncommon that as he was so fond of literary food, he did not occasionally dress some dishes of his own invention, or at least some sandwiches to his own relish. He indeed should have written CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. He was a living Cyclopædia, though a dark lantern.

"Of such reading men, Hobbes entertained a very contemptible, if not a rash opinion. His own reading was inconsiderable, and he used to say, that if he had spent as much time in reading as other men of learning, he should have been as ignorant as they. He put little value on a large library, for he considered all books to be merely extracts and copies, for that most authors were like sheep, never deviating from the beaten path. History he treated lightly, and thought there were more lies than truths in it. But let us recollect after all this, that Hobbes was a mere metaphysician, idolising his own vain and empty hypotheses. It is true enough that weak heads carrying in them too much reading may be staggered. Le Clerc observes of two learned men, De Marcily and Barthius, that they would have composed more useful works had they read less numerous authors, and digested the better writers."
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I am indebted to J.J. Philips for drawing my attention to this piece from Curiosities of Literature, a book with which I am familiar but have not, admittedly, read in its entirety.
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The whole book may be read online at Spamula or Project Gutenberg.
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Communism Never Looked So Good

June 5, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


In 1884, after artist-poet-designer-printer William Morris compulsively read his copy of the first edition in French (1872-1875) of Karl Marx's Das Kapital until its flimsy binding was a wreck, he asked the great T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, then new to the craft of bookbinding but with enormous promise and taste, to rebind the book's first volume before it completely fell apart within his enthusiastic hands.

Morris, who had joined the new Social Democratic Federation, Britian's first fan club for Marx, shortly before wading into Das Kaptial waist-deep, was besotted with the German philosopher. He "was full of Karl Marx whom he had begun to read in translation" according to an April 13, 1883 entry in his friend Cormell Price's diary. Morris loved Marx's take on history but Marx's economics were another matter: Morris admitted that they caused him "agonies of confusion of the brain."

Despite the headaches, Morris participated in a march to Highgate Cemetery where pilgrims congregated to celebrate the anniversary of Marx's death at his grave on March 14, 1883.

This was the second binding by Cobden-Sanderson in his own workshop, the Doves Bindery (he had previously apprenticed with Roger de Coverly), a remarkable achievement for someone new to the art and craft.

After William Morris's death in 1896, Cobden-Sanderson, at the behest of Sydney Cockerell, then Morris's secretary, recorded the story of this binding on its lower end leaf:

"This book - Le Capital - was bound and tooled for William Morris by me in my first workshop on Maiden Lane 1884 and finished the 9th. October and the pattern on its sides and back is the second of my making. The tools were second hand and bought - and used - at haphazard, but the tooling and the binding pleased William Morris and his pleasure was my own great delight. In Memoriam I write this the 24th. February 1897. T.J. Cobden-Sanderson. I should like to add the book was his own & before it came to me to be bound had been worn to loose sections by his own constant study of it. T.J.C-S."

It is unknown what formal arrangements were made between Morris and Cobden-Sanderson beyond the presumed from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.

I suspect, however, that Lenin would have proclaimed this binding of Das Kapital an example of  excess completely out of touch with simple, proletarian utility. The fact that it wound up in the collection of Estelle Doheny, heiress to her husband Edward's vast oil fortune, would have surely thrown him into a fit. Karl Marx finely dressed and living with a capitalist fat cat? Nyet!
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MARX, Karl.Le Capital. Traduction de M.J. Roy, entièrement révisée par l'auteur. Paris: Maurice Lachatre et Cie, [1872-1875].

Tidcombe, Cobden-Sanderson no. 2. Wormsley Library 81.
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Common Sense Costs $545,000 In 21st C. America

June 6, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


An extraordinary association copy of the scarce first edition, first issue, of Thomas Paine's iconic anti-monarchical pamphlet, Common Sense (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1776), sold at Sotheby's - New York on Tuesday June 4, 2013 during its Library of a Distinguished American Collector sale. Estimated to sell for $400,000 - $600,000, the hammer fell at $545,000, including buyer's premium.

The first page of the text bears a hastily written note by founding patriot Henry Wisner (1720-1790), a representative from Goshen, New York to the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1777.  He fully supported the Declaration of Independence although he was not present to vote on or sign the document. He served in various military and political capacities during the Revolution, supplied the Continental Army with gunpowder and weapons, and was instrumental in the laying of the two Great Chains across the Hudson River in 1776.

Addressed to John Mckesson, another founding patriot, a prominent figure in New York politics, and Secretary of the Committee of Safety for New York, Wisner's inscription reads: "Sir I have only to ask the favour of you to Read this pamphlet, consult Mr. Scott and such of the Committee of Safety as you think proper particularly Orange and Ulster [Wisner owned four powder mills in these New York counties] and let me know their and your opinion of the general spirit of it. I would have wrote a letter on the subject but the bearer is waiting. Henry Wisner at Philadelphia to John McKesson at New York."

Though undated, it is clear from the content of Wisner's note that this copy of pamphlet was sent to  McKesson months before the vote on the Declaration of Independence, perhaps even shortly after its publication.  McKesson duly received the pamphlet and signed his name on the title-page.

This is a famous copy, noted in Moncure Daniel Conway's chapter on Common Sense in his The Life of Thomas Paine: With a History of His Literary, Political, and Religious Career in America, France, and England (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons/The Knickerbocker Press, 1892). After citing Wisner's inscription Conway continues:

"In pursuance of this General Scott suggested a private meeting, and McKesson read the pamphlet aloud. New York, the last State to agree to separation, was alarmed by the pamphlet, and these leaders at first thought of answering it, but found themselves without the necessary arguments. Henry Wisner, however, required arguments rather than orders, and despite the instructions of his State gave New York the honor of having one name among those who, on July 4th, voted for independence" (p. 62).
 
