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Tag Archives: British

Book of the Week — Ada’s Echo

09 Tuesday Oct 2018

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accordion format, Ada Lovelace, Analytical Engine, British, Charles Babbage, computer, computer programmer, Difference Engine, grommett, handwritten, inkjet, Jacquard looms, Kelly Whitman, Lord Byron, mathematics, punch cards, The Enchantress of Numbers, this is my body press, typewritten


“The valleys filled with silicon and I was forced to learn a new language. Now I speak in bits and bytes. Strings of zeros and ones. I navigate a new topography.” –Kelly Wellman

“Imagination…is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science. It is that which feels & discovers what is, the real which we see not, which exists not for our senses.” — Ada Lovelace in a letter to Charles Babbage

Ada’s Echo
Kelly Wellman
California: this is my body press, 2001
N7433.4 W448 A32 2001

Countess Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), a British mathematician and musician, was the first computer programmer. In 1833, Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron (who abandoned her as a child), befriended Charles Babbage (1791–1871), the designer of the Difference Engine, considered by many to be the first computer. Babbage died before completing the machine. The Difference Engine was designed to run on punch cards like those used at the time to run Jacquard looms.

Lovelace helped Babbage refine and direct his ideas, editing, footnoting and often correcting his work. Her writings are considered among the earliest texts on modern computer programming. Lovelace and Babbage carried on a lifelong correspondence. Babbage called her “The Enchantress of Numbers.” Lovelace’s friend, Florence Nightingale, explained her prowess in mathematics as “vitality of the brain.”

Pages are inkjet printed and composed of layered sheets. Translucent paper forms the top and main text page through which the secondary text and shadowy images are seen. By layering the pages, progress is depicted as a process of accrual, in which many hands and voices contribute over time.

The modified accordion binding was produced by weaving pages together through grommetted corners (at both the head and foot) with plastic paper strips. Pages are punched with different configurations of holes to recall punch cards. Plasticized paper over board covers are also punched.

Handwritten text excerpted from Ada Lovelace’s letters to Charles Babbage. Typewritten text by Kelly Whitman. Issued in handmade box. Rare Books copy is no. 7 in an open edition, signed by the author.

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Banned! — Considerations sur les causes de la Grandeur des Romains et de Leur Decadence

27 Thursday Sep 2018

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Amsterdam, Baron de Montesquieu, British, calf binding, Charles I, Charles-Louis de Secondant, Edward Gibbons, England, engraved title page, gilt-tooled, headpiece, initials, Jacques Desbordes, James II, Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, soldier


Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur des…
Charles-Louis de Secondant, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Amsterdam: Jacques Desbordes, 1734
First edition, first issue
DG210 M774 1734

Until the publication of this book Montesquieu had been recognized for his wit, but this book quickly drew attention to him as a major writer and philosopher. The work, first published anonymously, served as an inspiration to Edward Gibbons’ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

This first issue contains a number of phrases and notes which were considered dangerous and were suppressed in the second issue, including a footnote on p. 130 regarding Charles I and James II of England, stating that if their religion had permitted them from taking their own lives, then the former would have avoided une tell mort and the latter une telle vie.

Engraved title page printed in black and red. Engraved headpiece and initial letter. Contemporary calf with gilt-tooled spine with crest of Sir Henry Edward Bunbury at the crown. Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, Seventh Baronet (1778-1860) was a British soldier, historian and author.

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Banned! — Letters Concerning the English Nation

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

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Alexander Pope, Amsterdam, Bastille, British, Drake Stillman, England, English, Enlightenment, France, Francis Bacon, French, French Parliament, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Italian, John Locke, John Lockman, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, letters, London, Pennsylvania, Quakers, rare books, Roman Catholic Church, tail pieces, University of Toronto, vignettes, Voltaire, William Bowyer, William Penn, William Shakespeare


“The great Freedom with which Mr. de Voltaire delivers himself in his various Observations, cannot give him any Apprehensions of their being less favourably receiv’d upon that Account, by a judicious People who abhor flattery. The English are pleas’d to have their Faults pointed out to them, because this shews at the same Time, that the Writer is able to distinguish their merit.”

