Educate! Amuse! In Color! The George M. Fox Collection of Children’s Books

by Alastair M. Johnston

There’s another children’s book show at San Francisco Public Library (through March 10th 2013), but this is the first since 1986 to draw on the library’s own superb resource: the George M. Fox Collection of Children’s Books.

The collecting of children’s books is a relatively modern phenomenon. There are great collections at Princeton (Cotsen Collection), in Toronto (Osborne Collection), Oxford (Opie Collection), UCLA, NYPL (Schatzki Collection) and in Florida (the Baldwin Library), that I know of, but the Fox Collection is remarkable, not only for its breadth but also for the condition of the books.

George Fox Sr was an executive at Milton Bradley and when they acquired the publishing firm of McLoughlin Brothers of New York, they didn’t want the firm’s archives and decided to dump them. Fox & another executive split them. The archives contained file copies of all their publications including a large cache of books by British publishers that were sent to them for consideration for republishing (or they may have been acquired to see what the competition was up to and ultimately to pirate them). They also contained the original woodblocks for some books as well as related ephemera. The original artwork that survived is at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass. Fox added to the collection and gave over 2000 children’s books to the library in 1978. The current exhibition (the first since 1978) features over eighty examples of 19th-century color printing, especially color wood engraving and chromolithographs. Early hand-colored images are included as well. Highlights include “toy” and “moveable” books; work from the shop of Edmund Evans (who published all of Kate Greenaway's works) and many examples of fine British chromolithography from the firms of Thomas Nelson & Sons, Frederick Warne, Dean & Son and George Routledge & Sons.

McLoughlin Brothers’ motto “Educate and Amuse” marks an important turning point because, prior to the mid-nineteenth century, children’s books tended to be rather tedious and more about indoctrinating kids in good behavior than having fun. Catherine Sinclair’s Holiday House, 1839, is generally considered the first book written for children that does not have a built-in guilt-trip.

Tastes change over time also. The British books in the collection are sometimes marked up with alterations for the American market, or editorial comments. The Little Pig’s Ramble from Home, which is a personal favorite, has “Not much liked, very ordinary,” penciled on it. This is one of the titles that has survived elsewhere too and the Baldwin copy can be read on line at the childrenslibrary.org. In The Little Pig’s Ramble, Jack Pig puts on airs (a wig and top hat) and sets off to explore the world, only to be confronted with a pork butcher! Moral: Stay home if you know what’s good for you!

The books were often published in uniform series like “Uncle Buncle’s” or “Grandmama Easy's” and if the title was well-known it might generate sequels, as Ruth McGurk pointed out in her essay on the Fox Collection: “They are shameless in putting out sequels The Cock Robin story is spun into The Sad Fate of Cock Robin, Sick Robin and his Kind, Nurse Jenny Wren, Death & Burial of Cock Robin, Cock Robin Alive & Well Again and Mrs Dove’s Party. In the latter the guilty sparrow is punished by social ostracism.

And though he hopped in quite bold and undaunted,
He found not a bird that in kindness would greet him.”

He shoulda stayed in Las Vegas. Above is a spread from an 1850s book with hand-colored wood engravings: Mama Lovechild’s [sic] Life & Death of Cock Robin, published by McLoughlin Bros in New York from stereotyped plates.

Not on display is a personal favorite: the giant hen in Learning to Count: One, Two, Buckle my Shoe (by Augustus Hoppin, New York, Hurd & Houghton, ca 1870), but it is in the collection should you choose to explore it.

The books were advertised as cheap, colorful (some printed in ten colors) and above all avoiding vulgar sentiments. The big guns of children’s book illustration, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane emerged in the late Victorian era and are well-represented in the collection. There’s even a Caldecott sketch “in the style of Greenaway.” As McGurk pointed out, “Walter Crane has a bent for whimsical detail.” She points out the Wedgwood bowls in the Three Bears rather luxe kitchen, labeled “Ursus Major, Ursus Minor, and Ursus Minimus”! Caldecott also wrote to Scribner's (who legally imported his books) complaining about the garish colors in the pirated editions of his books from McLoughlin and warning readers not to accept the cheap knock-offs.

