Author Archives: Julie Mellby

Buffalo Bill Novel Magazine Covers

Robert Prowse, Jr (1858-1934?), Collection of 71 pieces of original cover art for the Buffalo Bill Novels Magazine series. [London: Aldine Publishing Company, 1918-1932]. Watercolor and gouache paintings, about 14 x 11 in. each. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process.

 

With the much appreciated support of the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a remarkable group of original cover art for the Buffalo Bill Novels, a British pulp magazine for boys and girls, published from 1916 to 1932 by the Aldine Publishing Company in London. Despite its name, the stories were not always about Buffalo Bill, though they were always set in the American West and featured plenty of cowboys and Indians (and even female heroes!).

The paintings are all signed by Robert Prowse (R.P.), who did artwork for this and other similar projects; some are dated below his initials. The series ran for 342 issues, though the last cover in this collection is for No. 344, possibly an unpublished issue, as we could find no trace of this title associated with the Buffalo Bill Novels. See more here: http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/2014/08/robert-prowse-jr-sketches-and.html

 

This acquisition will allow students and researchers to study the cover art along with the text, given the large number of these books already owned by Princeton. As outlined on the Special Collections website, “the Library’s extensive holdings relating to Dime Novels are divided chiefly among two collections. https://rbsc.princeton.edu/topics/dime-novels

One major portion, about 1,700 individual issues, is in the Cotsen Children’s Library. Some details about these are covered in the exhibition “Cheap Thrills,” mounted in Cotsen during the fall of 2006. The second major portion is in the general rare books collection, chiefly in three sub-units thereof, namely The Stanley Lieberman Memorial Collection (900 individual numbers); The Mary Robinson Memorial Collection of Hero Fiction (400 individual numbers); The John Murray Reynolds ’22 Collection, consisting of 111 issues of various dime-novel, mystery, and other such pulp magazines published in the United States between 1925 and 1947.

Each issue contains a story or contribution by John Murray Reynolds of the Class of 1922. A checklist is available here: https://library.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/BIB_70767.pdf. The Stanley Lieberman Memorial Collection and the Mary Robinson Memorial Collection of Hero Fiction complement each other to form a fine collection of Hero Fiction, with a total of about 1,300 volumes. There is also the John Murray Reynolds ’22 Collection, which consists of 111 issues of various boys, dime-novel, mystery, and other such pulp magazines published in the United States between 1925 and 1947.”

 

 

Above: original painting for cover.       Below: published volume with printed cover.

American publishers weren’t the only ones cashing in on the pulp magazines craze and this collection offers a good example of international hegemony of the genre. The Aldine Publishing Company of London produced, from the late 1880s onwards, reprints of American dime novels, such as the adventures of Buffalo Bill, eventually opening a subsidiary in New York.

Complementing the watercolors, Princeton also holds proof covers for the first 51 numbers of the Aldine Publishing Company’s “O’er Land and Sea” Library. These single octavo leaves, rough trimmed, some mounted on thin card, others showing signs of mounting. [London, 1890-1891], available at (Ex) Item 4697736.

See also:
Chambliss, Julian and William Svitavsky (2008), “From Pulp Hero to Superhero: Culture, Race, and Identity in American Popular Culture, 1900–1940,” Studies in American Culture 30 (1) (October)
Dinan, John A. (1983) The Pulp Western : A Popular History of the Western Fiction Magazine in America. Borgo Press, ISBN 0-89370-161-0.
Goulart, Ron (1972) Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine, Arlington House, ISBN 978-0-87000-172-7.
Gunnison, Locke and Ellis (2000). Adventure House Guide to the Pulps (Adventure House) ISBN 1-886937-45-1
Lesser, Robert (2003). Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines (Book Sales) ISBN 0-7858-1707-7
Locke, John-editor (2004). Pulp Fictioneers – Adventures in the Storytelling Business (Adventure House) ISBN 1-886937-83-4
Robbins, Leonard A. (1988). The Pulp Magazine Index (Six Volumes). Starmont House. ISBN 1-55742-111-0.
Robinson, Frank and Davidson, Lawrence (2007). Pulp Culture (Collector’s Press) ISBN 978-1-933112-30-5
Sampson, Robert (1983) Yesterday’s Faces: A Study of Series Characters in the Early Pulp Magazines. Volume 1. Glory figures, Vol. 2. Strange days, Vol. 3. From the Dark Side, Vol. 4. The Solvers, Vol 5. Dangerous Horizons, Vol. 6. Violent lives. Bowling Green University Popular Press, ISBN 0-87972-217-7.
Springhall, John (1994), “‘Disseminating Impure Literature’: ‘The ‘Penny Dreadful’ Publishing Business Since 1860,” The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 47, No. 3. (August), pp. 578.
http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/2014/08/robert-prowse-jr-sketches-and.html

