Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

Hoppin Sketchbook

Augustus Hoppin (1828-1896), Sketch Book containing pencil and pen and ink drawings. Inscribed: Augs. Hoppin, May 10th, 1866, P.O.W. Killingly, Box no. 73. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Sinclair Hamilton, Class of 1906.

Princeton University Library holds nearly 100 books with plates by Augustus Hoppin (1828-1896). Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Hoppin originally studied for the bar but abandoned the practice for a career as an illustrator.

His work began to appear in magazines in the late 1840s and in books in the early 1850s. It was principally confined to drawings of polite society, which he satirized in an amiable way. Sinclair Hamilton, who collected his work, called the artist the American DuMaurier, after the British illustrator George Du Maurier (1834-1896).

Thanks to Hamilton, we also hold one of Hoppin’s sketchbooks, a few pages of which are posted here.

Here are a few pages of his published wood engravings to compare with his sketches. These are from Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: a Tale of To-Day; fully illustrated from new designs by Hoppin, Stephens, Williams, White, etc., etc. (Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1873). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 897(1)

See also his autobiography: Augustus Hoppin (1828-1896), Recollections of Auton House (Boston; New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1882). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 905. Charles Auton was one of his pseudonyms.

James Franklin, 1717

“To the Impartial reader. Be not discouraged from reading this small treatise, because of the unhappy end of a wearisome pilgrimage, which the author met with in this world; if we get a fall in a journey or meet with a great shower of rain so it be in the close of the day when we are near our inn, where we meet with accommodation and refreshment, we are the less troubled. . . .”

Princeton is fortunate to own several copies of A dying father’s last legacy to an only child: or, Mr. Hugh Peter’s advice to his daughter. Written by his own hand, during his late imprisonment in the tower of London; and given her a little before his death (Boston: printed by B. Green, for Benjamin Eliot, at his shop on the north side of King street, 1717).

Two copies can be found in the Graphic Arts Collection, each with a frontispiece woodcut attributed to James Franklin (1697-1735). Note the differing layout of the two copes (Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton SS 539 and Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 9s).

James Franklin (1697-1735), half-brother of Benjamin Franklin, apprenticed as a printer in London before opening his own press in Boston around 1717. In this same year, A Dying Father’s Last Legacy was published with a woodcut initialed J.F., presumably James Franklin, who had also learned the art of wood cutting while in London.

Franklin went on to publish the influential newspaper New England Courant, with twelve year old Benjamin working as an indentured apprentice in James’ printing shop. It is interesting to note that most indentures ran for seven years, while Benjamin’s term was for nine, with journeyman’s pay only in the final year.

Chris Ware

Story by Chris Ware, functionality by the Guardian Interactive team

Last year, The Guardian began publishing a new graphic novel by the cartoonist Chris Ware. Installment number 48 of The Last Saturday is available at http://gu.com/p/4xcd2/sbl and if you haven’t been following, all the past episodes are also available. Labor Day weekend might be a good time to binge read the entire year’s postings.

September 13, 2015, will either be the beginning of a new year’s story or the end of the book. I don’t believe that has been announced.

The story follows the lives (or life cycles) of six characters, all from the resort community of Sandy Port, Michigan. See details from the first post on the right.

Yankee Notions

The American illustrator John McLenan (1825-1865) moved to New York City in 1851 and within a year sold drawings to illustrate Baynard Rush Hall’s Frank Freeman’s Barber Shop; Sarah Josepha Buell Hale’s, Northwood, or, Life North and South; The Mother’s Pictorial Primer; and An Old Fogies Advice to a Young’un or the Politicians Guide to Office, published by Thomas W. Strong (1817-1892). When Strong began a new humor magazine in 1852 titled Yankee Notions, he hired McLenan to draw most of the caricatures. The journal lasted over fifteen years with a circulation of 47,000 at its height. In 1853 Strong added Young America to his publication list, again employing McLenan as the artist.