"Of the paramount influence of Paine's Common Sense there can indeed be no question.  It reached Washington soon after tidings that Norfolk, Virginia, had been burned (Jan. 1st) by Lord Dunmore, as Falmouth (now Portland), Maine, had been, Oct. 17, 1775, by ships under Admiral Graves. The General wrote to Joseph Reed, from Cambridge, Jan. 31st: 'A few more of such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in the pamphlet Common Sense, will not leave numbers at a loss to decide upon the propriety of separation" (ibid pp. 61-62). 

Common Sense is of the utmost rarity with only three other complete copies (with all prelim and end leaves, and no facsimiles) of the first edition, first issue, in decent condition selling at auction since 1945: one in 1967, another in 1975 with a defective title-page, and the Engelhard copy, which sold for $110,00 in 1996.
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[PAINE, Thomas].Common sense addressed to the inhabitants of America, on the following interesting subjects. I. Of the origin and design of government in general, with concise remarks on the English Constitution. II. Of monarchy and hereditary succession. III. Thoughts on the present state of American affairs. IV. Of the present ability of America, with some miscellaneous reflections. Philadelphia: Printed, and sold by R. Bell in Third Street, 1776. Twelvemo. [4], 77, [1] pp.

Bristol  B4309. Gimbel CS-1. Church 1135. Shipton & Mooney 43120. Adams, T.R. American Pamphlets 222d. English Short Title Catalog,; W32284.
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Laptop Computer Discovered On Ancient Greek Vase

June 7, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

μήλο φορητό υπολογιστή

Evidence that ancient Greek civilization possessed advanced technology beyond the Antikythera mechanism, the earliest complex mechanical instrument, used for calculating the movements of the stars and predicting solar and lunar eclipses - in short, a prototype computer - has been strengthened by the discovery of a laptop computer depicted on an ancient Greek vase.

The image is of the Oracle of Orpheus, the head of Orpheus offering prophecies to a young man who records the predictions on his laptop while Apollo observes at right.

Identified on the vase as μήλο φορητό υπολογιστή, tech-anthropologists have yet to discern how the device's mechanism worked; there is no visible evidence of power cord or battery. The young man appears to be operating a crude pedal with his right foot, apparently the source for power generation.

In what is, perhaps, the most troubling aspect of this image, Orpheus's head, supposedly buried near Antissa on the island of Lesbos after his body was torn part by Thracian Maenads, is depicted as a late 20th century news anchor, a typical "talking head." This is radical because in ancient myth the head of Orpheus is usually singing mournful torch songs for Eurydice. It's tantamount to Frank Sinatra transmogrifying into the Oracle at Delphi and delivering a cryptic message as a late night news bulletin:

It's a quarter to three, there's no one in the shrine 'cept you and me.
So set 'em up Zeus, I gotta little story that ends in a noose.
We're drinkin' mead,  friend,
To the end
Of a brief episode.
So make it one for Eurydice,
And one more for the road

Orpheus rejected worship of all Gods except the sun, whom he called Apollo. But even Apollo had his limits and after listening to the Oracle of Orpheus until he couldn't stand it any longer, gave Orpheus the hook and shut his mouth. Here, Apollo seems to be saying, "Hey, I want one of those things!" It is entirely possible that this vase and its message went ancient-world viral.

In a telling detail, the young man is using a stylus to depress the computer's keys, conclusively demonstrating that from the very beginning laptop makers presumed everyone had toothpick fingers able to navigate a cramped keyboard design inspired by canned sardines.
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Caution: These Books Are Too Hot To Handle

June 10, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

Cover art by Lou Marchetti.

Stories that scorch the visual word form and Exner's areas, the reading centers of the brain…Plots that burn…Books that ignite the senses, singe the eyes, sear the emotions.


These are the tomes that try men's souls, too heated to hold…

Cover art by Robert Stanley.

…too torrid to read without flame-retardant underwear.


Summer reading that sunburns...


…Infernos in print...


…Romantic rotisseries.


Books that inflame family and friends...


...cry Hell from Mountain of Fire and Miracles publishing, "a full gospel ministry devoted to the Revival of Apostolic Signs and Holy Ghost fireworks"...


...and commit arson on unsuspecting readers.


The books about off-duty firemen with fire in the pants,


and flaming fly balls that light up the outfield.


The hypothetically explosive books that generate anomalously high energy under certain specific reading conditions that cannot be replicated outside of a library...


or strip joint.


The books about sordid dens where hot wax was made to melt turntables and heat up the ears,


...and made again.


These are the books you read with oven mitts.

And this is the refried title with sizzle lost, a title whose pilot light has extinguished with temperature falling to absolute zero.

It's a title to forever retire, an appellation to entomb in a deep freeze,  a cliché now


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Alan Turing Takes Off At Christie's

June 11, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


A copy of Alan Turing's On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the entscheidungsproblem (1936), the foundation of modern digital computing and Turing's most important and lasting achievement to mathematics, is being offered by Christie's-London in its Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts sale tomorrow, June 12, 2013. It is estimated to sell for between $22,830 - $30,440 (£15,000-£20,000).

It's one of ten lots of Turing material being offered, a trove for the collector of rare science, mathematics, or technology books.

"In 1935 while at Cambridge, Turing attended M.H.A. Newman's course on the Foundations of Mathematics. While Kurt Gödel had demonstrated that arithmetic could not be proved consistent, and it was certainly not consistent and complete (see lots 137 and 138), the last of mathematics' fundamental problems as posed by David Hilbert remained: is mathematics decidable? In other words, was there a definite method which could be applied to any assertion which was guaranteed to produce a correct decision as to whether that assertion was true. Known by its German name Entscheidungsproblem, Newman posed the question as to whether a mechanical process could be applied to this. By the words 'mechanical process' what Newman really meant was 'definite method' or 'rule;' but for Turning 'mechanical' meant 'machine.'

