What Kind of Reader Are You? Take the Booktryst Reading Personality Quiz!

by Stephen J. Gertz

1st question: Blurry or crystal clear?

The good folks at ReadCentral have prepared a brief quiz to help define your reading style and predict your reading personality based upon your responses. Here's a sample question:

Question 3  :  You wake up one morning and find yourself in the midst of heaps of books. How will you react?

A. So many books! Life is beautiful!

B. So many books! There should be some worth reading.

C. So many books! That one, over there, looks interesting. Let me start with that first.

D. So many books! Hope there are some that fit my taste.

That's one of five, and typical. It's not bad yet there's something a bit too Sunshine Stepford Reader about it for my taste. But perhaps I'm just a cockeyed pessimist, always looking for the gray lining within the silver cloud to brighten my day and make me feel that life is worth something, if not living.

And so Booktryst has prepared a Reading Personality Quiz of our own. Its sage perspicacity will awe and astound. Ready? Set? Peruse!

Question 1 : October 1964. Santa Monica Civic Auditorium,  the T.A.M.I. Show. You're a member of the callow Rolling Stones during an  early American tour and you've just witnessed James Brown blow the roof off the joint with a now-legendary performance that knocked the audience over like bowling pins. You have to follow his act. What book are you reading?

A. On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

B. The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene.

C. The Book of Common Prayer.

D. Seduction of Suicide by Kenneth Tullis.

E. It's All Over Now by Mandy Smith.

Question 2 : Good news! You've just been diagnosed as a clinical depressive thus confirming all your worst negative ruminations; you're not crazy. Bad news: You have zero tolerance for  prescription anti-depression drugs. But you've always loved to read. What do you self-medicate with?

A. A History of Coca, the Divine Plant of the Incas by W. Golden Mortimer, M.D.

B. Flowers in the Blood: The Story of Opium by Dean Latimer and Jeff Goldberg.

C. Laughing Gas (Nitrous Oxide). Edited by Michael Shedlin & David Wallechinsky.

D. Reefer Madness by Larry Sloman.

E. All of the above.

F. All of the above, all at the same time.

Question 3 : Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you walk into:

A. A Christian Science Reading Room.

B. A library with  a librarian who scolds, No Reading Allowed. Or maybe it was No Reading Aloud. Whatever, you can't be sure so you close your book and go to the rest room to read in peace without a proctor giving you the evil eye. The acoustics are perfect.

C. The waiting room at Jiffy Lube. Time to catch up on those three-year old issues of Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Super Chevy, and Peterson's 4Wheel & Off Road.

D. Rick's Café Américain in Mojave, California. You came for the firewaters. You were not misinformed. You belt a few back. Soon, you remember a lost love, an unforgettable book, the one that got away. Then tears flow into your Scotch like club soda; since the accident your lacrimal glands effervesce and produce seltzer. You drunkenly bark at the piano player, "Read it again, Sam!" He has no idea what you're talking about. And his name is Larry.

Question 4 : You're compulsive reader Henry Bemis sitting amongst the ruins of a library in a nuked-out, post-Apocalyptic Twilight Zone realm with all the books in the world strewn about and all the time in the world to read them. Suddenly, you have a bitter premonition that your eyeglasses will break leaving you unable to read at all. Oh, cruel irony! But before you wallow in self-pity, renounce God, and accept Satan as your savior you must choose what the last book you'll ever read will be. Oh, and you're kind of gimpy now, getting around is tough and there's no time to limp around so you have to be satisfied with the small pile of books at hand. Unfortunately, the pile offers a  random sample of the library's holdings of  law books. So, what'll it be?

A. The Code of Civil Procedure of the State of California. Approved March 11, 1872. With Amendments Up to and Including Those of the Forty-First Session of the Legislature, 1915. With Annotations Embracing the Decisions of the Courts of Last Resort of the State of California, and with Frequent Reference to the Decisions of the Courts of Last Resort of Other States, and of the Federal Courts by Charles H. Fairall.

B. Gesetzbuch über das gerichtliche Verfahren in Civil-Rechtssachen für die Stadt u. Republik Bern, mit erklärenden Anmerkungen Bern, Walthard, 1822 by Samuel Ludwig Schnell.

