Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

Decline and Fall of Hoops in the Roman Empire

Attributed to Emily “Lille” Maingay (1837-1890), The Decline and Fall of Hoops in the Roman Empire. Bound with The Christmas Robin ([London, privately printed? ca. 1872]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two small books bound together, both attributed to Emily “Lille” Maingay (1837-1890). The first is an illustrated satire on 19th-century women’s fashion and the Catholic Church, in which Pope Pius IX decides to ban women’s hooped skirts because they might prevent women from going to confession (doorway too narrow).

One section concerns a deacon who puts on a hoop and is chased by cardinals. “When caught, the pope amazed at his singular reserve did immediately confers on him priests orders (to cure him of the same).”

Maingay made the books using anastatic printing, also called metal relief, similar to what William Blake used with his illuminated books. Rockwell Kent also like the look of metal relief. Many of the copies of this book in other collections are called ink drawings, although they might also be anastatic printed copies. When the ink is transferred gently onto the paper, the result looks similar to an ink drawing.

Emily “Lille” Maingay (1837-1890) and her three sisters moved back to London from St. Petersburg in the 1860s. They were active in various charities. “The St Cyprian’s Orphanage for Girls is thought to have been founded in the 1870s at Allsop (or Allsopp) Mews, Marylebone, by the Misses Maingay of 39 Dorset Square. It was one of several homes in the area set up under the St Cyprian’s name, along with establishments for orphan boys, the aged, the incurable, and the fallen . . . the Maingay sisters donated the home to the [Waifs and Strays] Society” along with money to support it. —http://childrenshomes.org.uk/

It may be for the children of the orphanage that Maingay produced these small, humorous books.

The Guernsey Magazine obituaries for January 1891 announced “On Christmas Day, at 39, Dorset-square, London, Emily Lille Maingay, youngest daughter of the late William Maingay, Esq., at St. Petersburg.”

ONEEVERYONE

https://www.hamilton-landmarks.org/

“ONEEVERYONE, a public art project by Ann Hamilton, is framed by the recognition that human touch is the most essential means of contact and a fundamental expression of physical care. Commissioned by Landmarks for the Dell Medical School, ONEEVERYONE begins with a series of more than 500 portraits of Austin community members, photographed through a semi-transparent membrane that focuses each point where the body make contact. These images are presented in multiple forms, including porcelain enamel architectural panels; a newsprint publication with commissioned essays responding to the project; public forums; and an exhibition at the Visual Arts Center.”—Andrée Bober, Landmarks Director

“This book presents yet another form for the portraits. Its pages hold at least one image of each participant who volunteered their time and opened themselves to an exchange with the artist. Through the images touch–something we feel more than see–becomes visible.”

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired this volume, along with the newspaper of commissioned essays, thanks to Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin. For more information on this extraordinary project, see https://www.hamilton-landmarks.org/

Ann Hamilton, ONEEVERYONE (Austin, Texas: Landmarks, University of Texas at Austin, 2017). 1 volume (unpaged): no text. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

Matching a Thomas Rowlandson sketch to its finished print

In trying to match our collection of Thomas Rowlandson drawings with published prints and books, it took nine copies of Henry Bunbury’s Academy for Grown Horsemen, before the Ackermann edition turned up with a match. Note: Geoffrey Gambado is a pseudonym for Henry William Bunbury.

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen: containing the completest instructions, for walking, trotting, … illustrated with copper plates, and adorned with a portrait of the author by Geoffrey Gambado, Esq. [pseud.] (London: Printed for R. Ackermann, 1825). xxvii, 30-75, lxxx-xcix, 102-201 p., [27] col. plates: ill.; 15 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.33 and Rare Books: Laurance Roberts Carton Hunting Coll. (ExCarton SF301 .xB93 1825

The match was first discovered by Joseph Rothrock (former curator of graphic arts) and documented in the Princeton University Library Chronicle 36, no. 2 (winter 1975): 87-110: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_36_n_2.pdf. This was not an easy attribution to make since Bunbury’s book comes in many shapes and sizes, not to mention the variations of plates inside. Here are a few on our shelves:

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling and tumbling.: The annals of horsemanship: containing accounts of accidental experiments and experimental accidents, both successful and unsuccessful; communicated by various correspondents to the author, Geoffrey Gambado, Esq. … Illustrated with cuts, by the most eminent artists (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; J. Walker; J. Harris; and W. Bayne; at the union printing-office, … by W. Wilson., 1808). [2], xvi, 28, xvi, 69, [3] p., [29] leaves of plates: col. ill.; 18 cm. With 29 leaves of hand-coloured satirical plates.; plates signed: H. Bunbury esq. delin. Some plates with imprint: London. Pub. by T. Tegg, May 4-1808. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.32