The Living Skeleton


Claude Ambroise Seurat. Description intéressante de Claude-Ambroise Seurat appelé l’homme anatomique, ou le squelette vivant par M. le Comte Joseph de Cissé [Douai: Wagrez, n.d., soon after 1828]. Woodcut frontispiece.  Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

 

“A few words may here be said with regard to the individuals occasionally exhibited at Shows and Fairs, and known popularly as “Living Skeletons,” for in some of them it is probable that we have to do with a congenital absence of the subcutaneous fat which has persisted till adult life. …In 1826, Claude Ambroise Seurat, the so called ” Anatomie Vivante,” or ” Living Skeleton,” was exhibited in the Chinese Saloon, Pall Mall, London, and in other towns of the United Kingdom. He was then 26 years of age, about five feet and a half in height, and showed such a markedly atrophic state of the subcutaneous fat, and to some extent of the muscular system also, as fully to justify the designation “Living Skeleton,” which was popularly applied to him.

In one of the newspapers of the time the following statement occurs :*—” His father and his stepmother are both with him, and if we credit their account, he was brought into the world thus afflicted, grew to his present height at fourteen years old, and has never had a day’s illness in his life.” His parents, however, do not seem to have been very clear about the congenital character of the anomaly, for in another account, written for some paper by a medical man, the following sentence occurs: “According to the statement of his father (the mother is dead), he presented nothing extraordinary in his appearance at the time of birth; though, in my own mind, I have no doubt but the same malformation was existent then, which is so apparent now.”

One of the advertisements with regard to this man reads thus:—”Anatomie Vivante, Or Living Skeleton.—This extraordinary production of Nature has been examined by many of the most eminent of the Faculty in France and in England, who pronounce him a great phenomenon. He has been brought to this country at a considerable expence [sic], in the confident hope that he will contribute to the advancement of science. He is 28 years of age, in good health, and has from his birth resembled a Skeleton, although he has attained an enlargement of bone equal to any of his age.—The Faculty and the Public are invited to view so unparalleled a Being, who will be exhibited on TUESDAY next, 9th inst, at the Chinese Saloon, 94 Pall Mall.— Hours of exhibition from 10 to 1, and from 2 to 6.—Admission, 2s. 66.” — John William Ballantyne, The Diseases and deformities of the fœtus, v. 2 (1895)

 


Avez-vous peur des revenants ?
Belles, voyez l’homme squelette :
Ses bras, de forme d’allumette,
Ne sont rien moins qu’entreprenans.
Dans une machine aussi frêle
Un grand sens trouve à se loger ;
Pour montrer qu’à l’âme immortelle
Notre corps est presqu’étranger.

 

See also various caricature by Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), The Living Skeleton, September 1825. Hand colored etching. Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library. Historical Library

 

Le Grand Écart

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963). Le Grand Ecart. Roman illustré par l’auteur de vingt deux dessins dont onze en couleurs (Paris: Librairie Stock, 1926). First illustrated edition, with reproductions of 22 drawings by Cocteau, 11 in color. Copy 18 of 20 on imperial Japan paper. A fine inscribed copy with a large original drawing by Jean Cocteau (profile of a male head): “à Parisot Souvenir très amical de Jean Cocteau.” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

 


This novel has a small album of drawings bound inside between chapters. Cocteau wrote:

Ce petit roman est composé comme un album de dessins. C’est ce que nous invite à penser une lettre de Cocteau à sa mère le 19 juillet 1922 : « Tout est écrit. Il faut maintenant dessiner chaque page. La reprendre jusqu’à ce qu’elle soit ressemblante comme je fais pour mes portraits ou mes caricatures. » En réalité, à cette date rien n’est vraiment écrit : Cocteau a juste commencé, il a surtout le plan en tête (sauf l’épilogue, trouvé en octobre seulement). Et, comme l’album graphique qu’il compose en même temps (Dessins, publié en 1923), le roman se présente dans son esprit comme une suite de planches à composer l’une après l’autre. Dans ses entretiens à la radio avec André Fraigneau en 1951, Cocteau dira qu’il a composé Le Grand Écart « par petits blocs ».

