Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

Robinson Crusoe … preserved by pirates

Travels of Robinson Crusoe. Written by himself (Worcester (Massachusetts): Printed by Isaiah Thomas, and sold at his book-store, MDCCLXXXVI: where may be had a variety of little books for children., [1786]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) PR3403 .A2 1786s

Defoe’s Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was first published on April 25, 1719, and before the end of the year had run through four editions. An abridged children’s version was published ca. 1784 in Boston, printed and sold by N. Coverly, price three pence.

Two years later Isaiah Thomas (1661?-1731) printed and sold the novel from his bookshop in Worcester, Massachusetts, as “Travels of Robinson Crusoe.” The book was as big a success for Thomas in the United States as it had been in England.

Here are plates from the 1786 and 1795 editions. Note that Crusoe is not only taller in 1795 but he has a new hat and loses his shoes between the editions.

Daniel Defoe (1661?-1731), The Most Surprising Adventures, and Wonderful Life of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: containing a full and particular account how his ship was lost in a storm, and all his companions were drowned, and he only was cast upon the shore by the wreck and how he lived eight and twenty years in an uninhabited island, on the coast of America, &c. With a true relation how he was at last miraculously preserved by pirates, &c. &c. &c. (Worcester, Mass,: Printed [by Isaiah Thomas] and sold at the Worcester bookstore, 1795). 15 cm. Contains a woodcut frontispiece and 12 (one repeated) woodcuts in the text. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 163





 

See also: Daniel Defoe (1661?-1731) The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe : being the second and last part of his life, and of the strange surprizing accounts of his travels round three parts of the globe / written by himself (London: Printed for W. Taylor …, 1719). Princeton copies 1-3: First edition, first issue; copies 4-5: first edition, second issue. Rare Books (Ex) PR3404 .xF37 1719

1786
1795

‘Twas in this ship, which fail’d from Hull,
That Crusoe did embark;
Which did him vex, and much perplex,
And broke his parents heart.

Il favore degli dei

Aurelio Aureli (1652-1708), Il favore degli dei: drama fantastico musicale, fatto rappresentare dal serenissimo sig. duca di Parma nel suo Gran Teatro per le felicissime nozze del serenissimo sig. principe Odoardo suo primo genito con la serenissima signora principessa Dorotea Sofia di Neoburgo (Parma: Nella Stampa ducale, 1690). 14 folded engravings. Music by Bernardo Sabadini; Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

 

The Graphic Arts Collection is proud to have acquired Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow’s copy of Il favore degli Dei, which includes the libretto, scenario, and cast (without the music) along with fourteen folded leaves of plates engraved by D. Bonaveri, G.A. Lorenzini and L. Mattioli, and others after Domenico Mauro.

Ferdinando Galli da Bibiena and Domenico Mauro designed the scenography, Federico Crivelli invented the choreography, and Gasparo Torelli created the costumes. Princeton’s copy is imperfect, lacking the large folding plate by Carlo Virginio Draghi.

 

 

Il favore degli dei (1690): Meta-Opera and Metamorphoses at the Farnese Court by Wendy Heller, Professor of Music. Director, Program in Italian Studies, Chair of the Music Department, Princeton University

In 1690, Giovanni Maria Crescimbeni (1663–1728) and Gian Vincenzo Gravina (1664–1718), along with several of their literary colleagues, established the Arcadian Academy in Rome. Railing against the excesses of the day, their aim was to restore good taste and classical restraint to poetry, art, and opera. That same year, a mere 460 kilometres away, the Farnese court in Parma offered an entertainment that seemed designed to flout the precepts of these well-intentioned reformers. For the marriage of his son Prince Odoardo Farnese (1666–1693) to Dorothea Sofia of Neuberg (1670–1748), Duke Ranuccio II Farnese (1639–1694) spared no expense, capping off the elaborate festivities with what might well be one of the longest operas ever performed: Il favore degli dei, a ‘drama fantastico musicale’ with music by Bernardo Sabadini (d. 1718) and poetry by the prolific Venetian librettist Aurelio Aureli (d. 1718).

