From time to time I see "all half-titles present" in dealer catalogs. I'm a novice but I do know what half-titles are. I just don't understand why it's necessary to say "all half-titles present."
Why wouldn't they [be present]? Is this a stupid question?
JDH
Syracuse, NY
Dear JDH:
Your question is not stupid at all. It does, as a matter of fact, raise an important issue for collectors.
We all want our collectible books to be in the earliest state possible (first edition, first printing, first state of the dust jacket, etc.) and complete with all called-for leaves but sometimes the standard practices of the past come back to vex us in our quest for perfect copies with no excuses.
Until the 1840s it was routine for books to be published in plain, drab boards with a label or in simple wrappers. And it was just as routine for buyers to purchase from a bookseller then walk down the street to a binder and have the book pulled from its inelegant binding and finely rebound in leather.
Commonly, when binders rebound the book the original blank leaves were excised. Sometimes they removed the half-title page, that simple leaf appearing just prior to the title page with only the title of the book and nothing else; it was not considered necessary to the integrity of the book, and collectors were no way near as obsessive as we've since become.
The practice of removing the half-title was absolutely routine during the British Regency period. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) is a key example. A three-decker originally issued in plain blue paper boards with a brown paper spine and simple white title label, most copies that have survived were contemporaneously rebound in leather and lack the half-titles, which were tossed out.
As a consequence, a first edition copy of Pride and Prejudice with all three half-titles present is quite rare. If the copy is completely "straight" without any monkeying to "fix" it, (another topic altogether) it's a $50K-$80K book. Without the half-titles, the price plummets. This is true even if the copy is in the publisher's original, lackluster binding.
So rare is Pride and Prejudice with all half-titles present that the great bibliographer and collector Michael Sadleir did not have one, nor did Austen's bibliographer, literary scholar Sir Geoffrey Keynes.
Yeah, you want "all half-titles present."
__________
Have a question about an old or rare book? The Rare Book Guy is at your service. But first please read the details.
__________
__________
The clothes-obsessed dandy and dandyism phenomenon first appeared in the 1790s, both in London and Paris. In period vernacular, a dandy was differentiated from a fop in that the dandy's dress was more refined and sober. But not for long.
Dandy Pickpockets Diving.
During the Regency period in London, dandyism was a revolt against the extravagance and ostentation of the previous generation, and of sympathy with the new mood of democracy. It became, however, a competitive sport and this revolt against prior tradition became a revolting development.
Immaculate personal cleanliness, crisp and clean linen shirts with high collars, perfectly tied cravats, and exquisitely tailored plain dark coats (similar in many respects to the "macaroni" of the earlier eighteenth century) became the fashion, epitomized by George Bryan "Beau" Brummel (1778-1840). Imitators followed but few possessed Brummel's sense of panache. Many, if not most, over-reached.
Dandies Dressing.
Brummel also cut his hair short and was in the vanguard establishing what would evolve into the modern men's suit of jacket and trousers.
Beau Brummel may have set the standard for elegance and style but not every man aspiring to Brummel's flair succeeded. The style soon went over the top. What flowed naturally and unselfconsciously from Beau Brummel all too often became affectation and pretension in others and it was this class of dandies that became the subject of caricature and ridicule.
Dandies Having a Treat.
They were, indeed, ripe subjects for satire and rich grist for caricaturist Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856) and his celebrated brother, George, both of whom sharply drew the connection between dandyism and buffoonery into the sharp burlesque it had become by the time these engravings were published, the Regency era's's end.. George, however, didn't want to have anything to do with at least one plate in the series. In the lower left corner of Dandies At Tea, over Robert's engraved name, he inscribed and signed: “Not any of it by me.”
The Dandy Lion.
During 1818-1819, Robert Cruikshank produced a series of hand-colored engravings lampooning dandies and dandyism. Issued separately, the engravings scattered, and as far as my research can determine only the British Museum possesses a complete suite. Yet at some point during the nineteenth century a private collector had them bound into an album. That album passed through my hands not too long ago. and yes, it's a dandy one, devastatingly sharp. If these engravings, originally published in the singular, were a steady drip of Chinese water-torture, their collection into a single album is a tsunami drowning the dandy in his overwrought and preening flamboyance. The reputation of dandies takes a mortal hit.
