Yale Exhibit Romances The Last Of The Gentleman Scholars

Pierre-Joseph Redoute, Plum Branches Intertwined, 1802-04, watercolor on vellum.

(Images Courtesy Of Yale Center For British Arts.)

When Charles Ryskamp was interviewed in 2004, he found the reporter's questions about his background so tedious he snapped: "I don't want this to be an obituary." Ryskamp needn't have worried. The one-time director of both the Morgan Library and Museum and the Frick Collection died on March 26, 2010, with the best possible remembrance of his life and career on display at the Yale Center For British Art. Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp, an exhibit of 200 works from his private collection, opened six weeks before his death at age 81, and will run through April 25, 2010.

George Stubbs, A Sleeping Cheetah ("A Tyger"), 1788, mezzotint on wove paper.

Charles Ryskamp might well be the last of a dying breed: the gentleman scholar. At age 7, he began to organize, catalog, and label the books in his home library. By age 13 he was buying original art, and galleries and auction houses put him on their mailing lists. Collecting art was a lifelong passion, one he ceaselessly pursued for nearly 70 years. He obtained a first-rate education in English literature, earning a bachelor's degree from Calvin College, a master's degree and doctorate from Yale, and later, adding post-graduate work at Cambridge. (He became a full professor of English at Princeton in 1969, specializing in the work of English poet William Cowper.) But in art history he was entirely self-taught. With a good eye, a sharp mind, and a devoted heart, he created one of the finest privately held collections of drawings in the world.

Josephus Augustus Knip, River Landscape With Distant Cliffs, 1809, water color over graphite on wove paper with double framing lines in gray ink.

In the art world, Ryskamp's area of collecting was primarily English and European prints and drawings of the Romantic Era, or roughly 1789 to 1850. He gravitated towards well-established artists, such as Goya, Turner, Blake, and Durer, saying: ''If you look at the greatest masters, I think you just have a sense of quality, that's hard to analyze.'' His collecting was also governed by pragmatism. He concentrated on prints until the late 1950's, but when they became unaffordable, he moved on to lower-priced drawings. Later, as director of the Morgan and the Frick, he shifted his sights to acquisitions that would not compete with the works of either museum.

William John Thomas Collins, Cypresses At The Villa d'Este, Tivoli, 1838, pen and ink and watercolor over graphite on wove paper.

These limits placed on the collection were, ironically, what made it so important. His commitment to search out works not typically found in museums led Ryskamp to assemble over time one of the world's best collections of drawings from the Danish Golden Age. Rather than focusing on more expensive paintings, his emphasis on drawings allowed him to purchase works that were often overlooked by wealthier collectors and institutions. Ryskamp summed up his prized artworks this way: ''As I looked at what I had accumulated, these hundreds and hundreds of drawings, I realized that I had equally good collections for France, Germany, Holland, Denmark. And that was almost unheard of. I can't think of any museum which would have all well represented.''

Adolph Menzel, Carl Johan Arnold, ca.1848, graphite on wove paper.

Ryskamp hand-picked the 200 drawings in the Yale show, along with co-curator Matthew Hargraves. They represent about one-third of his total collection of works on paper. The show was the realization of a cherished dream: "I have never before known an exhibition to show Romantic drawings of all of these countries together. I have long hoped for such an exhibition, and it is a rare privilege to have this wish fulfilled." The breadth of subject matter on display is as amazing as the array of artists. The works are grouped by content, with sections covering land and sea, the natural world, religion, the human figure, and the imagination. Within each area are drawings by such heavy-hitters as Conelius Varley, Henry Fuseli, Caspar David Friedrich, Camille Corot, Eugene Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Johan Thomas Lundbye, and C.W. Eckersberg.

J.M.W. Turner, Shields Lighthouse, 1820-1830, (trial proof A), mezzotint on laid paper.

In an essay accompanying the show, Ryskamp emphasized his enduring dedication to the arts: "As much as possible I have devoted my life to the appreciation, study and teaching of art and literature." When asked for advice by a beginning art collector he said: ''I think you should go and look. And don't have a goal in mind.'' A life spent seeking out great art wherever he could find it enabled Charles Ryskamp to assemble a group of artworks that will inspire collectors for generations to come. And he added one last brush stroke without which the portrait of an art collector is incomplete: "I collect in order to give to others. I plan to share what I have collected as long as I live and, if possible, bequeath what is left of my collections to public institutions." The greater part of Charles Ryskamp's art collection has been donated to the Morgan Library.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Charles Dickens’ Model for the Modern Rehab Facility: Victorian Health Care Reform

On November 29, 1842, London’s Morning Chronicle published a short, unusual piece by Charles Dickens, already a celebrated writer and novelist, titled The Sanatorium.

