Is This The Worst 19th C. British Novel?

by Stephen J. Gertz

It’s rarely a good idea to begin a novel with a Preface. It’s never a good idea to write a Preface as apology for what is to come. And what writer in their right mind would trust that their readers be indulgent and not too.critical of what they are about to read? Only a novelist who subconsciously knows that he is issuing a warning: Caution! Train-Wreck Ahead.

Santa left ashes in the author's Xmas 1893 stocking.

No such luck for The Author, one T. Duthie-Lisle. The reviews for this three-decker upon its publication were devastating; this may be the worst 19th century British novel ever published.


"The hardiest spirit may well quail before the stupendous task of giving any accurate idea of what is, apparently, the first-fruits of Mr. Duthie-Lisle's imagination" (The Saturday Review Dec. 30, 1893); "...obtrudes itself on almost every page as deficient in sense as of grammar" (The Academy Oct., 21, 1893); "...this incredibly foolish book" (The Speaker Sept. 16, 1893); and this dart to its heart: "One of the missions of the literary critic is to warn off intending readers from books that are utterly worthless, and 'The Heirloom' comes within this category" (The Athenaeum Sept. 9, 1893). 


Seventy-eight years later Robert Lee Wolff, in Nineteenth Century Fiction, declared it "...unbelievably awful as to style - antiquated, ungrammatical, melodramatic, like a parody of itself." 

Of the author, little is known; it is hoped T. Duthie-Lisle survived the reviews to live in hiding. It appears that this was TD-L's first and last foray into “the wildest schemes which his imagination [could] conceive, the marvelous combinations which a turn of the magic kaleidoscope of eventualities, and what we misname fortune may produce, are again and again out acted in real life.”


Why was this novel issued? It was not the sort of book that its publisher, Gay and Bird, usually published.

Wolff suggests that it was a “‘prestige’ publication.” If so, Gay and Bird’s standards for prestige were decidedly low; the book deals prestige a deadly blow. Could the brain trust at Gay and Bird have been so devoid of taste and discernment? Their publication of this novel strongly suggests that they possessed the editorial instincts of a cane toad, Australia’s answer to promiscuous publishing: cane toads will attempt to copulate with dead animals including dead female cane toads, dead salamanders, dead rodents, dead reptiles. Hence the dead on arrival publication of this dreadful doozy. 

Yet beyond its status as arguably the worst nineteenth century British novel, The Heirloom is significant as being among the last of the three-deckers, a format that ceased to exist by the end of 1894, with only an occasional three-decker published in the twentieth century, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings the most notable example. This copy of The Heirloom was deaccessioned from a circulation library and that tells us a story.

Introduced in the early nineteenth century, three volume novels were expensive - the average retail price was 31 shillings.6 pence  - far too expensive for even middle class readers. But though three-deckers did indeed provide a measure of prestige to the publisher, author, and the book, because of their expense the major source of reading distribution was through a circulation library. Yes, you could buy inexpensive reprints in single volumes but if you wanted to read the latest "prestige" novels you had to borrow from a library. With low print runs (generally 1000 copies or fewer) and high price a publisher could earn a tidy profit. Ultimately, however, publishers of three-deckers had to bow to commercial pressures and began to issue single volume novels. Single volume novels were less expensive to produce, could be sold for less than a three-decker, and though their price was low, greater profits could be earned via dramatically increased sales volume.

At this point, you may be curious about the plot of The Heirloom. It is the sorry plight of the reader to plow through it. Three-decker novels typically possessed complicated plots, often dealing with marriage and property. The Heirloom cubes the complications,  throws in a lot of mush, and the result is a plot so convoluted that one is tempted to go full-Alexander the Great and take a sword to this Gordian knot. It would, alas, take a machete to hack through it but with no guarantee of success. 

