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Meet General Jackoo, Rope-Dancing Monkey, Rage of Europe, 1785
by Stephen J. GertzForget Napoleon and Sally, the Famous Trained Monkeys who slayed 'em in Singapore May 2 - 5, 1920 at the Alhambra before moving to the Gaiety Theater as The World Famous Monkey...
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The Beautifully Strange Insects of Maria Sibylla Merian
by Stephen J. GertzA copy of Maria Sibylla Merian's Surinaamsche Insecten (The Insects of Surinam, Amsterdam 1730), "One of the best old scientific works, and one of the most magnificently illustrated...
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Fore-Edge Painting Depicts the Mayflower Leaving England for America
by Stephen J. GertzThe Departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth.Modern fore-edge painting by Martin Frost.Martin Frost, the modern master of fore-edge painting, has commemorated Thanksgiving Day...
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Scarce Alice in Wonderland Posters c. 1900 Hit the Market
by Stephen J. GertzAlice and the White Rabbit.In 1900 or thereabouts (the Bodleian dates them to 1921), Macmillan published six posters based upon Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the...
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Oprah's 18th Century Book Club
by Stephen J. GertzEtching by Thomas Rowlandson.“The rural bookseller of aspect pale, And bent with age, comes tott’ring down the vale… Who but has heard his tale, so often told, Of famous men, whose...
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Lothar Meggendorfer Mania at Auction
by Stephen J. GertzMEGGENDORFER, Lothar. Humoristische Blätter.München und Wein: u..a. Schreiber, 1891-1903.First edition. Quarto. Collection of all 165 issuesof this humor magazine.On November 21,...
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When Field and Stream Magazine Reviewed Lady Chatterley's Lover
by Stephen J. GertzComing in November:• Secrets of an English Gamekeeper, or The Lady Bags a Stag. It isn't often that magazines extolling the virtues and lore of the Great Outdoors feature book...
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TIme For Vintage Book Clocks This Christmas
by Stephen J. GertzThe good folks at Vintage Book Clocks have created a series of timepieces fashioned from old books, from pulp fiction to an exposé of the beauty industry and from there to, of all...
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Deck the Halls With Fore Edge Paintings
by Stephen J. GertzSHAKESPEARE, William. The Works...1867: London: Macmillan, 1867. 1075pp. 170x120mm.Full binding in grained goatskin, extra-gilt spine, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Matching...
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A Regency Home Library Bookcase, 1808
by Stephen J. GertzOne of 158 hand-colored aquatint plates from:SMITH, George. A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration. London: J. Taylor, n.d. [1808]. Quarto (279 x 220...
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Gavarni's Paris Mornings and Mailbox (1839)
by Stephen J. GertzTwo incredibly scarce albums from 1839 by Paul Gavarni, bound together, and with a total of forty-three marvelous hand-colored lithographs, recently came to market. This...
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Tycho Brahe's Sculpture Garden of Scientific Instruments
by Stephen J. GertzTycho Brahe (1546-1601), a Danish nobleman and gentleman scientist, made the most precise astronomical and planetary observations to date by designing and building the best, most...
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Modern Books Are Not Edible: A Farewell To Bookworms
by Stephen J. GertzThe Bodleian Library."Great is bookishness and the love of books."So declares Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), whose In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays was published in...
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The Most Pirated Novel of the 20th Century
by Stephen J. Gertz"O, so you've got a copy of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover,'exclaimed Bob and Pearl, and they proceeded to make themselvesperfectly at home in a strange house. Their hostess has about...
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When Goldilocks Had Silver Hair and Trod the British Stage
by Stephen J. GertzFrom: COOPER, [T. George]. The Story of the Three Bears, of Little Silver Hair and the Fairies, as performed at the Haymarket Theatre in 1854.In 1854, Goldilocks, that fickle food...
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Is the Bibliophilist a Man, a Woman, or Gertrude Stein?
by Stephen J. GertzThe Bibliophilist by Alan E. Odle, c. 1910.There The Bibliophilist sits, a stout, androgynous figure in a voluminous dressing gown and slippers, reading and smoking by the light of a...
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Living With Burroughs
The following originally appeared in e*I*21, Volume 4, Number 4, August 2005 in slightly different form.by Stephen J. GertzFor one year I lived with the grandmaster of Beat literature, William S....
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Thereby Hangs a Quote, and a New, Must-Read Book on Books
by Stephen J. GertzWhen poet, master printer, and Perishable Press publisher Walter Hamady casually mentioned to master printer and Poltroon Press publisher Alastair M. Johnston, Peter Glassgold's...
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Damascus Bookshops Victims of Syrian Uprising
by Stephen J. GertzSidewalk booksellers in Damascus' Souq al-Salihiya. Photo credit: al-Akhbar.The Maysaloun, Zahra, Yaqza, al-A'ila, Fikr wa Fan, and al-Nahsa al-Arabiyya book shops in Damascus,...
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Ten Little, Nine Little, Eight Little Suffragettes...(And Then There Were None)
by Stephen J. GertzIn 1868, American songwriter Stephen Winner, adapting the Irish folk tune Michael Finnegan, wrote new lyrics for a minstrel show and retitled the song, 10 Little Injuns. In 1869,...
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