Author Archives: Julie Mellby

Lectures for the Magic Lantern and Pleasant Readings for Leisure Hours by The Wizard (title copyrighted)


Lectures for the Magic Lantern and Pleasant Readings for Leisure Hours by The Wizard [cover title] (London: Millikin & Lawley, [1874?]). Graphic Arts Collection Q-000611

What do you say while presenting magic lantern slides? Do not improvise. The text has been written out in full thanks to booklets like this scarce, later edition of scripts for all types of Victorian magic lantern shows. Also included are instructions to how fast or slow to move each slide, and an indication of how to handle Dissolving View Lanterns, Comic Slipping Slides, Lever Action Slides, along with equipment such as the Nightingale Whistle and various Musical Boxes.

 

The author, known as The Wizard, promises that “the monotony of Evenings at Home is charmed away” through the amusement and instruction of the magic lantern. The seal of approval is made in a report that the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) ordered a magic lantern, lantern slides, and a copy of lectures from Millikin & Lawley, for his children at Sandringham. The report states that he “was much amused at the comical character of the various laughable slides” (p. 26).

Our volume is missing the complimentary blank slide that is to be used for your personal greeting, allowing you to project a unique thank you to your audience.


Congratulations Student Collectors!

From left to right: Katarzyna (Kasia) Krzyzanska ’22, Marina Finley ’19, Ryan Ozminkowski ’19, Sergio De Iudicibus ’20, and Julia Ilhardt ’21.

The Friends of the Princeton University Library gathered at Prospect House on Sunday, April 28 for their spring dinner and for the announcement of the winners of the 94th annual Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize.

Among this year’s submissions, the most noticeable feature is an unusually diverse range of subject and format that have fueled the youthful passion of budding collectors. In addition to regular books on various topics and genres, this year’s contest has also attracted collectors of miniature books, Blue ray movies, music box discs, vinyl records, and other types. The judging committee had great joy learning so much from this eclectic range of essays.

A second feature that emerges from these essays is how often collecting is about human relationship. Interwoven with their history of collecting “curios” is frequently a story about their treasured relationship with family members, shared memories, experiences, and interests with parents and grandparents, and friendship with like-minded peers and teachers.

The 94th Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize is awarded to five student collectors this year for their essays that, in the opinion of the judges, have “shown the most thought and ingenuity in assembling a thematically coherent collection of books, manuscripts, or other material normally collected by libraries.”

Congratulations to our first prize winner: Marina Finley, Class of 2019, for her essay “My Collection of Rubaiyats: A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread and 50 Extraordinary Books of Verse.” Marina curates a collection of diverse editions of the Rubaiyats of Omar Khayyam. The seed of the collection was a gift copy from Marina’s grandmother to grandfather in their adolescent years. The essay highlights twelve of the titles from her collection, bringing out their distinct features in such dimensions as style of illustrations, binding, size, shape, language, and country of publication. Marina’s essay will represent Princeton in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest organized by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America.

Marina is awarded $2,000 and a book donated by Princeton University Press to complement her collection: Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems translated by Bernard Lewis.

Second prize is awarded to Ryan Ozminkowski, Class of 2019, for his essay “I’m Blu Daba Dee Daba Die: A Story of Movies, Dreams, and Small Towns in California: A Blu Ray Collection.” Ryan curates a sizable Blu Ray movie collection, which started with a Christmas present when he was fourteen years old. His steadily expanding collection of Blu Ray discs has played a significant role in his Hollywood dreams, which Ryan pursues by engaging in movie making and gaining opportunities to work for Hollywood producers.

Ryan receives a prize of $1,500 and a copy of Hollywood Highbrow: From Entertainment to Art by Shyon Baumann.

There was a tie for third prize. Julia Ilhardt, Class of 2021, won with her essay “Records of the Past: A Music Box for the Ages.” Julia’s collection of music box discs began with an exquisitely crafted music box, gifted from her great-grandfather to her great-grandmother seven decades ago. Julia took over a collection of discs, which had been under the care of generations of women in her family, and continued to grow the collection. The discs embody shared experiences, memories, and tastes across generations.

Sergio De Iudicibus, Class of 2020, won with his essay “Riding a Rattling Soviet Bus: the Honesty of Forgotten Recordings.” Sergio has a passion for what he calls unorthodox music recordings which are not necessarily edited to the perfection but have captured the rawness of the occasion, allowing him to visualize the humans, instruments, and equipment by listening closely to the disembodied sound waves.