"Turing imagined a machine set up with a table of behavior to add, multiply, divide, etc. If one assembled lots of different tables for lots of different calculations, and then ordered them by rank of complexity, starting with the simplest, then in theory it would be possible to produce a list of all computable numbers. However, no such list could possibly contain all the real numbers (i.e. all infinite decimals), and therefore the computable could give rise to the uncomputable. Thus Turing understood that no machine -- or "definite method" "mechanical process" -- could ever solve all mathematical questions; and therefore the answer to the Entscheidungsproblem was that mathematics was undecidable.

"Unfortunately, Alonzo Church had fractionally pre-empted Turing by coming to the same conclusion on the Entscheidungsproblem. However, Church had used the very different approach of lambda calculus, and Newman realized the greatness of Turing's paper lay in his unique approach and conception of machines to attack mathematical problems. Thus, this paper also laid the foundations for modern digital computing. It was a brilliant amalgamation of pure mathematical logic and theory with a practical engineering component. The abstract machines described in 'On computable numbers' would become the reality of Colossus and modern microprocessors."


This copy was the property of acclaimed mathematician and author R.O. Gandy, who inscribed the first leaf in ink below half-title "with a few corrections to misprints etc. by ROG," and added some pencil marginalia.

• • •

My thanks to Sven Becker of Christie's for tolerating my wholesale reprint of his catalog note for this lot. If I had to study the material all by myself I'd be thrown back to 1979, when I gamely attempted to read and understand Douglas R. Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning Godel, Escher, Bach. An Eternal Golden Braid: A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll,  and soon ran out of luck when I ran out of smarts, this area of thought lost in a fifth cerebral ventricle which only I possess: the sinkhole at the center of my brain.
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TURING, Alan.On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem. Offprint from: Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, ser. 2, vol. 42. London: November 12th 1936. Octavo (275 x 184mm). 34pp., 230-262 (only, lacking last two leaves, pp.263-266). Stapled (lacking the original wrappers, first leaf almost detached, soiling and staining). Provenance: R.O. Gandy.

[With:] 

On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem. A correction. Offprint from: Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, ser. 2, vol. 43. London: 1937. 8° (275 x 184mm). 4pp., 544-546. (Creasing and soiling to gutter.) Original olive-green wrappers, stapled (one staple lacking, the remaining one rusted, soiling and staining, wrappers detached. Provenance: R.O. Gandy (small correction in pencil to first page).

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Images courtesy of Christie's, with our thanks.
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A Feast Of Fine Bindings

June 12, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

[Church of England]. The Book of Common Prayer…
London: W. and J. Wilde, 1699.
Binding by Richard Balley.

We've pulled out the white linen tablecloth, set the table with sterling dinnerware,  crystal champagne flutes, and platinum serving tray spread with fine bindings. Bon appetit!

Plunging necklines, sure. Backless bindings?

Seven "backless" bindings by Richard Balley, a late 17th century bookbinder in London, are known to have survived, and the above example is possibly the best preserved: because of their construction they opened poorly, were fragile, and easily fell apart. As such, they have little practical value and are noteworthy only because of their decorative nature; they are, at best, binding oddities. In the early eighteenth century the "wicked old biblioclast" and "the most hungry and rapacious" of book collectors, a bookseller who stood at the center of the London booktrade, John Bagford, wrote of Richard Balley that, "he hath contrived to bind a book that at sight you could not know the fore-edge from the back, both being cut and gilded alike, but this is a mere piece of curiosity, but still shows the genius of the workman."

FRENAUD, André. Enorme Figure de la Déesse Raison.
Paris: Joseph Zichieri, 1951.
Binding by Pierre-Lucien Martin.

Bound in 1967 in black goatskin after a design by Pierre-Lucien Martin (1913-1985) the above book is one of only twenty-four copies on papier pur chiffon d'Auvergne from a total edition of only thirty-four copies, this being copy no. 28.

Pierre-Lucien Martin studied bookbinding with Charles Chanat and design with Robert Bonfils and worked for several binders until winning the Prix de la Reliure Originale after World War II and opening his own bindery. Such was the demand for his work that he had to step away from actual binding and employ others as forwarders and finishers to execute his designs.

As here, lettering, multi-colored onlays, and trompe-l'oeil effects characterize much of his work

SUARES, André. Cirque.
Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1933 (but unpublished).
Binding by Paul Bonet, 1956.

André Suarès' Cirque, featuring illustrations by Georges Rouault, was never published as planned. Only five copies, put together from disparate elements as maquettes by binder Paul Bonet between 1956 and 1959, have survived. Bonet designed their bindings, René Desmules forwarded, and André Jeanne finished them. Each is slightly different, a variant of the above example.

LUCIUS APULEIUS. De Cupidinis et Psyches Amoribus fabula anilis.
London: Ballantyne Press for he Vale Press, 1901.
Binding by Sibyl Pye.

Anna Sybella Pye, aka Sibyl, (1879-1958) is considered to be one of the most original bookbinders of the twentieth century. She began binding in 1906, met Charles Ricketts, whose bindings for his Vale Press she greatly admired and became her primary influence. He designed tools especially for her, including a few for this binding but most here are of her own creation. Here and elsewhere she specialized in inlaid bindings, excising the foundation leather and fitting leathers of other colors into the empty space, a much more difficult technique than onlaying, the far simpler and common method of applying thin leather atop the foundation. Her bindings were exhibited in Europe and and here in America. Her best work dates from 1925-1940.

BUNYAN, John. The Pilgrim's Progress.
[Shakespeare Head Press for]:
London: The Cresset Press, 1928.
Binding by Philip Smith, 1972.

Profiles In Binding: Philip Smith was born in 1928 and in 1972 designed the above binding shaped to a head in profile at board's fore-edge, the head in question that of the Pilgrim of title, his progress limned in the elaborate scenes symbolically depicted in different leathers.

In 1957, Smith joined the bindery of Douglas Cockerell & Son (Sydney Morris Cockerell). In 1961 he established his own shop to work as an creative book artist.

