First Printed Edition Of The Torah In Hebrew $1,400,000 - $2,000,000 At Christie's

by Stephen J. Gertz

"The educated man knows, indeed, from his knowledge of history that the art of Gutenberg saw its inception with a Latin Bible in the middle of the XVth century. Yet what layman knows when the original text appeared for the first time? Not even the bibliophile knows; although a non-Jewish expert, Count Giacomo Manzoni, asserts in his enthusiasm for the book that the first edition of the Hebrew Bible is the most precious book on earth" (Lazarus Goldschmidt, 1950)

A newly discovered, large and complete copy in very fine condition of the first printed edition of the Pentateuch - the first five books of the Bible aka Torah - in Hebrew is being offered by Christie's-Paris in its Importants livres anciens, livres d'artistes & manuscrits, Wednesday, April 30, 2014.


Printed on vellum in Bologna by Abraham ben Hayim of Pesaro for Joseph ben Abraham Caravita, this, the Hamishah humshe Torah was published on January, 25, 1482 with Aramaic paraphrase (Targum Onkelos) and commentary by Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac).


Rarer than copies of the Gutenberg Bible (49, per last census), and one of only twenty-eight surviving copies on vellum (with eleven survivors on paper), most incomplete, it is estimated to sell for $1,400,000 - $2,000,000 (€1,000,000-1,500,000; £900,000-1,300,000).

Arguably the most important book in the history of Hebrew printing and publishing, it incorporates the first appearance in print of the ancient Targum attributed to Onkelos. Rashi’s commentary, also included, was first published in Rome around a dozen years earlier. This first edition of the Pentateuch in its original language is the first Hebrew book with printed vowel and cantillation signs (those symbols beneath the letters).

Abraham ben Hayim may have started as a textile printer and dyer and/or bookbinder in Pesaro. His first recorded printing press stood at Ferrara in 1477, which produced two books, beginning with Levi ben Gershom’s Be’ur sefer lyov (Commentary on the Book of Job), edited and/or financed by Nathan of Salò; then it completed - about two thirds of the text - Jacob ben Asher’s Tur yoreh de’ah (Teacher of Knowledge), which had been started at the press of Abraham ben Solomon Conat in Mantua. At his second press, in Bologna, Abraham ben Hayim worked for Joseph ben Abraham, a member of the Caravita, an influential Jewish family of bankers.

In Bologna, Abraham ben Hayim first printed this fully vocalized biblical text with cantillation marks, a landmark in the history of Hebrew book production not only for the importance of its text, but no less for its pioneering technique of casting and setting accents; this fully developed typographical accomplishment can only be compared with Francesco Griffo’s solution for adding accents to the Aldine Greek founts some dozen years later.


Abraham ben Hayim da Pesaro and Francesco Griffo da Bologna are likely to have known each other and it's possible that Griffo cut Abraham’s punches; both were subsequently associated with the Soncino family of printers in Italy, although at dates about two decades apart. An earlier typographical attempt at adding Hebrew accents, in a 1477 folio edition of the Psalms printed by a consortium of typographers in Northern Italy, was aborted after a few pages. The only other surviving Bolognese production by Abraham ben Hayim is slightly later in date than this Torah, a folio edition of the Five Scrolls (Megillot), now recorded in two copies (Vatican and Parma Bibl. Palatina).


Liturgical readings of the Torah in synagogue, then as now, must be done from manuscript scrolls. This, the Bologna editio princeps, combining the text with the Aramaic targum and Rashi’s commentary, was aimed at an educational market, the codex format being most efficient for study.

Rashi’s commentary was first printed in Rome c. 1470 as a separate edition by three Jewish contemporaries of the Christian proto-typographers, Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz. The second separate edition - the first dated Hebrew printed book - appeared on February 18, 1475 from the press of Abraham ben Garton at Reggio di Calabria (a single copy known), while the third edition of 1476 is the first Hebrew book printed in Spain.

Another edition of the Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haftarot and Megillot, also vocalized and with cantillation accents, was printed somewhere in Italy by Isaac ben Aron d’Este and Moses ben Eliezer Raphael (3 copies extant and 7 single leaves); its date has in the past been assigned to c. 1480 (Goff Heb-13; Offenberg 25), based on research on by A. Spanier (Soncino Blätter I, 77), but it is now more accurately dated to c. 1489 from paper and watermark evidence in the Vatican Library copy (Piccard, Wasserzeichen Lilie II, 945).

Two obscure Iberian editions of the Torah - little known because of their extreme rarity - may also belong to the early 1480s, and may also be candidates for the first printed edition of the Torah in Hebrew: Offenberg 23=Goff Heb-16(III) recorded only in fragments of eight leaves (New York JTSL), one leaf (Oxford Bodleian) and a partial leaf (Jerusalem NLI); Offenberg 26=Goff Heb-16(II) surviving in a single copy (Florence Laurenziana) and a fragment of of 4 leaves (JTSL).

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BIBLE, Pentateuch, in Hebrew – Hamishah humshe Torah, with Aramaic paraphrase (Targum Onkelos) and commentary by Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac). Edited by Joseph Hayim ben Aaron Strasbourg Zarfati. Bologna: Abraham ben Hayim of Pesaro for Joseph ben Abraham Caravita, 5 Adar I [5]242 = 25th January 1482.

Median folio (320 x 230 mm). Printed on vellum (flesh side to flesh side, hair side to hair side, the sheets highly polished to minimize contrast). Collation: 110 28 310 48(-7) 58(-8) 62 710 8-98 106 1110 124 13-146 (Genesis-Exodus); 1510 168 176 18-218.10 228 234 248 256 2610 27-288 296 (Leviticus-Deuteronomy, 19/1v beginning of Numbers, 29/5v colophon, 29/6 blank). 219 leaves: Complete (but without final blank).

Vocalized biblical text with accents, surrounded by paraphrase in a narrow outer column and commentary in long lines above and below, the pages set in formes (the outer forme of the outermost vellum sheet of each quire printed on the fesh side). Square Hebrew type 1:180 (text, headlines), semi-cursive Hebrew type 2:90 (paraphrase, commentary and colophon). 20-21 lines of text and headline and 40-42 lines of paraphrase to the full page, numbers of commentary lines varying, no printed signatures or catchwords. (Light yellowing of the hair sides of the sheets, some minor stains, a few small wormholes at beginning and end, but in VERY FINE CONDITION, WITH LARGE MARGINS.) 18th-century binding of brown sheep over pasteboard (front cover and spine gone, back cover preserved but worn and detached, original sewing somewhat defective, frst quire detached from the book block). Modern folding box.

Provenance: inscribed, signed and dated by three Italian censors. Luigi da Bologna, Dominican friar, March 1599 – Camillo Jaghel 1613 – Fra Renato da Modena 1626. Individual words or short phrases censored, scored through in ink on 1/2r, 1/6r, 2/3v, 5/2v and 22/4r and several words erased on 10/6v and 11/3v, all in Rashi’s commentary. – There is no evidence of more recent provenance, except for the modest 18th-century binding, which is probably French. – French Private Collection, by descent to the present owner.

