Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

Mark Twain publishers’ bindings

“Elisha Bliss, head of the Hartford, Connecticut subscription house, the American Publishing Company … suggested that [Mark] Twain rework the newspaper letters into a ‘humorous work,’ and referred him to the company’s success with the work of Albert Deane Richardson, a newspaperman and acquaintance of Twain.

Twain saw an opportunity for success where, The Jumping Frog had failed and began an intermittent, though ultimately life-long commitment to subscription book sales. …Beginning with The Innocents Abroad (the book about his Quaker City trip), published in 1869 by the American Publishing Company, Twain brought out the majority of his titles by subscription.”
–Scott E. Casper, Joanne D. Chaison, and Jeffrey D. Groves, Perspectives on American Book History: Artifacts and Commentary (2002)

Subscribers were offered the choice of several bindings, some more elaborate and expensive than others. Sinclair Hamilton collected the top of the line, which are now in Princeton’s collection.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress: Being some account of the steamship Quaker City’s pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land: With descriptions of countries, nations, incidents and adventures, as they appeared to the author: With two hundred and thirty-four illustrations (Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; Newark, N.J.: Bliss & Co.; Toledo, Ohio: R.W. Bliss & Co.; Chicago, Ill.: F.G. Gilman & Co.; Cincinnati, Ohio: Nettleton & Co.; St. Louis, Mo.: F.A. Hutchinson & Co.; San Francisco, Cal.: H.H. Bancroft and Company, 1869). Hamilton copy: Gold and blind stamped, pictorial cloth binding. Inscribed “Henry A. Goodwin, September 1st, 1869”–in ink, on third fly-leaf. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1288

Mark Twain (1835-1910), Roughing It (Hartford, Conn.: American Pub. Co., 1872). Original blind and gold stamped, pictorial cloth binding; all edges speckled. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1289

Mark Twain (1835-1910), Mark Twain’s Sketches, new and old (Hartford, Conn.: American Pub. Co., 1875). Black and gold stamped publisher’s cloth binding. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1290

Samuel and Olivia Clemens married in 1870 and moved to Hartford in 1871. Their family enjoyed what the author would later call the happiest and most productive years of his life in their Hartford home.

Arthur Train

While moving the glass negative collection, we found a box labeled “Train.” It turned out to be portraits of Arthur Train (1875-1945), lawyer and author of crime fiction from the 1910s and 1920s. Here are computer positives from the glass negatives.

On of his famous characters was the attorney Ephraim Tutt, first introduced in Tutt and Mr. Tutt (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1920). PS3539.R23 T888 1920

The Water of the Wondrous Isles

William Morris (1834-1896), The Water of the Wondrous Isles (Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1897). Limited ed. of 250 copies printed on paper. Cf. Peterson. “Printed at the Kelmscott Press … The borders and ornaments were designed entirely by William Morris, except the initial words Whilom & Empty, which were completed from his unfinished designs by R. Catterson-Smith …”–Colophon. Original full limp vellum with silk ties, lettered in gilt on spine. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

A heliogravure portrait of William Morris is tipped in as a frontispiece, engraved by Frederick John Jenkins (1872-1929), after a negative by Elliott & Fry (active 1863-1962), published 1895.

The copy of The Water of the Wondrous Isles recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection was once owned by Sydney Ansell Gimson (1860-1938), with a bookplate on the front pastedown designed by his brother Ernest Gimson (1864-1919). Primarily a furniture and wallpaper designer, Ernest was an early member of the Art-Workers’ Guild and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.

This might be his only attempt at a bookplate design. He gave his brother two options, writing “I have done what I can with the book plates and send you the result. They are neither of them satisfactory… I don’t understand designing for reduction. And it would require a more microscopic eye than mine to draw it real size.”

To read the entire text, in this edition, see http://morrisedition.lib.uiowa.edu/Images/WaterWondrousIsles/waterwondrouskelmscott.html.

“In this magical setting,” writes literary historian Holly Ordway, “Morris gives us a characterization that subverts contemporary cultural norms for female behavior at a time in Victorian England when women agitated for the right to vote and equality before the law. What makes it even more complex is the issue of Birdalone’s beauty. In her world of brave knights, evil witches, and magical quests, it’s expected that damsels will be lovely. In this setting, to be the subversive character that she is without being beautiful would suggest that her independence is a compensatory mechanism, and that with physical attractiveness to fall back on she would be more traditional. As it is, her beauty seems irrelevant, making the point beauty is not a prerequisite to love, be loved, and be an individual as Birdalone is.”– “Subverting the Female Stereotype: William Morris’s The Water of the Wondrous Isles,” by Holly E. Ordway, Associate Professor, MiraCosta College

The author and designer, William Morris, died in 1896 before the printing of his novel was finished and so, the book was published by the members of Morris’s estate. Enormously popular, OCLC lists 85 editions of the book from 1897-2016.

