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~ News from the Rare Books Department of Special Collections at the J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah

OPEN BOOK

Monthly Archives: March 2017

“The Books Opened My Eyes to New Possibilities:” A Visit From Utah State University Students

31 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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accordion format, al-Mutanabbi Street, Anagram Press, Baghdad, Berkeley, book arts, Book Arts Guild, Book Arts Program Studio, bookseller, Cal Ling, calico, Chandler O'Leary, Christina Kemp, collage, Connecticut, consitiution, copper, Denisse Gackstetter, Diano Bertolo, Fingin Furi, Flying Fish Press, Gampi Smooth, Giovanni Forlino, glass negatives, Granary Books, handmade paper, Heather Weston, Hermetic Press, High Falls, Iraq, Japanese, Jessica Spring, Jim Machacek, John Yau, Julie Chen, Katsushika Hokusai, Kincami, Kristen Reyes, Kyoto, letterpress, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathon Rhea, Logan, London, Marriott Library, Matt Jones, Mauree Cummins, Max Gimblett, Mount Fuji, Mt. Rainier, New York, non-adhesive binding, Philip Galo, Philippine Banana Bark, photographs, photography, rare books, Revolutionary War, Rumi, Sarah Christianson, schizophrenia, Sibyl Rubottom, spiral bound, Springtide Press, Steve Clay, strait jacket, stratovolcano, Sunomi, Susan Mills, Tacobet, Tacoma, Tacoma Artists Initiative Program, Tacoma Arts Commission, Tahoma, Tairei, Tamashiki, Tao Te Ching, triptych, typography, United States, University of Puget Sound Collins Memorial Library, Utah State University, Washington, watercolor, Weir Farm, Wilton, woodblock prints, wrapper, Yuzen

P1060569

“It was nice being able to get lost in someone’s work and to look at books in a way that I never have before. Being able to actually hold and handle the books teaches us many things. ”

Early in the cold, wet month of February, students from Utah State University made the perilous journey from Logan to the Marriott Library to visit Rare Books. Professor Denisse Gackstetter brought her Introduction to Book Arts class for a tour of the Book Arts Program Studio, after which the students spent two hours looking at forty of our books.

Prof. Gackstetter asked her student’s to respond to their visit. Here is some of what they saw and what they had to say about it.

PS3575-A9-B66-2012-spread
THE BOOK OF THE ANONYMOUS
John Yau (b. 1950) and Max Gimblett (b. 1935)
New York: Granary Books, 2012
PS3575 A9 B66 2012

John Yau wrote this poem in 2009 in response to several translations of the “Tao Te Ching” given to him by Max Gimblett. In response to Yau’s manuscript, Gimblett created a series of more than one hundred drawings and collages incorporating rare and unusual handmade papers from around the world. This publication contains the twenty-four part poem and twelve of the illustrations. An original ink drawing by Gimblett in black ink on silver is on the cover of each copy. Produced by Diane Bertolo, Steve Clay [founder and owner of Granary Press] and Susan Mills. Typography is by Steve Clay, the binding by Susan Mills. Philip Galo letterpress printed the text and images on double leaves at the Hermetic Press. The collages incorporate gold-leaf, photography, photocopy and drawing. The collages were made at Max Gimblett’s studio with assistance from Matt Jones, Giovanni Forlino and Kristen Reyes. The papers used include Kincami black, Cal Ling autumn, Tamashiki orange, Kingin Furi tan, Sunomi silver, Sunomi kraft, Yuzen cream, Kyoto M25 white, Tairei #1 white, Philippine Banana Bark alabaster and Gampi Smooth 43. Bound in black board covers, open spine with exposed stitching, a non-adhesive binding. Folded and coupled, the pages are gathered together and sewn to cloth-backed boards. Housed in handmade silver cloth-covered clamshell box with spine label. Edition of thirty-three copies, signed by the poet and the artist.