C. The Politics of European Sales Law: A Legal-Political Inquiry into the Drafting of the Uniform Commercial Code, Vienna Sales Convention, the Dutch Civil Code and the European Consumer Sales (Private Law) by Bastiaan Van Zelst.

D. Kita? B Al-Anwa? R Wa-Al-Mara? QIB: Code of Karaite Law. Vol III: Circumcision, Sabbath; Civil and Criminal Law, Liturgy by Ya'qub Al-Qirqisa.

E. Criminal Law Revision Committee, Second Report (Suicide) by Home Department, British Parliament.

Question 5 : You thought you were buying an E-Book. Turns out, you've subscribed to an Internet dating service for socially maladroit readers, which pretty much covers all of us. You fill out a profile and

A. Declare that anyone who reads Tolkein is tetched in the head.

B. Assert that the soft touch of your finger upon paper as you point to each slowly and lovingly read word  is nothing compared to what that finger'll do behind closed doors, hubba-hubba, heh-heh, with a hey, nonny, nonny, and a hotcha-cha.

C. Announce to all potential partners that you're an honest person, trustworthy, an open book - and the book is Mein Kampf.

D. Realize that you'll never get a date for as long as you live. And afterward, forget it; even worse luck.

Determining Your Reading Personality: It you've made it this far we urge you to consider seeking the help of a professional.  A professional what, we leave to your discretion.

Always remember: Your bookshelves are a mirror of the soul  (hopefully yours), and you are what you read so avoid reading cereal boxes, particularly General Mills' Frankenberry, and especially Ralston's Breakfast With Barbie.
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Monster Smackdown: The Trojan Horse Vs. Godzilla At Cornell Library

By Nancy Mattoon

A Japanese historical magazine,
which singles out the birth of Godzilla
as the signature event of the year 1954.
(All Images Courtesy of Carl A. Kroch Library.)

Man has a long history of creating "famous" animals. Some are mythical or literary, like the Minotaur or Toto. Others are real animals, elevated to celebrity status like Rin Tin Tin, or more recently, Internet sensation Maru the Cat. A fascinating new exhibit at Cornell University's Carl A. Kroch Library uses rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and artifacts to explore "how and why humans choose to elevate certain individual animals or species to the status of divinities, emblems, mascots, heroes, or celebrities."

Woodcut Illustration From:
Opera Virgiliana. Lyon: Crespin, 1529.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla is an elephantine display of serpentine complexity. It is divided into five major sections, corralling creatures from ancient times to modern, including the menagerie rescued from the Biblical Flood by Noah, Ulysses's "noble hound" Argos from Homer's Odyssey, E.B. White's web-spinner Charlotte, and even canine cosmonauts Belka and Strelka, two of the first living creatures to orbit the earth for an entire day. It is inspired in large part by the pioneering work of French cultural historian Michel Pastoureau, who in his book Les Animaux Célèbres, maintains that our intense attraction to wonders of the animal kingdom comes from the simple fact of "how difficult it is to be human."

Barrie G. James. The Trojan Horse:
the Ultimate Japanese Challenge to Western Industry.
London: Mercury Business Books, 1990.

The first section of the display, Tales of Destruction and Rebirth, begins with an examination of the Trojan Horse. The exhibit notes that the wooden equine giant, filled with soldiers, "may have been a siege machine." But "in any case, the tale was made hugely popular by Virgil’s Aeneid, and by innumerable pictures and films." Books and ephemera dating from 1529 to 1990 reveal the staying power of this "metaphor for political tactics of infiltration," and the show reminds us that the horse's most recent incarnation is as "the name of a destructive computer application."

Poster for the American Version of
La Guerra di Troia, 1961.

The rare books and ephemera in the show providing images of the Trojan Horse are a great indication of the huge range of the exhibition. The section begins with Opera Virgiliana (1529), which features two hundred woodcut illustrations for the poems contained in the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid. After that beauty is the 1664 "pocket edition" of the works of Virgil from the Elsevier family of Dutch booksellers, publishers, and printers. Up next is a garishly kitschy poster for the big-budget 1961 "sword and sandal" motion picture epic, La Guerra di Troia. Following on the heels and hoofs of the horse opera, is a presentation copy of Archibald MacLeish's The Trojan Horse: A Play (1952), inscribed to Cornell English Professor Arthur Mizener. Finally an alarmist business book from 1990, The Trojan Horse: the Ultimate Japanese Challenge to Western Industry, by futurist Barrie James, closes out the wildly eclectic selection.

