Edgar Allan Poe (Jan. 19, 1809-Oct. 7, 1849)

07 Friday Oct 2016

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Alan James Robinson, Bruce Rogers, Centaur type, Cheloniidae Press, David Bourbeau, Easthampton, Edgar Allen Poe, etchings, Harold McGrath, Massachusetts, Raven, wood engravings

“Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before”

THE RAVEN
Edgar Allan Poe (1909-1949)
Easthampton, MA: Cheloniidae Press, 1980

This is the first book from Alan James Robinson and his Cheloniidae Press. Text is hand-set and printed by Harold McGrath in Bruce Rogers’ 24pt. Centaur type in red and black ink. Illustrated with five etchings and two wood engravings by Alan James Robinson, who printed the etchings. Each plate is titled and signed by the artist. Laid in artists’ proof of the “Crow Quill” on the title-page and proof of the “Raven” that appears on the colophon. Bound by David Bourbeau in a specially painted dark grey paper over boards: Bird wings in black with red highlights on spine extending to front and rear panels. Housed in black cloth clamshell. Signed by the artist.

Book of the Week — Empire Builders

03 Monday Oct 2016

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accordion fold, Anagram Press, Carol Inderieden, Chandler O'Leary, desert, elephant, handbound, illusion, mirage

“We have all our elephants to see.”

Empire Builders
Carol Inderieden and Chandler O’Leary
Tacoma, WA: Anagram Press, 2015
N7433.4 I52 E47 2015

From the authors’ essay: “To see the elephant was to embark on a quest for riches and prosperity…The elephant is an illusion, an impossible promise like a desert mirage that disappears as one moves closer.”

Digitally printed and handbound. Edition of fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 25, signed by the authors.

Burned! — Celsius 233

30 Friday Sep 2016

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Arizona, book-burning, Daesh, Iraq, Islamic State, jihadists, Mosul Library, Nazi, Philip Zimmermann, Spaceheater Editions, Tuscon

“Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned too.” — Heinrich Heine, 1823

Celsius 233
Philip Zimmermann
Tuscon, AZ: Spaceheater Editions, 2015
N7433.4 Z55 C45 2015

From the artist: I started doing research on the history of book-burning after seeing a video posted by the Islamic State/Daesh showing jihadists burning all the books from the Mosul Library in Iraq. I found that burning books has a long and infamous history dating back a couple of thousand years. Most people know about the Nazi’s burning books as well as the famous Ray Bradbury book ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ but it turns out that almost every authoritarian regime (and some are nominally not authoritarian like the United States) has burnt books that do not agree with cultural and political viewpoints. The book contains 40 pages displaying acts of libricide in chronological order. The title page spread includes a famous quote by Heinrich Heine, whose own literary work was included in some of the book burnings orchestrated by the Nazis in the 1930s. Inserted small orange laser-cut tongues of flame describe the date and action of each image through time. The images were obtained on-line, mostly from the Library of Congress, the National Archive, and the National Holocaust Museum, plus some educational Institutional archives.”

Images printed using archival inkjet ink with three-color foil stamping on the cover, title-page, and back cover. Interior flame sheets are loose-inserted in a slot in each interior folio. Includes blu-ray DVD “to be used as viewing environment.” Multi-needle coptic binding with sewn-on hard covers made of acid-free solid-core black museum board. Housed in grey cardboard container with red and black illustration on cover. Edition of fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 22, signed by the author.

Banned! — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Alice, Donations

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Alice, Alice Lidell, animals, banned, book collector, bookplates, California, cartoonist, Charles Dodgson, Cheshire Cat, children, China, Christmas, cloth bindings, Cyril Bathurst Judge, donation, fairy tales, fantasy, George MacDonald, gift, gilt, Governor, Harvard, Henry Kingsley, Huan Province, humans, John Tenniel, language, Lewis Carroll, London, Los Angeles, Macmillan, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Michael Sharpe, Michael Thompson, pictorial, Punch, story, United States, University of Utah

“Animals should not use human language.”

Alice’s adventures in wonderland…
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
London: Macmillan and Co., 1866
First published edition

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 entertain 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 original 18,000 word story to 35,000 words and adding, among other characters and scenes, the Cheshire Cat and “A Mad-Tea Party.”

The first edition included forty-two 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. However, Tenniel and Dodgson disapproved of the quality of the printing. This first printed edition was removed from the market. A few of these printings made their way to the United States.

The book was reprinted and re-released in 1866. By 1884, 100,000 copies had been printed.

In 1931, the work was banned in China by the Governor of Huan Province on the grounds that “Animals should not use human language, and…it [is] disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level.”