“The Book of the Anonymous by John Yau made the greatest impression upon me. I remember specifically pondering how the images or lack thereof contributed to the concept. I was intrigued by the questions Yau asked the reader, and I was inspired to read more into them by the beautiful pages and illustrations. The form made me want to understand the content.”

“The paper has lots of fiber and shimmer in it. One of the pages has string in the paper. The contrast in texture is very dramatic.”

“I can’t remember the imagery or the poem in that book because the handmade papers are so beautiful I could not stop looking at them. The pages were assembled in an interesting way where the two sheets of paper would sort of pocket-fold into each other. This gave the pages a very thick and substantial feel when turning them.”


N7433.4-W467-B56-2000-WrapN7433.4-W467-B56-2000-spread
BINDING ANALYSIS: DOUBLE BIND
Heather Weston
London: Heather Weston, 2000
N7433.4 W467 B56 2000

Author and artist Heather Weston holds a degree in Book Arts and works in the mental health profession. She uses the book form to explore both emotional experience and psychological structure. In this context she explores the inextricable link between form and content. Here, book structure says something about the experience of schizophrenia that text alone could not. The book is double spiral bound at right and left edges with the pages splitting down the center. Four separate narratives – one pictorial, two textual, and one structural – unravel concurrently. A calico wrapper, with a padded but rigid back panel gives the floppy book the firm containment of a strait jacket.

“I thoroughly enjoyed Binding Analysis: Double Bind by Heather Weston. Weston uses French doors to present an analysis of a schizophrenia patient through the recordings of a medical care provider. I only became aware of the patient’s recorded words, on the backside of the structure, midway through the book. The form informed me about the concept.”


N7433.4-C853-G46-2003-cover
GHOST DIARY
Maureen Cummins
High Falls, NY: M. Cummins, 2003
N7433.4 C853 G46 2003

From the colophon: “…[B]ased on a handwritten letter discovered by the artist in the archive of Weir Farm in Wilton, Connecticut, during a residency in the spring of 2001. The letter was written in 1807 by a former Revolutionary War officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathon Rhea, to his children on the anniversary of his wife’s death. The [5] images that accompany the text are original vintage glass negatives that date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Glass panels hinged in accordion format. Issued in collapsible black box with a tie string. Edition of twenty-five copies. University of Utah copy is lettered and signed by the artist.

“It uses a simple accordion structure, but utilizes it in an inventive way. The panels are see-through which coincides with its subject matter. A wonderful example of form and content informing each other.”


N7433.4-O45-L63-2010
LOCAL CONDITIONS: ONE HUNDRED VIEWS OF MT.…
Chandler O’Leary
Tacoma, WA: Anagram Press, 2012?

From the colophon: “Illustrated, designed, printed and bound by Chandler O’Leary, through freak snowstorms, record heat, and a thousand gentle rains in Tacoma, Washington. Each of the book’s 120 image flats is illustrated and compiled from sketches, photographs and data collected in person, on location, from September 2008 to October 2010. All text and images were letterpress printed in Hokusai’s indigo ink, down the street at Springtide Press. Images and topographic map patterns are hand-drawn and water-colored. For making it possible to turn this crazy idea into an even crazier reality, many heartfelt thanks to [the Tailor*], Jessica Spring, [Zooey*], Sarah Christianson, the Tacoma Arts Commission, the University of Puget Sound Collins Memorial Library, and the Book Arts Guild. Thanks also to the weather, for always, despite a notorious reputation, seeming to hold just long enough for me to grab the camera and jump in the car. Produced with the support of a Tacoma Artists Initiative Program grant from the City of Tacoma Arts Commission…Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1759-1849) is perhaps best known for his seminal works, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji. The two series of woodblock prints, published from 1829 to circa 1847, depict the sacred peak within the context of landscapes and scenes of daily life. At the heart of the series is Hokusai’s own obsession with immortality, and his fascination with Fuji’s eternal presence. Therein lies the rub: Fuji is anything but eternal. Beyond the usual, abstract geologic transience of eroding rock and drifting continents, Fuji is an active stratovolcano. Its days – and those of the lives and lands at its base – are numbered. Here in Washington state, just forty miles southeast of my home, lies Fuji’s taller, more volatile, American twin. Variously named Tacobet, Tahoma, and Ti’Swaq’, amont others, by the region’s indigenous peoples, or simply “The Mountain” by contemporary locals – its most arbitrary…”

“What left the greatest impression on me was the box with different scenic areas layered upon one another. It made me want to go home and create one of my own. The intricate images mixed with the soft pastels are gorgeous. I think it is interesting that the viewer is able to arrange the book how they please. The book is really their own story to tell.”