Mammoth Double Sheet Pictorial Brother Jonathan now online

In the winter of 1860, an advertisement was posted in several urban newspapers: Pictorial Brother Jonathan for Christmas and New Years. The Great Holiday Sheet of Pictures for 1860. The Mammoth Brother Jonathan this year stands Unrivalled! It positively can’t be beat! Price 12 Cents per copy—Ten for One Dollar. The copy continued:

“The Pictorial Double Brother Jonathan for Christmas and New Years was first issued in the year 1840-—just twenty years ago. It was at that time such a novelty that the demand for it continued three or four months, and even then the circulation reached eighty thousand copies. Since that period it has been issued regularly each year, with the avearage [sic] sale of over one hundred thousand copies for every number. Among the Newsvenders, the Brother Jonathan is extremely popular, as they never have a copy of it leftover unsold.

The immense size of the Mammoth Double Brother Jonathan enables us to give in it a profuse amount of reading and still leave room for the great number of Elegant Large Pictures. Altogether, you will find it to be a paper unsurpassed in interest, in point of handsome embellishment and agreeable reading. We give away this elegant Pictorial Paper to every yearly and half-yearly subscriber to the Weekly Brother Jonathan. The Christmas and New Years Pictorial Brother Jonathan will be sent, post-paid, to purchasers at 12 cents per single copy, or ten copies for One Dollar; but if you [subscribe] to the weekly paper, you will get a copy of the pictorial for nothing. Be sure to mention that you want the Pictorial Brother Jonathan, to prevent any mistake. Send cash to B. H. Day, 48 Beekman-Street, New York.”

We are thrilled to announce that Princeton University Library’s rare collection of 23 mammoth issues and 2 prospectuses of the Pictorial Double Brother Jonathan have been cleaned, flattened, repaired, catalogued, digitized, and posted online for the public to read and enjoy.
Brother Jonathan [A collection of 25 mammoth double-sheet numbers in its series Pictorial Jubilee] (New York: Wilson & Company, 1845-1860). Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/9z903261b
Sizes vary, primarily 81 x 56 cm.
Princeton University Library holdings:
July 4, 1845
July 4, 1846
July 4, 1847
[1847?] An illustrated history of the victories and conquests … (gift of Sinclair Hamilton)
[Dec. 1847] Christmas/New Year
July 4, 1848
March 4, 1849
No. 22 [Dec. 1850] Christmas/New Year (gift of Sinclair Hamilton)
No. 23, July 4, 1851
[1852?] Prospectus or advertising sheet for Christmas and New Year
No. 25 [Dec. 1851] Christmas/New Year 1852 (gift of Sinclair Hamilton)
Vol. 13, no. 28, June 26th, 1852 [4th of July]
[Dec. 1852] Christmas/New Year
July 4, 1853
July 4, 1854
[Dec. 1854] Christmas/New Year (2 copies)
[Dec. 1855] Christmas/New Year
[Dec. 1856] Christmas/New Year
Vol. 18, no. 317, December 12, 1857 Christmas/New Year
Vol. 18, no. 344, June 19 1858, [4th of July]
Vol. 18, no. 369, Dec. 11, 1858, Christmas/New Year
Vol. 19, no. 397, June 25, 1859 [4th of July]
Prospectus or advertising sheet for Christmas and New Year
Vol. 19, no. 421, December 10, 1859, Christmas/New Year
Vol. 20, no. 474, Dec. 15, 1860, Christmas/New Year.

Over the years, these wonderful issues have been called Brother Jonathan Pictorial; Double Sheet Brother Jonathan Pictorial; Jubilee Sheet Brother Jonathan; Jubilee Number Brother Jonathan Pictorial Double; and so on, making them not only difficult to find but hard to describe.

One of the many benefits to having these mammoth newspapers online is the ability to zoom in and see details. Several of the double-page spreads hold wood engravings 3 feet tall by 4 feet wide. Artists such as Frank Leslie (1821-1880) perfected the technique of dividing a scene between many small woodblocks and then, reassembling the blocks once they are engraved. Even zooming in, it is hard to see evidence of the individual blocks.

Above is a detail from below.

