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Tag Archives: Michael R. Thompson Rare Books

Michael R. Thompson, In Memoriam

11 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Tags

ABAA, California, Carol Sandberg, Francis Bacon, J. Willard Marriott Library, John Windle, Los Angeles, Lou Weinstein, Michael R Thompson, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, rare books


“We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snowflake…” — Francis Bacon

Rare Books lost a dear friend.

Michael R. Thompson, owner of Michael R. Thompson Rare Books based in Los Angeles, California, died Friday evening. We will miss his friendship very much. Our heart goes out to his beloved daughter, grandchildren (“best grandkids in the world”), and family, and his faithful friend and business partner, Carol Sandberg.

Michael was a dedicated antiquarian whose passion for and knowledge of all things old books was legendary. His warmth, honesty, and generosity will never be forgotten.

Over many years, Michael provided the J. Willard Marriott Library’s rare book collections with innumerable treasures. Michael was a key player working with library staff in 1968, when the Marriott family bestowed a generous gift toward building a world-class rare book collection. Many of the science books we have featured on this blog are ours because of Michael’s hard work and enthusiasm for this project.

Michael had a keen capacity for listening to Marriott Library curators, finding gems that added breadth to our ability to offer topic-specific hands-on experiences for students, faculty and community members. From incunabula to science to fine press to women’s studies to artists’ books to book collecting to philosophy (his favorite) to seventeenth-century classics to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, Michael provided depth to our collections. He was tenacious in representing not just ancient tomes but the work of some of the best presses today.

Michael delighted in hearing how the books he found for us were used and how thrilled our students were to hold these books. These books will be held by many hands to come and Michael’s legacy, whether those hands know it or not, will always be a part of that experience.

Michael was responsible for the donation of several key pieces to our collections. If you search “anonymous” in this blog, much of what you see is here because of him.

I learned a lot from Michael. He was a fount of knowledge without pretension, told great stories, had a terrific sense of humor, an infectious laugh, and kept me going when I felt discouraged. Michael was intrepid, both in selling books he knew we should have and in belief in life at its best. His friendship inspired me in all sorts of ways. I cherished his sympathetic ear and his kind, encouraging words, delivered in his gruff, gravelly voice.

Francis Bacon wrote, “There are two ways of spreading light..to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Michael was both.

Memory eternal.

~~Luise Poulton, Managing Curator and Head of Department, Rare Books


Good books


Good cats: Peaches and Sam


Good friends: Michael Thompson, Lou Weinstein, Carol Sandberg, John Windle


Michael R. Thompson talks about bookselling in 2014.

From David Mason Books, August 14

A tribute to Michael from Bruce Whiteman, Clark Head Librarian Emeritus, UCLA, posted August 16th. 

From And Now We Are Five, August 25

From Tavistock Books, August 29

From Bruce McKinney, Rare Books Hub, September newsletter.

From Rollin Milroy, Heavenly Monkey, September 3, 2018.

Memorial Michael R. Thompson, Clarks Library Los Angeles
Michael’s memorial at the Clark Library, August 25, 2018

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Book of the Week — On Painting

17 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Tags

aquating, architecture, blind, Brunelleschi, carborundum, copper, copperplate oil, Donatello, drypoint, engineering, etching, Florence, goatskin, inks, intaglio, Italian, Leon Battista Alberti, London, Masaccio, mathematics, mezzoting, Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, painter, Perspex, pigments, poetry, Prose, relief, sand grain, sculpture, Susan Allix, Tuscan, zinc

ND1130-A4813-1999-ColorBlock
“Colour and light have an important relationship in the act of seeing…colours multiply among themselves, but, like the elements, there are only four true colours from which other species of colour are born. There is red, the colour of fire; blue, of air; green, of water; and earth, ashen grey…from these four colours according to the addition of light or dark, black or white, are made innumerable other hues. Therefore the mixing in of white will not change the basic colour, but just make tints;’ and black has a similar power, with its addition making an almost infinite number of colours. You can see colours alter in the shade; when the shade deepens the colours fade, when the light brightens they become brighter and clearer.” — Leon Battista Alberti

ON PAINTING
Leon Battista Alberti (1401-1472) and Susan Allix
London: 1999
ND1130 A4813 1999

Leon Alberti was born in 1401 in Florence. His art was influenced by the work of Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio. He wrote On Painting in order to “set forth principles to be followed by the painter.” Alberti then turned his attention to architecture, for which he is better remembered today. He wrote De Re Aedificatoria and received several commissions for building projects. He had a deep understanding of the classical past, but an eye for contemporary change. He wrote on sculpture, poetry, prose, mathematics, engineering and other topics. His work was studied by generations of artists.

ND1130-A4813-1999-Power

This translation of On Painting is by Susan Allix, based on the Italian text published in L. B. Alberti, Opere Volgari, Volume Terzo. Allix writes, “This translation…is a painter’s translation and includes those parts that seem to hold, for the present, the most important of Alberti’s ideas…it has been extensively abridged to prevent it from becoming several volumes.”

In a letter to Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Allix wrote, “One day I started to read Alberti’s book and was astounded at his idea that everything begins with a dot. I spent a long time struggling away with fifteenth century Tuscan (helped with a more modern translation), but present Italian hasn’t altered so much and I did find it readable. I wanted my own translation. Slightly unprofessionally some of this was done in the afternoon quiet of an Italian camping site. One interesting page is where I followed Alberti’s instructions on how to achieve a squared pavement. So complicated, I never believed it would work, but lo and behold the perspective of the squared pavement appeared!”

ND1130-A4813-1999-TheFirst

This edition contains twenty-eight intaglio prints, the result of four years of sketchbook observation and drawing, plate-making and reworking the plates. The prints were made from copper, zinc, and Perspex plates, and contain a wide variety of techniques. There is etching, drypoint, and mezzotint, often in combination, and also open bite, aquatint, sand grain, and carborundum. The plates have been printed black and white and color in intaglio, relief and blind. All the inks are made from pure pigments ground in copperplate oil, so interleaving sheets is necessary to stop the plates from offsetting. As each plate is hand-inked and printed separately, complete uniformity is not possible. Twenty of the prints are in color, seven in black and white, one in blind, and many have extra hand-coloring on the prints or the type. The first ten copies, of which this is number three, have watercolor and pencil paintings on Japanese paper between each of the three of Alberti’s books.

Bound in full cream goatskin, upper cover tinted with a border of darker purple dye, extending to the spine, and an abstract design of other lighter tints and various colored goatskin onlays with textured endpapers.

ND1130-A4813-1999-Cover

Rare Books copy has holographic letter written in ink on both sides of the press’s stationary from Allix to book collector Denis Collins, prospectus, and biographical article about the author, entitled “God is in the datail,” laid in. Signed in ink on the verso of the front flyleaf: “For Denis/with warmest regards/Susan/11 April 2000.” Collins’ stamp on recto of terminal endpaper. One of twenty-two copies, numbered and signed by the artist.

ND1130-A4813-1999-Reclining
ND1130-A4813-1999-WomanSea

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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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Banned! — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Alice, Donations

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

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

fish-frog mouse

“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.

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Major Donation to Rare Books

16 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Alice, Donations

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

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

Cover
Title page
The White Rabbit

Mad Hatter
Alice meets the Queen

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.

Cover
Inscription
Title Page

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

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