This little novel is composed as an album of drawings. This is what invites us to think of a letter from Cocteau to his mother on July 19, 1922: “Everything is written. We must now draw each page. Repeat it until it looks like I do for my portraits or caricatures. In reality, at this date nothing is really written: Cocteau has just started, he has the plan especially in mind (except the epilogue, found in October only). And, like the graphic album he composes at the same time (Drawings, published in 1923), the novel appears in his mind as a series of plates to compose one after the other. In his radio interviews with André Fraigneau in 1951, Cocteau said that he composed Le Grand Écart “in small blocks”.–https://cocteau.biu-montpellier.fr/index.php?id=103

 

Cocteau wrote six novels: 1919: Le Potomak; 1923: Le Grand Écart; 1923: Thomas l’Imposteur; 1928: Le Livre blanc; 1929: Les Enfants terribles; and 1940: La Fin du Potomak.

During the 1920s Cocteau also devoted his time to writing several novels, a new genre for him. These novels are usually concerned with protagonists who cannot leave their childhoods behind them. In Le Grand Ecart, for example, Jacques Forestier finds that beauty always brings him pain, a pattern established when he was a child.

As a young man, the pattern continues when he loses his first love to another man, leading Jacques to attempt suicide. Germaine Bree and Margaret Guiton note in The French Novel from Gide to Camus that Jacques is “the most directly autobiographical of Cocteau’s fictional characters.” In addition, as McNab pointed out, the novel anticipates Cocteau’s later obsession with childhood. — https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jean-cocteau

 

KWY

KWY: Revista trimestrial d’arte actual (Paris, [publisher not identified], [1958-1963]. No 1-12. French, English, and Portuguese. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019 in process.

The Graphic Arts Collection, along with our colleagues in Art history and French literature, recently acquired a complete run of the rare serial KWY. Each issue was editioned differently: no. 2 is a limited edition of 50 copies; no. 3 a limited edition of 85 copies; no. 4 a limited edition of 100 copies; no. 5 signed in pencil on back cover: 73/134; no. 6 a limited edition of 500 copies; no. 7-12 each a limited edition of 300 copies. Our no.1 is a facsimile while all the rest are original as issued.

A truly international publication, KWY was produced mainly with serigraphs and letterpress by Portuguese artists Lourdes Castro, René Bertholo, Antonio Costa Pinheiro, João Vieira, José Escada and Gonçalo Duarte and by Bulgarian Christo and the German Jan Voss. These artists gathered in Paris under the title “Le groupe KWY” focusing primarily on the production of the magazine from 1958 and 1964.

According to one source, the name KWY was chosen because these are the three letters that rarely appear in Portuguese words.

Various movements have been connected with this group, including Portuguese figuration and New Realism, the Fluxus spirit, the Spanish group El Paso and the lyricists and the experiences of the sound poetry. Issues also include work by António Areal, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Bernard Heidsieck, Yves Klein, and Jorge Martins, among others.

 

Happy and sad, is one pirated?

This early book on obstetrics and human reproduction has many editions. Our earliest is the 21st edition published in 1738. Our most recent, just arrived, is from 1802 or 1808, London or Boston.

It is believed to be an unrecorded early American pirated edition with a false imprint bound in contemporary calf-backed paper covered boards with wastepaper endpapers and pastedowns from a Boston 1808 almanac published by Manning and Loring. Taken from the London 1802 edition, the text has been completely reset, with new (variant) woodcuts. What do you think?

Aristotle’s compleat master-piece: in three parts; Displaying the secrets of nature in the generation of man. Regularly digested into chapters and in sections, rendering it far more useful and easy than any yet extant. To which is added, a treasure of health; or, the family physician, being choice and approved remedies for all the several distempers incident to the human bodies. 31 ed. (London: Printed and sold by the booksellers, 1776). Rare Books 2007-2533N

Aristotle’s complete master-piece: in three parts: displaying the secrets of nature in the generation of man: regularly digested into chapters and sections, rendering it far more useful and easy than any yet extant: to which is added, A treasure of health, or, The family physician: being choice and approved remedies for all the several distempers incident to human bodies. The thirtieth edition ([New York?]: Printed and sold by the book-sellers, 1796. Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 167s. [Place of publication suggested by Bristol.]

