Rare Books goes to Ghent!

12 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Ayyubid, Barbanūda, Bristol, Coptic, Copts, Egypt, Fatimid, Fayoum, Ghent University, Leuven, Mamluk, Naïm Vanthieghem, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Paris, Peeters, rare books, Syria

“It is a contract of sale concluded between parties whose anthroponymy shows that they were exclusively Coptic; it was found in the east of Fayoum, a region which was still largely occupied by Copts in the Fatimid period.” — Naïm Vanthieghem

Naïm Vanthieghem took Rare Books to a colloquium at Ghent Univeristy. His paper was published in Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 244 “Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras VIII,” Peeters: Leuven, Paris, Bristol, CT, 2016. The title of the paper is “L’arabisation des Coptes: un Temoin inedit.”

Mr. Vanthieghem has dated this fragment to avril-mai 1030. The contract is for the sale of a portion of a home in the village of Barbanūda. Mr. Vanthieghem posits that the geographic origin of the document, the name of the parties involved and grammatical errors in the Arabic text suggest that it was created by Copts, who hoped to give more legal authority to the contract by recording it in Arabic.

His paper is available in Special Collections. Call number: DT 72 C7 V36 2016. The paper fragment, no. 933 from the Arabic Papyrus, Parchment, and Paper collection, is also available to look at.

Book of the Week — Dictionnaire des Proverbes Francais

03 Monday Apr 2017

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bookseller, college, dictionnaire, Dubucourt Philibert-Louis, fashion, Flèche, literature, Louis Marie Lante Gavarni, magazine, marbled paper, Old Regime, Paris, Parisian, philosophy, Pierre de La Mésangère, professor, revolution, Sellèque, Treuttel & Wurz, Vernet

“L’esprit qu’on veut avoir gâte celuis qu’on a.”

DICTIONNAIRE DES PROVERBES FRANCAIS
Pierre de La Mésangère (1761-1831)
Paris: Treuttel & Wurz: 1823
Third edition
PN6451 L3 1823

Published anonymously in its first and second editions, Pierre de La Mésangère’s Dictionnaire is still in print today. Professor of literature and philosophy at the college of Flèche, Mésangère lost his job during the Revolution and made a living by writing. In 1797, he went into partnership with Sellèque, another unemployed college professor turned bookseller. Together, they began a successful fashion magazine. Journal des dames et des modes was published from 1799 until Mésangère’s death. The magazine, reflecting the elegance of the Old Regime, became a staple of Parisian fashion. Well-known artists of the time, such as Debucourt Philibert-Louis, C. and H. Vernet, and Louis Marie Lante Gavarni contributed to the magazine. Mésangère collected the prints from the magazine and published them separately. The prints continued to be published through the early twentieth century.

We think this marbled paper covering the boards of our Proverbes is very stylish.

Book of the Week — The Architextures 1-7: The Man of Music

13 Monday Feb 2017

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abaca, Anthropology, Belgium, bookbinding, brass, California, Cambridge, Carolee Campbell, clamshell, English, Felix Titling, Fuji Paper Mills Cooperative, Fulbright, Guatemala, history, Ian Robinson, initials, Japan, Jonathan Cape, Katie MacGregor, King's College, kyosei-shi, letterpress, London, London School of Economics, MacGregor/Vinzani, Maine, Meridien, Nathaniel Tarn, Ninja Press, Pablo Neruda, papermaking, Paris, poetry, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Sherman Oaks, Tokuschi-ma, United States, University of Chicago, Vandercook Universal I, Whiting, wood blocks, Yale University

“Who are we that fled the thousand lives we did not lead in order to escape the very one life that we were destined for?”

The Architextures 1-7: The Man of Music
Nathaniel Tarn (b. 1928)
Sherman Oaks, CA: Ninja Press, 1999
PS3570 A635 A7 1999

Nathaniel Tarn was born in Paris and lived in Belgium until he was eleven. He studied history and English at King’s College, Cambridge. After returning to Paris he studied anthropology and received a Fulbright grant. He studied at Yale University and the University of Chicago and did his doctoral fieldwork in Guatemala. He then completed his graduate studies at the London School of Economics. Tarn published his first volume of poetry, Old Savage/Young City, in 1964. His next published work was a translation of Pablo Neruda’s The Heights of Macchu Pichhu, published by Jonathan Cape, in London. He joined Jonathan Cape as General Editor of its international series.