Throughout 1852 and all these publications, the young artist experimented with his artistic style and his public persona. For Freeman’s Barber Shop he used a pseudonym, Rush B. Hall, and for each of the caricatures in Yankee Notions, he signed his name with a different signature. See five versions here.

When McLenan died at the young age of 39, Strong praised his friend and colleague in Yankee Notions:

“When an unpretending man of genius passes away, simple and earnest words best befit his memory. Since our last issue, John McLenan, one of the best draughtsmen America has ever produced, has been numbered with the dead. . . .

We call the skillful artist and estimable citizen who has thus suddenly been snatched away, our friend, for the intimacy that existed between us was almost brotherly. . . .Genius rarely remains long unrecognized in this city, and soon after John McLenan took up his abode among us, shrewd publishers and a tasteful public discovered that he was no ordinary draughtsman. Equally at home in caricature and in sketches from the life, with a quick perception of the ridiculous and a fine appreciation of the picturesque, he soon took his place among the illustrators of our current literature, second to none. The Harpers employed him on their Magazine and Weekly, and also in the embellishment of their more permanent works, and his services were in request among other leading publishing houses.

Thus placed on the high road to distinction, the young artist would soon have found it the road to fortune, had not feeble health interfered with the exercise of his professional abilities.

…We miss his frank and hearty daily greeting, his manly candid face, his straightforward simplicity of heart, his trustful confidence in our advice and friendship. True friends are few and far between. They are rarer even than great artists, and John McLenan, in the genuine sense of that much abused word, was our FRIEND.” –IN MEMORIAM, Yankee Notions, May 1, 1865

Yankee-Notions (New York: T. W. Strong, 1853- ) Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize Hamilton SS 521q

Atrocious illustrations, for the purpose of making the enormity more noticeable.

New York Daily Tribune 23 Apr 1856

Transcription: “Benefit of Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P. B. respectfully tendered by himself to himself, in the hope that it will pay his small debts.

Doesticks will sing his new version of the Song of Hiawatha called Plu-ri-bus-Tah: a song that’s by no author, in Niblo’s saloon, some Saturday next year, if in the mean time a large and efficient orchestra of seven hundred persons can be trained to whistle the accompaniment.

Plu-ri-bus-tah, a book making most impertinent mention of a vast number of respectable persons it has no business to say anything about, is a Poem containing several hundred lines more than it ought to, willfully perpetrated with malice aforethought by Q. K. Philander Doesticks P. B., who has been aided and abetted in his intentional wickedness by John McLenan, Who has contributed thereto One hundred and fifty-four atrocious illustrations, for the purpose of making the enormity more noticeable.

The entire Poem has been set to music by the renowned author of “Villikins and his Dinah,” “Bobbin’ Round [Polka],” and our other purely American Operas, and will be sung in three flats, before a New-York audience by Doesticks, the author, who will make his first appearance on the operatic stage.

In order that the people may have ample opportunity to appreciate the pathos, the tenderness, and the inexpressible simplicity of the poetry, the public performance will not take place until considerable time after ten thousand copies have been sold, paid for, and the proceeds spent by the enterprising author.

This work will be issued on the first of May and the American People can gratify themselves, the writer, and the publisher, by making immediate application for early copies, for which they will be charged one dollar each.

To guard against speculators, no more copies will be sold to any one man than he can pay for. To avoid confusion in the tremendous rush for copies, wagons will enter the store at the Broadway entrance and having received their loads, will depart by the rear door. Handcarts and wheelbarrows not admitted. Apply at the box office of Livermore & Rudd, 310 Broadway.”