LUCIANUS SAMOSATENSIS. Dialogues.
Paris: Tériade, Théo Schmied, 1951.
Binding by Rose Adler, 1952.

Born in Paris, Rose Adler (1890-1959) designed jewelry, clothes, furniture, toiletry items, even mirrors but she is best known for her bookbinding designs, which later in her career became simplified, relying upon her choice of colors and mix of calf and goatskin leathers. 

She did not execute her binding designs but, rather, depended upon skilled craftsmen of her choice, which, more often than not, was, as here, Guy Raphaël, a long-time collaborator.

[Sammelband of Seven German Protestant Theological Works].
Breslau: Scharffenberg, 1573-1575.


The above volume is bound as a Sechsfächerband, a six-fold binding that can be opened in one of six different directions, revealing one book at a time. These type of bindings are generically known as Vexierbücher (puzzle or tease books, i.e. bindings that vex). As with Balley's backless bindings, multi-fold bindings are structurally weak and fall apart if stared at too hard for too long.

Produced from the mid-sixteenth century forward, they are primarily found on religious and devotional books. Why?

It appears that they provided quiet, unobtrusive amusement during long church sermons. As sacrilegious as this may seem, it's innocence itself compared to playing cards or little games during religious services; two examples of six-fold bindings on devotional books from the mid-late sixteenth century contain little boxes to store cards, etc.

In the late fourteenth century, Jean de Charlier de Gerson (1363-1429), famed doctor of theology, religious orator, and chancellor of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, condemned the playing of cards in church. His complaints were, evidently, ignored. Churchgoers continued to struggle against boredom, whether playing cards, twiddling thumbs, or amusing themselves with curiously bound prayer books.
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All images reproduced from The Wormsley Library: A Personal Selection by Sir Paul Getty (Maggs Bros./Morgan Library, 1999), with our thanks. If you love fine bindings, this book, the catalog to the Morgan Library's exhibition, is a must for your shelf. 
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Of Related Interest:

Magnificent Bindings, Bound To Be Great. 

The Guild of Women Binders, Bound To Be Great.

More Magnificent Bindings, Bound To Be Great.

The $65,000 Binding, Bound To Be Great.

Drop-Dead Gorgeous Bindings, Bound To Be Great.
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Ernest Hemingway's Typewriter Comes To Auction

June 17, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

 
One of the most important literary relics of the 20th century, Ernest Hemingway’s fully documented typewriter, on which he typed his last book, is being offered by auctioneer Profiles In History in its Rare Books & Manuscripts sale, Wednesday, July 10, 2013.  It is estimated to sell for $60,000 - $80,000.


The Halda Swedish-made typewriter is fully functional and comes with its original leatherette case exhibiting somewhat tattered transportation stickers from the American Export Line and the French Line. Both have crucial identification in an unknown hand, marked “E. Hemi...” on the American Export Line sticker, and “Hemingway” with destination of “Le Hav...” on the French Line sticker, each torn and scuffed from extensive travel. The typewriter was obtained from famed author A. E. Hotchner, Hemingway's close friend, who wrote the definitive biography, Papa Hemingway.


Hotchner obtained the typewriter from the heirs of well-known Hemingway friend Bill Davis, Teo and Nena Davis. Bill Davis maintained a house in Malaga, Spain where Hemingway lived in 1959. Author Hotchner indicated in a private interview that he was there with Hemingway in that year when he was typing portions of The Dangerous Summer, on this very typewriter during 1959-1960. During this period, Hemingway was working on the final draft of his Paris memoirs from the 1920s which would later become A Moveable Feast, so it is quite possible this typewriter was used in creating that work as well. The typewriter is accompanied by a signed letter of provenance from Nena Davis, who witnessed Hemingway using this typewriter while writing The Dangerous Summer, his non-fiction account of the rivalry between bullfighters Luis Miguel Dominguín and his brother-in-law, Antonio Ordóñez, during the "dangerous summer" of 1959.

This typewriter was last seen in the marketplace in 2009 when it was offered by John Reznikoff's University Archives for $100,000.

For perspective, in 2009 Christie’s-New York sold author Cormac McCarthy’s typewriter, used to compose his novels, for the extraordinary sum of $254,500. Had this Hemingway typewriter been used to write The Sun Also Rises its estimate would surely exceed that quarter million dollar price.

Below, Reznikoff talks about this typewriter and demonstrates its functionality.

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Images courtesy of Profiles In History, with our thanks. 
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Of Related Interest:

Never Seen Hemingway Photos As Teen Come To Auction.

Hemingway Drinks Snake Wine, Gets Punched Out, And Other News From "Ernesto."

Hemingway Letter Recounts Near-Fatal Plane Crash.

Ernest Hemingway Down For The Count.
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Photographers On Reading

June 18, 2013, 2:30 am
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By Alastair Johnston

Who doesn't love a good book? And in our image-saturated society, who doesn't love a good photo of someone else reading? The Hungarian photographer André Kertész (1894-1985) published a book of sixty-three candid black and white photos of people reading, called appropriately enough ON READING (New York, Grossman, 1971). 

It celebrated the universal joy of reading in a poetic elegy of private moments made public. Kertész gained recognition as a photographer and was able to travel the world and always when the opportunity arose made snapshots of readers for his project. 






Since it began in 1915 with a group of three boys reading in his native Hungary, it's clear Kertész came to think of it as a century-long project! Kertész died in 1985, but his work endures. A gift of 120 of his reading photos was the basis for an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago in 2006. More recently, in 2009, his work was celebrated at the Photographers' Gallery in London, and in 2011 the Carnegie Museum of Art hosted an exhibit of his "Reading" pictures.

To me it's odd that as recently as 1971 -- which is in some people's living memory, though still B.C. (Before Computers) -- the world was black and white. But more specifically the world of fine art photography was black and white, and for some collectors and curators remains so.