Letters Concerning the English Nation…
Voltaire (1694-1778)
London: Printed for C. Davis…and A. Lyon…, 1733
First edition
PQ2086 L4 E5 1733

Voltaire (nee François-Marie Arouet) fled to England after arguing with powerful French political figures. During his exile, from 1726 to 1728, he learned English, reading the works of William Shakespeare, John Milton, Isaac Newton, and Francis Bacon; and met other British authors such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. The British embraced Voltaire as a victim of France’s political discrimination.

In Letters, Voltaire, with the works of John Locke and Enlightenment authors as his basis, wrote a slur against the French government and the French Roman Catholic Church, calling for political and religious reform. Letters was translated from French into English by John Lockman from a manuscript prepared by Voltaire.

Voltaire wrote about Isaac Newton and his theories in four of the letters. He told the story of the falling apple as the impetus for Newton’s theorem of the law of gravity, the first time this anecdote was told in print.


“…as he was walking one Day in his Garden, and saw some Fruits fall from a Tree, he fell into a profound Meditation on that Gravity, the Cause of which has so long been sought, but in vain, by all the Philosophers, whilst the Vulgar think there is nothing mysterious in it. He said to himself, that from what height soever, in our Hemisphre, those Bodies might descend…Why may not this Power which causes heavy Bodies to descend, and is the same without any sensible Diminution at the remostest Distance from the Center of the Earth, or on the Summits of the highest Mountains; Why, said Sir Isaac, may not this power extend as high as the Moon?”

Voltaire also wrote about William Penn and the founding of Pennsylvania as a haven for Quakers.


About this time arose the illustrious William Pen, who establish’d the power of the Quakers in America, and would have made them appear venerable in the eyes of the Europeans, were it possible for mankind to respect virtue, when reveal’d in a ridiculous light…Pen set sail for his new dominions with two ships freighted with Quakers, who follow’d his fortune. The country was then call’d Pensilvania from William Pen, who there founded Philadelphia, now the most flourishing city in that country.”

Letters was published in French in Amsterdam in 1734. It was immediately condemned by the French Parliament. Copies that made it into France were confiscated and burned. A warrant was issued for Voltaire’s arrest. The printer was imprisoned in the Bastille. At the same time, it was a bestseller in England, going through several more editions during the eighteenth century.

It is likely that this English edition was printed by William Bowyer (1699-1777), as the ornaments (the title vignette and tail-pieces) are those used in other of his imprints.

Rare Books copy has the bookplate of Drake Stillman (1910-1993), an emeritus professor of the history of science at the University of Toronto. He published many translations of the works of Galileo and other sixteenth century Italian scientists.

Recommended reading:
Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography
Stillman Drake
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978
QB36 G2 D69, L1

Telescopes, Tides, and Tactics: A Galilean Dialogue about The Starry Messenger and Systems of the World
Stillman Drake
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983
QB41 G178 D7 1983, L1

Galileo: Pioneer Scientist
Stillman Drake
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990
QB36 G23 D67 1990, L1

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Book of the Week — Blitz: Letters from London September and October 1940

07 Friday Sep 2018

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aquatints, blitz, box brownie camera, British, cities, drawings, Earls Court, Evelyn Lister, German Luftwaffe, goatskin, Granby Light Italic, Grotesque, Grotesque Italic, hand-coloring, handmade paper, handwriting, letterpress, London, metallic onlays, morocco, Saunders Waterford, Susan Allix


“I will not try to describe the horrid sight of houses spilled across the streets instead of standing upright, of gunfire and screaming and whistling bombs, while we sit in the basement feeling it must be us next.”

Blitz: Letters from London September and October 1940
Evelyn Lister, Susan Allix
London, 2014

On September 7, 1940 the German Luftwaffe began bombing London and other British cities for over 50 consecutive nights.

