Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

8 Souls in One Bomb, an Explosive Novel


Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), 8 Anime in Una Bomba. Romanzo esplosivo [=8 Souls in One Bomb. An Explosive Novel] (Milan: Edizioni Futuriste di “Poesia,” 1919). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2021- in process

 

Beginning with F.T. Marinetti’s manifesto in 1909, the male artists and writers of the Italian Futurist movement are the ones who made it into the history books. Often forgotten is an important figure within Futurism in general, and Marinetti’s work in particular, the author Rosa Rosà (born Edyth von Haynau; 1884–1978). The two were introduced during World War I, at which time she changed her name “to express this dual identity and to play with Futurist ideas of movement, while simultaneously punning on the traditional female name, “Rose/Rosa.” During the war, Rosa began to write in Italian for the Futurist journal L’Italia Futurista, where she published a myriad of articles, black and white drawings, short poems, and poetry.” –Lucia Re, “Introduction to A Woman with Three Souls,” California Italian Studies.

In 1917, while recovering in a military hospital, Marinetti wrote an enormously popular and presumably humorous book Come si seducono le donne (How to Seduce Women). The assertive Rosa Rosà responded with a number of articles and then, a short novel, Una donna con tre anime (A Woman with Three Souls, 1918), which critics called a visionary “futurist-fantastic narrative with elements of both realism and science fiction” (re-publishd in 1981 by Edizioni delle donne). Within a matter of months, Marinetti published his own visual and textual presentation of souls entitled: 8 Anime in Una Bomba. Romanzo esplosivo (8 Souls in One Bomb. An Explosive Novel).

 

1st soul: The war piano
2nd soul: Letter from Bianca, plump virgin and professor of botany, to a futurist
Response of the futurist
3rd soul: The sick cow and the young heroes
4th soul: First quality of rubber: Elasticity-contradiction, Caporetto-Vittorio factory Veneto
Letter from the retreating 3rd Army
5th soul: Lust; Formulas; 4 floors of sensuality in an establishment of bathrooms
Nocturnal dialogue in the Observatory of 8th Bombarde Battery in Zagora
6th soul: The frightening tenderness
7th soul: Genius-revolution ; In prison for interventionism
8th soul: Purity
Mixture of 8 explosive souls
Chorus of the 8 explosive souls
Parable and explosion of the bomb

Each chapter of 8 Souls has different typography and layout, some with the visual poetry reminiscent of Zang Tumb Tumb and earlier futurist narratives. Other chapters are psychological, fictional descriptions of one of the eight identities. Over the years, various names have been given to each section–Heroism, seduction, creativity, aggression, and so on–although Marinetti keeps the titles ambiguous.

In the end, all eight souls unite in an explosive mixture of a 92 kg bomb, directed at “cholera lice moralistic priests spies professors and policemen…”. Although there is no correspondence to link them, at this same time James Joyce was publishing Ulysses in parts from March 1918 to December 1920. Joyce wrote 18 episodes, each chapter with a different literary structure or narrative format.

 

 

 

 

Another Outlaw Saga


Thanks to a new gift from Bruce Willsie ’86, Princeton now holds four editions of the popular outlaw saga, The History of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie. Note the slight difference in the two lines of verse under each title.

Here’s a good summary of the story: https://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2018/04/robin-hood-vs-bell-clim-and-cloudesley.html, which is similar to the better known tale of Robin Hood.

Thomas Hahn writes:

“As a lively, self-contained and substantive tale of outlawry, Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William of Cloudesley is the only work that rivals stories of Robin Hood in popularity and antiquity. No outlaw ballad, except the pivotal A Gest of Robyn Hod, was printed earlier than Adam Bell; the earliest fragments of the ballad survive form an edition of 1536, and the poem was then reprinted another half-dozen times or more within the next seventy-five years.