Poster for Gojira.
Japan: Toho Ltd., 1954.

One of the largest sections of the show is called From Farm To Screen. Creatures covered here include E.B. White's super-mouse on a road trip, Stuart Little, Disney stalwarts Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and the pop culture star attraction of the exhibition, mass media "mon-star," Godzilla. The exhibit notes that unlike the "carefree escapism" offered by Disney's cartoon critters, "Godzilla, a primitive, destructive force awakened by the excesses of modern science," plays "on the darker aspects of human fears and repressed desires." But the subversive appeal of the unstoppable King of Chaos cannot be denied: "Godzilla has starred in 28 feature films produced by the [Japanese] Toho Film Company, as well as two American remakes, and has also appeared in television series, novels, comic books, video games, songs, toys and countless commercials and advertisements."

A Pictorial Box Set of
Five Godzilla Films in Translation.
Japan: Toho Ltd. and Anchor Entertainment, 1997.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla presents a terrific introduction to a cultural phenomenon that deserves much more serious study. The animal kingdom is an important part of the collective iconography of every culture that has ever existed across the centuries, and throughout the world. And, as the exhibit points out, "All human societies have reserved a mythical or allegorical place for...extra-ordinary animals, 'fictitious' or 'real,' from the most ancient myths of origin to the most recent scientific discoveries." As mankind's environmental expansion continues to encroach upon what used to be the domain of the animal kingdom, the time to reflect upon its cultural importance is now.

Poster for Godzilla, King of the Monsters!.
Japan: Toho Ltd. and Jewell Enterprises, 1956.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla continues through September 30, 2011 at the Hirshland Exhibition Gallery of the Carl A. Kroch Library of Cornell University. A terrific online exhibit has been created to those unable to visit the Ithaca, N.Y. campus.

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Rare Warhol "Cats" Book Estimated to Sell For $20K-$30K

by Stephen J. Gertz

Cover lithograph.

A copy of 25 Cats Name [sic] Sam and One Blue Pussy by Andy Warhol, one of the rarest, most significant, and highly desirable artists books from the 1950s, will be auctioned at Doyle New York on Wednesday April 20, 2011. It is estimated to sell for $20,000 - $30,000.

25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Cat is comprised of eighteen hand-colored offset lithographs (one laid-on to cover) by Warhol. The accompanying text was written by his then-lover, television art director and production designer Charles Lisanby. It was printed by Seymour Berlin for Warhol who conceived the book as a Christmas gift.

Issued in December, 1954 in a limited edition of 190 copies (though it has been speculated that fewer, perhaps only 150, were actually produced), very few copies of the book were sold, this copy, #110, being a rare exception; most were given away as gifts to friends and clients. 

 

The hand-coloring of the lithographs was done at "coloring parties" with Warhol's friends, a precusor to the collective approach that characterized much of Warhol's career. The calligraphy is by Julia Warhola, Warhol's mother. Her errors were uncorrected by Warhol, who appreciated  human imperfections.

This is among the most significant American artist books of the period. It was reproduced in facsimile by Random House in 1987.

Title notwithstanding, there are only eighteen cats illustrated in the book, as originally published. Of the fate of the remaining Sams we have no word.  

Sic transit gloria feles.
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WARHOL, Andy (artist). LISANBY, Charles. 25 Cats Name [sic] Sam and One Blue Pussy. [New York]: Printed by Seymour Berlin [for Warhol], [c.1954]. First edition, numbered and signed in ballpoint, this being example 110 of a stated 190 copies.

Full off-white leatherette binding as issued, the upper cover with a hand-colored lithographed label depicting a cat, lettered with the title and author, with gray endpapers. 9 x 5 7/8 inches (22.5 x 18 cm); tipped-in limitation leaf (recto blank), followed by seventeen leaves, each bearing an offset lithograph by Warhol on Arches paper. The cover lithograph completes the count of eighteen. All the lithographs are brightly hand-colored with washes of Dr. Martin's aniline watercolor dyes.

Accompanying this copy is a letter signed by Warhol (headed "andy warhol enterprises inc"), inquiring as to how the purchaser found out about the publication of the work. 

Feldman & Schellmann IV 52A-68A.
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Thoroughbred Collection of Rare Books On Show At Texas A & M

By Nancy Mattoon

Wood Cut of the Unicorn From:
The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (1607),
by Edward Topsell.