“This book intrigued me. It is so different from a normal book, and so unconventional, it inspired me to think more outside the box.”

“I like the three-dimensional aspect.”

“This book has three drawers to pull out and a ton of different different pieces of scenery. I love how I could mix and match the different scenes. There were so many possibilities to create. I liked the facts that I learned about Mt. Rainier, as well. I could have read and played with this book for hours.”


N7433.4-C44-M46-2012-coverN7433.4-C44-M46-2012-open
MEMENTO
Julie Chen
Berkeley, CA: Flying Fish Press, 2012
N7433.4 C44 M46 2012

From the colophon: “The text that appears on the woven token in triptych was taken from the preambles to the constitutions of the United States and Iraq. The image that surrounds the token is of a bookseller’s stall on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad prior to the bombing in 2007, and is used by permission of the Al-Mutanabbi Street coalition.” Letterpress printed. Designed by Julie Chen. Copper locket fabricated by Christina Kemp, based on a design by Julie Chen. Edition of fifty copies. University of Utah copy is no. 43, signed by the artist.

“Blew my mind.”


N7433.4-R73-N49-2000-Open
NEW RULE: A POEM BY RUMI
Sibyl Rubottom and Jim Machacek
San Diego, CA: Bay Park Press, 2000
N7433.4 R73 N49 2000

A flecked, navy wrapper is folded in three, housing the primary sheet which is, in turn, folded into three, unequal sections. Letterpress from Bodoni and Times Roman on Fabriano Rosaspina Bianco and Fox River Confetti wrapper. Images created using polymer plates, monotypes, linocut, and screen printing. Edition of forty-five copies. University of Utah copy is no. 19.

“Looking at New Rule helped my own making for my next project. It is a good example of a poem in a book, without lots of pages, but with a creative structure. I like how it hides the colophon inside the back cover by folding inward.”


N7433.4-C414-C66-2013-spread
CONVERSION: (A CONVERSATION TOLD IN SYMBOLS)
Macy Chadwick
Portland, OR: In Cahoots Press, 2013
N7433.4 C414 C66 2013

A sequential, narrative story with abstract imagery and no text, a conversation using only symbols. From the artist’s website: “…a two-person conversation using a vocabulary of stencils and hand-drawn symbols shown in a key. What is said and what is thought, works spoken in a jumble without stopping, a rational response and an activated imagination are all carefully plotted and diagrammed. Two different communication styles clash, merge, and ultimately influence each other as one person finally speaks her mind.” Mulberry paper, Micron pens, book cloth, pochoir. Edition of five copies.

“This book was assembled very simply, hand drawn on a single sheet of mulberry paper and folded into a book with a thin book cloth cover. What really pulled me into this one was the concept behind it. The artist took the words out of a conversation and replaced them with symbols to show the structure of a conversation. It made me see that as an artist we don’t have to ‘write the story’ our viewers see, we can create a scaffolding of an idea that gets filled in with what the viewer has already experienced. It was very powerful. The book is a great vessel for this concept because it is such a personal experience turning the pages, touching the conversation with my own fingers. I learned a lot from that small book and from this whole experience.”

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Photographs of books by Scott Beadles.
Photographs of readers by Dennise Gackstetter. Thanks, Dennise!

