• Marriott Library
  • About
  • Links We Like

OPEN BOOK

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

OPEN BOOK

Tag Archives: rare books

A Recipe for Disaster

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on A Recipe for Disaster

Tags

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

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Great American Read

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Events, Recommended Reading

≈ Comments Off on The Great American Read

Tags

Adolfo Bioy Casares, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, American, Ayn Rand, banned, Barrington J. Bailey, Bob Johnson, book collecting, Boston, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Cold War, D. H. Lawrence, dust jackets, Ecclesiastes, English, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Frankenstein: or, Greek, Heinemann, Henry Miller, Holden Caulfield, Houghton Mifflin Company, J. D. Salinger, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jack London, James Agee, Kurt Vonnegut, literature, London, Luise Putcamp, Luise Putcamp Johnson, Margaret Atwood, New York, novel, Pan, Philip K. Dick, protest, rare books, Ray Bradbury, reading, rebellion, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Hersel Johnson, Scribner, Second World War, Special Collections, the 100 list, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Great American Read, The University of Utah, Thomas Wolfe, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, Ursula K. LeGuin, Wilkie Collins, William Kennedy, William Saroyan

Luise Putcamp and Bob Johnson, reading

“It’s up to you how you waste your time and money. I’m staying here to read: life’s too short.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Rare Books salutes The Great American Read by inviting you to visit the Special Collections Reading Room on level 4 of the J. Willard Marriott Library to hold first editions of some of the classics included on the 100 list.



Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World

“My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books…”



Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus

“My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.”



Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

“‘…and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversation?'”



The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music—the reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy.”



The Call of the Wild
Jack London (1876-1916)
London: Heinemann, 1903
First English edition
PS3523 O46 C3 1903b

“But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called — called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”



The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
New York: Scribner, 1926
First edition, first issue
PS3515 E37 S9 1926a

“’No; that doesn’t interest me.’
‘That’s because you never read a book about it.’”

The Sun Also Rises was published on October 22, 1926 in a first printing of 5090 copies. A second printing of 2000 copies was issued in November of that same year. By mid-December both printings had sold out. By 1961 the novel had sold more than one million copies.

The first issue of the first printing is noted by these factors: “stopped”, p. 181, line 26 is misspelled “stoppped;” and a quote from Ecclesiastes regarding vanity is on page [viii].

The University of Utah copy has the first issue dust jacket with the error “In Our Times” instead of “In Our Time” on the front panel. This is one of the two most rare and desirable dust jackets in twentieth-century American literature book collecting, the other being the dust jacket from the first issue of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The dust jacket was printed in gold, black, and tan, with a gold apple on either side of the title and beneath it the figure of a drowsing woman clothed in the style of Greek antiquity. A Pan’s pipe lay near her sandaled foot and another gold apple rested in the palm of her left hand. At the bottom, Hemingway was identified as the author of In Our Times [sic][ and The Torrents of Spring.



Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger
Boston: Little, Brown, 1951
First edition
PS3537 A426 C3 1951

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”

A twentieth century American classic, Catcher in the Rye was extremely popular at the time of its publication, especially with young readers who strongly identified with the yearning for lost innocence by the novel’s narrator, Holden Caulfield. The novel added to a budding literary, musical, and artistic theme of youthful rebellion.

Catcher, however, raised a gentle voice of protest over growing militant rhetoric. Published after the triumphant yet devastating Second World War and during a pseudo-peace labeled “the Cold War,” youth in the fifties began protesting what they viewed as the failures of the adult world. Anger, contempt, and self-pity were prevalent in many works of the era, but Catcher captured a much more telling view of the era’s stresses with it’s decent but completely and genuinely perplexed teenager.

The book has been banned repeatedly from various school curricula from the time it was published to the present day.



Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986
First American edition
PR9199.3 A8 H3 1986

“On the floor of the room there were books, open face down, this way and that, extravagantly”



The Rare Books staff offers these suggestions for summer reading, based on the criteria The Great American Read used to gather its 100. The five of us each chose five books. From those the editor savagely (as editors do) and without apparent rhyme or reason (and she will never tell) whittled the list down to this, in alphabetical order by author. Copies may be found in the General Collection on level 2 of the J. Willard Marriott Library.