Although Sabadini’s music does not survive, we are left with a host of para-textual materials to tempt the historical imagination. Aureli’s printed libretto, which includes thirteen engravings, provides a vivid sense of a production whose opulence was excessive, even by Baroque standards. The unusually large cast included twenty-four principal singers, some of whom were borrowed from neighbouring courts such as Mantua and Modena. In addition, the libretto lists seventeen choruses and seven ballets featuring goddesses, breezes, warriors, nymphs, virgin huntresses, cupids, demons, stars, tritons, graces, fauns, and nereids who populated the stage for this remarkable performance. The set designers, painters, and engineers were also kept busy producing seventeen different sets and no fewer than forty-three machines that bore characters to and fro ‘in the air and the earth’ (‘in aria, e in terra’).

To continue reading, see hotlink above.

The book was also owned by Parmenia Migel Ekstrom (1908-1989), ballet historian; purchased from Ximenes, 1991.

For more references, see: Sonneck, O.G.T. Librettos, p. 483-484; Sartori, C. Libretti italiani, 9837; Bowles, E.A. Musical ensembles, p. 379-380.


Oxford

Martin Parr. Beating the Bounds. Ascension day.2014.

“The very first photo-documentary of Oxford was created by William Henry Fox Talbot,” reads the announcements. “A century and a half later, Martin Parr’s new project pays tribute to [that] great pioneer of photography.”

Commissioned by the Bodleian Library and Oxford University Press, Parr’s upcoming book is a collection of around 100 photographs documenting the life of the university between 2014 and 2016. The images capture day-to-day life of the school, highlighting the colorful and arcane rituals “that make Oxford so distinctive.”

Last Friday, we were given a preview of the book, entitled simply Oxford, due out on September 7, 2017. An exhibition to accompany the book’s release will be held from September 8 to October 22, 2017 in Blackwell Hall, Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries on Broad Street, Oxford.

In paging through the maquette with Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden, we were introduced to the many bizarre, eccentric, peculiar, and unique activities at Oxford University (including a cat that is really a dog). One of the most memorable was the ancient practice of ‘beating the bounds,’ ceremonially re-enacted every year. The photograph by Parr at the top of this post is one such beating, although not the print that eventually made the cut for the book.

 

Another view of this ritual from the Graphic Arts Collection is: George Cruikshank (1792-1878), “May – Beating the Bounds,” in The Comic almanack; an ephemeris in jest and earnest, containing merry tales, humorous poetry, quips, and oddities. Text by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863); Albert Smith (1816-1860); Gilbert Abbot À Beckett (1811-1856); Horace Mayhew (1816-1872); and Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) (London: Tilt and Bogue, 1837). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1835.81. Published in a run of approximately 20,000.


Beginning in 1835 and continuing for nine years, Cruikshank alone drew the plates for each monthly issue. Thackeray contributed small stories and promoted the series writing that it showed “a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank’s designs were so admirable, that the ‘Almanack’ at once became a vast favourite with the public and has remained so ever since.”

See also: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whatson/whats-on/upcoming-events/2017/sep/martin-parr-oxford

300 Coburn prints destroyed


The Graphic Arts Collection holds two copies of The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells with photogravures from negatives by Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966). Princeton’s first book has ten mounted prints with letterpress captions while the second has only one.

The text was set by Bertha S. Goudy (1869-1935) at the Village Press, New York, with types and decorations designed by Frederic W. Goudy (1865-1947), under whose supervision it has been printed by Norman T. A. Munder & company, Baltimore, Maryland. Six hundred copies were printed on French hand-made paper in November, 1911.

When Coburn’s photogravures arrived in New York, an assistant mistakenly pounded a nail through the top of one crate destroying half of the prints. 600 photogravures had been prepared in England and only 300 were left for Frederic Goudy to fit into the New York edition.