Photojournalism has changed a lot in the last generation, just as reading has. Now artists like Alex Webb and Steve McCurry regularly dazzle us with news photos that are works of art in their own right. Webb works in the margins: he likes the places where borders exist and throw up societal conflict. He responds to chaos in spots where most of us are disconcerted and the last thing we want to do is pull out a camera and start getting in people's faces, like at a funeral in Haiti. He has a painter's eye, gets the tropical colors, scorched shadows & dramatic cropping effortlessly into the frame and manages to tell a story at the same time. And one of the most visually striking parts of Webb's work is its richly saturated color. He says,
As I understand it, one of the tenets of Goethe’s theory of color is that color emerges from the tension between light and dark, a notion that seems to resonate with my use of color, with its intense highlights and deep shadows. Also, my photographs are often a little enigmatic — there’s sometimes a sense of mystery, of ambiguity.
He makes it sound simple! But then he is capable, in his books, of taking Cartier-Bresson and Lee Friedlander to another level, through his use of color.

National Gee has long fostered talented photographers. There's a whole new bunch to watch, including Michael Wolf (who started out at GEO in Germany, but now works in Hong Kong) and David Liittschwager, who takes Avedon-like portraits of endangered creatures. The most celebrated, and with good reason, is the spectacularly gifted Steve McCurry. He is an unassuming bloke, a face in the crowd, which is a good asset for a street photographer: Someone you might see loitering on a bridge and not think, "A perv, call the cops!" He's just hanging out, waiting for that moment when the flower seller rows his boat underneath. He's there every day -- as long as it takes -- and, after ten days, the light is right, a slight haze, even the water wants to look good, everything comes together and he gets the shot. One photograph. A very Zen exercise. But how many times have you missed the shot, because your mind wasn't there in the moment, or your reflexes weren't quick enough? But people reading are in their own time and space, and that is all the time in the world for them -- suspended over the abyss of an author's black words in a limitless white expanse, the white of the page blending into the sparkling scrim behind their eyes -- as well as for the observant to capture their portrait. 




McCurry has updated Kertész, and he does it with such aplomb: it's on his blog which he regularly fills with masterpieces as if he were just dealing cards but somehow hitting full house after flush after Aces and Kings. And as he travels the world, adding images to his own "People Reading" category, it's gratifying to see that books and newspapers are still crucial to people's lives.

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John Quincy Adams, The Sleeping-Pill Poet

June 19, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


American diplomat, Harvard professor, Secretary of State, member of the House of Representatives, Senator, son of a President, and himself President of the United States, sure. But John Quincy Adams, poet?

"Could I have chosen my own genius and condition, I would have made myself a great poet," he once declared, as cited in Nagel's John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life (1997). Actors want to be musicians; musicians want to be actors; writers want to be athletes; everyone wants to be what they aren't, except, perhaps, to be an insurance salesman, a species, I imagine, that would like to be anything but what they are. We all dream about what we wanted to be and might have been if only life hadn't gotten in the way.

John Quincy Adams read copiously and wrote poetry throughout his lifetime. He enjoyed composing secular and inspirational verse, hymns, translating poetry into English, and writing his own versions of the Psalms.

His poems, when published, were not well-received. When Dermot MacMorrogh or the Conquest of Ireland was issued (Boston: Carter, Hendee, 1832), a reviewer ripped him a new canto:

"This work consists of three parts, each very remarkable in its way. These parts are, first, the Title Page; second, the Dedication and Preface ; and, third, four Cantos of Rhyme. The most noticeable part of the title-page is the announcement of the author's name. Indeed, it is that short sentence of four words, By John Quincey Adams, to which Dermot Mac Morrogh will be solely indebted for all the attention it will receive. Were it not for this magic sentence, we doubt if many readers would get further than the middle of the first Canto; and we are quite certain that none would ever reach the end of the second. But as it is we are sure the work will be read through; for, in spite of yawns innumerable, and a drowsiness most oppressive, we have read it through, ourselves; and whatever effect it may have produced upon us, or whatever may be our opinion of it, we dare say, there will be found quite a number of persons, who, by the help of the author's name, will discover this Historical Tale of the Twelfth Century to be full of all manner of wit, genius, and ingenuity, and a striking proof that talent is not a mere bent towards some peculiar style of excellence, but an inherent power, which qualifies its possessor to succeed alike, in the closet and the council chamber, in politics and poetry, in business and philosophy.

"So much for the title page…" (The New-England Magazine,  Volume 3, Issue 6, Dec 1832).

That review was written a few years after Adams' Presidency and while he was a member of the House. He may have been President, he may have been a sitting Congressman, but that didn't stop the New-England Magazine's litterateur from lambasting the former President's literary ambitions.  Politicians can do many things when they leave office but entering the arts is not one of them; the waters are more treacherous than the Bermuda Triangle, which is to say, more dangerous than Beltway gossip and the D.C. commentariat. Newt Gingrich's historical novels? Consigned to Davey Jones' Locker almost immediately after publication. Jimmy Carter's The Hornet's Nest? Call pest control. Former Senator Gary Hart, writing as "John Blackthorn," published four novels. Remember I, Che Guevara? Me, neither.


While it is true that "politics is show business for ugly people," it is also true that fiction is a sinkhole for politicians, despite their routine ease with it during the pursuit their day jobs. But verse?

Roses are red, violets are blue,
Pols writing poetry?
What, nothing else to do?