The amount of space available on these large sheets allowed for the publishing of entire novels, public orations, and complete essays. Here is a tiny portion of George Van Santvoord’s essay “The Character of Robespierre and the First French Revolution.”

Thanks to the dozens of staff members who worked on this project, to Sinclair Hamilton who donated the first copies, and Steve Ferguson who brought this extremely rare collection together.
Permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/9z903261b

The Voyage of the Jamestown on Her Errand of Mercy

Tucked inside the 1847 volume:

Robert Bennet Forbes (1804-1889), The Voyage of the Jamestown on Her Errand of Mercy (Boston: Eastburn’s Press, 1847). Frontispiece signed: F.H. Lane, del. GAX copy is presentation copy to Honble. Josiah Quincy with inscription by author. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) ND237.L24 F67

is a rare lithograph drawn by:

Fitz Hugh (or Henry) Lane (1804-1865), Boston, March 28th 1847, Departure of the Jamestown, for Cork, Ireland, R. B. B. Forbes, Commander. Lithograph, printed by Lane & Scott’s Lith, Tremont Temple, Boston, 1847.

Details on the print and the book can be found at:
http://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalog/entry.php?id=475&print=true
Fitz Henry Lane Historical Archive, catalogue raisonné, and educational resource; an online project under the direction of the Cape Ann Museum.

Melissa Geisler Trafton writes, “When news of the second year of the devastating Irish potato famine reached Boston in 1846, Bostonians formed a relief committee and began to look for ways to help. Robert Bennet Forbes lobbied the U.S. Navy for use of the “Jamestown,” a sloop that was lying idle in Charlestown Navy Yard. On March 3, 1847, by United States Congressional resolution, R. B. Forbes was authorized to take command of the “Jamestown,” while Captain George Coleman McKay was authorized to command USS “Macedonian,” then at New York Navy Yard. Tons of food and $151,000 were donated and loaded onto the “Jamestown” by the Boston Labourers Society (mostly Irish), free of charge. On March 28, 1847, the “Jamestown” left Boston at 8:30 a.m. under the command of R. B. Forbes, who managed to complete the Atlantic crossing in a record-breaking seventeen days.

Upon his return, Forbes wrote a book about the voyage, Voyage of the Jamestown in Her Errand of Mercy. In 1847 Lane was running his own lithography shop in Boston with his partner John Scott. Lane had already made two lithographs of Forbes’s innovative steam-powered vessels in 1845, Auxiliary Steam Packet Ship Massachusetts (inv. 442) and Steam packet ship Mass., in a Squall, Nov. 10, 1845 (inv. 443). It was natural that, in 1847, Forbes would turn to Lane to make a lithograph for the frontispiece of his book.” –Melissa Geisler Trafton

Le faux satyrique puni

Marc Perachon (1630-1709). Le faux satyrique puni, et le merite couronné, dans une lettre d’artiste, a l’un de ses amis, contenant L’Apologie de Mr. Perachon l’Avocat, contre les fausses Satyres du pretendu Poëte sans fard, & La Juste Critique des ses Satyres, & des faux Satyriques avec La Defense de Plusieurs personnes qu’il a Satyrisées: & Le Brevet du Roy (Lyon: Chez Claude Rey, [1696]). First ed., bound in 1800s chocolate calf by Koehler. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

C’est ainsi que les Dieux, pour Signaler leurs dons, Punissent les mechants, et couronnent les bon

Quoting the dealer’s note, “Uncommon first edition of this somewhat pious attack on the satirical poetry of François Gacon (1667-1725) [Poëte sans fard] and, by extension, on the man himself, by the Lyonnais lawyer Marc Perrachon (or Perachon, 1630-1709). Perrachon, a protestant convert and “auteur de poésies passablement misérables,” was one of the many targets of the Oratorian Gacon’s pen, but not the best known; Gacon also satirized the likes of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau and Boileau, whom he initially took as a model.

His attack on Perrachon . . . in fact landed him in gaol for a few months, but this was not enough to discourage Perrachon from publishing the present work in response, and in his own defence; the caption to the engraved title (”C’est ainsi que les Dieux, pour signaler leurs dons, Punissent les mechants, et couronnent les bons”) shows on which side Perrachon considered himself to lie.

Perrachon, writing in the third person, describes the faults in Gacon’s writing, contrasting it with the true satires of the Greeks, and attacking his “mauvaises rimes, ses hemistiches d’un mesme son, ses mauvaises cesures, ses enjambemens, ses mauvaises constructions, ses transpositions, ses fausses cadences, ses mauvaises mots, ou barbarismes, ses fausses significations des termes,” and so on, giving examples of each.”