Some books have 10 and the rest are missing one or more images. Princeton’s second copy is missing all but one. A slip is tipped onto the front board of each incomplete book. Some give the explanation that missing photogravures are replaced with prints made by the aquatone process. The slip in Princeton’s book reads “It was for this volume that Frederic W. Goudy designed his now famous Kennerley Type. Six hundred copies were printed. Unfortunately, only three hundred sets of the illustrations were complete, so that there remain three hundred copies of the book lacking one or more illustrations, of which this is a copy. The text is perfect.”

It was a complete surprise today to find the Rare Book division of the Library of Congress not only holds both complete and incomplete copies of Door in the Wall, but they also have Goudy’s own copy of the book’s maquette, originally placing the photographs on the right instead of the left and without his special type.

The binding and pages are larger in the maquette than the published version. The layout of the cover text is uniformly printed in plain type. Published books used a fancier, pseudo-Gothic face and reduce the size of Coburn’s name, giving his contribution less importance.

Library of Congress, Rare Books, Wells c.4

Library of Congress, Rare Books, Wells c.4

 

The maquette also holds additional prints, seen here laying side by side to check for variations.

 

 

H. G. Wells (1866-1946), The Door in the Wall and Other Stories by H. G. Wells, Illustrated with photogravures from photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1911). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2006-0844Q previously owned by Elmer Adler and GAX 2006-0845Q previously owned by Edwin Hooper Denby.

 

Goudy’s pencil design for the title page layout, at the Library of Congress. He might have anticipated a longer production schedule, assuming the publication date would be 1912 instead of 1911.

See also: Alvin Langdon Coburn and H.G. Wells: the photographer and the novelist: a unique collection of photographs and letters from the University Library’s H.G. Wells collection ([Urbana]: University Library : Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997). Marquand Library (SA) No call number available

James and Coburn

We were looking today at the photogravure frontispieces by Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966) for all but the final two volumes of what is known as Henry James’s New York Edition. The books were published two volumes at a time between December 14, 1907 and July 31, 1909. Above are the copies at the University of Virginia.

James famously called photography the “hideous inexpressiveness of a mechanical medium.” He told his publishers at Scribner’s that he wanted only a single good plate in each volume of the New York edition. “Only one but of thoroughly fine quality.”

George Bernard Shaw called Coburn “the greatest photographer in the world.” Alfred Stieglitz wrote that “Coburn has been a favored child throughout his career… No other photographer has been so extensively exploited nor so generally eulogized,” but that didn’t stop him from giving the young artist two solo exhibitions at 291.

In 1905, sixty-two-year-old Henry James was photographed by the twenty-three-year-old Alvin Coburn for the April 26 issue of Century Magazine. They became friends and collaborators, mutually agreeing on each of the twenty-four photogravures that Coburn created, beginning with a new portrait of the author for volume one.

Coburn cruised the Mediterranean and traveled to Paris, Rome, and Venice searching for the appropriate entrance scenes for each of his friend’s novels. The gravures are printed directly onto the book page with a tissue guard printed with a facsimile of James’ signature. This might be the greatest series of frontispieces ever created.

 

Henry James (1843-1916), The Novels and Tales of Henry James. New York edition ([New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1907-17]). 26 volumes with 24 photogravure frontispieces by Alvin Langdon Coburn. (Ex) 3799.7.1907

The Graphic Arts Collection also has a single portrait of Henry James attributed to Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1866): https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2014/01/18/henry-james/

 

Giacomo Lauro

Last fall, Victor Plahte Tschudi, Director of the Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies, published Baroque Antiquity: Archaeological Imagination in Early Modern Europe (Classics DG82 .T78 2017). This led to Anthony Grafton’s review “Invented Antiquities,” in the July issue of London Review of Books.

This led to a search for Giacomo Lauro, “a printmaker, whose albums of prints of Rome, the Antiquae Urbis splendor, command the lion’s share of Baroque Antiquity.” It is much more pleasant reading about old master prints while looking at them.

