The Shocking Story Of The First Woman Executed By Electric Chair

by Stephen J. Gertz

She bristles with courage, she has poise, assurance, no end of intelligence... she loves like fire and she hates like T.N.T. ... More power and good luck to her, guilty or not. It would be a waste and a shame to burn up such a woman ... for dramatic, poetic purposes, alone, I say --- VIVE LA RUTH! (From the Preface by Jack Lait).

She wasn't the true first (who remembers Martha M. Place?) but when Ruth Brown Snyder (1895 - 1928), a Queens, NYC housewife, sat down in Sing-Sing's Ol' Sparky at 11PM, January 12, 1928, she became, in the public imagination, the first femme to fry. She was certainly one of the most celebrated occupants of The Chair during the Roaring 'Twenties.

Ruth Snyder, during her trial.

“'Ruthless Ruth,' as the press inevitably called her, was on the wrong side of 30 and married to a wet blanket on the wrong side of 40 from whom she couldn’t even get away during the day because they worked for the same boating magazine.

"The banal hell of the bourgeoisie.

"Ruth had a banal solution: commence affair with handsome, limp-willed corset salesman (also married) from New Jersey.

"Given a large enough metropolis with a large enough pool of adulterous data points, it must be statistically inexorable that a certain proportion will resolve the love triangle by throttling the cuckold with a wire" (Executed Today).

Snyder's execution led to the creation of one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th Century. Her final seconds were inelegantly caught on film by Tom Howard, reputedly a Chicago Tribune reporter, who clandestinely photographed the moment by use of a miniature camera strapped to his ankle. The next morning, the photograph blazoned across the front pages of the New York Daily News, and to this date it is the only photograph of a person being electrocuted in such Grand Guignol circumstances. Howard's camera now resides in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. 

Ruth Snyder now resides in the collections of Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY, Arbutus plot, Section 119, Lot 16528.

Mug Shot, Sing-Sing, 1927.

Ruth Snyder's Own True Story is a very rare little book. OCLC notes only two copies in institutional holdings worldwide but, then again, who outside the U.S. would care? Only one copy has recently come to market. It may be already gone by the time you read this.

According to Last Meals Before Execution, on her final day alive Ruth Snyder  told her figure to take a flying one; she wasn't going to need it anymore. To help the medicine go down, Ruth  primed herself with Chicken Parmesan with pasta Alfredo, ice cream, two milkshakes, and a 12-pack of grape soda. 

Followed by a lot of juice, 1220 volts, in three big gulps.

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SNYDER, Ruth Brown. BELASCO, David.  LAIT, Jack. MACK, Williard. SHIPMAN, Samuel - Contributors. Ruth Snyder's Own True Story. Published Complete for the First Time Anywhere. Written by Herself in the Death Cell. 25¢. [New York]: King Features Syndicate, (1927). First edition. Quarto (11-1/4" x 8-1/2 in.). Orange pictorial paper wrappers, printed in white with B&W drawing of an incarcerated Snyder to center and facsimile signature to lower third. 47, [1 (blank)] pp. Illustrated with 10 B&W images from photographs, including all the key players in the crime and trial. 

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Book image courtesy of Tavistock Books, currently offering this title, with our thanks.
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An Anti-Valentine's Day Card To Huffington Post's Book Section

by Stephen J. Gertz

On February 10, 2012, the day that the largest rare book fair on Earth opened - one of the most significant book events in the world with 200 antiquarian booksellers from around the globe congregating to exhibit the best rare and antiquarian books on the planet - what was on the Huffington Post's Book Page?

Love Me Not - 7 Books You Realy Shouldn't Get For Your Valentine

9 Books That Cause Irrational Phobias

What Is The Vampire Novel of the Century?

Harry Potter and Voidemort Play Plead The Fifth On 'Watch What Happens Live'

JFK's Other Women: 7 Alleged Mistresses

'Game Of Thrones' Season 2 First Look

Funny: Lincoln's Intern Finally Comes Clean About Affair

New Book: Simple Ways To Stop Doing Dumb  Things With Money

New Lemony Snicket Series Begins This Fall

Disturbing Trend Found In New Children's Books

Why EBooks Don't Mean The Death Of Print

Protecting Your Bright Ideas From Literary Scavengers

Watch: Sophie Blackall Illustrates Missed Connections

New Book: Why Sinning Is Good For You

'Twilight Director Says Script 'Sucked'

Which Book Received The Meanest Review Of The Year

12 Lies That Politicians Tell About Jobs

Author: My Book Was Banned In My Country

New Book: Unexpected Ways To Find Your Ancestors

And Your Favorite Dickens Character Is?