Short but sweet, Four Footed Favourites by Mrs Surr, published by Nelson & Sons in London, and illustrated by Hector Giacomelli, appeared in the 1880s. The recently digitized SFPL copy can be read on the Internet Archive site.

The SFPL copy of Comic Insects is also found there. It has anthropomorphism reminiscent of Tenniel’s Caterpillar in Alice (and of course Grandville), but above all it has spectacular color printing from chromolithography, including gold (above, which is very tricky to achieve). Published by Frederick Warne, ca 1872, it was written by the Rev F A S Reid, illustrated by Berry F Berry, engraved by Dalziel Brothers and printed from plates made by Kronheim & Co.

Aunt Louisa’s Magic Modeller (London: Frederick Warne & Co., ca 1881) is a paper toy you cut out to build a replica of the Tower of London. These paper toys were very popular in France & Germany also and make the child a participant in the project rather than a proprietor.

More elaborate toy books include Six Mysterious Pictures from Chaos: affording great amusement and intense surprise among children and their little friends (London: Dean & Sons, ca 1878). Such moveable books inspired the Surrealists in their game of Exquisite Corpse. The show is edifying, and also amusing.

Laura E. Wasowicz, Curator of Children's Literature from the American Antiquarian Society, will discuss the history of McLoughlin Brothers (1858–1950), and their role as producers of color picture books in America. The lecture will be held in the Koret Auditorium of the Main Library, on Saturday, January 5th, at 2 p.m.
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Of Related Interest:

Draw Me A Story: Collecting Children's Book Illustrations.

A Movable Book Feast: The World's Greatest Collection Comes To Auction.

Movable Books Pop Up At Smithsonian.

Dean & Son Movable Books and How To Date Them.
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Kate Greenaway Talks Almanack Layout

by Stephen J. Gertz

Sometime in late 1891, Kate Greenaway wrote the following note to her printer/publisher, Edmund Evans.

Dear Mr Evans

I think it will be best to fill the months oblong with colour. I don't think all the page tinted as the oblong left white will look well - I have finished 4 months - only if you agree with me in this. I will add some snow to one - before I send them to you.

Yours sincerely, KG

I enclose 6 stamps for postage. Many thanks for books.

Opposite the letter's text, on page three, is the layout she suggests: a tall oblong black ink drawing at left of a woman in hat and cloak with left arm raised, with text to its right and below. The design is clearly for one of her almanacks.

It's a very special note: A) It is written to Evans, the most accomplished and celebrated color printer of his era and the man who published Greenaway's first book and developed her professional career; B) It refers to work in progress, always prized in an ALs; C) It contains a sketch in Kate Greenaway's hand.

But there's something even more compelling about the note. That sketch came to life.

January 1892. Snow Added.

The sketch was developed, finished, and is found in Kate Greenaway's Almanack for 1892 as the illustration for January - the woman in red cloak and hat - with snow added, per Greenaway's declaration in the note. This puts a huge dot on the "i," as in Ai! Ai! Ai!

This note possesses all that one could hope for in a signed autograph letter. The only thing that could have improved its content would have been if Greenaway had referred to John Ruskin, celebrated art critic, her mentor and close confidant:

"Not content with his own madness, Ruskin is driving me nuts. 'Love the little girls!" He's beginning to creep me out."

"Working for the printer and publisher Edmund Evans, Kate Greenaway's books and various designs soon became enormously popular in Britain and the United States and, with [John] Ruskin acting as champion and her advisor, her fame and stature rapidly increased" (Chris Beetles, The British Art of Illustration 1800-1991, p. 43) (1846-1901)

Edmund Evans (1826-1905) was the foremost publisher of color-printed books of his era. "In the 1860s Evans established himself as the leading and the best woodblock colour printer in London...The next big development in commercial colour printing in Britain came with the publication of the Toy Books...The demand for Toy Books became so great that - like other printers - Evans turned publisher, and commissioned the artists himself...Evans's...protégé was Kate Greenaway...In 1877 she took a book of her own verses and drawings to Evans, who immediately accepted them and obtained...agreement to publish them in a 6-shilling book to be called Under the Window. He printed 20,000 copies, which soon sold out, and he had great difficulty in keeping up with demand: Under the Window was still in print in 1972. Greenaway never allowed anyone other than Evans to engrave and print her illustrations, clearly recognizing how much Evans's interpretative skills and ability to match medium to style contributed to the final appearance of her work" (Oxford DNB).