Written shortly after Dickens’s return from his first American tour, it reflected both his deep and lasting interest in public affairs and his fascination with medicine and the medical profession, particularly mental illness, detailed descriptions of which form central passages in several of Dickens’s novels.

Thomas Chapman was chairman of the Sanatorium Committee and a personal friend of Dickens (the character of Mr Dombey was supposedly based on Chapman). Chapman asked Dickens to write a brief piece describing and expounding the principal of The Sanatorium to attract press coverage. Dickens enthusiastically wrote an eloquent and convincing case for the importance of a sanatorium, rising to a pitch of dramatic urgency reminiscent of passages from his novels.

The middle classes - students, young professionals, the daughters of 'reduced gentlemen' - were to be the beneficiaries of the scheme:

“Let it never be forgotten that the Sanatorium is not a charity ... It is a self-supporting Institution where, in consideration of an annual subscription of one guinea in time of health, and the most moderate and economical weekly charge possible in time of sickness, any of that large and most respectable class of persons who are seeking a subsistence in the Metropolis can, being stricken ill, repair, as to a home Private cheerful and wholesome rooms; the first medical advice; the most delicate and unremitting attention; the best provision that can possibly be made for tranquility, rest and mental ease.”

The Sanatorium was housed in Devonshire Place House, York Gate, Regent's Park, directly across the street from Dickens home. It was the brainchild of physician and philanthropist, Dr Thomas Southwood-Smith. and although it achieved its purpose admirably it was not a financial success. Yet “it was the forerunner of the modern nursing home and private patients' wing” (F.N.L.Poynter. Thomas Southwood-Smith: The Man in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 1962).

The autograph manuscript of The Sanatorium is now being offered for sale and is one of the highlights of the upcoming, ABAA-sponsored, 50th New York Antiquarian Book Fair, April 9-11, 2010, at the Park Avenue Armory.

Accompanying the manuscript is a three-page autograph letter dated December 27, 1842 written to Thomas Chapman (chairman of the Sanatorium Committee) within which he explains the effect he is trying to achieve and advises discretion about 'disorders of the mind’:

“ ... it is as indispensable to our well-doing to keep the subject quiet, as to keep them quiet, supposing we have any,” adding that the attending matron should  be “as cheerful as possible,” and not “as if she were a warranted mouser and they all mice.”

 In other words, Nurse Ratched need not apply. It'a rest stop for the discreet treatment of the nervous disordered, the dispsomaniac, and deeply distressed, with dignity, the business model an innovative pre-paid medical plan that if ultimately unsuccessful, foreshadowed later, successful by economy of scale, modern iterations. It was a convalescent home for those in need of rest and recovery from whatever; in short, a rehab facility in the broadest sense, part of a reform movement to improve the care of those whose needs fell between the medical hospital and the mental asylum, and at an affordable price.

The manuscript of The Sanatorium is being offered by Jonkers Rare Books, which last week made headlines with the sale of the most significant presentation copy of Jane Austen’s classic, Emma.

It was acquired at Christies sale no. 5822, lot 91, last year. The estimate was £8,000 - £12,000. It sold for £17,500 ($28,490). Jonkers is asking £45,000 ($68,632). Considering that Dickens manuscript material is highly desirable yet rarely finds its way into the marketplace, the price is not unreasonable.
_________

DICKENS, Charles ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT “THE SANATORIUM”   [1842]. A four page manuscript “sketch,” including various emendations and deletions, with a three page autograph letter dated 27 December 1842 to Chapman. With two letter wrappers both addressed to Chapman and signed by Dickens. All window mounted and bound in full scarlet morocco by Riviere.
_________

Of related interest: 2010 New York Antiquarian Book Fair or Sunny?

2010 New York Antiquarian Book Fair or Sunny?

The 2010 New York Antiquarian Book Fair previews this Thursday evening at the Park Avenue Armory, officially opens on Friday and continues through Sunday, April 11, 2010.