Aristotle’s complete master-piece: displaying the secrets of nature in the generation of man: to which is added The family physician; being approved remedies for all the several distempers incident to human bodies. A new edition (London [i.e., Boston]: Printed for the booksellers [i.e.Manning and Loring]., 1802 [ca. 1808]). Graphic Arts Collection 2019 in process

 

 

 

Portraits with Scottish Roasting-Jacks and Toasting-Forks.

John Kay (1742-1826), [Miss Burns] : Burns whose Beauty warms the age and fills our Youth with love & rage, no date [1801]. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00649

…Miss Burns was a professional harlot, the lawful daughter of a Durham merchant of the name of Matthews. She was in Edinburgh while Burns resided there in 1786-87. Some time afterwards she left the place, but returned again in 1789, and, with another young lady, set up a brothel in Rose Street. Being complained against, they were sentenced by Bailie William Creech to be banished the city; but, on 22nd December, the Court of Session passed a bill of suspension in their favour. Miss Burns died of consumption at Roslin in 1792.”– The Poetry of Robert Burns, Volume 2 (1905).

The London’s National Portrait Gallery adds: “Miss Burns, otherwise known as Miss Mathews, was a celebrated courtesan and beauty, who came to Edinburgh from Durham when her wealthy merchant father fell on hard times. She is shown by Kay as she appeared on her evening promenades, dressed in her fashionable finery. The stir she caused resulted in complaints from her scandalised neighbours. She was brought to court and sentenced to be banished from the city, and to be confined for 6 months in a house of correction should she return. The sentence was finally overturned on appeal.”

The Graphic Arts Collection holds a group of etchings by the Scottish barber-turned-artist John Kay (1742-1826). NPG calls John Kay a little known etcher, although many institutions in the United States have 100s of his prints. “Kay was an ex-barber and native of Edinburgh who turned to etching relatively late in life and produced many hundreds of original naïve and mostly humorous portraits of his fellow citizens.” Here are a few of ours.

 

John Kay (1742-1826), [Rev. Dr. John Erskine], 1793. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00652

The name John Erskine (1721-1803) may not be familiar to the modern Christian world, but to his friends and colleagues he was the leading Calvinist clergyman of the Church of Scotland during much of the eighteenth-century. Despite his family’s desire for him to follow his father’s path in law and manage the eventual inheritance of a large estate in Carnock and Torryburn, he began his career as a preacher in the town of Kirkintilloch (1744-1753). As the leader of the Popular party, he opposed patronage in favor of a popular vote for ministers and would later serve at Edinburgh’s New Greyfriars (1758-1767) and Old Greyfriars (1767-1803). — http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/review/enlightened-evangelicalism-the-life-and-thought-of-john-erskine

John Kay (1742-1826), [John Wemyss (died 1788), Town crier; Robert Clerk (1738-1810), Book seller and publisher; George Pratt (active 1784), Town crier. ca.1784]. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00651

John Wemyss, the figure on the left, was, as the Print denotes, one of the Town Criers, and colleague of the eccentric and consequential George Pratt. He had formerly been a respectable dyer; but, owing to some reverses in business, he was reluctantly compelled to abandon the trade; and, from necessity, had recourse to the calling in which he is here represented. He was for many years officer to the Incorporation of Bonnet-makers, for which he received the sum of fifty shillings a-year!

…Mr Robert Clerk, the centre figure, was for many years a bookseller and publisher in the Parliament Square. His father, John Clerk, a printer, was said to have been descended from Alexander Clark, Lord Provost of the city of Edinburgh at the commencement of the seventeenth century. …Although at that period the book trade of Edinburgh was comparatively limited, he succeeded in establishing a profitable business—having a good many bookbinders employed—and latterly engaging in several fortunate speculations as a publisher.–A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings, Volume 2, Part 1 (1838)

“Now for your quarters and Shoulders of Mutton or Lamb Geese and turkeys, any more a Wanting my hearty ones. What are you all asleep nous [sic] your time. I leave this City tomorrow & have Sold Sixteen Hundred down all well prov’d well try’d the last one now.” He says “Nice rrrRoasting Jacks and toasting Forks.”