Adam Bell is only one-third as long as A Gest of Robyn Hode, but it is twice the length of the earliest unprinted Robin Hood ballads, . . . and six times the length of the many seventeenth-century broadside ballads that celebrate the deeds of Robin Hood. …The narrative was reprinted, presumably in its entirety, perhaps twice, in the 1540s, and again in 1557-8, 1582, 1586, 1594 and several more times in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Its remarkable popularity and commercial success inspired an anaemic sequel, added in 1586 and to most later editions…

…Though allusions to William, Adams, and Clim would no doubt be lost on most modern audiences, the outlaws remained formidable rivals to Robin Hood and his band, in both oral and print culture, through to the end of the seventeenth century.”—Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English, edited by Thomas H. Ohlgren (1998).

What does the name Clim of the Clough mean? “This surname is derived from a geographical locality. ‘at the dough,’ from residence thereby. A clough is a breach in the hillside, a ravine between hills. ‘Boggart Hole Clough’ is well known to Manchester people; v. Clow.” https://forebears.io/surnames/clough#meaning


Mery it was in grene forest,
Amonge the leves grene,
Where that men walke both east and west,
Wyth bowes and arrowes kene,

To ryse the dere out of theyr denne;
Suche sightes as hath ofte bene sene,
As by the yemen of the north countrey,
By them it is as I meane.

The one of them hight Adam Bel,
The other Clym of the Clough,
The thyrd was William of Cloudesly,
An archer good ynough.

They were outlawed for venyson,
These thre yemen everechone;
They swore them brethen upon a day,
To Englysshe wood for to gone.

 

 

Thus ends the Lives of these good Men / Send them eternal Bliss; / And all that with Hand-bow shooteth, / Of Heaven may never miss.

 

 

 

What did W. C. Handy and ‘The New Cow of Greenwich Village’ have in common? Robert Clairmont

‘Father of the Blues’ William C. Handy (1873-1958) was introduced to a scruffy Greenwich Village poet named Robert Clairmont (1902-1971) in the spring of 1828. Handy had given a mutual friend, Abraham Brown, a tour of Harlem nightlife and Clairmont was hoping for a similar adventure. A few nights later, Clairmont returned the favor by taking Handy to see some of his favorite downtown spots and the two quickly became good friends.

One day Clairmont suggested Handy and his orchestra play a concert at Carnegie Hall, asking what he thought it might cost. Handy said an event like that might cost $3,000 and to his surprise, Clairmont returned the following day with a certified check for $5,000 to fund the concert. On April 27, 1928, the Handy Orchestra became the first Black band to perform at Carnegie Hall.

Many friends and colleagues were asked to play, including Fats Waller who performed “Beale Street Blues” on a pipe organ with a thirty-piece orchestra, directed by Handy himself. The high point came when Katherine Handy, his daughter, sang his best-known composition “St. Louis Blues.” The evening was a tremendous success, but while it cost around $3,800 to stage, they only grossed around $3,000. Clairmont never asked for anything in return.

[Program for the 1938 concert to celebrate Handy’s birthday]


[Above] Dan Morgenstern remembers Robert Clairmont, his friendship with Handy, and the parties he gave each month. (recorded April 20, 2017). [Below] The apartment where Clairmont’s parties were held on West 4th Street, just off Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

Their friendship continued over the next year, until the fall of 1929 when the stock market crashed. Clairmont lost $986,000 in a single day. This time it was Handy’s turn to help his friend, who he tracked down in a lower east side boarding house. Clairmont was taken home with Handy for a warm meal and they remained close until the composer’s death in 1958.

 

 

Only a millionaire for a brief time in the 1920s, Clairmont spent the money as quickly as it came. While working as a lifeguard one summer, he saved a wealthy businessman from drowning and was rewarded with $350,000 from the man’s will. This was soon doubled and then tripled in the stock market, leaving Clairmont the ‘millionaire playboy’ of Greenwich Village. He ran with a small group who called themselves the Greta Garbo Fan Club, publishing poetry journals during the day and discovering the latest speakeasy each night.