On Friday, Nicholas Basbanes, the rare book world's Boswell, will sign copies of his new book, About the Author: Inside the Creative Process. On Saturday, Stuart Lutz will sign copies of his book, The Last Leaf: Voices of History's Last-Known Survivors.

Sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), this year the fair debuts a new feature, New York Book Fair Search Engine, which allows fair-goers to see what books dealers will be bringing to the show.

The big question: Will this year's New York Antiquarian Fair continue the rare book trade's tentative, cautiously optimistic recovery felt at last February's 43d California International Antiquarian Book Fair?

Slim Chance, Chief Meteorologist at Book Patrol's affiliate, the Rare Book Weather Channel, was recently canned secondary to bad attitude. His replacement, that full of grace gal, Hail Mary, reports:

"The low pressure system that lingered over the trade throughout 2009, causing heavy, lachrymose precipitation and high blood pressure amongst dealers, is finally moving out. While partial clouds remain, expect no more than an occasional drop or two, if any. Like the weather in Los Angeles, it may look cloudy but the actual chance of rain is slim to none. (In L.A., a drop of rain leads to we-interrupt-this-program Breaking News and hyperbolic Storm Warnings and Traffic Alerts that strain credulity).

"Chance of sunny skies 75%, contingent upon the ongoing implementation of Rare Book Trade Health Reform, i.e. offering appealing books in a shifting marketplace to a changing consumer base at an attractive price."

Let us hope that this weather forecast is more accurate than most, with a better than 50-50 chance that the skies will cooperate.

Book Patrol will be in New York and report the news.
__________________

Of related interest:

43d California International Antiquarian Book Fair Coda: Happy Trails.

Watch Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes at the 2007 New York Antiquarian Book Fair.

200 Rabbit Holes Await At Canadian Library

Sir John Tenniel's Illustration of Alice And The Cheshire Cat, From Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, 1865.
(Images Courtesy of University Of British Columbia's Alice 100 Collection.)

The release of Tim Burton's feature film version of Alice In Wonderland in March, 2010 has returned media focus to Lewis Carroll's 1865 classic tale once again. And this means that all eyes are also back on the many previous visualizations of the piece, including Sir John Tenniel's nonpareil original illustrations. For as the first sentence of the book concludes: "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and where is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations?" Certainly Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has always been loved by readers and viewers for the many illustrations and images that augment and enrich the words, as much as for Carroll's ingeniously inventive and complex text.

Surrealist Salvador Dali's Interpretation Of The Mad Tea Party, 1969.

Bob Nixon of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was prompted by the release of Burton's film to visit one of the most outstanding library collections of "Wonderlandiana" in the world, held by the University of British Columbia's Rare Books and Special Collections Department (UBC RBSC.) This collection of nearly 500 books was amassed by Victoria rare book dealer and librarian, R.D. Hilton Smith. It features more than 200 editions of Alice, containing the work of over 80 illustrators (including a calf-bound first edition signed by Alice Liddell Hargreaves). The works were donated to the UBC RBSC in 1965 by the graduating class of 1925, to celebrate Alice's centennial, and their own 40th anniversary. Together they are known as "The Alice 100 Collection."

Australian Artist Charles Blackman's Painting Alice In The Boat, circa 1956.

Such a rich collection offers a unique opportunity to compare the many artistic interpretations of the land down the rabbit hole, well past the center of the earth. The place where Alice at first believes she'll "come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards," but that turns out to be far "curiouser and curiouser" than she could ever imagine.

One Of Lewis Carroll's Own Drawings Of Alice, Upon Which Tenniel Was Told To Base His Work.

The first illustrator of Alice's Adventure's In Wonderland was the author himself. But Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) was at least modest enough to know he was more talented as a writer than an artist. On the advice of a close friend, he hired noted cartoonist Sir John Tenniel to produce drawings for the published version of the book. Unfortunately for Tenniel, the fact that Dodgson already had a precise personal vision of how the characters should look meant that he insisted on giving the artist instruction for each and every picture down to the smallest of details. This nearly drove Tenniel mad, to the point where he initially refused to collaborate with Carroll on the sequel, Alice, Through The Looking Glass. Tenniel's illustrations remain the standard by which all subsequent visual imaginings of Alice are measured, as Tim Burton remarked:"If you go back to Tenniel, so much of his work is what stays in your mind about Alice and about Wonderland. Alice and the characters have been done so many times and in so many ways, but Tenniel's art really lasts there in your memory."

