25 Friday Jan 2013
Posted in Physical Exhibitions
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Nahuatl Spoken Here, 2013
January 18–March 3
Exhibition: Nahuatl Spoken Here
Curator: Luise Poulton
Location: Special Collections Gallery, J. Willard Marriott Library, level 4
Gallery hours: Monday–Friday, 8:00–6:00; Saturday, 9:00–6:00; Hours differ during University breaks and holidays.
The exhibition is FREE and open to the public.
23 Wednesday Jan 2013
Posted in Events
≈ Comments Off on Weller Book Works, Collectors’ Book Salon: Luise Poulton, University of Utah Special Collections
Weller Book Works, Collectors’ Book Salon speaker this month will be Luise Poulton, Managing Curator of the Rare Books Division, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah. Her talk is entitled “Where Did All These Book Come from? Collecting Books with a History”.
The Collectors’ Book Salon occurs on the last Friday of each month from 6:30 until 9:00 PM. They are semi-formal but playful affairs with music, snacks, and drinks. At 7:30, guests gather for brief bibliographic presentations.
This event is free and open to the public.
21 Monday Jan 2013
Posted in Book of the Week
≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week – Bone Songs
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Barcham Green Royal Watercolour, Claire Van Vliet, Clifford Burke, french-fold, Gill Sans Light, Janus Press, paper, Ruth Fine, typeface
Bone Songs, 1992
Bone Songs
Clifford Burke
Neward, VT: Janus Press, 1992
N7433.4 B884 B68 1992
A group of twenty poems inspired by a series of bone and skull drawings by Ruth Fine, eighteen of which are included in this edition. The typeface on forty french-folded pages is 10 point Gill Sans Light printed on Barcham Green Royal Watercolour society paper. Bound in a woven non-adhesive structure on MacGregor-Vinzani calendered ivory abaca paper. Housed in two slipcases; one of Barcham Green’s Renaissance IV made from old British Mailbags; the other is drum vellum. Both slipcases are constructed without glue. The entire structure designed and executed by Claire Van Vliet. Edition of one hundred and fifty copies, numbered and signed by the author, illustrator, and printer. University of Utah copy is no. 24.
16 Wednesday Jan 2013
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Alice Liddell, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Cheshire Cat, Cyril Bathurst Judge, fairy tales, George MacDonald, gift inscription, gilt, Greg Thompson, Henry Kingsley, John Tenniel, Lewis Carroll, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Michael Sharpe, pictorial cloth bindings, preliminary blank, Punch
A first edition, second printing of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1866) and a first edition of Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1872) join the Rare Books Department, Special Collections. The anonymous donation was facilitated by Michael Thompson of Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Los Angeles, California. We are thankful for the generosity of the donor and indebted to Michael Thompson for his friendship.
“This is an important and very welcomed addition to the J. Willard Marriott Library,” said Greg Thompson, Associate Dean of Special Collections. The value of the books is estimated at $30,000.
The books are in their original gilt pictorial cloth bindings. The inside front boards bear two bookplates, one of Harvard scholar Cyril Bathurst Judge (b. 1888), the other of book collector Michael Sharpe. A gift inscription on the preliminary blank of Through the Looking Glass is dated December 25, 1871, one month before official publication.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s now-famous Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was intended solely for Alice Liddell and her two sisters. Dodgson made the story up to engage the bored children during a series of outings. Alice asked Dodgson to write the story down. Dodgson presented his manuscript to Alice as a Christmas gift in 1864.
Friend and novelist Henry Kingsley saw the manuscript and encouraged Dodgson to publish the book. Dodgson consulted another friend, George MacDonald. Macdonald, a popular writer of fairy tales and fantasy, read the story to his children, who thoroughly approved of it. Macdonald’s six-year-old son is said to have declared that he “wished there were 60,000 copies of it.”
Dodgson prepared the manuscript for publication, expanding the 18,000 word original to 35,000 words and adding, among other characters and scenes, the Cheshire Cat and “A Mad-Tea Party.” The first published edition included illustrations by John Tenniel, a cartoonist for the magazine, Punch. The edition of 4,000 copies was released, under the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” in time for Christmas in December of 1865, carrying 1866 as the publication date.
By 1884, 100, 000 copies had been printed.
Dodgson began writing Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There in 1869. The first edition was of 9000 copies. It was bound in the same red cloth, a color requested by Dodgson, as Alice’s Adventures.
14 Monday Jan 2013
Posted in Book of the Week
≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week – Arithmetica Boetij
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Ancius Manlius Severinuis Boethius, Roman philosopher and statesman, was appointed consul of Rome in 510. A minister under Emperor Theodoric, Boethius was falsely accused of treason, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. According to tradition, he wrote his great work, The Consolation of Philosophy, while awaiting execution. His treatise on ancient music was also for many centuries unrivaled as the final authority on Western music. Boethius’ Arithmetica was produced by Erhard Ratdolt as part of his extensive program of astronomical and mathematical publications. The early printed treatise is typical of the classical works used in Western European Renaissance education.
07 Monday Jan 2013
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≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week – An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding
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David Hume, Elizabeth Holt, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, paneled calf, printer, printing, Thomas Basset
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding
John Locke (1632-1704)
London: Printed by Elizabeth Holt for Thomas Basset, 1690
First edition, first issue
B1290 1690
The foundation work of English political theory, this work is also fundamental in the history of psychology. Between 1763 and 1776, John Locke’s work was especially popular reading among English colonists in North America. Locke’s Essay was the first “modern” attempt to analyze the whole range of human knowledge. He applied an Anglo-Saxon penchant for facts to the study of philosophy (a field long-dominated by speculative enquiry) and concluded that most knowledge emanated from experience. Locke’s Essay was twenty years in the making. He completed the initial draft in 1671, but was unable to work on it further until his escape to Holland in 1683. Final revisions were completed by the time he returned to England in 1689. Although Locke was uncertain about the book’s reception, it quickly ran to several editions. Locke’s theories were continued by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. A busy man, philosopher Locke was also a physician and practiced medicine, although to a limited extent. Printer Elizabeth Holt carried on her husband’s business after his death in 1671. In 1688, she was ordered to “lay down the trade of printing,” part of growing strict control of the printing trade. To continue printing risked having her shop closed down. This may have been one of her last printing jobs. University of Utah copy bound in contemporary paneled calf.