In 1970, he immigrated to the United States, became a citizen, and taught as Visiting Professor of Romance Languages at Princeton University, and later, at Rutgers and other universities.

Of his poetry, Ian Robinson wrote in 1982, “Landscape, geography, and the history and culture of that landscape, that geography, of the societies living there now and that lived there once, all of the present in its present, are the key factors for Tarn.”

The Architextures 1-7 are the first seven from a collection of seventy prose poems.

The book was handset and letterpress printed on a Vandercook Universal I with Meridien type in six colors and 72pt Felix Titling for display and opening initials. Paper is dove-gray abaca, made by Katie MacGregor at the MacGregor/Vinzani papermaking studio in Whiting, Maine. Six-color wood blocks illustrate the text throughout.

Ninja Press was begun in 1984 by Carolee Campbell, whose main publishing focus is contemporary poetry. Carolee began her book work as a photographer working with nineteenth and twentieth-century photographic processes. Binding her photograph sequences introduced her to bookbinding and experimental book structures. She then expanded her book work with letterpress printing. Bookmaking opened “the way into contemporary poetry — confronting it for the first time with a directness and penetration she seldom experienced as a reader.” (Ninja Press) All book work from Ninja Press is by Carolee Campbell.

Bound in torched and patinated thin brass boards, with a spine of brass and stainless steel hinges. Issued in a clamshell box covered in black kyosei-shi, a handmade paper from the Fuji Paper Mills Cooperative in Tokushi-ma, Japan. Edition of sixty-five numbered copies, signed by the poet and the bookmaker.

We recommend — Saints at Devil’s Gate: Landscapes along the Mormon Trail

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

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Angelina Hawkins, Ann Agatha Walker Pratt, art, artist, book, Brigham Young, Byron C. Andreasen, catalog, Church History Museum, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, drawings, editor, emigrant, England, English, engravings, exhibition, France, Frederick Hawkins Piercy, Hampshire, James Linforth, Jersey, John Burton, journals, landscapes, Laura Allred Hurtado, Liverpool, London, Mary Pugh Scott, Millenial Star, Mormon, Mormon Trail, New Orleans, newspaper, Orson Pratt, paintings, Paris, portraiture, Portsea, proselytizing, Royal Academy of Arts, Saints at Devil's Gate, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Valley, ship, Suffolk Street Gallery of the Society of British Artists, The Church Historian's Office Press, Utah, Wallace Stegner, woodcuts

“For aren’t we all on a journey that tries our faith, tests our courage, makes us vulnerable, and at times defeats us and blisters our soul?”
— Laura Allred Hurtado

Saints at Devil’s Gate: Landscapes along the Mormon Trail
Laura Allred Hurtado and Byron C. Andreasen
Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Office Press, 2016

Catalog to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. The exhibition is free and open to the public and runs through August 2017. An online exhibit is also available at history.lds.org.

“…if courage and endurance make a story, if human kindness and helpfulness and brotherly love in the midst of raw horror are worth recording, this…is one of the great tales of the West and of America.”
— Wallace Stegner, quoted in the Curator’s Essay.

Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley Illustrated with Steel Engravings and Wood Cuts from Sketches…
Frederick Hawkins Piercy (1839-1891)
Liverpool: F. D. Richards; London: Latter-Day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854
First edition
E166 P65

“Frederick Piercy was the eighth of nine children born in Portsea, Hampshire, England. He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on March 23, 1848, and a year later, he married Angelina Hawkins, also a convert. When Piercy was twenty and his wife was expecting their first child, he left for a short mission to Paris, France. In addition to proselytizing, he produced artwork and can be considered a predecessor to the Paris art missionaries who came years later.