From the artist’s statement: “As it will never be possible to have this same experience, designing the book seemed sometimes similar to creating an historical novel. Descriptions, film, artifacts and related reconstructions can help to provide brief windows and snapshots of the time…”

From the colophon: “The letters between Mildred, ‘Billie,’ and Evelyn, “Ana,’ are selected from a small collection that came to light when Billie died. They are accompanied here by later prints and photographs. Of the 5 photographs, 3 were taken in the early 1960s with a ‘box Brownie’ camera. The handwriting is reproduced from the original letters. The aquatints, printed in black and brown with hand colouring, are from drawings made at demolition sites and in the underground. The burning and smoking give different results on each copy. The letterpress is hand set and printed in 18pt. Grotesque 215 with 12pt. Grotesque Italic and 18pt. Granby Light Italic. The paper is Saunders Waterford.”

Bound in black goatskin and light brown textured handmade paper, with morocco, reversed leather, and metallic onlays. Issued in slate gray cloth clamshell slipcase. Edition of fifteen copies. Rare Books copy is no. 14, signed by the artist/bookmaker, Susan Allix.


“Earls Court tube is full of poor folk at night, with rugs and eats spread out on the platform; it’s an awful sight as you know how stuffy and dirty the deep undergrounds are, and all the people bring their little children with them.”


“You’ll have some idea of the state of the collapse and debris when I tell you that there are still 4 bodies that they can’t reach…”

Somewhere in the world, something similar is happening now.

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Ioyfvll newes out of the new-found vvorlde [order]

03 Tuesday Jul 2018

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American, Americas, apothecaries, armadillos, Atlantic, Bonham Norton, Book Arts Program, bookseller, botanists, Bristol, British, calf, cancer, cassava, cigars, cocoa, common cold, cure, De Jonge Amerikaan, disease, docks, English, entrepreneur, Europe, ginger, gold, handmade, herbs, Indians, Inquisition, iron, John Frampton, Jonathan Sandberg, London, medicine, merchants, minerals, monks, Native American, nephrite jade, Netherlands, New World, Nicolás Bautista Monardes, nicotain, papermaking, papers, paradise, physician, plant, poison, print culture, quinine, rhubarb, sasparilla, sassafras, Seville, silver, smoking, soldiers, Spanish colonies, syphilis, tobacco, tobaco, trade, vernacular, woodblock, woodcuts


“This is the substance which I haue gathered of this hearb, so celebrated and called Tobaco for that surely it is an hearb of great affirmation for the excellent vertues that it hath…”

Ioyfvll newes out of the new-found vvorlde
Nicolás Bautista Monardes (ca. 1500-1588)
London: E. Allde, by the assigne of Bonham Norton, 1596
Third English edition

Translated by John Frampton (fl. 1577-1596) from several treatises first published in 1565 by Nicolás Monardes, the son of a bookseller, and a distinguished physician of Seville. Monardes, who never traveled to the Americas, wrote several treatises  on healing, medicine, and trade with the Spanish colonies on the Atlantic. He learned most of what he wrote about from spending time at the Seville docks, where he gathered information from sailors, soldiers, merchants, monks, royal officials, and even women.

Monardes described the cultivation and use of quinine, sassafras, cassava, rhubarb, ginger, and sasparilla. He wrote about cocoa, armadillos, minerals and metals (iron, silver, nephrite jade), and diseases like syphilis.

He wrote a lengthy description of an American plant introduced to Europe, calling it “tobaco” or “nicotain,” which he claimed was an antidote to poison. He wrote of more than twenty conditions, including the common cold and cancer, that could be cured with the use of tobacco.

“The Indians of our Occidental Indias, doo use the Tobaco for to take away the wearinesse, and for to make lightsomnesse in their Labour, which in their Daunces they bee so muche wearied, and they remaine so wearie, that they can scarcely stirre: & because that they may labour the next day, and returne to do that foolish exercise, they receiue at the mouth and nose, the smoke of the Tobaco, and they remaine as dead people: and being so, they be eased in such sorte, that when they be awakened of their sleepe, they remaine without weariness, and may return to their labour as much as before, and so they doe alwaies, when they have need of it: for with that sleepe, they do receiue their strength and be much the lustier.”