(All Images Courtesy of Texas A&M University.)

If the Cheshire Cat seems to have an extraordinarily wide grin on his puss this year, or if you notice that Doctor Doolittle has a bit more spring in his step than usual, it might be because they know 2011 has been named World Veterinary Year. The dedicated professionals who keep the wag in Fido's tail are commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the world's first school of veterinary medicine. Back in 1761 French veterinarian Claude Bourgelat opened the doors of the first college dedicated to animal health in Lyon, and four years later unveiled a second veterinary school in Paris. And at least one library has found the perfect way to celebrate: The Medical Sciences Library at Texas A&M University is displaying for the first time a newly acquired collection of rare books about animal care valued at just under $650,000.

The Equine Nervous System From:
The Anatomy of An Horse (1687),
By Andrew Snape.

The rare book library now at home in the Lone Star State was a lifelong labor of love created by English veterinarian John G.P. Wood of Reepham (near Norwich). Dr. Wood, a rural practitioner specializing in large animals, built a collection of over 900 volumes dating as far back as 1528, with a special emphasis on equine medicine and farriery. According to Esther Carrigan, associate dean and director of the Medical Sciences Library, "It’s a collection that every veterinary school in the world would envy... and several of these books are not owned by any other library." The volumes form a veritable history of veterinary medicine from the 16th to the early 20th century, with a special emphasis on diseases of the horse, an animal of critical importance for farming, transportation, and the military.

Title Page of:
Vegetii Renati Artis Veterinariae (1528),
By Publius Vegetius Renatus.

Several of the volumes in the Texas A&M collection are particularly noteworthy. One of the oldest books in the collection was printed in 1528, but it was translated from Greek into Latin, and greatly expanded, way back in 480 AD by the Roman writer Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus. Vegetii Renati Artis Veterinariae contains some of the best information available on ancient horse breeds. Vegetius created a list of sixteen highly valued types of horses, which he compiled from his travels throughout the ancient world. The list was created to help buyers avoid being defrauded by unscrupulous horse traders misrepresenting the origin of their livestock. The large amount of equine health information in the volume has led some scholars to label it "the first published book on veterinary medicine."

Topsell's 1607 Title Page,
Graced By A Rather Unusual Creature.

Another of the rare volumes in the collection is The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes by Edward Topsell. Published in 1607, it features superb woodcut illustrations accompanied by vivid descriptions of creatures both real and imagined. The wolf and dog are featured alongside the unicorn and manticore. Topsell's text gives insight into the Elizabethan world's view of both domesticated and wild animals. Much of his "scientific information" is questionable, for example that lemmings graze in the clouds, but the volume stands on its beauty alone. It was magnificently printed in London by William Jaggard, the same man who would go on to publish Shakespeare’s first folio.

Robert Almond's Exceedingly Rare,
The English Horsman and Complete Farrier. (1673.)

Another notable work is The English Horsman and Complete Farrier: directing all gentlemen and others how to breed, feed, ride, and diet all kind of horses whether for war, race, or other service: with a discovery of the causes, signs, and cures of all diseases, both internal and external, incident to horses: alphabetically digested: with The humours of a Smithfield jockey, (Whew!) by Robert Almond. The title page states the author "Is a well known and skillful farrier of the city of London, practicing therein above 45 years." This book was first published in 1673. "It is considered extremely rare and some British book dealers we have consulted say they have never seen a copy of it in over 50 years," says Carrigan.

Andrew Snape's 1687 Volume,
The Anatomy of An Horse.

Two later works are also considered especially important. The Anatomy of an Horse (1687), by Andrew Snape, is one of the earliest written in English on equine anatomy, and is often called the first modern veterinary textbook. And A Domestic Treatise on the Diseases of Horses and Dogs, was written by Delabere Blaine in 1803. Blaine was trained as a surgeon for humans, but became known as the "Father of Canine Medicine," after spending twenty years as a veterinarian in London, seeing between two and three thousand hounds, terriers, and lap dogs annually.

Woodcut Of The Horse From:
The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (1607),
by Edward Topsell.