"By the 1870s [Edmund] Evans' firm had a high reputation. 'No firm in London could come near the result that Edmund Evans could get with as few, say, as three colour-blocks, so wonderful was his ingenuity, so great was his artistic taste and so accurate his eye' [Spielmann and Layard, p. 41]...[Greenaway] was not a shrewd businesswoman but in dealing with Evans she did manage to achieve considerable success" (Engen, p. 52).


“The beginning of 1883 had seen the publication of Kate Greenaway’s first Almanack. Published at one shilling by George Routledge & Sons, and of course engraved and printed in colours by Mr. Edmund Evans, it achieved an enormous success, some 90,000 copies being sold in England, America, France, and Germany. It was succeeded by an almanack every year (with but one exception, 1896) until 1897, the last being published by Mr. Dent. The illustrations were printed on sheets with blank spaces for the letterpress, in which English, French, or German was inserted as the market demanded. There are various little conceits about these charming productions which are calculated to appeal to the ‘licquorish chapman of such wares’; so that complete sets of them already fetch respectable sums from the collectors of beautiful books, especially when they have not been divested of the paper envelopes or wrappers in which they were originally issued” (Spielmann and Layard (1905), p. 122).

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GREENAWAY, Kate. EVANS, Edmund. Signed Autograph Letter From Kate Greenaway to Her Publisher/Printer, Edmund Evans. N.p. [London], n.d. [1892]. 3 pp, including ink drawing. 4 1/2 x 7 inches (114 x 176 mm); 4 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches (114 x 88 mm), as folded.  

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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Draw Me a Story: Collecting Children's Book Illustrations

by Alastair Johnston  

Draw Me a Story: A Century of Children’s Book Illustration San Francisco Public Library, Skylight Gallery, through December 2nd 2012.

Like most kids I had a loving mother who read me to sleep with bedtime stories. But not Beatrix Potter, which she didn't have time for.

My brothers and I would drift off to The Mill on the Floss or Adam Bede because that was what my mother was reading, and what quicker way to put your kids out than a paragraph or two of George Eliot? She was not opposed to children's books — we had plenty, from Thomas the Tank Engine to Treasure Island, and quickly got into reading for ourselves. (Slight digression: What happened to the Fat Controller and Joe the Monkey Porter from the Thomas books? Are they too politically incorrect for audiences 66 years later?)

"Hush-a-Bye, Baby" from The April Baby's Book of Tunes by Kate Greenaway, 1900. Watercolor on paper.

Malcolm Whyte, director of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, collects children's books, more specifically their illustrations. This autumn, San Francisco Public Library is showing selections from 41 artists in his collection that neatly document the story of children's books for over a century. The show has been touring, and was previously seen at the Frick in New York.

There is no Beatrix Potter! But we do see more important artists in the history of British printing and illustration: Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway. Greenaway's father was an engraver so she understood how to prepare art for process engraving.

The big names of the twentieth century, W. W. Denslow (The Wizard of Oz), Jules Feiffer (The Phantom Tollbooth), Chris Van Allsburg (The Polar Express), and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) are represented with original work.

Beyond them, I only recognized one or two names — Edward Ardizzone and Palmer Cox — but there are many books to wonder at. Jack Kent fits naturally into Whyte's collection because he started out as a comic strip artist, drawing "King Aroo" from 1950 to 1965. But when his strip was cancelled, Kent moved to children's book illustration, producing over 40 titles, including Mr Elephant's Birthday Party (1969), Clotilda (1969), The Fat Cat (1970), and The Blah (1970).

Sarah Noble Ives (1864–1944), "At the Seaside" from ABC of Objects, 1930s. Watercolor on paper.

Lansing "Lang" Campbell is another comic strip artist who turned his hand to book illustration. He created "Uncle Wiggly," who ran in the Newark News from 1910. His children's books still have the feel of the layout of comic strips, and Peter and Puddle Duckdash, from The Dinky Ducklings, 1928, exemplifies this. His flattened perspective and line quality are similar to the animated cartoons of the time.