The earliest dated prints by this engraver, printer, and print publisher are from 1585 and carry the address of C. Duchetti. From 1590 he tried to establish himself as a publisher of his own work by acquiring old copper plates, restoring them, and publishing reprints. According to the British Museum, his Antiquae Urbis Splendor was published in parts from 1612. In the volumes issued in 1614 and 1615 Lauro refers to having worked on it for 28 years which would mean that he began it about 1586.

Grafton writes,

“At a cursory glance, Lauro’s slick, neatly engraved images give an impression of erudition and professionalism. . . But Tschudi’s close and tenacious examination reveals that Lauro was neither a professional antiquarian nor even a skilled draughtsman. His images were adapted from a vast range of existing sources: the drawings and prints of Pirro Ligorio and others, which the enterprising publisher Antoine Lafréry had gathered in albums in the 1570s. Lauro not only copied these, he used them to represent buildings for which no ruins or records survived.”

“…Lauro and [Athanasius] Kircher, in other words, were not making and commissioning these sometimes highly imaginative prints at random. They had a precise notion of the market at which they were aiming. Their work didn’t involve creating images anew, after long weeks camped out at the ancient sites, but reusing existing prints. . . They used the work of others as soon as the privileges that protected them ran out, while invoking privileges of their own to protect the value—and price—of their own work. They were not explorers of ancient sites but aficionados of modern prints.”

Giacomo Lauro (active 1583-ca. 1645), Splendore dell’antica e moderna Roma (Roma: Nella Stamparia d’Andrea Fei, 1641). Pt. 1: Antiquae urbis splendor hoc est præcipua eiusdem templa … Romæ, 1612; pt. 2: Antiquitatum urbis liber secundus … Romæ, 1613; pt. 3: … Antiquæ urbis splendoris complementv̄, … Romæ, 1615; pt. 4: Antiquæ urbis uestigia quæ nunc extant … Romæ, 1628. Marquand Library (SAX) Oversize N6920.L37q

See also: Giacomo Lauro (active 1583-ca. 1645), [Engraved views of Italian gardens, showing the Quirinal, Monte Celio, Vatican, Tivoli, Pincio and Barco di Barnaia (Rome?: 1616?]). Marquand Library (SAX) NA9500 .L37

Giovanni Battista de Rossi (active 1630-1660), Palazzi diversi nel’alma cita di Roma et alter ([Rome]: Ad instanza di Giombattista de Rossi, 1638). Prints by Giacomo Lauro. Marquand Library (SAX) in process

The Anti-Masonic Movement


The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this early almanac focused on the anti-masonic movement in the United States. So much was written and published, this poem appeared in 1829:

O books! books! books! it makes me sick
To think how ye are multiplied,
Like Egypt’s frogs, ye poke up thick
Your ugly heads on every side.

If a new thought but shake its ear
Or way its tail, tho’ starved it look,
The world the precious news must hear,
The presses groan, and lo! a book.

The American anti-masonic movement was officially formed in 1828 following the disappearance and presumed murder of William Morgan (1774–1826?). Morgan was about to publish a book exposing Freemasonry’s secrets and so, the fraternal society was thought to have killed him to keep their information secret.

A congressional convention took place in Philadelphia in 1930. Eli Bruce, Loton Lawon, Nicholas Chesebro and Edward Sawyer were each convicted of taking part in the kidnapping and served time in prison.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have dozens of other publications in our collections. Of particular interest are those in the Sinclair Hamilton collection with early American wood engravings and gritholaphic plates. Here are a few others.