McBain had been a soldier. Receiving no pension on retiring from the army, he became a manufacturer of roasting-jacks for turning meat and toasting-forks. He sold these on the streets of the city, singing his ‘roasting, toasting’ ditty. In old age he was admitted to the workhouse, but at 96 was expelled after becoming intimate with the elderly nurse. They married, and he returned to selling roasting-jacks, before being readmitted to the workhouse where he died aged 102.–NPG

 

John Kay (1742-1826), Lauchlan McBain, 1791. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2005.02049

 

John Kay (1742-1826), Travells eldest son in conversation with a Cherokee chief, 1791. Etching. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00650

The taller (left), … is James Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller whose ‘Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 1768-1773’, appeared in 1790. The other is Williamson, an Edinburgh bookseller and tavern-keeper, who had published an account of his adventures in America: ‘French and Indian Cruelty exemplified in the Life of Peter Williamson’, 1757, &c, and compiled the first Edinburgh directory (1773).

Their words are engraved beneath the design: ‘[J. B.] How dare you approach me with your travells. There is not a single word of them true. [P. W.] There you may be right, and aliho I never dined upon the Lion or eat half a Cow and turned the rest to grass, yet my works have been of more use to mankind than yours and there is more truth in one page of my Edinh directory than in all your five Volumes 40. So when you talk to me dont imagine yourself at the Source of the Nile!’ –British Museum

 

See also: John Kay, A series of original portraits and caricature etchings. With biographical sketches and illustrative anecdotes (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1877). Marquand Library NE642.K18 A3

Furtwängler’s The Raven


Felix Martin Furtwängler and Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven. Pictopoesien Supplement: Peter Jelavich, Terror of the Soul ([Wiesbaden]: Harrasowitz in Kommission, 2018 (Berlin: Privat Presse)). Artist’s book, one-time edition, 99 numbered and signed copies, with an enclosed essay by Peter Jelavich, Terror of the Soul (primary publication). Graphic Arts collection GAX N-001958

Since 1975, Felix Martin Furtwängler has been publishing hand-printed copies, artist’s books, and book objects. “Inspiration and basis for his pictures, graphics and colored figures-and-letters collages are his own and literary texts, with texts and pictures forming a symbiosis. He works with different graphic techniques such as woodcut and linocut as well as etching, combining them and experimenting with painting over them. With his painting books and graphic works, Felix Martin Furtwängler is present in far more than one hundred collections worldwide.”

Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative poem “The Raven,” Furtwängler designed and created this folding and folding book of a special kind. The prospectus notes,”Graphic illustrations by the author accompany the text, paper cuts and pop-up forms lend a three-dimensional shape and vivacity to the words. …The work was printed on a Roland 700, using the offset printing process. It was typeset manually, using the scripts Schwabach Due Mille, Las Vegas medium, Futura medium, Futura bold, Lucida Blackletter regular, Neue Helvetica medium and Special Elite regular, while each of the 14 Pantone colors on the machine was individually modulated and mixed by the artist. The paper Furtwängler chose is 200 g/qm Tintoretto Gesso wood-free white felt-marked, with a classical hand-made paper structure by Fedrigoni.”

“Thereafter, the artist cut each single leaf by hand, grooved and folded them. The folded single leaves were collected into sewing layers by hand, sewn with open thread-stitching with triple cross-stitch and fitted between two book covers made of 2.2 mm thick book binding board, covered by blue Hansa linen and embossed with white hot-foil embossing on the front cover and a printed ending paper made of 200 g/qm Tintoretto Gesso.”

 

See also the exhibition catalogue:
Felix Martin Furtwängler: printing into thinking: Folgen, Suiten, Zyklen / [Redaktion, Walter Kurz … [et al.] ; Kataloggestaltung, Felix Martin Furtwängler] (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, in Kommission; Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek; Mainz: Gutenbergmuseum, [2009]). Marquand Library Oversize NE654.F84 A4 2009q. Catalog of an exhibition held at the Kunsthalle Erfurt, Aug. 16-Sept. 27, 2009. “Eine Auswahl der Radierungen aus dem Archiv des Künstlers ergänzt durch Werke aus privater Hand und einer öffentlichen Sammlung “

Fertilizer

Graphic Arts holds a small collection of blank notebooks (also called pocket memorandums) produced and distributed as advertising for various fertilizer companies in the early twentieth century. Some include calendars or almanac listings but mainly they have brief ads at the top of each empty page. The majority of our collection comes from the Baltimore area, home of the Miller Chemical & Fertilizer Corporation, the Hubbard Fertilizer Company, and a dozen more.

