New Bibliography of Dickens First American Editions a Must-Have

By Stephen J. Gertz

It's the literary scholarship event of this, the Charles Dickens bicentennial. Let the celebration begin.

Charles Dickens: A Bibliography of His First American Editions 1836-1870, the eagerly anticipated third volume of Walter E. Smith's acclaimed series of bibliographies of Charles Dickens' works, thirty years in the making and scheduled for release in September 2012, is now available for pre-order.

This significant work identifies the first and early American editions of Charles Dickens' novels and Sketches by Boz and traces their publishing history, including various impressions and sub-editions, from 1836 to 1870, the year of Dickens' death. Each of the entries provides detailed textual data and binding descriptions and is supplemented by photographic reproductions of title pages and bindings. The notes contain interesting comments about the novels, including their appearances in newspapers and journals, typographical points, and payments made to Dickens.

The bibliography was compiled from firsthand examinations of the books at major libraries and institutions throughout the country, in private collections, and in the possession of several rare book dealers. The content complements and stylistically conforms to the author's previous two-volume bibliography on Dickens's English editions. 

The book is an indispensable reference for libraries, collectors, booksellers, researchers, and students of Victorian literature since no other work of this magnitude on Dickens' American editions has ever been undertaken or published.

Oak Knoll Press is the exclusive distributor of this 456-page opus. Limited to 500 copies at only $95 each, the book is expected to sell out very soon after publication. To assure that a copy will be available to you, don't hesitate: Pre-Order NOW.

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SMITH, Walter E. Charles Dickens: A Bibliography of His First American Editions 1836-1870. Calabasas, CA: David Brass Rare Books, Inc. First edition. Quarto (10 3/4 x 8 inches). 456 pp. Illustrated with title pages to each described edition. Green cloth. Dust jacket. $95.

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Full disclosure: I supervised the book's production for David Brass Rare Books.
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Thereby Hangs a Quote, and a New, Must-Read Book on Books

by Stephen J. Gertz

When poet, master printer, and Perishable Press publisher Walter Hamady casually mentioned to master printer and Poltroon Press publisher Alastair M. Johnston, Peter Glassgold's book, Hwaett!,  Johnston, without skipping a beat, interjected:

"From Anglo-Saxon. It's the first word of Beowulf."

I have no idea whether Johnston, with whom I am acquainted, had been waiting decades for the opportunity to slip that factoid into a conversation but he did and I'm impressed.

As I am by the new word for today,  "slobagoody," which Hamady uses to describe a slapdash, thrown together, gallimaufry of text, later turned into readable narrative prose.

Hwaett and slobagoody (attorneys-at-law?) appear in Hanging Quotes: Talking Books Arts, Typography & Poetry, a new book by Johnson from Cuneiform Press. It's a keeper.

It's easy to be impressed with all of Hanging Quotes, a series of conversations Johnston had with book and printing people Nicholas Barker; Robert Creeley; Matthew Carter; Sumner Stone; Fred Smeijers; Joan and Nathan Lyons; Sandra Kirshenbaum; Dave Haselwood; Holbrook Teter of Zephyrus Image Press; Bob Hawley (Oyez Press); poet David Meltzer; and Graham Mackintosh, that widely ranges through the world of books, printing, and the visual manifestation of poetry in print.

More than impressed, you'll enjoy the book. Johnston, and his partner in Poltroon Press, Frances Butler, seem to ask just the right questions and pursue the right leads, tapping into their subject's interests, taking the conversation into unexpected places, and allowing it to take delightful turns.  Fascinating anecdotes, details, stories from book and printing history, unusual factoids, and captivating digressions are the reward.

You can read the interview with Nicholas Barker, renowned bookman, author, and editor of The Book Collector, for instance, and feel satisfied with the book without reading further (though you'll be sorry if you stop there). In this interview, which, as all the others in Hanging Quotes, is kaleidoscopic and delightfully all other the place, you'll learn about:

Trade secrets of medieval book illuminators, the private press movement and Barker's welcome apostasy ("Who the hell reads Kelmscott Press books?"), the degradation of paper quality, the improvement in ink, bookshop merchandizing, the importance of visual detail and symbolism and how the ability to read images has decayed, the importance of the shape of letters as a map of the human mind, Congolese bards, calligraphy, copperplate engraving and the personality of the engraver, Victorian typography, Goudy, Gill, Dwiggins, Morison, the importance of curve, and the current state of "Jine" printing.

