Category Archives: Books

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“May-Day in London” by William Blake

William Blake (1757-1827) after Samuel Collings (active 1784-1795), May-Day in London. Folding frontispiece to the v.1, May 1, 1784 issue of Wit’s Magazine (London, 1784). Etching. Also published as an individual print dated June 1, 1784 by Harrison and Company, London.


Happy May Day.

One of the best-loved prints to celebrate this festive day is William Blake’s etching “May-Day in London” commissioned for the frontispiece in the May 1, 1784 issue of The Wit’s Magazine; or, Library of Momus. Being a compleat repository of mirth, humour, and entertainment… , edited by Thomas Holcroft (London, Printed for Harrison and Co., 1784-84). Rare Books 0901.981 v.1-2.

There are numerous folding plates throughout the magazine’s run, five etched by Blake; one after a design by Thomas Stothard and four after designs by Samuel Collings. The print is announced on the title page: “with a large quarto engraving representing a curious description of May-Day in London, as mentioned in Sammy Sarcasm’s Epistle to his Aunt; designed by Mr S. Collings and engraved by Mr. W. Blake purposely for this work.

While Princeton University Library has a beautiful set of Wit’s Magazine with all the original Blakes bound in, there is no access to the paper issue this week. Several digital surrogates are offered by our online catalogue but they present the reader with this unfortunate image [below], not much good for study or entertainment. The digital image at the top is from the National Gallery of Art.

https://access-newspaperarchive-com.ezproxy.princeton.edu/uk/middlesex/london/wits-magazine/

Blake’s prints appear in successive issues from February to May 1784 and show an uncharacteristic side of the artist’s talent. In the study “Puzzling the Reader,” Gregg Hecimovich points out that,

“The Wit’s Magazine represents the first known contact between [Thomas] Holcroft and Blake, and it was from about this time that Blake began to move in the circle of radicals, including Godwin, Wollstonecraft, and Horne Tooke, in which Holcroft figured so prominently. Although Blake had been employed to engrave illustrations for publications such as the Novelist’s Magazine, it seems clear that his connection with the Wit’s Magazine was through Holcroft. Blake’s friend Thomas Stothard designed the illustration for the first issue but, despite the replacement of Stothard with Samuel Collings, Blake stayed on as engraver until just after Holcroft resigned as editor in May 1784. For Blake, who had recently married and established a household independent of his father, such commissions provided much-needed income, but he probably also felt the attraction of working with the dynamic and provocative Holcroft.” –Gregg A. Hecimovich, Puzzling the Reader: Riddles in Nineteenth-century British Literature (2008): 32.

This frontispiece (often rebound next to the poem in section two) presents a busy London street on May-Day with milkmaids, chimney sweepers, a violinist, and others. Notice that the violinist has a wooden leg. Unlike many pastoral scenes, Collings’ design and Blake’s rendering feature an underprivileged population of London rather than the beautiful people.

Hecimovich calls this the most powerful of all Blake’s contributions to Wit’s Magazine. He writes, “…the traditional May-Day festivities are inverted into a sordid anti-pastoral. Beneath a maypole hung not with flowers but with dirty pots and pans, a crippled one-eyed fiddler plays for drunken clergymen, lascivious milkmaids, child-age chimney sweeps, and assorted other street people.”

He goes on to question whether or not there was a direct influence on later Blake poems such as The Chimney Sweep and London, commenting that this is “perhaps the earliest instance of Blake’s exploring and depicting through the new verbal and pictorial mediums the degeneracy of urban London life.”