31 Monday Dec 2012
Posted in Book of the Week
≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week – A Leaf from the Gutenberg Bible
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Bible, Bruce Rogers, Centaur, fine press, font, Grolier Club, Gutenberg Bible, Johann Gutenberg, medieval manuscript, moveable metal type, Niclas Jenson, printed, printer, Riverside Press, textura, type, typeface, typographer, William Edwin Rudge
A Noble Fragment, Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible 1450-1455; With a Bibliographical Essay by A. Edward Newton
New York: Gabriel Wells, 1921
Z241 B581 1921, oversize
A leaf from the Old Testament, Samuel, 2nd, xxii-xxiii, from a Latin translation dating to about 380. The first book printed from moveable metal type, the Biblia Latina or 42-line Bible (in reference to the number of lines in a column) was based on medieval manuscript design. The typeface was developed after a book-hand used in western Germany during the fifteenth century for liturgical works. Known as “textura,” this formal upright and angular hand features letters that have pointed feet and almost no curvature. The first font of type, made by goldsmith Johann Gutenberg, consisted of nearly three hundred characters, including variant forms of letters, ligatures, and abbreviations to simulate as much as possible manuscript conventions. Gutenberg’s choice of the Bible as his first printed publication was a good business decision. All copies (approximately one hundred and eighty) had sold before they were off the press. Forty-eight full copies are known to exist today, thirty-six on paper and twelve on vellum. A. Edward Newton’s bibliographical essay for this leaf book was printed under the direction of Bruce Rogers at the shop of William Edwin Rudge. Bruce Rogers (1870-1957), the distinguished American printer and typographer, is widely recognized as one of the most talented book designers of all time. He spent his earliest years as a designer with Riverside Press, then as a freelance artist during which time he worked with the printing house of W.E. Rudge of Mt. Vernon, New York, the Grolier Club, and the Limited Editions Club of New York. Rogers established American fine press standards, insisting that the design of a book – its type, illustrations, and format should reflect and enhance the author’s text. He designed more than seven hundred books. Rogers also designed Centaur type for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1914. Released by Monotype in 1929, Centaur is modeled on letters cut by the fifteenth-century French printer Nicolas Jenson. Centaur has a beauty of line and a proportion that has been widely acclaimed since its release. An attractive typeface for books in particular, it is effective for shorter texts. Bound in black morocco, lettered in gold on front cover.
24 Monday Dec 2012
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≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week – A Christmas Recipe
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Alessandro Zanella, Fulvio Testa, Plain Wrapper Press, Richard-Gabriel Rummonds, Washington hand press
A Christmas Recipe, 1977
A Christmas Recipe
Anthony Burgess 1917-1993
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1977
PR6052 U638 C47 1977
From the colophon: “Natale 1977 One hundred and eighty copies of this Christmas recipe (written by Anthony Burgess and illustrated by Fulvio Testa) were printed for friends on a Washington hand press by Richard-Gabriel Rummonds & Alessandro Zanella at the Plain Wrapper Press in Verona, Italy. Bon appetit!”
17 Monday Dec 2012
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≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week – Sententiarum Libri IV
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Albert Magnus, Anton Koberger, Augsburg, blind-stamped, Boethius, bonventura, initials, manuscript, Peter Lombard, printer, proof sheets, theology, Thomas Aquinas
Sententiarum Libri IV
Petrus Lombardus (ca. 1100-1160)
Nuremberg: A. Koberger, 1500
BX1749 P4 1500
Petrus Lombardus (Peter Lombard) was a Medieval French theologian. He taught at the Cathedral school of Notre Dame and towards the end of his life became Bishop of Rome. Written between 1148 and 1151, Sententiarum is a collection of teachings of the Church Fathers. In it Lombardus recognized the role of reason in theology. Until the sixteenth century it was the official textbook of theology in many universities. Hundreds of scholars wrote commentaries on it, among them Thomas Aquinas, Albert Magnus, and Bonaventura. Despite its great influence, the work itself is unoriginal, but it was among the very first attempts to present Christian theology in a systematized form. This edition was printed by Anton Koberger, a significant early printer. Koberger published more than two hundred editions. Because Sententiarum was used as a textbook, it has no decorative initials or other ornaments. This folio is bound in contemporary calf over oak boards, with blind-stamped panels on the sides. The binding is decorated with a roll depicting a hunting scene. The lining papers consist of proof sheets from Boethius’s De Institutione Arithmetica, printed at Augsburg in 1486. These sheets consist of four pages of the book and include diagrams and tables. The proofs are printed on the back of proofs of another and unidentified book. A manuscript note on the title page suggests that it at once belonged to the monastic library of St. Elizabeth at Brescia.
11 Tuesday Dec 2012
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≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week – Credo
Credo
T. J. Cobden-Sanderson (1840 – 1922)
Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1908
This is one of three diminutive books published by Doves Press (the other two being the first chapter of Genesis and the Lord’s Prayer). It was printed in an edition of 262 copies. The Doves Press was founded by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker in 1900. The Doves Bindery, established by Cobden-Sanderson in 1893, shared premises with William Morris’s Kelmscott Press in its early years.
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