The Private Library

From The Private Library's Archives: Really Weird Titles and The Private Library

Folks build private libraries for a variety of reasons, and the books they choose to shelve in those private libraries reflect humanity in all its wonderful and messy diversity.  While some folks choose "serious" literature or books that support a vocation or an avocation, others choose books that reinforce their faith, or their lifestyle, or their sense of the absurd.  Some folks even fill the shelves of their private library with books they have no intention of ever reading--it's not uncommon, for example, for booksellers to be contacted by interior designers seeking a "yard or two of books bound in red leather" to accent the watered-silk walls of an apartment or townhouse.

A favorite way of injecting a little levity into an otherwise serious private library is to shelve, as prominently as possible, a few oddball titles that the book collector is unlikely to ever actually read. Anyone doing a quick scan of your bookshelves--at a party or dinner, let's say--will immediately have whatever assumptions they previously had made about you as a book collector immediately brought to a screeching halt.

Almost every independent bookseller on the planet has a title or two like this languishing in his or her stock, just waiting for the right appreciative book collector to come along: 

 

Such titles can be picked up very inexpensively in any number of places, although if you're seeking to buy such books en masse you really should turn to a specialist independent bookseller.

In our post of 25 September 2009, we pointed out some of the bookish attractions of a great book city, Toronto.  One of Toronto's most beloved independent booksellers is The Monkey's Paw, known far and wide for its incredible selection of really weird titles:

  

You can run but you cannot hide...virtually everywhere you turn in The Monkey's Paw you are likely to be assaulted by the wild, the wacky, the unintentionally ironic:

 

If you can't visit The Monkey's Paw in person, their virtual window display gives you entrée to some of the store's more notable selections.  There are winners of the Diagram Prize, awarded annually by Britain's The Bookseller magazine for Oddest Title of the Year.  And, though you have to work somewhat harder to find them, there even are potential winners of the infamous Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. That, however, is a post for a dark and stormy night....

  

Guest Editorial: "Going Dutch" at The Private Library

We are deeply grateful to our friend and fellow blogger Perkamentus for the following Guest Editorial....

***********

"The character of the Dutch is identical with that of the English and Americans. The Dutchman loves sport, commerce, a fair fight, and a glass of something good. He is a homely, domestic creature, devoted to his wife and children.  Abroad the idea is prevalent that the Dutch are 'queer people;' this is not the case; the Dutch are people to be respected and honoured for a glorious past, a glorious present, and a glorious future”.

These words are from the American S.S. Abrahamson, correspondent of the New York Herald, who over a century ago published the little book Holland and our friends the Dutch by one living amongst them (Amsterdam, 1910):

Abrahamson, who lived in the Netherlands between 1905 and 1910, was neither the first nor the only foreigner to publish a book about Holland, a common synonym for the Netherlands and its inhabitants.

The first such books appeared centuries before Abrahamson . One of the most famous is probably Lodovico Guicciardini's Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi altrimenti detti Germania inferiore (Antwerp, 1567).  Too expensive for most modern book collectors, this beautifully illustrated book was printed several different times in several different languages:

Another example was penned by Jean Nicolas de Parival. Born in France, but living in the Dutch city of Leiden since 1624, he wrote Les Delices de la Hollande, Oeuvre Panegirique, avec un traité du Gouvernement, et un abregé de ce qui s'est passé de plus memorable jusques à l'an de grace (Leiden, 1650).  The image is via Antiquariaat FORUM B.V.:

What these and most other pre-19th century books have in common is that they are mainly about topography, towns, royal families and local government.

This changed in the 19th century.  The mobility of the general populace increased with advances in rail and steamship travel.  The first edition of the Holland tourist guide by the famous Karl Baedeker appeared in 1839:

Baedekers are now collectibles themselves.  In addition to these handy little travel guides--packed with detailed information about hotels and restaurants, transport and departure times, topographic maps, tips and attractions--beautifully illustrated books appeared, meant not only for those who stayed at home, but also for those who were preparing for a trip to the Netherlands.

Many of these late 19th and early 20th century travel books can still be easily found and most, a few exceptions notwithstanding, are quite affordable.   A typical example is Edmondo de Amicis'  Ollanda (Firenze, 1876):

As seen above (image via OpenLibrary), Ollanda was published in many languages and several editions-- first with wood engravings, later with pictures.  The most charming thing about this book, and the similar books by "foreigners" which followed, is the keen interest expressed by each author in the Dutch people: their morals, their typical habits, etc.

This increasing human interest also is notable in the illustrations of large-sized picture books about Holland, like Friedrich von Hellwald and Richard Oberlander's Nordland-Fahrten. Vierte Abteilung. Malerische Schone durch Holland und Dänemark. Land und Leute, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Sage und Geschichte, Literatur und Kunst (Leipzig, ca. 1882), and Richard Lovett's Pictures from Holland, drawn with pen and pencil (London, 1887):

  

Most of the fine wood engravings show village and street scenes and images from common people...

...in their different local and traditional costumes:

Canals, dikes, polders and buildings are not forgotten, but there is a prominent interest in typical Dutch traditions like ice skating...

...windmills, clogs...

...Dutch cheese markets and flower fields (the modern Keukenhof is one of the Netherlands most popular tourist attractions). 

Even topics that were atypical for tourism books--pile driving...

...and "Dutch cleanliness," for example--have been discussed and illustrated in the above and similar books:

But are all these things in fact typically ... Dutch?