A Dandy Fainting, or An Exquisite in Fits.
The dandy's place in Americana is enshrined in the phrase Yankee Doodle Dandy, which originally appeared in the classic song Yankee Doodle, and referred to dandies and "macaronis." When the British used the term in reference to Americans it was sarcastic commentary that ridiculed the unsophisticated hayseeds we were perceived to be. In concert with the dandy's origins in the fashion of the working-class and in the spirit of democracy, Americans proudly embraced the joke and threw the laugh back at the British. It is exactly why Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it "macaroni."
A Dandy Sick.
I've found no evidence of these engravings ever being formally collected and published in a separate volume. This singular album appears to be the only effort to preserve the suite between covers.
The Hen-Pecked Dandy.
Scholars have written extensively about the Dandy fad and phenomenon but none have commented more incisively than Cruikshank with his artist's pen and ink in these twelve plates.
Comparative Anatomy - Or, the Dandy Tribe.
The Plates (* @British Museum):
1. Dandies at Tea. T. Tegg, Nov. 1818. Numbered 317. With G. Cruikshank disavowal. *BM 13065.
2. Dandies and Dandizettes. T. Tegg. Nov. 6, 1818. Numbered 318.
3. Dandies Having a Treat. T. Tegg. Jan. 1, 1818. Numbered 324.
4. Dandies Dressing. T. Tegg. Nov. 2, 1818. Numbered 319. *BM 13062.
5. English Ladies Dandy Toy. T. Tegg. Dec. 9, 1818. *BM 13067.
6. The Hen-Pecked Dandy. T. Tegg. Nov. 7, 1818. Numbered 320. *BM 13064.
7. Dandy Pickpockets Diving. T. Tegg. Dec. 2, 1818. Numbered 322. Cohn 1043.
8. A Dandy Shoe maker in a Fright…T. Tegg. Dec. 3, 1818. Numbered 321. *BM 13066.
9. The Dandy Lion. S.W. Forbes. Dec. 8, 1818. *BM 13029.A.
10. Comparative Anatomy – or The Dandy Tribe. S.W. Forbes Dec. 10, 1818. *BM 13068.
11. A Dandy Fainting, or An Exquisite in Fits. G. Humphrey Dec. 11, 1818. *BM 13069.
12. A Dandy Sick. S.W. Forbes Feb 9, 1819. * BM 13447.
Dandies and Dandyzettes.
The dandy craze died out but periodically returns, often manifesting itself as rock n' roll fashion. In the early-to-mid-1960s, Carnaby Street designers ruled Britannia by updating the Dandy; their creations became all the rage for rockers; the trend and period, in retrospect, might be characterized as fop-rock, which reached its apotheosis with Elton John's burlesque of it; the Cruikshanks would have smiled in recognition.
In 1965, a rock n' roll group from San Francisco, inspired, apparently, by Regency England's celebrity clothes-horse, had a handful of Billboard Top-Ten hits. Go ahead, laugh, laugh.
Beau Brummel, because of his extravagances, had to flee England to avoid debtor's prison. He died in Caen, France, wallet and wardrobe impoverished, a sad death for the Dandy king.
__________
CRUIKSHANK, [Isaac] Robert.[Dandies]. [T. Tegg and S.W. Forbes]: London, 1818-19.
A series of separately issued, first-state engravings, here collected. Folio (16 x 12 in; 410 x 305 mm). Twelve hand-colored engraved plates mounted on stubbed heavy stock. Plate I (numbered 317) is inscribed and initialed by George Cruikshank in the lower left corner over Robt. Cruickshank’s name: “Not any of it by me.”
Nineteenth century three-quarter green morocco over green cloth boards with gilt lettering. With the bookplates of collectors Samuel Henry Austin, and Reuben Jay Flick.
__________
Latter-day dandies may wish to visit Dandyism.net for news, information, Dandy-related articles, and a handy test of Dandy knowledge.
__________
Images courtesy of David Brass.
__________
__________