University of Utah copy is in 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. Anonymous donation facilitated by Michael Thompson of Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Los Angeles, California.

Banned! — Quipu

28 Wednesday Sep 2016

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Andean, banned, Cecilia Vicuña, Granary Books, Inca, Jerome Rothenberg, New York, print, quipu, Spanish, University of Utah, Western

“It is a prayer for the rebirth of a way of writing with breath.”

CHANCCANI QUIPU
Cecilia Vicuña
New York: Granary Books, 2012

Quipu, or knotted cords, encoded the spoken language of the Inca, representing both single sounds and whole words, and was used as a form of communication for nearly 5000 years before it was banned by the Spanish in 1583. From the booklet: “Chanccani Quipu reinvents the concept of ‘quipu,’ the ancient system of ‘writing’ with knots, transforming it into metaphor in space; a book/sculpture that condenses the clash of two cultures and worldviews: the Andean oral universe and the Western world of print.” From the colophon: Jerome Rothenberg assisted Cecilia Vicuña in translating her poem.” Edition of thirty-two copies, numbered and signed by Cecilia Vicuña and Jerome Rothenberg. University of Utah copy is no. 14.

Banned! — Лолита

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

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American, banned, British Customs, British Isles, English, France, Gone With the Wind, Graham Greene, Lolita, London, Margaret Mitchell, Minister of the Interior, Modern Library, New York, novel, Paris, Phaedra, pornography, postscript, printing, publisher, Putnam, revolution, Russia, Russian, smuggled, Soviet Union, Sunday Times, translation, University of Utah, Vladimir Nabokov

«Лолита , свет моей жизни , огонь моих чресел . Грех mой , душа моя . Ло -ли –та…”

Лолита
Владимир Набоков (1899-1977)
New York: Phaedra, Inc., Publishers, 1967
First hardcover edition in Russian

First published in Paris in 1955, then in New York City in 1958 and London in 1959, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, is a controversial masterpiece of English literature.

Originally published as a paperback by a relatively unknown publisher, the first printing of 5,000 copies sold out before year’s end. Graham Greene wrote in London’s Sunday Times that it was one of the three best books of the year. Other early reviews were hardly so generous. Many considered it pornographic. British Customs was ordered to seize copies coming into the British Isles. A year later, France’s Minister of the Interior also banned it.

Times change. In 1998, Lolita was included by Modern Library in its list of 100 best novels of the 20th century.

This is the first edition in Russian, translated by Nabokov, whose mother-tongue was Russian. He added a postscript that appears only in this edition, describing his ambivalence toward his translation. Nabokov’s American publisher, Putnam, chose not to publish the Russian edition, concerned that it would not be a commercial success. Perhaps they were satisfied enough with the response to their American edition, which went into a third printing within days and sold one hundred thousand copies within three weeks. Up until that time, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936), was the only other American novel to have done so well.

All of Nabokov’s writings had been banned in the Soviet Union, although copies of his work were smuggled in. Nabokov was, after all, the son of aristocratic Russians who fled the country during the Revolution. The first printing in Russia was not until 1989. The work, by the once-outlawed, un-favored son of the Soviet state was a stunning success. The first edition in the Russian language was first issued in wrappers. This is “issue b,” in pink cloth, with gilt title stamp along spine and with dust jacket. University of Utah copy donated by Anonymous.

Book of the week — An Inflammatory Guide: Banned and Challenged…

26 Monday Sep 2016

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accordion fold, Banned Books Week, Jessica Spring, letterpress, match-book, Springtide Press, Tacoma

An inflammatory guide: banned & challenged…
Jessica Spring
Tacoma, WA: Springtide Press, 2012
xN7433.4 S713 I54 2012

From the colophon: “…printed by hand to commemorate Banned Books Week…” Letterpress printed. Accordion folded pages attached to match-book style binding with staples.

Book of the week — The Poems of Shakespeare

19 Monday Sep 2016

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Ann Simons, Ashlar Press, Bruce Rogers, Connecticut, Cromwell, Daniel Updike, decorative initials, Frank Altschul (1887-1981), George Lyman Kittredge, Harvard, Jean Hugo, John Macnamara, letterpress, Lucretia type, marbled boards, Margaret B. Evans, morocco, Overbrook Farm, Overbrook Press, poems, printing, Shakespeare, sonnet, Stamford, Thomas Maitland Cleland, Valenti Angelo

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
— William Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII

The Poems of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Stamford, CT: Overbrook Press, 1939
PR2841 A2 K5 1939

Edited by George Lyman Kittredge, Gurney Professor of English Literature, Harvard University.

