A Lurid Story of Book Dope And Lives Twisted By Mad Desire! A Booktryst Golden Oldie

by Stephen J. Gertz

Hard-boiled dames caught in the grip of a habit beyond their control; corrupt dolls seeking cheap thrills between the sheets of a book; innocents ensnared into the rare book racket, underage girls seduced by slick blurbs, and grown men brought to their knees by bibliographical points that slay dreams in a depraved world.

It's rare book noir, the dark underbelly of collecting. Human wreckage litters the streets of Booktown, the vice-ridden gotham that kicks its victims into the gutter margin, slaves to their twisted desire and lost in a sick world where condition is everything, obsession is the norm, and compulsion the law.
 

That first book seen in a window display, an Internet image, held in the hands - soon, you're furtively ducking into dens of iniquity with bookshelves and rarities behind a bamboo curtain; you've got the shakes and you need something, bad, right now. The rent is due, the kids need food, mama needs a new pair of shoes but let 'em all go to hell, you're a quarto low, you need your shot of heaven, a mainline hit straight to the pleasure centers to bathe in a flood of dopamine unleashed by a new acquisition and sink into careless ecstasy.

It's a brutal, hard-hitting story that rips the tawdry curtain away from this covert world to expose the reckless passion that drives its denizens to the depths of impecunious human existence and insanity.

It's a tale told through posters designed and exclusively distributed by Heldfond Gallery Ltd in San Francisco, based upon vintage pulp fiction book covers. Proprietor Eric Heldfond has been  peddling them for a few years now, leaning against a lamppost on a dark street corner to tempt unwary passersby. I've succumbed to his evil pitch, bought a few, have given them as gifts, and suspect you may wish to do same for friends of dubious character, i.e. book lovin' broads, momzers, and biblio-debauchees - in short, fellow travelers in the shadowland of the sordid habit we call reading. Make yourself at home in the flophouse of the hopelessly hooked: Your local rare book shop.

Never before has the finger of light shone so glaringly on the wasteland of the book collector to pitilessly strip bare this seamy hotbed of unbridled text! 

 "Read any good books lately?" she purred. 

The dame had me right where she wanted me. 

I felt her scan my lines and before I knew it she tore 

off my jacket, and began to paraphrase my favorite part.

She bookmarked me, and how. I didn't complain.

I was a book junkie and there was no escape from this sinister paradise.

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The posters are 8.5 X 11 inches, printed on 68lb. (252 g/mf) / 10.4 mil. heavyweight Premium High Gloss photo media.92 ISO, and priced at $25 each. Custom sizes up to 13 x 19 inches are available. Visit Heldfond's Bibliopulp gallery here.

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Originally appeared on Jume 14, 2010.

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"The Best Book Fair In The World" Returns To New York

By Stephen J. Gertz

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair, now in its 52d year, returns to the Park Avenue Armory April 12-15, 2012.

Sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the 52nd Annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair promises to be its best to date.

Declared by the late Andy Rooney of CBS’ 60 Minutes as the “Best Book Fair in the World,” over 200 expert dealers from around the globe will fill the historic Park Avenue Armory with rare books, manuscripts, autographs, maps, and finely bound volumes. Ranging from history, law, philosophy, to children’s books, fashion, art, and more, great books will be found within all price ranges.

This year’s show features a record number of dealers. There’s sure to be something for everyone.

For $35, early birds can enjoy a special preview on Thursday, April 12 from 5pm – 9pm.

Regular hours will be Friday April 13 from noon to 8pm, Saturday, the 14th, from noon to 7pm, and Sunday, April 15th, from noon to 5pm. Admission is $20 daily, $30 for a two-day pass, or $45 for a run-of-show pass. Special rates for students, groups and library associations are available.

Discovery Day, A favorite tradition, provides Fair attendants an opportunity to bring their own rare books, manuscripts, maps, etc. (up to 5 items) for advice and free appraisals from Exhibitors on Sunday, April 15, from noon – 3pm.

WHEN: April 13 – 15, 2012.

WHERE: Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street, NYC.

HOURS: Friday from noon to 8pm, Saturday from noon to 7pm, and Sunday from noon to 5pm. 

ADMISSION: $20 daily, $30 for a two-day pass, or $45 for a run-of-show pass. Special rates for students, groups and library associations are available.

The Park Avenue Armory is wheelchair accessible; please call 212.777.5218 to make arrangements.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: emily@sanfordsmith.com or press@sanfordsmith.com.

WATCH: Andy Rooney tour the 2007 New York Antiquarian Book Fair.

Follow the New York Antiquarian Book Fair on Facebook, and Twitter.

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Of related interest: The First American Antiquarian Book Fair, about the debut of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair in 1960.

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More Highlights From the Upcoming Library of an English Bibliophile Sale

by Stephen J. Gertz

Estimated $70,000-$90,000.