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen: containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling, and tumbling: illustrated with copper plates, and adorned with a portrait of the author / by Geoffrey Gambado [i.e. H. W. Bunbury]. 2d ed. (London: Printed for Hooper and Wigstead, 1796). xx, 36 p., [12] leaves of plates: col. ill.; 34 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 1791.5q and Rare Books (Ex) 2011-0036Q

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling, and tumbling … By Geoffrey Gambado [pseud.] ... 3d ed. … (London, W. Baynes, 1808). xxiv, 36 p. front., plates. 33 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 1787.31f

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling and tumbling. : The annals of horsemanship: containing accounts of accidental experiments and experimental accidents, both successful and unsuccessful; communicated by various correspondents to the author, Geoffrey Gambado, Esq. … Illustrated with cuts, by the most eminent artists (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; J. Walker; J. Harris; and W. Bayne; at the union printing-office, … by W. Wilson., 1808). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.32

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting … The annals of horsemanship, containing accounts of accidental experiments … communicated … to the author Geoffrey Gambado, esq.Illustrated with cuts, by the most eminent artists (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Shape [etc,], 1809). 140 p. col. illus. 22 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.34 and Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.34 and Rare Books: Laurence Roberts Carton Hunting Coll. (ExCarton) SF301 .xB93 1809

Burr McIntosh, Class of 1884, and the Burr McIntosh Monthly

The actor, photographer, publisher, and professor Burr McIntosh, Class of 1884 (1862-1942) studied first at Lafayette College and then, for one year at Princeton. Although he never graduated, he went on to have a dynamic if eclectic career, leading first to the Broadway stage and celebrity playing the character Talbot “Taffy” Wynne in the original 1895 Broadway production of Trilby.

McIntosh learned photography by chance and excelled, serving as a photojournalist for Leslie’s Weekly and publishing a memoir, The Little I Saw of Cuba, in 1899. (Recap 10871.604). “In the Spanish-American War,” he wrote, “I was too old to enter the army, but was Leslies‘ chief correspondent as well as representing the Hearst papers, and others.” He also had the first recorded case of Yellow Fever and lost 71 pound in three weeks.

By 1901 McIntosh had recovered and opened a photography studio on West 33rd Street, near the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The actor-turned-artist had such success with portraits of the fashionable elite that he added publisher to his resume, designing a lavish magazine to present his work [see Google image above].

Unveiled on April Fool’s Day, the Burr McIntosh Monthly ran from 1903 to 1910, mixing photographs of beautiful women with celebrity profiles and serious information on the contemporary photography scene.

In particular, it is a treasure-trove on American pictorialism, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Carl Moon, and others. Issues were bound by string so the plates could easily be removed and framed. Unfortunately McIntosh’s lifestyle was equally lavish and by 1908, the Burr McIntosh studio was forced into bankruptcy. His magazine limped on for another year or so before closing.

But just as one business was ending, McIntosh announced a new vision for a colossal artists’ colony in Los Angeles and moved west. He purchased land, hired staff, and made plans. With his own funds waning, McIntosh proposed reopening his magazine and using it to fund his enterprise, but this never happened. Instead, he went back to acting, this time in films, where he is best remembered as Squire Bartlett in Way Down East directed by D.W. Griffith in 1920. http://www.aspresolver.com/aspresolver.asp?SILF;1824760

In corresponding with the Princeton alumni association in the 1930s, McIntosh lists his employer as himself, his position in the firm: “The Whole,” and the business of the firm: “Spreading Cheer.” In a second card, his business address is given as “Cross Roads of the World, 6671 Sunset Boulevard.”

The Burr McIntosh Monthly (New York: [Burr McIntosh Publishing Co., etc.] 1903-10). Firestone Library TR1 .B877

See also: Burr William McIntosh (1862-1942), Football and love; a story of the Yale-Princeton game of ’94 … (New York, London: The Transatlantic Publishing Co., 1895). Seeley G. Mudd Library (Mudd) P79.606

https://free-classic-movies.com/movies-02/02-1928-08-15-The-Adorable-Cheat/index.php
Burr McIntosh in The Adorable Cheat, highly recommended.

