September 2012 Archives

Bohemia

China

Alsace

Spain

Russia

Thanks to Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986, we recently acquired a charming example entitled National Types and Costumes. There is no information inside the volume to confirm this but it was published around the same time Bruckmann won a Silver Medal at an international competition and there is reason to believe the photographs are by Bruckmann himself.

Die Kunst für Alle. (München: F. Bruckmann, 1885-1944). Marquand Library (SA) Oversize N3 .K9q

Gustav Friedrich Waagen (1794-1868), Die Gemäldesammlungen in der Kaiserlichen Ermitage zu St. Petersburg (München: F. Bruckmann, 1864). Marquand Library (SAX) ND40.L52 W32

Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1804-1874), Goethe’s frauengestalten (München: F. Bruckmann, [1864?]) Rare Books Off-Site Storage Oversize 3445.753.11f

Fortunato Indovino, Il vero mezzo per vincere all’estrazione de’ lotti, o sia una nuova lista generale contenente quesi tutte le voci delle cose popolaresche appartenenti alle visioni e sogni, col loro numero. Esposte per ordine Alfabetico [The Surest Means to Win the Lottery Drawing, or a New General List Containing Entries for All the Everyday Things Found Inside Visions and Dreams, With Their Numbers. In alphabetical order] (Venice: Sylvester Gnoato, 1809). Frontispiece and 19 plates of woodcuts, with an additional full-page woodcut dated 7 February 1754.

Lottery dream books or guidebooks were popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth century but few have survived. An astrologer using the pseudonym Fortunato Indovino, or Lucky Guesser, wrote one in 1754 that was reissued many times over more than eighty years. This Venetian edition is small and light, easy to carry with you throughout the day.

“For example, you may decide (from a dream…) that the appropriate symbol for you this week is a dog. The number for a dog, in the Roman lottery, is 17. You multiply 17 by 16, its nearest inferior, and arrive at 272. Half of 272 is 136. So the number you want for the ambo is 136.”

“Dream books were in great demand for deciding the numerical meaning of dreams (a drowned man translated to 88). Events in everyday life had numbers. If a child in your family were ill with a fever, you would bet 18-28-48; if you had an unhappy or one-sided love affair, your number was 90.” — Susan Vandiver Nicassio, Imperial City: Rome, Romans, and Napoleon (Welwyn Garden City: Ravenhall, 2005). Firestone Library (F) DG812.7 .N53 2005

“There is a rich literary heritage for this kind of writing and this very much forms the basis for what we’re setting out to do. The way we think about visual writing is this: writing that uses visual elements as an integral part of the writing itself. Visual elements can come in all shapes and guises: they could be crossed out words, or photographs, or die-cuts, or blank pages, or better yet something we haven’t seen. The main thing is that the visuals aren’t gimmicky, decorative or extraneous, they are key to the story they are telling. And without them, that story would be something altogether different.”

The new edition includes 150 pages: 150 first pages and/or 150 last pages. On November 25, 2011, the Victoria & Albert Museum invited 150 people to be Read Outlouders, each one reading a different page spread throughout the Museum. Here’s a look at the event:

Marc Saporta (1923-2009), Composition No. 1, a Novel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963). Rare Books (Ex) 3290.49.326.7

Marc Saporta (1923-2009), Composition No. 1. Introduction by Tom Uglow, illustrated page entitled “The Anatomy of Your Favourite Novel” by Salvador Plascencia (London: Visual Editions, designed by Universal Everything, 2011). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2012- in process

The Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize is endowed from the estate of Elmer Adler, who for many years encouraged the collecting of books by Princeton undergraduates.

The personal essay is about a collection owned by the student. It should describe the thematic or artifactual nature of the collection and discuss with some specificity the unifying characteristics that have prompted the student to think of certain items as a collection. It should also convey a strong sense of the student’s motivations for collecting and what their particular collection means to them personally. The history of the collection, including collecting goals, acquisition methods, and milestones are of particular interest, as is a critical look at how the goals may have evolved over time and an outlook on the future development of the collection. Essays are judged in equal measures on the strength of the collection and the strength of the writing.