Sir John Tenniel's Original Illustration of The Mad Tea Party, 1865.

Nonetheless, many artists over the years have been tempted by the incredible imagination of Carroll's fantastic tale to attempt to make their own mark on the material Tenniel envisioned so brilliantly. Immediately upon expiration of the British copyright for Carroll and Tenniel's original work in 1907, illustrators lined up to take a crack at the book. (And the first film adaptation was made even earlier: a 12 minute silent version was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow in 1903.) To date more than 50 artists have published illustrated versions of Alice, including Charles Blackman, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Arthur Rackham, and Ralph Steadman. A few examples of illustrations for the same scene, the last image of Wonderland at the end of Chapter 12, reveal the varied artistic takes on this passage: "'Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!' At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger..."

A.E. Jackson, 1915.

Arthur Rackham, 1907.


Gwynedd M. Hudson, 1922.

A Pop-Up Book Based On Tenniel's Illustrations, From The Alice 100 Collection, Date Unknown.

The Image From An Actual Deck Of Cards.

Sir John Tenniel's Incomparable 1865 Original.

Any discussion of Alice's Adventure's In Wonderland is by definition bizarre, and here are two of the most far-out variants yet devised:

A book version of a 1939 radio play in which Alice's role is taken on by a spoiled child named Adolf Hitler:

Dyrenforth, James and Max Kester. Adolf In Bluderland, Illustrated By Norman Mansbridge. Lindon: Frederick Muller, 1939.

And finally some LSD (AKA Blotter Acid) promising a very different trip to Wonderland than Alice's:

(Anonymously Submitted Image, Courtesy of Erowid.Org)

The reproduction of the above image is in no way an endorsement of such an egregious misuse of Tenniel's magnificent illustrations...

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Attack of the Beast People, aka The Social-Monsters Parade

In 1829, the beasts within humanity were exposed and let loose upon an unsuspecting Paris. The onslaught was merciless; no one was spared, not even the clergy. It was a slasher-movie in print - don’t turn that page; somebody is getting ripped to shreds. The book was a killer. The horror was greeted with laughter, though the Church and State experienced sharp pains not associated with split-sides or knee-slaps.

Garçon, I’ll have the Metamorphosis du Jour, please, well-seasoned with satire.

Les Metamorphoses du Jour by J.J. Grandville (1803-1847), one of the most celebrated caricaturists of his era, is amongst the rarest of all color-plate books: Rare in its first edition, scarcer still with its suppressed plates, and exceedingly so in the original wrappers.

“The French artist Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard went by the name Grandville, which was the stage name his grandparents used. In the early nineteenth-century, Grandville created several hand-colored lithographic books to satirize the bourgeois middle class of Parisian society in the Romantic period. His best, and today the rarest, is Les metamorphoses du jour published in 1829.

 “The characters of the book have a human body and an animal face, exposing people for the beasts they really are. The preface comments that the artist was thereby able to encompass ‘both the living picture of social manners and the satire of institutions and prejudices. Truth can circulate with impunity under the very eyes of the men it attacks.’

 “The first edition was a huge success and quickly went out-of-print. A new edition was prepared in 1854, this time using wood-engraved reproductions of Grandville’s original lithographs. It is unfortunate that most people only know the series through these poor copies.” (Princeton University, Graphics).

"This famous album, which established Granville's early stye of bitter burlesque, has become rare. Indeed, it is known to many of his admirers only through the greatly inferior album of seventy wood-engraved reproductions published by Harvard in 1854…Lust, gluttony, anger, and the other deadly sins are stigmatized, now with the blow of a hammer, now with the thrust of a stiletto; while the foibles and humors of mankind also receive due attention. Throughout the series Grandville's choice of beast-heads is inspired; and the force of his conceptions and the wit of his captions rarely falter.

 “Occasionally, he produces a design of universal application that calls Goya to mind, as in the bat and owl creatures bewildered by the sunshine of 'The light that hurts them' (no. 12).

Ménagerie

“Perhaps his most terrifying plate is 'Ménagerie (no. 67), which shows four prison cells. In the first are complacent commercial offenders, enjoying all the comforts of home; in the second violent criminals, sly or stupid; in the third murderers, one with a countenance of the utmost ferocity; in the forth, political prisoners, quiet and despondent…

Suppressed plate #1: Famille des scarabées.