Clairmont was one of several writers published in the single issue of The New Cow of Greenwich Village, which he also funded, along with the poetry journal Pegasus, and several later compilations. The book Millionaire Playboy by Tom Boggs is a fictionalized account of his life.

 

William Christopher Handy (1873-1958), Father of the Blues: an Autobiography; edited by Arna Bontemps; with a foreword by Abbe Niles (New York : Macmillan Co., 1941). Ex ML410.H18 A3. Presentation copy to Miriam Holden with inscription by James H. Hubert.

Clairmont also published regularly with his friend Lew Ney (Luther E. Widen), the ‘Mayor of Greenwich Village’.


Macy’s Sells “Birds of America”

 

In 1902 R.H. Macy’ & Co. already known simply as Macy’s, moved their flagship store to Broadway and 34th street where they hoped to become the largest department store in the world. Ten years later an art gallery was added on the 6th floor, advertising in the New York Times “Choice Paintings” for half price.

Throughout the 1920s monthly art exhibitions were mounted and advertised alongside the prestigious Madison Avenue galleries, including lithographs by Henri Matisse, woodcuts by Rockwell Kent and Wanda Gag, and Bartolozzi engravings after Hans Holbein.

Beginning on May 18, 1931, Macy’s staged an advertising campaign that would last over ten years. The store would sell all 435 hand colored, aquatinted and engraved plates from a copy of John James Audubon’s four-volume double-elephant Birds of America, which they cut apart for this event. According to the New York Herald Tribune, “The New Macy Galleries Announce a unique and spectacular purchase—The Birds of America from original drawings (1827-1838) by John James Audubon.” Although some sources report that the store broke up three copies of the Havell/Audubon volumes, it may have only seemed that way because it took so long to sell the plates.

The rarity of these enormous volumes was used to promoted the sale: “Once, every four or five years, a complete set of Audubon’s Elephant folio volumes reaches the public. We are able to present this rare collection of 435 copper plate engravings in complete form. This folio was published by Audubon in four volumes; it was engraved by Robert Havell Jr., colored by hand from Audubon’s drawings. Audubon’s son, according to one statement declared that only 175 sets of the folio were ever printed. The prints will be sold individually—they range in price from $4.96 to $224.00. Some of the most famous plates are Canvasback Duck with view of the city of Baltimore $174.00. Mallard Duck $112.00. American Hen and Young $104.00”

 

Eighteen months later, on December 17, 1933 the Tribune advertised a special Christmas sale of “all original copper-plate engravings of great brilliance and connoisseurs will appreciate this—the first ten plats are engravings by Lizars; and many of the first plates are colored by Robert Havell, Sr. There are very few like these in existence.” But so important was the physical exhibition of the plates that Macy’s asked “our customers to let us exhibit these plates for two days after sale that others may have the opportunity of seeing them. No mail or phone orders.” Now 104 plates were priced under $10; 199 plates $12.89 to $24.39; 120 plates $29.75 to $99.75; and 12 plates from $124 to $594 (the most expensive being the “Wild Turkey”).

On April 26, 1935, in commemoration of the 150th birthday of Audubon, a lecture on “Birds” was delivered by Warren F. Eaton, President of the Montclair Bird Club. This accompanied the continuing “Unique Exhibition and Sale of The Birds of America published from original drawings 1827-1838. Once in a great, great while a complete set of Audubon’s Elephant folio turns up. We deem it a rare event to be able to offer the 435 copper plate engravings in complete form on this occasion and at these low individual prices. …On sale today! $4.96 to $394.00. No mail, telephone, or telegraph orders!”

The “rare event” of the Audubon print sale was advertised again on October 2, 1938 in both the Tribune and the New York Times, followed by more announcements until finally on March 16, 1941, the Times informed its readers that only 106 Audubon prints were still for sale at Macy’s, beginning at $13.97 (usually $18.74).