Both Julia and Sergio receive a prize of $1,000 and a book published by Princeton University Press. Julia is given a copy of Reflections on the Musical Mind: An Evolutionary Perspective by Jay Schulkin. Sergio is given Why You Hear What You Hear: An Experiential Approach to Sound, Music, and Psychoacoustics by Eric Heller.

 

An honorable mention was awarded to Katarzyna (Kasia) Krzyzanska, Class of 2022. Kasia’s book collection has the distinct advantage of being portable. Her essay is not about ebooks on tablets though—the title is “A Library That Fits in a Suitcase: Collecting Miniature Books.” When she travels in the United States or in Poland, where her family came from, she searches for poetry anthologies, dictionaries, and classic works as small as a matchbox. Kasia prefers to discover them in brick-and-mortar stores than having such books conveniently shipped from online shops. As she wrote, the seemingly unnecessary fuss is part of the joyful experience that she seeks from collecting.

Kasia is awarded the book How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain by Leah Price.

All the winners also receive a certificate from the Dean.

Prizes were announced on Sunday by Minjie Chen, chair of the Adler Judging Committee and P. Randolph (Randy) Hill ’72, chair of the Friends of the Princeton University Library. Special thanks to this year’s fellow judges: Claire Jacobus (member of the Friends), Jessica Terekhov (Student Friends member), John Logan (Literature Bibliographer), Julie Mellby (Graphic Arts Curator), and Emma Sarconi (Reference Professional for Special Collections). Princeton University Press generously donated all the books awarded to students.
Congratulations to all the winners!

[Photography by Shelley Szwast]

A Western Gentleman

Thanks to the generosity of Alfred Bush, the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a new quarter plate ambrotype, approximately 3.25 x 4.25 inches (8 x 11 cm), of a Western gentleman.

The vast majority of ambrotypes in the world are recorded as: Photographer unknown. Portrait of unidentified man. ca. 1880. Richard Benson noted in his exhibition catalogue The Printed Picture:

Most photographers who have worked in the darkroom are aware that negatives can sometimes appear as positives. Often we will lift an underexposed negative out of the fixer, disappointed that it is of insufficient density, and find that it suddenly appears as a positive. This occurs when the silver deposit is illuminated by the overhead light but we see it against a dark background, perhaps the old darkroom trays made of black rubber. The silver, which appears light gray, shows as a positive instead of a negative, since it is much lighter than the background against which we see it. This phenomenon was noticed early on, and some wet-plate photographers turned it to use by intentionally underexposing their plates, then coating the back of the glass with black paint. The resulting pictures—unique, direct-positive images— were called ambrotypes. Usually small, they were put in cases and entered the same market as the dying daguerreotype.


To hear Benson talk further on tintypes and ambrotypes, see:
http://printedpicture.artgallery.yale.edu/videos/ambrotypes-and-tintypes

The Hanging of Gregory V in Constantinople

When in 1821, the Greeks rose in violent revolution against the rule of the Ottoman Turks, thousands of Greek Christians were raped, murdered, and hanged. In William St. Clair’s history, That Greece Might Still be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence (Firestone DF807 .S25 1972), he chronicles the many Turkish and Greek campaigns:

 

“The Ottoman Government in Constantinople, faced with violent revolutions in different parts of the Empire, decided to answer terror with terror. A policy of exterminating all Greeks in the Ottoman Empire seems to have been seriously considered, as it had been at earlier periods of Turkish history, but when the Sultan remembered how great a proportion of the imperial revenues was derived from his Christian subjects, he decided upon a more selective policy.

The Patriarch of Constantinople occupied a special place in the administration of the Empire. He was regarded as their leader by all the Greek Orthodox community, but at the same time he was a high Ottoman official responsible to the Government for a wide range of administrative, legal, and educational subjects. . .

On Easter Sunday, the reigning Patriarch, Gregorios, was formally accused of being implicated in the Greek rebellion and was summarily hanged. His body remained for three days suspended form the gate of the Patriarchate, and was then dragged through the streets and thrown into the sea.”

 


Thanks to a gift of the Program in Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund, the Graphic Arts Collection has a tightly trimmed German print depicting the massacre in Constantinople in April 1821. Ours is a variant of the Greek print in the Athens Gennadios Library, seen on Wikipedia and elsewhere on the internet with the English and Greek title:

“Attrocities committed by Ottoman religious fanatics and Janisaries in Constantinople/Istanbul in the Greek quarter, April 1821” = “Ελληνικά: Βιαιότητες των Τούρκων εναντίον των Ελλήνων στην Κωνσταντινούπολη, μετά την κύρηξη της Επανάστασης του 1821, Απρίλιος 1821”. [A closer translation might be: “Violent acts of the Turks against the Greeks in Constantinople (Istanbul) after the Declaration of the Greek War of Independence (also known as the Greek Revolution) of 1821, April 1821”].