Lang Campbell, cover, key-line sketch and final spread from The Dinky Ducklings (New York: Algonquin Publishing Co., 1928)

Corinne Malvern (1901–56)'s work is well-known from her covers for the Little Golden Books which established a definite "Fifties Look."

Four book covers by Corinne Malvern: Doctor Dan, the Bandage Man (1950); Nurse Nancy (1952) extra-illustrated with Band-Aids on the title-page; Susie's New Stove (1950); and McCall's Giant Golden Make-it Book (1961)

Malvern achieved much in her 55 years. She came from a Vaudeville family and began her career, aged 6, in the American premier of Madama Butterfly by Puccini. At 14 she made her first film, The Luring Lights. After being injured in a railroad accident during a tour she went to boarding school and then studied at the Art Students League of New York. From 1938 on she and her sister published 32 children's books with McLoughlin Brothers. In the forties she was Art Editor for the Ladies Home Journal.

The artwork for Peggy's Pokey and Other Stories about Pets (1940) shows her technique: she would start with a pencil drawing then add layers of watercolor and fill in with gouache where she wanted a more opaque finish.

Lawson Wood's cover image of the Snork is charming. The Noo-Zoo Tales (London: Warne & Co., ca. 1922) shows the Snork, a giant bird in spats, who joins the circus and realizes he fits into society all right. There's a strength of line in Wood that recalls Winsor McKay of Little Nemo fame. In 1934 Wood was made a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society; he also maintained a retirement home for elderly animals.

L. Leslie Brooke (1862–1940), another Warne artist, would pull faces in the mirror to get the right expressions for the animals in his story books. His original drawing for "Lion and Bear" from Johnny Crow's Garden, 1903, shows a lion in a bow tie and a bear in a dinner jacket, made to measure by monkey tailors. He continued the tradition of British cartoonists who illustrated Punch with humanoid animals depicting the world's nations (Britain was the lion and Russia the bear), though nationalism doesn't enter into his children's stories.

The exhibit, on display through December 2nd, is a rewarding tour of a delightful aspect of book history.
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"Read, And Be Wise - Come, Read and Learn"

by Stephen J. Gertz

A scarce, early American abecedaire (ABC book) in battledore format has come into the marketplace. The Uncle's Present, A New Battledore, featuring "Cries" - street vendors who verbally announced their wares for sale - was issued out of Philadelphia in 1810. With cover woodcuts attributed to W. Mason and A. Anderson, it heralds "Read, and Be Wise" along the top cover's upper margin, and "Come, read and learn" along its flap. 

Within, twenty-four letters of the alphabet are illustrated with charming woodcuts depicting English Criers, including: a bookseller of almanacks, a broomseller, milkmaid, chicken-seller, a print (image) seller, lobster-seller, etc. "The Cries illustrating the alphabet are a very pretty set, and are probably an early set of Newcastle or York Cries by [Thomas] Bewick...The letteres J and U are omitted to have 24 letters in 24 compartments" (Rosenbach).

Unusual for battledores, an extra leaf is present featuring each woodcut for all the letters.

Battledores were popular reading aids for children in mid- to late eighteenth century grammar schools. With their emphasis on learning the alphabet in an entertaining and illustrated format, their popularity with children was enhanced by the form's secondary purpose: outside of the classroom the stiffcard booklet was used as a paddle to play an early version of badminton, battledore and shuttlecock. 

The Uncle's Present is scarce, with OCLC noting only five copies in institutional collections worldwide. A facsimile was reprinted in 1964.

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[BATTLEDORE]. The Uncle's Present. A New Battledore. Philadelphia: Published by Jacob Johnson, Sold by Benjamin Warner, n.d. [c. 1810]. First edition. Octavo (6 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches). Four leaves. Twenty-four woodcuts in twenty-four compartments. Brown pictorial stiffcard wrappers.

Welch 1363. Rosenbach 428.

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Images courtesy of Aleph-Bet Books, with our thanks.
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From Buckingham Palace to History's Dustbin

by Alastair Johnston

I am often surprised how some people, well-known in their lifetime, disappear so thoroughly from history. Even in the bibliophilic world I inhabit, where astonishing work has been done to extract marginal figures, like type-cutters, engravers and printers, from the dustbin of time, I constantly come across people who are as elusive today as they were ubiquitous in their day. Step out of the stacks towards politicians and other actors and you fall over insignificant people who strutted or fretted on the world's stage leaving a trail of newsprint.