A “Picture Clearance” sale was held at Macy’s on April 18, 1943, in which Audubon prints are sold at $4.97, while sporting prints by Robert Havell Jr. are going for almost $20.

Happily, no such stunt has been tried lately.

La Création. Bound by Marie-Jose Guian-Milliaud for her personal library.

La Création. Les trois premiers livres de la Genèse suivis de la généalogie adamique. Traduction littérale des textes sémitiques par M. le docteur J.-C. Mardrus (Paris: Schmied, 1928). Designed and illustrated by François-Louis Schmied. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2021- in process

 


It is, perhaps, not surprising that French master binder Marie-Jose Guian-Milliaud chose this edition of Genesis, illustrated by François-Louis Schmied (1873-1941), to bind for her personal library. Her full brown calf binding with ivory-toned calf complements the artist by reproducing his plate XII of the biblical family tree on her cover [see plate below].

Schmied’s 42 beautiful color wood engravings are printed on Arches wove paper, many highlighted with gold and/or silver. The copy now at Princeton includes an additional suite of plates in black, bound at the back of the volume.

 

 

Born in Cairo, the translator Joseph Charles Mardrus (1848–1949) was also responsible for an important French translation of Les Mille et Une Nuits (Thousand and One Nights, 1899–1904) based primarily on the 1835 Egyptian edition of The Arabian Nights by Boulak. Writing for the Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, Anne Duggan notes:

“Mardrus studied classics and Arabic literature in Beirut, and went on to receive a doctorate in medicine at the Sorbonne in 1895. While working as a doctor on shipping lines, which took him from the Middle East to South-East Asia, he began to translate and publish Les Mille et Une Nuits, the revenues from which allowed him to settle permanently in Paris by 1899. Within Parisian literary circles, Mardrus frequented Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Valéry, Maurice Maeterlinck, André Gide, and Marcel Schwob, and dedicated to each of them a volume of his 16-volume work. Mardrus’s translation became the object of critical debate, which opposed the partisans of Antoine Galland, who claimed the superiority of the latter’s classical style, to those who favoured Mardrus’s more sensual, unexpurgated version. Unlike Galland, Mardrus did not Frenchify the Arabian tales but retained much of their cultural specificity.”

 

 
When the California book collector Ward Ritchie gave up the study of law to become a printer, he traveled to Paris hoping for an apprenticeship with Schmied. This led to his establishment of the Ward Ritchie Press in 1932. Later, Ward wrote the following description of his personal copy of Création:

“[This book is] a daring and innovative design with the copy of the first two books set in capital letters in narrow columns with decorative bars to fill out the lines where necessary. The small illustrations in the columns are brilliant in color. Dominating full-page illustrations break the continuity of the text. The format is completely changed in Book Three with a wider measure of type and the illustrations integrated with the text.”

 

 

 

 

Pages inédites sur la femme et la guerre


In December 1915, Claude Debussy (1862-1918) composed Élégie, pour piano for a memorial album, Pages inédites sur la Femme et la Guerre, dedicated to Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, and honoring the contributions of women during World War I. Debussy was one of thirty women and ninety-two men who participated in the project, offering images, stories, songs, poetry, facsimile letters, and other materials in French and English. Contributions came from France, England, United States, Canada and Russia, featuring such distinguished names as Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936); Auguste Rodin (1840–1917); Robert de Montesquiou (1855–1921); Marcel Prévost (1862–1941); Gertrude Atherton (1857–1948); Maria Vérone (1874–1938) and many more. Proceeds were used to help children who were orphaned during the war.