Ten years after Adams wrote Dermot MacMorrogh..., he composed the poem whose manuscript appears above:

Not Solomon the wise, in all his glory
Bright bird of beauty, was array’d like thos
And thou like him shalt be renown’d in story -
Bird of the wise, the valiant and the free.
Borne on thy pinions, down the flight of Time
Columbia’s chosen sons shall wing their way;
United here, in harmony sublime
To teach mankind the blessings of her sway.
Oh! counst thou bid the floods of discord cease
And to the ark return, like Noah’s dove.
Thy voice would turn, surest Harbinger of Peace
This world of sorrow, to a world of Love
                    John Quincy Adams
Washington 9. June 1842

Under the spreading chestnut tree a former prez writes purplely.
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This manuscript poem by John Quincy Adams, on stationary with a vibrantly hand-colored Eurasian bullfinch perched on a sprig of holly as header, is being offered by Profiles In History in its Rare Books & Manuscripts Sale, July 10, 2013. It is estimated to sell for $800-$1200. 
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Image courtesy of Profiles In History, with our thanks.
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Mr. Bigamy's Confessions: An Old Seven Wives Tale

June 20, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz

Some one has said that if any man would faithfully write his autobiography, giving truly his own history and experiences, the ills and joys, the haps and mishaps that had fallen to his lot, he could not fail to make an interesting story; and Disraeli makes Sidonia say that there is romance in every life. How much romance, as well as sad reality, there is in the life of a man who, among other experiences, has married seven wives, and has been seven times in prison - solely on account of the seven wives, may be learned from the pages that follow.

He's just a guy who can't say no. The guy in question is L.A. Abbott (b. 1813), who, in 1870, published an anonymous memoir of marriage craps, lucky seven not so lucky for our "matrimonial monomaniac," who, evidently, found the process of divorce distasteful so why bother? The trials and tribulations of a bigamist ensue.

It was all a series of misunderstandings, claims Abbott, a homeopathic doctor. When he took a young lass with him on his professional rounds out of town, for instance, she was the one who claimed they were married, not him, who was, after all, still married to another. When his brother-in-law found out about this incident, the gods of matrimony rained hell and Abbott wound up in the hoosegow.

Spoiler Alert: the farmer's daughter makes an appearance:

“From the day, almost, when I began to board with this farmer there sprung up a strong attachment between myself and his youngest daughter which soon ripened into mutual love.”  

Mutual love often ripens in Abbott's life, alas, too often at the same time. First comes love, then comes marriage, then come cops in the jailhouse carriage. It's one misadventure after another as our hero takes it on the lam throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New England, Canada, and California, one step ahead of the authorities - and in-laws with pitchforks and torches. But never for long. You can run but you can't hide: Abbott becomes acquainted with the penal system x seven, prison scrapes and daring escapes. Oh, and he forges bank notes, steals, and kidnaps his own son - who later tries to murder him. Citizens of the Bay State will be fascinated by Abbott's discussion of "Love-Making in Massachusetts," whence the farmer's daughter worsts Abbott in Worcester.

Save for "flogging the devil" out of one wife, it's one serio-comic connubial calamity after another, escapades aplenty, the entire book neatly summarized in its Table of Contents, which reads like a film treatment for a whacked-out farce, Mel Brooks & Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage Monomaniac. Caveat: beware of milliners on the make.

Frontispiece.

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST AND WORST WIFE. My Early History. The First Marriage. Leaving Home to Prospect. Sending for My Wife. Her Mysterious Journey. Where I Found Her. Ten Dollars for Nothing. A Fascinating Hotel Clerk. My Wife's Confession. From Bad to Worse. Final Separation. Trial for Forgery. A Private Marriage. Summary Separation.

CHAPTER II. MISERIES FROM MY SECOND MARRIAGE. Love-Making in Massachusetts. Arrest for Bigamy. Trial at Northampton. A Stunning Sentence. Sent to State Prison. Learning the Brush Business. Sharpening Picks. Prison Fare. In the Hospital. Kind Treatment. Successful Horse-Shoeing. The Warden my Friend. Efforts for my Release, A Full Pardon.

CHAPTER III. THE SCHEIMER SENSATION. The Scheimer Family. In Love with Sarah. Attempt to Elope. How it was Prevented. Second Attempt. A Midnight Expedition. The Alarm. A Frightful Beating, Escape. Floggiing the Devil Out of Sarah. Return to New Jersey. " Boston Yankee." Plans to Secure Sarah.

CHAPTER IV. SUCCESS WITH SARAH. Mary Smith as a Confederate. The Plot. Waiting in the Woods. The Spy Outwitted. Sarah Secured. The Pursuers Baffled. Night on the Road. Efforts to Get Married. " The Old Offender." Married at Last. A Constable After Sarah. He Gives it Up. An Ale Orgie. Return to " Boston Yankee's." A Home in Goshen.

CHAPTER V. HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER. Return to Scheimer's. Peace, and then Pandemonium. Frightful Family Row. Running for Refuge. The Gang Again. Arrest at Midnight. Struggle with my Captors. In Jail Once More. Put in Irons. A Horrible Prison. Breaking Out. The Dungeon. Sarah's Baby. Curious Compromises. Old Scheimer my Jailer. Signing a Bond. Free Again. Last Words from Sarah,.

CHAPTER VI. FREE LIFE AND FISHING. Taking Care of Crazy Men. Carrying off a Boy. Arrested for Stealing my Own Horse and Buggy. Fishing in Lake Winnepisiogee. An Odd Landlord. A Woman as Big as a Hogshead. Reducing the Hogshead to a Barrel. Wonderful Verification of a Dream. Successful Medical Practice. A Busy Winter in New Hampshire. Blandishments of Captain Brown. I go to Newark, New Jersey.

CHAPTER VII. WEDDING A WIDOW AND THE CONSEQUENCES. I Marry a Widow. Six Weeks of Happiness. Confiding a Secret, and the Consequences. The Widow's Brother. Sudden Flight from Newark. In Hartford, Conn. My Wife's Sister Betrays Me. Trial for Bigamy. Sentenced to Ten Years' Imprisonment. I Become a " Bobbin Boy." A Good Friend. Governor Price Visits Me in Prison. He Pardons Me. Ten Years' Sentence Fulfilled in Seven Months.

Attempt To Elope With Sarah Scheimer.
An exciting bridal shower and bachelor party rolled into one.