“Granville turned to direct political satire in his final plates, but the publication of his onslaughts on church ('Famille des scarabées' no. 72) and state ('Une bête féroce,' no. 73) was not permitted in France" (Ray).

Suppressed plate #2: Une bête féroce.

“The most original and the most remarkable work in Grandville's entire oeuvre" (Charles Blanc)”

It is tempting to wonder how Grandville, were he alive today, would treat the current cultural and political landscape. What beasts would result from his imagination? What animal, fish, or insect would Lady Gaga, Glenn Beck, members of Congress, religious figures, or any other contemporary star in the cultural and political fundament become after metamorphosis? Heads only; horse’s ass is not a choice.
________

GRANDVILLE, J.J. Les Metamorphoses du jour. Paris: Chez Bulla, 1829.

Oblong folio. One leaf of letterpress with the Preface by Achille Comte, and seventy-three hand-colored lithographed  plates. Lithographed pink wrappers.

Vicaire V, 775-780. Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Books, 132. Backer 762.

For Cornell Library "The Time Of The Singing Of Birds Is Come"

A Bali Starling, An Endangered Species Whose Song Was Recorded By Linda Macaulay.

The goal of poets is to make words sing. And so what better to inspire them than the sublime sounds, expressed so casually, so naturally, so sweetly, by the songbird? It comes as no surprise, then, that nearly every major poet has written a poem in praise of avian warblers. From Catallus to Chaucer to Keats to Collins, all are spellbound by the music of the skies. They try, with all the tools at their command, to conjure up in words the notes that flow so effortlessly from far simpler creatures.

A Rust and Yellow Tanager, Its Song Is Another Of Linda Macaulay's First Cuts.

What makes this situation far more vexing for today's aspiring poets, is that their time spent communing with nature is often short. Since they compose on a keyboard, requiring electricity or a quickly-drained battery, prolonged exposure to the melodies of the meadow may seem a distant dream. But thanks, in large part to a passionate, intrepid, and adventuresome couple, the song of the lark, and thousands and thousands of other calming coos, are just a mouse-click away. Wannabe wordsmiths, get thee (virtually) to the Macaulay Library of Sound.

William and Linda Macaulay.
(Photo Courtesy of City University of New York.)

Not created expressly to produce poetry, what was formerly known as the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's Library of Sound, has recently been renamed in honor of two of its foremost contributors, William and Linda Macaulay. The Macaulay Library of Sound is the world's largest collection of zoological sounds, featuring audio (and secondarily video) recordings of over 9,000 species of birds, mammals, and insects. All of the sounds are available online, free of charge.

A Vermiculated Fishing Owl, The Only Known Photograph Of This Species, Captured By William Macaulay in Borneo In 1995. Its Bird Call Is A "First Cut" Recorded by Linda Macaulay.

Linda Macaulay has devoted 23 years of her life to recording bird songs. To date, she has captured the calls and songs of 2,668 species of birds, or nearly 30% of the known species worldwide. She has traveled from her home in Greenwich, Connecticut to 50 countries around the globe in search of the sounds of the rarest birds in the world. And Ms. Macaulay's recordings, often obtained at great personal risk, have all been added to the Cornell University database. (Her husband William, a billionaire venture capitalist, accompanies her whenever possible. For him birding is a "quiet and relaxing" respite from the madding crowd. His monetary contributions to the Macaulay Library of Sound have been substantial.)

A Whitehead's Trogon, One Of The Species Whose Song Was first Recorded By Linda Macaulay.

The globe-trotting Ms. Macaulay's passion for capturing "first cuts," the term used for the initial recording of the sounds of a particular species, has taken her to parts of the world that tourists seldom see. In Rwanda she traipsed through waist deep swamps in search of the Shoebill. On another trip to Africa, in Gabon, she spelunked several caverns seeking the Gray-necked Rockfowl. Sometimes the challenges of her travel are not just geographical: in Papua, New Guinea she was surrounded by a band of men brandishing spears. In Ethiopia she braved the modern version of the same behavior: every man who had reached his teens carried an AK-47. With typical understatement Macaulay remarks that she and her husband "have a different risk profile than most people." All of this daring-do has paid off handsomely for the Library of Sound: Ms. Macaulay believes there are at least 10 species she alone has recorded, these include the Whitehead's Trogon from Borneo, and the Rust and Yellow Tanager from Argentina.