Our pre-sale coverage of Sotheby's-NY Library of an English Bibliophile Sale Part II, October 20, 2011 concludes with a look at four great books with great big estimates.

The Campbell-White copy of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises has returned to Sotheby's auction block where it last sold on June 7, 2007, lot 106, for $99.000. It's a beautiful first edition, first issue ("stopped" on p. 181, line 26, misspelled as "stoppped) in the rare and un-restored first issue dust jacket ("In Our Time" misprinted as "In Our Times). The estimate for this go-round is $70,000 - $90,000.

Estimated $60,000 - $80,000.

It's no mystery why a copy of the first separate edition (originally appearing in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887) of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1888), which introduced Sherlock Holmes, is estimated to sell for $60,000 - $80,000. Though a second impression (with "younger" misspelled as "youger" in paragraph two, line three of the Preface), it's in the original flimsy wrappers and possesses the called-for ads at rear. Scarce thus, it is usually seen rebound or the wrappers an unmitigated wreck. The last time this copy came to auction was in 1981, when it sold for $15,000.

Estimated $50,000 - $70,000.

The last time the Jordan copy, fine in fine dust jacket, of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury was seen at auction was at Sotheby's-NY, June 18, 2004 as lot 295, where it sold for $55,000. It is now estimated to sell for $50,000 - $70,000.

Estimated $15,000 - $25,000.

If you're Stephen Crane and you self-publish your novel, Maggie A Girl of the Streets (A Story of New York), in 1893 under a pseudonym in a first edition of 1,100 and sell only two - two! - copies through Brentano's, it will give you great posthumous nakhes to learn that it is estimated to sell for $15,000 - $25,000, not that it will do your bank account any good. Rejected by all publishers he submitted it to and poison to retailers because of its frank subject matter, this, the fine, unopened Estelle Doheny copy, is one of only approximately thirty-five known to have  survived. It last sold at Christie's-NY, October 17, 1988, as lot 1220, for $9,500.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.

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The $175,000 Dust Jacket Comes to Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

Sotheby's Oct. 10, 2011. Est. $150,000-$180,000.

The incredibly rare and desirable dust jacket to the first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is coming to auction via Sotheby's-New York Library of an English Bibliophile Sale Part II on October 20, 2011. It is estimated to sell for $150,000-$180,000. An excellent copy of the first edition, first printing of The Great Gatsby, a book that in near-fine/fine condition sells for $7,000-$10,000, is included with the dust jacket.

The dust jacket is in the corrected first state, i.e. the "j" in Jay Gatsby on the rear panel was printed in lower case and carefully hand-corrected in ink to upper-case by the publisher. No uncorrected copies of the first state dust jacket are known to exist. In the second state of the dust jacket the "J" was corrected by  the printer.

This copy in this dust jacket of The Great Gatsby sold at Bonham's-New York, June 10, 2009, lot 3252, for $182,000

Currently offered by Peter Harrington Rare Books @$189,000.

Another copy of the ink-corrected first state dust jacket (with first edition, first printing of the book along for the ride) is currently being offered by Peter Harrington Rare Books. The asking price is $189,000.

"Francis Cugat’s painting for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the most celebrated and widely disseminated jacket art in twentieth-century American literature, and perhaps of all time. After appearing on the first printing in 1925, it was revived more than a half-century later for the 'Scribner Library' paperback edition in 1979; more than two decades (and several million copies) later it may be seen in classrooms of virtually every high school and college throughout the country. Like the novel it embellishes, this Art Deco tour-de-force has firmly established itself as a classic. At the same time, it represents a most unusual, in my view, unique form of 'collaboration' between author and jacket artist" (Charles Scribner III).

Francis Cugat was the older  brother of "Rhumba King" bandleader Xavier Cugat (think Charo, his last featured singer, i.e. "coochie-coochie"), his surrealistic composition featuring the hypnotically sad, brooding eyes, and carmine lips of a woman (Daisy) overlooking a city as a brilliantly lit,  lyrically garish amusement park. The outlines of her head are barely traced in; her eyes arrest attention as her  lips come near to a kiss of the  skyscraper. It's an extremely haunting image that lingers in memory, a forshadowing of the tragedy. The  painting is titled Celestial Eyes and Fitzgerald was aware of Cugat's progress with the dust jacket design while he was still writing the book. He was so impressed and inspired  by it that he commented to his editor at Scribner's, the great Maxwell Perkins:

"For Christ's sake don't give anyone that jacket you're saving for me. I've written it into the book" (Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters, p. 79).

Cugat's final jacket painting, Celestial Eyes.
Gouache on paper.
Princeton University Library.

The reference is found at the end of chapter four. Narrator Nick Carraway states, "Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and binding signs..."

In 1990, Charles Scribner III lectured at the University of South Carolina on Gatsby and this dust jacket. The must-read text can be found here.