Did I mention that Johnston, Butler, and those they interview are often quite amusing? This is not an academic book. It's absorbing, engaging,  informative, and highly entertaining; a wish-you-were-there read. You will not get a headache. But if you have one before reading it, Hanging Quotes may do more good than Advil.

You know you're in for a good time when the book opens with these quotes: 

"Tout, au monde, existe pour aboutir à un livre" (Everything in the world exists to produce a book - Stéphane Mallarmé)

and

"Talk is cheap, but a Flair pen costs 69 cents" (Darrell Gray).

I'm still in the book, around three-quarters through it, and am hooked. This, despite a rare, interesting, and heretofore unexplored phenomenon associated with the topography of a book and reading that I experienced with my review copy, which arrived water-soaked in an unlined envelope during a recent  storm. After allowing it to dry I found myself hanging ten while reading Hanging Quotes, surfing the text block, which had more waves than Waimea, up and down, up and down. To all appearances my head was bobbing to music only I could hear.

It's unlikely that you'll experience motion sickness while reading Hanging Quotes, though you'll likely feel pleasantly lightheaded after reading what are simply amongst the best, most engrossing and enchanting interviews we bookpeople will ever be treated to.

I have a good news/bad news fantasy that I'm a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? I reach the million dollar round. The million dollar question is, What's the first word in Beowulf?, the ultimate  Trivial Pursuit question from the, alas, never-issued Bibliomaniac Edition. I mentally spend all the money. But I have to correctly pronounce the answer I just happen to know only because I read Hanging Quotes. Yet I didn't put Alastair Johnston on my Friends list; I can't call him.  Preceded by an "Oh" I utter an Anglo-Saxon word I can pronounce.

"Is that your final answer?"

I kiss that windfall goodbye.

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JOHNSTON, Alastair M. Hanging Quotes. Talking Book Arts, Typography, and Poetry. [Victoria, TX]: Cuneiform Press, 2011. First edition. Large octavo. 270 pp. Illustrated wrappers. $22.00. Order here to support a small press publisher and allow them to make a decent profit without Jeff Bezos unmercifully squeezing their...uh, margin in the name of public service.

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Full disclosure:

Alastair M. Johnston designed the print edition of A Wake for the Still Alive, Booktryst's series from last year. He's a friend but I have no idea what the "M" stands for; it's news to me. I'm hoping, Murgatroid.

Kyle Schlesinger, publisher of Cuneiform Press, along with his associate, Wm. S. Burroughs aficionado Jed Birmingham, is a friend of ours through Mimeo Mimeo, their publication (and website) devoted to the mimeograph revolution and grass-roots printing. Read Booktryst's O Solé Mimeo here.

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Why Books Are More Than Simply Text

by Stephen J. Gertz

Full cover.

If every book tells a story, every book has a story.

Until recently, a book’s text and its physical manifestation were indivisible, their stories intertwined. With the advent of ebooks, however, text is now independent of what we’ve come to understand as a “book,” a physical object with metaphysical content that, in its origins, was presented as scrolled, later bound, manuscript, and then, with Gutenberg, as bound leaves of print.

A day cannot go by, it seems, without an article tolling the death knell of the book, either heralding a new, golden age of information delivery and consumption, or as a mournful elegy. Soon, it seems, lovers of traditional books will be consulting mediums to reach beyond the veil and communicate with beloved books in the great hereafter. We'll want to know how they're doing, tell them how much we love and miss them, and express sorrow for not defending them heartily enough when they were still with us but struggling for their lives. We need comfort and consolation.

In the absence of David Dunglas Home, the 19th century Scottish spiritualist and medium, David Pearson, Director of Libraries, Archives, and Guildhall Art Gallery at the City of London, is here to say, It’s okay.

That books have value beyond their text is not news to bibliophiles. But the argument for their essential worth as objects and historical artifacts has never been presented as comprehensively as Pearson has in Books as History: The Importance of Books Beyond Their Texts, his 2008 book published to broad critical acclaim, and now issued in its first softcover edition, revised, updated, and enlarged.

He does so unsentimentally, recognizing that the digitalization of text will provide new opportunities for writers to organize and present the product of their pen (an inked stylus now itself a quaint artifact of bygone years) in creative ways we’ve only begun to imagine. Hand-wringers and garment renders seeking comfort and support will be disappointed; Pearson does not condemn ebooks as demon spawn.

What he does, in eight lavishly illustrated chapters - Books in History; Books Beyond Text; Individuality in Mass Production; Variety Through Ownership; Variety Through Binding; The Collective Value of Libraries; Values for the Future; and Variety Between Copies - is demolish the idea, current with the digital faithful, that physical books are passé, that they have been merely text all dressed up, now with no place to go.