In 2007 the Netherlands' Scientific Council for Government Policy published a report, Identification with the Netherlands.  The report is an investigation into "Dutch identity."  

During its official presentation Princess Máxima of the Netherlands had this to say:

A typical Dutch identity?  I have not found one. 

The Netherlands are: large Windows without curtains, so anyone can look into your home.  But also: attachment to privacy and coziness.  The Netherlands are: one biscuit with a cup of tea.  But also: great hospitality and warmth.  The Netherlands: sobriety and control.  Pragmatism.  But also: together experiencing intense emotions.

This speech incited fierce debate, but--not surprisingly--things soon calmed down.  No doubt because Dutch fondness for its Royal Family, especially Maxima, is also typically ... Dutch!

[N.B.: Unless otherwise noted, all images are courtesy of Perkamentus.]

Kate and William and Sophie and Edward and Sarah and Andrew and Diana and Charles and Anne and Mark and Margaret and Antony and Elizabeth and Philip and The Private Library

...[S]ince when did every little girl become a princess? It wasn't like this when I was a kid, and I was born back when feminism was still a mere twinkle in our mothers' eyes. We did not dress head to toe in pink. We did not have our own miniature high heels. What's more, I live in Berkeley, California: if princesses had infiltrated our little retro-hippie hamlet, imagine what was going on in places where women actually shaved their legs? As my little girl made her daily beeline for the dress-up corner of her preschool classroom, I fretted over what playing Little Mermaid, a character who actually gives up her voice to get a man, was teaching her.

On the other hand, I thought, maybe I should see princess mania as a sign of progress, an indication that girls could celebrate their predilection for pink without compromising strength or ambition; that at long last they could "have it all": be feminist and feminine, pretty and powerful; earn independence and male approval. Then again, maybe I should just lighten up and not read so much into it — to mangle Freud, maybe sometimes a princess is just a princess....

Peggy Orenstein, Cinderella Ate My Daughter

****************************************

Lots of book collectors collect fantasy.  It's a very popular genre. 

But not every fantasy is concerned with elves and goblins, wizards and witches, dragons and dragon slayers, damsels in distress and knights in shining armor who have been unfairly usurped from their thrones.  Sometimes fantasy is about the lives, or the supposed lives, of real people whom fate, circumstance, whatever, have made richer, more beautiful, more successful, more powerful, more [insert your own personal envy here].  In these cases, bookshelves devoted to fantasy often are devoted to ... souvenirs of Royal Weddings:

Sometimes these real-life fantasies work out (or at least appear to)...

  

...but oft times they do not:

  

Failure of these real-life fantasies (however defined) does not seem to make them any less attractive to folks who collect books, souvenir programs, orders of service and other items that are associated not only with royal weddings, but with most other royal events as well (coronations, funerals, etc.):

  

According to a recent news report, when Diana Spencer and Charles, Prince of Wales, were married in 1981, a little less than 600 members of the world press were credentialed to cover the event.  For the pending marriage of Kate Middleton and Prince William, over 7000 members of the world press have been credentialed. 

The bookshelves, they soon will be a-groanin'....

Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 333 and The Private Library

Folktales are one of the world's oldest forms of oral and written literature.  Because such tales draw upon a number of motifs that tend to recur across both time and space, folklorists began cataloging these recurrences as types well over a century ago, an effort which continues to the present day:

One of the best known of these recurring motifs is Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 333, known variously as Little Red Riding Hood, Little Red Cap, Little Red Hood, Little Red Hat, etc., depending upon the original source of the folktale.  As the Gustave Dore illustration suggests...

...the story is simple but dramatic:

Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little red riding hood made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood.

One day her mother, having made some cakes, said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she has been very ill. Take her a cake, and this little pot of butter."

Little Red Riding Hood set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village.

As she was going through the wood, she met with a wolf, who had a very great mind to eat her up, but he dared not, because of some woodcutters working nearby in the forest. He asked her where she was going. The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stay and talk to a wolf, said to him, "I am going to see my grandmother and carry her a cake and a little pot of butter from my mother."

"Does she live far off?" said the wolf

"Oh I say," answered Little Red Riding Hood; "it is beyond that mill you see there, at the first house in the village."

"Well," said the wolf, "and I'll go and see her too. I'll go this way and go you that, and we shall see who will be there first...."

Depending upon the source, other types of food, clothing, etc., enter the picture, but the moral is generally the same:

Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say "wolf," but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.

A moral for a child, or for a young woman approaching sexual maturity? 

Barrels of ink have been spilled over Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 333, which is why this particular folktale has so long been a favorite of book collectors.  The tale's ambiguity has attracted an extraordinary range of artistic talent to illustrate it:

George Frederic Watts, the great Victorian Symbolist painter...

Walter Crane, one of Victorian England's greatest illustrators of children's books...

English Golden Age illustrator Millicent Sowerby...

Warwick Goble, better known for his Indian and Japanese-themed art...

And modern illustrators like UK comic artist Neal Evans...

And American pyrographist Tracy Sagalow:

Aside from figuring out whether one wants to collect all known variants and editions of the original tale...

...or maybe only illustrated editions of same...

 

...most book collectors face the additional question of whether or not they want to collect the many spin-offs to which Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 333 has given rise:

  

Decisions, decisions....

From the Private Library's Archives: Coffee and The Private Library

In a perfect world, we would be typing this post on our laptop while sitting at a table at Pine State Biscuits (Portland, OR), biscuits and jam to one side, a cup of triple-certified coffee on the other:

Alas, the world is not perfect, so this post will have to be typed under the influence of some lesser but still worthy specimen of Coffea arabica.

The connection between coffee and books is an ancient one.  As Adrian Johns pointed out in his controversial The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, coffee houses had an outsized influence on the extent to which printed books came to be seen as both culturally and intellectually legitimate and authoritative (a point he revisited in Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates).

Because the earliest known printed reference to coffee (in a Western language) appears as early as 1573...

...folks building a private library around the subject of coffee have an extraordinary range of books from which to choose. 

If scouring yard sales, garage sales, friends-of-the-library book sales, publishers' clearance sales and the like for coffee-related books, one most likely will encounter either "cookbooks..."

 

or books about coffee "technology:"

 

But as befits the world's second most valuable traded commodity (after oil), there are literally tens of thousands of other books that have been published about the subject, as is made clear by the 2-volume standard reference Coffee: A Bibliography:

The earliest technologies associated with coffee, for example, are now coveted collectibles, and many books have been published about this particular niche:

 

A related niche about which much has been published is the advertising used to promote coffee consumption, especially the premiums used for such endeavors:

Most collectors, however, probably will wish to begin at the beginning, adding to their shelves one or more general histories of coffee (which run the gamut from very simple to very thorough)...

 

...before adding to their shelves books about more specific aspects of coffee history:

Depending upon the bent of one's interest, one may then add additional titles to one's private library, perhaps focused on coffee cultivation...

  

...or coffees from some of the world's best-known coffee-producing regions:

Finally, the impact of coffee on the consumption of print itself must surely also warrant a place on one's bookshelves:

  

Perhaps a few books about biscuits also would not be amiss....

Foxfire and The Private Library

Forty-five years ago, a frustrated English instructor at a small high school tucked away in north Georgia's Appalachian Mountains was searching (as overworked and underpaid teachers are wont to do) for a way to engage his students:

My lectern (that's a protective device a teacher cowers behind while giving a lecture nobody's listening to) was scorched from the time Tommy Green tried to set it on fire with his lighter--during class.  Charles Henslee had already broken off the blade of his Barlow knife in the floorboards.  Every desk was decorated with graffiti.  My box of yellow chalk was gone, and so were the thumbtacks that held up the chart of the Globe Theater.  The nine water pistols I had confiscated that very afternoon had been reconfiscated from under my nose....

The solution that Eliot Wigginton eventually hit upon, a literary magazine to be financed and produced by his 9th- and 10th-grade students at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, was hardly a new pedagogical concept.  But the magazine that Wigginton and his students eventually wound up publishing in an initial run of only 600 photo-offset copies would go on to make publishing history.  Wigginton's students named their modest effort Foxfire, after a tiny organism that glows in the dark and and is frequently seen in the shaded coves of [the Appalachian Mountains]:

   

The idea was to involve the students' grandparents:

Many older people in [the] area ... still plant[ed] ... by the signs of the zodiac and the stages of the moon....  So [the students] went home and talked--really talked--to their own relatives, some of them for the first time.  From those conversations came superstitions, old home remedies, weather signs, a story about a hog hunt, a taped interview with the retired sheriff about the time the local bank was robbed--and directions for planting by the signs....

The first 600 copies sold out in a week, and an additional 600 copies were printed, which also sold out quickly.  In 1972, the students' articles were published in book form, and became a surprise bestseller.  Several more anthologies followed, each one a bestseller:

  

In 1977, the project was moved to Rabun County High School.  With the money derived from sale of the anthologies (which anthologies also included new material not appropriate for the student-produced magazine), the students

set up the Foxfire Fund, a not-for-profit educational and literary organization.... It encourages use of the stories and practical instructions from the local people of Appalachia to teach and promote a self-sufficient, self-reflective way of life.  [The] students ... also decided to create a museum. They purchased a tract of land on Black Rock Mountain, in Mountain City, Georgia. They founded a museum of Appalachian culture there [The Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center]. Students helped move and reconstruct a variety of log homes, a grist mill, and more, to preserve aspects of the traditional Appalachian way of life.....

To date, the twelve Foxfire anthologies (and their several reprints) have sold well over 9 million copies.  And the magazine that started it all...?  Published continuously since 1966, it's a good bit slicker, but still a bargain:

  

In his introduction to The Foxfire Book (from whence come most of the quotations in today's post), Wigginton tried to nail down the continuing appeal of this little publishing venture that could....

Daily our grandparents are moving out of our lives, taking with them, irreparably, the kind of information contained in [these magazines and books].  They are taking it, not because they want to, but because they think we don't care.  And it isn't happening just in Appalachia.  I think, for example, of numerous Indian reservations, Black cultures near the southern coasts, Ozark mountain communities, and a hundred others....

If this information is to be saved at all, for whatever reason, it must be saved now....

Rockwell Kent and The Private Library

He is one of just a handful of American book illustrators to be well represented by a museum collection.

And -- despite having his passport revoked for several years due to McCarthyism -- he is perhaps as well known for the books he wrote and illustrated about his travels (image via Lakeside Classic Books)...

...as he is for titles like Candide (image via Occidental College Special Collections) and Moby Dick (image via Hyraxia):

  

Born in Tarrytown Heights, New York,  in 1882, Rockwell Kent was arguably America's best-known book illustrator of the 1920s and 30s.  But in a very long life (he died in 1971), Kent also worked as an architectural draftsman, ... printmaker, painter, lobsterman, ship's carpenter, and dairy farmer.  

Primarily a wood engraver, Kent was almost equally adept at lithography.  Among the titles that he both wrote and illustrated, collectors have much from which to choose: Wilderness: A Journey of Quiet Adventure in Alaska (1920; image via Heldfond Book Gallery); Voyaging Southwards from the Strait of Magellan (1924; paperback reprint via The Book Cellar); N by E (1930; see image above); Salamina (1935); and several more besides:

  

While the above "travels" are also autobiography,  Kent's most full-blown autobiographical work was 1955's It's Me, O Lord (image via Printers Row Fine and Rare Books).   Kent had rehearsed this literary form in 1940 when he wrote and illustrated This is My Own, an account of the decade or so from 1928-1939 (image via Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers):

  

As popular as Kent was in the 1920s and 30s, his social activism led to a rapid decline in public perception during the 1940s and 50s:

...Kent championed social causes from the 1930's until his death. Although Kent insisted that he never belonged to the Communist party, his consistent support of radical causes contributed to a decline in his artistic popularity during the 1940s and 1950s. In the latter decade, the State Department revoked his passport. Kent sued for its reinstatement and emerged victorious in [a] landmark Supreme Court case. He became very popular in the Soviet Union, and in 1957, half a million Russians attended an exhibition of his work. Subsequently, he donated eighty paintings and eight hundred prints and drawings to the Russian people. In 196[6], he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.

Kent designed the poster below (image via the Daily Gazette of Schenectady, NY) for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 1949:

Since his death there has been a renewed interest in Kent's work.  Virtually all of his illustrated titles have been reprinted (several more than once); there have been numerous exhibitions of his works; he has been honored by the United States Postal Service (2001; see below); and his archived papers at the Archives of American Art have produced several well-received re-appraisals of his life and work:

  

This renewed interest notwithstanding, many of Kent's titles remain underpriced relative to titles illustrated by other well-known artists.  An undoubted opportunity for collectors so inclined....

Clerical Mysteries and The Private Library

Father Gabriel Neville has everything going for him: intellectual prowess, physical beauty, a wife who adores him and beautiful twin children; he also has a prestigious church job at St Anne's, Kensington Gardens, in London, and the prospect of promotion to Archdeacon. But his perfect world is shattered when he receives an anonymous letter threatening to expose a dangerous secret from his past - something that could destroy his career and his marriage - something that no one could possibly know.

The only person Gabriel can turn to is David Middleton-Brown, an old friend and a man with a few secrets of his own. Against his better judgement, David comes to London to stay with another old friend, Daphne Elford, the Sacristan at St Anne's. 

Discreet enquiries bring to light a whole host of suspects: the eccentric church organist, Miles Taylor; gossip Mavis Conwell; the disapproving Dawson family; Churchwarden Cyril Fitzjames, in love for years with Gabriel's wife Emily; even Emily Neville's charming and talented friend, the artist Lucy Kingsley. In his efforts to help Gabriel uncover the blackmailer, David hauls some skeletons out of cupboards, and enters into a web of relationships that threaten his own peace of mind. 

And then one of the suspects is found dead - is it suicide or murder? And what does this death have to do with Gabriel's dilemma? David goes looking for secrets - and finds much more than he bargained for....

Promo for A Drink of Deadly Wine, the first volume of Kate Charles' Book of Psalms series

***********

One of the more interesting and collectible sub-genres of the much-beloved mystery deftly mixes matters religious with matters mysterious:

  

Many such titles represent what Philip Grosset terms Clerical Detectives.  As Grosset points out, this means

any detective with a significant church or religious background, so I include not only priests (male and female), ministers, monks, nuns, ex-nuns, a Shaker, two rabbis (and rabbis' widows and ministers' wives), a church administrator, and a clerk of a Quaker Meeting, but choirmaster/organists, religously inspired policemen, Buddhists, a Muslim, and even a few witches. I've also found room for The Rev Sebastian, although he is more concerned with spying than detection, and The Rev Francis Oughterard, although he is really a murderer rather than a detective, as is The Rev Otis Joy....

Grosset lists some 230 literary characters who meet the above criteria.  These include an ex-nun who runs her own detective agency (Bridget O'Toole), a nun who hides mystery stories in her prayer book (Sister Mary Helen), and a nun who was an expert basketball coach (Sister Maureen):

 

Many authors appear to handle these mash-ups of the sacred and the profane with great aplomb.

The best-known authors in the entire sub-genre probably are G. K. Chesterton and Ellis Peters (pseudonym of Edith Pargeter).  Since Chesterton introduced the character of Father Brown, most clerical mysteries have been set in Anglican or Catholic communities, as is the case with Peters' Brother Cadfael.  There are, though, (as we shall see shortly) some important contemporary exceptions to this trend:

  

Kate Charles, referred to above, is among the better known contemporary authors of this sub-genre.  Charles (the pseudonym of Carol Fosher Chase) is a Cincinnati-born librarian who now lives in Great Britain.  Her two best known clerical mystery series revolve around, respectively, a British solicitor who is also an expert in ecclesiastical furnishings, vestments and silver, and a female Anglican curate whose day job finds her constantly pitted against male colleagues who are vehemently opposed to female priests:

  

A contemporary author a bit outside of the Anglican/Catholic trend in this sub-genre is Nick Wilgus, whose character Father Ananda is a Buddhist senior monk at the Wat Mahanet Monastery in Bangkok.  Wilgus, a former Franciscan who has lived in Bangkok for over two decades, pens his novels when not battling the bipolar disorder from which he has suffered for some years:

  

Loren F. Winner, in a 2005 article for World magazine, surveyed a good many more such authors.  Her main peeve with most of them...?  

What bothers me about the recent bumper crop of clerical mysteries is not the mere fact that they feature female clerics. What ticks me off is the irresponsible liberalism of [the] clerics....

From the Private Library's Archives: Teeny, Tiny Books and The Private Library

Running out of shelf space in your private library?  Maybe you need to collect smaller books....

Miniature books, commonly defined as books smaller than 3"  x 3" (76.20 mm x 76.20 mm) in width and height, don't get a lot of respect from many book collectors, an unfortunate circumstance since the printing of such books often requires more skill than is required for printing the typical book in the marketplace.  In fact, printing such books requires so much skill that [d]uring the first centuries of printing, miniature books presented challenges to apprentices in the printing trades.  Exercises in setting small types and binding diminutive volumes were instrumental in learning the profession.

Such tiny books were more popular in centuries past partly because they were easily carried or concealed (an especially important consideration if one was fleeing from religious persecution).  This accounts for the numerous thumb Bibles (paraphrases prepared chiefly for children) and miniature Bibles that one occasionally still finds available at major auctions:

Bloem-Hofje Door (1673-74), a modern facsimile of which is depicted below, was--at  0.5" x 0.4" (13 mm x 9 mm) the smallest printed book in the world until the end of the 19th century.  The Mite (1891), also depicted below, was--at 13/16" x 11/16' (21mm x 18 mm) the smallest English-language book printed from movable type until the end of the 19th century:

  

Children's literature played an important role in the development of miniature books.  At the beginning of the 19th century publishers like Darton, Harvey and Co. began publishing miniature libraries for children.  As a recent exhibition at the Lilly Library (from whence come most of the images in this post) observes,

[m]iniature libraries share a number of features, though not all are present in all examples. Bindings are usually uniform, often with various pastel or patterned boards or wrappers bearing similar title labels. Miniature library boxes are built to resemble miniature bookcases, often with small drawers for related materials, which could include pencils, paper, or instructional cards. The drawers enhance their resemblance to miniature pieces of furniture, as did the sliding fronts, which usually present an attractive mounted illustration related to the subject matter, and are often topped with decorative woodwork.

The miniature library depicted below, Infants Own Book-case (1800-1801), is typical of those produced by Darton, Harvey and other publishers:

 

Among the longest-lived miniature books were almanacs and calendars, their miniaturization making them easy to carry around in one's pocket or purse.  Because these often were given as Christmas or New Year's gifts, publishers frequently would clothe these in rich bindings of morocco leather or like material, and sell them in tiny cases with an accompanying magnifying glass.  Schloss's English Bijou Almanac (1841), depicted below, is a typical example:

Although printing from movable type in the Far East preceded such printing in Europe by several centuries, there are many parallels in the printing of miniature books, including a focus on religious texts (Qur'an, Buddhist sutras and the like), as well as miniature translations of Western texts into non-Western languages.  Moral Precepts, Translated from the English into Hindoostany Verse (1834) is a typical example of the latter:

 

One of the highpoints of 19th century miniature book production was the French title Calendrier de tous les Saints (ca. 1815).  This title consists entirely of engravings depicting a saint for each day of the year:

 

Surprisingly, miniature book production in the 20th century owes a large debt of gratitude to Communism.  State sponsorship allowed miniature books to be published that otherwise would not have been commercially viable, and the tiny size of such books made them ideal for propagating an official state ideology to the masses.  This accounts for the pre-eminence of Hungary as one of the past century's most prolific sponsors of miniature books, and accounts as well for the importance (to advanced collectors of such books) of a bibliography like Gyula Janka's Miniatur Könyvek Bibliográfiája (Bibliography of Miniature Books, 1945-1970) depicted below:

 

In our own century, it is fine presses that are at the forefront of miniature book production.  As in days of yore, many of these modern day miniatures are printed from movable type on handmade paper, and are clothed in suitably appropriate bindings.  Bromer Booksellers, a specialist in miniature books, offers a number of examples, of which The Country Life (Fleece Press, 1997) is a recent notable example:

Anyone seriously interested in collecting miniature books will want to have on their shelves Anne Bromer's own Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures (2007):

Several important earlier bibliographies also may prove of interest, depending on the bent of one's own collecting interests.  Among these are Adomeit's Three Centuries of Thumb Bibles (1980--Ruth Elizabeth Adomeit is the scholar and collector from which many of the books in the Lilly Library exhibition, referenced above, were drawn) and Robert Bradbury's Antique United States Miniature Books, 1690-1900 (2001--based largely on the Lilly Library's collections and the collection of the American Antiquarian Society).

By the way ... if you want to read the book that is currently claimed to be the smallest book in the world, you'll need a scanning electron microscope.  Teeny Ted from Turnip Town is a mind-boggling 0.07 mm X 0.10 mm.  According to the nanoengineers who "published" it,

The book was typeset in block letters with a resolution of 40 nanometers, and is made up of 30 microtablets, each carved on a polished piece of single crystalline silicon. The entire collection of microtablets is contained within an area of 69 x 97 microns square with an average size of tablet being 11 x 15 microns square.

The book is made up of 30 microtablets, each carved on a polished piece of single crystalline silicon.

The story, written by Chaplin’s brother Malcolm Douglas Chaplin, is a fable about Teeny Ted’s victory in the turnip contest at the annual county fair.

Considered an intricate work of contemporary art, the book is available in a signature edition (100 copies) from the publisher, through the [Simon Fraser University] lab....

"Parrish Condition" and The Private Library

Decades before condition, condition, condition! became the mantra of contemporary book collectors, it was the raison d'être of the great early 20th century collector of Trollope and his contemporaries, Morris Longstreth Parrish (1867-1944). In fact, so fastidious was Parrish about the condition of the books that he would allow into his personal library that his name eventually became synonymous with a particular sort of "condition fetish:" [t]he phrase "Parrish condition" became a trade word among bibliophiles for the highest quality standard of first editions, as exemplified by Parrish's purchases. 

Parrish routinely upgraded the thousands of volumes in his private library with better copies as such copies became available, and he was not shy about suggesting that other collectors do the same.  Parrish also gave much other advice, not all of which has resonated as well with modern-day book collectors.

Some of this advice Parrish summarized in a 1934 article for The Colophon, A Book Collectors' Quarterly:

I think, in the first place, that dust wrappers should be discarded the moment a book is received; that an unopened book has no place in any library ... when a book is acquired, I think it should be carefully examined and all incomplete openings perfected.  Some dealers have a habit of marking their prices in books.  I strongly recommend that every pencil mark of this character be erased.

As Robert J. Milesvki points out in a recent article for The Book Collector, anyone following this sort of advice is likely to have destroyed a great deal of bibliographically important information: printers' marks, certainly, and presumably publisher's marks as well ("Marks in Nineteenth-Century Trade Bindings," The Book Collector, Spring 2011).  As for the information about publishing, text reception and the like that might otherwise have been traced through all those discarded dustjackets ... so much the worse for historians of the book.

Upon his death, Parrish's collection of 6300+ volumes, plus nearly eighteen hundred Lewis Carroll mathematical manuscripts ... [and] approximately one thousand manuscript items were donated to Princeton University's Rare Books and Special Collections Department (from whence come the images in today's post), where today most are housed in their own room, a room which strives to recreate Parrish's private library at Dormy House in Pine Valley, New Jersey....

E. W. Kemble and The Private Library

If he is remembered at all today, he is remembered for his illustrations of Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom's Cabin:

  

But in his day, E. W. Kemble was considered the pre-eminent illustrator of African-Americans, the first illustrator to whom publishers of both books and periodicals invariably turned to illustrate the African-American experience.

Born in Sacramento, California, in 1861, Kemble moved to New York in 1875, where his work appeared in Harper's Bazar before he had reached his twentieth birthday (1880).  He later became the chief political cartoonist for the New York Graphic; was a frequent contributor to Life from its first issues in 1883; and later contributed a substantial number of illustrations to periodicals like Collier's Weekly, Harper's Weekly, Leslie's Weekly and Puck.  Although Kemble died in 1933, a definitive catalog of his work has yet to be published.

Although Kemble's earliest works (e.g., A Coon Alphabet) depicted African Americans in negative stereotypical roles, his more mature works arguably portray African Americans with surprising realism and sensitivity "for the era." (Image below left is via the Historical Children's Literature Collection of the University of Washington Libraries; image below right is via the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia):

  

In a 1930 article for The Colophon: A Book Collectors' Quarterly, Kemble himself recounted how his illustrations first came to the attention of Mark Twain:

While contributing to Life I made a small picture of a little boy being stung by a bee. Mark Twain had completed the manuscript of "Huckleberry Finn" and had set up a relative, Charles L. Webster, in the publishing business.

Casting about for an illustrator, Mark Twain happened to see this picture. It had action and expression, and bore a strong resemblance to his mental conception of Huck Finn. I was sent for and immediately got in touch with Webster. The manuscript was handed me and the fee asked for--two thousand dollars--was graciously allowed. I had begun drawing professionally two years before this date, and was now at the ripe old age of twenty-three....

Now began the important job of getting a model. The story called for a variety of characters, old and young, male and female. In the neighborhood I came across a youngster, Cort Morris by name, who tallied with my idea of Huck. He was a bit tall for the ideal boy, but I could jam him down a few pegs in my drawing and use him for the other characters.

From the beginning I never depended upon models but preferred to pick my types out of the ether, training my mind to visualize them. So I engaged my youthful model, and I remember that from the very start he became immensely popular among his feminine schoolmates as all of his income went for sweetmeats which were duly distributed on his homeward journeys from the seat of learning.

I had a large room in the top of our house which I used as a studio. Here I collected my props for the work. I spent the forenoon completing the drawing, using "Huck" as soon as he was released from school. He was always grinning, and one side of his cheek was usually well padded with a "sour ball" or a huge wad of molasses taffy. Throwing his wool cap and muslin-covered schoolbooks on a lounge, he would ask what was wanted at this session. I would designate the character. "We will do the old woman who spots Huck as he is trying to pass for a girl." Donning an old sunbonnet and slipping awkwardly into a faded skirt, Cort would squat on a low splint-bottomed chair and become the most woebegone female imaginable. Forthwith he would relieve his extended cheek of its burden of taffy with a mighty gulp....

The illustrations below, via the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia, are among the illustrations that Kemble did for the 1898 editions of Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, which has a rather interesting publishing history:

  

In addition to prose writers like Twain, Kemble was a popular choice for illustrating poets such as James Whitcomb Riley and Paul Laurence Dunbar:

  

With a little patience, Kemble-illustrated titles usually can be found in the marketplace for very reasonable prices, Fine copies excepted.  (As usual, the latter generally command significant premiums, especially First Editions of the more famous authors that Kemble illustrated)....

Good Girls, Bad Girls, and The Private Library

As we have noted in several previous posts (see, e.g., here, here and here), some book collectors collect books not for their texts but for their bindings.  To such collectors, the fame of the text's author or publisher or printer takes a back seat to the artistry that has been applied to a book's clothing.  Baudelaire might make the hearts of some beat faster, but for collectors of bindings Bonet is more likely to be the focus.  (The Bonet binding below is via the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia,)

Naturally enough, collectors whose focus is bindings must necessarily collect books from centuries past, or fine press books, since most modern publishers don't generally issue hardbacks in decorative bindings (The Folio Society and similar publishers being very rare exceptions).

Such art as is applied to modern hardbacks generally shows up not on bindings but on dustjackets.  The exception to this general trend, of course, is paperbacks.  As we saw in our series on PBOs, the cover art on paperbacks is often quite spectacular, and such art frequently is a major additional impetus for many book collectors to collect paperbacks:

  

But are there any book collectors out there who collect paperbacks solely for the cover art, just as binding enthusiasts collect bookbindings solely for the artistry of the bindings?  If so, what sort of paperbacks do these book collectors collect?

We have never personally encountered such a collector, but we suspect that he or she may exist.  And we suspect that his or her collection, if it exists, must necessarily contain lots of paperbacks that feature a "damsel in distress."  We say this simply because so very many paperbacks have been issued with this sort of cover art:

  

As Alex Henzel points out on his website GoodGirlArt (from whence come the paperback images in today's post), "damsel in distress" cover art is sometimes termed "good girl art," which designation seems to have originated with comic books and is usually applied to attractive sexy young women who are either in peril or are perpetrating [a] peril.  Quoting Richard Lupoff (The Great American Paperback), Henzel observes that this type of cover art usually depicts an attractive young woman, usually in skimpy or form-fitting clothing, and designed for (mild erotic interest). The term does not apply to the morality of the 'good girl', who is often a gun moll, tough cookie, or wicked temptress....

  

Hemzel's website has a couple of online galleries devoted to this sort of cover art, as does the site VintagePaperbacks. 

The question, then, remains ... does anyone out there collect paperbacks solely for the cover art?

Joaquín Ibarra y Marín and The Private Library

He is arguably the greatest Spanish printer of all time.  Without question, he is Spain's greatest printer of the 18th century.

Born in Zaragoza in 1725, Joaquín Ibarra y Marín apprenticed to his brother Manuel, who served as first officer of the Printing Pontifical and Royal University (University of Cervera).  In 1754, Ibarra moved to Madrid, where he set up his own print shop.  Over the next three decades, some of the finest volumes of the 18th century would be printed in this shop.  (Ibarra died in 1785, but his widow and children managed to keep Ibarra's workshop going until 1836.)

Among many other contributions to the art of printing, Ibarra conducted numerous experiments with paper in an effort to reduce plate mark impressions; he standardized measures for the production of type; and he developed his own formula for printing ink, which led to inks of exceptional quality and brilliance.  These innovations are seen in several of his best-known volumes.

But if Ibarra is known at all to today's general public, it is mainly because one of his volumes played a central role in the plot development of a not particularly good movie:

In 1780, the Real Academia de la Lengua had commissioned Ibarra to publish a 4-volume edition of Don Quixote.  As recounted by the University of Michigan,

While Don Quixote had been traditionally interpreted as a merely comic story in the decades following its first publication in 1605, the reading of the novel would dramatically change in the eighteenth century. With the patronage of Lord Carteret, a luxuriously illustrated edition was published by Jacob and Richard Tonson, heirs of a prestigious dynasty of English publishers, in London in 1738. In brief, the illustrations along with the critical apparatus were carefully designed not only to present  Don Quixote as a humanized hero who can teach a moral lesson to the reader, but also to convince the reader that the novel was an important work of literature. Similarly, the Real Academia de la Lengua commissioned and supervised the publication of a four-volume edition in Madrid in 1780, atttempting also to establish Cervantes as part of the literary canon. For that purpose, the editors further developed the vision of the London edition. Through the delicacy of the illustrations, we are guided to see Don Quixote as a dignified hero, as a vehicle of satire whose ultimate goal is to warn the readers about the dangers of reading novels of chivalry. Furthermore, included in this edition is Vicente de los Ríos' Análisis de Don Quixote, where our hero is restored to his real self just before his death. Indeed, we are told that he recognized his errant ways and died in the bosom of Christian peace.