The entire collection is currently being processed at the Medical Sciences Library. Rare materials will be housed in the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, home of Texas A&M’s rare books, manuscripts and archives. The volumes will no doubt be invaluable to the students of Texas A&M's School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, which was established in 1916, and is the state’s only veterinary medicine school, as well as one of the largest in North America.

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Five and a Half Women in Search of a Good Time

by Stephen J. Gertz

Hand-colored heliogravure by Charles Hérouard aka Herric
From Le Libertinage du retroussé par G. Donville
Paris, Aux galants passe-temps [Jean Fort], 1937.
Not in Pia. Dutel not consulted.

Hand-colored heliogravure by Charles Hérouard aka Herric
From Le Libertinage du retroussé par G. Donville
Paris, Aux galants passe-temps [Jean Fort], 1937.

Hand-colored heliogravure by Charles Hérouard aka Herric
From Le Libertinage du retroussé par G. Donville
Paris, Aux galants passe-temps [Jean Fort], 1937.

"Little seems to be known about [the] publisher [of the above images] Jean Fort.  We do know that he was the nephew of Pierre Fort, a Paris bookseller and publisher who was active from c.1896 until c.1905 (it appears Louis Chaubard took over the shop in 1911). Following his Uncle's footsteps, Fort began his own publishing career in c.1901, from the Paris address of 73 Faubourg Poissonniere.

"Fort published under many different imprints; some openly published, some published clandestinely. From his Faubourg Poissonniere address in 1907 until c.1921 he primarily used the imprint 'Jean Fort' or 'J. Fort' but between 1910 - 1913 he also published a few books under the imprints, 'Bibliothèque des deux hémisphères' and 'Sweetgra's Quebec'. Betweem c.1921 and c.1925 Fort set up shop of 39 rue de Chabrol and then 12 rue de Chabrol, staying only a couple of years at each address during which he publishing a few books with the imprint 'Libraire du bon vieux temps'.

"In c.1925 Fort moved again, this time setting up shop at 79 rue de Vaugirard where he remained until c.1939. From Vaugirard he began publishing under the imprints of 'Au Cabinet du Livre' and the better known imprint of 'Collection des Orties Blanches', a series of flagellation novels. While it seems the majority of Fort's earlier publications were unillustrated these flagellation books often contained explicit engravings by some of the top erotica illustrators of the time: Jim Black [Luc Lafnet], Louis Malteste, Herric [Herouard], and Martin Van Maele" (Straight, Sheryl, Erotica Bibliophile).

Illustration by Jean-Gabriel Daragnès
From La Tentation de Saint Antoine by Gustave Flaubert.
Paris: J.-G. Daragnès, 1942.
Monod 4711. Carteret, IV, 161. Karaiskakis  343.

Jean-Gabriel Daragnès (1886-1950) was highly regarded both as a printmaker of wood engravings and etchings  and also as a master printer of other artists' work. Daragnès was born in Bordeaux; his father was a carpenter. From 1900-1905 Daragnès was apprenticed to a silversmith as an engraver. In 1907, having completed his military service, Jean-Gabriel Daragnès went to Paris, dreaming of a life as a Bohemian painter in Montmartre. In order to survive, he took on all kinds of work, and soon turned from landscape painting to printmaking and the art of the book. Daragnès was not mobilised for WWI as he suffered from tuberculosis. After the war he wanted to found his own press.

"By dint of selling everything he possessed, Daragnès raised enough money to build a house at 14, avenue Junot in Montmarte, to his own plans, with a printroom on the ground floor, a painting and printmaking studio on the first floor, and living quarters above. There Daragnés published some of the most beautiful books of the twentieth century, and also established a literary and artistic salon, whose members included Francis Carco, Pierre Mac Orlan, Colette, Léon-Paul Fargue, Noël Bureau, and Paul Valéry. It was Daragnès who taught Valéry the art of etching" (Neil Philip, Idbury Prints).

Illustration by Umberto Brunelleschi
from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.
Paris: Gilbert jeune, Librairie d'amateurs, 1953.
Monod 4682.

Italian artist Umberto Brunelleschi (1879 - 1949)  studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence and moved to Paris in 1900  where he soon established himself as a printer, book illustrator, set and costume designer.

He worked for Le Rire as a caricaturist and was a contributor to many of the deluxe French fashion publications including Journal des Dames et Des Modes, Gazette du Bon Ton and Les Feuillets d'Art. Brunelleschi was also the artistic director of the short lived but significant La Guirlande d'art et de la litterature 1919-1920.