 

Pages inédites sur la femme et la guerre, livre d’or dédié avec sa permission à Sa Majesté la reine Alexandra et publié par Madame Paul Alexander Mellor au profit des orphelins de la guerre en France ; préface par Maurice Donnay = Unpublished pages on women and war, guestbook dedicated with her permission to Her Majesty Queen Alexandra and published by Madame Paul Alexander Mellor for the benefit of war orphans in France; preface by Maurice Donnay (Paris: Devambez, 1916). Copy 251 of 1000. Graphic Arts Oversize 14094.409.631q

The book is dedicated to Queen Alexandra of Denmark (1844-1925), Queen of the United Kingdom, and the British Dominions and Empress of India from 1901 to 1910. The project was supervised and edited by Mary Mellor (1865-1929). Rose ornaments were designed by Madeleine Lemaire (1845–1928).

Maria (Mary) Mathilde Stern (1865-1929) married Paul Alexander Mellor (born about 1850), who changed their last name in 1915:
“Paul Alexander Mellor … of 22, Rue Octave Feuillet, Paris, born in Petrograd of Danish origin, but naturalized as a British subject in the year 1880, Hereby give public notice that I have formally and absolutely renounced, relinquished and abandoned the use of my said surname of Moeller, and have assumed and adopted, and have determined henceforth on all occasions whatsoever to use and subscribe the name of Paul Alexander Mellor instead of the said name of Paul Alexander Moeller. … Paul Alexander Mellor.”– The London Gazette, 25 June, 1915.

 

 

C.E. Brock’s illustrations for Austen’s Persuasion

C.E. Brock (1870-1938), “Politely Drew Back and Stopped to Give Them Way” watercolor, signed & dated. Provenance: Chris Beetles. Exhibited at The British Art of Illustrations 1870-2010.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two watercolors by C.E. (Charles Edmund) Brock (1870-1938), illustrations to Jane Austen’s Persuasion, her last novel, originally published in 1816. A complete history/bibliography of Charles and brother Henry Brock’s illustrations for the Austen novels has been written by Cinthia Garcia Soria, “Austen Illustrators Henry and Charles Brock,” and can be read here: http://www.mollands.net/etexts/other/brocks.html

This is a brief exert:

…However, by 1898 a new printing technique that allowed inclusion of illustrations in colour had emerged—lithography, and Dent asked both Charles and Henry to create a new set of illustrations for the six Jane Austen novels.

The brothers agreed to share the task in equal parts: five volumes each, six illustrations per volume, one as frontispiece. Charles was in charge of Sense and Sensibility (volumes 1 and 2), Emma (volumes 7 and 8) and Persuasion (volume 10), while Henry was responsible for Pride and Prejudice (volumes 3 and 4), Mansfield Park (volumes 5 and 6) and Northanger Abbey (volume 9).

Thus the new 10-volume set of Jane Austen’s novels by J.M. Dent with illustrations by C.E. and H.M. Brock appeared in 1898 with great success. These “pen and ink drawings tinted in watercolour” gave a more exact and detailed period representation than ever before. It is classified by Gilson as E 90 and as he clearly notes, each volume included a frontispiece and five inserted plates, all in colour. They are bound in a now green-greyish gilt cloth and the covers presents a girl in Regency attire.

…The American reproduction of the 1898 illustrations took eight years to appear. In 1906, they were issued in New York by Frank S. Holby, also in ten volumes—since the publisher used the same text setting by Dent—but with an introduction by William Lyon instead of R. Brimley Johnson. This edition is also known as “The Old Manor House Edition” and Gilson catalogues it as E 106.

 

C.E. Brock (1870-1938), “Lady Dalrymple & Miss Carteret Escorted by Mr Elliot & Colonel Wallis” watercolor, signed & dated. Inscribed with publication details below mount. Provenance: Chris Beetles. Exhibited at The British Art of Illustrations 1870-2010.


 

 

Bibliography

Carroll, Laura and John Wiltshire (2006). “Jane Austen Illustrated” in Johnson, Claudia and Laura Tuite (eds.), A Companion to Jane Austen (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, 56). Wiley-Blackwell, Singapore.

Gilson, David (1997). A Bibliography of Jane Austen. New Introduction and Corrections by the author. Delaware : Oak Knoll Press.