The illustrations notwithstanding ("one portrait, four frontispieces, 31 engravings, 25 headpieces, 20 tailpieces, 13 ornamental initial letters, and one map"), it is the typography and presswork which ultimately accounts for the high esteem in which this title has been held for centuries:

Ibarra's masterwork, though, is widely considered to be his 1772 edition of Sallust's La conjuración de Catilina y la guerra de Jugurta (Conspiracy of Catiline and the War of Jugurtha):

Only 120 copies of this title were printed, for the use of Spain's royal family and various foreign dignitaries.  As Stanford University notes regarding their own copy of this important work,

This edition of Sallust, done in Latin and Spanish, features a large italic type cut by Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros (b. 1732); the translation was done by King Carlos’ son, Don Gabriel (1752-1788). Ibarra’s Sallust was instantly recognized as a magnificent book: Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813), probably the most celebrated printer of his day, referred to it as "the stupendous Sallust."

Some 2500 titles were printed at Ibarra's workshop over the course of eight decades, so the patient collector has much from which to to choose.  Fine copies, though, will require both patience and fairly deep pockets.  The anthology Joaquín Ibarra y Marín, impresor, 1725–1785 (1993) may prove useful to those so inclined....

Dalit Lit and The Private Library

The Dalits, also called the “untouchables,” “outcastes,” and most recently “slumdogs,” comprise nearly one quarter of India’s society, with population estimates of 250 million people. The term “Dalit” means “those who have been broken and ground down deliberately by those above them in the social hierarchy.” -- Dalit Freedom Network

A less welcoming environment for writers is difficult to imagine.  For millenia, even though Dalits have suffered unremitting violence at the hands of India's higher castes, their stories have largely gone untold. 

But change is coming....

  

As Andrew Buncombe reports in a recent article for The Independent,

Having long been confined to writing only in their own, local languages and largely ignored by the literary mainstream, Dalit authors are now being swooped on by some of the country's biggest publishers, such as Radhakrishna Prakashan which is translating their work into Hindi, the lingua franca of northern India and beyond.

Novelists, poets and writers of short stories are receiving both exposure and opportunity in the market-place that they have never before received. There are Dalit magazines, Dalit literary forums (there are two competing groups in Delhi alone) and Dalit workshops....

 

In many respects, this literature represents a ground-floor opportunity for book collectors.  But it is not literature for the squeamish.  As Buncombe points out,

Dalits were not allowed to use a mobile phone in the presence of upper-caste people. They were also prevented from having their clothes washed, permitted only to drink tea from coconut shells while squatting on the floor, barred from entering temples, forced to eat faeces, raped and burned alive....

  

A key figure in the rise of Dalit literature is Ramnika Gupta.  Buncombe notes that

[Gupta] is not a Dalit but she produces a quarterly magazine, Yuddhrat Aam Aadmi, devoted to previously marginalised writers. She estimates that she and her team of just three full-time assistants have published around 1,500 Dalit writers from across India over the last two decades. Large publishers regularly go to her for information about new talent. She helps on the condition that the publishers agree to produce a paperback edition that is affordable for ordinary people, in addition to the standard hardback run....

Understandably, given that most of this literature is just beginning to be published in Hindi, very little of it is yet available in European languages....

  

Year Three at The Private Library

Somewhere in the ten-day hiatus that we took due to continuing computer glitches, we lost sight of the fact that The Private Library commenced its third year of operations on 29 March 2011.

We are grateful to our readers, and especially to our Guest Editors, for the continued support we have received for this modest electronic publishing effort.  As we did in a post some eight months ago, we thought it might be interesting to look back at our past 600+ posts and see what, if anything, garnered substantial interest from our readers, based on comments, page views and similar metrics.

Here, then, The Private Library's revised top ten posts to date:

# 10: Romancing the Private Library: Our first series about genre collecting, this series continues to generate a surprising amount of interest almost two years after its original date of publication.  We suspect a lot of romance fiction fans have yet to come out of the closet.

  

# 9: Guest Editorial: Doin' that LibraryThing at The Private Library:  A relatively recent post, this one looks at the ins and out of social cataloging on one of the most popular sites for that sort of thing.

# 8: Bibliomania and The Private Library: Another early series, we suspect most of our readers suffer from this affliction, accounting for the series' continuing popularity.  This post was # 3 in our previous survey.

# 7: Guest Editorial: Serendipity and The Private Library: The most recent post on this list, we attribute its popularity to the fact that everyone loves a bargain.  Plus, it's a great reminder that independent bookshops still thrive ... at least in some parts of the world!

# 6: The Folio Society and The Private Library: There must be a huge number of Folio Society subscribers out there, since this post has moved up two spots since last we surveyed our top ten posts.

  

# 5: Photography and The Private Library: This continues to be one of the most popular series we've ever published.  Must be a lot of camera bugs out there (or is it cell phone cameras that account for the continuing popularity of this series?).  This series was # 2 in our previous survey.

# 4: Guest Editorial: Alice and The Private Library: The Cheshire Cat.  The Mad Hatter.  The Red Queen. What's not to like?

# 3: PBOs and The Private Library: They're cheap.  They require little shelf space.  They often feature outstanding art work on their covers.  Little wonder that our series on paperbacks and paperback originals (PBOs) continues to garner so much interest.

# 2: Christmas and The Private Library: Is the enormous popularity of this series due to the fact that Christmas is one of the world's most beloved (if stressful) holidays? 

# 1: Movable Books and The Private Library: It was our # 1 post eight months ago, and it remains # 1 to this day.  Is it because such books are an early form of interactive technology in books?  Whatever the reason, nothing we have ever published at The Private Library even comes close to the continuing popularity of this series.