CHAPTER VIII. ON THE KEEN SCENT. Good Resolutions. Enjoying Freedom. Going After a Crazy Man. The Old Tempter in a New Form. Mary Gordon. My New " Cousin." Engaged Again. Visit to the Old Folks at Home. Another Marriage. Starting for Ohio. Change of Plans. Domestic Quarrels. Unpleasant Stories about Mary. Bound Over to Keep the Peace. Another Arrest for Bigamy. A Sudden Flight Secreted Three Weeks in a Farm House. Recaptured at Concord. Escaped Once More. Traveling on the Underground Railroad. In Canada.

CHAPTER IX. MARRYING TWO MILLINERS. Back in Vermont. Fresh Temptations. Margaret Bradley. Wine and Women. A Mock Marriage in Troy. The False Certificate. Medicine and Millinery. Eliza at Saratoga. Marrying Another Milliner. Again Arrested for Bigamy. In Jail Eleven Months. A Tedious Trial. Found Guilty. Appeal to Supreme Court. Trying to Break Out of Jail. A Governor's Promise. Second Trial. Sentenced to Three Years' Imprisonment.

CHAPTER X. PRISON LIFE IN VERMONT. Entering Prison. The Scythe Snath Business. Blistered Hands. I Learn Nothing. Threaten to Kill the Shop Keeper. Locksmithing. Open Rebellion. Six Weeks in the Dungeon. Escape of a Prisoner. In the Dungeon Again. The Mad Man Hall. He Attempts to Murder the Deputy. I Save Morey's Life. Howling in the Black Hole. Taking Off Hall's Irons. A Ghastly Spectacle. A Prison Funeral. I am Let Alone. The Full Term of my Imprisonment.

CHAPTER XI. ON THE TRAMP. The Day of my Deliverance. Out of Clothes. Sharing with a Beggar. A Good Friend. Tramping Through the Snow. Weary Walks. Trusting to Luck. Com fort at Concord. At Meredith Bridge. The Blaisdells. Last of the "Blossom" Business. Making Money at Portsmouth. Revisiting Windsor. An Astonished War Den. Making Friends of Enemies. Inspecting the Prison. Going to Port Jervis,

CHAPTER XII. ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP SARAH SCHEIMER'S BOY. Starting to See Sarah. The Long Separation. What I Learned About Her. Her Drunken Husband. Change of Plan. A Suddenly-Formed Scheme. I Find Sarah's Son. The First Interview. Resolve to Kidnap the Boy. Remonstrance of my Son Henry. The Attempt. A Desperate Struggle. The Rescue. Arrest of Henry. My Flight into Pennsylvania. Sending Assistance to my Son. Return to Port Jervis. Bailing Henry. His Return to Belvidere. He is Bound Over to be Tried for Kidnapping. My folly.

CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER WIDOW. Waiting for the Verdict. My Son Sent to State Prison. What Sarah Would Have Done. Interview with my First Wife. Help for Henry. The Biddeford Widow. Her Effort to Marry Me. Our Visit to Boston. A Warning A Generous Gift. Henry Pardoned. Close of the Scheimer Account. Visit to Ontario County. My Rich Cousins. What Might Have Been. My Birthplace Revisited.

CHAPTER XIV. MY SON TRIES TO MURDER ME. Settling Down in Maine. Henry's Health. Tour Through the South. Secession Times. December in New Orleans. Up the Mississippi. Leaving Henry in Massachusetts. Back in Maine Again. Return to Boston. Profitable Horse-Trading. Plenty of Money. My First Wife's Children. How They Have Been Brought Up. A Barefaced Robbery. Attempt to Blackmail Me. My Son Tries to Rob and Kill Me. My Rescue. Last of the Young Man.

CHAPTER XV. A TRUE WIFE AND HOME AT LAST. Where Were All My Wives? Sense of Security. An Imprudent Acquaintance. Moving from Maine. My Property in Rensselaer County. How I Lived. Selling a Recipe. About Buying a Carpet. Nineteen Lawsuits. Sudden Departure for the West. A Vagabond Life for Two Years. Life in California. Return to the East. Divorce from my First Wife. A Genuine Marriage. My Farm. Home at Last.

Wright, in American Fiction 1774-1900, wrongly includes the book as a novel. Kaplan, in contrast,  rightly includes it in American Autobiographies. It's too fantastic to be phoney. “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't” (Mark Twain).

Twain would have loved this book. Groucho Marx would have had a field day with it.

Capt. Spaulding: [to Mrs. Rittenhouse and Mrs. Whitehead] Let's get married.
Mrs. Whitehead: All of us?
Capt. Spaulding: All of us.
Mrs. Whitehead: Why, that's bigamy.
Capt. Spaulding: Yes, and it's big of me too.
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N.B.: A word to the wise (and wives): If you write and publish a book anonymously keep your name off the copyright page.
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[ABBOTT, L. A.].Seven Wives and Seven Prisons: or, Experiences In the Life of a Matrimonial Monomaniac. A True Story, Written By Himself. New York: Published for the Author, 1870. First edition. Twelvemo. 205 pp. Original green cloth, gilt lettering. Frontispiece, three plates.

Kaplan, American Autobiographies 10. Wright II, 3. 
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Images courtesy of Garrett Scott, Bookseller, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's Earliest Writing Influences

June 24, 2013, 2:30 am
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by Stephen J. Gertz


A fascinating and insightful F. Scott Fitzgerald letter has come into the marketplace as part of a current online auction from Nate D. Sanders ending Thursday, June 27th, at 5PM, Pacific.

Addressed to Egbert S. Oliver (1902-1989), Professor of American Literature at Williamette University (and later Portland State University, as well as Fulbright lecturer in India) in Oregon, and author, the letter briefly discusses Fitzgerald's earliest influences on his writing.