James Agee, A Death in the Family (1957)
Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine (1957)
Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel (1940)
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White (1859)
Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly (1997)
Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers (1959)
M. M. Kaye, The Far Pavilions (1978)
William Kennedy, Ironweed (1983)
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934)
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)
William Saroyan, The Human Comedy (1943)
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (1963)
Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again (1940)

What do you suggest?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

Coming Soon! KUED’s VERVE, Season 6 — “It’s All About the Book”

18 Friday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Video

≈ Comments Off on Coming Soon! KUED’s VERVE, Season 6 — “It’s All About the Book”

Tags

Ashley Swansong, book, Book Arts Program, Emily Tipps, It's All About the Book, Jonathan Sandberg, KUED, Luise Poulton, Marnie Powers-Torrey, PBS, rare books, Rob Buchert, The Great American Read, Tryst Press, VERVE

Inspired by PBS’s The Great American Read, beginning May 22, season six of KUED’s VERVE was produced by Ashley Swansong, Digital Media Producer. While working toward her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Film, Cinema, and Video Studies from the University of Utah, Ashley worked in Special Collections.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

We recommend — The Book Restructured: Wire-Edge Binding

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Workshop

≈ Comments Off on We recommend — The Book Restructured: Wire-Edge Binding

Tags

Arthur Larson, Book Arts Program, Book Arts Studio, collage, Daniel Kelm, Easthampton, Garage Annex School for Book Arts, gouache, Granary Books, Greta Sibley, Horton Tank Graphics, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jane Sherry, Jill Jevne, Jospeh A. Osina, Korea, New York City, Philip Gallo, photographs, printing, rare books, Rives BFK, rubber stamps, Small Offering Press, Sonam Temple, South Cholla Province, Terence K. McKenna, The Hermetic Press, Timothy Ely, typography, Wide Awake Garage, wire-edge binding


“Everything corresponds. Sweet is easy: happiness. Tanginess is trickier: people going the wrong way and calling it right; the tendency not to complain while harboring envious and covetous feelings. Sourness is things you like and don’t like — woven together. Smokiness is slow vision, seeing gradually the good things in life. What we find distasteful? That’s bitterness.”

Tea: Time in Korea
Greta Sibley
Easthampton, MA: Small Offering Press, 1994
DS904 S53 1994

Text and photographs based on three trips to Sonam Temple, South Cholla Province, Korea. Binding and box designed and produced by Daniel Kelm, Wide Awake Garage. Edition of twenty-five copies. Rare Books copy no. 14, signed by the author and the binder.


“The Book Restructured: Wire-Edge Binding”
A Book Arts Program workshop by Daniel Kelm

June 1 & 2, 2018
Friday & Saturday, 10:00 – 5:00
Book Arts Studio, J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4

$215, register here

Wire-edge binding utilizes a thin metal wire along the hinging edge of each page. The metal wire is exposed at regular intervals, creating knotting stations where thread attaches one page to the next. The result is a binding that opens exceptionally well and provides the option of producing unusual shapes. This workshop presents various wire-edge structures useful for books, enclosures, and articulated sculpture. Participants produce both a simple codex and an accordion model that forms a tetrahedron. All levels of experience are welcome.

Daniel E. Kelm is a book artist who enjoys expanding the concept of the book. He is known for his innovative structures as well as his traditional work. In the mid-1980s, Daniel invented a style of bookbinding called wire-edge binding in order to explore the nature of the book as articulated sculpture. His expression as an artist emerges from the integration of work in science and the arts. Alchemy is a common theme in his bookwork. Daniel received formal training in chemistry and taught at the University of Minnesota and is known for his extensive knowledge of materials. Daniel teaches widely, and founded the Garage Annex School for Book Arts (GAS) in 1990. Most recently, with long-time collaborator Timothy Ely, Daniel co-delivered a lecture on The Alchemy of the Handmade Book at the Getty Center as a complement to the exhibition The Alchemy of Color in Medieval Manuscripts.

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



“Decadence is sophistication severed from genuine feeling.”

Synesthesia
Terence K. McKenna (1946-2000)
New York City: Granary Books, 1992
N7433.4 M4285 S95 1992

Drawn and painted images by Timothy Ely. Typography and printing by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press. Paper is Rives BFK. Bookbinding by Daniel Kelm and staff, Wide Awake Garage. Edition of seventy five copies, twenty hors commerce. Rare Books copy is no. 47, signed by the author, printer and binder.



“I decide to go down the mountain to get a jar of fig sugar. The houses below feel very flimsy. I am greeted in one, by a cat that chases me barking like a dog back up the hill with an empty peanut butter jar.”

Venus Unbound
Jane Sherry
New York City: Granary Books, 1993
N7433.4 S418 V46 1993

The writer dreams. From the colophon: “The images were printed from metal plates made from the artist’s original paintings then treated with extensive hand-work: gouache, pen & ink, rubber stamps and collage…” Typography and printing by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press. Binding designed by Daniel Kelm. Box made by Jill Jevne. Edition of forty-one copies, eleven lettered. Rare Books copy is “A/P 2/2, signed by the author.



“The moon empties of light and is called new.”

Four Chambers, Five Nights
Greta Sibley
Easthampton, MA: Small Offerings Press, 1999
N7433.4 S5453 F68 1999

Text designed and composed by the author. Imagery created by Joseph A. Osina. Letterpress printed by Arthur Larson of Horton Tank Graphics. Binding and folders designed by Daniel E. Kelm at The Wide Awake Garage. Edition of twenty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 14.

— Photographs by Scott Beadles

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

Book of the Week — Clavis Historia Thuanae

07 Monday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week — Clavis Historia Thuanae

Tags

archivists, curia, Edict of Nantes, Edward Gibbon, England, French Enlightenment, French Revolution, Geneva, Germany, heresy, humanism, Index of Prohibited Books, Jac, Jacques Auguste de Thou, Jacques Dupuy, Keeper of the Royal Library, librarians, Parlement, philosophes, Portugal, Protestant, rare books, Roman Catholic, scholars, Spain, vellum, Voltaire, William Pitt

Clavis historiae thuanae: id est, nomenclature…
Jacques Dupuy (1591-1656)
Ratisponae: Sumtibus J. Z. Seidelii, 1696
Editio altera
D228 T552

Originally published in Geneva in 1634, this revised edition includes the word “Clavis” as the beginning of its title. The title translated into English reads: Nomenclature of Proper Names in the Historical Work of Jacques Auguste de Thou. Thou (1553-1617) was a historian whose fame and acclaim lasted well into the nineteenth century. His “History of His Own Time” (Historiarum sui temporis libri CXXXVIII) was added to the Index of Prohibited Books in 1609 for its humanist bent.

In spite of the ban and the humanism, his work received praise across the Roman Catholic/Protestant spectrum from Spain and Portugal to England and Germany. It was read by the curia it condemned and was a favorite of the Philosophes of the French Enlightenment. Voltaire referred to the “truthful eloquence” of Thou several times in his works. William Pitt quoted Thou, “the great historian of France,” in the early years of the French Revolution, and historian Edward Gibbon referred to Thou as the “authority of my masters.”

Thou was a leading member of Parlement. A Roman Catholic, he nonetheless counted many Protestants as his friends and helped negotiate the Edict of Nantes. He was appointed the Keeper of the Royal Library. His own library contained nearly 6,000 volumes, vast even by the standards of a private library-owning upper class. His “History” appeared in parts between 1604 and 1610. But the work was considered heresy in that it failed to condemn all Protestants outright. For this he fell from royal and papal favor.

The other indexer of Thou’s history was Jacques Dupuy, one of the many archivists and librarians who organized meetings of scholars at Thou’s home and, here, organized his book.

Rare Books copy bound in vellum, using loose leaves from another work. Pages are in double column format.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

We recommend — Appendices Pulled from a Study on Light

24 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Reading

≈ Comments Off on We recommend — Appendices Pulled from a Study on Light

Tags

acanthus, Anglo-Norman Litany of Saints, April, Boise, border, burnished gold, Cami Nelson, chrysalis, color, Connecticut College, Craig Dworkin, Elizabeth Peterson, eye, Finger Lakes, fragment, France, Geoffrey Babbitt, gilded, gold pavé, gutters, heliotropic, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Idaho, ink, ivy, Jerry Root, Julie Gonnering Lein, Karen Brennan, Kathryn Cowles, leaf, lift, light, littera gothica textualis, littera gothica textualis formata, Luise Poulton, Marriott Library, National Poetry Month, New York, New York City, Office of the Dead, Paisley Rekdal, Paris, pasture, poet, rare books, rinceaux, scribe, Shira Dentz, Special Collections, Spyten Duyvil, street lamp, tendrils, The University of Utah, thunder, Tom Stillinger, transport, vellum, Vespers, vines


“a trace unnameable — place
holding the child
to the first frost,
the street lamp, the pasture — ”

Appendices Pulled from a Study on Light
Geoffrey Babbitt
New York City: Spuyten Duyvil, 2018
PS3602 A224 A6 2018 (General Collection, Level 2)

“This is Geoffrey Babbitt’s first book. His poems and essays have appeared in North American Review, Pleiades, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Notre Dame Review, TYPO, Tarpaulin Sky, The Collagist, Interim, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. Raised in Boise, Idaho, he studied at Connecticut College and earned his Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Utah. Geoffrey currently coedits Seneca Review and teaches at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where he lives with poet Kathryn Cowles and their three daughters.”

Geoffrey acknowledges the help of many friends, colleagues and faculty from the University of Utah including Luise Poulton, Karen Brennan, Craig Dworkin, Julie Gonnering Lein, Cami Nelson, Paisley Rekdal, Jerry Root, Tom Stillinger, Shira Dentz, Elizabeth Peterson, and others.

Congratulations, Geoffrey!


MS Fragment: 4 — Date: ca. 1375 — Origin: France (possibly northeastern) — current location: Marriott Library, University of Utah, Special Collections, Rare Book Division — Materials: Ink, and burnished gold on vellum — Illustration: Detail — Size: 7 1/8 in. x 5 7/16 in. — Section: Anglo-Norman Litany of Saints — Script: littera gothica textualis formata

“vines scritched, chrysalis
onto vellum leaf–all
lost color, stolen thunder
–spiritual curl
of the vine tending
ultimately toward–tattered edge
curling from the gutters…”


MS Fragment: 8 — Date: ca. 1425-1450 — Origin: France (possibly Paris) — Current Location: Marriott Library, University of Utah, Special Collections, Rare Books Division — Materials: Ink, and burnished gold on vellum — Size: 7 1/4 in. x 5 3/16 in. — Illustration: Detail, border — section: Office of the Dead, Vespers — Script: littera gothica textualis

“lit border
buoys — acanthus
place setting
scribe sets — rinceaux
sprays, gilded ivy leaf,
bryony tendrils, gold pavé
fleur-de-lis — heliotropic
buoyancy — motor cells in
the pulvinus synthesize
bouncing light, con-
vert eye movement, displace
page’s gravitropic
polar auxin transport —
downwarding becomes lift”

April is National Poetry Month.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

Book of the Week — Wrenching Times: Poems from Drum-Taps

15 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week — Wrenching Times: Poems from Drum-Taps

Tags

Abraham Lincoln, Alan Wood, assassination, Brooklyn, Capitol, David Esslemont, democratic, frontier, Gaylord Schanilec, Gwasg Gregynog, Hugh Willmer, lilacs, M. Wynn Thomas, memorial, Monotype Baskerville, New York, Newton, North Wales Arts Association, poet, Powys, President, rare books, Rhian Ticehurst, typeface, Union, Wales, Walt Whitman, Washington, Western, wood blocks, wood engravings, Zerkall mould-made paper

PS3211-A3-1991-Portrait

“When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d…and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”

Wrenching Times: Poems from Drum-Taps
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Newton, Powys, Wales: Gwasg Gregynog, 1991
PS3211 A3 1991

From notes by M. Wynn Thomas: “Whitman was in New York, seeing Drum-Taps through the press, when Lincoln was assassinated on the evening of 14 April 1865, at the very time when he had finally secured victory for the Union. Whitman had come to identify very closely with the president, having supported him when others dismissed him as a mere country hick, and having seen him pass every day under Whitman’s window in Washington on his journey to and from the Capitol. Lincoln was, for the poet, the very epitome of Western, frontier qualities and his steadfast adherence, through the worst of times, to his principled belief in a democratic Union had won Whitman’s unqualified and undying admiration. Years later, in his old age, he would still endeavour, whenever his health allowed, to deliver an annual memorial lecture on the day of Lincoln’s death. On that occasion he always ensured that lilacs were placed on the table in front of him.

“The lilac was in flower near his Brooklyn home when Whitman heard of Lincoln’s murder.”

PS3211-A3-1991-Locomotive

Wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec, made at Gregynog during a residency, supported by the North Wales Arts Association, and printed from the original wood-blocks. Designed and printed by David Esslemont with the assistance of Hugh Willmer on Zerkall mould-made paper. Typeface is Monotype Baskerville. Edition of four hundred and fifty copies, one of four hundred copies bound in quarter leather by Alan Wood and Rhian Ticehurst at Gregynog.

Gregynog Press was a Welsh private press, started and run by two wealthy sisters, whose interests were more artistic than literary. All of the work of the books from this press happened under one roof – design layout, composition, presswork, design and execution of woodblocks, hand-coloring and binding – an unusual circumstance for early twentieth century presses.

Rare Books copy is number 201 with unpublished wood engraving laid in.

PS3211-A3-1991-Horse

April is National Poetry Month.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

Curtis Census

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Publication

≈ Comments Off on Curtis Census

Tags

American Indians, copper plates, Curtis Census, drawing, Edward Curtis, etchings, ethnography, field notes, French Impressionists, glass negative, glass positive, gravures, gum prints, handpress, J. Willard Marriott Library, Japanese handmade silk tissues, Mississippi, negatives, nineteenth century, painting, papers, photographer, photogravures, Pictorialism, platinotypes, printing process, rare books, rice paper, Scott Beadles, Seattle, sepia inks, Tim Greyhavens, Tissue, Van Gelder, vellum, watermark

Rare Books is pleased to announce the launch of the Curtis Census, a website produced by Tim Greyhavens for the global community. The J. Willard Marriott Library is one of the institutions that holds an entire set of Edward Curtis’ The North American Indian.

From Tim’s website: “Published by Edward Curtis from 1907 to 1930, The North American Indian was planned to be a limited edition of 500 sets. Due to the extremely high cost of the publication and the prolonged publication cycle, it’s thought that no more than 300 complete or partial sets were finally printed. This census will determine, as accurately as possible, the actual number of complete or partial sets that were printed and their present locations…Although The North American Indian is one of the great publications of all time, there is no definitive answer about how many sets were originally published. Curtis did not keep a master subscription list, and different documentation about the project provides conflicting information.”

Congratulations, Tim, on a great project.

Click here for the website’s biography of Edward Curtis. Curtis was born in 1868. 2018 is the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Click here for the website’s excellent article on Curtis’s The North American Indian.

Visit Rare Books to look at this remarkable set of photogravures.

THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN
Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952)
Seattle, WA: E. S. Curtis, 1907-30
E77 C97

A collection of 2,232 photogravures of American Indians taken between 1890 and 1930 and published between 1907 and 1930. A massive project, professional photographer Edward Curtis’ intention was to document every major tribe west of the Mississippi, portraying what he perceived to be a vanishing culture. While he was neither the first nor the last person to photograph the American Indian, he was surely the most prolific. His monumental publication presented to the public an extensive ethnographic study of numerous peoples.

The North American Indian consists of twenty portfolios of photogravures and twenty volumes of field notes bound with smaller gravures. A photogravure is made from a printing process utilizing a copper plate that is made from a glass positive which itself is made from a glass negative. The plate is hand wiped with sepia inks. Excess ink is removed and the plate is forced onto paper with a handpress, capturing all the etched details on the plate. The photogravure produces a soft, atmospheric appearance similar to that achieved by French Impressionist painters. This photographic process, along with drawing and painting on negatives, platinotypes and gum prints, was popular at the end of the nineteenth century. The movement, known as “Pictorialism” was a way for photographers to add personal vision and expression to their works.

The portfolio gravures were printed on three different papers, Van Gelder, a watermarked paper, Vellum, a rice paper, and Tissue, Japanese handmade silk tissues. Forty of the original sets were printed on Tissue, the rest equally split between Van Gelder and Vellum.

Images selected and scanned by Scott Beadles.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

Rare Books goes to UMFA

23 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Rare Books Loans, Recommended Exhibition

≈ Comments Off on Rare Books goes to UMFA

Tags

Arabic Papyrus, Aziz S. Atiya, Brigham Young University, J. Willard Marriott Library, Lincoln Blumell, Lola Atiya, rare books, University of Utah, Utah Museum of Fine Arts

Greek inscription

A piece from the rare book collections is on loan at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, in its ongoing exhibition,  Ancient Mediterranean Art: Res Mortis. The piece may be viewed at the museum through September, 2018.