Q. K. Philander Doesticks (Mortimer Thomson, 1831-1875), Plu-ri-bus-tah. A song that’s by no author (New York: Livermore & Rudd, 1856). Comic history of the United States written in the style of Longfellow’s Hiawatha, Contains numerous illustrations, mostly in silhouette by John McLenan, engraved on wood by N.Orr, & Co. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1063

See also Q. K. Philander Doesticks (Mortimer Thomson, 1831-1875), Doesticks: what he says (New York: Edward Livermore, 1855). 8 full page illustrations by John McLenan, engraved on wood by N. Orr and S.P. Avery. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1054

The Visible World

Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1670). Joh. Amos Comenii Orbis sensualium pictus quadrilinguis, hoc est, Omnium fundamentalium in mundo rerum … ([Nuremberg]: Sumtibus Michaelis & Joh. Friderici Endterorum, 1679). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2004-3340N

Princeton University library holds over 40 copies of various editions of the children’s picture book by Johann Comenius, The Visible World, A Nomenclature and Pictures of all the chief things that are in the world, and of men’s employments.

This one from the Graphic Arts Collection includes 156 woodcuts repeated from the 1658 edition, designed by Paul Kreutzberger (active 1647, died ca. 1660) and printed by Michael Endter.

The author’s preface offers: “See here then a new help for schools . . . Which, that you, good Masters, may not be loath to run over with your scholars, I will tell you, in short, what good you may expect from it.”

“It is a little Book, as you see, of no great bulk, yet a brief of the whole world, and a whole language: full of Pictures, Nomenclatures, and Descriptions of things.
I. The Pictures are the representation of all visible things, (to which also things invisible are reduced after their fashion) of the whole world. And that in that very order of things, in which they are described in the Janua Latinæ Linguæ; and with that fulness, that nothing very necessary or of great concernment is omitted.

II. The Nomenclatures are the Inscriptions, or Titles set every one over their own Pictures, expressing the whole thing by its own general term.

III. The Descriptions are the explications of the parts of the Picture, so expressed by their own proper terms, as that same figure which is added to every piece of the picture, and the term of it, always sheweth what things belongeth one to another.” –The Author’s Preface to the Reader.

Chapter 39 features a representation of Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of Man: A man is first an Infant; then a child; then a Boy; then a Youth; Adolescent; a young Man; then a Man; an elderly Man; and, at last, a decrepit old Man.

Chapter 120 describes Married Persons, (by the blessing of God) have Issue and become Parents. The Father, 1. Begetteth, and the Mother, 2. Beareth Sons, 3. and Daughters, 4, (sometimes Twins). It is interesting that the father is depicted as a painter.

A Lonely Chrysanthemum, a 17th-century novel

一本菊 [Hitomotogiku = A Single or Lonely Chrysanthemum] ([Kyoto]: Nishida Katsubē, 1660). 3 volumes with woodblock print illustrations. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

“Hitomotogiku (A Single Chrysanthemum) a tale of the nobility in the form of a Nara picture book, recounts (like many otogi-zoshi about the nobility) the cruelties of a wicked stepmother; but it is unusual in that there are two victims, a brother and a sister, rather than a single Cinderella in the tradition of the stepmother stories of the Heian and Kamakura periods.

The boy (like Genji) is exiled, and the girl (like Ochikubo) is shut up in a wretched house, but despite these Heian touches, the work betrays its Muromachi origins in such passages as the account of a pilgrimage to Kiyomizu-dera, another temple sacred to Kannon.

Worship of Kannon was certainly not new, but during the Muromachi period pilgrimages to the thirty-three temples sacred to Kannon became a craze.” –Donald Keene, Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from earliest times to the late sixteenth century (New York: Holt & Co., 1993): 1096.

First Edo Guidebook, 1677

江戶雀 : 12卷 [Edo suzume: 12-kan]. Authors include Entsu Chikayuki, among many others. Woodblock prints painted by Hishikawa Moronobu (ca. 1620-1694) (Edo: Tsuruya Kiemon, 1677). 12 volumes, 35 woodblock prints. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process.

A reminder: this is printed from a hand cut woodblock.