“Piercy was an artist know for portraiture and landscapes, and he exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and at the Suffolk Street Gallery of the Society of British Artists in London prior to leaving for the Salt Lake Valley. In 1853, then twenty-three years old, Piercy left England aboard the emigrant ship Jersey, which was headed for New Orleans. He and James Linforth, an editor for the Mormon newspaper Millennial Star, published a collection of engravings and woodcuts made from Piercy’s drawings, paintings, and journals in the book Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley. Instead of remaining in Utah like many others, Piercy returned to England shortly after his trip. By April 1857, after refusing to return to the Salt Lake Valley at the behest of both Brigham Young and Orson Pratt, Piercy and his wife left the Mormon faith.”
— Laura Allred Hurtado

— New Beginnings, John Burton, 2016 oil on canvas, from Saints at Devil’s Gate

“I never shall forget the last day we traveled, and arrived in the Valley… When my eyes rested on the beautiful entrancing sight — the Valley; Oh! how my heart swelled within me, I could have laughed and cried, such a comingling [sic] of emotions I cannot describe…No doubt our valley looks astonishingly beautiful to the strangers who come here now, but it cannot evoke the same emotions as it did to us, poor weary tired, worn out, ragged travelers.” — Ann Agatha Walker Pratt

“Behind us now are the heart aches and many thousands of silent tears that fell on the long unknown trail.” — Mary Pugh Scott
–from Saints at Devil’s Gate

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 — Fleur-de-neige et d’autres contes de Grimm

01 Monday Aug 2016

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artist, Ave Maria, Briar Rose, Brothers Grimm, color plates, Copenhagen, Danish, fairy tale, Fantasia, French, Hansel and Gretel, Hollywood, Kay Nielsen, marbled boards, Night on Bald Mountain, Paris, Royal Danish Theatre, Rumplestiltskin, The Brave Little Tailor, The Goose Girl, The Juniper Tree, The Six Swans, Walt Disney Company

Fleur-de-neige et d’autres contes de Grimm
Paris: L’Edition d’art, 1929

French translation of twelve Brothers Grimm fairy tales, including “Hansel and Gretel,” “Rumplestiltskin,” “The Fisherman and His Wife,” “Briar Rose,” “The Goose Girl,” “The Little Brave Tailor,” “The Six Swans,” and “The Juniper Tree.” Illustrated with full-page mounted color plates by Danish artist Kay Nielsen 91886-1957).

Kay Nielsen, known best for his haunting, whimsical fairy tale illustrations, also painted stage scenery for the Royal Danish Theatre. In the late 1930s, Nielsen left Copenhagen for a career in Hollywood. He worked for the Walt Disney Company from 1937 to 1941. For Disney, Nielsen illustrated “Ave Maria” and “Night on Bald Mountain,” sequences for the movie Fantasia. Bound in three quarter leather with marbled boards and endpapers and raised spine.

Book of the week — Biblia sacra

11 Monday Jul 2016

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Apostles, Bible, brass clasps, classical scholar, decorative headbands, engravings, Exodus, France, Franciscus Stephanus, François Estienne, François Perrin, French, Geneva, Geneva Bible, Greek, Henri Estienne, horseback, initials, John Calvin, Kings, Latin, linguist, Lyon, maps, Margaret Cave, New Testament, Normandy, Paris, Petrum Santandreanum, Pierre Saint-André, pigskin, printer, Protestant, Robert Estienne, roll-tooled, Tabernacle, tail pieces, University of Utah, woodcuts

BIBLIA SACRA VETERIS ET NOUI TESTAMENTI…
Geneuae: Apud Petrum Santandreanum, MDLXXXIII. 1583
BS75 1583

A reissue, with a different title page, of an edition of François Estienne, Geneva, 1567. The title page of the New Testament bears the imprint: Ex Officina Francisci Stephanii, 1567. This edition was printed by Pierre Saint-André (1555-1624).

François Estienne was the third son of Robert Estienne (1503-1559), a French printer, linguist and classical scholar. In his father’s footsteps, François left France for Geneva as a follower of the Protestant movement. He was active as a printer between 1562 and 1582 in partnership with François Perrin, an associate of John Calvin. François Estienne issued a number of editions of the Bible in Latin and French, as well as works by Calvin. Some scholars believe that François emigrated to Normandy in 1582, where he married Margaret Cave. They had several children, none of whom survived to adulthood.