Why You've Learned More Languages Than You Think

'Other Press' Wins Nerdiest Superbowl Wager Ever

Why Creative Writing Classes Don't Work

Amy Adams To Help Adapt Steve Martin's Book, 'Object Of Beauty'

The Real Cost Of Library Cuts

Book Roundup: 5 Reasons To Love Madonna 

Not a word, a whisper, a who, what, when, or where about the 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair. Yes, it did not take place in Ulan Bator, Patagonia, Mozambique, or Outer Mongolia. It was held in Pasadena, CA, just a few miles out of downtown Los Angeles, one of the nation's major markets and the world's great cities.

It wasn't a secret. It was all over the media in Southern California. The Los Angeles Times featured a story about it on the front page of their Calendar section covering the arts and entertainment. Local radio and television coverage was solid. Even the Hollywood Reporter devoted a full-page to report on it, detailing all the stars that collect rare books and how the California International Antiquarian Book Fair is their mecca.

It's not as if the Huffington Post didn't have a head's-up. I have been an occasional blogger for Huff Post for  a couple of years; a post about the book fair sat in my queue for five days prior to the book fair's opening.  After a few days of nothing, I dropped a note to Huff Post's Blogteam inquiring about it. Would it run? No response at all.

Booktryst's piece on the Fair ran on Monday, February 6th. If Huff Post somehow missed the post in my queue, they would have seen it on Booktryst; we have been on major media's radar since the site debuted, in May, 2010, otherwise they would not have welcomed the cross-posting arrangement soon afterward. And Booktryst's coverage was a page one story on Google News - Rare Books for the entire week leading up to the Fair's premiere. 

The Fair's publicist made direct contact with Huff Post. There was no shortage of alerts.

Now, I am surely disappointed that they didn't run my piece about it. But I am even more disappointed - and rather shocked - that they didn't cover the 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair at all, by anyone, nada, ziltch, nicht, bubkus. One of the most important book stories in the U.S., a major international cultural event, and one of the book world's most anticipated happenings was completely ignored.

But Coked Up Stimulus Monkeys was not; big news on Huff Post's book page.

They did, however, cover a major non-event in the world of rare books: "Watch: The 'Pawn Stars' Appraise A Signed Copy of Edward VIII's Memoirs." It was a signal event for Huff Post, signaling that the 'Pawn Stars' are now another Huff Post novelty-entertainment hook passing for hard book news. The 'Pawn Stars' seem like nice guys but they do not know a damned thing about rare books, or, at least, not enough to provide an informed professional appraisal. It isn't enough to go online to research. You actually have to have deep experience to know how to truly appraise a rare book.

People want to know how expensive a rare book is; the higher the price, the more attractive the story.  A copy of Audubon's Birds of America sold last month for $7.9 million last month.  That got Huff Post's attention. The California International Antiquarian Book Fair certainly had a big ticket volume to crow about: A scarce, hand-colored copy of Rudimentum Novitiorum, published in 1475, the first history of the world in print and the first printed book to contain maps. Asking price: $1,150,000. (It sold). Not too shabby. That eye-opening fact was certainly not buried in any pre-Fair coverage.

The many charms of Arianna Huffington cannot mask the sense that the editorial policy of Huff Post appears to be based upon the promiscuous use of "click-bait" tabloid headers for book stories of dubious newsworthiness and significance, often as thin as rice paper but no where near as durable. "Click-bait"  - luring readers to a story with a grabby pop-headline that may or may not accurately represent content - is not a journalistic crime; it has been going on since the dawn of newspapers. But it is rarely used more egregiously than on Huff Post.

And that is, ultimately, the problem with their policy, which appears to be based upon generating as many pages and page-views as possible with little regard for the quality of stories. Or, it seems, their importance.

Shame on the Huffington Post's Book Section. On this Valentine's Day, the love affair is over.

