Book of the Week — Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant

20 Monday Feb 2017

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American Civil War, bankruptcy, cancer, Catholic, editor, Gertrude Stein, Jew, Julius Caesar, Mark Twain, memoirs, military, New York, peace, politics, President, Protestant, Samuel Clemens, stenographer, Ulysses S. Grant, Union, veterans, war, Webster

“‘Let us have peace.’ The expressions of these kindly feelings were not restricted to a section of the country, nor to a division of the people. They came from individual citizens of all nationalieties; from all denominations — the Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jew; and from the various societies of the land — scientific, educational, religious, or otherwise. Politics did not enter into the matter at all.”

PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF U. S. GRANT
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
New York: C. L. Webster & Co., 1885-86
First edition
E672 G76 1885

An ineffectual, if not disastrous, president, ruined by bankruptcy after being defrauded of his estate, and dying of throat cancer, Ulysses S. Grant, Union hero of the American Civil War, agreed to publish his memoirs. He needed the money to try to secure an economically stable future for his family.

Samuel Clemens, whose pen name was Mark Twain, served as his editor. In the last month of his life, Grant struggled to dictate his notes to a stenographer and managed to finish his memoirs shortly before his death. For Clemens, witnessing the tenacity of the dying man, Grant became, once more, a heroic figure.

The memoirs focused almost entirely on the old general’s actions during the war. Still considered among the greatest of military memoirs, the two volume set became an immediate bestseller, praised for its high literary qualities. Grant’s style was straightforward and compelling. Clemens compared the book to Julius Caesar’s Commentaries. Gertrude Stein admired the book and said that she could not think of Grant without weeping.

His Memoirs were a financial and critical success. Thousands of war veterans and their families made a ready market for the book. Grant’s family, who received seventy-five percent of the royalties, quickly re-established their fortune, receiving nearly a half million dollars from the book.

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.

Looking forward to Book Arts Program workshop, “All Shook Up: Text & Image in Flag Books”

01 Friday Jul 2016

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1954, American, Anchorage Museum of History and Art, artist, artists' books, Book Arts Studio, Brooklyn Museum, Canadian Bookbinders & Artists' Guild, Center for Book Arts, Designer Bookbinders (US), digital printing, flag book structure, Florence, Florida Atlantic University, Fogg Museum of Art, Glenview, Graceland, Guild of Book Workers, Harvard University, Hedi Kyle, history, Illinois, image, Italy, J. Willard Marriott Library, jig, Karen Hanmer, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Les Amis de la Reliure d'Art du Canada, Library of Congress, military, New York City, non-adhesive, photograph, Photoshop, politics, science, Tate Britain, text, UCLA, University of West England Bristol

Text & Image in Flag Books
Karen Hanmer, instructor

July 7
Thursday, 9:00–5:00
Book Arts Studio, J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4
Application for this workshop is closed.

The foundation of Hedi Kyle’s deceptively small and simple book flag book structure is an accordion folded spine. Flaps attached to both sides of each of the spine’s mountain folds allow the artist to fragment and layer a number of complementary or contrasting images and narratives. When the flag book spine is pulled fully open, the fragmented images on the flaps come together to create a large, panoramic image. Participants experiment with complementary and contrasting text and images and discuss the effects of different spine and page dimensions, direction of motion, and which images are most successful. Students learn a tidy, non-adhesive method of covering boards and use a jig to facilitate quicker, more precise assembly. While this is not a computer class, digital printing and setting up Photoshop templates for pages, covers and spines is demonstrated.
– – – – –
Karen Hanmer’s artists’ books are physical manifestations of personal essays intertwining history, culture, politics, science and technology. She utilizes both traditional and contemporary book structures, and the work is often playful in content or format. Hanmer exhibits widely, and her work is included in collections ranging from Tate Britain and the Library of Congress to UCLA and Graceland. Solo exhibition venues include Florida Atlantic University, University of the West of England Bristol, and the Center for Book Arts (NYC). Curated exhibition venues include the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Brooklyn Museum, Harvard University’s Fogg Museum of Art, the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft; and traveling exhibitions sponsored by the Guild of Book Workers (US), Designer Bookbinders (UK) the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists’ Guild, and Les Amis de la Reliure d’Art du Canada.

Rare Books is proud to support the Book Arts Program with its collections.

Letter Home
Karen Hanmer
Glenview, IL: K. Hanmer, 2004
N7433.4 H357 L48 2004

Hedi Kyle flag book structure. One side of each flag has text, the other side of each flag has a color image which is part of a family photograph. The family photograph becomes whole when the accordion folds are stretched and the pages fall open. Text is from a letter written from Italy in 1954 by a military wife to her relatives. Upper and lower boards are covered in reproduction of a photograph of an American woman [the artist’s mother] on a balcony overlooking Florence, Italy. Issued in an artist-made phase box of green map folder stock with fabric hook-and-loop fasteners.