William Marshall Craig (1750?–1828), Moroccan Slipper vendor, from Itinerant Traders of London in their Ordinary Costume, London: Richard Phillips, 1804

Despite being a celebrated artist and prolific book illustrator, William Marshall Craig is a sketchy figure in the history of British art. He may even have been two people: a father and son sharing the same name. His father (assuming he is a whole man and not Senior and Junior) was an Edinburgh merchant and his mother was Mary, sister of James Thomson, the poet and author of The Seasons, who also wrote the lyrics to “Rule Britannia.” William’s brother James was the architect who transformed Edinburgh into “the Athens of the North” at the turn of the nineteenth century, along with Robert Adam. Their maternal grandfather, Thomas Thomson, was a Presbyterian minister who died performing an exorcism. Craig’s date of birth is usually given as 1765 but I believe it had to be around 1750. He died in 1828 (not 1827 or 1835 as commonly stated). I searched for him in the Guildhall archives in London and, with the help of newspaper morgues and genealogy websites, managed to put together something of a family tree, but there were many loose ends that did not tie up.

Craig's rise to high society was pretty rapid. He moved from Manchester to London and his artistic talents were immediately recognized. As a polemicist he took on John Gilpin, writing a rebuttal to Gilpin’s Essay on the Art of Sketching Landscape, which he characterized as "truth sacrificed on all occasions." In 1793 William Bulmer printed Craig's Essay on the Study of Nature in Drawing Landscape.

Craig exhibited at the Royal Academy and produced portraits of many nobles and notables. In 1800 his Complete Instructor in Drawing was published, and he was appointed painter in watercolours to the Queen and drawing master to Princess Charlotte of Wales. In 1804, one of Craig’s major works, Itinerant Traders of London in their Ordinary Costume, was published by Richard Phillips. The plates were reused in another book titled Modern London.

William Marshall Craig (1750?–1828), Temple of the Fairies, London: Vernor & Hood, 1804

The same year saw The Temple of the Fairies, translated from Le Cabinet des Fées of Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, appear from Vernor and Hood in 2 volumes, with Craig’s wonderful illustrations engraved by Lee (Volume 2 can be browsed here), and also The Wreath — children’s stories written and illustrated by Craig, dedicated to the 8-year-old Princess.

William Marshall Craig (1750?–1828), The Wreath, London: Bensley, for the Author, 1804

The 36 wood engravings in The Wreath, including initial letters, were executed by Lee (John Lee died in 1804 so it’s either his final work, or else it was the work of his 25-year-old son James Lee). Craig drew directly on the engraver's blocks with ink and wash. (He and John Thurston were considered the top artists on wood for engravers: Thomas Bewick and Richard T. Austin also cut following his work.) The book was printed for the author and Lee, and for Harris, a bookseller, by Thomas Bensley, who has not achieved the status of his rival William Bulmer, but was certainly one of the finest printers in London, along with Charles Whittingham. It must have been a success because a second edition was printed soon after, retitled A Wreath for the Brow of Youth.

William Marshall Craig (1750?–1828), A Wreath for the Brow of Youth, London: Thomas Bensley for the Author, 1804

From 1806 to 08, Vernor, Hood & Sharpe published Craig's series of engraved portraits of nobility. He also illustrated the part-work Beauties of England and Wales (1801–16), issued by the same firm.

Craig retranslated Cervantes' Galatea; a Pastoral Romance (1813), from a French edition; it was illustrated with woodcuts executed by his son Frederick. Craig published three more books on art technique: Instructions for Drawing and Understanding the Human Figure (1816), Treatise on the Art of Painting (1817), and Course of Lectures on Drawing, Painting & Engraving (1821).