In the late 1990s I ran into a friend/collector and ad hoc dealer (when the mortgage required  immediate attention) at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair. Shell-shocked, he related the following story: An hour earlier a dealer had approached him to ask if he had anything to sell. My friend pulled from his bag a first edition of  The Maltese Falcon in a beautiful, untouched first state dust jacket ("$2.00" on front flap). This DJ is also extremely scarce. The dealer began to salivate. When he asked my friend how much he wanted for it my pal swallowed hard, screwed his courage, and blurted, "$55,000."

The dealer wrote him a check on the spot. An hour afterward my friend had just learned that the dealer had flipped it to a client for $100,000.

A beautiful copy of Dashiell Hammet's The Maltese Falcon in is also being offered at Sotheby's Library of an English Bibliophile Sale Part II. It is estimated to sell for $60,000-$90,000. This copy was last seen at Sotheby's-New York on June 18, 2004, lot 296. It sold for $65,000 (plus buyer's premium).

The Book Collector's Library in Canada is offering a near-fine/fine first edition, first printing in an attractive first state dust jacket for US$136,000.

Very good copies of The Maltese Falcon without the dust jacket sell for $3,500-$5,000.

As clothes make the man, dust jackets make the book.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, Peter Harrington Rare Books, and Princeton University Library, with our thanks.

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Scarce Poe First Editions Exhumed From Premature Burial at Sotheby's Sale

by Stephen J. Gertz

The strange, sentient waters that pass through literature's eerie canal bring news of Edgar Allan Poe and scarce and spectacular Poe first editions coming soon to auction via Sotheby's-New York Library of an English Bibliophile Part II sale, October 20, 2011. Their rarity, condition, and estimated prices will leave your tell-tale heart beating long after you've died from shock; the chances of seeing similar copies of these books within our lifetime are slim and nevermore. These are insanely rare books and highly desirable.

Estimate: $200,000-$250,000.

"Here begins the detective story" (Grolier American 100).

"...the first important book of detective stories, the first and the greatest, the cornerstone of cornerstones, the highest of all high-spots..." (Queen's Quorum).

A first edition, first printing, first issue of Poe's Tales (1845) in the original wrappers is the first star to shine. In miraculous condition, it is estimated to sell for $200,000 - $250,000. It's the pits when the pendulum swings so high but copies in this condition are beyond scarce. The Behrman copy, the last to come even close, exhibited loss at head of spine, an old repair along the front joint, the rear joint was partly split, it showed some soiling, possessed a chip to the upper blank margin of the Contents leaf, with pages 57-64 displaying a few chips from careless opening, sold at Christie's New York, June 12, 2008 for $110,000. Condition, the imp of the perverse in book collecting, remains everything. The serious and seriously monied Poe collector is sure to be bitten by the gold bug.

Tales was originally issued in a print run of at least 1500 copies but in three variants (bound in cloth, wrappers, and bound together with The Raven and Other Poems) so it is difficult to ascertain just how many copies in wrappers were originally released. What we do know is that there are perhaps only six copies in the full original wrappers extant. This, the Litchfield copy, appears to be the best surviving copy. The last time it came to auction was in 1990 when it sold at Sotheby's for a mere $45,000. What a difference twenty-one years makes.

Upon its original publication it sold for 50¢. What a difference 166 years makes. Poe's royalty was 8¢ per copy in whichever format. He earned at least $120 but probably not much more. Not much difference 166 years makes to the average writer today.

Estimate: $140,000 - $180,000.

"The most important volume of poetry that had been issued up until that time in America" (Allen).

The Raven "made Poe's name known both in America and England and brought him an immortality that by no other means could he have attained...[and it] gave him fame as a poet such as no other American had received" (Robertson).

A first edition, first printing, in wrappers of The Raven and Other Poems (1845) flies into the sale room and perches at an estimated $140,000 - $180,000. It, too, is in miraculous condition. "It is one of the American books of the period most difficult to find with the wrappers intact" (Heartman and Canny). The William E. Self copy, it was last seen at Christie's-New York, December 4, 2009, where it sold for $150,000. It, too, appears to be the finest copy extant.

The original edition (again with variants in cloth, and bound together with Tales) was intended to be only 750 copies "but almost immediately a much larger number of copies was issued" (Heartman and Canny).

It originally sold for 31¢.

Estimate: $30,000 - $40,000.

A splendid first edition of Poe's first collection of stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), one of 750 sets originally issued, represents another descent into the maelstrom of the auction room at an estimated $30,000 - $40,000. This groundbreaking volume contains the masterpieces, The Fall of the House of Usher, Ligeia, and Ms. Found in a Bottle.

"These volumes mark the culmination of Poe's effort, beginning as early as 1834, to get his prose tales into volume form. It was a milestone in his career as a prose writer but was a failure commercially" (Heartman and Canny). "This edition was not exhausted during Poe's lifetime. Copies have been found carrying a title-page dated as late as 1849. Evidently they were issued only as sold" (Robertson).