An informational session introducing the contest will be held at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, October 22, 2012 in the Scheide Library, located in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library. The Scheide Library holds outstanding collections of Bibles in manuscript and print, including a Gutenberg and a 36-line Bible; medieval manuscripts and incunabula; music manuscripts of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven; and other rare materials. Scheide Librarian Paul Needham will give a brief tour and talk about the importance of book collecting. Regine Heberlein, RBSC archivist, will be on hand to answer questions about the Adler Prize.

Essays should be submitted via e-mail, in a Microsoft Word attachment, to Regine: heberlei@princeton.edu by Monday, November 5, 2012 and should be between 9-10 pages long, 12pt, double-spaced, with a 1-inch margin. In addition to the ten-page essay, each entry should include a selected bibliography of no more than 3 pages detailing the items in the collection. A separate cover sheet should include your name, class year, residential address, email address, and phone number. Please note that essays submitted in file formats other than Microsoft Word, submitted without cover sheet, or submitted without a bibliography will not be forwarded to the judges.

Winners will receive their prizes at the annual winter dinner of the Friends of the Princeton University Library, which they are expected to attend. The first-prize essay will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Princeton University Library Chronicle. In addition, the first-prize essay has the honor of representing Princeton University in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest organized by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. Please note that per the ABAA’s contest rules, the winning essay will be entered exactly as submitted to the Adler Prize contest, without possibility of revision.

Suggested readings from Paul Needham, Scheide Librarian:
Michael Sadleir, preface to his XIX Century Fiction (1951). Firestone 3579.079
A.N.L. Munby, Essays and Papers (1977). Firestone Z992.M958
John Carter, Taste and Technique in Book Collecting (1970). Firestone 0511.241.2.1970
G. Thomas Tanselle “The Rationale of Collecting,” Studies in Bibliography. Online at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/bsuva/sb

Image: (c) Jane and Louise Wilson, Oddments Room II (Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle), 2008. C-print, Edition of 4. Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

James Boswell wrote, “On Saturday the 14th of August 1773 late in the Evening I received a Note from him that he was arrived at Boyd’s Inn at the head of the Cannon-gate, I went to him directly. He embraced me cordially, and I exulted in the thought that I now had him actually in Caledonia.”

Samuel Johnson wrote, “On the eighteenth of August we left Edinburgh, a city too well known to admit description, and directed our course northward, along the eastern coast of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who could stay with us only long enough to shew us how much we lost at separation.”

For the next 83 days, Johnson and his young companion travelled the western islands of Scotland. Each kept a journal and each published an account of the trip:

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (London: Printed for W. Strahan ; and T. Cadell in the Strand, 1775). Rare Books (Ex) 3804.3.35.14

James Boswell (1740-1795), The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly …, 1785). Rare Books (Ex) 3804.3.59.21.1785

Caricaturist and genre painter Samuel Collings (died 1795) was commissioned by the Marylebone publisher E Jackson to imagine scenes from this trip and come up with humorous illustrations. Princeton holds 22 of these original drawings. Thomas Rowlandson (1756/57-1827), who had collaborated with Collings on several other projects, was enlisted to etch the drawings.

A separate portfolio of 20 prints was released in May of 1786, under the title, Picturesque Beauties of Boswell, designed and etched by two capital artists ([London]: E. Jackson, 1786), Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Kane Room Rowlandson 1786q. Princeton holds the first edition, the reissue (around 1805), and a reprint (around 1860).

Samuel Collings (active 1784-1789, died 1795), The Journey of Dr. Johnson and James Boswell to Scotland, no date [1780s], 22 ink wash drawings. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.01985

Hablot Browne (1815-1882), Original drawing for the title page of The Diadem: a Book for the Boudoir, 1838. Watercolor on paper. Robert H. Taylor Collection (RHT), Rare Books and Special Collections. Gift of Robert H. Taylor, Class of 1930.