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On Jon’s Desk: The Generall Historie of the Turkes, a beautiful book linking the past and the present

29 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bingham in On Jon's Desk

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Adam Islip, Benjamin Heywood Bright, Christian, Constantinople, European, Harold Greenhill, Jean Jacque Boissard, Jon Bingham, Laurence Johnson, London, Lord Byron, Middle East, Muslim, Ottoman Empire, Richard Knolles, Samuel Johnson, Scott Beadles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, Vitae et Icons Sultanorum, William Shakespeare

 

photograph by Scott Beadles

photograph by Scott Beadles

“What small assurance there is in mens affaires, and how subject unto change even those things are wherein we for the most part repose our greatest felicitie and blisse, (beside that the whole course of mans fraile life, by many notable examples well declareth) nothing doth more plainely manifest the same, than the heavie events and wofull destructions of the greatest kingdomes and empires: which founded upon great fortunes, increased with perpetuall successe, exalted by exceeding power, established with most puissant armies, wholesome lawes, and deepe counsel; have yet grown old, and in time come to naught.”

– Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes

Title: The Generall Historie of the Turkes, from The first beginning of that Nation to the rising of the Ottoman Familie: with all the notable expeditions of the Christian Princes against them

Author: Richard Knolles

Printed: London, by Adam Islip, 1603

First Edition

Call Number: DR439 K74 1603

Title page of The Generall Historie of the Turkes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are so many books in the world. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some people like bright, new books. Others like old, worn books. As much as I would like to say that I love all books I have to confess that books with a little experience draw me in more. They feel tried and tested to me. The best books in my book are those with at least a couple of centuries behind them. With that in mind you will understand the enchantment I have found myself under recently with a most wonderfully old book. It is a marvelous specimen from the early 17th century.

Printed in London by Adam Islip (d. 1639), this book was bound in brown calf leather, which must have been rich and sensual to the touch earlier in its life. The book now wears this leather like armor that has seen some tough days on the battlefield. Somehow, despite the cracks where the boards meet the spine, it is still elegant. Although the slightly decaying leather may leave a minor brown smudge on an unsuspecting viewer’s shirt, the outer accoutrements remain steadfast in their dual missions of beauty and protection. The front and rear covers offer to the viewer a framed pattern blind-stamped into the leather.

photograph by Scott Beadles

Along the spine large raised bands fit perfectly in the hand, but more importantly, these bands are the anchors for a hand-sewn binding that has lasted for centuries. Lifting the front cover, the board is heavy; not just a little heavy, but seriously heavy. Lifting the front board is like lifting a draw bridge. It is a reminder that this cover protects something worth protecting and warns the reader not to pass lightly.

The book itself is also heavy. Consisting of 1,152 pages, this book was not meant for fanciful entertainment while traveling. At approximately twenty-three centimeters wide, thirty-two tall, and eight deep, its size confirms that this book is profound and consequential. The reader opens to the title page and finds there an elaborate copper-plate engraving, drawing him in. We have Laurence Johnson (“Sculpsit,” Latin for “he engraved, carved, or sculpted it”) to thank for this image, wherein we see noblemen, one on each side of the page. On the left stands a European and on the right an Ottoman Turk. The beauty of this page makes the reader want to linger, but it is quickly observed that the font on the subsequent pages is delightful and there are many more engravings to examine throughout the book.

Dedication page of The Generall Historie of the Turkes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the reader opens this book the smell of it cascades gently over him or her. It is not an unpleasant smell, despite the book’s age. Rather, it is a wonderful smell. It is the smell of leather and paper that have soaked in their surroundings for four hundred years. This book has a clean mustiness that tells the story of owners who have lovingly cared for it through the long years since its printing.

The University of Utah’s copy was part of the Benjamin Heywood Bright library, which was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 1845. Bright, who became a well-known antiquarian and authority on Shakespeare, began collecting around 1809. Sometime in the 19th century, the copy became the property of Harold Greenhill, as evidenced by his bookplate.