Note the use of engraved initials.

See also below: François Gacon (1667-1725), Discours satiriques en vers (Cologne, 1696). Fictitious imprint; printed in Lyons by Boudet. Rare Books (Ex) PQ1985.G2 A7 1696

and François Gacon (1667-1725), Le journal satirique intercepté, ou, Apologie de Monsieur Arrouet de Voltaire, et de Monsieur Houdart de La Motte ([S.l. : s.n.], 1719). Rare Books (Ex) 3298.368

John Tryon and William Wallett, found in a railway carriage.

John Tryon, The Old Clown’s History; in Three Periods. Introducing graphic sketches of show life in its multifarious phases … With characteristics of distinguished showmen … (New York: Torrey Brothers, Printers, 1872). Dedication copy inscribed on front free endpaper: “Jn. Tryon to W.F. Wallett. With author’s respectful compts.” Above it, the inscription: “Found in a Railway Carriage, Jany. 22nd 1873. M.B. Rogers.” Graphic Arts Collection in process

Found in a Railway Carriage, January 22, 1873. Dedicated to William Frederick Wallett, ‘the Queen’s Jester.’
Frontispiece portrait of John Tryon (1800-1876), who managed the New York Bowery Amphitheater from 1843 to 1848. He went on to found the New York Sunday Courier newspaper. Note the picture on the wall of a cynocephalus, or a creature with the head of a dog and on the floor a poster advertising a learned pig (see William Frederick Pinchbeck, The expositor; or many mysteries unravelled. Delineated in a series of letters … Comprising the learned pig. . . (Boston: Printed for the author, 1805). EX 4293.721)

Wallett’s autobiography mentions Tryon several times. “There was a jolly old Trojan named John Tryon, who has for the last thirty years provided a circus home in New York or Boston during each winter for those who are thrown out of employment at the end of the summer season. In fact, instead of calling his establishment a circus, it ought to be entitled ‘John Tryon’s Refuge for the Destitute.’ It was he who first offered to take and open the circus, in order to give me an opportunity of appearing before a New York audience. But the dear friend with whom I lived urged upon me the policy of not being in too great a hurry, remarking that a week or two made no difference to him, and would be a great object in my engagements. Therefore, being independent for the time, I was not compelled to accept the first offer, but could wait to make my own terms, which I soon obtained.”

“The great day of appearance arrived. It was a very fine morning, but about noon commenced the first and only real snow storm I had ever seen. It seemed to increase in density as evening approached. About six o’clock while we were at dinner, I had risen from the table several times to look through the blinds, and had seen the snow still coming down, and about knee-deep on the ground—I could not eat, but almost gave way to despair. I said to my wife, “It’s of no use; we might as well give it up, our old fortune pursues us everywhere.” But her cheering smile and words encouraged me. At that moment a knock was heard at the door. It was one of Mr. Tryon’s sons, who came to tell me the house had long been full, and they wished me to come immediately, to commence an hour before the time announced. So I hurried away and found the house crowded in every part, and a thousand persons outside unable to gain admission. Everything went off beautifully; and I received my share of the proceeds at the close of the performance. On my arrival home I counted out before the astonished eyes of my rejoicing partner 300 dollars, or £60 sterling for this first night’s performance in New York.”

“…My next visit was to Boston, Massachusetts, with my old friend Tryon again, at the old Federal Theatre. Here my success was equal to that in New York or Philadelphia. We had only three horses in the establishment, Lady North, Old Mex, and Washington. They belonged to S. B. Howes, and all had the camel itch. Jem Nixon was equestrian manager. To make out our entrees our manager had to hire horses from livery stables, and as there had been a heavy fall of snow, and horses were in great demand for sleighing, we sometimes had to put off our entrees till nearly ten o’clock at night, waiting for the horses’ return from their day’s work. Their legs were hastily washed, and their sweating and stained bodies covered with rich velvet, bedizened with spangles, really cut a very respectable figure.”

See also William Frederick Wallett and John Luntley, The Public Life of W.F. Wallett, the Queen’s Jester: an autobiography of forty years’ professional experience and travels (London: Bemrose and Sons, 1870). Rare Books: Theatre Collection (ThX) GV1811.W2 A2

New Graphic Design Books

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired three small DIY books for graphic design from the 1890s, 1920s, and 1950s. Here are a few samples.