The carved fragment of limestone celebrates the life of Helene, to whom is given the credit “In peace and blessing Ama Helene, a Jew, who loves the orphans, [died]. For about 60 years her path was one of mercy and blessing; on it she prospered.”

The piece has been at the J. Willard Marriott for nearly thirty years, a gift of Aziz S. and Lola Atiya. Aziz Atiya founded the University of Utah’s Middle East Center and the Marriott’s Middle East Library in 1969. Rare Books holds many gifts from Dr. and Mrs. Atiya, including this epitaph and one of the largest collections of Arabic papyrus fragments in the world.

When the epitaph was given to the library, it was provisionally identified as a “Coptic inscription, dating from the dawn of the use of the Greek alphabet, not earlier than the second century, but not later than the third.”

Years later, in 2016, Lincoln Blumell, associate professor of ancient scripture, at Brigham Young University translated it, publishing his translation in Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period. News of the piece attracted world wide press attention.

For more information on Dr. Blumell’s translation see our previous post.

— photographs by Scott Beadles

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...

A Lasting Gift — The Principles of Psychology

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

≈ Comments Off on A Lasting Gift — The Principles of Psychology

Tags

Bertrand Russell, brain, emotion, George Santayana, Gertrude Stein, habit, Harvard, Henry Holt and Company, Henry James, history, John Dewey, literature, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Mark Twain, natural science, New York, philosophy, psychology, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rare books, Sigmund Freud, Theodore Roosevelt, W. E. B. Du Bois, William James


“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” — William James

The Principles of Psychology
William James (1842-1910)
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890
First edition, first state
BF121 J2 1890

Rare Books is pleased to announce the anonymous donation of this first edition of William James’ The Principles of Psychology, a work emphasizing his experimental method and treatment of psychology as a natural science. A landmark in the history of philosophy, The Principles of Psychology includes a survey of literature on the localized functions of the brain, an extensive analysis of the self, and theories of habit, emotion, and association, among other topics. The phrase “stream of consciousness” comes from his writings.

William James came from a large, wealthy New York family. He is the brother of novelist Henry James. His godfather was Ralph Waldo Emerson. While teaching at Harvard, his students included Theodore Roosevelt, George Santayana, and Gertrude Stein. His writings influenced W. E. B. Du Bois and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He associated with Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud and many others. That’s a special bunch of people in the world of literature and scholarship.

We also have special friends, named and unnamed. Thank you!



Share this:

  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts
Newer posts →

Follow Open Book via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 175 other subscribers

Archives

  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • September 2011
  • April 2011

Categories

  • Alice
  • Awards
  • Book of the Week
  • Chronicle
  • Courses
  • Donations
  • Events
  • Journal Articles
  • Newspaper Articles
  • On Jon's Desk
  • Online Exhibitions
  • Physical Exhibitions
  • Publication
  • Radio
  • Rare Books Loans
  • Recommended Exhibition
  • Recommended Lecture
  • Recommended Reading
  • Recommended Workshop
  • TV News
  • Uncategorized
  • Vesalius
  • Video

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
  • RSS - Posts

Recent Posts

  • Book of the Week — Home Thoughts from Abroad
  • Donation adds to Latin hymn fragments: “He himself shall come and shall make us saved.”
  • Medieval Latin Hymn Fragment: “And whatever with bonds you shall have bound upon earth will be bound strongly in heaven.”
  • Books of the week — Off with her head!
  • Medieval Latin Hymn Fragment, Part D: “…of the holy found rest through him.”

Recent Comments

  • rarebooks on Medieval Latin Hymn Fragment: “Her mother ordered the dancing girl…”
  • Jonathan Bingham on On Jon’s Desk: Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, A Celebration of Heritage on Pioneer Day
  • Robin Booth on On Jon’s Desk: Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, A Celebration of Heritage on Pioneer Day
  • Mary Johnson on Memorial Day 2017
  • Collett on Book of the Week — Dictionnaire des Proverbes Francais

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.

 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    %d