The Sorrowful Saga of Jack Ruby's Pants, Now At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

 

Snap your suspenders auction attenders, Jack Ruby's pants are for sale.

A pair of trousers personally owned and worn by the man who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of JFK, is being offered by Nate D. Sanders Auctions in its sale ending January 30th at 5PM Pacific. The opening bid is $5,000.

Ruby was not wearing this pair of pants when he shot Oswald. But he may have worn them during courtroom appearances. Or, he may have had them on when he heard news of the President's assassination while placing an ad at the Dallas Morning News office. Perhaps they were hanging in his closet at the moment JFK was shot. Maybe he was wearing them while Tammy True, his "No. 1 girl," performed her striptease act at Ruby's Carousel Club. Secrets abound in the pockets, which, alas, are sans historical lint. If only pants could talk. But these pants, apparently, are under a gag order and forbidden to split their seams; 100% worsted wool lips as well as fly are zippered.

We do know, however, that someone wrote Ruby's name on the outer lining to one of the pockets. It wasn't Ruby; the handwriting is not his. Perhaps his mother wrote his name there before sending him  to summer camp. It was probably Earl, Jack Ruby's brother, who inked Jack's name on the pocket. He provided a notarized letter of authenticity to accompany the pants so you know they're the real Ruby. We do not know, however, and will likely never know whether Jack Ruby slipped his right or left leg in first when putting them on, whether he put his shoes on before or after donning them, nor where he positioned his privates within his pants, to the left or to the right? History will remain a beggar.

You may be asking yourself, as I am, why bother writing about a historical artifact of dubious historical value that has nothing to do with books? We've written about Ernest Hemingway's typewriter. We've written about Herman Melville's travel desk. We've even written about Hart Crane's sombrero, which is probably not Hart Crane's sombrero.

We feel it our duty. I am, after, all, the man who slept in Lee Harvey Oswald's coffin. But if someone feels that a pair of Jack Ruby's pants has collectible value who am I to judge? Yet caveat emptor: it'll take a moment of madness to fill these pants with a backstory worthy of their purchase.

Book inserted to lend relevance to post.

How 'bout this one: Jack Ruby, né Jacob Rubenstein, was wearing these pants when he slipped my uncle, Elmer Gertz (1906-2000), his appeal attorney (who was Clarence Darrow's protegé in youth, and got Ruby's sentence reduced from death to life), a two-page note in Judge Holland's Dallas courtroom on September 9, 1965 highlighting his hopelessness and paranoid delusions about an anti-Semitic, neo-Final Solution conspiracy being played out where he was incarcerated:

"Elmer, you must believe me, that I am not imagining crazy thoughts etc. This is all so hopeless, that they have everything in the bag and there isn't any chance or hope for me. These hearings are just to stall for time. What chance do I have, when I know at this time that they are killing our people now in this very building. You must believe me, as to  what is happening, they are torturing people right here. Why should I constantly repeat all these things over and over"

Jack Ruby's Crazy Pants. That's how you sell this footnote of historical haberdashery. The tag covers the whole spectrum of the man, who had a  history of mental illness in his family, a violent temper, poor impulse control, and a dog named Sheba he was nuts about. Ruby's roommate, George Senator, told the Warren Commission that Jack would often refer to Sheba as his "wife." He took her everywhere and catered to her every whim. She was waiting in the car for him while he sent a money order from the Western Union office adjacent to the Dallas police station garage where he observed a crowd and went in. He did her bidding; he had no choice. He was a slave to Sheba. She wore the pants in the marriage.

On January 3, 1967, Jack Ruby, sentenced to life, died after throwing a pulmonary embolism secondary to lung cancer. He passed in Parkland Hospital, where JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald were pronounced dead.

He was buried next to his parents but not in these pants.

Nor in the Ruby slippers.

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Pants images courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with our thanks.

Image of Ruby note to Elmer Gertz courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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Curious Customs Of England: Wife-Selling, Whipping the Cock, Sowing Hemp Seed, Etc.

by Stephen J. Gertz

Title-page.

"Short that wrinkled Care derides
And Laughter holding both his sides."

In Margochanningescu, a Romanian hamlet associated with Vlad the Impaler, villagers fasten their seat belts when a full moon portends a bumpy night with vicious conversation that drains the blood from unsophisticated brains.

In Bad Temper, a burg so isolated within Germany's Black Forest that residents have evolved into a new species of hominid, ancient tradition demands that maidens who have reached their first menses must perform the Schuhplattler courtship dance in the town square balanced upon only one of their three legs and blow a gasket when males who have reached puberty tickle each other instead of the girls' fancy axillary regions.

On the corner of Pico & Barrington in West Los Angeles, California, where discount mattress stores dominate an otherwise barren retail landscape, Campfire Girls are encouraged by tribal elders to earn their merit badges in Billing & Cooing by performing The Slapstick Serenade, to wit: whistling to male passersby The Flight of the Bumble Bee while lying supine upon a tattered boxspring abandoned in an alley, wiggling their eyebrows as a leering Groucho Marx, and afterward reciting the Campfire Girls Oath in Esperanto with Yiddish accent while tying two unmatched socks found lying in a gutter into a knot worthy of King Gordius of Phrygia. They then bake a meringue pie and throw it into the face of the one whose heart they seek to win and later, after their inauspicious first driving lesson with swain as instructor, roughly dice their true love's ticker into 1" squares then toss into a food processor and puree.