It's all the more remarkable that he is a forgotten man when you consider his place in the royal household. He was close to the Queen and the young Princess Charlotte, next in line to the throne. (He called his own daughter Charlotte and even lived on Charlotte street: you can see he was afflicted with Charlotte Fever.) But Princess Charlotte was a pawn in the struggle between the ailing George III and his profligate son who had been forced into a marriage with her mother, Caroline, to annul his debts. As the only legitimate daughter of George IV, Princess Charlotte was in line for the throne but after a forced marriage and two miscarriages, she died in childbirth, aged 21, on 6 November 1817. The shock to the nation was unequalled until the death of another Princess of Wales, Diana, 180 years later. When her mother, the Queen, died a year later, Craig sat down and wrote his memoirs of the royal family, which was published a month later as Memoir of Her Majesty Sophia Charlotte, of Mecklenburg Strelitz, Queen of Great Britain (Liverpool: Caxton Press, 1818).

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Edmund Dulac's Persian Pearls

By Stephen J. Gertz

Neither serpents, nor magicians, nor sickness, nor accidents can touch him who has and holds in honour a pearl born in the head of a serpent (Léonard Rosenthal, stanza 66, from Au Royaume de la Perle).

In 1919, Léonard Rosenthal (1872-1955), an internationally respected and acclaimed dealer of oriental pearls and precious stones based in Paris,  published  Au Royaume de la Perle (Paris: Payot), a 208-page 16mo volume with decorations by Claude Denis.

 

In 1920, Rosenthal commissioned Edmund Dulac (1882-1955) to provide illustrations for a large quarto deluxe edition. Published in Paris by H. Piazza, it was immediately translated into English and published in London by Nisbet & Co.

With Dulac's illustrations, the book was transformed into a pearl born in the head of a magnificent artist.

 

“His plates, truly genius, do much to bring a fanciful touch to an otherwise stark exposition on pearls” (Hughey).

Ann Hughey, who compiled the standard bibliography of books illustrated by Dulac, is a bit harsh regarding Rosenthal's text. Within the "stark exposition" lies a fascinating chapter devoted to oriental pearl legends and mythology, i.e:

The cloud pearl never reaches the earth; the gods seize it whilst it is still in the air. It is like the sun, a dazzling sphere the rays from which fill the whole of space (Stanza 67).

It eclipses the light of fire, of the moon, of the lunar constellations, of the stars and all the planets. As the sun is to the day, so is this pearl to the darkness of the night (Stanza 68).

The earth, adorned by the four seas, the waters of which glitter with the lustre of many jewels, the whole earth covered with gold, would scarcely attain to the value of this one pearl: such is my belief (Stanza 69).

He who, by reason of an act of virtue of the highest degree, becomes possessed of it, will remain without a rival in the whole world, so long as he retains it (Stanza 70).

“Edmund Dulac adapts his talents to the spirit of that which he is to render…In…The Kingdom and the Pearl he used the conventional Persian style without perspective, rich in decorative forms and jewelplike colours, bring out the beauty of minute things by the use of colour and graceful line” (The International Studio, Sept. 1926).

Dulac “at his best…fantastically Persian” (The Times).

In 1904, when Edmund Dulac, age 22, landed in London after winning prizes for his work awarded by the Ecole des Beaux Arts he hit the ground running,   was an immediate success, and was soon the most acclaimed book illustrator of his generation at a time when book illustration had entered its golden age. His only rival was Arthur Rackham.

By 1913, his romanticism-in-blue period had evolved into a vivid, highly exotic and idealized vision of the Orient, Persian art miniatures a major influence upon him. First budding in his illustrations for Stories from the Arabian Nights (1907) and Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1909), his new orientalist style was in full flower with Princess Badura: A Tale From the Arabian Nights (1913); Sinbad the Sailor and Other Stories From the Arabian Nights (1914).

This was the elegant oriental exoticism that Rosenthal had in mind when he imagined what Au Royaume de la Perle might look like if richly illustrated. Dulac's was exactly the fantasy he saw in his head, the romance of  his beloved pearls made manifest in art, each plate a jewel.

He who, by reason of an act of virtue of the highest degree, becomes possessed of a copy of this book will remain without a rival in the whole world, so long as he retains it. Yet post it for sale on Ebay and you shall be accursed for all eternity.

A copy that recently passed through my hands had been rebound by Bayntun-Riviére in full black morocco with a royal crown centerpiece ornamented by twenty-six tiny, set-in cultured pearls. A simple strand of pearls against black remains classically elegant fashion. Women of taste who come across this copy will wonder whether to read the book or wear it.