This copy bears a vintage bookseller's ticket from Books Inc. of San Francisco on the lower pastedown endpaper of volume one. A price of $115 is written in.

Other notable Poe firsts at this Sotheby's sale include the first English edition of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), estimated at $3,000 - $5,000; the first appearance of The Raven, in The American Review (Feb. 1845), estimated at $8,000 - $12,000; and a copy of Tales (second printing) bound with The Raven... (second American issue) released in 1846, estimated to sell for $20,000 - $30,000.

Sotheby's Library of an English Bibliophile Sale Part II is the first ripe book auction of the Fall season, with many other notable volumes featured. Booktryst will talk about a few other incredible first editions in the English Bibliophile's library prior to the sale.

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POE, Edgar Allan. Tales. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845. First edition, first printing (with Ludwig's imprint on the copyright page), first issue (with the New York imprint). Octavo (189 x 127 mm). [Initial blank leaf]; [i, half-title, [ii, blank], [iii, title-page], [iv, copyright], [v, Contents], [vi, blank],  228, [4, advertisements], [4, publisher's advertisements], xii pp. Original publisher's printed wrappers. Scattered foxing, slightly stained, spine split, split on upper cover near spine skillfully repaired. Housed in a brown buckram chemise within a red morocco slipcase. The Litchfield copy.

BAL 16146. Grolier American 55. Heartman and Canny (1943), pp. 90-97. Queen's Quorum 1. Robertson pp. 51-52. 

POE, Edgar Allan. The Raven and Other Poems. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845. First edition, first printing. Octavo (189 x 135 mm). [i, half-title], [ii, blank], [iii, title-page], [iv, copyright notice with imprint of T.B. Smith, Stereotyper / 216 William Street], [v, Dedication], [vi, blank], [vii, Preface], [viii, TOC], 91, [4, advertisements] pp. Original publisher's printed wrappers. Miinor foxing to a few leaves, wrappers with a few tears at spine edges, minor edge wear. Housed in a chemise within a half blue morocco slipcase.

BAL 16147. Heartman and Canny pp.. 97-108. Robertson (1934), pp. 53-54. Allen, Isafel 667.

POE, Edgar Allan. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840. First edition of the author's first collection of stories, with intermediate state of quire 20 in  volume two, correct pagination of p. 213, and with the displaced i and hyphen on p. 219. Two twelvemo volumes (195 x 115 mm). 244, [4, adv.] pp; 228. Publisher's purple cloth, printed paper spine labels. Occasional light foxing, some very light damp-staining in upper margins of second half text block to volume two, spines uniformly faded to warm brown. Housed in matching chemises within full crimson buckram clamshell box.

BAL 16133, Heartman and Canny, pp. 49-54. Roberson (1934), pp. 46-49.
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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.
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Lost, Unpublished Dr. Seuss Manuscript Surfaces

by Stephen J. Gertz

Over forty years ago, Theodore S. Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, began work on a book. Per usual, he had assistants working with him, one of whom managed the project. For reasons noted below, he put the manuscript aside. Then, in 1983, he reconsidered it when his former employee sent it to him for a long-lost look.

It consists of nineteen handwritten and drawn pages, the first seven of which are completely in the hand of Dr. Seuss. The remaining pages are mostly written by an assistant with corrections and doodles by Dr. Seuss, some taped on. 

The text, written in Seussian prose, reads, in part:

"All Sorts of Sports. Shall I play checkers? golf? croquet? There are so many games there are to play. I could. / maybe.. / shall I.. There are so many many sorts. So many sorts of games + sports. What am I going to do today? There are so many games to play! I guess I won't. I'm all tired out. 100 GAMES & sports you can play. You can play checkers. You can play chess. Baseball. Football. Volleyball. Basketball. You can ski on snow. You can ski on water. And tiddle-de-winks. What am I going to do today. Well, that's a simple matter. Oh, that's easy. We could play. There are so many sports games to play. We could swim. I could play baseball...golf..or catch. Or I could play a tennis match. There are so many sports, let's see... I could bowl, jump hurdles, or water ski. I could blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf. Or blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf." 

On Geisel's letterhead.

The last page, marked page "6-7" by Dr. Seuss seems to be where the assistant took over, though Seuss adds corrections and doodles, as previously mentioned, some taped on.

The manuscript is accompanied by a Dr. Seuss TLs (typed letter, signed), autographed "Ted," regarding this unfinished book on Cat in the Hat Beginner Books letterhead dated July 11, 1983.

"Re your enclosed manuscript, I do indeed remember it. And my critique now is as same as then. What, in my opinion, is wrong with this story is that...despite the greatness of Pete as a stellar athlete hero...the negative image of him flubbing and unable to catch any ball at all will make him a schnook.

"This is not entirely apparent in the text, but when you picture these negative scenes in illustrations, you will find that negatives are always more memorable than positives. And I think the reader's reaction will be, 'What's the matter with this dope?' I may be wrong of course...so why not send it to Harper and Row who do very good brat books and several times have made best sellers out of properties that I've rejected."