The above rituals, collected by Sir Woodrow Knotty Pine-Coffin in Dubious Rites of Apocryphal Peoples from Around the World, are run-of-the-mill compared to those found in Popular Pastimes, being a Selection of Picturesque Representations of the Customs & Amusements of Great Britain in Ancient and Modern Times, an anonymously written book published in 1816 with hand-colored plates after designs by Francis Philip Stephanoff (1788-1860) illustrating twenty of the book's thirty chapters.

Popular pastimes covered in the book include foot-ball, exorcism, chasing and kissing under the mistletoe, claiming a flitch of bacon after a year of conjugal happiness and lack of strife, wife-selling, whipping the cock, donkey riding, bull-baiting, the fool plough and sword dance, the smock race, swearing in the Sheriffs, the milk-maid's garland (not to be confused with the Punch & Judy garland), and etc.

Selling A Wife.

"Among the customs unknown to the law in this country,, though by the illiterate and vulgar supposed to be of legal validity and assurance, is that of SELLING A WIFE, like a brute animal, in a common market-place. At what period this practice had origin we have not discovered, but it has unquestionably been in existence for a long series of years; and many instances might be given of the extensive spread of this licentious custom in more modern times…"

For example, "on the 11th of March 1803… 'a private individual led his Wife to Sheffield market, by a cord tied round her waist, and publicly announced that he wanted to sell his cow. On this occasion, a butcher who officiated as auctioneer, and knocked down the lot for a guinea, declared that he had not brought a cow to a better market for many years.' …On the 27th of March, 1808… 'a man publicly sold his Wife to a fisherman, in the market at Brighton, for twenty shillings and a blunderbuss.'

"This practice, immoral and shameful as it is, has given to various pleasant Jeu d'esprits…"

Heaving.

"In the mode of Heaving, there is considerable variation in different districts; but it is general, we believe, for the men to lift the women on Easter Monday, and the women the men, on Tuesday. In Manchester, Bolton, and other towns in Lancashire, parties are formed, who surround every one of the opposite sex that they meet, and either with or without their consent, take hold of their legs and arms, and lift them thrice above their heads, into the air, in a horizontal position, with loud shouts at each elevation. a small sum must be paid for ransom by the persons thus elevated.

"At Manchester, the magistrates constantly prohibit this indecent practice, yet it is still carried on in the outskirts of the town. In Cheshire, Shropshire, &c. the men go with a chair into every house to which they can obtain admission, and forcing every female to be seated in their vehicle, lift them up three times with loud huzzas. For this they claim a kiss, which, however, is remitted to the coy on payment of a fine. On the following day the women have the same privilege, and pursue it with equal license. In North Wales the Heavers travel from house to house, both in town and country, and have frequently a fiddle playing before them."

Riding The Stang.

"The vulgar of every country have particular customs, which, being immediately subversive of decorum and good order, can only be practiced at uncertain intervals, when magistracy sleeps, or a more than common effervescence of popular daring condemns authority, and overbears control: of this description is the ignominious punishment called RIDING THE STANG….

"'Riding the Stang,' according to Dr.. Jamieson, 'is the remains of a very ancient cuetom among the Goths, who were wont to erect what they called Nidstaeng, on the pole of infamy, with the most dire imprecations against those who were thought to deserve the reprobation which this act implied. The person thus subjected to dishonor was called Niding, or infamous, and he was thenceforth deemed incapable of making oath in any cause.'

"Callender observes, that in Scotland, 'Riding the Stang is a mark of the highest infamy, and the person who has been thus treated seldom recovers his honor in the opinion of his neighbors.'

"'I am informed,' says Dr. Jamieson, 'that in Lothian, and, perhaps, in other countries, the man who had debauched his neighbor's wife was formerly forced to ride the Stang,' yet this punishment was not exclusively inflicted on gallants detected in criminal amours. The virago who had beaten her husband was also subjected to ride the Stang…"

Skimmington, or the Shrew.

"Skimmington, or 'Riding Skimmington,' is a custom very analogous to that of Riding the Stang; it seems, principally, to have been inflicted by the populace on lewd and scolding women, but sometimes, also, on those willing cornutoes who basely contented themselves with deriving profit from their wives' prostitution. The derivation of the term has not been traced: Mr. Douce deduces it from the skimming-ladle, with with the shameless termagant, in these processions, was permitted to chastise her husband; but Mr. Brand, with more likelihood, from the name of some errant scold, whose celebrity was sufficiently notorious to place her at the head of the profession, and thence by an easy metonymy, to  occasion the appellation of a 'Skimmington' to be given to every proficient in her line.

"In the 'Gentleman's Dictionary,' a Skimmington is defined to be 'a sort of burlesque procession in ridicule of a man who suffers himself to be beat by his wife;' and Grose, in his Provincial Glossary, after a similar definition, gives the ensuing particulars of the cavalcade: 'It consists of a man riding behind a woman with his face to the horse's tail, holding a distaff in his hand, at which he seems to work, the woman all the while beating him with the ladle; a smock displayed upon a staff is carried before them, as an emblematical standard, denoting female superiority…'

"...Colmelar, in his 'Delices de l'Espagne,' &c. speaking of Spanish manners, states, that, 'When a man, for the sake of profit, knowingly suffers his wife to cuckold him, they are, on discovery, both seized, set astride upon an ass, and publicly exposed; the cornato having on a very large pair of horns, hung with small bells, and the wife being compelled to flog him, whilst she, herself, is lashed by the executioner.'"

The Mistletoe.