Book plate present in The Generall Historie of the Turkes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just as the physical features of this book indicate, the subject matter is a weighty one. Written by Richard Knolles in the last decade of the 16th century, The Generall Historie of the Turkes is recognized as a major historical treatise. Written in English rather than the more scholarly and academically accepted Latin, the treatise consists of a compendium of accounts by historians in the 14th through 16th centuries. Like most European historians of the day, Knolles relied on earlier European works for his information and much of his viewpoint. He relied most heavily on Jean Jacques Boissard’s Vitae et icons sultanorum (1596), from which were copied twenty-eight engraved portraits of Turkish sultans, their wives, and European kings.

Copper plate engraving illustration of Turkish Sultan and Sultaness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knolles strongly edited the accounts, however, which resulted in the reader fully experiencing a propagandist diatribe throughout. The fact that Knolles chose to publish the work in English rather than Latin is noteworthy. It suggests the intent to reach a large audience and to sway public opinion. Due to the work’s role as a propaganda device it was important for common people to be able to understand it. The treatise was indeed influential. Later writers, such as Samuel Johnson and Lord Byron, read and commented on Knolles’ work. It is also widely accepted that The Generall Historie of the Turkes influenced Shakespeare’s writing.

Knolles’ Generall Historie was certainly a success, running through new editions seven times between 1603 and 1701, most with varying additions and abridgements. The first edition probably consisted of between 1250 and 1500 copies, the maximum number of copies allowed by a 1587 regulation.

The text itself, twelve years in the writing, demonstrates British animosity towards Islam. For example, author Richard Knolles refers to Muslims as “slothing and effeminate.” Knolles wrote this work to acquaint English Christians with an enemy. His demonization of the Turks made this hostility a religious struggle as much as a struggle for world position and power. During the 16th century, more works regarding the Ottoman Turks were written than on the “New World.”

Image of opening lines of The Generall Historie of the Turkes.

 

 

 

 

History repeats itself. However, each generation, I would hazard to generalize, feels as if it is forging ahead into uncharted territory. If a person (a pesky historian or even a curator of rare books) were to point out a historical example which perhaps might support an argument regarding the nature of history and its cycles, others may be quick to point to all the ways in which current events differ from those contained in the historical example. The Generall Historie of the Turkes is a marvelous portal which allows us to view how many of the modern western world’s most difficult issues were being treated at the turn of the 17th century.

In 1453 Constantinople, the capital city and last hold-out of the Eastern Roman Empire, fell to the Ottoman Empire. To put it mildly, this did not please the western Europeans. To turn this into an almost unforgivably simple tale, the Westerners (predominantly Christian) traveled to the Near East (what we now often refer to as the Middle East) and began to carve out little kingdoms for themselves. Religion played an important role in the impetus for these actions. Some may claim that today the impetus is oil, but religion or oil makes not a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things. The bottom line is, westerners (Europeans) showed up in the Near East and started telling the local people how things would run. Naturally, this (then as it is now) was hard for the local people to accept, so they pushed back. In the 15th century they pushed back right into Europe. In the 21st century it is no different. These two cultures have clashed repeatedly over centuries, and so it is that a four hundred year old book acts as a portal that looks suspiciously like a mirror.

I love that the physical attributes and the subject matter of this book are so at odds. This finely crafted, beautiful book is the physical medium of an aggressive topic. History is anything but pretty, yet the books (at least in this case) containing it can be. Perhaps that is not without intention. It just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

~ Contributed by Jon Bingham, Rare Books Curator

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Now is the night one blue dew.

26 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

American History Printing Association, antiquarian, booksellers, Carol Sandberg, Carolee Campbell, cousins, Essex House Press, Fairfax, floriated initials, Gaylord Schanilec, Jack Stauffacher, James Agee, Jerry Kelly, John Keats, Joni Kay Miller, Kathleen Thompson, London, Los Angeles, Luise Putcamp jr, Melrose, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Michael Thompson, Mississippi, music, poems, poetry, poets, Robin Price, Rover Art Books, Third, Universal Books, vellum, Walter de la Mare, William Shakespeare, Zeitlin & Van Brugge

PS3501-G35-H3-1964-cover

“…do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou has not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”
— John Keats from Ode on a Grecian Urn

In Memoriam — Kathleen Thompson

Kathleen Thompson of Michael R. Thompson Rare Books worked for several Los Angeles antiquarian booksellers, including Universal Books, Royer Art Books, and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, before entering into a partnership with her husband, Michael Thompson, and Carol Sandberg in 1985. Hers was often the first face one encountered when visiting their shops on Melrose, Fairfax, and Third. We remember Kathleen for her warmth, sense of humor, thoughtfulness, and intelligence.

I had the pleasure of many conversations with Kathleen over the phone and by email. I will miss her soft Mississippi meter, which, thank goodness, she never did lose, even though she swore she had. We wrote to each other about cousins, music, poets and poems. Here are a few of her favorites.

PR2841-A2-E55-pg153
THE POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
London: Essex House Press, 1899
PR2841 A2 E55

Printed in black and red. Illustrated with floriated initials and one full-page drawing. Bound in vellum with ties. Edition of four hundred and fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 274.


Z250-V47-2006-3panel
VERSE INTO TYPE THE APHA POETRY PORTFOLIO
American Printing History Association
S. l.: American Printing History Association, 2006
Z250 V47 2006

Seventeen gatherings contributed by fifteen different presses in a variety of typefaces, colors, formats, papers, all letterpress printed, some illustrated. Contributors include Carolee Campbell, Jerry Kelly, Robin Price, Gaylord Schanilec, Jack Stauffacher, and others. Issued in blue cloth clamshell box with paper label. Edition of two hundred copies.


And this from Walter de la Mare:

All That’s Past

Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the brier’s boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are–
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve’s nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.

PR1309-C485-N85-1925-CoverPattern


And this from James Agee:

Knoxville: Summer of 1915

(We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in that time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.)

…It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds’ hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a quiet auto; people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.

A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter, fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew.

PS3501-G35-H3-1964-cover


And this from the aunt of Kathleen’s “dearest old friend,” Joni Kay Miller (1945-2017):

It is peculiar mercy none can find
In this lost time where only losers dwell
Who lose the most, the ones who left behind
Wisdom and love and never knew them well
Or those who know too well and as they stay
Inherit silence and the vacant day.
— Luise Putcamp jr.


And I had the honor of being called by Kathleen “a kindred spirit, too.”
— Luise Poulton


Memory eternal!

PS3501-G35-H3-1964-cover(feature)

26 March 2017

Friends Gather for Kathleen, 26 March 2017

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Book of the Week — The Farmer’s Diary, or, Beers’ Ontario Almanack, for the Year of our Lord 1824

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Albany, almanacs, American, Andrew Beers, attorney, Beers' Ontario Almanack, Canandaigua, diary, editor, farmers, James D. Bemis, Joseph Smith, New York, New York City, nineteenth century, Ontario County, Ontario Repository and Genesee Advertiser, polymath, spring, weather

AY256-N5-F26-1824-Title

“This month is generally ushered in with boisterous wind and nipping frosts. The hapless mariner beholds his vessel wrecked upon the very rocks which bind his much-loved home. Vegetation perishes through severe and untimely ires!; and deluging rains, descending with impetuous force crush the springing blade, and despoil the beauty of the gay parterre. Even thus do the rude passions of man’s soul break forth with resistless force at this unsettled period of existence, wrecking the fragile bark of youth. The tide of dissipation sweeps away the principles of virtue, which have not had time to take root, and every noble energy is blighted by the influence of bad example.”

Happy Spring!

The Farmer’s Diary, or, Beers’ Ontario Almanack, for the Year of our Lord 1824
Canandaigua, NY: Printed and sold, wholesale and retail, by J. D. Bemis, 1824
AY256 N5 F26

For all their necessity, American almanacs in the early nineteenth century assumed that most farmers understood, without printed confirmation, events such as the beginning of spring. Nonetheless, warnings such as the one above about the ravages of early spring weather, not to mention the unsettling effect it has on the “fragile bark of youth,” pervaded these sage documents. As evidenced here, spring fever was alive and well in 1824.