It begins with the near-death ravings of Bertram Gonault, the presumptive hero of the story, as he lies in bed at Vernwood Manor. He made a fabulous fortune, and met a beautiful girl, who mysteriously vanished just prior to their wedding. As usual when a man loses the woman of his dreams, Bertram hit the road of dissipation that ended in deathbed delirium, an old man at 50 on page one, "at what a price!" A half hour after his feverish diatribe he was murdered. By the end of volume one, after an at best wearisome telling of the story of Bertram’s life, “the reader feels relieved when at the end of [that volume] he resumes his place in Bertram’s bedchamber” (The Speaker). You may want to get in bed with Bertie and take a quick nap before the murderer shows up.
 
The remaining two volumes are devoted to discovering the mystery murderer, finding a beneficiary for Vernwood Manor, the title's heirloom, and locating a mysterious ring, another heirloom to pad out the narrative. This is tantamount to asking readers to take a hundred mile hike with a hundred pound rucksack. Really, an army Ranger with a reading habit would be challenged to get though this book without giving up. 

Oh, lordy, this book's a doozy. And quite scarce.
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DUTHIE-LISLE, T. THE HEIRLOOM; or The Descent of Vernwood Manor. London: Gay and Bird, 1893. First (only) Edition. Three octavo volumes (7 3/3 x 4 3/4 in.). vii, (1, blank), 247, (1, blank), 16 (catalog); vii, (1, blank), 222, (2, blank), 16 (catalog); vii, (1, blank), 246, (2, blank), 16 (catalog) pp. Publisher's original gray cloth, gilt lettered title, sprig of leaves in black.  Cloth soiled, lt-mod. wear, a few sm tears to spine tails, spine exhibits library label ghosts, "Lorde Circulating Library" stamped in purple to preliminary blanks, offsets to preliminary blanks from bookplate of Britten Memorial Library, otherwise a Good copy of a genuinely scarce work. Wolff 1966. 

 

When Brontë Met Thackeray: The Puncturing Of Inflated Expectations

by Stephen J. Gertz

This is what introduced Charlotte Bronte to William Makepeace Thackeray:

This is what introduced William Makepeace Thackeray to Charlotte Brontë aka Currer Bell:

 "There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital - a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of 'Vanity Fair' admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst who he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time - they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.

"Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day - as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterize his talent. They say he's like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humor, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humor attractive, but both bear the same relation, to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud, does to the electric death-spark his in its womb. Finally: I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him - if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger - I have dedicated this second edition of Jane Eyre. Currer Bell Dec. 21st, 1847."

This is what Thackeray thought of Brontë's tribute:

"January 1848

My dear Mr. [William Smith] Williams,

I am quite vexed that by some blundering of mine I should have delayed answering Currer Bell's enormous compliment so long. I didn't know what to say in reply; it quite flustered and upset me. Is it true, I wonder? I'm - But a truce to egoism. Thank you for your kindness in sending me the volumes, and (indirectly) for the greatest compliment I have ever received in my life.

Faithfully yours,

W.M. Thackeray"

What happened when the two finally met face to face was a textbook case of romanticized notions of an author's greatness deflated upon meeting the superman; he was merely human and nothing at all  like Brontë had built up in her imagination. Her hero was just a guy; the glorious prophet in print was pedestrian in person, a holy man defrocked by reality and stripped of his sanctity. Lewis Melville, in his biography of Thackeray, tells the story.

"It has already been mentioned that 'Currer Bell' dedicated the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' to Thackeray, and Thackeray later acknowledged the compliment, before even he knew her name or sex, by sending her a copy of 'Vanity Fair' [first edition in book form, 1848] inscribed with his 'grateful regards.' Charlotte Bronte had been much disturbed by the widespread rumour that she had drawn Thackeray and his wife [who was mentally ill and institutionalized] as Mr. and Mrs. Rochester, though she was indifferent to those other lying reports that said she had been a governess in his family and subsequently his mistress; and when she came to London in December 1849, she eagerly accepted the offer of George Smith [1824-1901, partner in Smith, Elder & Co., publisher of Jane Eyre, The Cornhill Magazine, and Thackeray's friend], to introduce Thackeray to her.

Thackeray's inscription on his presentation copy to Brontë of Vanity Fair.

"When they did meet, she was much astonished. As the dedication to the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' shows, she had expected to find a fervent prophet, and Thackeray was simply a quiet, well-bred gentleman, with nothing in appearance to distinguish him from hosts of other men. A delightful story has been related of their meeting. It is worthy of being repeated, for, though probably apocryphal, it is amusingly true of the lady's attitude to her hero.

"'Behold, a lion Cometh up out of the North!' she quoted under her breath, as Thackeray entered the drawing-room. Thackeray, being informed of this, remarked: 'Oh, Lord ! and I'm nothing but a poor devil of an Englishman, ravenous for my dinner.' 

"At dinner. Miss Bronte was placed opposite him. 'And,' said Thackeray, 'I had the miserable humiliation of seeing her ideal of me disappearing, as everything went into my mouth, and nothing came out of it, until, at last, as I took my fifth potato, she leaned across, with clasped hands and tearful eyes, and breathed imploringly, 'Oh, Mr. Thackeray! Don't!'"

"Oh, Mr. Thackeray! Don't!"

"Thackeray was an enigma to Charlotte Bronte; she could not understand him; she was never certain whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest; but she was determined to take him seriously.

"'All you say of Mr. Thackeray is most graphic and characteristic,' she wrote to Ellen Nussey, on December 19 [1849]. 'He stirs in me both sorrow and anger. Why should he lead so harassing a life? Why should his mocking tongue so perversely deny the better feelings of his better moods?…Mr. Thackeray is a man of very quiet, simple demeanour; he is, however, looked up to with some awe and even distrust…Thackeray is a Titan of mind. His presence and powers impress one deeply in an intellectual sense; I do not know him or see him as a man. All the others are subordinate…I felt sufficiently at my ease with all but Thackeray; with him, I was fearfully stupid.'

"Charlotte Bronte came again to London in the following June [1850], and Thackeray called on her at George Smith's house, and the host, who was alone with them, afterwards described the interview as 'a queer scene.'

"'I suppose it was,' the lady wrote to Ellen Nussey. 'The giant sat before me: I was moved to speak of some of his shortcomings (literary, of course); one by one the faults came into my head, and one by one I brought them out, and sought some explanation or defence. He did defend himself, like a great Turk and heathen; that is to say, the excuses were often worse than the crime itself. The matter ended in decent amity; if all be well I am to dine at his house this evening (June 12).'

"The dinner, it must be confessed, was not a success. The party included Mrs. Crowe, the Brookfields, the Carlyles, Mrs. Procter and her daughter, and Mrs. Elliot and Miss Perry, and it should have been a bright gathering. Instead it was a gloomy and silent evening, conversation languished, the guest in whose honour all were assembled said nothing, and Thackeray, too much depressed by the failure of the entertainment, but little. Mrs. Brookfield made an effort.

"'Do you like London, Miss Bronte?' she asked; then, after a pause, the other said gravely, 'Yes — no.'

"Charlotte Bronte was the first to leave, and so soon as she had gone Thackeray slipped out of the drawing-room, and his eldest daughter was surprised to see him open the front door with his hat on.

"'He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him. When I went back to the drawing-room again, the ladies asked me where he was. I vaguely answered that I thought he was coming back,' Lady Ritchie [Thackeray's daughter] has written. 'Long years afterwards, Mrs. Procter, with a good deal of humour, described the situation — the ladies, who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club. The ladies waited, wondered, and finally departed also; and as we were going up to bed with our candles, after everybody was gone, I remember two pretty Miss L 's, in shiny silk dresses, arriving full of expectation…We still said we thought our father would soon be back, but the Miss L's declined to wait upon the chance, laughed, and drove away again almost immediately.'

"Once more Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray met, and again a letter of the lady tells the tale.

"'I came here (London) on Wednesday, being summoned a day sooner than I expected, in order to be in time for Thackeray's second lecture, which was delivered on Thursday afternoon. This, as you may suppose, was a great treat, and I was glad not to miss it,' she wrote to Ellen Nussey, on June 2, 1851. 'As our party left the (lecture) Hall, he (Thackeray) stood at the entrance; he saw and knew me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered the words, 'Qit'eii dttes-vous?' — a question eminently characteristic and reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-control, which were among his faults. He should not have cared just then to ask what I thought, or what anybody thought; but he did care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress, his wish. Well! if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his naivete. I would have praised him ; I had plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words on my lips. Who has words at the right moment? I stammered lame expressions; but was truly glad when some other people, coming up with profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy.'

"Indeed, though intensely appreciative, Charlotte Bronte proved so severe a critic, both of himself and his works, that Thackeray was not quite pleased with the various letters (printed in Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life') in which she expressed her opinions, and he said so much in his 'Last Sketch,' prefixed to 'Emma,' when, under his editorship, that fragment appeared in the Cornhill Magazine.

"'I can only say of this lady, vidi tantiim. I saw her first just as I rose out of an illness from which I had never thought to recover. I remember the trembling little frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes. An impetuous honesty seemed to me to characterise the woman. Twice, I recollect, she took me to task for what she held to be errors in doctrine. Once about Fielding we had a disputation. She spoke her mind out. She jumped to conclusions (I have smiled at one or two passages in the 'Biography' in which my own disposition or behaviour form the subject of talk). She formed conclusions that might be wrong, and built up whole theories of character upon them. New to the London world, she entered it with an independent indomitable spirit of her own; and judged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance or affectation, with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with her favourites if their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal. Often she seemed to be judging the London folks prematurely; but perhaps the city is rather angry at being judged...

"An austere little Joan of Arc."
The ecdysiast edition for Kindle.

"'I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon us, and rebutting our easy lives, our easy morals. She gave me the impression of being a very pure and lofty, and high-minded person. A great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with her always. Such, in our brief interview, she appeared to me'" (Melville, The Life of William Makepeace Thackeray [1899], pp. 310-314).

• • •

While we know what Brontë and Thackeray thought when they met we have no idea what the designers of the above modern editions of their work were thinking when they met these two classics of English literature. We only know that when Brontë and Thackeray met modern packaging travesty ensued and bore two further examples of the death of civilization as we know it, whether through ignorance or a good case of bad taste while trying to breathe new life into old bones and resuscitate the once lively now near dead for 21st century readers.

But it appears to be fact of modern life that until a product of culture is sexualized it hasn't truly been integrated into the culture that produced it. In that regard, the sexualization of Jane Eyre and Vanity Fair for sales purposes may be, however dubious, the greatest compliment that can be paid to these old standards. 

"The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name" (William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair). Thackeray, the great social observer, would have been, it seems, in Playland in the 21st century; so much to satirize. His challenge, of course, would be how to satirize a society that is already a parody of itself, the modern humorist's dilemma.

"To those who think with their heads, life is a comedy, to those who think with their hearts, life is a tragedy" (Henry Miller). That's the difference between Thackeray, the cool satirist, and his contemporaries, Dickens, the warm sentimentalist, and Brontë, the suffering gothic naturalist.

“If I am against the condition of the world it is not because I am a moralist, it is because I want to laugh more. I don't say that God is one grand laugh: I say that you've got to laugh hard before you can get anywhere near God" (Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn). And cry hard. While we shed tears over the perversion of culture we are amused by it. It is not unreasonable to suspect that Thackeray would have shared that view. Sorrow is the root of comedy and to be able to laugh in the midst of tears is the best defense against utter despair. 

And so, painful though the prospect is, I look forward to Jane Erred and Venery Fair, proof-positive that there's still life in these old cougars pathetically porned-up to attract younger partners. Brontë, the judgmental moralist, would be appalled. Thackeray would be appalled, too, but the temptation to slit his wrists would be tempered by wit, the folly of human behavior trumping stern righteousness.

That's the conversation I'd have enjoyed eavesdropping on when Brontë met Thackeray, if only Thackeray had stopped shoveling potatoes into his mouth long enough to participate. She was hungry for wisdom. He was just plain hungry.

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Kate Greenaway Talks Almanack Layout

by Stephen J. Gertz

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

Dear Mr Evans

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

Yours sincerely, KG

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

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

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

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

January 1892. Snow Added.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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A Scarce Libation: Bacchus, Rumfusticus Bibulus, and R. Cruikshank

by Stephen J. Gertz

Meeting of Victuallers.

 "The Publicans, as well as every other branch of the community, were aware that recent improvements in modern science had effected a Rail Road from this Earth to the Moon, in which part of the Isle of Sky Bacchus has an airy summer residence; they therefore resolved to send up by the new Steam Coach, one of the Victualler Chiefs, to invite their jovial Patron down to head their forces, and to fight their battles with their foes, The Tee-Totallers" (from the Introduction).

Steam Coachman To The Moon.

This very amusing, curious little satire is comprised of six anti-temperance drinking-songs each with an accompanying hand-colored aquatint plate by Robert Cruikshank. It appeared when the temperance movement in England began in earnest, an effort that was "a major cause for social reform  in Victorian Britain" (Rebecca Smith. The Temperance Movement and Class Struggle in  Victorian England. Loyola University).   At the time of its publication in 1841 Robert Cruikshank, who shared a "deep fraternal bond" (Patten, p. 216) with his celebrated brother, George, was already deteriorating from alcoholism. 

Bacchus At Home.

George, in the same year, contributed the etchings to John O'Niell's poem,  The Drunkard. Though not yet a committed tee-totaller, his faith in drink was shaken (not stirred), and in 1847 he committed himself to the cause of abstinence with his grim moral tale in caricature, The Bottle.

Meeting Of Tee-Totallers.

In the next year, 1848, George Cruikshank, now a temperance zealot,  produced a sequel in eight plates, The Drunkard's Children. Robert remained firmly on the side of anti-temperance.

Commencement Of Hostilities.

Regarding Robert Cruikshank, George "could not cow his brother into signing a pledge; Robert lapsed deeper and deeper into chronic alcoholism" (Patten, p. 315). He died in 1856.

Departure Of The Victualler Chief For The Combat.

The original binding for Bacchus and the Tee-Totallers was executed by Robert Riviere in green cloth with a blindstamped frame and large corner-pieces enclosing a gilt vignette by Robert Cruikshank loosely reproducing his plate, Steam Coachman to the Moon. 

"Riviere was the top of the line and this small satirical volume must have had an important backer to finance a custom Riviere binding and six aquatinted plates by Cruikshank" (Princeton University, Graphic Arts).

An important backer who did not wish to see his libations become as scarce as this book has become, a committed anti-temperance man of means.

Only one copy has come to auction since 1968. OCLC/KVK record only eight copies in institutional collections worldwide, with none, curiously, in the U.K. The Widener copy at Harvard is  partially uncolored, and two institutional copies have been rebound.

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[CRUIKSHANK, Robert]. Bacchus and the Tee-Totallers by Rumfusticus Bibulus, Esq., President of the Anti-Temperance Society. London: Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper, 1841.

First edition. Octavo (8 1/2 x 7 1/8 in; 218 x 178 mm). 19. {1, blank] pp. Six hand-colored aquatint plates with later tissue guards loosely inserted. 

Original binding by Robert Riviere (per Princeton & Yale Universities) in green cloth with blindstamped frame and large corner-pieces enclosing a gilt vignette loosely reproducing the plate, Steam Coachman to the Moon.

Widener Collection, p. 235. Not in Abbey, Tooley, or Prideaux.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Of related interest:

Robert Cruikshank Devastates Dandies.
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New Bibliography of Dickens First American Editions a Must-Have

By Stephen J. Gertz

It's the literary scholarship event of this, the Charles Dickens bicentennial. Let the celebration begin.

Charles Dickens: A Bibliography of His First American Editions 1836-1870, the eagerly anticipated third volume of Walter E. Smith's acclaimed series of bibliographies of Charles Dickens' works, thirty years in the making and scheduled for release in September 2012, is now available for pre-order.

This significant work identifies the first and early American editions of Charles Dickens' novels and Sketches by Boz and traces their publishing history, including various impressions and sub-editions, from 1836 to 1870, the year of Dickens' death. Each of the entries provides detailed textual data and binding descriptions and is supplemented by photographic reproductions of title pages and bindings. The notes contain interesting comments about the novels, including their appearances in newspapers and journals, typographical points, and payments made to Dickens.

The bibliography was compiled from firsthand examinations of the books at major libraries and institutions throughout the country, in private collections, and in the possession of several rare book dealers. The content complements and stylistically conforms to the author's previous two-volume bibliography on Dickens's English editions. 

The book is an indispensable reference for libraries, collectors, booksellers, researchers, and students of Victorian literature since no other work of this magnitude on Dickens' American editions has ever been undertaken or published.

Oak Knoll Press is the exclusive distributor of this 456-page opus. Limited to 500 copies at only $95 each, the book is expected to sell out very soon after publication. To assure that a copy will be available to you, don't hesitate: Pre-Order NOW.

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SMITH, Walter E. Charles Dickens: A Bibliography of His First American Editions 1836-1870. Calabasas, CA: David Brass Rare Books, Inc. First edition. Quarto (10 3/4 x 8 inches). 456 pp. Illustrated with title pages to each described edition. Green cloth. Dust jacket. $95.

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Full disclosure: I supervised the book's production for David Brass Rare Books.
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A Very Edgy Alice In A Very Weird Wonderland

By Stephen J. Gertz

Alice doesn't live here anymore. 

At least, not in Wonderland as imagined by John Tenniel in his original illustrations for Lewis Carroll's classics about the curious domain found on the far end of the rabbit hole and through the looking glass.

Glimmers of bondage, sexual hegemony, and voyeurism with fetish as relish are condiments that season a two-volume, in French and English edition of Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass illustrated by Dutch-born artist, Pat Andrea. Published in France in 2006, it is now available through Ken Sanders Rare Books by special arrangement with the publisher.

With his fully-realized reinterpretation of Lewis Carroll's two Wonderland volumes, Andrea turns the story on its head to present a protean Alice with an attitude absent from traditional Alice illustration.

It's precocious Alice in 21st century Wonderland, a virgin touched and never the same. Think Britney Spears from Disney to fishnets and Baby One More Time. Oops, she did it again, confounding our expectations and opening our eyes as she journeys through a transmogrified Wonderland, a realm of the sensuous. It's 3 AM at Hef's place, the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles, as imagined by David Hockney on LSD.

The work of painter Pat Andrea, born in 1942 in Den Haag, Netherlands and now living in Paris and Buenos Aires, has achieved international success. With over eighty international exhibitions of his work, including at The Hague and the Centre Pompidou, and four retrospectives on his forty-year career, he presently teaches in France. He has been justifiably hailed as a modern master of magical realism. 

As written by Lewis Carroll, the Alice books present dreamlike and nightmarish fantasy, lack of logic, and bizarre characters. As illustrated by Pat Andrea, the books present a dreamlike and nightmarish fantasy, lack of logic, and bizarre characters that would have scared the bejesus out of Carroll but that Freud would have recognized.

Imagined by Andrea, this is one little girl that Anglican deacon Charles Lutwidge Dodgson would have never photographed in his Oxford studio. She might have innocently come on to him and thrown him into a terminal tizzy blubbering "jabberwocky, jabberwocky, jabberwocky, jabberwocky" until gently led away by the men in white coats for sedation and recovery in a Victorian sanitarium.

Heavens! We weren't in Kansas to begin with and we're surely not in Kansas anymore, certainly not now. This is Wonderland as Times Square before New York's Mayor Bloomberg sanitized it for our protection and turned it into Disney World.

Is that a hot dog on your head, Tweedle-Dum,
or are you just glad to see us?

This edition is a stunning addition to the Alice canon, a fresh and provocative vision.

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CARROLL, Lewis.  Les Aventures d'Alice au pays des Merveilles et De l'autre cote du mirroir et de ce qu'Alice y trouva [Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There].  Paris: Diane de Selliers, 2006.  

First edition thus.  Oblong quarto [27 cm by 32 cm].  Two hardcover volumes in slipcase with prospectus.  Dual language edition (French and English) translated into French by Henri Parisot. Illustrations by Pat Andrea.

You may order here.

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All images courtesy of Ken Sanders Rare Books, with our thanks and with a nod and a wink to Melissa Sanders.

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Dean & Son Movable Books and How To Date Them

by Stephen J. Gertz

Old Woman and Her Silver Penny.
Dean's Movable Books. London: Dean & Son, n.d. [1861].

First edition. Octavo (9 3/4 x 6 3/4 ini; 248 x 171 mm).
Eight hand-colored wood engraved movable plates.
 Full page advertisements to front and rear endpapers.

The movable books of Dean & Son - the first publisher to produce movable books in large numbers - are highly desirable to collectors. Rarely found in untouched, fully functional condition due to the wear and tear of children, they were customarily issued without a date of publication, probably to keep them "evergreen," to wit, fresh and timeless in the marketplace without fear of becoming literally dated.

Most attributed dates by scholars and librarians are educated guesswork, and "circa" commonly accompanies whatever year of publication assigned by them as well as by dealers, collectors, and writers on the subject (i.e. Ann Montanaro and Peter Haining). 

Though Montanaro suggests the publication date as 1858,
At the lower right corner of the the lower board the
printer's key reads: " 8000 2 61," i.e. 8,000 printed, February 1861.

At the lower right corner of the rear pastedown
to this copy appears the printing key:
 "6000 5 61," i.e. 6,000 printed, May 1861.

Curiously, the year of publication and, significantly, the print run are present on just about all of the Dean & Son movables, if you know where to look and understand what it is you're looking at.

The Movable Mother Hubbard.
London: Dean & Son, n.d. [1857].

First edition. Octavo (9 3/4 x 6 1/2 x 248 x 164 mm).
Eight hand-colored woodcut movable plates, two of
which possess multiple moving images.

In the lower right or left corner of the rear board or on the lower right or left of the rear paste-down endpaper (usually an advertisement) is the publisher/printer's key. At the lower right corner of the the lower board to the Old Woman and Her Silver Penny, for example, the key reads: "8000 2 61," i.e. 8,000 printed in February 1861.

Sometimes you will find two keys. At the lower right corner of the rear paste-down to the copy of the Old Woman and Her Silver Penny I recently handled appears the printing key:  "6000 5 61," i.e. 6,000 printed, May 1861. 

An amazing four movable scenes using a single pull-tab.

With this example we learn that 8.000 were printed in February 1861 and another 6,000 were printed in May of the same year. This copy, then, is a second printing. Now, to what I imagine will be the utter frustration of collectors of Dean movables, they can be prioritized as first, second, third printings, making the first printing, theoretically, the more desirable - if you can find one.

In the lower left corner of the rear board is the
printer's key: "1000 2, 57," i.e. 1,000 printed February 1857.