Hain 12568; GW M30624; BMC XIII, 26-27 (C.49.d.2); Proctor 6557; Goff Heb-18; CIBN Heb-4; IDL 2440; IGI E-12; Oates 2482; Bod-inc Heb-8. De Rossi I, 7; Steinschneider 2; Thesaurus A15; Van Straalen p. 29; Zedner p. 106; Marx 7; Goldstein 20; HSTC 22; Offenberg 13. ISTC ib00525570.

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5/1/2014: UPDATE: Sold for €2,785,500 ($3,850,679).
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Images courtesy of Christies, with our thanks.
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Are U.S. Women Driving American Men To Hell By Baring Their Flesh?

by Stephen J. Gertz

“When women come here with knee length dresses and stoop to pick up apples, I think the men can see more that it is the Lord’s will for them to see.”

So sayeth Mrs. DeWitt Smith in Are We Dragging Our Men To Hell By Our Modern Dress? A four-page pamphlet, it was published without date in the 1940s. It was reprinted without date in the 1960s. It reads as if it were written without date during the 1800s.

Or yesterday in response to Miley Cyrus' recent performance during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards and subsequent forced run through the media gauntlet.

The text of Are We Dragging Men To Hell By Our Manner Of Dress? reads in full:

The old sign of the harlot's den was a red light by night, and women sitting in front by day showing their legs. The Bible says to Christians:
 

"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array." I Timothy 2:9
 

A preacher said, "Only yesterday my manhood was insulted. Across from and facing me on a street car sat a 'something' -- a female picking her teeth. Her dress was above her knees with no effort to keep them together. Horrors! What are we coming to when a clean man must cover his face with a paper or turn his head the other way to keep from seeing entirely too much? It seems that many of these she animals have lost all modesty and are out for sale, offering all that is left - just leg! legs!! legs!!!"
 

A good lady said, "These knee-length dresses are not modest. The Holy Spirit showed me that at least half of the calf of the leg should be covered."
 

Hear what Dr. [Perry] Lichtenstein, Physician of Tombs Prison in New York City, who is able to speak authoritatively on the causes of crime, says: (He has seen, in 12 years, 170,000 prisoners pass over the 'Bridge of Sighs', and he ought to know.) "The so called crimes of passion are increasing alarmingly, and will continue to do so in my opinion until the principal cause is eliminated. This, it seems to me, is the present style of dress which, to say the least, is immodest. Rolled stockings and similar styles have a direct bearing on crime incitation no matter how innocent the wearer may be." It is safe to say that there would be much less crime today, far fewer homes whose happiness has been blasted forever by unfaithfulness, fewer divorce trials, less violations of maidenly honor, if everyone of these underworld styles could be thrown into the deepest Hell.
 

Dr. [Thomas De Witt] Talmadge said, "Thousands of men are in Hell, whose eternal damnation is due to the improper dress of women."
 

In a neighboring town lives a boy who was graduated from the State University with the highest honors. Later he had a fine position but acquired a venereal disease, went insane, and now is in the insane asylum part of the time--all because of lust.
 

Low necks, short dresses scarcely to the knees, bare arms, painted faces - in a word - everything to arouse passion and lust is the order of the day.
 

"Everybody does it!" I know - but do you belong to the 'everybodies' or are you a pilgrim?

I went to Bible school, and one day the teacher had a special meeting of the girls and told them if they would let the Lord talk to them, they would lengthen their dresses. When the school had a social gathering, one boy left the party when the girls were playing games, etc. He could see too much, he said.
 

When women come with knee length dresses, and stoop to pick up apples, I think the men can see more that it is the Lord's will for them to see.
 

I would rather wear my dresses a longer length and please the Lord, than to try to please a hard-to-please fickle world. We surely will never send men to Hell by wearing longer dresses.
 

D.L. Moody in his book, Prevailing Prayer, said, "Why is it that many of our children are going down to a dishonored grave? Many Godly parents find that their children are going astray. Does it arise from some secret sin clinging around the heart? I sometimes tremble when I hear people quote promises, and say that God is bound to fulfill those promises to them, when all the time there is something in their own lives which they are not willing to give up. It is well to search our hearts and find out why our prayers are not answered."
 

One saintly woman, who wore rather long dresses, said, when she put on a shorter dress, the Lord would not hear her prayers.

John Wesley said gay and costly apparel tends to influence lust.
 

During the first hundred years of her ministry, Methodism was the greatest power for righteousness of any movement since Pentecost. In those days of her glory, Methodism always insisted upon plainness of attire.
 

We may say if we wear our dresses a longer length we will look differently. What does Charles Finney (one of the most God-used evangelists of the all time) say? "I will confess that I was formerly myself in error. I believed the best way for Christians to pursue was to dress so as not to be noticed: to follow the fashions so as not to appear singular. But I have seen my error and now wonder greatly at my former blindness. It is your duty to dress so plain as to show the world that you place no sort of reliance in things of fashion.
 

If you wear immodest clothing that offers a suggestive appeal to sex, and stimulates those baser impulses which slumber in the human breast, do you think the Lord is so likely to protect your girl and boy in the wave of immorality among youth and others?
 

Preachers, if you think these knee length dresses are not modest, and it is a sin for women to wear them, will you be faithful to the Lord to warn them? Can you expect the Lord to put a hedge around yours sons and daughters, and keep them moral in this immoral world, if you do not?
 

I am trusting the Lord to keep my three sons pure. Can the Lord protect young people? I know He can; because He has kept mine moral. I couldn't commit adultery if you would give me the whole world; neither can I get mixed up in an affair with some other woman's husband (which is so common these days). If He can keep me moral, He can keep your son and daughter moral. The power of the Devil is great; but, praise God, the Lord has more power.
 

I don't want Jesus to say to me some day, "By the exposure of your flesh you have dragged men to Hell." Do you?

There are plenty of antecedents to the above, not the least of which is Apropos of Women and Theatres, written by former actress and women's rights lecturer, Olive Logan (1839-1909), and published in 1869 by Carleton in New York.

Logan, who earned the scorn of Mark Twain, devotes two chapters to decrying the "coarse rage which [has] spread in our theatres, until it [has] come to be a ruling force in them," to wit: About The Leg Business, detailing the exposure of women's gams on the boards, and About Nudity In The Theatre, discussing the post-Civil War phenomenon of women appearing onstage scantily clad. (Interestingly, Logan makes one of the first references in a general circulation book to "a new theatrical term in use among 'professionals' which embraces all sorts of performances in its comprehensiveness, to wit: The Show Business").