The Shoebill, Whose Song Was Recorded In The Swamps Of Rwanda.

On April 8, 2010 Linda Macaulay will be honored at the Paley Center for Media in New York City with Cornell's prestigious Arthur A. Allen Award (.pdf format), which honors ornithologists whose work specifically benefits the general public. She is particularly pleased to receive this recognition because she believes the free, online Library of Sound is a singular achievement: "A person in any country can access a bird sound digitally for free," she told Anne W. Semmes of the Greenwich Citizen. "It's like looking for a book -- you can go online and hear all the sounds... You don't have to be a scientist."

That should be music to the ears of laboratory-leery poets everywhere. And in case some versifiers still aren't sold on the poetical virtues of bird songs, (and in honor of April's status as National Poetry Month) this piece will close with a few examples of how the Lullaby of Birdland has freed some of our greatest writers to take wing and soar:


Stray Birds #1 by Rabindranath Tagore.


Stray birds of summer come to my window
to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn,
which have no songs,
flutter and fall there with a sigh.

A Yellow-eared Toucanet, One Of Macaulay's Favorites Of The Birds She's Recorded.

Excerpt from: Mockingbirds by Mary Oliver.

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.

Little Bird by An Anonymous Celtic Poet.

Little bird! O little bird!
I wonder at what thou doest,
Thou singing merry far from me,
I in sadness all alone!

Little bird! O little bird!
I wonder at how thou art
Thou high on the tips of branching boughs,
I on the ground a-creeping!

Little bird! O little bird!
Thou art music far away,
Like the tender croon of the mother loved
In the kindly sleep of death.

Excerpt from: Ode to Bird Watching by Pablo Neruda.

You can hear them
like a heavenly
rustle or movement.
They converse
with precision.
They repeat
their observations.
They brag
of how much they do.
They comment
on everything that exists.

A Rufous Whistler, Another Species Recorded by Linda Macaulay For The Library Of Sound.

For the House Sparrow, in Decline by Paul Farley.

Your numbers fall and it's tempting to think
you're deserting our suburbs and estates
like your cousins at Pompeii;
that when you return
to bathe in dust and build your nests again
in a roofless world where no one hears your cheeps,
only a starling's modem mimicry
will remind you of how you once supplied
the incidental music of our lives.


Excerpt From: Ode To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was Joyous, and clear,
and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.


Excerpt from: Caged Bird by Maya Angelou.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

An Eastern Nicator, One Of Linda Macaulay's Favorite African Songbirds.

Unknown Bird by W.S. Merwin.

Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before

one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else

and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before

where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening

it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone

so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin

trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there

it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own

The Gray-necked Rockfowl, Recorded In The Caves Of Gabon.

Excerpt from: Birds Of Passage by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.

O, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
Come not from wings of birds.

They are the throngs
Of the poet's songs,
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words.

This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
Seeking a warmer clime,

From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
With the murmuring sound of rhyme.

The Elusive Iraq Babbler, Found In Syria On The Euphrates River.

To The Cuckoo by William Wordsworth.

O Blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.


Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!

Posted by Nancy Mattoon at 12:06 AM

17th Century Scandal: 14 Yr Old Girl Falls for Baron; Writes Rare Tell-All

The modern world's embarrassing, cringe-worthy, candid memoir-as-novel that dumps upon an ex-lover/spouse is nothing new.

In 1931, Jack Kahane, a writer of novels that nobody read, launched Obelisk Press. In a few years the imprint  would gain international notoriety for publishing Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. In the interim, it stayed afloat with  racy fluff such as Daffodil by Cecil Barr (Kahane’s pseudonym), one of the imprint’s best-selling titles.

But before Kahane got Obelisk Press off the ground he had to get Henri Babou off his back.

He had entered into an agreement with Babou, “a short, well-groomed Frenchman with a goatee beard and a thick Southern (France) accent” (Pearson) who published coffee-table art books, in an effort to get his dream of becoming a publisher in gear. The partnership did no go well or last long. While Kahane was recuperating from illness, Babou emptied the company coffers by publishing works of dubious commercial potential. Kahane was broke. How he recovered from his disastrous partnership with Babou to found Obelisk Press is another story. Here, we deal with one of the books that wrecked the Kahane-Babou partnership, even though Kahane had a strong hand in its choice and production.

It’s the story of a fourteen year old girl who falls for a much older man, told through a series of letters and narrative.