Gilson, David (2005). “Later publishing history, with illustrations” at Todd, Janet (ed.). Jane Austen in Context. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Kelly, C.M (1975). The Brocks: A Family of Cambridge Artists and Illustrators. London & Edinburgh: Charles Skilton Ltd.

Parker, Keiko (1989). “Illustrating Jane Austen” in Persuasions, no. 11. December, 1989. USA. JASNA. Available on-line at: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number11/parker.htm

Rogerson, Ian. Entry for the “Brock family” in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Southam, Brian (2006). “Texts and Editions” in Johnson, Claudia and Laura Tuite (eds.), A Companion to Jane Austen (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, 56). Wiley-Blackwell, Singapore.

 

 

Happy Birthday Little Red Lighthouse

 

One hundred years ago, a little red lighthouse was taken out of storage, re-assembled, and put to work at Jeffrey’s Hook along the Hudson River in northern Manhattan. After operating for only ten years, the George Washington Bridge was built on top of the lighthouse, dwarfing the 40 foot structure and making it obsolete.

Hildegarde Swift wrote and Lynd Ward illustrated a book in which the GW Bridge asks the lighthouse for help and by doing so, shows the small structure that it wasn’t obsolete and even small things have their place. Thanks to the public’s love for this book the lighthouse was saved, given to the NYC Parks Department, and added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

Happy 100th birthday to the little red lighthouse.

 

Female Equitation

Mrs. Stirling Clarke, The Ladies’ Equestrian Guide, or, The Habit & the Horse: a treatise on female equitation, with illustrations lithographed by Messrs. Day & Son, from photographs by Herbert Watkins (London: Day & Son, [1857]). 9 plates, tinted lithographics by Day & Son after photographs by Herbert Watkins (1828-1916). Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage 2021- in process.

Nannie Lambert Power O’Donoghue (1843-1940) and A. Chantrey Corbould (1852-1920), Riding for Ladies, with Hints on the Stable (London: William Clowes & Sons for W. Thacker & Co., Calcutta, Thacker, Spink, & Co., and Bombay, Thacker & Co., 1887). Woodburytype frontispiece. Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage 2021- in process

 

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired two works by female authors concerning horsemanship for upper class women in the 19th century. It is unfortunate that the earliest by a Mrs. Clarke cannot be identified with her own name but only by her husband’s. Written in 1857, Clarke’s book comes a full twenty year before that of Nannie Power O’Donoghue’s work. It is a thorough discussion of horsemanship including notes on stabling, training, shoeing, and doctoring, by and for women.

Mrs. Stirling is a mystery beyond her marriage, she even leaves her name off the title page, preface, or introduction. Her preface begins by assuring any man reading the book that he need not worry. She has no desire to “trench upon ground hitherto trodden by the more privileged sex” nor does she offer “any suggestion for their enlightenment.” So, if you are of the male sex, shut your computer and stop reading.

Stirling continues, “I write exclusively for the guidance of my own sex, well knowing the vast importance to the fair novice of a manual which brings her acquainted with that equal pride of prince and peasant—the horse—and with the fascinating and elegant science which teaches how to guide and govern him, and how to guide and govern herself with respect to this noble creature.” Riding well needs training, as Stirling quotes, “True knowledge comes from study, not by chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance.”

 

 

Riding was in the mid-nineteenth century a regular activity among women, as she comments: “Some years ago, riding was by no means general amongst the fair sex; then ladies on horseback were the exception and not, as now, the rule, but “grace à notre charmante Reine,”

“Whose high zeal for healthy duties
Set on horseback half our beauties,”

there is now scarcely a young lady of rank, fashion, or respectability, but includes riding in the list of her accomplishments; and who, whether attaining her end or not, is not ambitious of being considered by her friends and relatives, “a splendid horsewoman.’ Yet how few can really claim this envied appellation! Habit may do much, and, coupled with science, a great deal more; but good riding, with very few exceptions, is neither a habit nor an instinct. Dancing we all know to be an instinctive motion, a natural expression of joy ; but mark the dancing of the rustic milkmaid, and that of the educated and accomplished lady; the one is an untutored, clumsy bound, the other the very poetry of motion ; and the latter should riding be.”