Overbrook Press was founded by investment banker, civic leader, and bibliophile Frank Altschul (1887-1981), who had pursued printing as a hobby since childhood. In 1934 he was approached by designer Margaret B. Evans, who had been working for Ashlar Press, which was closing. Altschul set up the Ashlar press in an abandoned outbuilding on his 450-acre estate, Overbrook Farms, in Stamford, Connecticut. He hired Evans as designer and compositor and John MacNamara as pressman. Overbrook Press printed an eclectic mix of books, pamphlets, broadsides and ephemera, emphasizing technical expertise and craftsmanship. The press engaged contemporary book designers and artists such as Daniel Updike, Jean Hugo, Bruce Rogers, Ann Simons, Valenti Angelo, and Thomas Maitland Cleland. Overbrook Press closed in 1969.

The Poems of Shakespeare is one of its most ambitious projects. It’s decorative initials were designed by Bruce Rogers. Text handset and letterpress printed in red and black with Lucretia type on handmade Cromwell grey paper. The press offered copies for sale, but most of them were given as gifts by Alschul. Copies for sale to the public were bound in three quarter morocco and slipcased, but more than a third of the edition was never bound, presumably to accommodate individual binding tastes.

University of Utah copy is bound in quarter brown morocco over marbled boards with gilt-lettered spine, issued uncut, in publisher’s slipcase. Edition of one hundred and fifty copies.

Shakespeare is coming! The First Folio arrives at the City Library in October.

Rare Books Goes to BYU!

07 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Journal Articles, Newspaper Articles

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artifacts, Aziz S. Atiya, Brigham Young University, charity, Christian, Coptic, donation, Egypt, epitaphs, Galatians, Greek, Helene, Hellenistic, inscription, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jewish, Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian Hellenistic and Roman Period, Judaism, limestone, Lincoln H. Blumell, Luise Poulton, New Testament, obituary, orphans, Persian, philanthropy, rare books, Roman, St. Paul, University of Utah, women

photo by Scott Beadles

An ancient piece from the Rare Books Department has been translated and published by BYU professor Lincoln Blumell.

Read all about it in today’s BYU News:

“BYU professor works with University of Utah library to translate 1700 year-old obituary”

“I’ve looked at hundreds of ancient Jewish epitaphs,” Blumell said, “and there is nothing quite like this. This is a beautiful remembrance and tribute to this woman.”

The findings have just been published in the Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period.

Congratulations, Dr. Blumell!

Journal of the week — Liberator

05 Monday Sep 2016

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art, Communist Party of America, Crystal Eastman, e. e. cummings, eat, Ernest Hemingway, Europe, fiction, Floyd Dell, government, Helen Keller, Howard Brubaker, John Dos Passos, John Reed, Labor Herald, Liberator, Max Eastman, New York, newsprint, poetry, politics, reporting, Robert Minor, Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia Pictorial, The Masses, United States, work, Workers Monthly, World War I

“I have to work here but I don’t have to eat here.” — Howard Brubaker (1882-1957)

LIBERATOR
New York: The Liberator Publishing Co., Inc.
HX1 L5

Liberator began publication under the editorship of Max Eastman (1883-1969) in March 1918. Eastman’s sister, Crystal, worked closely with him, and wrote many of the reports from Europe. Liberator was published to take place of the American radical periodical, The Masses, which had been shut down by the United States government in December 1917 as offensive and contrary to mailing regulations during World War I. The Masses was anti-war. Many of its editors and writers contributed to Liberator.

Liberator fused politics, art, poetry and fiction. The international reporting that came out of it was among the best in the United States, including stories filed by the legendary John Reed (1887-1920) from Soviet Russia. Other contributing artists and writers included e. e. cummings (1884-1962), John Dos Passos (1896-1970), Ernest Hemingway (1999-1961), Helen Keller (1880-1968), and Carl Sandburg (1878-1967). Almost every important radical or liberal literary figure of the time was represented in it.

The Liberator began to take a definite political line. In 1922, Eastman left the Liberator, and the Communist Party of America (CPA) took it over. It merged with Labor Herald and Soviet Russia Pictorial to form Workers Monthly, an organ of the CPA, in November 1924. Prime movers Max Eastman and Floyd Dell (1887-1969) left the editorial board, and Robert Minor (1884-1952) and other closer followers of the Communist line replaced them.

The publication, from its evocative cover art, to the typesetting required to meet the standards of its writers, was expensive to produce. To offset cost, Eastman used cheap newsprint, resulting in a publication that is incredibly fragile. Few copies survive.

OPEN BOOK

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

Author Archives: rarebooks

Edgar Allan Poe (Jan. 19, 1809-Oct. 7, 1849)

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Book of the Week — Empire Builders

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Burned! — Celsius 233

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Banned! — Quipu

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Banned! — Лолита

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