John Frampton, a Bristol merchant, had been imprisoned by the Inquisition. He translated several Spanish texts about the New World while in confinement. The British looked upon the New World as long-lost paradise with its vegetative bounty and ancient wisdom regarding human ailments, beneficial not just for its precious metals but for its plants. Being published in the vernacular, first in Spanish, then in English, meant that common readers, along with botanists and apothecaries, bought the publications. Frampton, ever the entrepreneur, re-titled the work “joyful news,” counting on brisk sales of the book and the trade in plants from the Americas. The “trade” print culture disseminated new data targeted toward popular practicality but also imagination, circulating news of an “other” ready reality just waiting ’round the bend. Such was the miracle of discovery, such was the miracle of plants, such was the miracle of print.

Illustrated with twelve woodcuts depicting herbs and plants. Rare Books copy bound in 19th century calf, ruled in gold.


De Jonge Amerikaan
Netherlands, ca. 1800
NE1154 J66 1800z

Woodblock depicting a Native American in a feather headdress and loincloth smoking a long clay pipe in a coastal setting with two ships behind him. Around this scene are a crown, trident, winged-staff, cigars, snuff jar, tobacco leaves and baled tobacco. It is likely that this woodblock was printed on paper used for tobacco wrappers, a practice that began as early as 1660 in Holland, one of the world’s great shipping centers.

Below are three prints made by Jonathan Sandberg using the woodblock, demonstrating different papers, including a paper handmade by students in last spring’s papermaking class offered by the Book Arts Program.



On July 1, 2018 The University of Utah went tobacco free and said farewell to its last cigarette.

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A Recipe for Disaster

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

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Abraham Lincoln, Arctic, Arctic expeditions, Arthur Conan Doyle, bones, botany, British, British Isles, Brontë sisters, Canada, cannibalism, Captain William Parry, Charles Dickens, Coppermine River, Dante, deer, diarrhea, Dr. John Richardson, Edgar Allan Poe, Elisha Kent Kane, England, engravings, Esquimaux, exhaustion, explorers, exposure, Fort Enterprise, Frankenstein, fungus, geology, ichthyology, Inuit, Jane Austen, John Murray, Jules Verne, Junius, lead poisoning, lichen, literature, London, Lyuba Basin, Mary Shelley, Melville Sound, moosehide, Murder, national identity, naval prowess, nineteenth century, nineteenth-century polar fiction, North America, Northwest Passage, notebooks, Nunavut Territory, overland exploration, partridge, pemmican, polar expeditions, poles, racial prejudice, rare book collections, rare books, rations, rock tripe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, scurvy, Sir John Franklin, Slave Lake, soup, starvation, tin cans, tripe de roche, Wilkie Collins, willows, winter

“At two P.M we set sail, and the men voluntarily launched out to make a traverse of fifteen miles across Melville Sound, before a strong wind and heavy sea. The privation of food, under which our voyagers were then laboring, absorbed every other terror; otherwise the most powerful persuasion could not have induced them to attempt such a traverse. It was with the utmost difficulty that the canoes were kept from turning their broadsides to the waves, though we sometimes steered with all the paddles.”


And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

  • “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea …
John Franklin (1786 – 1847)
London: J. Murray, 1823
First edition
G650 1819 F8

Throughout the shelves of the rare book collections, there are glimpses of a body of literature that remains largely overlooked: nineteenth-century polar fiction. Have you heard of it?

If you have ever read the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Arthur Conan Doyle or Mary Shelley (among many others), you might have glimpsed the brooding nature of the poles, where men become violent and mad, and the true horrors of humanity are displayed. As in Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, framing the stories in the Arctic allowed the writers to explore the themes of the dangerous pursuit of knowledge and the sublime, in addition to developing haunting allusions of Dante’s frozen inner circle of hell.

“We encamped at seven and enjoyed a substantial meal. The party were in good spirits this evening at the recollection of having crossed the rapid, and being in possession of provision for the next day. Besides we had taken the precaution of bringing away the skin of the deer to eat when the meat should fail. The temperature at six P.M. was 30.”