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[DULAC, Edmund, illustrator]. ROSENTHAL, Léonard. The Kingdom of the Pearl. London: Nisbet & Co., [n.d., 1920].

Limited to 675 copies, this being copy no. 44. Large quarto (11 x 8 ¾ in; 279 x 224 mm). xii, 150, [1], [1, printer’s slug] pp. Ten tipped-in color plates.

Bound ca. 1960 by Bayntun (Riviére) in full black crushed levant morocco with single gilt fillet border enclosing a frame of rolled gilt dots with corner ornaments within which is a double-fillet panel housing a royal crown centerpiece in gilt which is set with twenty-six tiny pearls. Raised bands with gilt rolls. Compartments with gilt-ruled frames enclosing gilt ornaments. Gilt-rolled edges. Broad turn-ins with gilt-rolls. Top edge gilt. Cockerell endpapers.

Hughey 54c.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Of related interest:

The ABC Book of Edmund Dulac.
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Satyr Reads Book To Wood Nymph While Trees Observe

By Stephen J. Gertz

Somebody's Book by Arthur Rackham.

Appearing on page 92 of The Windmill, an anthology of authors and illustrators published by William Heinemann Ltd., Somebody's Book by Arthur Rackham, makes its debut; it is found nowhere else.

The authors represented in The Windmill include John Galsworthy, Edmund Gosse, Siegfried Sassoon, John Masefield, Maurice Baring, Max Beerbohm, Algernon Swinburne, Lafcadio Hearn, Vita Sackville-West, Israel Zangwill, Stephen Crane, Arthur Symons, Christopher Morley, W. Somerset Maugham, Jack London and others.

Many of the pieces in the book appear here for the first time. Profits from its sale were donated to the Royal Literary Fund. Also present are facsimiles of manuscripts or letters by R. S. Stevenson, W. H. Page, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, A. C. Swinburne, Rutland Boughton and Laurence Sterne.

Booktryst readers are invited to imagine what book the satyr is reading to his darlin' dryad. You may leave your answers below in the Comments section. I don't think it's The Vicar of Wakefield.

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[RACKHAM, Arthur, Cecil Alden, Hugh Thompson, illustrators]. CALLENDER, L. (editor). The Windmill: Stories, Essays, Poems & Pictures by Authors and Artists whose Works are pubiished at the Sign of the Windmill. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1923. First edition, lim ited to 500 copies. Quarto. ix, [1], 224 pp. Four color plates with captioned tissue guards, four black and white plates (one double-page), seven facsimile reproductions. 

Publisher's original quarter black cloth over orange papered boards. Gilt lettered spine, publisher's windmill vignette in gilt to upper cover. Issued with printed dust jacket.

Latimore and Haskell, p. 57.

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How To See a Ghost

By Stephen J. Gertz

To see the spectres, it is only necessary to look steadily at the dot, or asterisk, which is to be found on each of the plates, for about a quarter of a minute...Then turning the eyes to the ceiling...of a darkened room...the spectre will soon begin to make its appearance - From the Introduction.

There are ghosts that live within us, the phantoms of friends and loved ones no longer in our lives, of relationships and actions that haunt us forever afterward. The past is a ghost that never goes away; it is immortal. It never dies. Time wears a white sheet and often jumps out from within a dark corner, suddenly, says, Boo!, and leaves you shaken with a bad case of the willies.

Then there are the ghosts that haunt us from without, the phantasms that go bump in the night, apparitions that invade the material world. If you're lucky, it's only Caspar the Friendly Ghost. If your luck has run out, you may see a banshee washing the blood-stained clothes of one who is about to die - the person who stares back at you from the mirror.

That class of wraith, author J.H. Brown proves, is an illusion, a trick of the eye.

Spectropia, written in 1864 by Brown in alarm over the popular interest in spiritualism - he called it a "mental epidemic" - was produced for children but Brown aimed to slay the dragon in adults, his goal "the extinction of the superstitious belief that apparitions are actual spirits by showing some of the ways our senses may be deceived...the eye pre-eminently so."