Attorney Andrew Beers acted as chief polymath for several almanacs in New York City before he moved to Albany in 1797. He began working with printers in western New York towns wanting to issue almanacs particular to their areas. Newspaperman and publisher James D. Bemis of Canandaigua, nine miles from the home of Joseph Smith, turned to Beers for help with astronomical, monetary and other calculations invaluable to local farmers and businessmen. Bemus was the editor of the Ontario Repository and Genesee Advertiser. Ontario County, New York was home to Joseph Smith and his family between 1816 and 1830.

AY256-N5-F26-1824-Signs

AY256-N5-F26-1824-backcover

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Rare Books Exhibition — Enquiring Minds

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Physical Exhibitions

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almanacs, answers, atlases, compendiums, dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, exhibition, facsimiles, first editions, information, Izaak Walton, J. Willard Marriott Library, lexicons, manuals, medieval, Ptolemy, questions, rare books, Special Collections Gallery, The University of Utah

EnquiringMinds(blog)

Enquiring Minds: Fourteen Centuries of Questions and Answers

Humans have been compiling information to answer an infinity of questions for thousands of years. From Ptolemy to Izaak Walton, the best minds have annotated, edited, translated, measured, arranged, and defined what it means to live a life of wonder.

From facsimiles of medieval encyclopedias, almanacs and atlases to first editions of fifteenth through twentieth century dictionaries, manuals, lexicons, compendiums, and directories, Rare Books celebrates questions and the attempts to answer them.

Keep on asking!

March 17, 2017 — April 30, 2017
Special Collections Gallery
Level 4
J. Willard Marriott Library
The University of Utah

This exhibition is free and open to the public.

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Books of the Week — Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919)

13 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

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Tags

Berlin, chef, chromolithography, Egypt, Ernst Haeckel, G. Reimer, Horst E. Schober, Ismail Pasha, Khedive, landscape painting, Leipzig, Newhouse Hotel, rare books, Red Sea, Salt Lake Country Club, Tur, W. Engelmann, watercolor

QL368-R2-H34-1862-title

“Every morning I am newly amazed at the inexhaustible richness of these tiny and delicate structures. That I thrust myself with sheer passion on these scientific treasures, which are simultaneously so pleasing to the aesthetic eye, you can well imagine.”

Die Radiolarien (Rhizopoda Radiaria)…
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919)
Berlin: G. Reimer, 1862
First edition
QL368 R2 H34 1862

Rare Books copy from the library of Horst E. Schober (1880-1950), the chef at the Newhouse Hotel and the Salt Lake Country Club during the 1930s and 1940s.

____________________________________________________________________

QH386-H17-titlespread

Anthropologie oder Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen…
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919)
Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1874
First edition
QH368 H17

Qh368-H17-ImageSpread

_________________________________________________________________

QL377-C5-H34-1876-title

Arabische Korallen…
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919)
Berlin: G. Reimer, 1876
First edition
QL377 C5 H34 1876

Ernst Haeckel traveled the world. The cumination of Ernst Haeckel’s journey in 1873 to Egypt was his visit to the surreal coral banks of Tur in the Red Sea. His exploration of the banks was expedited by the use of a steamer, which Ismail Pasha, Egypt’s Khedive and the dedicatee of the volume, put at his disposal. Landscape painting was a lifelong hobby of Haeckel’s. He painted numerous scenes in watercolor during his travels, some of which are reproduced here in chromolithographic plates. Rare Books copy from the library of Horst E. Schober.

QL377-C5-H34-1876-specimens

QL377-C5-H34-1876-Landscape

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Mrs. Delany & Her Circle

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

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Alicia Weisberg-Roberts, Book and Paper Conservator, Brigham Young University, flowers, J. Willard Marriott Library, Kohleen Reeder Jones, London, Mark Laird, Mrs. Delaney, New Haven, rare books, Sir John Soane' Museum, Yale Center for British Art

MrsD&HerCircleCover

“I have invented a new way of imitating flowers.”
— Mrs. Delany

MRS. DELANY AND HER CIRCLE
Mark Laird and Alicia Weisberg-Roberts, eds.
New Haven: Yale Center for British Art; London: Sir John Soane’s Museum;… 2009
NX547.6 D45 M77 2009

Publication to accompany an exhibition organized by the Yale Center for British Art in association with Sir John Soane’s Museum, London: Yale Center for British Art, September 24, 2009 through January 3, 2010 and Sir John Soane’s Museum, February 18, 2010 through May 1, 2010.

We are especially fond of this book for two reasons:

First, our friend and colleague, Kohleen Reeder Jones, worked on this project and wrote the chapter, “The ‘Paper Mosaick’ Practice of Mrs. Delaney & Her Circle.” Kohleen worked at the J. Willard Marriott Library as the Book and Paper Conservator. She went from here to Brigham Young University and then home, where she takes care of her family as wonderfully as she took care of the work of Mrs. Delaney and of our rare books.

MrsD&HerCirclePg224

MrsD&HerCircleP232Spread

Second, the Rare Books copy is a gift of a most generous friend, who insists on anonymity.

Thank you, friends!

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Book of the Week — Mrs. Delany Meets Herr Haeckel

06 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Arches, Arches MBM Ingres, artist, Barbara Hodgson, biologist, botanical, Canada, Claudia Cohen, cut-paper, decorations, English, Ernst Haeckel, Europe, German, Gifu, gilt, Hahnemuhle Ingres, hand-colored, handmade, HM Editions, Ingres, initials, Japan, Kiraku kozo, Kitikata, Kozuke, marbling, Mary Delany, microscopic organism, morocco, mulberry, paper, papermaker, Reg Lissel, single-cell, Suminigashi, Turkish, Vancouver, wove, Yatsuo

MreD&HerrHTitle

“Mrs. Delany’s was an age when genteel women, whether amateur or professional, were occupied with crafts, decorative works, design and fine arts. Embroidery, quilling, shellwork, japanning, silhouette making, drawing, painting in oils and watercolours, knitting, sewing, flower making, modelling in wax and clay, miniature painting, and horticulture were among the arts practiced.”

MRS. DELANY MEETS HERR HAECKEL
Barbara Hodgson
Vancouver: HM Editions, 2015
N7433.4 H63 M77 2015

From the publisher’s website: [Mrs. Delany] is an “imagined collaboration between Mrs. Mary Delany (1700-1788), an English widow, woman of accomplishment, and creator of imaginative botanical ‘paper mosaics’ and Herr Ernst Haeckel (1852-1911), a distinguished and controversial German biologist and artist who devoted much of his time to the study and rendering of single-celled creatures.”

MreD&HerrHPlateVIII

Cut paper image of a microscopic organism affixed to frontispiece with another cut-paper image affixed to the recto of the same sheet; eleven cut-paper interpretations of microscopic organisms tipped on to captioned plates; tipped-in cut-paper initials, numerous smaller cut-paper decorations. The paper cuttings are adapted from Ernst Haeckel’s Die Radiolarien (1862) and Kunstformen der Natur (1899-1904). They are cut from a variety of papers, including Yatsuo, Kozuke, mulberry, Gifu, Kitikata, and Kiraku kozo from Japan; Ingres and unidentified wove from Europe; and Reg Lissel handmade papers from Canada. Some were cut from papers previously marbled in the Turkish or Suminigashi styles. Some were dyed by the papermaker; some were dyed or otherwise hand-colored for this book. The cuttings are mounted on one of Arches text wove (white), Arches MBM Ingres (black) or Hahnemuhle Ingres (black).

Bound in full polished morocco, ruled and stamped decoratively in red and gilt with a gilt-lettered spine by Claudia Cohen. Marbled endpapers. Issued in orange clamshell case with a gilt-lettered spine label.

MrsD&HerrHCover2

MrsD&HerrHMarble

Edition of twenty-five copies plus six hors de commerce, each signed by the author, printer, and binder. Rare Books copy is XXII.

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