 

There is no title on our print, only a description in German of the massacre, crediting the German engraver Johann Koch for the scene.

 

Caleb Bartlett and the Bowery Circulating Library

The Graphic Arts Collection holds a number of books with tickets indicating they were sold from a shop at 76 Bowery in New York City but listing different names for the booksellers. When you check the address today, there is only an empty lot. This led to a search of who and what had been at 76 Bowery, just north of Canal Street on the West side.

 


According to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service register, “No. 76 Bowery was built sometime ca. 1780, with later alterations. The late-eighteenth-century Georgian-style building features splayed stone window lintels with double keystone blocks,” often compared to the Edward Mooney House [left] built around the same time at 18 Bowery.

The earliest book in this search actually leads to 78 Bowery, dated 1823, from the small shop of Caleb Bartlett, known as The Bowery Circulating Library. Bartlett quickly moves next door to 76 Bowery, where James Hardie’s 1827 The Description of the City of New York, lists:

“Circulating Libraries, of which the following are the most distinguished, viz. that belonging to A. T. Goodrich, No. 124 Broadway, corner of Cedar-street, which is the first of the kind established in this city; the Minerva circulating Library 283 Broadway, opposite Washington Hall, of which W. B. Gilley is proprietor; one kept at No. 4 Chamber-street, owned by Mr. Ed. M. Murden ; the Bowery Circulating Library, No. 76 Bowery, of which Mr. Caleb Bartlett is proprietor. . .”

Bartlett printed and published his own books, while also selling almanacs, fancy papers, and playing cards. He was joined by Richard Bartlett (possibly his son) in the 1820s and a young clerk named Samuel Raynor.

“Samuel Raynor (1810-1888) was 12 years old, he left his home in Hempstead, Long Island, and took a job in a stationery company owned by Richard [Bartlett] at No. 76 Bowery. The small business printed playing cards, legal blanks and blank books. In 1835, when Raynor was now 25 years old, Bartlett took him as a partner. When Bartlett died two years later, Raynor brought his brother, Hiram, into the business, renaming it H. & S. Raynor.”

“Hiram retired in 1847 and Samuel forged on. His fortunes soared when, in 1858, he began manufacturing envelopes at a time when most people made their own by folding a sheet of paper and sealing it. His pioneering spirit did not stop there. He introduced fast-running machines, ordering twelve of the $500 devices in a brave but risky investment. By 1888 Samuel Raynor & Co. was one of the largest envelope manufacturers in the nation.” —http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/06/samuel-raynor-house-no-136-east-16th.html


As early as 1832, Richard Bartlett & Samuel Raynor are listed as the owners at No. 76 Bowery: “published and sold, wholesale and retail, by R. Bartlett and S. Raynor, (successors to Caleb Bartlett.).” In 1838 an advertisement lists the shop as H. & S. Raynor, (formerly Bartlett & Raynor,) now run by brothers Hiram and Samuel. By 1847, Hiram is gone and Samuel Raynor, (late H. & S. Raynor) continues alone.

In the 1850s, the top floor is leased to a daguerreotypist and printer named Richard Garrison Barcalow (1826-1891), who offers stereotyping on the side. Downstairs two others join the bookshop as: “Raynor, Howe & Ferry (late Samuel Raynor)”, then Howe & Ferry, and by 1874, only J. Milton Ferry is left at 76 Bowery. The final book from the shop is dated 1889 and soon after, the building was either renovated or completely rebuilt.

Mrs. Lovechild, The Christmas tree, and other stories for the young (Phila., J. Ball, 1850). Hamilton 1461. “Sold at [Raynor] Bookstore, 76 Bowery N.Y.”–booksellers’ ticket, p. 1 of cover.

Mrs. W.E. Boardman, Haps and mishaps of the Brown family (Phila., Perkenpine & Higgins [1865]). Hamilton 1285. “Howe & Ferry, booksellers, 76 Bowery, N.Y.”–bookseller’s label, p. 2 of cover.

Architectural ‘papier peint’ or wallpaper

One section approximately five feet in length.