As far as the business of show too much goes, Are We Dragging Our Men To Hell By Our Modern Dress? was not Mrs. DeWitt Smith's only exploration of the looming apocalypse on America's near horizon. Evidently a woman of few words, she wrote two other four-page only tracts, Christians Are Sleeping While Communists Work (Minneapolis: Osterhus Publishing Company, 195?) and Never Take Your First Drink, Never Spend Your First Nickel in Gambling, and Never Touch Tobacco (Randleman, NC: Pilgrim Tract Society, 194?).

To declare that Are Women Dragging Men Into Hell By Their Manner Of Dress is extremely scarce in any edition because there are no copies, according to OCLC, in institutional holdings worldwide sounds impressive but is sort of meaningless; libraries clearly felt it wasn't worth adding to their collections. But it is truly rare: I do not pretend to have seen every similarly themed book and pamphlet but I have seen quite a few over the last thirty years and this one is a first for me.

It does, however, make me feel all warm and fuzzy to report that OCLC records only one copy each of Mrs. Smith's Christians Are Sleeping While Communists Work and Never Take Your First Drink, Never Spend Your First Nickel in Gambling, and Never Touch Tobacco in institutional holdings worldwide. Acquisition librarians have apparently judged that loopy tracts on Communism, alcohol, gambling, and tobacco are of greater importance to our culture than a loopy anti-cheesecake jeremiad. 

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SMITH, Mrs. DeWitt. [caption title]. Are We Dragging Men To Hell By Our Modern Dress? (Randleman, N. C.: Pilgrim Tract Society, Inc.), n.d. [after 1948, c. 1960]. Unbound tract, approx. 5.25 x 3.5 inches, [4] pages on green stock. Illus. Later edition.

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Image courtesy of Garrett Scott, Bookseller, with our thanks.

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Kierkegaard's Silver Quill At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's silver quill, finely wrought as an elegant feather, is being offered by Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Copenhagen in its International Paintings, Antiquities and Modern Art sale on September 18, 2013. It is estimated to sell for €10,000-€13,000 ($13,295 - $17,282).

The quill, 16.3 cm long (just shy of 6 1/2 inches), has passed down through the Høyernielsen family, descendants of Kierkegaard's sister, Nicoline. According to family tradition, it is the only pen he is known to have meticulously and diligently used to set down his thoughts, which flooded out of his head, poured down his arm, ran into his fingers through to pen and burst onto paper.

In 1955, this pen was exhibited at the Royal Library's Memorial Exhibition on Kierkegaard, and it was also depicted in the exhibition's catalog.

Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the father of existentialism who considered himself a Christian poet, was a compulsive, profound and prolific writer with a chronic itch. In 1838, he wrote in his journal, "Ingen dag uden en streg" ("No day without a line"). Later, in 1847, he noted, "Only when I'm writing do I feel well. I forget all unpleasantness and sufferings, I am with my thoughts and happy. If I stop for only a few days I feel immediately sick, overwhelmed, labored, my head heavy and weighed down."

As a youth the prominent Danish literary and cultural critic, Georg Brandes (1842-1927), was witness to Kierkegaard's fervent urge to write. In his memoirs (1880) he recalled walking past Kierkegaard's apartment and catching sight of him through a window:

"The strange Thinker went back and forth during a silence that was only broken by pen scratching on paper [...] in all rooms lay pen, paper and ink [...] Never in all existence has ink played so great a role."

Note that the pen has no nib. By the 1830's, quill pens, which sucked up ink into their hollow via capillary action and required that the feather be often sliced at its point to maintain a sharp nib, had been replaced by dip pens with steel nibs (the pen itself) inserted into pen-holders, as here.  Steel nibs were sturdier, kept their sharpness, lasted longer, and had the added advantage of being a much neater implement, not spilling ink all over paper and fingers. The next step in the evolution of pens was the fountain pen. Had Kierkegaard lived long enough to enjoy their use, the fountain would have required the capacity of Niagara Falls to handle the rush of words that cascaded forth.

His pen in overdrive, Kierkegaard wrote seventy-three works during his lifetime, many under pseudonyms including Johannes Climacus, Nicolas Notabene, Vigilius Haufniensis, Frater Taciturnus, Johannes de Silentio, Constantin Constantius, Victor Eremita, and my personal favorite, Hilarius Bookbinder, who, I imagine, thinks that binding a book in infant-soiled publisher's diaper cloth glued with anti-bacterial zinc oxide paste and dusted with Johnson's Baby Powder is a laff-riot.

Philosophy being a notoriously low-paying gig, one wonders how Kierkegaard could afford such an  extravagant and expensive pen. He was, however, born into wealth and died in it, never held a job, and never, ever had to worry about paying bills, which tends to burn a lot of mental energy that Kierkegaard had the luxury to conserve for that other consuming preoccupation, the anxiety of existence.

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Images courtesy of Bruun Rasmussen auctions, with our thanks.
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The Glorious Future Of Detroit Under Glass, Including Television And The Hyperloop, In 1884

by Stephen J. Gertz

Poetical Drifts of Thought or, Problems of Progress. Treating Upon The Mistakes of the Church - The Mistakes of the Atheist Infidel and Materialist - God Not the Maker of the Universe - Progress the Evidence of a Merciful But Not All-Powerful God. Reconciliation of Science and Christianity. The Formation of a Solar System - Evolution - Human Progress - Possibilities of the Future - Including Spicy Explanatory Matter In Prose. Embellished with Nearly 200 Illustrations. Together with a Number of Fine Poems on Popular Subjects. Including Sketches of the City of the Straits - Past, Present and Future.

Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus (We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes”) - Motto of Detroit.

Current reports of Detroit's collapse are premature. Lyman E. Stowe, a citizen of pre-Motor City, saw the present in 1884, was pleased, and predicted a future for the metropolis that makes anything H.G. Wells ever wrote seem the product of a pedestrian mind completely lacking in imagination.

The first three of fifty-five stanzas to be recited to the tune of Yankee Doodle.

It's a future based upon electricity, chemistry, the abolition of ignorance, and the reconciliation of science and religion. It's a future told, for the most part, in poems that threaten the very existence of poetry. Scansion, smansion, who needs it? When you write fifty-five quatrains in praise of Detroit's present and direct that they be recited to the tune of Yankee Doodle, Erato sticks a feather in her cap, calls it macaroni, gets buried in poetical snowdrifts of thought and prays for a St. Bernard to find her beneath the avalanche.

Detroit in 1884.

Poetical Drifts of Thought is one of the many eccentric self-published works of American 19th-century imaginative writing yet it stands out from the usual crowd of crazy texts by sewing utopian literature, futurology, freethought, Swedenborg, Darwin, and social engineering into a crazy quilt that just won't quit. Lyman E. Stowe was a rugged individualist in the sea of rabid individualists that emerged during the Second Great Awakening in the United States, when the American ethos of individualism met evangelicalism and singular opinions and beliefs were tossed into a Christian fruit salad to present to the world a medley of motley ideas, many radical, in search of acceptance by someone, anyone - please listen!

The Flying Machine of the near Future.

Amongst the many visions Stowe has of Detroit in the year 2100 are air travel; television (“Seeing Distant Friends by Electricity’s Aid”); control of global weather patterns...

Elon Musk's Hyperloop.

...and travel by cars through underground pneumatic tubes. And you thought Elon Musk's Hyperloop was futuristic?  Late!

Food inhaled, not eaten, with acid-reflux vanquished.

Inhaling nutriment in gaseous form via electrical and chemical process.

How 'bout the replacement of solid foods with “nutritive gasses”? Combined with nitrous oxide for belly laughs?

Manufacturing clothes by gathering the particles direct from
water, earth, and atmosphere by electricity and chemistry.

Clothes may make the man but in Detroit's future man doesn't make the clothes. In a stunning blow to the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, clothing will be manufactured using a combination of electricity and chemistry to process particles of water, earth, and atmosphere into a three-piece, custom-made 100% merino wool canvassed suit with structured waist, single vent, hand-rolled lapels, padded shoulders, and handsome silhouette.

Preface as excuse for the book.

Typical in books of this nature, the author has his own ideas about book format and punctuation. Since he believes that a preface is nothing more than an excuse for a writer to rev-up before mouthing off, he calls it like he sees it. Then makes his excuse for writing the book.

Super-sized quotations marks lest the author forget them,
to be inserted by the reader where appropriate.

Stowe makes every attempt to be scrupulous with crediting other writers "but for fear that I might sometimes miss, I place these large quotation marks, large enough for all to see, and ask the fastidious reader to place them where they belong." In short, he leaves the copy editing to the reader.

Eden on Lake Michigan in the year 2100.

Current denizens of Detroit will be pleased or piqued to learn that in the year 2100 they will become peasants under glass, sharing life with hothouse flowers and exotic fruits in a greenhouse gotham where it's sunny, warm, and wonderful all year 'round.

Detroit in the year 2100, the City covered in glass and iron for
20 square miles. Heated by the internal heats of the earth, lit up
with electricity, with perpetual summer days and tropical fruits and
flowers growing all year 'round.

La dolce far niete aside,

All have a certain work to do,
Yet all are gents and ladies too;
All free from strife and toil and care,
They float and breathe the perfumed air.
Sweet music's swelling chorus rings,
And soothing echoes outward flings,
From cheering bands, their sounds inspire
Like sweet Aeolian harp or lyre

Here, Stowe apparently references The Funk Brothers, the uncredited and largely unheralded studio musicians who were the house band hand-picked by Berry Gordy in 1959 for Detroit's Motown Records.

The Battle of the Future.
Detroit's favorite son, Ted Nugent, at upper far right
(of course), attacks those at left (naturally)
who would undermine the Bill of Rights.

You'd think that one who envisions a paradise city under glass would avoid war - the results would be shattering - but no. Aeriel ballets with bullets n' bombs will still have their place as long as man has an immortal soul.     

"The mind is but organized matter, there's no immortal soul.

In a blow, however, to Christianity as we know it, Christian Lyman E. Stowe asserts that "the mind is but organized matter, there's no immortal soul," a strange sentiment from an anti-materialist but "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines" (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

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Discovery of the Art of Renewing Life.

 

Then again, who needs an immortal soul when life can renewed as if a subscription to LIFE magazine? I see Ford's River Rouge factory repurposed, renewing life on an assembly line.

In what will be major news to the faithful of all monotheistic religions, Stowe asserts that God didn't make the universe and God's not All-Powerful. Then who, Henry Ford? (Ford thought so). 

Other books by Lyman E. Stone include: My Wife Nellie and I; a Poetical Sketch of Love and Fancy with Other Poems, Including Blank Lines for Autograph and Remarks (1895); What Is Coming is a Wonderful Exposition of the Prophecies and Comparison with Ancient and Modern Historical and Political Events Together with an Ample, Though Concise History of Money from King Solomon's Time to the Present (1896); Stowe's Bible Astrology: the Bible Founded on Astrology (1907); Astrological Periodicity: A Book of Instructions, Showing Man, Beast and Plant are Subject to the Influences of the Planets ... [which gives good and evil periods, which can be taken advantage of and be a benefit, not only to the individual, but to all classes of people (1907); Right Hours to Success (1907); Karmenia; or, What the Spirit Told Me, "Truth Stranger Than Fiction" a Series of Short Occult Stories, Real Experiences During the Life of a Man 72 Years of Age, Garnished in the Clothes of Fiction (1918).

All to be read to the tune of Yankee Doodle.

As for Poetical Drifts of Thought, "The book is what the title implies - 'Drifts of Thought.' You say you don't believe it or agree with it all. Well, I don't blame you, for I don't know as I do my self. Yet my theory is grounded upon logic that seems indisputable within the bounds of anything come-at-able.

"We all have a right to express our thoughts, and by free expression of our thoughts we learn from one another, but I must now say for the present, Good By. Good By."

See you later, alligator. Bankruptcy? Don't have a goiter, you Detroiter. This, too, shall pass - like that gaseous meal you just inhaled.

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STOWE, Lyman E. Poetical Drifts of Thought or, Problems of Progress. Treating Upon The Mistakes of the Church - The Mistakes of the Atheist Infidel and Materialist - God Not the Maker of the Universe - Progress the Evidence of a Merciful But Not All-Powerful God. Reconciliation of Science and Christianity. The Formation of a Solar System - Evolution - Human Progress - Possibilities of the Future - Including Spicy Explanatory Matter In Prose. Embellished with Nearly 200 Illustrations.. Together with a Number of Fine Poems on Popular Subjects. Including Sketches of the City of the Straits - Past, Present and Future. Detroit, Mich.: Lyman E. Stowe, Publisher, 1884.

First edition. Tall octavo. 319, [1] pp. Illustrated throughout with woodcuts. Publisher's gilt-pictorial green cloth over beveled boards.

Not in Negley, Utopian Literature, nor in Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature. 
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"Wives Is What I Hanker For": Mormons Take Center Stage

by Stephen J. Gertz

We shift from rare prose literature to rare literature of the theater today, inspired by an item offered in Swann Galleries upcoming Vintage  Posters sale, August 7, 2013.

During the 1880-1881 theatrical touring season the Goesche-Hopper Company presented 100 Wives, an anti-Mormon tabloid-theater comedy-melodrama with a dash of anti-Chinese racism that appears to have sold out every performance in every town and city it played in.

The playbill set forth the proceedings:

EMBLEMATIC TABLEAU - Inner Temple of the Mormons. The Danites Receiving a New Covenant. The Solemn Oaths of the Blood atonement. The Chant of the Priests. Immediately following this picture, which illustrates the mission of the Destroying Angels, the curtain rises upon the Play.

ACT I - Salt Lake City. Arrival of the English Colony at New Jerusalem. Elder Bezum's Wicked Designs. The McGinley Family. Elsie Bradford Hears Terrible News. A Timely Rescue.

ACT II - Nick's Ranch at McGinely's Gulch. The Chinese Question. A Boys Celebrate. A Lost Child. The Danites in Pursuit. Bezum Baffled. The Dead Restored To Life.

ACT III - TABLEAU I - McGinley's Home. Reconciliation and New Terrors. Mrs. McGinley's Plan. "Wives is what I hanker for." TABLEAU 2 - Up among the Mines. Little Bessie Prays for her Papa. The Death Fall from the Cliff.

ACT IV - Exterior of the Mormon Tabernacle. The Marriage. Elder Bezum presses Hard. The Mormon Church is Supreme. Surprise. The Govermnet has Something to Say at Last. "Home Sweet Home."

First on the bill, the play's lead character possesses my new favorite name, one right out of S.J. Perelman. Elder Bezum, third on the bill, is the zealous Mormon who declaims, "Wives is what I hanker for." A better headline for a personal ad  would be difficult to compose, "SWMM Seeks Wives! Wives, Wives!" lacking its quaint colloquial fervor.

The Cast:

Confucius McGinley, a Doubtful Convert.
Edward Branford, a Gentile.
Elder Bezum, A Pillar of the Church.
Hung Li, a Celestial.
Mrs. Sophronia McGinley, an Ambitious Woman.
Elsie Bradford, a Deceived Woman.
Mrs. Andrews, a Deluded Woman.
Little Bessie

"If this play could run for a hundred nights instead of closing this week, it would still not exhaust popular interest, for every one who has once seen it must want to go again. It has taken the town by surprise, and that, too, in the midst of election excitement; such a fresh and dramatic story, based on a matter that all are familiar with, yet that for the first time seems to come home to the audience with all its tragic capabilities.

"The popular idea of the 'American play,' with its slang and localisms of manners and dress, is very far indeed from all that is presentd in 'The Hundred Wives.' Nor need any one fear to be introduced into the American harem at Salt Lake, or be treated to any moralizing sermons or situations, in themselves demoralizing and disgusting. On the contrary the plot of this Mormon story is worked out with a hand at once delicate and skilful.

"The believer and the Danite, Mormon Apostle and Destroying Angel, are given just that touch of fanatic devotion and of quaint phraseology as brings out the livery this creed has adopted to serve the devil in, and the opening tableau of the Danite vow in the Mormon Tabernacle is the real keynote to the story. The skill, too, with which the Chinaman is made to foil a Mormon plot is very noticeable, especially as he is a typical Chinaman, of the California pattern, not above the tricks of his tribe - yet turning his secretive qualities to good and loyal effect as the plot thickens.

"Here are the two nearest problems that the American people have to deal with - the Chinese and the Mormon - most ingeniously worked out, and although the audience is in a broad ripple of laughter from beginning to end, there is an undercurrent of appeal constantly that this is a live story, and here is a matter that must be presently be settled in one or another way.

"The entirely novel humor and style of acting of Mr. De Wolf Hopper and Miss Ada Gilman have already been noticed. Both are such natural and such new personations, and both have such unusual physical advantages for the comic situation, that the matrimonial argument is irresistible whenever the diminutive wife takes her tall, strapping miner in hand. Mrs. Sophronia, with her unwavering attachment to the Mormon creed, and her undisguised horror of it when the reality os played off upon her by her own earnestness and her husband's joke, is altogether delightful.

"…In fine, the play is an argument, such as people can understand, against the hideous Mormon creed, which is suffered to exist by virtue of popular indifference to its every-day features. There will certainly be a change in public sentiment wherever the 'Hundred Wives' is played, for it is the one wife that comes out triumphant.

"Forcible as the plot is, it is none the less a clean plot, and all the more dramatic for being a true bill" (The Scrap Book, Volume 2, Sept. 1906- Feb. 1907, pp. 723-724, reprinting a review from the Philadelphia Ledger, 1880).

"This talking drama will occupy the boards at the opera house on Monday night next. The New Orleans Democrat pays the entertainment the following flattering tribute: The new American play, 'One Hundred Wives,' which has created an immense sensation wherever presented, was produced here last night and made a decided hit. The theater was filled from top to bottom, and the unanimous verdict of the immense audience was, that the drama is the best thing in its line which has ever been brought before a New Orleans audience. Though it is somewhat on the order of 'The Danites,' it is far superior to that play both in plot and detail. The company presenting it is an excellent one" (Decatur Review, January 28, 1882).

Producer-Actor De Wolf Hopper (1858-1935), who portrayed Confucius McGinley and was, presumably, the play's writer-director, was ninety-four marriages shy of "100 Wives." Married only six times, his fifth pass at the altar espoused him to actress Elda Furry, who later became the famed Old Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper.

The world awaits a play with clean plot and true bill whose lead character is named Lao Tse McGonagle, Mencius O'Malley, or Zhaozhou Schwartz.

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Images of 100 Wives and De Wolf Hopper courtesy of Swann Galleries; image of 100 Wives flyer courtesy of Ebay, with our thanks.

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William S. Burroughs Exposes Scientology To Allen Ginsberg

by Stephen J. Gertz

Title page.

Serendipity struck Scientology when, simultaneous to actress Leah Remini's recent and very public defection from the controversial organization, a copy of William S. Burroughs exposé, Ali's Smile / Naked Scientology, came to market. It wasn't just any ol' copy. It was a Presentation Copy, Allen Ginsberg's, inscribed by Burroughs on the front wrapper, "For Allen / Love / William S. Burroughs," and signed "Allen Ginsberg aug 30, 1979 City Lights" on the half-title.

The book collects the author's various newspaper and magazine essays on Scientology and the Scientology-themed short story, Ali's Smile. Burroughs joined the organization during the Sixties, took courses, and became a "clear." But soon afterward he became disenchanted with the group's authoritarian and secretive nature and left the organization in 1970. Officially expelled, he was declared by Scientology to be in a "Condition of Treason."

Burroughs was initially attracted to Scientology because of its promise to liberate the mind by clearing it of traumatic memories that impeded personal growth, and, by extension, social progress and freedom from social control. His frequent collaborator, the artist Brion Gysin, introduced him to it and Burrough's "cut-up" technique in his early books reflected the influence of Hubbard's Dianetics and the fracturing of consciousness to attain a higher reality.

But as his biographer Ted Morgan noted, Burroughs "… had hoped to find a method of personal emancipation and had found instead another control system."

Burroughs wrote:

"In view of the fact that my articles and statements on Scientology may have influenced young people to associate themselves with the so called Church of Scientology, I feel an obligation to make my present views on the subject quite clear..."

"...Some of the techniques are highly valuable and warrant further study and experimentation. The E Meter is a useful device … (many variations of this instrument are possible). On the other hand I am in flat disagreement with the organizational policy. No body of knowledge needs an organizational policy. Organizational policy can only impede the advancement of knowledge. There is a basic incompatibility between any organization and freedom of thought. Suppose Newton had founded a Church of Newtonian Physics and refused to show his formula to anyone who doubted the tenets of Newtonian Physics? All organizations create organizational necessities. It is precisely organizational necessities that have prevented Scientology from obtaining the serious consideration merited by the importance of Mr. Hubbard’s discoveries. Scientologists are not prepared to accept intelligent and sometimes critical evaluation. They demand unquestioning acceptance.

"Mr. Hubbard’s overtly fascist utterances (China is the real threat to world peace, Scientology is protecting the home, the church, the family, decent morals … positively no wife swapping. It’s a dirty Communist trick … national boundaries, the concepts of RIGHT and WRONG against evil free thinking psychiatrist) can hardly recommend him to the militant students. Certainly it is time for the Scientologists to come out in plain English on one side or the other, if they expect the trust and support of young people. Which side are you on Hubbard, which side are you on?" (Burroughs On Scientology, Los Angeles Free Press,  March 6, 1970, reprinted in Ali's Smile / Naked Scientology).

That Burroughs presented this copy of Ali's Smile / Naked Scientology to Allen Ginsberg is of no little significance. Burroughs had been proselytizing to his friend about Scientology as early as 1959. In a letter to Ginsberg dated October 27 of that year he wrote: "The method of directed recall is the method of Scientology. You will recall I wrote urging you to contact local chapter and find an auditor. They do the job without hypnosis or drugs, simply run the tape back and forth until the trauma is wiped off. It works. I have used the method - partially responsible for recent changes."

Ginsberg was also concerned with personal liberation and freedom from social totalitarianism. With this copy of Ali's Smile / Naked Scientology Burroughs presented Ginsberg with his conclusions about the group and his deep concerns, which can be neatly summarized in a line from The Who's We Won't Get Fooled Again, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Dogma, orthodoxy, and authoritarian control were antithetical to everything Burroughs and Ginsberg stood for.
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BURROUGHS, William S. Ali's Smile Naked Scientology. Bonn: Expanded Media Editions, 1978. First collected edition of previously published work, first printing in wrappers, a Presentation Copy inscribed to Allen Ginsberg. Octavo. 106, [4] pp., text in German and English, translations by Carl Weissner. Pictorial wrappers.
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The Autobiography Of God

by Stephen J. Gertz

Chicago: Willett, Clark and Company, 1937.

"The vast sweep of history from the days of Abraham down to Hitler and the coronation of George VI of England in 1937 is portrayed as seen by Yahweh himself, the chief actor in the episodes that have shaped the modern world...a novel of great audacity" (Dust jacket blurb).

Ai, ai, ai, I, Yahweh! Great audacity, indeed.

Now, you can call me Yah or you can call me El; you can call me Elah or you can call me Eloah; you can call me HaShem or you can call me Adoshem; you can call me Jah or you can call me Jehovah but you doesn't have to call me Yahweh! In fact, I find it annoying. Adonai will do just fine. Like James Baldwin, nobody knows my name. In my case let's keep it that way.

Addressing me by my first name is simply rude. Maybe it's an American thing, breaking down class distinctions by leveling the playing field with informality. But if you were introduced to George Washington would you say, "Hey, George, nice t'meet'cha. Waz happ'nin?'" followed by a fist-bump? Of course not; you'd be awestruck. But you don't hesitate to dis me, treating me like we're old pals. Jumpin' Jehosephat! Did anybody - besides his wife, in private - dare to call Don Corleone "Vito?"  So, what am I, chopped liver?

It's Mr. Yahweh to you. Better yet, I Am That I Am (אהיה אשר אהיה), but if you insist upon being a boor call me Big Daddy. Or, since we're in the 21st century, Big Data: the invisible know-it-all in the cloud with a host of servers to do my bidding.

First of all, I did not "write" this book nor did I will it into existence. It's a case of identity theft. The first paragraph is a dead giveaway.

"I know not whose prayer gave rise to my being. Who, indeed, can remember the circumstances of his begetting? I recall only the mighty solitude of the world wherein first I found myself There was a great plain which lay round about the city of Ur in ancient Chaldea. Thither do my earliest memories return."

What? Thither doth my displeasure begin, and, please, begone the stilted language. I needed mankind to pray me into existence? Gimme a break. I was here before, I'm here now, I'll be here later, long after humanity bites the dust and returns to it. And, what, I have no memories before humanity came on the scene? Skip the ontology; I AM, that's all you need to know, and I remember more than Sammy "the Bull" Gravano testifying against John "the Dapper Don" Gotti.

Check this out, from chapter seven: "From that time forth, forasmuch as I had entered somewhat into the temporal province, Constantine entered more freely into the spiritual. And I took it it not amiss until that day when he said unto me, 'Yahweh, it is made increasingly plain that we must have thee defined.'

"'Defined, sayest thou?' I queried." The nerveth of this guy! I refuse to be pigeonholed. Everybody says I'm unknowable, beyond comprehension - and I am - but that hasn't stopped anyone from determining what they think I want. I'm a mystery without a solution, a Raymond Chandler novel with plot that makes no sense. My challenge to mankind is not to feel secure but to be able to live with insecurity without going insane.

What do I want? I'm not talking; gotta keep you flesh and blood folks on your toes.

I'm pleased to report that this book, a  turkey in the form of an autobiography, has not received a single review on Library Thing, Good Reads, or Amazon. It is, apparently, considered to be one of the ten plagues of Egypt and something to avoid, a toss-up between boils and pestilence. It is forgotten and for good reason. "Friends will find much to ponder on in this book, which is told in the first person by no less than Jehovah, Yahweh, God of the Hebrews. The idea is more startling than the book." So sayeth T. Morris Longstreet in 1939, reviewing the book (two years after its publication, yet!) for the Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association. It needs all the friends it can get, Quaker or otherwise.

Need I add that I have nothing to do with Yahweh.com, the online House of Me? Talk about chutzpah! My Domain is mine and mine alone but try telling that to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). I complained. I said, "I'm Yahweh." Guy says to me, "Right, and I'm Dagon, don't bust my chops." Philistines.

So, enough of this phoney-baloney autobiography of Me. Oy, Yahweh! It's a hoax.

So say I, Clifford Irving.

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GREY, Robert Munson. I, Yahweh. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1937. First edition. Octavo. [8], 352 pp. Cloth.. Dust jacket.

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Guericke's Got Plenty O' Nothin', and Nothin's Plenty For Him (1672)

by Stephen J. Gertz

One day in 1656, the citizens of Magdeburg, Germany were startled by the appearance of strange unidentified flying objects hovering over their town. Documented by a now-famous contemporary engraving, it should have led to panic in the streets. The town's mayor, however, Otto von Guericke (1602-1686), calmed the crowd with confidence empty of any reassurance whatsoever: Nothing to worry about, it's nothing at all. Nothing's happening. You are seeing nothing in action.

It was a great day for nihilism.

What the good folks of Magdeburg actually saw were two teams of eight horses try to pull apart two 20-inch diameter copper hemispheres that were greased at their mating rims and sealed when all the air was pumped out. It couldn't be done. Guericke had dramatically demonstrated the existence of a vacuum, of nothingness within the sealed hemispheres. In short, he proved that nothing could exist within something.

This was major. It was also controversial. The results are found in Guericks's Experimenta nova (1672), one of the great classics of science.

The subject of a vacuum or void, that is, nothingness, vexed natural philosophers and theologians. Ecclesiastic Jacques du Bois and Jesuit scholars Athanasius Kircher and his assistant and protégé, Gaspar Schott were in the middle of it along with Guericke, a scientist and inventor as well as politician.

"Schott first published what had originally been intended as a brief guide to the hydraulic and pneumatic  instruments in Kircher's Roman museum, expanding it into the first version of his Mechanica  hydraulico-pneumatica [1658]. But he added as an appendix [pp. 441-488] a detailed account of Guericke's experiments on vacuums, the earliest published report of this work. This supplement contributed greatly to the  success of Schott's compendium; and as a result he  became the center of a network of correspondence  as other Jesuits, as well as lay experimenters and  mechanicians, wrote to inform him of their inventions  and discoveries. Schott exchanged several letters  with Guericke, seeking to draw him out by  suggesting new problems, and published his later investigations" (DSB).


Schott, who Guericke cites in the subtitle to Experimenta nova, was a supporter of Guericke. His mentor, Kircher was not; a vacuum is impossible: God fills everything. 
This is one of the few examples of Kircher and Schott in disagreement.



Engraved titlepage.

 "Is it God's immensity or is it independent of God…Guericke's position on this matter emerges in the course of a summary account [in Experimenta nova] of the opinions of the ecclesiastics Jacques de Bois of Leyden and Athanasius Kircher, the eminent Jesuit scholar. In his Dialogus Theologicus-Astronomicus, published in 1653 and directed against Galileo and all his defenders of the heliocentric cosmology, Jacques du Bois had proclaimed the infinite omnipresence of God in an infinite void beyond the world. Du Bois should not have placed the divine essence in an infinite void, complained Guericke, but ought rather to to have declared that ' there is a place or space not in which the divine essence is, but which is itself the divine essence..."

"…[Guericke's] criticism of Kircher differed somewhat…Kircher believed that even if a void culled exist without a body, which he denied, it could not exist without God. In the passage cited by Guericke, Kircher explained that 'when you imagine this imaginary space beyond the world, do not imagine it as nothing, but conceive it as a fullness of the Divine Substance extended into infinity.'  In Guericke's judgment, Kircher was wrong to say that 'God fills all imaginary space, vacuum or emptiness by His substance and presence' and simultaneously deny the existence of empty space. 'For how can God fill what is not' [Experimenta nova, p. 64]. Rather, Kircher ought to have concluded with Lessius that 'imaginary space, vacuum, or the Nothing beyond the world, is God himself,' as he finally does when he announces that the space beyond the world is not Nothing, but is the fullness of Divine Substance.'

"But if space is God's immensity, or even God Himself, Guericke insisted that we must nevertheless understand that 'the infinite essence of God is not contained in space, or vacuum, but is in Himself for Himself" (Grant, Much Ado Abut Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution, p. 218-19).

Presuming that your brain, as mine, dissolved into mush during the preceding theologico-philisophico disquisition about nothing, allow me to sum things up: Guericke made something out of nothing, Kircher thought nothing of it, but nothing is divine so let's move on. Don't tell the Know-Nothings, they don't know anything much less nothing.

Someone who, like Guericke, knew something about nothing and possessed it, too, sang about it in 1963, courtesy Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

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[KIRCHER, Athanasius. SCHOTT, Gaspar]. GUERICKE, Otto von. Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio Primùm à R.P. Gaspare Schotto . . . nunc verò ab ipso Auctore Perfectiùs edita, variisque aliis Experimentis aucta. Quibus accesserunt simul certa quaedam De Aeris Pon Amstelodami [Amsterdam]: Johannes Jansson zu Waesberge, 1672. 

First edition. Folio. 8 ff. (including the engraved title), 244, (4) pp., errata leaf. Engraved title, engraved portrait of the author, two double-page engraved plates ((including that of the famous Magdeburg experiment and twenty engravings, many full-page. 

Dibner, Heralds of Science, 55 (pp. 30 & 67). Dibner, Founding Fathers of Electrical Science, pp. 13-14. D.S.B., V, pp. 574-76. Evans, Exhibition of First Editions of Epochal Achievements in the History of Science (1934), 30. Horblit 44. Sparrow, Milestones of Science, p. 16.

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Images courtesy of Martayan Lan, with our thanks.
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Another existential brain-twister:

The Story of Nobody, By Somebody, Illustrated By Someone.
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Fighting Modern Evils With Old Rare Books

by Stephen J. Gertz

MILLER, Fred S. Fighting Modern Evils That Destroy Our Homes
- A Startling Exposure of the Snares and Pitfals of the Social World
- Vividly Depicting How Homes Are Wrecked and Souls Destroyed
Through Wiles and Trickery of Mystic Cults.
N.P. [U.S. of Canada]: n.p. [the author], n.d. [c. 1913].

In the modern world each footfall is an opportunity to drop into an abyss and snowshoes won't prevent you from sinking into perdition. There is, however, a rich corpus of vintage self-help, instructional and inspirational literature to keep you from drowning in a pool of damnation.

Here's a small selection, from Old New Age, the latest catalog from David Mason Rare Books.

KRESS, Daniel H. The Cigarette.
As a Physician Sees It.
Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publ., [c. 1932].

Modern Evil #1: Cigarettes.

Pacific Press Publishers of Mountain View, California was a Seventh Day Adventist venture dedicated to educational titles on activities that lead to the road to ruin. Get your kicks on Route 666 and experience Hell Before Death.

Here, inside the Los Angeles Coliseum during the 1932 Olympic Games, the U.S. track team doc examines a runner prior to race time. Judging by the expression on the Olympian's face, he's just been diagnosed with Stage-3 lung cancer and congestive heart failure. Will he make it to the finish line?

Not too long after this pamphlet appeared, Big Tobacco would recruit doctors real or otherwise to endorse their products in advertisements, M.D.s who, apparently, had their fingers crossed when taking the Hippocratic Oath.

HORN, M[ildred]. A. Mother and Daughter.
A Digest for Women and Growing Girls,
Which Completely Covers the Field of Sex Hygiene.
Toronto: Canadian Hygienic Products Ltd, n.d. [c. 1940s].

Modern Evil #2: Reckless Teen Behavior.

Young girls - you know who you are - have you no shame? Want to find a good husband? Have children? Lead a long, wholesome life? Listen to your mother! She'll teach you all about the science of keeping clean, healthy, and happy! You'll be miserable but so what? Fun is over-rated.

HALE, Beatrice Forbes Robertson. What Women Want.
An Interpretation of the Feminist Movement.
New York: Frederick Stokes, (1914).

Modern Evil #3: Feminism.