Quoth Pearson the raven, Nevermore!

“Books as History has two main themes. Primarily, it is about the various ways in which books can be interesting as artifacts, as objects wth individual histories and design characteristics, beyond whatever value they may have in the texts they convey. The ways in which books are made, owned, written in, mutilated and bound all add something to the documentary heritage which is central to the record of human civilisation. The second theme is around the importance of seeing this, at a time when the world of books is in flux, and the need for them is questioned as their traditional functions are increasingly undertaken by electronic media. Books may cease to be read but let us recognise that we may have other reasons to value them.”

That book lovers will adore Books as History is a given, I believe. It’s a joy to behold, read, and digest. While it is not meant to do so, it is, though, preaching to a congregation of believers, however secular and universal Pearson’s intent. 

The hard-core ebook missionary for whom it would provide a valuable, eye-opening education and perspective will not, I fear, be reading this book for pleasure or insight. When the brain goes completely binary there is little hope. Oriented to only 0's and 1's, the binary brain does not recognize the beautiful depth of diversity that 2 to infinity provides, the terrain that the physical book occupies. To appreciate books as culturally essential, historically and artistically important physical objects the binaries will have to do the math. In this regard, Books as History is Euclid’s Geometry and should be required reading before graduation from high school.

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PEARSON, David. Books as History. The Importance of Books Beyond Their Texts. London and New Castle, DE: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2011. First softcover edition, revised, updated and enlarged. Tall octavo (8.75 x 9.5 inches). 208 pages. Color-illustrated throughout. $29.95.  You may order here.

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Of related interest: E-Publishing Consultant Mike Shatzkin Doesn't Understand Books.
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The Most Significant Books of California History, Part 2

by Stephen J. Gertz

Zamorano Select, a companion volume to the essential The Zamorano 80 (1945), has just been published by the Zamorano Club. It is an instant must-have for collectors of Californiana, specifically rare books about California history, and key reference. 

This collection of bibliographical essays, limited to only 350 copies, covers 120 significant books in California history, ranging in date from On the Ambitious Projects of Russia in Regard to North West America (1830) to The California Gold Rush (1997). The contributing writers are Larry E. Burgess, William G. Donohoo, Alan Jutzi, and Gordon J. Van De Water.  Gary Kurutz provides an Introduction. Ordering details below.

The Zamorano Club is Southern California’s oldest organization of bibliophiles and manuscript collectors. Founded in 1928, it sponsors lectures and publications on bookish topics. Most noteworthy among the latter is the Zamorano 80 (1945), a member-selected and -written catalogue of the most significant books in California history. The Club was named in honor of Agustín V. Zamorano (1798-1842), a provisional governor of Alta California and the state’s first printer.

Launch Party for a Reference Book? Yowsa!

Here's a paragraph I never thought I'd write:

If you live in or plan to visit Southern California, on Saturday, March 26 at 5 p.m. a party to celebrate the publication of Zamarano Select will be held at The Book Shop, 134 N Citrus Ave., in Covina. The event is open to the public and refreshments will be served. 

A special display of some of the books featured in  Zamorano Select has been arranged. In addition, contributors to the Select will talk about some 
of the books chosen and will be on hand to sign copies.

The concept of a book party and signing for a limited edition of a somewhat esoteric volume screams parallel universe - check to make sure the sun rose in the east when you woke up this morning. And yet...

That a public party in honor of this book has been organized will come as no surprise to those who know Brad Johnson, proprietor of The Book Shop along with his wife Jennifer. Brad began his career in the trade as a neonate, selling used books on how to influence parents to the formerly fetus in the infant ward. He began working at The Book Shop as a teenager. Now in his early thirties, he has been an (official) bookman for half his life. One day we're all going to be working for or buying from this guy.

For more information regarding the launch party please email Jen Johnson or call (626) 967-1888.

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BURGESS, Larry E. William G. Donohoo, Alan Jutzi, and Gordon J. Van De Water. Zamarano Select. With an introduction is by Gary Kurutz. Los Angeles: Zamarano Club, 2011. 176 pp, 26 illustrations including eight tipped-in color plates. Octavo. 9-1/4 x 6-1/8 inches, decorated cloth. offset printed. Designed and produced by Peter Rutledge Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken.

Limited to 350 copies, of which 66 are reserved for subscribers.

$100 ($65 to members) plus applicable tax and shipping. Trade terms available.