K. Lönberg-Holm (1895-1972) and Ladislav Sutnar, Catalog Design Progress (New York: Sweet’s Catalog Service, 1950). Planned and developed by the research department of Sweet’s Catalog Service. Graphic Arts Collection GA in process

Mark M. Maycock, A Class-Book of Color: including Color Definitions, Color Scaling, and the Harmony of Colors (Springfield, Mass.: Milton Bradley Co., 1895). Graphic Arts Collection GA in process

Making Show Windows Pay: a Self Study Course with Complete Instructions for Making and Arranging Window Displays for Every Occasion (Framingham, Mass.: Window Display Studio of the Dennison Manufacturing Co., 1928). Graphic Arts Collection GA in process

William Henry Jackson

In 1890, Edward Wilson asked the Denver-based photographer William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) for a negative to publish in Wilson’s Photographic Magazine. Instead of one, Jackson sent ten and Wilson printed them all.

In various copies of the April 5 issue (v. 27, no. 367) readers will find ten very different photographs, printed by the Philadelphia studio of Roberts & Fellows. The Princeton University Library copy has “Calle de Guadeloupe. Chinuahua,” showing a pastoral scene with a circle of covered wagons.

Jackson completists will have to also find “A Gen near Caviota, Mexico,” “Lagos. General view, showing the cathedral,” “Lagos, from the river,” “Queretaro Fountain, near the church. Santa Clara,” “Popocatapetl [or Popocatepetl] Mountain, from Tiamacas,” “In the Garden. Santa Barbara Mission,” “The Arizona Garden. Hotel del Monte,” “The Ferns. Hotel del Monte,” and “The Cypresses of Monterey.”

Surprisingly, Princeton also owns a separate print of “Lagos. general view, showing the cathedral” [see below] so we have two of the ten.

The American Coloritype Company

“Learning of Georg Meisenbach’s success with halftone printing in England, [William] Kurtz set out to reproduce the process and in doing so, became one of the United States’ first commercial practitioners of reproducing photographic plates in halftone prints . . . Likewise, when Hermann Wilhelm Vogel’s advances in color photography became known, Kurtz arranged to purchase the American rights to the ‘three-color process’ from Vogel and was able to devise a way to apply it to halftone printing.” (S.H. Horgan, Inland Printer, August 1921)

William Kurtz’s first three-color photoengraving, called a Coloritype, was published in the January 1, 1893, issue of Photographische Mittheilungen, Vogel’s Berlin photography journal. Two months later, the same image was used as a frontispiece of The Engraver & Printer, a small trade publication, which had attempted three-color printing several years earlier (see John Bidwell, “’The Engraver and Printer’, a Boston Trade Journal of the Eighteen Nineties,” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 71, no. 1 (1977): 29-48).

After these two relatively limited uses of the process, Edward Wilson financed the printing of over 6,000 Coloritypes for the May 1893 issue of Wilson’s Photographic Magazine [seen above]. “This illustration,” wrote Horgan, “proved to the whole printing world that reproductions of colors by photography into three half-tone blocks to be printed in colored inks had arrived.”

Contrary to published sources, Kurtz applied for and received a patent on his process (Letters Patent of the U.S. no. 498,396A granted May 30, 1893), but this did little to stop printers and publishers across the country making their own three-color prints.

While Kurtz’s Coloritype Company leased five floors at 32 Lafayette in lower Manhattan, with a public gallery on the ground floor, Gustave Zeese formed the Chicago Colortype Company (dropping the ‘I’ from the name), Julius Regenstein established the Photo Colortype Company, and Frederick Osgood’s Osgood Engraving Company switched to Colortypes. In New York, the Moss Colortype Company did the same but advertised theirs as Moss-types. Kurtz’s $200,000 investment was overwhelmed by it competitors and his company was eventually bought-out, leaving Kurtz bankrupt.

Edward Wilson had for many years been documenting the experiments of Vogel, Kurtz, and others in his monthly magazine. Here is the note he published in the April 1893 issue of Wilson’s Photographic Magazine, describing the history of three-color printing to date.

See also: American Colortype Company. Annual report (Clifton, N.J.: The Company). RECAP HD9729 .A49.

Note: Most of the digital sources of early colortype printing have been reproduced online without color and so, original paper sources must be used for research. See: The Philadelphia Photographer (Philadelphia, Pa.: Benerman & Wilson, 1864-1888). Continued by Wilson’s Photographic Magazine. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2015-0580N and 2007 0008M.

An index to the photographs and early photoengravings published by Wilson is being completed and will be published here soon.

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