Damned suffragettes were tearing the social fabric in America and England, the contemporary social fabric an easily stained synthetic silk with rough threads; good riddance. 

Actress, suffragist, prolific author and lecturer Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale (1883-1967), niece of J. Forbes Robertson,  the famed London actor and theater manager, was an ardent feminist who married young Wall Street lawyer Swinburne Hale in 1910. He was "won by her speeches…Young attorney began ardent courtship after hearing her espouse woman's cause" (NY Times, April 29, 1910)

"Miss Forbes-Robertson will not give up the stage nor abate her efforts on behalf of the woman suffrage cause after her marriage to Mr. Hale. She has been prominently connected with the campaign for woman suffrage in both England and in this country, where she has been of large service through her platform eloquence.

"She is a finished speaker, and though she has never become associated with the extreme militant suffragettes closely enough to accomplish arrest, she has done a great deal of platform work here and abroad" (Ibid).

The Hales divorced in 1920 and Beatrice returned home to England but continued to visit the United States and remained fully engaged in the women's rights movement.

Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale was, it seems, a bit naive about her sisters in the struggle. Margaret Sanger, in The Woman Rebel,  her law-challenging journal, wrote:

"Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale said at a debate on feminism that she knew of only two feminists who advocated free love and unmarried motherhood, and that they were not suffragists, but anarchists. What a limited knowledge of women Mrs. Hale has! Perhaps after all self respect and morality are confined to the anarchist women!"

What Women Want is a very rare book with only a handful of copies in institutional holdings worldwide. Read the full text here.

VOM BRUCH, Harry W. The Carnival of Death.
Or the Modern Dance and Other Amusements.
Mont Morris, IL: Kable Brothers Co., n.d. [c. late 1910s].

Modern Evil #4: Dancing.

Dancing had been viewed as sinful as far back as the eighteenth century but with the influx of single girls into the urban workforce the perils of the dance hall did a grand jeté into the evangelical congregation with jeremiads aplenty.

The tacit terpsichorean culprit in Carnival of Death is, I suspect, the Black Bottom, which originated in New Orleans in the first decade of the 20th century. Its roots in African-American culture made it Public Enemy #1 amongst the decline of the West set.

Am I alone in mourning the passing of dances with names? The Black Bottom, Charleston, Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, Mambo. Cha-Cha, Merengue, Rhumba, Bossa Nova, the Swim, the Frug, the Shing-a-ling, the Monkey, the Mashed Potatoes, Watusi, Hully-Gully, the Shake, the Twist, the Funky Chicken, Pony, the Loco-motion, the Freddy,  the Bump, the Hustle, Macarena - even those dreaded of all social-banquet dances, the Hokey-Pokey and the Bunny Hop: quick, what's the name of the latest dance of 2012-2013? The Whatever.

ELLESBY, James. A Caution Against Ill Company:
Or, a Discourse Shewing the Danger of
Conversing Familiarly With Bad Men.
London: F.C. & J. Rivington, 1812.
Tenth edition.

Modern Evil #5: Bad Men.

Reverend James Ellesby, author of The Sick Christian's Companion (1729) -  no smirking, please; the book is a selection of prayers to endure illness, not a guide for Christians of dubious turn of mind - here cautions against females engaging in casual social intercourse with bad men; it can lead to that other casual intercourse, you know, the one that leads to the streets. From hello to Hell is only one lost virtuous vowel away.

Come on, gals, 'fess-up. Bad men are catnip! This is why, only hours after my Bar Mitzvah, I immediately began riding Harleys without a license, using bad language, smoking, playing pool, hanging-out on street corners, staying up past my bedtime, and generally flouting authority so egregiously that I was routinely remanded by the court to my room without supper. In short, I became a chicklette-magnet, 11 and 12-year old vampettes vying for the attention of this older, thirteen year old man so incredibly wise, so astonishingly smart, so breathtakingly handsome, so overweeningly conceited, and desperate to become an excommunicated Boy Scout but too milquetoast for misdemeanors, much less felonies.

"He's irresistible. He treats me like crap. I'm in love!"

HARRIS, Rev. W.S.. Hell Before Death.
With Illustrations by Paul Krafft.
N.P.: (Luther Minter): n.d. [c. 1908].
By Subscription Only.

Modern Evil #6: Capitalism.

Hell Before Death author, Rev. W.S. Harris, "who has devoted many years in securing better conditions for humanity," writes:

"Under the whip of monopolistic slavemasters, the host of common people, generally known as laborers, are getting deeper into bondage…This movement on the part of Labor was perhaps the most fortunate thing that could have happened; for, if capitalistic oppression had continued unchecked for a few decades more, by this time, the nation would be owned and controlled by a few great moguls, and the great bulk of humanity would be reduced to a new type of slavery even more abject than the kind under which we now suffer" (from the Preface. Full text of Hell Before Death here).

Sure glad that didn't happen.

SOUTHARD, R.E. Problems of Decency.
(St. Louis): The Queen's Work, n.d. [c. 1949].

Modern Evil #7: Indecency.

The Catholic University of America library has 742 publications, pamphlets and magazines from The Queen's Work, a Jesuit publishing house based in St. Louis and the pioneer mass circulation magazine to popularize the Catholic faith.

It was founded and edited by Daniel Aloysius Lord, S.J. (1888-1955), a popular American Catholic writer. Lord became national director of the Sodality of Our Lady in 1926, also serving as editor of its publication, The Queen's Work magazine. He stepped down from editorship in 1948, but continued to write for the magazine for the remainder of his life, producing more than 500 pamphlets, plays, and songs.

In 1927, he served as a consultant to Cecil B. DeMille for his silent film, King of Kings. The advent of talkies alarmed him. "Silent smut had been bad," he would write in his autobiography, Played by Ear. "Vocal smut cried to the censors for vengeance."

In 1929, he began work on Hollywood's Production Code. "Here was a chance," he wrote, "to read morality and decency into mass recreation." He aimed "to tie the Ten Commandments in with the newest and most widespread form of entertainment," aspiring to an ecumenical standard of decency, so that "the follower of any religion, or any man of decent feeling and conviction, would read it and instantly agree."

In 1930, Lord's draft of the Code was accepted by Will H. Hays and promulgated to the studios with only minor changes, but it lacked an enforcement mechanism, and Lord came to consider it a failure. It was only with the mid-1934 advent of the Production Code Administration headed by Joseph Breen that the Code became the law of Hollywood for more than twenty-five years.

Clean up the movies? Sanitized for your protection? Mission accomplished!

GAYNOR, R. Leo. The Mysteries of Luck,
Together With Invaluable Information on the Occult
Science of Astrology, Numerology, Graphology, etc.
N.P. [Canada?}: W.K. Buckley, n.d. [ c. 1936].

All the self-help and inspirational books in the world will not, of course, be of any value whatsoever unless Lady Luck takes a liken' to ya' and makes it all better. But don't tell Dr. Phil.

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Images courtesy of David Mason Rare Books, currently offering these titles, with our thanks.
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