Brown blamed mediums, whom he considered to be charlatans preying on a gullible public and, as an early-day Amazing Randi, set out to debunk spiritualist claims.

To do so he provided ghostly plates that, when attention is concentrated upon each and then focused upon a blank wall a spectral image of the plate will be seen. He demonstrated the (then standard) optical principle of persistence of vision wherein an after-image remains on our retinas for 1/25th of a second, lingering in the visual cortex of the occipital lobe of our brains before it decays and disappears

Spectropia went though a five editions and many issues 1864-1866. An American edition appeared almost immediately after the first U.K. publication. It was translated into Dutch in 1870.  Spectropia was a very popular book.

Persistence of vision was refuted in 1912 by Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer, who conclusively demonstrated that what was actually occurring was an optical illusion called the phi phenomenon in which the brain fills in information from a series of individual images that when seen at a certain speed create the sense of constant, uninterrupted flow of motion, i.e. cinema.

The Unjolly Green Giant Ghost.

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Later edition.

BROWN, J.H. Spectropia, or, Surprising spectral illusions: showing ghosts everywhere, and of any colour. London: Griffith and Farran, 1864. First edition. Octavo. 12 text pp., sixteen color plates on 16 leaves.

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Rare Wizard Of Oz Movable Book Pops-Up In Marketplace

By Stephen J. Gertz

A scarce, complete, first edition, first state copy of The Wizard of Oz Waddle Book (1934) - one of the rarest of all movable books - has come into the marketplace.

Inside rear cover. Note band covering envelope with ramp.

Not only are all six waddle figures present, four of them have not been punched-out from the background sheet and are as new. The accompanying yellow brick road ramp for Dorothy, the Wizard, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Lion, and Toto to waddle upon is also present. This is extraordinary; the figures and ramp usually wound up as confetti within days after children got their hands on them.

The Scarecrow.

The illustrations are by renowned American artist W.W. Denslow (1856-1915), who collaborated with Oz creator L. Frank Baum on many books.

The Cowardly Lion.

When the figures are punched-out, assembled with their hinged legs, and placed at the top of the ramp, they "waddle" down the incline as paper action figures. The Cowardly Lion, presumably, needs encouragement to take his first step on The Yellow Brick Road. A metaphysical nudge from behind should suffice; "Boo!" will do.

Dorothy.

The Wizard of Oz Waddle Book is actually a reprint of the fifth edition of the first book in the classic series, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), which, in its second edition, was retitled, The New Wizard of Oz (1903). The text points are similar to the fifth edition (printed 1920s-30s), second state, but with a new title page, an additional entry at the end of the Contents for the instructions, and with the instructions bound at the rear as pages 209-211.

The color plates have text printed on the versos. In the book's first state, as here, the punch-out waddle figures are printed on sheets of heavy card stock which are mounted on bound-in perforated stubs. In its second state, the waddle figures are not mounted on stubs but, instead, enclosed in the envelope along with the ramp. The second state of the cloth is light olive rather than bright green.

Toto.

Bobbs-Merrill, who published The New Wizard of Oz, leased the plates to Blue Ribbon Books, a division of Doubleday, Doran, for the Waddle Book. Bobbs-Merrill had earlier gained possession of the plates from the original publisher of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Geo. M. Hill Co., through Baum & Denslow, after Hill went into bankruptcy in 1902.

"Copies with the Waddles are rarely found," (Greene & Hanff). Copies with the Waddles unassembled and remaining firm in their sheets are miraculous, only seen when monkeys have wings and water is lethal to witches of a certain direction.

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BAUM, L. Frank. Wizard of Oz Waddle Book. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, n.d. [1934]. First edition, first state. Quarto. [1]. 210, [1] pp. Eight color plates by W.W. Denslow, six with die-cut figures. Original pictorial envelope a rear enclosing ramp and fasteners. Green cloth with pictorial onlay. Dust jacket.

Greene and Hanff p. 35-36.

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Of related interest:

How Much Is An L. Frank Baum Inscribed Wizard Of Oz Worth?

L. Frank Baum Tells How To Read The Wizard Of Oz.

L. Frank Baum Remembers Mama, You'll Remember the Price.
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Images courtesy of Aleph-Bet Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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