"As the ivy is dedicated to Bacchus, so should the Mistletoe be to Love; not, however, to the chaste Eros, but to the sportive Cupid. The sacred regard given to it in pagan and Druidical rites has long been terminated; but it is still beheld with emotions of pleasurable interest, when hung up in our kitchens at Christmas; it gives license to seize 'the soft kiss' from the ruby lips of whatever female can be enticed or caught beneath. So custom authorizes, and it enjoins also, that one of the berries of the Mistletoe be plucked off after every salute. Though coy in appearance, the 'chariest maid'  at this season of festivity is seldom loth to submit to the established usage; especially when the swain who tempts her is one whom she approves.

Whipping The Cock.

Whipping The Cock has nothing to do with that other popular, though usually private, pastime, Slapping The Monkey, and shame on you for thinking otherwise.

"'Whipping The Cock,' according to Grose, 'is a piece of sport practiced at wakes, horse races, and fairs, in Leicestershire: a Cock being tied or fastened into a hat or basket, half a dozen carters, blindfolded, and armed with their cart whips, are placed round it, who, after being turned three thrice about, begin to whip the cock, which if any one strikes so as to make it cry out, it becomes his property; the joke is, that instead of whipping the Cock they flog each other heartily.'"

Popular Pastimes, alas, does not include a color-plate to illustrate its chapter on Sowing Hemp-Seed. All we can provide are excerpts from the text.

"Among the Love divinations still in vogue with our peasant girls is that of SOWING HEMP SEED on Midsummer Eve, for the purpose of discovering who their true sweethearts are. This custom is thus pleasingly noticed in the 'Connoisseur' at the same season by our country lasses. 'I and my two sisters tried the dumb cake together; you must know, two must make it, two bake, two break it, and the third put it under each of their pillows (but you must not speak a word all the time), and then you will dream of the man you are to have. This we did: and to be sure I did nothing all night but dream of Mr. Blossom.

"'The same night, exactly at twelve o'clock, I sowed Hemp-seed in our back yard, and said to myself these words, 

Hemp-seed I sow, Hemp-seed I hoe,

And he that is my true love,

Come after me and mow. -

"'Will you believe me? I looked back and saw him behind me, as plain as eyes could see him.'"

We can only presume that the lasses were smoking as well as sowing hemp-seed. Or, perhaps, Banging The Gong, a popular pastime among devotees of the poppy in Devonshire.

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[STEPHANOFF, F.P., illustrator]. Popular Pastimes, Being a Selection of the Customs & Amusements of Great Britain, In Ancient and Modern Times; Accompanied by Historical Descriptions. London: Published by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones; Taylor and Hessy; J.M. Richardson; Nornaville and Fell and Molteno, 1816.

First edition, earliest issue, with plates watermarked 1814. Octavo (8 3/16 x 5 in; 208 x 129 mm). [2], 126, iv [i.e. 2 as Contents, misbound] pp. Hand-colored title vignette and twenty hand-colored plates after F.P. Stephanoff with tissue guards.

Notes and Queries, January 21, 1905, p. 60. Book Prices Current, 1895, no. 155.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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A Nation Of Political Fools, 1713 Edition

by Stephen J. Gertz

 

"Although this Island of Folly cannot be found on the map, you will have no difficulty in guessing its real name and location by observing its mores and inhabitants" (Preface).

 In 1713,  A New Voyage to the Island of Fools was published, an  anti-Utopian satire of England's Tory government disguised as a voyage of exploration led by a Venetian nobleman. Pseudonymously written, it has been variously attributed to Jonathan Swift, Edmund Stacey, or Edward Ward. 

By 1713 the Tory party had dominated Parliament for the three preceding years and had made further gains in the current year's elections. Prime Minister Robert Harley, appointed after the downfall of the Whigs in 1710, attempted to pursue a moderate and non-controversial policy, but had  to contend with extremist Tories on the backbenches who were frustrated by the lack of support for their legislation against dissent. 

In five letters, the primativist narrator of ...the Island of Fools observes and reports on the mores of a nation in a sad state of affairs.

The inhabitants of Stultitia, the island of fools, were not "Stultitian [that is, foolish] by nature, but by practice," we are told. Foolishness is considered a moral failure and here refers to the vices that consumed the nation. "Slaves of sentiments, inclinations, interest, avarice, ambition, and desire for vengeance and of 'fantasies,' the Stultitians are suckers for adulation, flattery, false evidence, crime, rebellion, cheating, treason, rioting, prostitution and 'all manner of wickedness and folly'" ((Braga, The Rationalist Critique of Utopian Thinking, University of Bucharest Review, Vol. I. 2011, no. 1, p. 128).

Obsession with superstitions and collective illusions is the cause of human corruption, according to Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, and the Stultitians enjoy a surfeit of superstitions and collective psychoses. "In order to impinge them to riot or rebellion and to any action in general, it is enough to excite their fancy with a few new Notions or Projects that they will embrace without giving the least thought about their Truth, Reason or their Probability." Imaginary “epidemical pseudosciences”  lie at the core of the Stultitian mind-set.

"During the 17th-18th centuries, the pressure exercised by combined critiques due to religious ideology and later on by rationalist mentality rendered utopias suspect to the eyes of many authors. Christian counter-utopists, ranging from Joseph Hall to Jonathan Swift, accepted and adopted the dogmas related to the Lost Earthly Paradise and Man’s Cursed City, transforming the utopian space into hell on earth, into monstrous kingdoms that would rival Dante’s circles.

"In turn, humanist counter-utopists, skeptical regarding man’s capacity of establishing a perfect society, found other means of expressing their incredulity as well as sarcasms. They imagined madmen islands and kingdoms of fools, demonstrating, by reductio ab absurdum, that the application of the ideals of reason to social programs would only lead to nightmarish societies" (Ibid.).