Cléante and Bélise: Their Loves and Their Letters, was issued by Babou and Kahane in October 1930. “Bélise,” the writer of the letters and heroine of the narrative, was the pseudonym of a real person, Anne de Bellinzani présidente Ferrand, daughter of François Bellinzani, originally of Ferrara, and an agent of Colbert, Louis XIV's great Finance Minister.

When she was fourteen years old, she met 'Cléante' - Louis Nicolas Le Tonnelier (1648-1728), Baron de Preuilly and of Breteuil - an officer in the royal household of Louis XIV - and fell in love.

"First published as Histoire nouvelle des amours de la jeune Bélise et de Cléante, par Mr. D*** in Paris in 1689, the letters which comprise the final section of the novel were added to the second edition (1691)" (Pearson). That first edition is quite a rare book; no copies have come to auction within the last thirty-five years. This, the first translation into English, is also rare, particularly the vellum and "specially bound" copies; examples of those in the publisher's original box are scare.

Their scandalous love affair led to an unhappy marriage that ended with her confinement in a convent. You surely read about it; it was in all the tabloids. L'Enquireur broke the story: “14 Yr Old Girl Gone Wild: Teen Temptress Ensnares King’s Courtier. ‘I couldn’t help it. One look, one touch.’ ‘He stole my virtue. I am bereft. I shall retire to contemplate my wickedness.’”

"Such were our lovers" (From the translator's Preface). It was a mess. So much for abstinence-only sex education. At the time, convents often provided the same career-move boost as rehab does today: Dirty laundry in by nine, out by five, wrinkle-free and rarin' to go.

Those expecting 17th century porn will be disappointed. This is galant literature, meaning it suggests, teases, leads yet averts direct, graphic gaze; it charms rather than titillates, as do the drypoint etchings by Jean Dulac (1902-1968).

The Special Binding and accompanying box.

"With Cléante and Bélise, Kahane aimed to produce a book whose contents would be sufficiently rarefied to cultivate a reputation for himself as a serious publisher, sufficiently risqué to ensure healthy sales, and yet sufficiently demure to avoid police attention. In this Kahane was 'moderately successful; one of the engravings had a little too much Gallic freedom for English and American custom agents who could not appreciate the delicious wittiness of it. But we got most of our money back' [Kahane, Memoirs of a Booklegger]" (Pearson, p. 482). In other words, the book was a moderately successful failure, not as big a failure as it could have been but as failures go, not too bad.

There were three different issues of the book in a total edition of 320 numbered copies: 20 on Imperial Japanese vellum in full morocco, with hand-colored illustrations and an uncolored duplicate suite, in a box for 1300 frs. or 10 guineas; of the 300 paper copies, an unknown number were “Specially bound”(seen here) in "half morocco" (actually, sheep not goatskin) in a box for 390 frs. or 3 guineas; the remaining paper copies were issued in wrappers for 160 frs.  This sort of extravagant, limited edition was the downfall of the Babou-Kahane partnership.

The book was advertised in the Times Literary Supplement (London) on 6 November 1930.  It was also advertised in Kahane's Obelisk Notes and News, no. 1 (summer 1935).

Kahane dissolved his partnership with Babou in the summer of 1931 and took as his share the unsold copies of the English books that they had published together.  In the fall of 1931 Kahane formally founded the Obelisk Press which in 1934 would boldly publish Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and become the home for some of the most daring and controversial novels of the era.

_____________

[FERRAND, Anne de Bellinzani]. [DULAC, Jean, illustrator]. Cléante and Bélise. Their Loves and Their Letters. Translated by Eric Sutton. Embellishments by Jean Dulac. Paris: Henry Babou and Jack Kahane, n.d. [1930].

First edition in English, limited to a small, unknown number of specially bound copies on hand made Montval,  this being copy #35 out of a total edition of 320, Octavo (7 3/8 x 4 1/2 in; 187 x 115 mm). 239, [1, blank], [1, colophon, [1, blank] pp. Eleven dry-point etchings in elegantly erotic galante style, including six plates, four headpieces, frontispiece and title page. Woodcut tailpieces. Marbled copper and gold end papers.

Half deep maroon sheepskin over patterned boards with antelope brown pigskin and gilt morocco inlays in Art Deco motif. Top edge gilt.  Publisher's original box.

Pearson A4.