During the nineteenth century, polar expeditions and the search for a Northwest Passage enticed the people of England to the point that people sang polar-themed songs, had polar-themed dinner parties and even staged polar expedition reenactments, and read every single piece of polar-themed literature they could find. The uncharted territory and theories of the mysterious open, polar seas also provided England yet another opportunity to show off their naval prowess and further exert their national identity upon the world.

“My original intention, whenever the season should compel us to relinquish the survey, had been to return by the way of the Copper-mine River, and in pursuance of my arrangement with the Hook to travel to Slave Lake through the line of woods extending thither by the Great Bear and Marten Lakes, but our scanty stock of provision and the length of the voyage rendered it necessary to make for a nearer place.”

The explorers who were successful returned to the British Isles with stories of their adventures and went on to publish narratives of their journeys. In 1821, Captain William Parry published a best-selling account of that voyage which propelled him on a book tour, while Elisha Kent Kane’s 1856 Arctic Explorations sold 200,000 copies, which would be the equivalent of two million books today. When Kane died, his funeral procession was the second largest of the nineteenth century, following closely behind Abraham Lincoln.

“The reader will, probably, be desirous to know how we passed our time in such a comfortless situation: the first operation after encamping was to thaw our frozen shoes, if a sufficient fire could be made, and dry ones were put on; each person then wrote his notes of the daily occurrences, and evening prayers were read; as soon as supper was prepared it was eaten, generally in the dark, and we went to bed, and kept up a cheerful conversation until our blankets were thawed by the heat of our bodies and we had gathered sufficient warmth to enable us to fall asleep.”

Of all the Arctic expeditions, Sir John Franklin’s 1845 journey was, without a doubt, the most famous, due to the loss of 128 crew members and their two ships, the Erebus and the Terror. It took more than one hundred years to solve the mystery behind this fateful voyage, and once the ships were found, artifacts and skeletal remains proved the rumors of cannibalism that had been circulating since Captain Franklin and his crew originally went missing. Researchers have speculated that the ships were trapped in ice and that the men aboard likely died from a combination of scurvy, starvation, exposure and lead poisoning from the poorly soldered tin cans which held their rations for three years.

“We had already found that the country, between Cape Barrow and the Copper-mine River, would not supply our wants, and this it seemed probable would now be still more the case; besides, at this advanced season, we expected the frequent recurrence of gales, which would cause great detention, if not danger in proceeding along that very rocky part of the coast.”

Over the course of the century Franklin’s crew was among many that had perished. However, it is important to note that this area was home to the Inuit, or Esquimaux, as they are described in the journals: generations of people who have lived and thrived in the Arctic, raising children, hunting, and tending to their elderly. Unfortunately, racial prejudice of the colonial powers restrained the British explorers from imitating and learning the indigenous ways of traveling, hunting, eating and staying warm.

“Their spirits immediately revived, each of them shook the officers cordially by the hand, and declared they now considered the worst of their difficulties over, as they did not doubt of reaching Fort Enterprise in a few days, even in their feeble condition. We had indeed every reason to be grateful, and our joy would have been complete were it not mingled with sincere regret at the separation of our poor Esquimaux, the faithful Junius.”

Franklin first explored the Arctic in a series of three expeditions between 1819 – 1822. Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea was published the following year by John Murray in London, a publishing company that took particular interest in the poles. The book discusses the four-year journey, revealing the hardships of the overland exploration in the Northwest territories of Canada, specifically around the Coppermine River of the Nunavut Territory. This publication also includes detailed color engravings depicting the landscapes and the many Intuit interpreters who helped along the way. Sadly, this voyage did not prove to be entirely successful either.

“Everyone was on the alert at an early hour, being anxious to commence the journey. Our luggage consisted of ammunition, nets, hatchets, ice chisels, astronomical instruments, clothing, blankets, three kettles, and the two canoes, which were each carried by one man. The officers carried such a portion of their own things as their strength would permit; the weight carried by each man was about ninety pounds, and with this we advanced at the rate of about a mile an hour, including rests.”