Another Book of the Week – AVVENTURE DELLA MIA VITA…

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

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American, Austria, Bologna, Brigham Young, California, cattle, consul, Corsica, Domenico Ballo, Florentine, Italian Consul General in San Francisco, John Taylor, King of Sardinia, Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888), Marriott Library Advisory Board, Michael W. Homer, Mormon, On the Way to Somewhere Else, orchestra, politics, polygamy, rare books, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Theatre, San Francisco, settlers, Sicilian, The University of Utah Press, Zanichelli

AVVENTURE DELLA MIA VITA…
Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888)
Bologna: N. Zanichelli editore, 1934
First edition
DG552.8 C56 M67 1934

In 1852, Leonetto Cipriani was appointed by the King of Sardinia as that country’s first consul in San Francisco. Cipriani, born into a Florentine family living in Corsica, fought against Austria in 1848 and was imprisoned and then exiled. After resigning as consul, he purchased cattle in the American mid-west with the intention of selling them in California. During his cattle drive, in 1852, six years after the Mormon settlers arrived, he passed through Salt Lake City. There, a converted Sicilian, Domenico Ballo, introduced Cipriani to John Taylor. Taylor introduced Cipriani to Brigham Young. In this book, Cipriani reminisces about the Salt Lake Theatre, where Ballo conducted the orchestra, and conversations with Taylor regarding polygamy and politics.

University of Utah copy gift of Michael W. Homer.

Read more about Leonetti Cipriani here, on the Italian Consul General in San Francisco’s blog. Read an abstract of his memoirs from On the Way to Somewhere Else, published by The University of Utah Press and edited by Michael W. Homer, member of the Marriott Library Advisory Board and ever-faithful friend of Rare Books.

Book of the Week – Bishop Burnet’s History of his Own Time

30 Monday Mar 2015

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anti-Catholic, Commonwealth of England, Dutch, Elizabethan Religious Settlement, English Civil War, English Reformation, French, Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715), Greek, Hebrew, Henry VIII, Henry Woodfall, James II, Joseph Downing, Latin, London, Nicholas Sanders, politics, religion, Salisbury, Scotland, theology, Thomas Ward, Treaty of Utrecht, William of Orange

Bishop Burnet’s History of his Own Time
Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715)
London: Thomas Ward, Joseph Downing & Henry Woodfall, 1724-34
First edition
DA430 B955

Scottish theologian and religious leader Gilbert Burnet was an influential advisor to William and Mary. Burnet’s anti-Catholic writing and preaching gained him the friendship of William of Orange at The Hague. He became bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In the mid-1670s a French translation of Nicholas Sanders’ De origine et progressu schismatio Anglicani librie tres (1585) appeared. Sanders attacked the English Reformation as a political act carried out by a corrupt king. Several of Burnet’s friends wished him to publish a rebuttal of the work.

In 1679 the first volume of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England was published. It covered the reign of Henry VIII. The second volume (1681) covered the reign of Elizabeth and the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The third volume (1714) consisted of corrections and additional material. Burnet began his History of His Own Time in 1683, covering the English Civil War and the Commonwealth of England to the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. This chronicle of the political and religious events during his lifetime demonstrated his fierce bias against James II and was a celebrated book at the time of publication.

Undecorated sheep over six raised double cords. Striped cloth bands pasted to head and tail.

SHHHHHH!

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Events

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anonymous, ASUU, banned, books, censored, College of Humanities, consumption, Department of English, expurgated, forbidden, Galileo, J. D. Salinger, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jonathan Swift, magazines, Mark Twain, newspapers, Octavio Paz, pamphlets, paper, philosophy, poetry, politics, press, public, published, Rare Books Division, redacted, religion, S. J. Quinney College of Law, science, Tanner Humanities Center, The University of Utah, Thomas Hobbes, XMission

When: Thursday, April 9, 3-5PM
Where: Rare Books Classroom, level 4, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah

This event is free and open to the public.

“Shhhhhh!:Books Banned, Forbidden, Censored, Redacted, Expurgated, Published Anonymously and Otherwise Attempted to be Kept from Public Consumption”

“…the danger of certain books is not in the books themselves but in the passions of their readers.” – Octavio Paz

The Rare Books Division presents a hands-on display of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines that were banned, forbidden, censored, redacted, expurgated, published anonymously and otherwise attempted to be kept from public consumption. From religious and political writings to science, philosophy and poetry; from 14th century Haggadah’s to 20th century novels, hold pieces of paper that were deemed by some too dangerous to exist. This presentation includes first editions of Galileo’s Dialogo (1632), Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651), Swift’s Travels (1726), Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (1951) and many other books too hot to handle when they were hot off the press.

Secrecy Week is sponsored by

College of Humanities