Robert Estienne’s fourth edition (1551) of the Bible is notable for being the first Latin Bible to be printed with verse numeration. Estienne designed the divisions to help the reader compare the two Latin translations and the Greek translation found in this edition. The fourth edition became the basis for the Geneva Bible. Estienne’s son Henri wrote that his father numbered the divisions while traveling “inter equitandum” from Paris to Lyon. Questionable verse divisions were later ascribed to the jolting of a ride on horseback. Although it is unlikely that Estienne was working while riding, the divisions appear to be hasty and distracted, a situation we can well imagine if Estienne was working on this project while traveling.

Text in double columns, with references, variants and section letters in the margins. Illustrated with two engraved folding maps, one in the New Old Testament and one in the New Testament; two full-page engraved maps; woodcuts of the Tabernacle and other images in Exodus and Kings, with occasional figures elsewhere; decorative headbands, tail-pieces and initial letters. The title-page for the New Testament has the woodcut device of Franciscus Stephanus. University of Utah copy bound in contemporary pigskin over wooden boards, covers with roll-tooled decoration, featuring portraits of the Apostles; brass clasps and catches; old paper spine labels.

Journal of the week — Slovo

06 Monday Jun 2016

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American Film Center, Andy Warhol, Antoine Perich, artists, avant-garde, concrete poetry, digital art, Dubrovnik, filmmakers, Francois Poyet, inkjet printer, Interview, Isidore Isou, Jean-Pierre Gillard, Joel Fremiot, letter, letter-forms, Lettrist, literary, Michel Jaffrennou, New York, Paris, poets, Romanian, Serbian

Slovo
Paris: publisher not identified, 1967
NX456.5 L4 S5

This is the only issue of the Lettrist literary serial published under the direction of Antoine Perich. “Slovo” means “letter” in Serbian.

Perich, born in Dubrovnik, lived in Paris from 1965 to 1970. He became close to the Lettrist artists and poets there, as well as a group of underground filmmakers. He presented programs of avant-garde films at the American Film Center every week. In 1970 he moved to New York, where he became friends with Andy Warhol and was a contributing photographer to Interview. In 1977, he designed and built an electric painting machine, a prototype for the inkjet printer, making Perich a pioneer of digital art.

Lettrism was a multi-disciplinary creative movement formed in Paris in 1946 by Romanian ex-patriot, Isidore Isou. The idea was to incorporate all fields of knowledge, social and natural sciences, into artistic endeavors. Contributions in this journal came from Joel Fremiot, Jean-Pierre Gillard, Francois Poyet, and Michel Jaffrennou.

One sheet, printed recto and verso, folded into eight sections. Illustrated with stylized human figures suggesting letter-forms as well as concrete poetry.

Journal of the week — Vojvodjanski zbornik

23 Monday May 2016

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Arad, art, artists, Begrade, Bogdan Ciplic, Bogdan Suput, Bogdan Teodorovic, Budapest, children's literature, colorism, cubism, culture, Europe, fascists, German, Hungarian, Hungary, impressionism, Ivan Tabakovic, journal, landscapes, linocuts, Milan Konjovic, Milenko Sevan, modernist, Munich, Nava Sudarska, Novi Sad, Paris, Petar Dobrovic, portraits, Prague, prisoner-of-war, Romania, Serbia, Serbian, Serbo-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic, Sima Cucic, Stepan Bonarov, Vojvodjansk, Vojvojdina, woodcuts, World War II, Yugoslavia, Zagreb

Vojvodjanski zbornik: almanah. vols. 1 (1938) and 2 (1939)
Novi Sad: S.n., 1938-1939
PG1400 I5 V64

This journal of art and culture was produced in Vojvojdina, an autonomous province of Serbia, on the eve of the second World War. The journal, published in these two issues only, assembled the work of modernist artists and writers of the region, including many contributors whose work is otherwise unpublished or unrecorded. Many of the artists and writers did not survive the war.

The journals include prose, poetry and, in the first volume, illustrations – including original graphic works (woodcuts and linocuts) by Bogdan Teodorovic, Stefan Bodnarov, Milan Konjovic (1898-1993), Milenko Servan, Bogdan Suput (1914-1942), Ivan Tabakovic (1898-1977), Nava Sudarska, Petar Dobrovic (1890-1942) and others.