The final chapters describe the last months of the journey as the crew traversed the harsh Canadian landscape back to the Coppermine River. In addition to Captain Franklin, Dr. John Richardson, who kept notes and wrote the sections on geology, botany and ichthyology, included his own experience, during the time in which the party had split into three. Their final notes both emphasize the failing morale of the crew, the dropping temperatures, and the absence of food. Plagued by an early winter, the menu became scant: a small variety of berries before the frost; deer and musk-oxen, when possible; fish, until the nets were destroyed; a small supply of pemmican, a paste of dried and pounded meat mixed with melted fat; and partridge combined with tripe de roche.

“We supped off a single partridge and some tripe de roche; this unpalatable weed was now quite nauseous to the whole party, and in several it produced bowel complaints. Mr. Hood was the greatest sufferer from this cause.”

Tripe de Roche is the Canadian term for rock tripe, a type of lichen that grows on the rocks of North America. Although not at all nutritious, this edible fungus became the main source of food for the explorers and was often boiled with willows dug up beneath the snow. The taste is bitter and often causes severe stomach cramps and diarrhea and, combined with the extreme cold and deep snow, led to higher levels of exhaustion. A day’s worth of walking diminished from twelve miles to five, depending on the conditions.

“In the evening we encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through which the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls of this chasm are upwards of two hundred feet high, quite perpendicular, and in some places only a few yards apart. The river precipitates itself into it over a rock, forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to each other.”

To their dismay, even the lichen was all but plentiful in this barren country. Because of this, the men were sometimes forced to eat the leather from their moosehide shoes and scavenge the carcasses of rotting deer, boiling the bones in a soup only to retrieve the smallest amount of marrow. Desperation and despondency took hold of the party and in the final weeks, with many of the men becoming too weak to hunt or even walk. Towards the end of the journey, the group had separated into three, with Captain Franklin leading the pack to Fort Enterprise to find provisions and help from the Inuits. Unfortunately, only seventeen out of the twenty-eight party survived and suspicions of murder and cannibalism began to circulate among the survivors.

“At length we reached Fort Enterprise, and to our infinite disappointment and grief found it a perfectly desolate habitation. There was no deposit of provision, no trace of the Indians, no letter from Mr. Wentzel to point where the Indians might be found. It would be impossible for me to describe our sensations after entering this miserable abode, and discovering how we had been neglected.”

Leaving the men who were too weak to travel behind, Franklin went forward to look for provisions and help. The hunger, cold, and seemingly bleak chance of survival created hostility among some of the remaining crew, particularly between Dr. Richardson and Michel. In his final entry, Dr. Richardson recounts confronting Michel, who “reported that he had been in chase of some deer… and although he did not come up with them, yet that he found a wolf which had been killed by the stroke of a deer’s horn, and had brought part of it.” The meat was eaten with satisfaction but as time went on Michel’s strange and erratic behavior led Dr. Richardson to believe that Michel had either murdered two of the missing men, or found the bodies in the snow and took their flesh. After another man was mysteriously murdered, Dr. Richardson began to fear for his own safety and shot Michel point-blank without any further questions.

“A small quantity of tripe de roche was gathered; and Credit, who had been hunting, brought in the antlers and back bone of a deer which had been killed in the summer. The wolves and birds of pretty had picked them clean, but there still remained a quantity of the spinal marrow which they had not be able to extract. This, although putrid, was esteemed as a valuable prize, and the spine being divided into portions, was distributed equally. After eating the marrow, which was so acrid as to excoriate the lips, we rendered the bones friable by burning, and ate them also.”

Even in the coldest hour, Franklin and the explorers who came before and after saved the pages of their notebooks from the fire so that the people of the world could come to know their adventures. Murder, cannibalism, treacherous landscapes and perilous seas. It is no wonder that, upon returning to England, these narratives, the successes and failures of the Arctic Expeditions, excited the people to the point of inspiring a new genre of literature, one that has for so long been neglected.

~Contributed by Lyuba Basin, Rare Books

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An Impression of Spring

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

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Bertram Rota, British, cardboard, commercial, gesso, Gogmagog Press, Hosho, Japanese, landscape, leaves, London, Morris Cox, panorama, plywood, poetry, printer, private press, Prose, seasons, seeds, spring, twigs, varnish


“Now sprigs are pricked by bursting buds,
and threading the trees the wind’s weft
skittles, drops and spurts again,
rubbing along the ground to tease old leafings
of skittering litter, scratching swirl…

Between bettling sky and buxom earth —
a mazed and frilling lightning flash!
The eye bleaches and goes black.
A far-off tracking thunder rolls
and tight, hard raindrops teem and patter,
hiss an sheen in rimplin rods…
till overhead the ragging cloud thins off
in clean-washed grin, and sun-bowl tips
over the giggling earth its molten gold.”

An Impression of Spring: A Landscape Panorama
Morris Cox (1903-1998)
London: Gogmagog Press: Dist. by Bertram Rota, 1966
ND497 C748 A43 1966

Gogmagog Press was a one man operation: for more than forty years Morris Cox — artist, writer, and printer — worked alone, using simple tools and creating one of the most important of British post-war private presses. Cox experimented with various aspects of his craft,  always paying meticulous attention to detail.

Morris Cox’s poetry and prose rarely found commercial publication. For this reason, in middle-age, Cox began Gogmagog Press, in order to distribute his work. It was only then that his poetry began to be championed, for the poetry was as good as the press production. Word and image are so intertwined that one divorced from the other leaves only half an experience.

The texture of the prints derives from the unusual printing blocks used to create them. Cox mounted sheets of cardboard onto plywood and layered them with gesso, next adding materials from nature like seeds, leaves, and twigs. These elements were varnished to strengthen them.

Impressions is one of four works on the seasons, all considered to be the peak of Cox’s achievement as a printer. Printed on Japanese ‘Hosho’ paper. Edition of one hundred numbered and signed copies. Rare Books copy is no. 23.

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Book of the Week — Glasshouse

30 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Tags

Assam, botanical gardens, botany, British, British East India Company, Brooklyn, Camillia sinensis, exploitation, glasshouses, global commodities, India, Joseph Banks, Kozo, orchid, orchid hunters, Sakamoto, Sarah Nicholls, science, tea, woodcuts, Zerkal Ingres


“[Joseph] Banks reported in 1788 to the British East India Company that the climate in parts of northeast India was perfect for growing Camillia sinensis, the bush that produces tea leaves. The plant turned out to be indigenous to the Assam area, which eventually became a core producer of tea for the British market. Widespread worker exploitation was common on tea plantations throughout the 19th century…”

Glasshouse
Sarah Nicholls
Brooklyn, NY: Sarah Nicholls, 2016
N7433.4 N53 G53 2016

From the artist’s statement: “…a look at the history of greenhouses, a technology made to cultivate foreign plants in a controlled environment, originally in service to empire…In an era before the chemical industry, plants were the source of most economic advantage, so the cultivation of new kinds of plants taken from other areas of the world became important to Europeans. Botanical gardens were research facilities, not just collections of pretty flowers.


“Orchid hunters made their living traveling to remote locations to find the widest range and the rarest of breeds, to be shipped back to shipped back to Europe and sold at a profit as a luxury good. Hunters were competitive and secrective: they would strip bare entire populations of orchids to keep flowers from getting into their competitor’s hands and often traveled alone to prevent disclosing their favorite spots.”

The book has two sections: the first discusses the development of greenhouses as a technology, and the rise of botany as a science. The second looks at specific kinds of plants that became important as global commodities. Images are printed from multi-color woodcuts; they are meant to give the impression of walking through a greenhouse…I used translucency as a technique to mimic the effect you get as you pass through glass rooms full of plants. Longer passages of text are printed on overlays which are like the didactic captions you get in a botanical garden display.

Imagery is printed from woodcuts on Sakamoto, waxed kozo and Zerkal Ingres, based on original photographs…”

Sarah Nicholls’ work combines language, image, visual narrative, and time. She has written a collection of self-help aphorisms, published a series of free information pamphlets, and recently completed a field guide to extinct birds. She teaches printmaking and book arts at Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design.