“The Edo Suzume (Sparrows) was the first periodical published in the Edo period. It was compiled from practical guides to famous places in Edo and in the final section it lists up all the Daimyō residences, shrines and temples, neighborhoods and bridges with the explanation that it intended to summarize the area covering approximately 12km in every direction. It forms together with the guides of Kyoto and Osaka (Namba), the Three Suzume.” –Tokyo Metropolitan Library http://www.library.metro.tokyo.jp/portals/0/edo/tokyo_library/english/modal/index.html?d=59

“This is considered to be the earliest Edo periodical and was authored and published by Edo residents and it is also highly rated as a picture book containing illustrations by Moronobu Hishikawa who is considered to be the founder of Ukiyo-e paintings. At the introduction, it says that practical guides to famous local places, historic sites, temples and shrines were provided for the benefit of those who came to Edo from their home regions. The city center is divided by direction and each one is depicted in great detail from Daimyō residences, shrines and temples and famous historic sites all the way to streets and houses allowing us to know how to reach there.”

edo suzume2

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book (London, 1987). (GARF) Oversize NC991 .H55q

Chronicles of the Bastile Returns

Louis Alexis Chamerovzow (1816-1875), Chronicles of the Bastile. First series, Bertaudière: an historical romance (London: T.C. Newby, 1845). 20 parts in 19; 40 steel engravings by Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856). Original parts in the original blue printed wrappers, enclosed in a blue levant case; very rare in this state. Issued from January 1844 to July 1845 the front cover of each wrapper being dated. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Cruik 1845 Robert
During our recent move, a number of items were found that had been recorded as missing for many years, this copy of the Chronicles of the Bastile among them.

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Louis Alexis Chamerovzow was an anti-slavery campaigner and author. He studied at the Sorbonne and for some time was employed as an English tutor at the Collège Henri Quatre in Paris . . . . “Chamerovzow tried to make a living from writing, and the first volume of a historical romance he had begun while in Paris was published anonymously early in 1844. Part an intended series, Chronicles of the Bastile, The Bertaudière purported to share the secrets imparted to the author by an old Parisian just before he died.

Chamerovzow’s agreement with the publisher T. C. Newby gave him initially little by way of royalties, and in October 1845 he made an application for assistance from the Royal Literary Fund, which awarded him £30 to tide him over until he could obtain a secretaryship, which he had been promised. The Bastille series, illustrated by Robert Cruikshank, was continued in The Embassy, or, The Key to a Mystery (1845) and concluded with Philip of Lutetia, or, The Revolution of 1789 (1848). The latter book appeared opportunely as a new revolution unfolded in France, and Napoleon III’s rise to power that year gave him the topic of his final published romance, The Man of Destiny (1860).” http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/101107?docPos=1

Grandma’s Kitchen

Wanda Gag (1893-1946), Grandma’s Kitchen, 1931. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00407.

Minnesota-born Wanda Gág was a struggling young artist when Carl Zigrosser gave her a one-woman-show in his Weyhe Gallery in 1926. The Greenwich Village feminist was also outspoken about women’s rights and published an article stating her views in Nation magazine on June 22, 1927. “These Modern Women: A Hotbed of Feminists” began with an editorial note, “We print herewith the seventeenth and last of a series of anonymous articles giving the personal backgrounds of a group of distinguished women with a modern point of view.”

Ernestine Evans at Coward-McCann Books saw the article and liked both her politics and her art. She offered Gág the possibility of doing a children’s book with their firm and Gág delivered Millions of Cats in 1928 (which is still in print today). The book won a Newbery honor award the following year and led to a series of lithographs, loosely based on the premise. One of them made its way into Elmer Adler’s collection and was circulated at Princeton University as part of our Princeton Print Club exchange in the 1940s.

Wanda Gág (1893-1946), Millions of cats (New York: Coward-McCann, inc., 1938, c1928). Gift of Frank J. Mather, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2003-0111N.

Wanda Gág (1893-1946), Millions of cats (New York, Coward-McCann, 1928). Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) Eng 20 94934

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