In the 1920s he diversified into set and costume designs for the Folies Bergère, the Casino de Paris, the Théâtre du Châtelet and theaters in New York, Germany, and in his native country. He created costumes for Josephine Baker. 

His illustrated books include Voltaire (Candide, 1933), Charles Perrault (Contes du temps jadis,1912), Musset (La Nuit Vénitienne), Goethe, Diderot (Les Bijoux indiscrets, etc.), Les Masques et les personnages de la Comedie Italienne, 1914; Phili ou Par dela le Bien et le Mal," 1921; Le Radjah de Mazulipatam," 1925; Le Malheureux Petit Voyage, 1926; and Les Aventures de Roi Pausole, 1930.
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All images courtesy of Julien Mannoni Livres Anciens, with our thanks.

A tip o' the hat to our old friends Sheryl Straight and Neil Philip.
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Anatomy Gets Animated In Rare Flap Books

By Nancy Mattoon

Joseph Gibbons Richardson.

Medicology, or, Home encyclopedia of health :
a complete family guide... 1904. Vol. I
(All Images Courtesy Of Duke University Libraries.)

A professor of Romance studies and a historian of medicine have pooled their expertise to create a new Duke University exhibit that "weaves together the history of science, medical instruction and the intricate art of bookmaking." Animated Anatomies: The Human Body in Anatomical Texts from the 16th to 21st Centuries examines anatomical flap books, which take their name from the layers of movable paper flaps that can be lifted from the page to reveal something underneath, similar to pop-up books for children.

Two Views Of The Same Image of A Cesarean Section.
From: G. Spratt, Obstetric tables..., 1847.

Dating back to the late 1500's, these movable books were "originally designed as instructional tools." Flap books mirrored the elements of human dissection, and gave early physicians a means to study the intricacies of the human body layer by layer. According to co-curator Valeria Finucci, "Flap books illustrate bodies immersed in the intellectual, aesthetic, technological, philosophical, gendered, even religious culture of the time in which they were produced...In the interchange between the doctor/anatomist and the illustrator/technician, the body parts that emerge acquire a life, and a beauty, of their own."

George Bartisch.
Ophthalmodouleia, das ist Augendienst..., 1583.

The exhibit "traces the flap book genre beginning with early examples from the sixteenth century, to the colorful 'golden age' of complex flaps of the nineteenth century, and finally to the common children’s pop-up anatomy books of today." It includes volumes from Duke’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library , the Duke Medical Center Library & Archives History of Medicine Collection and from the private collections of the curators of the exhibit, Professor Finucci, Director of Duke’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Professor Maurizio Rippa-Bonati, historian of medicine at the University of Padua.



A 10-minute loop of videos from the exhibit.


The physical exhibit is so large, it has been divided between two libraries, the Perkins Library of Humanities and the Duke Medical Center Library. A detailed website includes photographic images, as well as over a half-dozen videos inviting the "viewer to participate in virtual autopsies, through the process of unfolding...movable leaves, simulating the act of human dissection." Links to other online anatomical flap books are also included, allowing the virtual visitor to participate in this early attempt to overcome the limitations of two-dimensional paper. Below is a small sampling of the many fascinating examples of this intriguing genre included in the virtual version of Animated Anatomies.

Heinrich Vogtherr, Anothomia,
oder abconterfettung eines Webys Leyb/
wie er innwendig gestaltet ist, 1539.

This is one of the earliest examples of a flap illustration in the exhibition. In his book Paper Bodies, Antonio Carlino catalogs some of these oldest surviving models dating from the 1530's, and refers to these publications as "fugitive sheets," as they are simply loose leaves of paper not bound in a book. Duke University's History of Medicine Collection holds seven of these singular pages from the sixteenth century. The fugitive sheets are remarkable for still showing multiple layers of the internal organs with very small parts that have somehow survived for almost five centuries.

Frederick Hollick. The origin of life and
process of reproduction..., c.1902.

Frederick Hollick's 1902 work, The origin of life, depicts a pregnant Victorian-era woman. Although this series of images and flaps show many anatomical features, there is not a layer of "naked" skin (except on the baby.) Dr. Hollick was actually charged with obscenity for publishing this illustration. For decades, anatomical flap books were sold with an accompanying locked envelope, particularly those featuring illustrations of the genitals, to avoid legal issues.

G. J. Witkowski.
Human anatomy and physiology,(brain),[1880?-1889].

With the advent of machine printing presses in the nineteenth century, illustration processes became more accurate and efficient. Shown here is the brain from Gustave J. Witkowski’s Human anatomy and physiology. This image has over 200 named parts, with over 20 movable sections to show multiple layers of the brain, from both the top and the bottom. This technology includes both the simplistic flap of single pages folded together as well as the very complex intertwined pieces that lock together to "pop up" as the reader opens the various flaps.

Edward Tuson. Myology,
illustrated by plates, 1828.

The Tuson volume is slightly different from most other flap books or pop ups. The parts are very tightly intertwined and actually difficult to open up. It is as if the user is feeling the pull of the muscles illustrated in the volume as they explore the many layers. Although the pieces can be moved, and underneath images can be seen, the parts don't easily lift up as in other flap books.

Animated Anatomies is an exhibit on display in the Perkins Gallery, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and in the History of Medicine Gallery in the Medical Center and Archives Library from April 13-July 17, 2011.
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The Most Progressive Magazine of its Time, a Work of Art

by Stephen J. Gertz

1922, no. 2. Cover by Johannes Carolus Bernardus Sluijters.

A rare, complete run of Wendingen,  the distinctive, essential, and highly significant magazine dedicated to modern architecture and design, has come to market.

The magazine, numbering 116 issues, includes specials on Frank Lloyd Wright, Josef Hoffmann, Erich Mendelsohn, Eileen Gray, Jan Toorop, Gustav Klimt, Diego Rivera, Lyonel Feininger, etc. The magnificent cover by El Lissitzky for Volume IV No. 11 is considered to be one of his greatest compositions.

Volume 7, No. 3, 1925. Cover by Frank Lloyd Wright. 
The Life-Work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

"In Holland, the birthplace of De Stijl, modernism took various routs that ran the aesthetic gamut from hybridized Art Nouveau to systematic rationalism. Somewhere between these poles was the magazine Wendingen (Upheaval), one of the principal sources for the chronicling of twentieth-cetury design and architecture.

"Published between 1918 and 1931, virtually all of its 116 issues were edited and designed by Hendrik Theodorus Wijdeveld (1885-1989), a Dutch architect and designer who trained under Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Vol. 4, No. 11, 1921.  Cover by El Lissitzky.

"Influenced by Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau), Wendingen was resolutely eclectic in in design and content, and gave equal coverage to Expressionist, individualist, and even mystical sensibilities...

Volume 10, No. 8, 1929. Cover by J. L. M. Lauweriks

R. Roland Holst. Schelpen. Amsterdam, 1923.
Cover by R. Roland Holst.

"Wendingen was printed in an unprecedented square format (34.25 cm; 13 1/2 in.) on high-grade paper, each page was on one side of a sheet that was folded into two pages ina Japanese block-bookbinding process...Wendingen published covers by some of the movement's principal designers - among them El Lissitzky for an issue on Frank Lloyd Wright, and De Stijl artist Vilmos Huszar for one on Diego Rivera...



1920. Cover by Bernard Essers.



July 1924. Cover by Hermann Finsterlin.

"Wendingen's distinctive architectonic  layout and rectilinear type design provided a forum for a wide range of Wijdeveld's concerns, from Art Deco to Javanese ornament, from architecture to political cartoon.

1929 - 3 Diego Rivera

"Wendingen was 'one of the most progressive magazines of its time, a work of art,' wrote historian Alston Purvis. 'It differed from other avant-garde publications...in that it was a vehicle for the message, rather than the message itself.'

1919 - 3 Dansnummer.



Volume 4, No. 12. 1921. Cover by B. Bijvoet en J. Duiker.



"The magazine was a bridge between the disorder of the previous century and the new century's design. It advanced the grand notion of Gesamtkunstwerk - that all art fed a common functional purpose - but was none the less an alternative to the strict rationalism of the orthodox modernists" (Steven Heller, Merz to Emigre and Beyond).

10 Architectuur, 1918. Cover by S. Jessurun.

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Cover images, with our thanks, courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd, which is currently offering this magtnificent, complete run of Wendingen.

Zuidelijke Wandelweg  has an excellent page devoted to Wendingen.

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