The journal was edited by Bogdan Ciplic and writer and critic Sima Cucic (1905-1988). Today in Serbia, annual awards for achievements in the field of children’s literature are given in the name of Sima Cucic.

Milan Konjovic (1898-1993) became a prominent Serbian painter. He went to school in Prague, lived in Paris between 1924 and 1932 and traveled throughout Europe before returning to Vojvodjansk. He survived a German prisoner-of-war camp.

Bogdan Suput, considered one of the great Serbian painters of the first half of the twentieth century, was born in 1914. He also spent time in Paris. In 1939 he returned to Belgrade where he became a member of the art group, “Ten.” That April, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia. Suput survived German captivity, but was shot by Hungarian fascists in Novi Sad in 1942. An art school in Novi Sad, begun sixty years ago, is named after him.

Ivan Tabakovic was born in Arad, Hungary (now Romania). He studied art in Budapest and Zagreb. He traveled briefly in Munich. In 1930 he moved to Novi Sad and began teaching in Belgrade in 1938.

Petar Dobrovic, a proponent, along with Milan Konjovic, of Serbian colorism, was known for his portraits and landscapes. He experimented with impressionism and cubism. He was President of the short-lived, small Serbo-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic in 1921. He died in Belgrade during the German occupation.

Book of the week — Traitte Des Diuertissemens, Inclinations, & Perfections Royales

16 Monday May 2016

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aristocracy, army, booksellers, calligraphy, combat, comedy, Communaute des Libraires, cursive, damsels in distress, Dom Castagne, education, fowl, French, friendships, handwriting, hare, hunting, Imprimeurs et Relieurs, Italian, kidnappings, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, love, novel, Orient, Paris, Pierre Moreau, poacher, Potier de Morais, printer, script, stag, tennis, type, typography, writing master

TRAITTE DES DIUERTISSEMENS, INCLINATIONS, &…
Potier de Morais (fl. 1644-1670)
Paris: Pierre Moreau, 1644
Only edition
DC133.32 P64 1644

Set in the exotic Orient, this novel on the education of a prince was written for and dedicated to six-year-old Louis XIV. Potier de Morais added pedagogy on the art of being king amid attempted kidnappings, fierce combat, reversals of fortune, damsels in distress, faithful friendships, love, and, naturally, tennis. Skills such as how to conduct an army in the field are presented as the same skills needed by an absolute ruler to sponsor a grand fete.

One character is an amiable poacher, Dom Castagne, who describes his idyllic life in woods belonging to someone else, hunting hare, stag and fowl. Morais developed Dom Castagne into the lead character of an unpublished comedy.

This book was printed in Pierre Moreau’s ‘script types,’ copied from the Italian cursive calligraphy considered most polite of the time. There was a strong interest in the seventeenth century, especially among French aristocracy, in script over type. Moreau, a writing master, wrote several books on the art of handwriting. As a printer, he was the first to develop calligraphic hands into type.

By securing his privilege directly from Louis XIII in 1642 to use his “nouveau caractheres,” Moreau (ca. 1600-ca. 1649) became Imprimeur ordinaire du Roy without joining the powerful printers’ guild. This did not please the master printers of Paris. Moreau was harassed by printers, booksellers, and writing-masters alike. In 1648, the Communaute des Libraires, Imprimeurs et Relieurs secured an injunction forbidding him to print. Moreau consequently abandoned typography and died soon after.

No other copy of the present work is in the United States. University of Utah copy bound in 19th-century glazed purple boards with gilt spine title and date, red edges.

OPEN BOOK

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

Tag Archives: Paris

Rare Books goes to Ghent!

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Book of the Week — Dictionnaire des Proverbes Francais

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Book of the Week — The Architextures 1-7: The Man of Music

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We recommend — Saints at Devil’s Gate: Landscapes along the Mormon Trail

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Banned! — Лолита

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Book of the week — Biblia sacra

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Book of the week — Traitte Des Diuertissemens, Inclinations, & Perfections Royales

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