Edward Giddins, Anti-Masonic Almanac for the year 1832, no. 4. (Utica, [N.Y.]: William Williams [et al], (1831]). Illustrated by D. C. Johnston. 1st ed. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

Timothy Tickle, The doleful tragedy of the raising of Jo. Burnham; or the “cat let out of the bag”: in five acts, illustrated with engravings  (Woodstock, Vt.: Printed by W.W. Prescott, 1832). Illustartions attributed to Benjamin Tuel by Hamilton and others. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1958

Morganiana, or, The wonderful life and terrible death of Morgan / written by himself. Illustrated with gritholaphic [i.e. lithographic] plates, by Hassan Straightshanks, Turkey. First American ed., tr. from the original Arabic manuscript. By Baron Munchausen, jr. … (Boston: Printed and published by the proprietors, 1828). “Johnston was fond of using pseudonyms and, as the name Straightshanks is an obvious play on Cruikshank, and as the plates are in the style of Johnston, it seems plausible to attribute them to him.”–Cf. Hamilton. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 937

Henry Brown (1789-1849). A narrative of the anti-masonick excitement, in the western part of the state of New York, during the years 1826, ’7, ’8, and a part of 1829 (Batavia, N.Y.,: Printed by Adams & M’Cleary, 1829). Rare Books (Ex) HS525 .B7

 

Miseries Installed

On Saturday, July 1, 2017, a small show will open at the Princeton University Art Museum titled, The Miseries of Human Life and Other Amusements: Drawings by Thomas Rowlandson.

Written in 1806 by James Beresford (1764–1840), The Miseries of Human Life was extraordinarily successful, becoming a minor classic in the satirical literature of the day. Through a humorous dialogue between two old curmudgeons, the book details the “petty outrages, minor humiliations, and tiny discomforts that make up everyday human existence.”

The public loved it, dozens of editions were published, and printmakers rushed to illustrate their own versions of life’s miseries.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756/57–1827) began drawing scenes based on Beresford’s book as soon as it was published and after two years, the luxury print dealer Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834) selected fifty of his hand colored etchings for a new edition of Miseries. Many of the now-iconic characters and situations that the artist drew for this project—some based closely on Beresford’s text and others of his own invention—reappeared in later works, with variations on the Miseries turning up until the artist’s death.

In the early twentieth century, Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895, donated two thousand Rowlandson prints and all of the artist’s illustrated books to the Princeton University Library. Of particular importance was a small box of Rowlandson’s unpublished, undated drawings, including many specifically related to his Miseries series.

Here, in its first public presentation, is a selection of Rowlandson’s drawings from Brown’s donation. Just as in Rowlandson’s book, those specific to Beresford’s text are shown alongside others that illustrate life’s miseries more generally, including some from the Princeton University Art Museum’s collection. The sections follow the chapters, or “groans,” of Beresford’s book.


Particular thanks go to Laura Giles for suggesting a show of the library’s Rowlandson drawings. Princeton University Art Museum: http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/

 

 

The exhibition runs through October 2017, with a talk entitled “That’s So Annoying! Thomas Rowlandson and The Miseries of Human Life,” on Sunday, September 17, 2017, at 2:00 p.m. in 101 McCormick Hall, Princeton University

 

100,000 copies sold in 1853

Several of the Sinclair Hamilton Collection copies of the collected stories by the author, journalist, columnist, and humorist Sara Payson Willis (1811-1872) are filled with clippings and other notes about the writer and the illustrators. Willis wrote for several small Boston magazines under the pen-name Fanny Fern, including a weekly column in the New York Ledger read by hundreds of thousands of fans across the country. Willis is considered one of, if not the first American woman columnist. She continued to publish a column every week until her death in 1872.

Her 1853 collection of articles, published under the title Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Port-Folio, was an immediate success, recorded as selling nearly 100,000 copies the first year. Six other collections followed, including Fresh Leaves (1857), Folly as It Flies (1859), Ginger-Snaps (1870), and Caper-Sauce (1872). https://fannyfern.org/bio

Hamilton’s note recording her sales at 70,000 has since be changed to nearly 100,000.

 

Design and wood engraving by Nathaniel Orr.