To order, or for further details, please email the Club Secretary, Stephen Tabor or phone (626) 405-2179.

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A selected list of the publications of the Zamorano Club is available here.
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New Annotated Dictionary of Fore-Edge Paintings is a Must-Have

by Stephen J. Gertz

An exciting new book on fore-edge paintings has just been published. Authored by Los Angeles rare bookseller, Jeff Weber, this volume is immediately the most important contribution to the history of fore-edge paintings since the books of Carl J. Weber, the author’s grandfather, were issued in 1949 and 1966. It is an instant must-own reference for collectors, dealers, institutional librarians/curators, or anyone with an interest in this edgy art form.

The book, An Annotated Dictionary of Fore-edge Painting Artists & Binders (Mostly English & American). Part II: The Fore-edge Paintings of Miss C. B. Currie; with a Catalogue Raisonné, has been issued in a limited edition of 980 trade copies, with 20 deluxe copies specially bound and embellished with a hand-painted fore-edge scene on the fanned edge of the book.

Holy Bible, Cambridge, 1659, 1660, Royal Heads Binder.

The culmination of more than twenty-five years of work by Weber, much information comes directly from the artists who actually make fore-edge paintings. In 2006 Weber published a comprehensive study on John T. Beer, the first person to regularly sign his fore-edges. With this new monograph Weber offers the same treatment to Miss Currie, but he also adds a great deal of information directed to numerous artists and bookbinders who contributed to this art form from the sixteenth century forward.

The challenges of uncovering the history of fore-edge painting are known. These paintings are mostly painted anonymously, mostly unsigned, and the presentation is often misleading, or people misinterpret information easily (such as imprint dates, bookplates, falsely attributing a printing to the wrong date/or era). Weber’s aim is to create a basis for what can be known about certain fore-edge paintings, identifying them, giving their history, alerting the readers about numerous factors that can help to understand what they are looking at.

The book includes the most comprehensive assessment of seventeenth century English fore-edge specimens up to the present.

Divided into three sections, the first is a series of brief essays offering the author’s perspectives on studying this field, including gathering information from the books themselves as archeological specimens, the language of fore-edge painting, and evidence in the 1860s of the first fore-edge paintings in America.

The second section - and the dominant feature of the book - is an annotated dictionary, heavily illustrated, citing numerous specimens, arranged alphabetically by artist or binder. There are even treatments of binders who are identified as not being sources of fore-edge paintings. This is the first book to ever single out the names and history of each of these contributors. The result is that each entry tells when and where an artist worked, how to identify a painting, noting characteristics unique to their work, where the artist studied art and other details. Specific examples are noted throughout. Locations are supplied and the author notes by a rating system which entries are certain fore-edge contributors, and those who are not at all; finally a mark in numerous entries indicates if the author has seen that work in person.

The third section offers a full history and catalogue raisonné of the fore-edge painting work of the mysterious Ms C. B.  Currie, one of the most important fore-edge artists from England in the twentieth century and the only artist to have numbered her editions. This project was challenging since no record of her entire fore-edge work exists and her own identity has been unknown until recently. Currie worked for Sotheran’s in London during the first half of the twentieth century. Currie’s history is presented in much more detail than available anywhere else, focusing on her fore-edge art and relationships to the English book trade.

The book is handsomely designed by Patrick Reagh, and printed and bound in China.

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WEBER, Jeff. An Annotated Dictionary of Fore-edge Painting Artists & Binders (Mostly English & American). Part II: The Fore-edge Paintings of Miss C. B. Currie; with a Catalogue Raisonné. Los Angeles: Weber Rare Books 2010. Limited Edition of 1,000 copies in three issues, printed and designed by Patrick Reagh, Printers, and signed by the author. 10 x 7 inches. approx. 432 pages. Illustrated throughout, indexes. 

The Issues:

A Limited Trade Edition of 980 copies in cloth with dust jacket:  $400

Deluxe Leather-Bound Edition of 5 copies, gilt-edges and slip-case (numbered 16-20):  $ 1,000

Ultra-Deluxe Edition of 15 special copies that will be hand-painted on the fore-edge by selected artists. Each piece will be unique and signed. Hand-bound in full morocco, extra-gilt, all-edge-gilt. Custom slip-case. (numbered 1-15):  $ 1,800.  

To order, phone (323) 344-9332 or email here.
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All images courtesy of Jeff Weber Rare Books, with our thanks.

Read Weber's A Collector's Primer to the Wonders of Fore-Edge Painting.
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