Chiaroscuro woodblock printed wallpaper, four sheets of paper pasted together and printed in seven colors, ca. 1830, 570 x 1570 mm. Numbered on verso 481 (or 184 if the 4 is upsidedown). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

A fine large piece of architectural ‘papier peint’ or wallpaper with a block printed design featuring a Neo-classical arcade made up of columns leading into a landscape. It is assumed to be French, probably meant as a frieze or border around a room. This ‘impression â la planche’ used seven separate color blocks, requiring tremendous labor and skill in registration.

‘The design was engraved onto the surface of a rectangular wooden block. Then the block was inked with paint and placed face down on the paper for printing. Polychrome patterns required the use of several blocks – one for every color. Each color was printed separately along the length of the roll, which was then hung up to dry before the next color could be applied. ‘Pitch’ pins on the corners of the blocks helped the printer to line up the design. The process was laborious and required considerable skill’ (V & A website, History of wallpaper https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/omWR1Paz/the-history-of-wallpaper).

Our sample bears a striking resemblance to another held at the Cooper Hewitt Museum: https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18319417/

Their “Frieze (France),” is dated 1835–45 and was acquired it in 1931. Its medium is block-printed and stenciled on machine-made paper. It is a part of the “Wallcoverings” department.

This deep perspective is rather unusual for a frieze paper and this effect was usually reserved for scenic wallpapers until landscape friezes were popularized in the very late 19th century. This strong perspective draws your eyes into the distance, visually opening up the room and making the space appear larger. The view looks dead on into a colonnaded courtyard or cloister, opening in the distance to a growth of trees. This opens up to a sky that is beautifully shaded from a light terra cotta to a crisp blue. The courtyard is filled with a cast of characters dressed in brightly colored Shakespearean costume as well as a single monk or friar. This is woodblock printed in about 15 colors, not including the sky. Interesting to note is that the large expanses of white and the blue filling the arches have been over painted with brush and stencil.

Everett Opie, 1930-2004

Everett Opie (1930-2004), Oh, drat, I forgot to add sodium propianate to retard spoilage, 1973. Pen and gouache drawing. Graphic Arts Collection.

The Graphic Arts Collection holds a small but significant collection of American drawings for The New Yorker and other magazines, thanks to the gift of Henry Martin, Princeton Class of 1948. This cartoon was published in The New Yorker on December 3, 1973.

Opie was born on Sherwin Avenue in Chicago in 1930 and after time in the army working as an artist, he moved to New York City. He became one of many artists who each week dropped off a pile of original drawings at the New Yorker office, picking up the ones from last week that had been rejected, followed by lunch commiserating with the other artists. This is one of the drawings exchanged with another in the circle, Henry Martin.

See also: Everett Opie, Dress up that line! (Tokyo, Rutland, Vt., C.E. Tuttle Co., 1959).
Everett Opie, Ravioli every morning (Tokyo: Pacific Stars and Stripes, 1957).

The Printing House of Leo Hart

Rockwell Kent, Leo Hart bookplate. See also Later bookplates & marks of Rockwell Kent : with a preface by the artist (New York: Pynson Printers, 1937): 25.

 

Thanks to Donald Farren, Class of 1958, for introducing several of us to the Rochester Printing House of Leo Hart (1883-1935), a friend and colleague of the former Graphic Arts Curator Elmer Adler (1884-1962).

It is thanks to Adler that the Graphic Arts Collection not only includes many of Hart’s books but correspondence, advertisements, and other material, in particular, concerning Venus and Adonis, which was selected by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) as one of the fifty best books of 1931.

 

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Venus and Adonis; illustrated by Rockwell Kent (Rochester: The Printing house of Leo Hart, 1931). Graphic Arts Collection Oversize PR2845.A2 K4q. Copy 77 of 1250. Former owner Elmer Adler.

 

“It was in 1897 that he set up his first makeshift printing outfit, a hand press propped up on a grocery box in a dingy attic room lighted only by an old gas fixture. Working with one or two ordinary fonts of type for a few years in spare time during the evenings and after school, he did many odd jobs, mostly without pay. Then, about 1903, he opened a little shop in the rear room or the Hart family grocery store on North Street, equipped it with a used foot power press and some second-hand type and cases bought from a local printer.”

In 1905, he . . . “established the Hart Brothers Printing Company at No. 452 North Street, next door to the grocery. His brother, Alfred Hart, had become interested … and together they went to the American Type Founders Company, in Buffalo, New York, there buying two Chandler and Price presses, with type, cabinets, a stapling machine and other necessities.”