Hablot (pronounced Hay Blow) Knight Browne (1815-1882) is best known to Charles Dickens fans as an illustrator called Phiz but the artist should also be remembered for a great deal of work beyond Dickens’s ten novels. Browne created images for books by Charles Lever, Frank Smedley, and Harrison Ainsworth, along with many others.

Browne’s career began as an apprentice in the early 1830s and he was already collaborating with Dickens when he took this commission to make designs for the British gift book series Diadem. He created more than this one drawing but since it is the one we have at Princeton, it is the one I am highlighting here. A very nice article about “gift books,” with a bibliography, was posted by Kevin Mac Donnell at http://hq.abaa.org/books/antiquarian/news_fly?code=121

For more of Browne’s original art work at Princeton University, see also https://blogs.princeton.edu/mt/mt-ftsearch.cgi?search=phiz&IncludeBlogs=302&limit=20

The Diadem, edited by Miss Louisa H. Sheridan (London: Smith, Elder and Co. …, printed by Stewart and Murray, Old Bailey, [1838]). Transferred to Graphic Arts collection GA 2012- in process.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), Le poète assassiné (The Poet Assassinated), Lithographies de Raoul Dufy (Paris: Sans Pareil, 1926). Copy 136 of 380. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2011-0228Q

René Hilsum (1895-1990) launched his first publication in 1912 while still a student at the Collège Chaptal in Paris. The magazine was called Vers l’Idéal: rêver le juste, aimer le beau et dire le vrai (Towards the Ideal: Dream of the Just, Love Beauty and Speak the Truth). Although it didn’t last long, it had the distinction of being the first to publish the poetry of a classmate, André Breton (1896-1966).

During the First World War, both Hilsum and Breton joined the medical auxiliary and when the war was over, Hilsum decided he wanted to continue publishing the work of his friends and acquaintances. He talked his godmother into giving him some money and opened a publishing house and gallery, Sans Pareil (Without Equal) in 1919.

Hilsum published the recently discovered Les mains de Jeanne-Marie by Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) together with illustrations by Jean-Louis Forain (1852-1931) and then, Breton’s Mont de Piété with plates by André Derain (1880-1954). Over the next 17 years, Hilsum published 170 books before he finally closed the doors in 1936.

The first years were the most daring. By the time he published Apollinaire’s novel Le poète assassiné (The Poet Assassinated) with illustrations by Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), most of the Surrealists had left his shop for that of Gaston Gallimard (1881-1975).

See also Pascal Fouché, Au Sans Pareils (Paris: Bibliothèque de littérature française contemporaine de l’Université Paris 7, 1983). Recap Z305.A7 F68

Emily Brontë (1818-1848), Guwald Tower, Haddington, 8 December 1832. Pencil on paper. Inscription by Ellen Nussey. 164 x 149 mm. Robert H. Taylor Collection (RHT), Rare Books and Special Collections. Gift of Robert H. Taylor, Class of 1930.

Quote from Christine Anne Alexander and Jane Sellars, The Art of the Brontës (Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press, 1995). (SA) N6797.B758 A4 1995

“This drawing is identical (except for very minor stylistic differences) to one by Charlotte Brontë, entitled ‘Guwald Tower Haddington’ and made as an art exercise while she was a pupil at Roe Head in June 1831. Emily’s signature on this second drawing is genuine; yet it is curious that it has been inscribed ‘Miss Brontë’, a nineteenth century formality usually reserved for the eldest daughter of a family, the younger ones signing only with their Christian names. It appears that Ellen Nussey failed to see Emily’s minuscule signature, written in faint pencil and tucked away in an unusual place close to the actual drawing.”

“Ellen would have remembered Charlotte doing the same drawing at School and, at a later date, attributed it to her, also recording the date and place of execution from memory. It is possible the dating is based on a similar drawing by Ellen herself, made as a school exercise from the same original print, at the same time as Charlotte’s copy. Emily probably copied Charlotte’s drawing at home, some time after Charlotte left Roe head in May 1832. Emily herself did not attend the school until 29 July 1835, staying there for less than three months.”

One of the headlines in the April 23, 1900, New York Times reads, “Stubborn Elephant Dead, Killed by Two Others at Madison Square Garden.” The article goes on to recount a Saturday performance by the Sells Brothers’ Circus, which was “bereft of one of its best dancing elephants. The animal, whose name was Dick, was killed while an attempt was being made to move him with two large ropes pulled by two other elephants. Ever since the show came here Dick has been misbehaving although his conduct had before that been most exemplary. Every now and then he became restive, refusing to perform his part in the elephant quadrille, and making the utmost precautions necessary to prevent him from harming the keepers.”

The article ends, “From tip to tip he measured 12 feet 6 inches, his weight being two and a half tons. The measurement of his body crosswise was 3 feet 9 inches. After the body was cut up yesterday morning by Taxidermist H.H. Vogelsgan, it was found that there were 110 square feet of leather in his hide, 10 of his truck, and 5 in his ears. Sixteen men worked half the day on the carcass. Negotiations for the purchase of Dick’s frame for mounting are being carried on by the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.”

Sells Brothers Millionaire Confederation of Stupendous Railroad Shows (Buffalo, N.Y.: Courier Company Show Printing House, 1880). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2012- in process

Wilson’s Sinai Peninsula survey was charged, in particular, with the identification of Mount Sinai and the route taken by Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt. McDonald made hundreds of glass-plate negatives, which he carried back to England for printing. It is unfortunate that Princeton’s copies of these two surveys are incomplete, holding only a few of McDonald’s spectacular original photographs.

Utagawa Toyokuni III (Utagawa Kunisada 1786-1865), Koi No Yatsu Fuji (Edo, ca. 1870). Graphic Arts Collection 2012- in process

“Koi no Yatsu Fuji, published at the New Year in 1837, is a shunga version of Satomi Hakken-den, the most representative work of Kyokutei Bakin (also known as Kyokutei Shujin), originally published in 1814-42. Both its text and illustrations are clever parodies of the original work. The author’s name is given as Kyokudori Shujin, a perversion of and is the pseudonym of the gesaku writer Hanagasa Bunkyō. The illustrations are by Bukiyo Matahei, otherwise known as Kunisada. The title is a version of the ‘eight tufts of hair-amulets (yatsu-busa)’ of the dogs in the original work, which appear as such in the main text; but for some reason the term is Yatsu Fuji in the title. The inside title reads Nansō Satomi Hakken-den.” -Yoshikazu Hayashi, Kunisada’s Koi no Yatsu Fuji Shunga Book (1996)

Utagawa Kunisada (later Utagawa Toyokuni III, 1786-1864) was the Andy Warhol of his day. He was the most popular, most copied, and most financially successful artist of that period. As a young man, he apprenticed with Toyokuni, later having the honor of taking that master printer’s name. Experts estimate Kunisada’s total work to be over 20,000 prints.

Many of the Shunga (erotic) prints and books in this country are in the backrooms of art museums and library, carefully housed and controlled by shy librarians. This is only the second such volume to enter Princeton University Library but an important example of a significant genre. The date of this edition is only a guess, there is no date inside the volume.

Henry Blyth, Hell and Hazard or William Crockford Versus the Gentlemen of England (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969). Firestone Library (F) HV6722.G8 L6

Arthur Lee Humphreys (1865-1946), Crockford’s; or, The Goddess of Chance in St. James’s Street, 1828-1844 (London: Hutchinson [1953]). RECAP 14653.486

Henry Turner Waddy, The Devonshire Club—and “Crockford’s,” (London: E. Nash, 1919). Firestone Library (F) DA560 .W15 1919

[above] Grete Stern (1904-1999), Juan Ramón Jiménez, 1949. Gelatin silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GA2012- in process. Purchased with fund provided by the Program in Latin American Studies.
[below] Grete Stern (1904-1999), Pedro Henríquez Ureña, 1942. Gelatin silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GA2012- in process. Purchased with funds provided by the Program in Latin American Studies

In the 1930s, the German photographer Grete Stern (1904-1999) married the Argentine photographer Horacio Coppola (1906-2012) and settled in Buenos Aires. They brought with them the ideology of the Bauhaus workshop in Dessau where they met and were important agents in the spread of European modernist theory to South America.

Already a prize-winning artist and manager of an acclaimed Berlin photography studio (together with Ellen Auerbach), Stern opened a second studio in Buenos Aires, offering graphic design, advertising, and commercial portraiture.

“In 1940 the couple moved to a Modernist house built in the outskirts of the city, designed by architect Wladimiro Acosta …The house became a meeting place for young artists and writers … both Argentine and exiled foreigners. They met to show their work and discuss cultural matters. For example, in 1945 the Madi arts group (Movimiento de Arte Concreto Invención) exhibited for the first time at her house. Stern used the gatherings in her home as an opportunity to photograph her visitors. Among her subjects were exponents of the avant-garde in the arts and letters, including Jorge Luis Borges, Clément Moreau, Renate Schottelius and others.” (Jewish Women’s Archive)

Princeton is fortunate to have acquired two of Stern’s portraits. The first is a 1942 image of Pedro Henríquez Ureña (1884-1946) a Dominican intellectual, philosopher, and literary critic, known for his essay “La utopía de América” (1925), among many others. The second, taken in 1949, is a portrait of the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958), who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956.

Below is a short video of Stern and her husband with a clip from Coppola’s film Ringl and Pit, in which Stern plays the part of the maid.

See also: Grete Stern (Valencià: IVAM Centre Julio González: Generalitat Valenciana, 1995). (SAPH): Photography TR680 .S914 1995
Sueños: Fotomontajes de Grete Stern: Serie Completa (Buenos Aires: Fundación CEPPA, Centro de Estudios para Políticas Públicas Aplicadas, [2003]). (F) TR647 .S789 2003

Walter Prichard Eaton (1878-1957), Newark: A Series of Engravings on Wood by Rudolph Ruzicka (Newark: Carteret Book Club; printed by D.B. Updike of the Merrymount Press, 1917). Copy 124 of 200. Graphic Arts Collection
GAX Oversize F144.N6 E15q

From 1908 to 1957, the Carteret Book Club brought together book lovers from New Jersey and New York at monthly meetings in the Newark Public Library. At its height, the club boasted 80 members, including Elmer Adler the first curator of graphic arts at Princeton University.

These men (no women) sought to promote the study of book production, to hold regular exhibitions, and to publish their own fine press, limited editions with original illustrations commissioned especially for each volume. Twenty-three volumes were published and one of the best was their 1917 Newark. The book combines an appreciation of the city by Walter Prichard Eaton, principal drama critic for the Sun and American Magazine, with color wood engravings by Rudolph Ruzicka (1883-1978).

After George Edward Anderson (1860-1928), Apostles and Temples from 1835-1886:
Floral Record of the Apostles, Temples, Etc. etc. of the Church of Jesus Christ,
of Latter-day Saints, 1886. Albumen silver print of a broadside, which had letterpress and photographs mounted behind the board.
Graphic Arts GA 2008.00002

“including the Scofield mine disaster, and the building of temples by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” — At Brigham Young University’s site, they note that the majority of this biographical information is taken from Rell G. Francis, The Utah Photographs of George Edward Anderson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979). (SAPH TR646.U6 F672 1979)

Shown above are photographs of Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, and several members of “the former and current Quorum of the 12 Apostles.” Also pictured: Salt Lake Temple; Kirtland Temple; St. George Temple (Saint George, Utah); Nauvoo Temple; Smith, Joseph, 1805-1844; Smith, Hyrum, 1800-1844; Young, Brigham, 1801-1877; Woodruff, Wilford, 1807-1898; Marsh, Thomas B. (Thomas Baldwin), 1799-1866 Johnson, Luke S., 1807-1861; Smith, William, 1811-1893; Boynton, John Farnham, 1811-1890; Johnson, Lyman E. (Lyman Eugene), 1811-1856; Page, John E.; Wight, Lyman; Lyman, Amasa M. (Amasa Mason), 1813-1877; Taylor, John, 1808-1887; Pratt, Orson, 1811-1881; Rich, Charles C. (Charles Coulson), 1809-1883; Snow, Lorenzo, 1814-1901; Snow, Erastus Fairbanks, 1818-1888; Richards, F. D. (Franklin Dewey), 1821-1899; Smith, Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding), 1838-1918; Carrington, Albert, 1813-1889; Thatcher, Moses, 1842-1909; Kimball, Heber Chase, 1801-1868; Hyde, Orson, 1805-1878; Patten, David W, 1799-1838; McLellin, William E. (William Earl); and Pratt, Parley P. (Parley Parker), 1807-1857.

[above] Samuel Laurence (1817-1884), Anthony Trollope, 1864. Charcoal drawing. Parrish Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections.

[below] Samuel Laurence (1817-1884), Anthony Trollope, 1864. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, London. NPG 1680

From these chalk sketches, Samuel Laurence also created an oil painting, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Smith had a series of prints engraved, to be used as frontispieces for various editions by and about Trollope.

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), The Small House at Allington (London: Smith, Elder, 1864). Rare Books: South East (RB) RHT 19th-641

Unidentified artist, New Principles or the March of Invention, 1820s. Hand colored etching. GC014 Aeronautical Illustrations Collection

The Pleasures of the Rail-Road, Showing the Inconvenience of a Blow-Up, 1831. British Museum

Charles Williams (1797-1830), Travelling by Steam, 1817.
British Museum

Cleaver and Yardley, on the banks of the Surrey canal, at the back of the Albany road; and when at 38 degrees it burst, causing a terrific explosion! The whole north wing of the building was blown down’ five of the workmen received dreadful fractures, and two were killed on the spot.”—- “Bursting of a Steam Boiler,” The Manchester Guardian, September 28, 1822.

Unidentified artist, Something Wrong, ca. 1825. Science Museum Group

If a political party was in trouble in the 19th century, they were said to be “up the Salt River.” This was the case for the Democrats in the presidential election of 1868. Their ticket of Horatio Seymour (1810-1886) and Francis Blair (1821-1875) ran against the Republican Party’s nominees Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) and Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885).

An unsigned political cartoon shows the Democrats on a sinking platform, along with their shipmates Jefferson Davis, Andrew Johnson, Wade Hampton, Henry Wise, and newspaper publisher Marcus Mills “Brick” Pomeroy. Blair says he wishes he “had never come aboard.”

Meanwhile, Grant and Colfax watch calmly from the shore, not far from the White House. An important aspect of the Republican platform that year was their endorsement of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed African Americans to vote. Thanks to a provision that kept many ex-confederates (and Democrats) from voting, Grant won the election by 52.7 % of the popular vote and became the 18th President of the United States.

Search & Destroy (San Francisco, CA: [s.n.], v. 1, no. 1, 1977-v. 2, no. 11, 1979). “New wave cultural research.” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2012- in process

Although the zine only lasted eleven issues, it was quite influential and remains a key source for interviews in late 1970s popular culture including music, art, literature, and film. Writers featured include William Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Patti Smith, Octavio Paz, and Bob Flanagan among others.