Thanks to the Mudd Library staff for their help. All documents found in the Princeton University Archives. Alumni Records, Undergraduate, Box 173. https://rbsc.princeton.edu/databases/undergraduate-alumni-index-part-1.

Ralph Kirby’s Eccentric Museum Is Not a Place

In the summer of 1802, newspaper advertisements announced the first issue of Granger’s New Wonderful Museum and Extraordinary Magazine, to be published monthly beginning August 1802. William Granger was listed as editor and the stories “communicated by James Caulfield and others.” The magazine was a success but as the sixth issue was being prepared, a revised advertisement for Granger’s Magazine was printed in the form of a letter dated January 1, 1803, addressed “To the Booksellers of the United Kingdom.”

“Whereas last night the most shameful Imposition was committed by a person (Ralph Smith Kirby) who was employed to publish and sell the above work by the real proprietor, [Alexander] Hugo and for which he was liberally paid, but who having declined by Notice dated November 26th, publishing No. VI for January 1803, has unjustly printed a Number for the same Month . . . and establish a spurious one on its Foundation, calling it Kirby’s Original Wonderful Museum, New Series.”

Kirby falsely stated that Granger’s printer and editor had been changed and circulated a report that he was the new proprietor in the work. The two publications ran simultaneously for a few years and then, both were reissued in bound sets.

While Granger only printed a frontispiece etching, Kirby’s magazine was filled with portraits of the many characters whose stories he told. These exotic images were often cut out of the issue and collected separately by libraries and museums making the complete runs, such as the one in Princeton’s collection, rare even though the editions were large.

Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum; or, Magazine of Remarkable Characters. Including all the Curiosities of Nature and Art from the Remotest Period to the Present Time, Drawn from every Authentic Source (London: R.S. Kirby, 1803-1820). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1803

William Granger, New, original, and complete wonderful museum and magazine extraordinary: being a complete repository of all the wonders, curiosities, and rarities of nature and art, from the beginning of the world to the present year . . . communicated by James Caulfield and others (London: M. Allen, Printer: Printed for Alex. Hogg & Co., 1802-1808)

The Impostor Unmasked; or The New Man of the People

Richard Brinsley Sheridan [above] says: “Gentlemen – I am proud on this occasion to pay you my respects – I will bring in a bill of rights – I will give your oppressors a ‘Check.”

The electors shout: “You know your Checks are worth nothing.”

Princeton is the only library in OCLC with a recorded copy of this thin volume with a folding frontispiece: The Imposter Unmasked; or, The New Man of the People; with anecdotes, never before published … inscribed, without permission, to that superlatively honest and disinterested man, R.B.S-R-D-N, esq. … (London: Tipper and Richards, 1806). Hand colored frontispiece by Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1806 Isaac

The scene is described by Dorothy George: “The Westminster election mob is seen from the hustings, where Sheridan, isolated from a group of supporters, is speaking. He tramples on a paper inscribed ‘Electors of Stafford’. From his pocket hangs a ‘List of Promisses’. A dog with a human head (Lord Percy), his collar inscribed ‘True Northumberland breed’, befouls his leg. A poll-clerk sits by an open poll-book but no one is voting.”

Thomas Rowlandson designed a satirical print a year or two earlier entitled “Ride to Rumford. Let the Gall’d Jade winch,” which may have inspired the title page quote here.

Savillon’s Elegies

Horace begins the Satires by examining the problem of desire, and in particular with Satires 1.1, on the desire for wealth and domination. This is the quote that the author, ‘a gentleman,’ chose for the epigram on his title page:

Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem / seu ratio dederit seu fors obiecerit, illa / contentus vivat, laudet diversa sequentis? = How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one lives content with the lot that either planning has given him or chance has thrown in his way, but instead he praises those who follow other paths?

Catherine M. Schlegel notes that the answer Horace asserts at the end of the poem is that people live life as if it were a chariot race, aware only of who is ahead and discounting those they have overtaken, translating: “So I come back to where I began, how it is that no one can like himself, being greedy, but, rather, praises those with different lives; because his neighbor’s goat has an udder that stretches bigger, he’s eaten up with envy; and he wouldn’t compare himself to the bigger crowd of those worse off, but works only to get ahead of one after another. There’s always a richer man to stand in the way as he hurries—it’s the same as when the horses’s hooves sweep the chariots free of the gates, and the charioteer presses against the horses defeating his own, and takes no note of whom he passes and left among the stragglers.” — Catherine M. Schlegel Satire and the Threat of Speech (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005)

James Wallace (1766-1829), Savillon’s Elegies, or Poems, written by a gentlemen, A.B., late of the University of Cambridge … (London: Printed by T. Rickaby, for Hookham and Carpenter, 1795). All but one of the plates were designed by Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811) and engraved by Burnet Reading (1749/50-1838). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1795 Isaac. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888.