“If it’s worth while to use fertilizer, it is worth while to use the best.”

 

George the Third

What does it say about us that we have eight boxes of George Washington portrait engravings and only a handful of George III caricatures? This is now slightly improved with the acquisition of two formal full-length mezzotint portraits of King George III (1738-1820, Reigned 1760-1820).

[top] Gainsborough Dupont (1754-1797), after Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), George the Third, King of Great Britain &c. &c. &c., [Published December 30 1790 by Gainsborough Dupont No 87 Pall Mall]. Mezzotint, proof before all letters. The original painting, completed 1781, is in the Royal Collection, Hampton Court. Graphic Arts Collection 2019-in process

Gainsborough Dupont was the eldest son of Thomas Gainsborough’s sister, Sarah and Philip Dupont. He apprenticed to his uncle 1772-79; entered RA Schools 1775; remained in Gainsborough’s studio, producing studio replicas, mezzotints and oil copies, until his uncle’s death in 1788 when he inherited studio properties.

[below] James Ward (1769-1859) after painting by Sir William Beechey (1753-1839), His most Gracious Majesty George III, on his Favourite Charger Adonis. Dedicated to the Queen’s most excellent Majesty; By Her faithful and devoted Servant, John P. Thompson. London, Re Published Feb.y 6th 1811 by J.P. Thompson, G.t Newport Street, Printseller to his Majesty and the Duke & Duchess of York. Mezzotint with separately-printed title. Graphic Arts Collection 2019-in process.

There are several variations on this mezzotint, George III alone; George III with Adonis; George, Adonis and others; Adonis alone, etc.

Adonis

[left] Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827), George Washington after the Battle of Princeton, 1779–82. Oil on canvas. Princeton University, bequest of Charles A. Munn, Class of 1881. The 1784 companion to this hangs on the southern wall of the Faculty Room in Nassau Hall, George Washington at the Battle of Princeton also painted by Charles Willson Peale. Popular legend maintains that the gilded frame holding this portrait once contained a painting of King George II before a cannonball fired from Alexander Hamilton’s battery during the Battle of Princeton decapitated the King as it crashed through one of the windows of Nassau Hall.

Cultures of the Book: Science, Technology, and the Spread of Knowledge


The website and program is now available for the upcoming conference “Cultures of the Book: Science, Technology and the Spread of Knowledge,” Wednesday-Thursday, November 6-7, 2019 at University of Chieti-Pescara (Map).

This conference is subsidized and so, registration is free (opening soon). Here is the preliminary program for the two days:  https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55c341d8e4b0e961f8bed261/t/5d650c2492d4f30001766e66/1566903332726/Culture+of+the+Book-+Programme.pdf

The focus is broad but there is a nice attempt to include Eastern European and Arabic material along with the usual. “This conference will be of interest to historians of the book, printing and print culture, scientists and technologists who are interested in the book, bibliographers, librarians, conservationists, bibliophiles and book collectors and practitioners including printers, binders and type designers. It is not looking at books from aesthetic or literary perspectives but how science and technology have been deployed in book production and how the book itself has been a vehicle for the promotion of science and technology. We are covering all periods, regions and cultures and interpreting the ‘book’ widely to include clay tablets, codices, printed texts and electronic media. Both the physicality and culture of the book are explored. The conference is not only looking at the word, but images as well, including woodcuts, engravings, photographs and digital images.”

Subjects include: Science, technology and the making of the book, before and after the printing revolution, for example, writing instruments, substrates, ink, punches, presses, type, bindings; The relationship of technology to the appearance of letter forms and images; Science, technology and book conservation; and more.

This event is being organized by the joint Centre for Printing History and Culture at Birmingham City University and University of Birmingham, United Kingdom and the Department of Language, Literature and Modern Culture, University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. [Pictures added by me]