"The first true movable books published in any large quantity were those produced by Dean & Son, a publishing firm founded in London before 1800. By the 1860s the company claimed to be the 'originator of childrens' movable books in which characters can be made to move and act in accordance with the incidents described in each story.' From the mid-19th century Dean turned its attention to the production of movable books and between the 1860s and 1900 they produced about fifty titles" (Montanaro, Ann. A Concise History of Pop-Up and Movable Books).

Dean & Son's Movable Book of the Royal Punch & Judy
As Played Before the Queen at Windsor Castle & the Crystal Palace.
London: Dean & Son, n.d. [1859].

First edition. Tall octavo (11 x 6 5/8 in; 280 x 170 mm).
Eight hand-colored movable woodcut plates with accompanying text.

"Dean & Son was the first publisher to produce movable books on a large scale. Thomas Dean, who founded the firm sometime before 1800, was one of the first publishers to take full advantage of the new printing process, lithography, which was invented in Germany in 1798. His business was devoted exclusively to making and selling novelty books, or 'toy' books, a term publishers began using in the early nineteenth century. His son George became a partner in 1847, and their toy books took over the market from the 1840s to the 1880s. 

"Dean opened studios in London where teams of artists worked to design and craft all kinds of new and complex movables. Around 1856, Dean released a series of fairy tales and adventure stories under the title New Scenic Books. The scenes in the books were crafted in a "peep show" style. Each was illustrated on at least three cut-out sections. The sections were placed one behind another and attached by a ribbon running through them. This way, they could stay together and be folded flat as flaps, face down against a page. When a readers lifted a flap, a three-dimensional scene would actually pop-up!  A later, but good example of this technique is McLoughlin Brothers' The Lions' Den (ca. 1880), which is held together by a piece of board across the top instead a a ribbon.

In the lower right corner of the rear board is the
printer's key: "4000 3 59," i.e. 4,000 printed March 1859.

"The books in new scenic series are probably the first that today's readers would consider pop-up books, although the term "pop-up" was yet to be used to describe such books. 'Movable' or 'toy book' was usually the choice for description. In 1860, Dean actually claimed to be the 'originator' of movable books.

Dean's New Magic Peep Show Picture Book  Showing
Wonderful & Lifelike Effects of Real Distance & Space.
.London: Dean & Son, n.d. [1861].

First edition. Tall octavo (10 5/8 x 7 1/2 in; 270 x 190 mm).
Four full-color woodcut peep-show tableaus with accompanying text.
Endpapers as advertisements.

"During the 1860s, Dean can be credited with inventing another first: the use of a mechanism that moved or was animated by pulling a tab. Dean advertised the new mechanisms as 'living pictures.' The Royal Punch & Judy is one of these early publications with tabs, which are located on the bottom of each page.

In this extraordinary "peep-show," the scene is pulled up
into multi-layered, cut-out panels to reveal a 3D tableau
with perspective and depth of field.

"In it, Punch and Judy are animated in their miniature theatre and act out all the violence and abuse that a Victorian audience would have expected from the couple" (University of North Texas, A Brief History of Early Movable Books). 

At the lower right corner of the advertisement on the rear board
is the printer's key: "4000 5 61," i.e. 4,000 May 1861.

In the lower left corner of the advertisement to the front free
endpaper is the printer's key: "8000 8 61," i.e. 8,000 August 1861.

Will a Dean first printing in horrible condition be valued more than a third printing in great condition? Now that dates and printing histories can be firmly established only collectors will decide. My sense, however, is that condition will continue to be the overriding factor to the trade and public.  Too few Dean & Son movables have survived in any sort of collectible condition. What good's a first printing copy if it's a disaster?

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

 A Movable Book Feast.

Movable Books Pop-Up at Smithsonian.

Say Hello To The First Talking Book.

Waldo Hunt And Pop-Up Books: a Brief Overview.

A Pop-Up Book Of "Exquisite, Sentimental Beauty."
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