Slings and arrows from satirists skewering the Tories did not change a thing. Their government remained popular with the electorate for its effort to end the War of the Spanish Succession and ratify the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. 

As for Jonathan Swift being the author of this pamphlet, not true. At this point, Swift, who, as a political pamphleteer simultaneously played tennis on both sides of the net, had permanently moved from the Whig to the Tory party, joining its inner circle: he was a one-issue voter and found Tory policy on the Irish clergy in agreement with his own sympathies as an Irishman. Edmund Stacey, author of The Parliament of Birds (1712), also published by John Morphew, is the likeliest suspect, though Edward Ward is given credit in a manuscript annotation.

Those on the Right or Left seeking ammo in this satire will find it; Right and Left politics as we understand it today did not exist at that time - ideology was fluid and not as sharply defined as now -  It was in the post-Revolution French Assembly that those political directions were established: monarchists sat on the right, republicans on the left side of the Assembly's aisle. Contemporary American Conservatives may plotz to learn that in the 18th and 19th centuries Liberal Conservatism was, far from an oxymoron, a recognized, respected and viable political viewpoint.

The enduring lesson here is that utopias look good on paper but are a disaster in practice, no matter the ideology. Heaven on earth is an impossibility, whether as an ideal society in which government plays no role at all in the lives of its citizens and taxes are non-existent, or an ideal where the government will help the vulnerable from birth to death if necessary at a price shared by all good citizens. It's always a fool's game. People tend to get in the way when a perfect world is pursued; your perfection is my purgatory. One man's sage is another man's fool.

The population of the Island of Fools is exploding yet it's a protean destination resort and can accommodate all who wish to vacation in folly and call it wisdom.

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[UTOPIAN SATIRE]. A New Voyage to the Island of Fools, Representing the Policy, Government, and Present State of the Stultitians. By a Noble Venetian. Inscib'd to the Right Honorable The Lord Fernando. Translated from the Italian. London: John Morphew, [September] 1713. Attributed to Swift (in Wrenn catalogue) but not in Teerink.  Octavo (188 x 118 mm). [2], 62 pp. Wrappers.

A second edition was issued in 1715.

Claeys, Utopias of the British Enlightenment, p. xxix. Letellier, The English Novel 1700-1740, p. 336.

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Image courtesy of Christie's, which is offering this title in its Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts sale November 15, 2013. With our thanks. 

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Scarcer Than A Battleship In A Bathtub

by Stephen J. Gertz

A copy of James Ralfe's Naval Chronology of Great Britain in the original parts has come to market. A book of incredible scarcity in its original twelve installments 1818-1819, only one copy has been seen at auction within the last fifty-three years, in 1960, according to ABPC. The chances of seeing another in the original parts anytime soon are slim to none. The rare 1820 three-volume first edition in book format is commonplace by comparison.

It's a foundational historical account of British naval and maritime events from the beginning of the Napoleonic wars in 1803 through the War of 1812 to the end of 1816, illustrated with sixty magnificent hand-colored aquatint engravings. James Ralfe (fl 1818-1829) was a respected naval historian.

As such, it is an invaluable reference on the British Navy during the period under review, with the plates based on drawings by officers, many of whom were participants in the naval battles:  T. Sutherland, F.C. Lewis, D. Havel and others after T. Whitcombe, J. Beresford, W.A. Armstrong, J. Gore, and W. Hill.

"The object of this work is, more particularly, to perpetuate the names of those individuals who have, by their talents, courage, and professional abilities, increased the honour and reputation of the British Navy, and secured the peace and independence of the Country.

 "It will form a complete Naval History from 1802 (the time at which Captain Schomberg's Chronology terminates) to 1817, under the form generally acknowledged to be the most convenient for an historical work of reference. From the arrangements which have been made, it is expected that the work will answer every purpose of information not only to gentlemen of the Navy, but to those who feel an interest in the naval events of the last fourteen years; while the correctness of the drawings, the superior style of the engravings, and the neatness of execution, will render it worthy of the attention of every lover of the fine arts. Indeed, throughout the greatest pains will be taken to make this publication of the utmost utility, and deserving of general patronage" (rear wrapper).

Amongst the splendid hand-colored aquatints are images of the Battle of Trafalgar, the bombardment of Algiers, and more.

As if this copy in original parts wasn't special enough, it possesses important bibliographical points, not the least of which are early watermarking of the plates (1819; early issue) and printed plate inscriptions, i.e. "from a sketch by...,"  "from a plan by...". According to Abbey, plates later colored lack these inscriptions for genuine hand-colored plates, i.e. colored at time of issue. "Genuine colored copies are rare" (Tooley). The rear wrappers  state "Price to Subscribers 10s 6d plain, and 15s coloured."

This copy was stashed in the 1940s and forgotten in the vault of a bookselling firm in Europe until recently. While complete with all plates and the subscriber's list, the wrappers were distressed to one degree or another and those parts which bore the worst wear along the spine or edges, wrapper losses, loose plates, etc. were restored by master book conservator Bruce Levy who did an astonishing job that is almost invisible to the untrained eye.

The sinking of the H.M.S. Miasma, Trafalgar Motor Lodge, room 24, lavatory.

Pardon me. Battleships in bathtubs are not as scarce as I thought. But I think it safe to say that Ralfe's Naval Chronology of Great Britain in the original parts is almost as scarce as an aircraft carrier cruising the Sahara in search of Australian grass parakeets.

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RALFE, Mr. J[ames]. Naval Chronology of Great Britain. Or, an Historical Account of Naval and Maritime Events, From the Commencement of the War in 1803, to the end of the year 1816: also, Particulars of the Most Important Court-Martial, Votes of Parliament, Lists of Flag-Officers in Commission, and of Promotions for Each year: The Whole forming a complete Naval History of the above Period. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings. London: Whitmore and Fenn, 1818.

First edition, early issue with plates watermarked 1819. Twelve original parts, 1818-1819, in tall octavo (10 1/8 x 6 7/8 in; 256 x 175 mm). Sixty "genuine" hand-colored aquatint plates (with printed inscriptions, i.e. "from a sketch by...,"  "from a plan by...,"), including frontispiece, with original tissue guards. Original buff printed wrappers, restored and/or renewed.

Abbey, Life 342. Tooley 392. Sabin 67602. Howes R21. Cf. Prideaux, p. 348 (book edition).

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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The Devil Made Le Poitevin Do It

by Stephen J. Gertz

Impish devils dance, make merry, carry off young maidens, engage in scatological activities, make mischief, toy with men and women. and generally have a hell of a time as infernal rascals frolicking with diabolical glee in Les Diables de Lithographies by Eugène Modeste Edmond Le Poitevin. 

Published in Paris, 1832, it is the most famous of all works, paint or print, by Le Poitevin (1806-1870), a French painter and lithographer. His "Devilries" established a genre in the wake of the Romantic school's Mephistopheles and Faust, from scenes to fright to scenes that, as here, delight and amuse, Satan a giant buff horned paysan overflowing with specimens for his torment-zoo.

The album, co-published in Paris by chez Aumont and in London by Charles Tilt, contains eighty illustrations on twelve black and white numbered lithographed plates, with two supplemental plates (Petits sujets des diableries manquent le plus souvent, nos. 19 and 26: Paris / London: chez Aubert / Charles Tilt, 1832) containing thirty-five illustrations; a total of fourteen plates with 115 illustrations.

In 1832 France was in turmoil. The idealism of republicans, which peaked during the July Revolution of 1830 when Charles X abdicated and Louis Philippe ascended to the new constitutional monarchy, had been shattered. Subsequent events led them to believe that the blood spilled in 1830 had been for naught. Food shortages and an outbreak of cholera that claimed over 18,000 lives in Paris alone added to the general discontent. Bonapartists bitterly lamented the loss of empire. Supporters of the former Bourbon dynasty were angry that Louis Philippe wasn't a Bourbon. The rich and the poor, who felt victimized by Louis Philippe, had their disillusionment expressed by Parisian republicans, including students, who took to the streets on June 5th and 6th in armed insurrection. The June Rebellion was crushed. 

Diabolical forces at work?

Upon its publication, Les Diables de Lithographies was hugely popular, a sensational success that became en vogue, so much so that demand for further "devilries" became enormous. Le Poitevin quickly  followed with Les diableries érotiques; Petits sujets des diableries; Bizarreries diaboliques; and Encore des Diableries. A. de Bayalos's Diablotins and Michel Delaporte's Récréations diabolico-fantasmagoriques continued in the genre that Le Poitevin established. Diables were all over the place, the zombie apocalypse of contemporary Parisian culture but a lot more fun for the protagonists, many of whom pass wind, water, or what's left of yesterday's lunch for sport.

It will come as no surprise that Les Diables de Lithographies is scarcely found complete, scarcer still in the publisher's original wrappers. The album was routinely broken up and the prints individually sold. OCLC records only one complete copy in institutional holdings worldwide. According to the ABPC Index, the last complete copy to come to auction was in 1923.

Plate 12.

As a painter, Le Poitevin specialized in marine art, as a lithographer he is best-known outside of France for his Devilries. He was a contributor to The Journal of Painters and Charles Philpon's La Caricature. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a pupil of Louis Hersent and Xavier Leprince.  Very popular in his time, he exhibited at the Salon from 1831 until his death in 1870.

Le Poitevin's mark.

"Tout autre est Eugène Le Poitevin, le peintre de marines, qui popularise un genre bien différent mais dont le retentissement ne fut pas moins grand. Procédant en droite ligne du Méphistophélès de Faust et des tendances au bizarre de l’école romantique, les diableries de cet artiste vinrent jeter une note pittoresque et amusante au milieu des estampes sans couleur du consciencieux lithographe. Pendant un temps ce ne furent plus que diables et diableries, diables souvent érotiques, diableries plus ou moins légères. Les Diables, Petits sujets de diables, Bizarreries diaboliques, Encore des Diableries; c’est sous ces titres que se répandaient partout les albums à couverture brune de Le Poitevin qu’imitèrent bientôt de Bayalos avec ses Diablotins et Michel Delaporte avec ses Récréations diabolico-fantasmagoriques. Diables blancs et diables noirs suivis de diables rouges et de diables verts. Le diable se glissait partout, commettant mille incongruités, relevait les robes des femmes, les déshabillait comme par enchantement, les mettait en cage, les tirait par les cheveux, ayant toujours à son service un nombre incalculable de petits diablotins courant à tort et à travers les feuilles. Il y eut une telle invasion des sujets de messire Satan que ce ne fut plus, comme dans la chanson, « Vive la lithographie, » mais « au diable, les polissonnes" (Grand-Carteret, Les Moeurs et la caricature en France, p. 174).

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LE POITEVIN, [Eugène Modeste Edmond]. Les Diables de Lithographies. Paris / London: Chez Aumont / Charles Tilt, n.d. [1832].

First edition, complete. Oblong folio (14 3/8 x 21 3/4 in; 363 x 600 mm). Eighty illustrations on twelve black and white lithographed plates, numbered, with two supplemental plates (Petits sujets des diableries manquent le plus souvent, nos. 19 and 26: Paris / London: Aubert / Tilt, 1832) with thirty-five illustrations; a total of fourteen. 

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.

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Book Illustrator Ben Shahn Does Posters

by Stephen J. Gertz

WE WANT PEACE / REGISTER - VOTE. (1946).

"His codified signature neatly scribbled under any of his images conjures up a peerless world of visual and emotional realism" (Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, 1988).

Born in Lithuania in 1898, artist Ben Shahn immigrated to New York with his family in 1906. He apprenticed with a commercial lithographer in 1911 while still a high-school student, and earned his living in the trade until the early 1930s, when he began to receive recognition as a fine artist.

In 1934, after exhibitions of his series of paintings about the Dreyfus and Sacco-Vanzetti affairs, he was commissioned to produce a mural by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The following year, Rexford Tugwell, a prominent member of Roosevelt's "brain trust," invited Shahn to join the Resettlement Administration. He worked as an artist in the agency's Special Skills Division and was an unofficial, part-time member of Roy Stryker's photographic section.

His first significant contact with graphic design, however, came in 1942 when he was hired to work in the Office of War Information. Shahn later told biographer Selden Rodman that his chief duty was "to explain in posters to the people who need it what is being done for them and to the others what they are paying for."

This image above  was "used by the CIO in a voter registration drive. [And] it represents, perhaps, the best of Shahn's poster work. One cannot soon erase the memory of the hollow-eyed young face begging for peace. Nowhere is Shahn's genius for drawing more evident than in the thrust of the pleading hand...Using the image of this child in the context of an election campaign seems to say that in a democracy the first step toward healing the ravages of war is to exercise one's right to vote" (Kenneth W. Prescott, The Complete Graphic Works of Ben Shahn, p. 132).

Based upon his painting Hunger, Shahn recalled, in 1964, that he told Roy Stryker that a certain photograph of soil erosion would not have a strong impact on viewers. "Look Roy," Shahn said, "you're not going to move anybody with this eroded soil - but the effect this eroded soil has on a kid who looks starved, this is going to move people."

WARNING! INFLATION MEANS DEPRESSION. (1946).

This poster, another for the CIO, "of a farmer, whose seeming integrity and strength greatly impressed Shahn" (Prescott p. 132),  is based on a photograph Shahn took during the 1930s while traveling through Arkansas as a member of the Resettlement Administration and Stryker's photography unit.  It is a haunting image of a troubled working man, memories of the Great Depression fresh and alarming,  yet with an optimistic message to allay his fears : "Register - Vote."

BREAK REACTION'S GRIP / REGISTER VOTE. (c. 1946).

In the years after World War II, Shahn took on a new threat, anti-Labor, Establishment radicals. "The one arm, dressed in coat sleeve and shirt cuff, with hand clasping a colorful map of the United States, represents the country's supposedly small, but powerful, reactionary forces. The poster suggests that however strong, their power could be broken by the greater strength of the progressive forces, as represented by the larger, sleeveless arm" (Prescott, p. 131).

OUR FRIEND. (1944.)

Shahn's political orientation was patent, his views powerful. "This poster was used in the hotly contested 1944 campaign in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth term. Shahn presented Roosevelt as a warmly sympathetic man whose visage looms father-like above the crowd" (Prescott p. 128). The image, in retrospect, is a bit disconcerting, the obvious influence of Social Realism suggesting the cult of personality exploited by Stalin in Soviet propaganda. You can, in fact, substitute Stalin's image for Roosevelt's and wind up with a typical 1930s Soviet poster celebrating Papa Joe.

Be that as it may, his work here (and, ultimately, most of his work) was infused with a strong concern regarding the forces that undermine the common man, each a visual editorial protesting social injustice. Shahn was always a champion of the less fortunate.

Shahn's uncle was a bookbinder; he allayed Shahn's childhood hunger for books by bringing him volumes from his shop. After World War II he was chosen by Look magazine as one of the "World's Ten Best Artists." He abandoned painting for good and adopted graphic work for better. The book dust jackets he created (amongst other celebrated graphic designs) during the 1950s and 1960s remain classics.

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Images courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, with our thanks.
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Beelzebub Complains About Taxes In 1763

by Stephen J. Gertz

A scarce satirical hieroglyphic epistle dated April 1, 1763 and written by Beelzebub, one of the seven princes of Hell, has recently come to market. It was surely hell on the mail-carrier. Within, the Evil One complains about an excise duty on wines and spirits. People were going postal.

The letter, addressed to John Stuart, 3d Earl of Bute and Prime Minister of Great Britain (May 26, 1762- April 8, 1763),  mocks the 1763 cider tax of four shillings per hogshead  (a large wine cask holding approx. 300 liters) on apple cider or perry (pear cider), to be paid by the grower. It was imposed by the  rake, politician, and founder of the notorious Hellfire Club, Francis Dashwood - later Baron Le Despencer - who owed his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer to his dependence upon Lord Bute.

The tax was levied to pay down debts that the British government had accrued to finance the Seven Years War aka the French and Indian War. The tax was greeted with riots in the streets of London and Lord Bute's windows were smashed. The commotion led to Bute's resignation on April 8, 1763, a week after this engraved broadside was published. Highly unpopular, the new tax was eventually repealed in 1767.

The need for debt reduction an ongoing imperative after the War, in 1765 the British levied the American colonies with the Stamp Act, which required that printed material used in America be produced using British paper bearing a revenue stamp. That did not go over well and the reaction in the Colonies became the first instance of organized resistance to British rule, which ultimately led to the American revolution. 

In the letter Beelzebub suggests that the Earl might think of taxing other commodities such as bread, milk, beer and water, "for wh[eye] should the Vulgar (who are no more than Brutes in [ewer] Opinion) have any thing to Eat above Gr[ass] without paying Tribute [toe] their Superiors."

Hieroglyphic epistles, with emblematic figures substituting for words  as in the Hieroglyphic Bibles first seen in Germany in 1687 and later published in England and the United States to great popularity in the late 18th through 19th centuries, were a minor craze in Britain during the late eighteenth century. I'm aware of another example written by Beelzebub, from 1779.

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BEELZEBUB. Excise A Comical Hieroglyphical Epistle. London, Sold by I. Williams next the Mitre Tavern Fleet Street, April 1st, 1763. Engraved broadside, 13 3/4 x 10 1/4 inches (350 x 260mm).

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Image courtesy of Shapero Rare Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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Rare Edition of Lawrence Of Arabia $112,000 - $144,000 At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

A scarce "incomplete" Presentation copy of the Subscriber's ("Cranwell") edition of T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, one of only thirty-two of a total edition of 211 copies and inscribed at the time of publication to writer E.M. Forster, is being offered by Sotheby's in their English Literature, History, Children's Books & Illustrations sale on December 12, 2012.

It is estimated to sell for  $112,000 - 144,000 (£70,000 - £90,000). That's $16,000 - $20,571 per pillar.

The book, in which Lawrence wrote of the Arab revolt, 1916-1918, against the Ottoman Empire during World War I and his role in organizing and leading it, set in stone the  legendary adventures of Lawrence of Arabia that emerged from the war's news coverage and stoked the mythos that had grown around one of the most fascinating, complex, and enigmatic characters of his or any other time.

"In 1913 Lawrence wrote a book entitled Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was designed to cover seven Middle Eastern cities,,,The manuscript was burned in 1914....Lawrence began writing his version of the desert war in 1919...A major portion, if not all, of this first edition was lost at Reading Station in late 1919. A second version was written in London 1919-1920 in a period of three months. Lawrence burned this in 1922...The third manuscript was written in London, Jeddah and Amman, 1921, and in London 1922. This third manuscript, some 330,000 words long, was donated to the Bodleian Library" (O'Brien).

Lawrence had a eight copies printed of that third version in 1922, the first English ("Oxford") edition. He reworked the text 1923-1926, during which time he loaned copies of the 1922 version to various people for critical comment,  E.M. Forster amongst them.

"E.M. Forster was one of the most influential readers of Seven Pillars of Wisdom during the time that Lawrence was cutting down the 1922 ‘Oxford’ text to the abridged version that he issued to subscribers in 1926. Forster offered far more than general praise and admiration. He provided expert criticism of specific writing faults. The two became friends and remained in contact until Lawrence’s death in 1935" (Jeremy Wilson for Castle Hill Press, E.M. Forster and T.E. Lawrence, upon the publication of the Lawrence-Forster letters).

Despite the enormous amount of time, effort, craft and artistry that Lawrence invested in writing this classic his inscription to Forster modestly reads: "Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do."

This, the elaborate "Cranwell" or privately printed Subscriber's (second English) edition - a text of 280,000 words - was published in 1926. Of the total of 211 copies, 170 were complete and 32 were incomplete with three plates lacking, a version "presented to the men who had served with him in Arabia and who were not able to pay the high price asked for the complete issue" (German Reed). the complete issue priced at £31 10s, a princely sum in 1926. The final nine copies were "spoils," i.e. plates only. Each copy was bound differently with various binders employed: for Bumpus (by Riviere); Best; Sangorski and Sutcliffe (as here); Harrison; Charles McLeish; Roger de Coverly & Sons; and Henry T. Wood.

Presentation copy inscribed by the author to E.M. Forster,
“E.M.F.  from T.E.S. ['T.E. Shaw' Lawrence's post-War pseudonym]:
Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do. | I.XII.26"
on preliminary blank together with later inscription from E.M. Forster
to Bob Buckingham, “R.J. Buckingham  from  E.M. Forster 20-1-68”.

No incomplete copies (aside from the nine plates-only "spoil" copies the rarest of the "Cranwell" edition) have come to auction within the last thirty-six years. One of the 170 complete copies sold earlier this year at Bonham's for $65,000 (incl. premium). Only a small handful of copies of the first ("Oxford") English edition of 1922 are in private hands. Should one miraculously find its way to market it will surely fetch upwards of $500,000.

In 1927, Lawrence published Revolt in the Desert, an abridgment of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, in a limited and trade edition that brought his story to a wider audience.

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[LAWRENCE, T.E.] Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A Triumph. [Privately Printed, 1926]. Quarto (251 by 188mm.). The subscribers' or "Cranwell" edition, one of 32 “incomplete” copies (from an edition of 211 copies) (annotated “Incomplete copy | I.XII.26 TES” on page XIX), presentation copy inscribed by the author to E.M. Forster (“E.M.F. | from | T.E.S. | Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do. | I.XII.26.”) on preliminary blank together with later inscription from E.M. Forster to Bob Buckingham (“R.J. Buckingham | from | E.M. Forster | 20-1-68”) on preliminary blank, printed in red and black, frontispiece portrait of King Feysal after Augustus John and 62 (of 65) plates (mostly in colour) and other text illustrations after Roberts, Kennington, Nash, Nicholson and others, 4 folding coloured maps, decorative initials by Edward Wadsworth.

Original full tan morocco signed by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, tooled in gilt on covers, spine gilt in compartments, endpapers by Kennington, collector’s tan morocco backed folding box with thirty typed leaves and one handwritten leaf by Forster, occasional light spotting, one of the most complete of the “incomplete copies” but lacking plates ‘Waterfalls’ and ‘Mountains’ (within the plates following the text) and ‘Prophet’s Tomb’ (not listed, but noted by O’Brien).

O'Brien A040.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.
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The Only Bookplate Designed By René Lalique

by Stephen J. Gertz

Found in a copy of the Kelmscott Press's The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems by William Morris (1892) from the collection of Emilie B. Grigsby (1879-1964), this is the only bookplate ever designed by René Lalique (1860-1945), the celebrated French art glass and jewelry designer.

Note her given name at lower left, so well integrated into the background foliage that it almost disappears into it.

Grigsby was a wealthy American bibliophile of "colorful reputation," and the young, comely "ward" (i.e., concubine) of the notorious robber baron, Charles Yerkes (1837-1905) who built (and bilked) the Chicago transit system and Northern and Piccadilly lines in London.

Emilie Grigsby was almost forty years younger than Yerkes but held her own,; she was sophisticated charming, and intelligent. The mansion he built at 660 Park Avenue, New York City - just a few blocks from his Fifth Avenue palace where Mrs. Yerkes lived - was a gift to Emilie, the daughter of a slave-holding father from Kentucky and a brothel madam mom from Cincinnati. Her fine library was sold in New York by Anderson and Company in 1912.

Emilie B. Grigsby.

"A most interesting catalogue of books belonging to Miss Emilie Grigsby, the ward of the late Charles T. Yerkes of Chicago, has been issued by the Anderson Auction Company, which will sell them in the week beginning Jan. 29. It is a woman's library of fine books, not subscription books, but really interesting and beautiful books and fine bindings. The sale includes long series of the William Loring Andrews books; publications of the Essex House, Kelmscott, Vale and other private presses..." (Boston Evening News, January 24, 1912).

"She has a charm one feels at once and responds to, a charm, vague, indescribable, that borders on the aesthetic, the kind that some of Chopin's music exerts over the crudest of us.

"Perhaps her appearance fosters this idea of the spiritual. Golden hair, blue eyes, fragile as a piece of Dresden china, she is as many of our famous artists have painted her. Absolute unconsciousness of her beauty, lack of affectation, simplicity of manners are hers. She listens to what is told her, and speaks when she has something to say. There is no boredom, nor yet effusiveness. She strikes easily and naturally the note so many others have attempted and failed, the note of harmony and perfect poise. No restless striving for this, nor craving for that" (Lillian Barrett, Emilie Grigsby - A Reminiscence.. New York Times, July 16, 1911).

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Bookplate image courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, witrh our thanks.

Image of Grigsby courtesy of University of Illinois Archives, with our thanks.
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A-Bombs In the Kitchen (Emeril Says, "Bam!")

by Stephen J. Gertz

"I am become Death, the destroyer of appetites" 

(J. Robert Oppenheimer, Krishna in the Kitchen, p. 48).

Wondering what to serve for that special dinner with family and friends? Bored by Martha Stewart? Rachel Ray outré? Jacque Pépin and Julia Child too mild? Don't want to nuke in the microwave but want to dazzle with a meal that's the bomb?

Look no further than How To Make An Atomic Bomb in Your Own Kitchen, 1951's salute to nuclear physics, the Cold War, and Betty Crocker.

"Written in an interesting, lucid style, this is an essential book for the millions who want to know the basics of atomics."

It's an introduction to molecular gastronomy and culinary physics writ large and long before Ferran Adrià began serving foamed neutrinos at El Bulli or Nathan Myhrvold began publishing Modernist Cuisine.

Everything you need to know about building a nuclear bomb in the privacy of the pantry is here. All that's lacking are centrifuges, so tough to find on the open market without clearance from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or a clandestine connection in North Korea.

Here's an apocryphal recipe, contributed by an anonymous insider at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Fission Fish ala Fermi:

Holy mackerel
Sprig of rosemary
Soupçon of enriched uranium
Dash of plutonium
Split pea atoms 
Cloud of mushrooms
Salt to taste

Wearing lead apron and density 4.2 goggles, add ingredients to well-oiled saucepan. Heat to 1,000,000 Kelvins. Duck and cover for thirty minutes until vaporized. Serve shadow of fish on platter with a spray of cilantro, al fresco.

Fusion cuisine at its finest. Enjoy!

Post-priandal fallout will undoubtedly be a dense shower of post-mortem praise, with memories lasting the half-life of your average radioactive isotope.

"Dinner's ready!"

It pains me to admit that How To Make An Atomic Bomb In Your Own Kitchen is light to non-existent on cooking, heavy on education for the 'Fifties justifiably freaked-out set but presented in a peaceful manner because atomic energy is, after all, our fiend friend.
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BALE, Bob. How To Make an Atomic Bomb in Your Own Kitchen (Well, Practically). New York: Frederick Fell Inc,. 1951. First edition. Octavo. 191, [1]  pp. Cloth. Dust jacket.

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Image courtesy of Coconut Rose Rare Books and Autographs, currently offering this volume, with our thanks.
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