Over the years their business grew to include over 25 presses, providing all aspects of printing and binding including “a complete color engraving plant on the top floor of the building, under the name of the Franklin Colortype Company…”.

–Winfield Scott Downs “Leo Hart,” Encyclopedia of American Biography: New Series, Vol. 9 (American Historical Society, 1934).

Marco Polo (1254-1323?), The Travels of Marco Polo, the Marsden translation revised & edited with an introduction by Manuel Komroff; decorated by W.A. Dwiggins (Rochester, N.Y.: The Printing House of Leo Hart, 1933). Graphic Arts Collection G370.P9 P6713 1933

 

The Leo Hart archive: https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/finding-aids/BBH32

Vote: No License

“No License. A Question to be Settled in the State of New York, 19th of May, 1846… Citizens of the State of Nfw [sic] York, Look at the Following. Will You Vote License?”

On May 19, 1846, an important vote was to be held throughout New York State, as to whether or not merchants could obtain licenses to sell hard liquor. This “Extra,” printed on cloth and issued by The Journal of the American Temperance Union, urges citizens to vote “No License.”

To make their case, the broadside has four vignettes showing the ill effects caused by drinking. At top it reads:

Benjamin F. Butler, Esq., placed the yearly loss to the United States from the use of ardent spirits at, – – – – $150,000,000. Making a loss to the State of New York of, $18,000,000. What has the income from 20,000 licenses done to compensate for this? Now the rumsellers ask to do the evil to the State, and pay, – NOTHING.

Above and below cropped and photoshopped

An adjacent cartoon [above] shows a farmer carrying his “pauper” and “criminal” taxes while a licensed tavern owner and his clients look on. The farmer says “O these Rum Taxes! Rum Taxes! I can’t stand it. I’ll vote No License. 3d Tuesday in May I’ll go to the polls & vote No License.”

The tavern owner jeers: “At him boys. Ha! …You vote License and maintain my rights and your liberties.”

Other printed vignettes include “The Drunkard’s Home,” “The Liquor Dealer Shown His Victim,” and “The Town Meeting.” This final illustration depicts a dying alcoholic woman who dared to speak out at a town meeting against licenses to sell rum: “I shall soon stand before the Judgment Seat of God—I shall meet you there, you false guides, and be a witness against you all.”

The textile broadside is printed in three columns, with three poems in the center: “Who Will Vote License?” “The Ballot Muster for the 19th of May” (by Rev. P. Clark), and “Song of the Revellers. Old Song—Go Get Your License.”

The concluding words of the broadside extra are a call to action: “As goes New York on the third Tuesday of May, so goes the rest of the Nation. Remember that, temperance men. On the third Tuesday of May, be at your posts.”

Journal of The American Temperance Union, No License. A Question to be Settled in the State of New York, 19th of May, 1846… (New York: Journal of The American Temperance Union, March 25, 1846). [1]p. Illustrated “Extra” textile broadside. 23 x 18½ inches. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

If x³−6x²+11x−6=2x−2, then x=1 or x=4.


At a recent book launch and signing for Philip Ording’s 99 Variations on a Proof (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2019. QA8.4 .O73 2019), mathematician Ording kindly left a note in our copy for Princeton students. The event was hosted in the Ludlow Street basement studio of David Reinfurt, Princeton Lecturer in Visual Arts, graciously overseen by several former students.

 

“This book offers a multifaceted perspective on mathematics by demonstrating 99 different proofs of the same theorem. Each chapter solves an otherwise unremarkable equation in distinct historical, formal, and imaginative styles that range from Medieval, Topological, and Doggerel to Chromatic, Electrostatic, and Psychedelic [note the reference to Princeton in this chapter].

“…Inspired by the experiments of the Paris-based writing group known as the Oulipo – whose members included Raymond Queneau, Italo Calvino, and Marcel Duchamp – Ording explores new ways to examine the aesthetic possibilities of mathematical activity. 99 Variations on a Proof is a mathematical take on Queneau’s Exercises in Style, a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, and it draws unexpected connections to everything from mysticism and technology to architecture and sign language.”–Back cover.

The cubic equation in question and claim is: If x³−6x²+11x−6=2x−2, then x=1 or x=4.


“Fun, funny, and unexpectedly deep, Philip Ording’s Oulipian expedition through the far reaches of mathematical style shows there’s more than one way to skin a cubic equation.”—Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13308.html

Philip Ording is a professor of mathematics at Sarah Lawrence College. He is the coeditor of Simplicity: Ideals of Practice in Mathematics and the Arts.