 

The second acquisition by a woman for women is Nannie Lambert Power O’Donoghue‘s Riding for Ladies [top] with illustrations by A. Chantrey Corbould (1852-1920). Perhaps it was her athleticism that allowed Power O’Donoghue, also known as Ann Stewart Lyster Lambert, to live to be 97 years old. While she wrote many books, she was best known for Ladies on Horseback, followed a few years later by Riding for Ladies (1887).

Originally published in a series of articles in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News and Lady’s Pictorial, Riding for Ladies brought her writing together in a book so popular it is recorded as selling “more than 94,000 copies.” Unlike Stirling, her name is proudly announced on the title page and the book is filled with her many achievements and personal stories.

 

 

 

Croquet

Henry Martin (Class of 1948, 1925-2020) Man playing croquet (no date). Graphic Arts Collection GA 2011.00360. Gift of David Reeves, Class of 1948.

 

A simple question about James Tissot’s Croquet drypoint today [see below], led down a rabbit hole to many other croquet references.

According to The Lewis Carroll handbook (1962), Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), wrote Croquêt Castles. For Five Players in May 1863 while the Christ Church Mathematical Lecturer. He was also a founding member of the Overland Mallet Club and an avid croquet player. In Dodgson’s version of the game, each player has two balls, which are maneuvered through eight arches and four pegs. Unlike Alice in Wonderland, players take turns rather than playing simultaneously. More rules can be read here: https://www.spudart.org/chicagocroquet/rules/castle/index.html


This copy of Dodgson’s pamphlet (one folded sheet) is from the Morris L. Parrish library, now at Princeton rather than Oxford, where it was “decided that the items constituted a shrine rather than a comprehensive collection of original artifacts. They turned [Parrish] down, declaring that theirs was an educational institution rather than a museum.” – Alexander Wainwright, “The Morris L. Parrish Collection of Victorian Novelists,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 62, no. 3 (Spring 2001)

 

Croquet achieved enormous popularity in the 1860s, first mentioned at Princeton in 1868 when a student wrote, “Croquet has lately been brought into the campus and become quite fashionable. Games may be seen at any time during the day, surrounded by a little crowd of admiring spectators.” —Nassau Literary Magazine June 1, 1868.

Nassau Literary Magazine June 1, 1870

Daily Princetonian April 30, 2015

The National Croquet Association (NCA), founded in 1879, held its first national tournament in 1882. By April 30, 2015, the Daily Princetonian noted their club was playing in a national tournament.

 

Horace Elisha Scudder (1838-1902), The Game of Croquet: its Appointments and Laws; with descriptive illustrations by R. Fellows [psued.] (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1866). Frontispiece by Augustus Hoppin (1828-1896). Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 883

 

 

 

In 1936, H.G. Wells (1866-1946) wrote a ghost story called The Croquet Player, illustrated by Harold Jones (1904-1992). Goodreads describes it:
“This allegorical satire about a man fleeing from his evil dreams was written under the influence of the Spanish Civil War. The croquet player, comfortably sipping a vermouth, listens to the strange & terrible tale of the haunted countryside of Cainsmarsh–a horror which broadens & deepens until it embraces the world.as told to a cocktail drinking croquet player.”
Published London: Chatto & Windus, 1936). Ex 3982.95.3275 1936.
 

 

Laterna magica. Magic Lantern. Lanterne Magique ([Germany?] : E. P. [i.e. Ernst Plank], [1900?]). Metal lantern with 12 glass slides, col. ill. Cotsen Children’s Library Opticals 22898.

 

 

James Tissot (1836–1902), Croquet, 1878. Etching and drypoint. Museum purchase, Felton Gibbons Fund (2013-112) Princeton University Art Museum