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Book of the Week — Fairies I Have Met

16 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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British, Edmund Dulac, Fairies, France, Japanese, John Lane, London, Mrs. Rodolph Stawell, New York, Outlook, Penelope, textile design, Toulouse

PZ8-S488-Fa-1907-Surprise
“She noticed that the girls and boys in the books were not altogether like the girls and boys who played with her in the Square and came to tea with her. The children in the books were wonderfully brave and clever; and when they were having their magnificent adventures they always did exactly the right thing at the right moment.”

FAIRIES I HAVE MET
Mrs. Rodolph Stawell
London; New York: John Lane, 1907?
First edition
PZ8 S488 Fa 1907

Mrs. Stawell wrote these tales for a little girl named Penelope. This book is illustrated with eight color plates by Edmund Dulac (1882-1953), one of the premier illustrators of the golden age of children’s book. Born in Toulouse, Dulac studied art in France. He became a British citizen in 1912. He is, perhaps, best known for his illustrations for Fairies. Reviewed in the British journal Outlook in November 1907, the reviewer focuses on the detailed and whimsical illustrations of bold design. Dulac took inspiration from textile design and Japanese prints to depict the vibrant stories.

PZ8-S488-Fa-1907

Recommended reading: For a modern-day, adult fairy tale, appropriately creepy to the season, we recommend The Changeling by Victor LaValle, in the Browsing Collection, PS3562 A8458 C48 2017

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Boom!

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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American, Benjamin Franklin, Bill of Rights, Boston, Boston Gazette, Boston Massacre, British, colonial, colonies, David Hume, Dunlap, Edmund Burke, England, Great Britain, independence, John Adams, John Wesley, Josiah Quincy, London, monarchy, pamphlet, Philadelphia, Richard Price, Stamp Act, tuberculosis, William Pitt

“…that sacred blessing of Liberty, without which man is a beast, and government a curse”

E263-M4-Q7-1774-title

“No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defence of the state…such are a well-regulated militia…who take up arms to preserve their purposes, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT…
Josiah Quincy (1744-1775)
Boston, N.E., Printed for and sold by Edes and Gill, 1774
First edition

Attorney Josiah Quincy, a Boston native, wrote a series of anonymous articles for the Boston Gazette in which he opposed the Stamp Act and other British colonial policies. His evenhandedness, however, in his approach to the troubles between the American colonies and England, served him and the colonial stance well. He, along with John Adams, defended the British soldiers in their trial after the Boston Massacre. That act aside, in Observations, Quincy urged “patriots and heroes” to “form a compact for opposition…For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, and howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.” In the same year as this publication, Quincy went to England to argue the colonial cause. He died of tuberculosis on the way home in sight of land.

E211-P9625-1776-title

“Our own people, being unwilling to enlist, and the attempts to procure armies of Russians, Indians, and Canadians having miscarried; the utmost force we can employ, including foreigners…This is the force that is to conquer…determined men fighting on their own ground, within sight of their houses and families, and for that sacred blessing of Liberty, without which man is a beast, and government a curse. All history proves, that in such a situation, a handful is a match for millions.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURE OF CIVIL LIBERTY…
Richard Price (1723-1791)
London printed 1776; Philadelphia, Re-printed and sold by J. Dunlap, 1776?

Richard Price, radical in his religious and political views, was well-known in Great Britain as a writer on economic and political issues. A close friend of William Pitt, David Hume, and Benjamin Franklin, he became one of Britain’s most vocal supporters of American independence. Several thousand copies of Observations were sold within a few days. The pamphlet both extolled the rights of the American colonists and excoriated the British crown. Harshly criticized by John Wesley, Edmund Burke, and others, the controversy quickly made Price a celebrity. Price argued that governments held their power in trust from the people and were not instruments of divine authority. The monarchy of England, he said, was only legitimate because it ruled by consent of the people under England’s Bill of Rights. The revolutionaries in the American colonies were merely asserting the same principle. His pamphlet played no small part in encouraging the colonists to declare independence. In 1778 he was invited by Congress to go to America and assist in the financial administration of the states. He refused the offer, unwilling to quit his own country.

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