It reads, in full:

1307 Park Avenue,
Baltimore, Maryland,
January 7, 1934.

Mr. Egbert S. Oliver
Williamette University,
Salem, Oregon

Dear Mr. Oliver:

The first help I ever had in writing in my life was from my father who read an utterly imitative Sherlock Holmes story of mine and pretended to like it.

But after that I received the most invaluable aid from one Mr. C.N. B. Wheeler then headmaster of the St. Paul Academy now the St. Paul Country Day School in St. Paul, Minnesota. 2. From Mr. Hume, then co-headmaster of the Newman School and now headmaster of the Canterbury School. 3. From Courtland Van Winkle in freshman year at Princeton -- now professor of literature at Yale (he gave us the book of Job to read and I don't think any of our preceptorial group ever quite recovered from it.) After that comes a lapse. Most of the professors seemed to me old and uninspired, or perhaps it was just that I was getting underway in my own field.

I think this answers your question. This is also my permission to make full use of it with or without my name. Sorry I am unable from circumstances of time and pressure to go into it further.

Sincerely,

F. Scott Fitzgerald


In  1932,  Fitzgerald  moved to  Baltimore with  Zelda  and their  daughter, Francis Scott ("Scottie"), renting a  house on the estate of architect  Bayard Turnbull; Zelda's mental health  was declining and Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins was considered  the best place for  her to receive therapy. She was later treated at Baltimore's Sheppard Pratt Hospital.

After a fire on the Turnbull estate - which some attributed to Zelda - Fitzgerald moved the household to 1307 Park Avenue, near Baltimore's monument to Fitzgerald's ancestor, Francis Scott Key.

It was in Baltimore that Fitzgerald finished Tender Is The Night. He had been working on it for years and had high hopes for its success and literary acclaim; it had been nine years since The Great Gatsby appeared. Tender Is The Night was published on April 12, 1934, four months after this letter was written. Fitzgerald's mention of "time and pressure" precluding further detail surely refers to the crushing weight of beating the novel into final shape and the anxiety he felt about the novel's reception, all while coping with Zelda's problems and trying to raise a child.

Though the reviews were, for the most part, favorable, Tender Is The Night was "assassinated" (Bruccoli) in the marketplace.

"People who lament the failure of Tender Is The Night generally ignore the fact that Fitzgerald had not had a best-seller since This Side Of Paradise, and even it was not one of the top ten in 1920. Fitzgerald was a popular figure, but he was never really a popular novelist in his lifetime. The Great Gatsby, surely one of the great novels written in this country, was a comparative flop in 1925, selling only about 25,000 copies. Yet one never hears laments about the popular failure of this novel. Between the serialization in Scribner's Magazine and and the 13,000 copies of Tender Is The Night sold in 1934-35, it probably reached as many readers as did The Great Gatsby" (Matthew J. Bruccoli, The Composition of Tender Is The Night, p. 4).

"It is true that Fitzgerald's most ambitious novel was a failure in its own time; and it is true that its reception hurt and puzzled Fitzgerald, and doubtlessly contributed to his crack-up" (ibid).

Here we glimpse Fitzgerald on the cusp of the publication of that book, one he desperately hoped would recapture his literary reputation and secure his finances, a life-saving, do-or-die effort complicated by his wife and marriage falling apart and responsibilities of child-rearing. He takes a moment to recall from dark nights this side of hell how it began for him, when the support of his father and the encouragement of his teachers promised tender nights this side of paradise.

As of this writing the bid is $6,134.
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Images courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Original F. Scott Fitzgerald Manuscript Poems Discovered.

F. Scott Fitzgerald at Princeton.

Original F. Scott Fitzgerald Manuscript Poems Discovered.
  
In Paris With Scott, Zelda, Kiki, Ernest, Gertrude, Etc.

The $175,000 Dust Jacket Comes to Auction.

A Not-So-Great Gatsby.
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Private Moments, Public Reading

June 25, 2013, 2:30 am
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By Alastair Johnston

Pursuant to My Last...

After writing about André Kertesz's book, On Reading, and Steve McCurry's blog post about people reading, a couple of friends posted more pictures of readers on (where else?) Facebook that are worth sharing. Kate Godfrey reminded me of the wonderful site UndergroundNewYorkPublicLibrary, which shares images of readers on the New York's subway transit system.

Reading Katie Roiphe's In Praise of Messy Lives

The images, reminiscent of Walker Evans' project The Passengers (clandestine photos taken on the New York subway between 1939 and 1941 but not published in Evans' lifetime) include identification of the book's title so you can draw your own conclusions about the person in the photo and their choice of reading matter.

Reading Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions

Evans' passengers, by the way, were only caught reading the newspaper ("PAL TELLS HOW GUNGIRL KILLED"). Another photo, posted on Facebook, of a boy reading in a bombed-out building during the London Blitz led me to a google image search.

A boy sits amid the ruins of a London bookshop following an air raid
on October 8, 1940,  reading a book titled 'The History of London.'

This image led me to another biblio-site, called Needful Books, a google community where people are encouraged to post their own photos of books. This photo, posted by Michael Allen on 20 May 2013, is purportedly of a boy reading The History of London. There are other images of books and bookstores that will delight Booktryst readers, and more readers, shared by Mr Allen:

Posted by tanphoto on flickr

Obviously this could lead from here back into historic images of readers. I assumed that in the early days of photography when exposures took a minute or more, photographers would have used books as props quite often, but a cursory glance through the bookshelf shows this not to be the case. There is a lovely shot of a reader in the latest monograph on Clementina, Lady Hawarden, by Virginia Dodier (Aperture, n.d. [1999]) but that reader is soundly asleep. Recently another collection of Lady Hawarden's prints came to light and was auctioned in London. The album contains another reading portrait from the 1860s, one of her daughters, also named Clementina, "reading," but it looks as if the young lady is nodding off.


And to prove, once again, that the old guys stole all our best ideas, here is a favorite image by Alexander Rodchenko, a portrait of his mother from 1924:


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Of Related Interest:

Photographers on Reading.
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