In short, a schnook in a book is not a great hook.

The advice to submit the book to Harper and Row is somewhat sarcastic; after the success of The Cat in the Hat Random House set up Seuss with his own imprint, Beginner Books. in partnership with Random House publisher Bennett Cerf's wife, Phyllis Fraser Cerf, and Geisel's wife, Helen. Harper and Row slavishly tried  to goose the Seuss juice for their specially created imprint devoted to "brat books."

Readers of this letter may experience a bit of confusion over who actually wrote this manuscript. I called Nate D. Sanders Auctions - who is offering the manuscript - for clarification. Mr. Sanders replied:

"I obtained this from one of Seuss' past employees who was a writers assistant.  She was given the task of managing this  book  project.  The first few pages of  the manuscript  are entirely in Seuss's hand.  Later, the assistant took over.   When Seuss refers to the manuscript as the assistant's, he is referring to the fact that it was her project and that it was indeed hers not his and she took possession of it, not him."

This is an eye-popping find, a Seuss book in its earliest stage, rough Seuss draft, an abandoned project not only never before seen on the market but never before seen or heard of, period. 

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Images courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions.
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Lame Duck Books To Close

Lame Duck Books, a mainstay of Cambridge, Massachusetts' Harvard Square, will close its doors on September 25, 2010.

John W. Wronoski, who opened Lame Duck originally in Philadelphia in 1984, told the Harvard Crimson that the business was "hemorrhaging" money,  "destroyed" by online competition.

“Nowadays people like myself who’ve devoted...50 years to this world have no means of competing again,” he said.

“It was a way of earning an income without actually doing something that I considered odious, like work,” he continued. “Not that you don’t work an enormous amount in this, but it’s completely pleasure.”

Wronoski, who does not consider  himself a bibliophile because he rejects a personal relationship with books, defined the role of rare booksellers as guardians:

“I maintain custody of these fabulous objects until the right person comes along to relieve me of them,” he said. “For me, money is so much less interesting than these objects. I’m selling the best thing that you could possibly buy.”

Amen.

Listen to John talk rare books:

Lame Duck Books will be missed.
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Full story at Harvard Crimson.
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A Custom-Bound Library: The Ultimate Biliophilic Luxury

A genuine Apollo and Pegasus Binding by Marcantonio Guillery

Can you imagine having every book in your library in matching bindings that were especially designed for you? No half-hearted half calf, either: full leather bindings with a signature design that instantly marks it as your property, even almost 500 years later. Such was the luxury enjoyed by the two Renaissance men described in today's post.

Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (ca. 1524- ca. 1612), heir to a large Genoese fortune. While visiting Rome as a teenager in 1543, Grimaldi met the humanist scholar Claudio Tolomei, founder of the Accademia della Virtù. At Grimaldi's request, Tolomei undertook to help the young man assemble a "complete" library to advance his education. According to bindings scholar Anthony Hobson, who definitively identified the owner of the Apollo and Pegasus bindings, Tolomei agreed and "invented a device or 'impresa' for him" that depicted "Apollo driving the chariot of the sun, 'straight and not crooked,'" as the Greek motto informs us, towards Mount Parnassus, on whose summit Pegasus is standing. Apollo represented Grimaldi, who should aspire, like the god, to be a patron of arts and literature, while the straightforward course of the chariot symbolized the course of study Tolomei would devise for the young man, designed to lead him to the virtue and fame embodied in the winged Pegasus.

Apollo & Pegasus Impresa designed by Tolomei

Tolomei was an ardent advocate for treating modern languages as the equal of Greek and Latin in works of scholarship, and he included works in the vernacular in the Grimaldi library. These, like our volume, were bound in red morocco, while those in classical languages were bound in green or brown. Three Roman binders were engaged to do the work: Maestro Luigi, Marcantonio Guillery, and Niccolo Franzese. These men were also booksellers, and each likely bound the volumes that had been purchased from him.

Four very well-executed Apollo and Pegasus forgeries

Apollo and Pegasus bindings are uncommonly seen: only about 150 volumes of Grimaldi's 200-volume library survive. Consequently, they command extravagant prices when they do appear in the marketplace: a "restored" octavo Seneca, also by Guillery, sold for more than $106,000 at Christie's in 2004. A scarce and highly desirable that can be sold for large sums of money will always attract the unscrupulous who try to pass off copies as the real thing. Just ask art collectors, museum curators, or fashion designers. Apollo and Pegasus bindings are no exception.

As fake as the Rolex you can buy in Times Square

At least two binders are known to have faked Apollo and Pegasus bindings during the final part of the 19th and the first quarter of the 20th centuries. The first of these binders was Vittorio Villa (d. 1892) of Bologna and Milan, who typically started with plain or sparsely decorated 16th century bindings, which he then tooled more elaborately and to which he added the Apollo and Pegasus medallion. His work, which is strongly reminiscent of Guillery's, is almost certainly seen in the Homer volume described in the next entry. After Villa's death, his tools came into the possession of Domenico Conti-Borbone, a Milanese binder. These extremely convincing forgeries are sought by some collectors, not as replacements for the real thing, but because they are desirable curiosities and, as binding specimens, are fine pieces of work done for early books with inherent value.

A rare early book on medicine, in a binding done for Pietro Duodo

Venetian diplomat Pietro Duodo (1554-1611) served as ambassador to the court of French king Henry IV from 1594 to 1597, and took advantage of his residency in Paris to accumulate a portable gentleman's library of 90 works in 133 small but dazzling volumes. He commissioned a Parisian atelier to produce richly decorated, color-coded bindings for the works: olive brown morocco for literature (72 volumes); red for theology, philosophy, and history (46 volumes); and--rarest by far--citron for medicine and botany (15 volumes). Duodo never had the chance to enjoy his library: he was recalled to Venice and later served as its ambassador to Prague, London, and the Vatican. His portable humanist library remained in Paris, probably packed away, for 200 years. Volumes began to appear on the market around the time of the French Revolution, and have been sought after by collectors ever since. The binding's provenance can be established by the very distinctive stamps used on the Duodo bindings, as well as unusual features like the raised "à la grecque" head and tail of the spine, seen here and on other Duodo bindings in the British Library's Database of Bookbindings.

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All images courtesy of Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books & Manuscripts

The Feminists and the Financier: The Ladies Who Built J. P. Morgan's Library

Belle Da Costa Greene, 1911.
Image courtesy of the Morgan Library

In the 1890s, financier J. Pierpont Morgan began building a collection of art, rare books, manuscripts, and artifacts that would surpass anything previously known in the United States. In 1902, he commissioned Charles McKim, the nation's most prominent architect, to build a library to house his treasures. There remained, however, the problem of organizing his grwoing acquisitions, which had until that time been stored in the basement of his Madison Avenue mansion. Enter his nephew, Junius, a student at Princeton and an aesthete much interested in art and books.

J. P. Morgan, 1902. Image courtesy of the Morgan Library

Junius had made the acquaintance of a young librarian at Princeton, Belle Da Costa Greene, who was a knowledgeable cataloguer with a particular interest in old and rare books. He brought the young woman, then barely 20, to meet his formidable uncle on a fateful day in 1905. The senoir Morgan, impressed by the young woman's intelligence--and no doubt attracted by her beauty--hired her to put his collection in order. Belle accepted his offer, and spent the next three years cataloguing treasures that would make any librarian weak with envy.

Portrait of Belle by Paul-Cesar Helleu.
Image from Wikicommons

Bellle Da Costa Greene was very much a self-made woman. Raised in Washington, D.C., in an educated, middle class family, she had not attended college but hadreceived all of her library training on the job at Princeton University. She was, by all account, extremely intelligent, shrewd, vivacious, socially adept, independent, charming, and beautiful. She also had a secret: she was an African-American who was "passing" as white. Her father was Richard Greener, the first African-American to graduate from Harvard and the dean of the law school at Howard University. Greener and Belle's mother, Genevieve, has separated when she was a child. The very light-skinned Genevieve dropped the "r" from her prominent husband's last name and began to pass herself and her children as white, not because she was ashamed--she herself was a daughter of Washington's black bourgeoisie--but because she pragmatically realized they would have far more opportunities open to them if they were believed to be white. Belle added "Da Costa" to her name (her original middle name was Marion) and put it about that she was of Portuguese descent, accounting for her olive complexion and curly dark hair.

By 1908, Belle had won Morgan's confidence in her knowledge and abilities, and he began sending her to Europe to purchase books, and especially illuminated manuscripts, for his collection. Belle became a major figure in the international art scene: already strikingly beautiful, she dressed fashionably, declaring famously, "Just because I am a librarian doesn't mean I have to dress like one." She sought to learn from prominent scholars, including Sidney Cockerell and Bernard Berenson, the latter of whom she counted mong her lovers.

The Da Costa Hours. Image courtesy of the Morgan Library.

When J. P. Morgan died in 1913, he left Belle $50,000--the equivalent of $800,000 in today's money--effectively making her financially independent for life. Fortunately his son, Jack, recognized Belle's worth to the Morgan collection and asked her to stay on and to continue acquiring treasures. In 1924, Jack Morgan established the Morgan Library as a public reference library and art collection, and named Belle as its director. She held that position for the next 24 years, until her reitrement in 1948.

Given the depth, breadth, and stature of the Morgan Collection, it is difficult to overstate Belle's influence on American art and antiquarian book world. Her acquisitions and stewardship continue to benefit us today, as seen in the recent manuscript exhibitions at the Morgan.

She was not the only woman in a prominent position at the Morgan. Bookbinder Marguerite Duprez Lahey kept a much lower profile, but was responsible for the luxurious bindings and solander cases that housed many of Morgan's finest books and manuscripts. A friend of Belle Greene, she first began working for Morgan in 1911, and continued to do so, nearly excelusively for over 30 years. A graduate of Brooklyn and Adelphi College, she served a two-year apprenticeship in at New York's Old Chelsea Bindery and went on to study bookbinding with Paris masters, particularly Jules Domont. Little seems to be known of her life outside her work: She was fron Virginia, and a 1937 article in Time magazine describes her as "a slender blonde." It was noted with interest that she was left handed, often considered an impediment among artisans of her trade. Quietly toiling in her studio, she did all the work of binding herself, selecting an preparing the finest levant morocco, sewing the pages, pasting, mounting, pressing, tooling, and finishing the bindings. A 1937 exhibition at the Morgan showcased 150 of her creations for the library's manuscripts.

At a time when few women worked outside the home, and far fewer attained professional prominence, Belle and Marguerite rose to the heights of their chosen fields, gaining the respect of their collegaues, competitors, and patrons. It is a pity so few know of them today. I was frankly appalled that I had never heard of Belle Da Costa Greene when I was in library school--talk about an inspiring role model. A recent biography, An Illuminated Life, will perhaps raise awareness of her story, I highly recommend it.

She's Into Leather*

Last week, we looked at bindings by women of the Arts & Crafts movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. This week, we look at the work of three women currently practicing the art. The binding above is by the British artist Denise Lubett. This cartographic design executed in tan and sea green morocco covers a copy of the Golden Cockerel Press' The Pilgrim Fathers, the depiction of the coastline of Massachusetts subtly alluding to the book's contents. Born in Paris in 1922, Denise Lubett studied bookbinding under John Corderoy at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts and at the London College of Printing. She set up her own binderies in England and France in 1966. In 1971, she was elected to membership in the society of Designer Bookbinders. Three of her bindings are pictured in the catalogue for the exhibition on "Modern British Bookbinding" held in Brussels and The Hague in 1985. The binding above is more restrained than the typical Lubett design, which tends to be animated and striking in its choice of colored onlays, but, at the same time, it is at least as inventive as her best work. In the chapter she wrote for "A Bookbinder's Florilegium," she implicitly described her personal binding credo when she said that "great purity of style and design usually bring forth great beauty." She also said in the same chapter that "if we [refuse to] bind books so that they become too fragile to handle [and] . . . if we can ascertain that this bound book can be handed down for a number of generations, then we will have achieved a better and more significant role as modern bookbinders."

Bindings by women are more and more often being done in conjunction with overall book design. The bindings pictured above and below are the handiwork of book artist Susan Allix (b. 1943) and are from her "Rosas" series. Allix hands set and printed 10 of these books combining well-known poems about roses with her own illustrations, and bound each of the volumes in its own unique design. The volumes above, combining hand embroidery and inlaid morocco, reminds one of a Victorian quilt--very feminine, very domestic, and somehow cozy. The mixed media binding below, which incorporates painted mirrored inlays and a black metal rose, has a far stronger, almost aggressive air, very bold and modern. The contents are the same, but the bindings make these two very different works of art.

Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book Division at the Library of Congress, wrote of Allix's work: "her books launch you on a visual journey. Each book is a voyage propelled by color, texture, image, impression, and material. . . . Allix comes to the book by way of printmaking and papermaking. She first emerged as a printmaker, having studied at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s. Winning the Prix de Rome gave her the opportunity to live for a time in Italy. . . . After more than three decades and thirty-seven books, Allix continues to be true to her vision. Because she insists on creating the entire book--from letterpress to illustration to binding--her work has a certain recognizable aesthetic; a malleable signature that responds to the particular character of a piece, but is still unquestionably hers. Allix conceives each book visually. 'I am concerned with visual things so I see books as full of colour and form in a pictorial sense as well as through the images created in my mind by the words, and through the sculptural qualities a book possesses.' The real narrative of her books is the flow of color and image as they move throughout the piece." Her works are held in the collections of The British Library, Yale University, National Gallery of Art Washington DC, The Claremont Colleges in California, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Alberta, as well as other fine public and private collections.

The striking binding above is the work of New York artist Carol Joyce. These Trees Stand was a collaboration between poet William DeWitt Snodgrass (1926-2009), photographer Robert Mahon, binder Carol Joyce, and printer Leonard Seastone. Joyce and Seastone were involved with the Center for Book Arts in Manhattan, and a copy of this book was included in the New York Public Library's 1984 exhibition, "Center for Book Arts: The First Decade." Joyce, who received a degree in art history and studied restoration and bookbinding in Italy, specializes in unique bindings for small press books. Her design for the binding here derives from the poem's opening lines: "These trees stand very tall under the heavens. / While they stand, if I walk, all stars traverse / This steep celestial gulf their branches chart." The stark limbs against the wine-colored background might look foreboding, if not for the tiny gold stars sprinkled playfully between the branches. Snodgrass himself was quite pleased with the work, describing the binding as "exquisite" in an interview for "Contemporary Authors."