The Admirable Crichton

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), The Admirable Crichton with illustrations by Hugh Thomson (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914). First edition. Copy 75 of 500 signed by Thomson. Graphic Arts Collection GAX2016- in process

Princeton owns three dozen volumes illustrated by the Ulster artist Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) with texts from Shakespeare, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and many others. We now add Admiral Crichton, a comic play written by J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), first performed in 1902.

Thomson was a favorite illustrator of the London public and of James Barrie, having illustrated Quality Street the year before. Art critics had a different opinion. A review in the December 1914 issue of Burlington Magazine begins:

Mr. Hugh Thomson’s illustrations to “The Admirable Crichton” are utterly unsympathetic and half-hearted. They have neither originality nor charm, and Mr. Thomson is apparently under the impression that the scenery in a South Sea island is precisely the same as that of Surrey. It is a great pity, as Sir J. M. Barrie’s incomparable play would make an ideal Christmas book in the hands of a capable illustrator. However, Mr. Thomson has many admirers who will be interested to know that the originals of the illustrations are to be obtained of Messrs. Ernest Brown and Phillips, Leicester Galleries, Leicester Square.

The largest collection of Thomson’s drawings can be seen in his hometown at the Coleraine Museum in Northern Ireland http://www.niarchive.org/coleraine/

Barrie’s play went on to be performed over many years, with two productions captured on film including the 1957 version below.

La vie parisienne

La Vie parisienne par Marcelin ([Paris: s.n.], 1863-1915). Editor 1863-87: Marcelin. Letterpress and lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) in process

The French satirist Émile-Marcelin-Isidore Planat (1825-1887) also published under the names Émile Marcelin and simply Marcelin. His birth date is often listed incorrectly as 1830, which may have been his own doing.

Marcelin found work in the 1840s at L’Illustration: journal universel (1845-48, Oversize AP20 .F736q) and the 1850s with Le Journal Pour Rire, later retitled Journal Amusant (1848-1855, GAX 2011-0030E). By the 1860s, he was ready to be his own boss and raised the funds to print a weekly newspaper called La vie parisienne (The Parisian Life), highlighting the pleasures and arts of Paris in image and text.

When Marcelin died in 1887, the journal continued under a new editor but it was not the same and by the 20th century, the title no longer retained any of Marcelin’s original style. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired the full, original run of La vie parisienne, bound in 30 volumes.

See also Marcelin’s artistic predecessor Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), Scènes de la vie parisienne (Paris: Mme. Charles-Béchet, 1834-[v.1, 1835]). Rare Books (Ex) 3232.382

Clément Pierre Marillier

“The Juggler,” from Émile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

“For some time my pupil and I had observed that different bodies, such as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others do not attract them. By accident we discovered one that has a virtue more extraordinary still, — that of attracting at a distance, and without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron. This peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it. At last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when magnetized to a certain degree. One day we went to a fair, where a juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and floating on a bowl of water. Much surprised, we did not however say, “He is a conjurer,” for we knew nothing about conjurers. Continually struck by effects whose causes we do not know, we were not in haste to decide the matter, and remained in ignorance until we found a way out of it.

When we reached home we had talked so much of the duck at the fair that we thought we would endeavor to copy it. Taking a perfect needle, well magnetized, we inclosed it in white wax, modelled as well as we could do it into the shape of a duck, so that the needle passed entirely through the body, and with its larger end formed the duck’s bill. We placed the duck upon the water, applied to the beak the handle of a key, and saw, with a delight easy to imagine, that our duck would follow the key precisely as the one at the fair had followed the piece of bread. We saw that some time or other we might observe the direction in which the duck turned when left to itself upon the water. But absorbed at that time by another object, we wanted nothing more.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a suite of proofs (before lettering) for engravings designed by Clément Pierre Marillier (1740-1808) as illustrations for Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s books, Émile and La Nouvelle Heloise. The volume includes twenty-seven engraved plates, including a portrait of Rousseau, along with a letter from Marillier to “Monsieur le Préfet” at Boissie la Bertrand, dated February 17, 1808, concerning Marillier’s nomination as mayor of the town.

Here are a few more examples of Marillier’s designs.

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