I am not expressing sour grapes. The 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair was not my story. It was the book world's story, and Huff Post betrayed the world it is supposed to serve. Room, apparently, had to be made for Top Ten Celebrity Rehab Moments, a story about a new novel, the book Gutenberg had in the back of his mind when he imagined movable type but after bleeding with leeches was drained of the vile humour and, purged of sin, printed the Bible instead.

That must have been one hell of an editorial meeting. Perhaps a little bloodletting at Huff Post might cure the sick patient.

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DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed on Booktryst are solely its own, and do not represent those of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), with which I am associated.

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The First and Most Important American Political Cartoon Comes to Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

By Benjamin Franklin
From the Pennsylvania Gazette, May 9, 1754.

On May 9, 1754, the Pennsylvania Gazette, a newspaper published by Benjamin Franklin and the most successful in the American colonies, featured a cartoon by Franklin with accompanying text  by him that rallied the American colonies to unite and defend against the French in the looming French and Indian War. It was the first time that the colonies were asked to act as one.

That issue is among the rarest pieces of all early American history, the most ephemeral of ephemera. The only known surviving copy of that issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette lies in the Library of Congress. But another copy has surfaced and will be auctioned at Heritage Auctions Historical Manuscripts Signature® Auction September 12-14, 2011 in Beverly Hills, CA. It is estimated to sell for $100,000 - $200,000. There is no reserve. The estimate may be conservative. This is major, major offering, the only copy to ever come to auction and quite possibly the last.

The cartoon, Join, or Die, would, in 1765, be republished in the September 21st issue  (its only issue) of the Constitutional Courant as a clarion-call against the Stamp Act. calling for the unification of the colonies in their struggle for justice from Great Britain. In 1774 Paul Revere altered the cartoon to fit the masthead of the Massachusetts Spy.

"This rare and historic newspaper holds the earliest publication of the first and most celebrated editorial cartoon in American history," says Sandra Palomino, director of historical manuscripts at Heritage Auctions.

In the cartoon, the snake represents the the colonies, eight individual sections labeled with abbreviations for New York, New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vermont, North Carolina and South Carolina. There was, at the time, a long-held superstition (with roots in the legend of Osiris)  that held that a snake cut to pieces would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset. Separate, they are inert and impotent. United, they are active,  and powerful. Delaware and Georgia were omitted, for reasons that remain unclear.

The image, redrawn, was later co-opted by each side during the American Civil War.

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Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions, with our thanks.

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Madonna and Sean Invite You To Their Wedding (Very Late Breaking News)

by Stephen J. Gertz

Can this marriage be saved?
Only time will tell.

Granted, it has arrived more than a little late. But, should you be able to hitch a ride on Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine and catch a wormhole backward in time, here's an invitation to Sean Penn and Madonna's wedding:

"Welcome to the remaking of Apocalypse Now"
Sean Penn, addressing wedding guests.

Royal Books, one of Baltimore's premier rare book shops, is offering indie filmmaker Trent Harris's invitation to Armageddon in Malibu. It's printed on pink designer paper, addressed in ribbon type, and postmarked July 10, 1985. It is a very choice piece of Hollywood ephemera, almost as ephemeral as the marriage,  considered one of the most turbulent in Movietown history, turned out to be. The nuptials went nuclear immediately, before the "I do's" were done.

Please come to Sean and Madonna's
Birthday Party on the Sixteenth of August,
Nineteen Eighty-Five
The Celebration Will Commence at Six o'clock p.m.
Please Be Prompt or You Will Miss Their
Wedding Celebration
The Need for Privacy and a Desire to Keep You Hanging
Prevent the Los Angeles Location From Being Announced
Until One Day Prior
(...blah, blah, blah).

The invitation features a drawing by Sean's brother, Michael, of the dynamic duo, Madonna sporting a belt with buckle reading "Sean Toy." It's an image that out-gothics American Gothic. Perhaps it was  emblematic of a latent desire to ditch Hollywood for Green Acres.

Blue skies with a chance of air assault and heavy chopper-wash by news helicopters are forecast, and I don't think it indiscreet to reveal that the weather report will be accurate. Penn was right; it was like the helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now.

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like...victory." In retrospect, a more appropriate wedding benediction is difficult to imagine.

An additional Thank You note is included. In holograph red ink and written in the former Ms. Ciccone's private, non-celebrity, jus' folks handwriting, it reads:

Dear Trent
Sick card game...
We'll play
Thanks for being there
Sean and Madonna

(The referenced game is a variant of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies card set).

Just in case you can't make it, here's a photo album from the accursed event and People magazine's full report,  reprinted on acclaimed photographer Mary Ellen Mark's website, so you can relive the memories you never had of an event you never attended.

The marriage of Madge and Penn was doomed from the start. The actor later blamed the media for making him a nightmare to live with and impossible to remain married to. "Had we stayed together we would have driven each other mad," he declared sixteen years afterward.

"The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea,
and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man"
- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Hell was ascendant in this union.

Consider the invitation, at the time the most coveted in the world, marching orders to a combat zone,  a frenzy by media berserkers that everyone knew was coming but was uncertain of the enemy's plan. This was American celebrity-pop-culture at its most intense, a carnival of the condemned, at once glittered and ugly, a freak-show spectacle for the masses fascinated by a train-wreck in progress. For even the most jaded  and averse it was impossible to cover one's eyes without stealing furtive peeks.

We leave you with bootleg footage of the armed and dangerous army of news hounds invading the ceremony, en Español to avoid copyright issues. Though those pesky paparazzi sure know how to spoil a party, Malibu beach has never looked so beautiful, and check out that exclusive, private (albeit  muy peligroso), progressive school in Malibu Colony:



"The horror, the horror, the horror..."

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Are You The Newspaper You Read?

A reader of The Star.

Be careful, you are what you read - specifically, your newspaper of choice. Who are you if you read the New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News, or any of the other metropolitan newspapers across the United States (or anywhere) that still survive? How about the National Enquirer, or the World Weekly News ("The World's Only Reliable News!" if you follow the latest on Nessie, Big Foot, or the three-legged pygmy accountant by day werewolf by night)?

A reader of The Daily News.

Acclaimed illustrator Kyd, pseudonym of Joseph Clayton Clarke, dipped his brush in droll wit and skewered the average reader of London's most popular newspapers of the late 19th - early 20th century in a singular suite of original watercolors, Some Typical Newspaper Readers, executed c. 1900.

'Tis a sad fact indeed that while there were once many newspapers competing for readers of all classes and tastes - Clarke lampooned twelve published in London alone - many cities now have only one. How can you judge yourself against a single paper?

 A reader of The Era.

Joseph Clayton Clark (1856-1937) worked as a freelance artist with a particular affection for Dickens, his Dickens illustrations first appearing in 1887 in Fleet Street Magazine, with two collections soon to follow: The Characters of Charles Dickens (1889) and Some Well Known Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens (1892).

 A reader of The Sporting Times.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, five sets of postcards based on his Dickens drawings were published, and seven sets of non-Dickensian comic cards by him were issued. Beginning in the 1920s, he earned his living from watercolor sketches, mainly of Dickens' characters, which he sold to and through the London book trade. Frederic G. Kitton gives him early notice in his classic text, Dickens and His Illustrators (1890); Kyd's watercolors were at that date already being avidly bought by major Dickens collectors (Kitton, p. 233), the Cosens sale in 1890 successfully selling a collection of 241 of Kyd's Dickens watercolors, and Mr. Tom Wilson, at the time the foremost collector of Dickens, possessing 331 of Kyd's drawings.

 A reader of The Times.

"As a character 'Kyd' emulated those of Dickens and his own illustrations - slightly larger than life. In his style and dress he was mildly flamboyant for the period…He seldom varied his attire from a grey suit, spats, homburg hat, gloves and was never without a carnation or substitute flower in his button hole" (Sawyer, Richard. "Kyd" (Joseph Clayton Clark): A Preliminary Study of his Life and Work Together with an Essay on Fore-Edge Paintings, 1980. p. 7).

A reader of The Referee.

"The vast majority of 'Kyd's' works which are offered for sale today are single-character studies…Far more rare are character studies with backgrounds" (Sawyer), as here. Rarer still are non-Dickens or playing card themed work. Thus, this is an exceedingly scarce suite of watercolors not noted by Sawyer, and quite likely unique. It's closest relatives appear to have been two of Kyd's post card series: The Book and Its Reader, a set of six cards humorously depicting the artist's idea of types of readers of contemporary popular novels (oh, to see that!), and London Types.

 A reader of The Daily Mail.

With so much news content now delivered through the Internet we may never know the personal character  of Web-based newspaper readers. With annoying banner, sidebar, pop-up, open-collapse, etc. ads, it may be that those of us who've come to depend upon Web-based news services are or may soon become like Kyd's impression of  the Daily Mail's average reader. But, take heart, there is no shame in being crazy for print.

KYD (pseudonym of Joseph Clayton Clarke). Some Typical Newspaper Readers. A Series of 12 original Humourous Sketches drawn in colours by "Kyd" (Clayton Clark). [London, c. 1900]. Ten (of twelve) original watercolors each titled and signed by the artist, and with full backgrounds. Loose in original portfolio illustrated and titled in black ink by the artist on the front cover.
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Booktryst invites readers to suggest current newspapers that might best be read in a padded cell, as Kyd has caricatured the above reader of The Daily Mail.
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Images courtesy of David Brass.

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Hugh Hefner, Teen Cartoonist

The playboy of the Western World at age 16.
Jane Sellers and Hugh Hefner, 1943.

They dated each other’s best friend when they were in high school together in Chicago. When Jane Sellers moved to California in 1943 her sixteen year-old school pal, Hugh Hefner, began writing to her. Their friendship and correspondence endured for sixty years.

July 2, 1943. "When I said I was a man of liesure
(I still don't know whether I'm spelling this right)
I wasn't kiddin." Many of Hef's letters to
Jane Sellers at this time were festooned
with cartoons in the margins.

“At 16, I knew he was destined to do amazing things, so I saved every scrap of paper he ever sent or gave me,” Jane Sellers later said.

Recording For Jane.
"Please excuse opposite side of this paper
- but the only thick paper that I have like
this has zoology on the other side. Sorry!"

Hefner, the student council president at Steinmetz High School, was voted Most Likely to Succeed, Most Popular Boy, Best Orator, Best Dancer, Class Humorist, and Most Artistic. He would bring his humor and artistic talent to bear on a series of cartoons depicting daily life at Steinmetz.

My Day.

"We would go by his house to see who which of our boyfriends were cheating," Sellers recalls. Hefner, apparently, took notes during the day about what his classmates were wearing and doing and sketched them in the evening, a new strip every night detailing school events. The strip was titled School Daze.

The Gang.

The strips are just a small part of Jane Sellers’ Hefner archive, which was acquired by rare book dealer Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis. I asked Kahn how he wound up snagging this singular collection.

A Typical Hefner Day at Steinmetz. At lower right, Hef
(he was calling himself that in High School)
writes "See Portrait of Hugh on Back."

“I was called over to examine a scholarly Egyptology collection owned by a lovely (and somewhat ‘glam’) octogenarian. I couldn’t help but notice that she had an entire bookcase of Playboy-related material (books, records, and many binders). I figured that she had been a bunny circa 1958 or so. I finally worked up the courage to ask her why she had what appeared to be a very large Playboy collection. She said, "Oh, Hef and I went to school together...I dated his best friend and he dated mine. We've been friends for 60 years or so. I really need to do something with the collection, too." One thing lead to another and I ended up cataloguing it and am working on placement.”

Hef as soft-shell clam: Self-Portrait,
on back of My Typical Day at Steinmetz.

In addition to the comic strips, the collection includes 166 multi-page typed or autograph letters; books on and about Hefner; invitations to various parties at the Playboy mansion; news clippings on and about Hefner; Playboy music; form S-1 for Playboy’s IPO; the first issue of Playboy, signed (twice) by Hefner; unique photographs; and much more.

"Here I am, goin' home after a hard day's work
at school, on the Star, and practicing the play.
(I get home around 6)."

“It is, Kahn asserts, “ simply put, the deepest and most personal collection of material related to arguably the most significant cultural icon of the 20th century.”

Playboy issue #1. Contemporaneously signed by Hef
with his high school cartoon self-image,
perhaps the ONLY Hefner signature
to not feature his standard bunny doodle.

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A pdf of the full catalog of Jane Sellers' Hefner archive is available for the asking:

Lux Mentis, Booksellers
Antiquarian & Fine First Editions - Specializing in Library/Collection Development
110 Marginal Way, #777
Portland, ME, 04101
207-329-1469
http://www.luxmentis.com
Member ABAA/ILAB