* NOTE: I would here like to thank one of our clever commenters for the inspired title. Wish I'd thought of it myself.

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All images courtesy of Philliip J. Pirages Fine Books & Manuscripts.

A Few "Unknown Unknowns" From India's Rare Book World

Thiruvananthapuram Padmanabha Swamy Temple Complex.

 Sreekumar (no other name provided), a resident of Vanchiyoor, a neighborhood in  the ancient  city of Thiruvananthapuram, the capitol of the Indian state of Kerala, has a rare book he'd like to sell.

It is a copy of The Book of Psalms translated into Malayalim, one of the languages of Southern India., spoken by six million people.  Printed in 1848 by the Church Mission Press in Kottayam (the first town in India to achieve 100% literacy, in 1989) for the Madras Auxiliary Bible Society, it is one of the old and rare books bequeathed to him by his father.

The Legislative Museum.

He tried to sell it on eBay. No takers. The market for copies of The Book of Psalms in Malayalim is, apparently, small to non-existent. In the West.

He has a few other old books. About five hundred. They are not cataloged. One, Vrikshayurvedam, prescribes methods to change the characteristics of a tree.

“I have heard that using the methods in the book, one can change the shape of a leaf or can get the desired colour of cotton from a cotton plant,” Sreekumar said.

 City View.

He took it to Indian scientist N. Gopalakrishnan, who informed him that this book was  rare and of value. And - word got around - a Japanese academician found out about it and requested a photocopy, which Sreekumar was kind to send to her.

Another Indian rarity in his collection is Kakshapudam, which is about black magic.

“It has almost all black magic methods," Sreekumar, age 51, said, "including Uchchadanam, both in Sanskrit and its translation. One can easily perform black magic using this. However, I never tried,” he quipped.

His father, an avid collector with, apparently, the means to collect, died when Sreekumar was six years old. Sreekumar, an avid reader, has been trying to care for the books ever since. Not too successfully.

“I try to keep them away from dirt and insects. Still, I lost many of them,” Sreekumar said. “Once, I saw an article by [local journalist] Malayinkeezhu Gopalakrishnan, which refers to a souvenir released during the shashtipoorthi [wedding ritual] of Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer. It said there were only 100 copies of it. I had a faint memory of seeing one of its kind. When I checked, it was all damaged in moisture. It was disheartening."
 

The Royal Palace at Thiruvananthapuram.

Thiruvananthapuram's climate is deadly to books, and is in a perpetual state of identity crisis: Is it a tropical savannah or tropical monsoon climate? It can't decide so it doesn't bother with seasons.

The mean maximum temperature is 93 degrees F. That's the mean, not average. Half the time it's higher than that. The mean minimum is 69 degrees F. Humidity routinely hovers above 90%. Basically, it's Nature's schvitz bath, great for the skin, perhaps, and a natural way to rid the body of toxins. Poison, however, to paper. During summer, the entire state of Kerala is prone to gale force winds, storm surges, cyclone-related torrential downpours, occasional droughts, and rises in sea level. Batten down the bookshelves.

A building in one of the city's "Technoparks."

 A bit of background. Thiruvananthapuram is located on the southwestern coast of India and is ringed by low, lush green mountains. Gandhi referred to it as "The evergreen city of India." It has a rich cultural background, has libraries all over, is an academic hub, and center for IT R&D; it's one of India's Silicone Valley cities. Literacy is 89.36%. It is one of India's major media centers. It is the capitol if India's most literate and socially developed state. Its population is 779,000.

But no one seems to know much about these books and their market, as opposed to scholastic, value. And it is disconcerting to know that, despite twenty-five years of working with rare books, I have no idea what these books are, and have not been able to find a trace of them in the usual (and a few unusual) reference sources; I'd never even heard of them until yesterday.

The only saving grace is that, up until recently, the entire rare book trade in India and its rarities fell into  Donald Rumsfeld's black hole of intelligence, "unknown unknowns."

 "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting 
to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; 
there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; 
that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. 
But there are also unknown unknowns -- 
the ones we don't know we don't know."

Now, at least, its trade and a few of its rare books are "known unknowns."

Meanwhile, Sreekumar wants to sell his Book of Psalms in Malayalim. He'd like to use the proceeds to help with his copying shop and finance the preservation of his father's collection of rare books.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple Tower during the LakshaDeepam Festival.

Good luck to you sir. Perhaps you can sell it through Infibeam, India's answer to Amazon.com, which is soon introducing rare books to its mix.

More to the point, how do we find out more about these books and, at least, some of the other  rare "unknown unknowns"? Indian occult, Indian  botanical science, Indian in-translation Bible lit.  An intriguing start.

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Thanks to India Express.com for the lead.

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