“When her first husband died of typhoid fever in 1846, Sara’s father and her in-laws did not want to support her and her two children. She tried her luck at being a seamstress, one of the only respectable positions available to women, but could not make ends meet. She also attempted to secure a teaching position, but was not successful. At her father’s insistence, Sara embarked on a marriage of convenience that ended in divorce. Because Sara left her abusive husband, the scandal further alienated her from her family and friends. In a desperate attempt to feed her children, Sara began writing articles for Boston newspapers in 1851. Shortly thereafter, her articles were read in newspapers nationwide and in England.” –Giuliana Lonigro, “Women’s History Month Profile: Sara Payson Willis (“Fanny Fern”)”

 

In an article published in New York Life on August 8, 1867, Fern wrote: “I look around and see innumerable women to whose barren, loveless life [writing] would be improvement and solace, and I say to them, write! Write if it will make your life brighter, or happier, or less monotonous. Write! It will be a safe outlet for thoughts and feelings…[L]ift yourselves out of the dead level of your lives…Fight it! Oppose it, for your own sakes, and your children’s! Do not be mentally annihilated by it.”

 

The frequent team of Frederick Coffin, designs, and Nathaniel Orr, wood engraving, were called on to illustrate this popular book. Orr was responsible for the binding.

Robert Bonner of The New York Ledger “originally offering Fern twenty-five, then fifty, then seventy-five dollars per column, only to be turned down on all three occasions, Bonner then offered her an unprecedented $100 for each column of a serialized story, an offer which Fern finally accepted, making her the highest-paid newspaper writer in the country.”


Fanny Fern (1811-1872). Fern leaves from Fanny’s port-folio : with original designs by Fred. M. Coffin [engraved by Nathaniel Orr] (Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853). Illustrations by Frederick M. Coffin, engraved on wood by N. Orr and E. Bookhout. GAX Hamilton 1565,

Fanny Fern (1811-1872). Fern leaves from Fanny’s port-folio Second series; with original designs by Fred. M. Coffin (Auburn [N.Y.]: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1854, [c1853]). Added, engr. t.p., by N. Orr. Published in London under title: “Shadows and sunbeams,” being a second series of Fern leaves from Fanny’s portfolio.

Fanny Fern (1811-1872). Fern leaves from Fanny’s port-folio : second series / with original designs by Fred. M. Coffin (Auburn ; Buffalo : Miller, Orton & Mulligan ; London : Sampson Low, son & Co., 1854). 7 full page illustrations and half title cut by F. Coffin, engraved on wood by N. Orr. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 501

Mrs. Sara Payson (Wilis) Parton (1811-1872), Fern leaves from Fanny’s port-folio. (Auburn, Derby and Miller; Buffalo, Derby, Orton and Mulligan [etc.,etc.] 1853). Miriam Y. Holden Coll. (Holden). Firestone PS2523.P9F3 1853a

Fanny Fern (1811-1872), Shadows and sunbeams and other stories: being the second series of Fern leaves from Fanny’s port-folio (Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1884). RECAP 3885.05.385

Pickwick Papers Iconography

The image of Samuel Pickwick, the protagonist of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, drawn and etched by Robert Seymour (1798-1836) had an immediate and lasting impact, reaching beyond the pages of Dickens’ novel. Seymour committed suicide shortly after the creation of this character and the iconography of the series—19 issues over 20 months between March 1836 and October 1837—went through several visual adaptations before it was completed. As new editions continued to appear, variant designs were used to present the words to the reading public, although none has yet to improve on Seymour’s original character.

No one understood the power of the visual image better than the advertising executive Samuel William Meek (1895-1981), Vice President at the J. Walter Thompson Company, who along with his wife Priscilla Mitchell Meek (1899-1999), collected Dickens. Mr. Meek helped build a worldwide advertising empire for the Thompson Company while manager of Thompson’s London office. He handled campaigns for the General Motors Corporation, Pan American World Airways, and Reader’s Digest among many others.

Meek assembled a collection of Pickwick iconography, including a unique binding proof, title pages, advertising designs, and subsequent promotional use of the Pickwick figures outside the world of literature. Thanks to the discerning eye of our generous donor Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986, two volumes of this valuable material have come to the Graphic Arts Collection. Here is a quick list (Pickwick Papers iconography ) and are a few samples: