Nixon To Ehrlichman: Miss You and Haldeman, Love You, We Were RIght

by Stephen J. Gertz

Two letters from President Richard M. Nixon to John Ehrlichman, his counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, are coming to auction at Christie's-NY in its Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts Including Americana sale, December 9, 2013. One, a typed letter signed, is estimated to sell for $10,000-$15,000, the other, an autograph letter signed, for $30,000-$50,000

Both composed during the Watergate scandal and sent less than a month apart in May and June of 1973, the first is Nixon's formal acceptance of Ehrlichman's resignation, the second a hand-delivered follow-up note from Nixon's pen of a more personal nature. In both, Nixon gives thanks for Ehrlichman's service, expresses his regrets and, in the first letter, confidence in the final outcome, and,  with a tip o' the hat to Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., in the second letter advises him to "keep the faith" (without the controversial Congressman's signature  tag, "baby!") and assures him that "all will be OK because we are right."

He was wrong. All would not turn out okay. It was a disaster for the President, all who closely worked with him and pledged their personal loyalty, and the country.

On April 30, 1973, President Nixon made a televised address to the nation announcing the "resignation" of three top aides, John D. Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman and John Dean, arguably the most powerful figures in the administration after the President.  Eighteen days later, Nixon wrote  the  Dear John letter to Ehrlichman:

May 18, 1973

Dear John:

It is with the deepest regret that I write to acknowledge your letter of resignation.

This letter will be brief, though my heart is full. I believe you know, better than I could say, just how much your loyal assistance has meant to me in the crucible of the Presidency, how deeply I respect the courage and self-sacrifice that now prompt your leaving, and how sorely missed you will be.

Since the days that I first came to the White House, you have been close adviser, companion, and friend. These have been critical years for our country -- years when decisions were made that will benefit America and the world for the rest of this century.

When our children look back on these times, they will know, just as I do now, that your contribution to building a better America has been enormous. Few men have done so much good in so short a time. And no President has ever been more grateful for that service.

Pat joins me in saying, from our hearts, that we wish only the best for you and Jeanne and your family in the time ahead -- as  you so well deserve.

Sincerely,

[signed] RN

[post-script in holograph]:

I have every confidence in the final outcome - love you

John Erlichman.

The second letter is one of the great rarities of presidential autograph material, a Nixon autograph letter signed while President. Here, less than four weeks after accepting Ehrlichman's forced resignation, a wounded Nixon tries to be encouraging:

6-12-73

Dear John -

Your letter was honest, candid and direct in the Erlichman style! I appreciated it very much + will look into every item you raised.

I'm sure you know how much I miss Bob and you. No President ever had two more able + loyal advisers. I feel for you both in this difficult time. And I feel for your families - for your lovely wife for example and your fine family.

I only wish I could help.

Keep the faith - ! After reading the material you sent me I'm inclined to join up! I see and know how Bob + you have been sustained in this difficult time. All will come out OK because we are right.

We will pass over Nixon's wish; of course he couldn't help, he'd have to confess his culpability in the Watergate cover-up. I do not know what material Ehrlichman sent the President or what group Nixon was then inclined to join but, given the circumstances, his enlistment in the French Foreign Legion would have satisfied all concerned except, perhaps, for the French general staff who prefer that enlistees without a soupçon of élan working K.P. duty in the middle of the desert not be ex-U.S. Presidents. Tellement embarrassant! A stain on esprit de corps and all that.

The firing of Ehrlichman, Haldeman and Dean was intended by Nixon to staunch the political bleeding of the Watergate scandal, and to sell the idea that culpability stopped with those three aides. Neither Congress nor the public believed it, and throughout the summer of 1973 a Senate investigative committee under Senator Sam Ervin revealed an ongoing pattern of corruption and law breaking within the administration, dating from its earliest years, i.e.  the so-called “Plumbers” group under Ehrlichman, designed to plug press leaks; the compilation of an “enemy’s list” to harass political opponents with IRS audits and other such “dirty tricks.” The break-in at the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972 proved to be only one example in a pattern of lawlessness. The House Judiciary Committee, using the Oval office tapes that were disclosed by the Ervin committee, voted articles of impeachment against Nixon. With conviction in the Senate and removal from office a near certainty, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974 - the only U.S. President ever to do so.

In January 1975 a jury convicted Ehrlichman of perjury, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. He served eighteen months in Federal prison in Arizona.

Near the end of his sentence, on April 12, 1978, Ehrlichman wrote a letter (included here with Nixon's hand-written note) to William Frates, his lawyer in his criminal trial. Ehrlichman was trying to find evidence of Nixon’s involvement in the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist,  Lewis J. Fielding:

Doubtless you noted the passage in Haldeman’s book...that...Nixon said he ‘might have’ personally authorized the Fielding break-in...Yesterday I was able able to establish beyond doubt that he (Nixon) said that not only to Haldeman but to others...” 

Ehrlichman remained bitter towards Nixon for not granting him a pardon before (he also petitioned Ronald Reagan for a pardon). But he came to understand the profound mistake he made by blindly following Nixon’s orders to implement break-ins and other “dirty tricks.” At around the same time Erlichman wrote this letter to Frates, he admitted to the judge in his trial that “I abdicated my moral judgments and turned them over to somebody else. And if I had any advice for my kids, it would be never - to never, ever defer your moral judgments to anybody."

Nixon did not have that advice in mind when he wrote to Ehrlichman, "When our children look back on these times, they will know, just as I do now, that your contribution to building a better America has been enormous" but Ehrlichman's advice to his kids - and by extension to all of us - is his true lasting and enormous contribution to building a better America - or anyplace else, for that matter.

I am reminded of the late Senator Bob Dole's delightfully sardonic remark characterizing a meeting among ex-Presidents Carter, Ford, and Nixon:"See no evil, hear no evil - and evil!"

Only one other Nixon autograph letter as president has appeared at auction, a polite thank-you note to Gen. and Mrs. Aldrich dated December 14, 1971 which sold at Christie’s-New York Dec 19, 2002 for $24,000.

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Letter images courtesy of Christie's, with our thanks.
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A Biblio-Pig To Serve Your Book Needs

by Stephen J. Gertz

Fetch me Moore's Porcine Husbandry, Biblio-Pig.
That's a good boy. Bring it here.

I like pigs.
Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals  

(Winston Churchill)

Lew Jaffe, The Man With the Bookplate Jones, is holding a contest on his blogsite, Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, to seek from collectors the most interesting bookplate featuring an animal. The example above is entry No. 8, starring a pig who we shall call Murgatroyd as personal book servant/librarian. Currently in progress, the competition will run through midnight, EST, New Years Eve 2013. Entries must be from your own collection with only one entry per person.

All animals, real or cryptids, are eligible, including unicorns; Nessie; Sasquatch; the Brosno Dragon; Malambo, the face-eating brain-sucker; the Abominable Snowman; Manananggai, the scourge of the Philippines who preys upon pregnant women and sucks the blood from their fetuses; the Minhocão; the Mongolian death worm; the elusive Chupacabra; Bandersnatches; the Cheshire Cat; Marsh-wiggles; Mel, the kosher Jubjub bird absent from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky because it was published on Yom Kippur and Jewish Jubjubs take that very seriously; Hobbits; and the Sunda Colugo, which is a real animal, the nocturnal Flying Lemur of Malaysia that does not fly and is not a lemur but spreads its patagium to glide from tree to tree and is not to be confused with Cynocephalus volans, the Philippine Flying Lemur, which also doesn't fly and isn't a lemur but whose flesh is considered a delicacy among Filipino gourmands who eschew Manananggais for obvious reasons.

The Grand Prize winner will receive a copy of They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads From the London Review of Books by David Rose, which documents the unusual mating calls of  book-obsessed animals seeking a Malambo for companionship, cuddles, and pas horizontales de deux with mutual face-eating.
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Image courtesy of Lew Jaffe, the Bookplate Junkie, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Authentic G. Washington Bookplate Comes To Auction. 

Virginia Library Serves Up Bookplate Special.

Bookplate Special On Menu At Bonham's
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"All Women's Colleges Should Be Burned"

by Stephen J. Gertz

Alonzo B. See, elevator manufacturer and outspoken foe of higher education for women, who retired in 1930 as president of the A. B. See Elevator Company, which he founded in 1883, died last night at his home, 373 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, at the age of 94. Unknown to the general public, except that his name had been read by many elevator passengers, Mr. See became 'suddenly famous' to use the phrase of a New York Times editorial, when in 1922, in reply to a request from Adelphi College for funds, he replied that 'all women's colleges should be burned'" (New York Times, December 17, 1941).

That statement sparked a national controversy, causing many readers of The New York Times to “hit the ceiling faster than they ever ascended in one of the See elevators,” as the Times afterward quipped.

A collection of letters by Alonzo B. See, in his time America's most notorious misogynist-provocateur,  has come to market.

His original 1922 letter (leaked to the NY Times, and his copy included in the collection) to Adelphi College, a women's school in Brooklyn, NY, reads in part:

"If I had my way I would burn all the women's colleges in the country...of all the fool things in the world I think the college for women is the worst. When they graduate from the colleges they cannot write a decent hand. They know nothing about the English language. They cannot spell. They are utterly ignorant of the things they should know, and they have their brains twisted by studying psychology, logic and philosophy and a lot of other stuff not only useless but positively harmful - a lot of stuff which could have been concocted only in the diseased brains of college professors...nothing would be better for the girls that are now in colleges than to be taken out of the colleges and put to hard manual labor for at least a year, so that there might be put into their heads some little trace of sense..."

In the Foreword to Schools (NY: Privately Printed, 1928), See's out-of-this-world thesis on education in general and female education in particular, he declares: "We have a nation to save. To save the nation the children must be rescued from their mothers and from pedagogues, the women must be rescued from themselves, and men must rule their homes again."

Misogyny was as easy as A.B. See. 
Photo credit: Green-Wood.com

Moreover, "there should be an end to all this talk about the goodness of women. It does no good, and it is not true. Men are better than women. Men are more truthful than women. Men are not deceitful like women. Men are more honest than women. Men are not quarrelsome like women."

Furthermore, "fathers should watch over their girls, make them obey absolutely and make the girls wait on them in every particular - that is, bring them their slippers, get their hats and coats and wait on them in every other way."

This was red meat and carnivores of both sexes of all ages ate it up and spit it out in letters to the editor appearing in newspapers throughout the country.

At least one woman challenged him to a debate but he gave her the bum's rush, asserting that "I never discuss anything logical with women. They can talk straight for about five minutes and then they go off the handle. They haven't got the reasoning power a man has, and I wouldn't think of debating with any woman on any subject."

He was himself a compulsive writer of letters to the editor or anybody who'd listen. As an example, on November, 1926, according to the Times' obit, he was on the attack: "The schools injure the eyes, the nerves and the whole physical natures of the children, causing some to succumb to diseases they could have withstood if their health had not been undermined in the schools."

In a December 1922 letter to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, See wrote, "women average about five ounces less less brain matter than the men, and the part they lack is the reasoning capacity."

In a 1925 letter to an admirer he stated, "A feminist is a woman with a feeble mind, whose brain cracked when she tried reason."

A dire influence upon The Little Rascals.

[Note to female readers: please holster your side-arms].

Newspaper readers who had come to enjoy See's over-the-top pronouncements even as they denounced them must have felt chagrined when they read in April, 1936 that See had "changed his mind about women."

What happened?

It seems that he held a dinner in his home to entertain fifteen women who had achieved prominence outside the house, husband, and children. To a goading Times reporter who cued him on the animosity he had aroused among women in the past, See replied:

"Well, that is all changed now. Up to tonight I still had that same opinion. But I changed it tonight."

For all the hoopla that accompanied his earlier declarations, this one was ignored by the media. As the Times wryly noted, "the attention given to this astonishing about-face was microscopic."

See's copies of the letters cited above are included in the collection along with many more. Some have been published or are publicly known; the majority have yet to be examined by scholars. This archive - over 100 letters -  is being offered for $4,500. It's a small price to pay for the fevered correspondence of a proto-cable TV bloviator whose targets also included trade unions, public education in general, immoral and degenerate Jazz age culture, the New York Chamber of Commerce, you name it. The hits just keep on comin'.

Photo credit: Chester Burger.

Alonzo B. See rests in Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where the Virgin Mary keeps an eye on him with leg poised to kick him upside the head should he open his mouth in the great beyond and disrespect the women in charge.

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Unless noted otherwise, images courtesy of Lorne Bair Rare Books, currently offering this collection, with our thanks.

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Raymond Chandler Hated This TV Private Eye

by Stephen J. Gertz

“Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to react. You don't have to remember. You don't miss your brain because you don't need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet. You are in the man's nirvana. And if some poor nasty minded person comes along and says you look like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn't got the price of a television set” (Raymond Chandler).

A one-page, signed typed letter from Raymond Chandler on his personal letterhead to his Hollywood literary agent, H.N. Swanson, is coming to auction at Bonham's Fine Books and Manuscripts sale December 11, 2013. Dated August 8, 1952, and sent from Chandler's home in La Jolla, CA, within he scorns TV private eyes and a particular detective show. It is estimated to sell for $1,500-$2,500.

Here, Chandler, his prose always a fine rustic wine with acidic finish, allows the vino to turn into pure vinegar as he discusses a TV private-eye series that he considers the worst show ever, dips its lead actor into carbolic acid without the sweet smell, excoriates the crass commercialization of the show's sponsor, and denigrates the sponsor's product, apparently the worst of its kind to have ever been foisted upon the public.

TV is so bad he wants a job writing for it.

The letter's a doozy and grand fun. It reads in full:

August 8, 1952

Mr. H.N. Swanson
8525 Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood 46, Calif.

Dear Swanie:

Thanks for your wire and good wishes, etc. What's with the TV situation nowadays? Don't' we ever get any offers? There isn't a decent private eye show on the air. I read in the paper where Lee Tracy had made Martin Kane over into something fresh and beautiful, so I tuned it in last night, if that's the correct expression for TV, and if television has done anything worse, I am so happy to have missed it. Between the commercials I tried to study Mr. Tracy's approach to his art but was handicapped by having to look at his face, which on television seems to consist of some doughy substance or perhaps a soft white wax. His talent as an actor is considerable in the right time and place and would have dwarfed the rest of the cast, esthetically speaking, had they not already been dwarfs. He lights a pipe full of Dill's Best with enough enthusiasm to make you think the stuff is tobacco which, if my recollection serves me, it is not. One of these days they ought to try playing the whole program at the tobacconist's counter. I wouldn't be a damned bit surprised if they did, since the obvious destiny of this sort of cheap program is to be one long continuous commercial.

Yours ever,

Ray

 

Martin Kane, Private Eye was television's first detective series. Its roots in radio, it ran from 1949 through 1954.

"Private detective Martin Kane worked in New York solving crimes. Depending on the year, Kane was either smooth and suave or hard bitten and the cooperation he received from the police depended on the year. The only constant was Happy McMann's tobacco shop where Kane hung out" (IMDb).

This was the era in TV when sponsors owned the programs and called the shots. Product placement was the norm and overt promotion of the product within the program was standard. What a coincidence that Happy McMann always has plenty of smoking products from United States Tobacco Co. in stock and that Martin Kane asks for its Dill's Best pipe tobacco by name while he and Happy shoot the breeze and exposition between plot points. Might as well call the show Happy Hour with Dill's, Martin Kane and the story thrown in to fill time between pipe-fulls.

Hollywood Golden age actor Lee Tracy, who, along with William Gargan, Mark Stevens, and Lloyd Nolan, portrayed Martin Kane on radio and TV, took over the role on television in 1952. If his face looked like a  "doughy substance or perhaps a soft white wax," it was likely due to early television's poor lighting highlighting a visage aged in booze; Tracy was an "unapologetic bad boy, notorious for drinking, missing work, and being flippant to interviewers" (Bright Lights).

Early in his film career he perfected the manic man-on-the-make with moxie character that Hollywood and audiences loved during the 1930s. "Tracy was the definitive brash, wily, fast-talking, stop-at-nothing operator. He skated around in perpetual overdrive, jabbing the air with his fingers, spitting out his lines like a machine-gun, wheedling and needling and swearing you can take out his appendix without ether if he's lying (he's got you there — he had it out already.) He was homely and scrawny with a strident nasal voice, but you can't help rooting for his brazen, devious hucksters and reveling in his shameless moxie. He's a jolt of pure caffeine; watching him in action is like gulping a couple of double espressos. Audiences in the early thirties loved his snappy style and irrepressible irreverence; they loved him because he was nobody's fool" (Ibid.).

Dill's Best shag was, apparently, at best strictly from rugs and Raymond Chandler wanted to ream Martin Kane, Private Eye with one of Dill's Best Pipe Cleaners to clear out the gunk. But at this point in Chandler's career his career had gone into hiding. The year before writing this letter, his final screenplay, for Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, was produced.  He and Hitch fell-out during the production and Hollywood never called again. Chandler wasn't getting any offers, was in the midst of writing The Long Goodbye (1953), and, strapped, needed green shag in his pipe to keep pests away from his door.

It's interesting to contemplate Chandler writing a detective series for TV. Never an ace with plotting - his novels are almost incoherent in that department - he wished to write for a medium that, at least in its early years, was plot-driven. And then the sponsors: he would, without a doubt, have been subject to their whims and interference. I think it safe to say that if Chandler had ever actually written for television it would have been a personal and professional disaster.

MARLOWE, Episode 3, The Case of the Bottle Blonde

INTERIOR: Happy McMann's Beauty Supplies

 MARLOWE

Happy, from thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away. She was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket. I'm running out of quotes from my novels here, can you help me out, Hap?

HAPPY

You sure it was a real blonde, Phil?

MARLOWE

Only her hairdresser knows for sure. 

I'm going over there and put her on the grill.

CUT TO:

ESTABLISHING SHOT: EXTERIOR: Irma's Salon de Beauté on Hollywood Boulevard.

MARLOWE (Voice-Over)

It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in...

CUT TO:

INTERIOR: Irma's Salon de Beauté. 

Irma is sitting on a grill.

MARLOWE (voice-over)

...I had her in the hot seat. 

I'd brought a bottle along for spiritual purposes 

and poured her a drink.

IRMA

Scotch?

MARLOWE

Only my bartender knows for sure.

IRMA
(after downing a long gulp)

It's like butterscotch. Goes down nice n' easy.

MARLOWE

It should.
 It's Clairol Nice N' Easy Natural Butterscotch Blonde, 

permanent with 100% gray coverage. 

Tones and highlights in one easy step.

IRMA

You got me, gumshoe.
 I thought I could cover it up.

MARLOWE

Not in this town.
The streets are dark with something more then night.
But not that dark.

Now, spill. And don't leave any highlights out.

IRMA 

(Panicked, shaking her hair)

I can't. They're permanent!

MARLOWE
(Grabbing her by the shoulders)

Take it easy!

CUT TO: C/U on Marlowe

MARLOWE

 Nice N' Easy. From Clairol.

And now, an episode (alas, not the one with dwarfs) from the show Chandler scorned, Martin Kane, Private Eye starring Lee Tracy. Kane doesn't show-up until 5:42 into the program. He is lighting his pipe, full, of course, with Dill's, the better to solve this pickle.

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Letter image courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.
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Spectacular Th. Jefferson Letter On Lewis & Clark Est. $500,000-$700,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

A historically rich and highly significant signed autograph letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. William Eustis of Massachusetts, a political ally, is being offered by Sotheby's in its Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana sale, December 5, 2013. It is estimated to sell for $500,000-$700,000.

On two pages dated June 25, 1805, Jefferson, three months into his second term as President, refers to politics and the decline of the Federalists, news from Merriweather Lewis, information on the Indians encountered by the Corps of Discovery, receipt of a barge with Indian tribal deputies sent back by Lewis, the new Michigan Territories, trade with the Indians as a means to peace, negotiations with Spain, the French and British navies in American waters; it just goes on. It is a supremely succulent historical document, bountiful Americana, and, further, one of only two letters by Jefferson discussing the Lewis and Clark expedition to come to auction in over sixty years.

The letter was part of the collection of Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States. Jefferson composed it on a bifolium of wove paper watermarked "J. Larking."

The letter reads in full:

Washington June 25 05

Dear Sir

Your two favors of the 2d & 10th inst. have been duly received with respect to Mr. […], as he was to obtain the testimonies of his character in the Eastern states, & was himself in the same place with Genl Hull in whose gift the office of Marshall for Michigan was, I left him to satisfy General Hull himself on that point, I thought it best to add no bias by expressing any wish of mine to the General. I therefore did not write to him on the subject. - I believe, with you, that the Boston maneuver has secured the death of federalism at the end of the present year. The steady progression of public opinion, aided by the number of candid persons who had voted with them this year, but will be displeased with this measure, cannot fail to join Massachusetts to her sister states at the first election. The arrangement you suggested in your letter of the 10th could not be adopted, because a prior one had been initiated. The person appointed is very distant & will not be here till Autumn. Within a month from this time our annual […] will take place, for the months of Aug & Sep. I have the pleasure to inform you that one of Capt. Lewis's barges returned to St. Louis brings us certain information from him. He wintered with the Mandanes, 1609 miles up the Missouri, Lat. 47 Long. 107 with some additional minutes to both numbers, all well and peculiarly cherished by all the Indian nations. He has sent in his barge 45 deputies from 6 of the principal nations in that quarter who will be joined at St. Louis by those of 3 or 4 nations between the Missouri & Mississippi and will come on here. Whether before our departure or after our return we do not yet know. We shall endeavor to get them to go on as far North as Boston, being desirous of […] them correctly as to our strength and resources. This with kind usage and a commerce advantageous to them, & not losing to us, will better know their & our peace & friendship than an army of thousands.

I receive with due sentiments of thankfulness the invitations of my Eastern friends to visit that portion of our country. The expected visit from the deputations of so many distant nations of the Indians, provisional arrangements with Spain in lieu of the permanent ones proposed, in which we are not likely to concur, the presence of English & French fleets in the American seas, which will probably visit & purplex our harbors during the hurricane season will not permit me to be so far from the seat of government this summer. Add to this that should I ever be able to make the visit I would probably be more generally agreeable when there shall be less division of public sentiment than at present among you.

Accept my friendly salutations, & assurances of great esteem & respect.
 
Th. Jefferson.

•  •  •

Jefferson's mention of General William Hull refers to his recent (March 22, 1805) appointment of the soldier-politician as Governor of the newly created Michigan Territory as well as its Indian Agent.

At the time Jefferson wrote to Eustis the Federalists (who lost the presidential election of 1804) were in decline, having little support outside of New England. They would not regain strength until 1812.

Dr. William Eustis.

William Eustis (1753-1825) was an early American physician, politician, and statesman from Massachusetts. A practicing doctor, he served as a military surgeon during the American Revolutionary War (notably at the Battle of Bunker Hill), and resumed his medical career after the war. He soon, however, entered politics, and after several terms in the Massachusetts legislature, Eustis served in the United States House of Representatives March 1801 - March 1805  as a moderate Democratic-Republican, the party of Jefferson.  He later served as Secretary of War 1809-1813 under President James Madison. In 1823 he became the 12th Governor of Massachusetts.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.

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England's Greatest Type Designer Is Not Who You Think It Is

By Stephen J. Gertz

William Caslon, John Baskerville, Eric Gill, and Matthew Carter: these are the names we associate with great British type design. To the top of that list add Richard Austin. Modern typeface design begins with him.

Who was Richard Austin and why are his typefaces so important? And who, by the way, was Richard Austin, wood-cut engraver?

Rich. Austin
Engraver of Dies, Stamps & CopperPlates

Cuts all Sorts of Musick, Engravers Tools, Steel Letters,
& Figures for Letter Founders, Mathematical Instument
Makers, Steel Engravers, & all Arts -
N.B. Copper Plates neatly Printed on the
Shortest Notice.

Richard Austin (1756-1833), type-cutter, created the types for Bell & Stephenson's British Letter Foundry in 1788, as well as types for other foundries. In 1812, Austin produced the types known as Scotch Roman. He also perfected the revolutionary Porson Greek typeface of Cambridge University Press. He established the Imperial Letter Foundry in 1815. Richard Austin, "who changed the whole character of Type Founding from the old face style (as it is now termed), with its disproportionate letters and long s's, into the truly elegant characters of the present day" (James Mosley) was the father of modern English typefaces. To his everlasting credit, he killed the traditional f-like long "s" that bedevils modern readers of eighteenth century and earlier texts in english.

His son, Richard Turner Austin (1781-1842), was a prolific wood-cut engraver. It was once thought that Richard Austin, typeface designer, and Richard Austin, wood-cut engraver, were one and the same person. Alastair M. Johnston, in his new book, Transitional Faces, sets the record straight.

This is the first full-length study of the Austins and their place within British printing and publishing history. Based upon previously unpublished material, Johnston, the printer and publisher (of Poltroon Press in Berkeley, California), has written a rich, vibrant, and engaging account of the Austins, their times and the milieu within they lived and worked.

This exhaustive investigation, which includes 158 pages of text plus an illustrated survey of Richard Turner Austin's engravings (with 130 examples) and appendices totaling an additional 205 pages, might, as is so often the case with scholastic work on a somewhat obscure subject, be an arid affair, desiccating the frontal lobes of readers. Fortunately, Mr. Johnston (a contributor to Booktryst) is incapable of producing such a work. His analysis of type design and its particulars, which might otherwise cause eyes to glaze, is, in Johnston's narrative, enlivened by his liberal wash of colorful detail and vivid characterization of people and places. 

The book's title, Transitional Faces, refers to British printing during the Georgian era when type-designer Austin flourished. The British government, protective of industry, had prevented foreign craftsmen from working in the trade but their skill could not be ignored. The French were doing marvelous things and their influence upon type-design in Britain was enormous. Richard Austin's incorporation of French type aesthetics into British design, "began an era in English type founding (referred to as 'transitional' by Updike, II, 116, 142), a glorious but short-lived time of harmonious types that had the larger-on-the-body proportions of the Romain du roi with the modeling of Baskerville but with more color and fine serifs…'it represents in fact our first independent design,' said [Stanley] Morison, 'owing only its scale to continental models…the type possesses a harmony in serif formation as between roman and italic not possessed by the French type.'"

It's impossible to discuss the career of Richard Turner Austin, the wood-engraving son of Richard Austin, without surveying the work of the great Thomas Bewick and the world of eighteenth century wood-cut book illustrations. Johnston has, thankfully, devoted an introductory chapter to printed eighteenth century art to prime us on Austin Jr.

Because of Thomas Bewick's influence on wood-cut illustration, Richard Turner Austin is often presumed to have been a pupil or apprentice of his; Austin hewed closely to Bewick's style in his natural imagery. Indeed, many of Austin's unsigned blocks have been attributed to Bewick. and, too, much of Austin's early work copied stock blocks or the work of Bewick. For this reason, early historians neglected him.

But Austin Jr. made connections and was soon executing engravings after paintings by William Marshall Craig (c. 1765-1828). In 1819 he moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he worked consistently for the next ten years, his blocks, alas, unsigned. We know he did the work simply because, as Johnston points out, there were no alternative engravers who might have produced the scores of woodblocks that suddenly appeared in the "Athens of the North."

Yet by 1839, Richard Turner Austin's reputation and work were in critical decline. His wood-cuts, rarely signed, slowly fell from notice and he became a footnote in wood engraving history.

It's a direct line from Richard Austin Sr. to W.A. Dwiggins, the great twentieth century typeface designer. In 1939, Dwiggins modeled his Caledonia for linotype after Austin's Scotch Roman. Austin's Bell and Scotch Roman faces were major influences upon Matthew Carter's digital typefaces.

"Thus," as Johnston concludes, "the essence of Austin, diluted somewhat by modern technology, is still a part of our typographical experience."

With Transitional Faces Alastair Johnston has resurrected the lives of the father and son, and reevaluated their careers. The Austins now take their rightful place in the history of British printing and engraving.

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JOHNSTON, Alastair M. Transitional Faces. The Lives & Work of Richard Austin, Type-Cutter, & Richard Turner Austin, Wood-Engraver. Berkeley: Poltroon Press, 2013. First edition. Octavo. x, [2],, 387, [1] pp. Illustrated throughout. Burgundy cloth, gilt lettered. Illustrated endpapers. Dust jacket.

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Robert E. Lee, Gentleman & George McClellan, Jerk

by Stephen J. Gertz

Two signed autograph letters by the American Civil War's commanding generals, Robert E. Lee of the Confederate Army and George B. McClellan, commander of the Union Army at the war's onset, are coming to auction at Swann Galleries Autograph sale, November 26, 2013.

The Lee letter, dated March 13, 1855
, is estimated to sell for $25,000-$35,000. The McClellan letter, composed May 14, 1854, is estimated for $100-$200. Both were written to Captain George W. Callum (1809-1892), a supervisor in the Corps of Engineers and instructor of engineering at West Point.

Each is indicative of their personalities. Lee is humble and gracious; McClellan is stilted, egotistical, and condescending, deigning to accept an offer.

Lee, a colonel at the time and Superintendent of West Point, expresses regret at his departure from the Corps of Engineers to accept an appointment as Lt. Colonel of the 2nd Cavalry, stating his preference for Engineer duty to that of Cavalry during peacetime, and remarking on West Point business including his assurance to Callum that he will continue his work on the Register of [the Officers and] Graduates.

...I assure you my separation from the Corps of Engrs is attended with bitter regret…


While acknowledging the compliment bestowed on me by the Pres: as unexpected as undeserved, I confess my preference in time of peace for Engr duty over that of Cavalry; But so long as I continue an Officer of the Army, I can neither decline promotion or service...


...The item introduced into my estimate for the Register of Graduates has been granted. I shall give to my successor your Mem: & inform him of our understanding as to your undertaking its preparation…


"Mr. Newlands has not yet been able to finish the record of changes in the Register he loaned us. I will endeavor to have it completed and returned to you before I leave...

I am as yours,

REL

McClellan, then a lieutenant and writing from Philadelphia, was bored to tears with peacetime service. He commanded an engineering company while serving at West Point. In 1853, at the behest of Jefferson Davis, then U.S. Secretary of War, he was assigned to survey an appropriate route for the nascent transcontinental railway. He flubbed the job, overlooking three hugely superior routes. He was insubordinate to political figures: when the governor of the Washington Territories ordered McClellan to turn over his expedition logbooks so he could determine just what the hell had happened, the short in stature, long on ego lieutenant refused. It is believed that he did so because of embarrassing comments he recorded throughout the log.  He had a big mouth.


After mature deliberation upon the testimony adduced I have come to the conclusion that if you still want my very valuable assistance at the Assay office I am perfectly willing to accede to your offer. It is desirable for me, for many reasons, to be in the East for a while. I would be glad if you would move in the matter as soon as possible, for should this project fail I will apply for a leave of absence for six months [...] before I am bagged for any out of the way service...

Sincerely your friend,

Geo B. McClellan

Translation: "After condescending to think about it I've decided that if you still require the wonderfulness of myself and all that my majesty can contribute, I will deign to accept your request."

McClellan's desire to to stay in the East (Philadelphia) for a while refers to his courtship of Mary Ellen Marcy, his future wife. The reference to applying for a six-month leave "before I am bagged for any out of the way service" was prescient. In June 1854, a month after this letter was written,  he was bagged for out of the way service by Jefferson Davis, who ordered him to embark on a secret reconnaissance mission in Santo Domingo in Haiti. Jefferson Davis saw something in McClellan that others failed to observe, and in 1855 McClellan was promoted to Captain.

The estimates for the letters reflect the value and esteem that collectors (and history) have placed upon these two major figures. Robert E. Lee is considered to be one of the greatest generals of all time. His brilliant, often audacious maneuvers and battlefield instincts led to victory after victory - as long as George B. McClellan commanded the Union forces.

McClellan knew how to build an army but was reluctant to use it. Insecure behind a facade of confidence, he was loathe to admit mistakes and accept responsibility; he offered President Lincoln nothing by excuses for his inaction and timidity, and he never hid his disdain for his Commander-in-Chief. Until Lincoln relieved him of duty, the position of the Union army was dire.

How badly has McClellan fared in the marketplace? The letter offered above is one of two being offered in the same lot estimated at $100-$200. Only his Civil War correspondence fetches decent prices but compared to Lee, Grant, Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and other War Between the States luminaries, prices for McClellan letters are lame. According to ABPC, $8,500 is the top price paid for a McClellan ALS within the last thirty-seven years (To Gen. Ambrose Burnside on May 21, 1862, expressing pride in his past victories & preparing for battle at Richmond). In 2004, a McClellan autograph letter signed fetched $3,200. Two years later, in 2006, the same letter sold at auction for 3,000.

In 2011, a signed copy of Robert E. Lee's farewell letter to his troops ("General Order #9), dated April 10, 1865, sold at Christie's for $80,000. "After 4 years of ardous service...I bid you all an affectionate farewell. [Sgd] R.E. Lee Genl.

McClellan never seemed to accept responsibility for his failures; he blamed others. Lee, in contrast, wore his shortcomings - such as they were - heavily. When Robert E. Lee was appointed Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia he accepted with solemnity. When George B. McCellan was promoted to Commander of the Army of the Potomac he reveled in his newly acquired power and fame.

One was a gentleman, the other a jerk.

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Images courtesy of Swann Galleries, with our thanks.
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