 

Blake aside, Samuel Collings was a interesting amateur draughtsman, caricaturist, and genre painter who remains understudied by art historians. He  mainly worked in London, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1784-89. He received commissions from The Bon-Ton Magazine in the 1790s as well as The Wit’s Magazine and others. Collings may have used the pseudonym Annibal Scratch and others, leaving good work without attribution. Princeton holds a unique portfolio of Thomas Rowlandson etchings after drawings by Collings, commissioned by the Marylebone publisher E. Jackson to illustrate Boswell’s Tour to the Hebrides. See more: https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2012/09/the_journey_of_dr_johnson_and.html

Bard of the Barges, Garbageman Poet

John Herman Kepecs (May 20, 1897-December 21, 1981) arrived in the United States in 1922 from Pécs, Hungary. The trained sailor found work with the New York City Department of Sanitation first as a Captain on a garbage scow and eventually Deputy Inspector of the entire fleet. He also wrote poetry under the pen name John Cabbage, chosen because his Hungarian name sounded like ‘cabbage’ when New Yorkers tried to pronounce it.

 

“Garbage Scow Sailor Bursts Out Into Verse” announced the New York Sun March 13, 1932:

Meet John Cabbage, garbage scow sailor and poet, author of more than 1,000 verses and of a new volume, just published called “8 Bells.” Mr. Cabbage goes down to the sea in the scows that bury New York’s waste beneath the clean waters of the Atlantic. When that task is accomplished, Mr. Cabbage sits on the stern with ruled notepaper and a pencil, and meditates upon life. One of his effusions goes like this: Mr. Cabbage’s most persistent resolution is to save enough money to fit out a schooner and go to the south seas where he can sit on a beach instead of a scow, and listen to the wild waves. The sailor-poet’s latest book is dedicated “to ships and shipmates who rest in the deep, and woman whose love I could not keep.”

Three volumes of Cabbage’s poetry were printed and published by the Greenwich Village bohemian Lew Ney (Luther E. Widen, 1886-1963) at his Parnassus press on 15th Street (later Brooklyn Heights) including 8 Bells (1932); Down the Dock (1937); and Time and Tide (1938). Lew Ney was the first to draw national attention to Cabbage in 1927 through his weekly column “Greenwich Village As IZ” in Variety, proclaiming that Cabbage would be internationally famous in twenty years.

Cabbage was an original member of the Raven Poetry Circle when it was formed in May 1933 (see the film Joe Gould’s Secret for a typical meeting). The group is remembered for their annual spring exhibition of handwritten poems mounted to the fence around Washington Square Park and Cabbage was often highlighted because of his unusual occupation. “Mere rhymers, wise-cracking doggereleers and other nuts are positively not welcome, and our only word to them is ‘Scram!'”

On the left, we see Cabbage with his work against the Judson Church building across from the park. His poems also appeared in the Raven Anthology 1933-1947, a quarterly magazine of members. “Poets of Village Get Day in the Sun,” announced the New York Times May 22, 1933:

Beneath a benign, approving sun the poets of Greenwich village flooded into a half-block of Washington square south yesterday, tacked their work upon a board fence and invited the passing public to read and buy. A good deal of reading and some buying was in progress until the sun disappeared. It was the beginning of poetry week, and it probably will go down in the village’s history, if and when written, as the first sidewalk poetry show.

From its beggining, Chumley’s restaurant, a Greenwich Village icon, featured book jackets for publications by local authors. They describe the series: “The authors ranged from Theodore Dreiser to John Cabbage, the poet of the garbage scow.”

In 1937, possibly inspired by Francis Alexander Durivage’s novel Mike Martin or, The last of the highwaymen. A romance of reality (1845), Cabbage traveled to California to sell his novel, also titled “Mike Martin” to Hollywood. The press loved the story of a garbage poet hoping for fame in the movies and the story appeared in newspapers across the country.

“John Cabbage the ‘Bard of the Barges’ today offered to sell the movies a story that reaches its climax with the boy and girl honeymooning on a garbage scow. Cabbage, deputy inspector of the department of sanitation dumps in New York, is on 90 days leave from his job of supervising the loading of the garbage fleet.

“Mike Martin” that’s the novel he is peddling to movie producers –is his third volume. He published two books of verse. Let the other poets write of lilies of the valley. Cabbage born John Koppecs 38 years ago in Hungary, take his themes from a discarded top hat, banana peels, coffee ground, an old dance slipper. He imagines perhaps the hat and slipper danced together. ‘Go’ he says ‘go get your song where life and love are cheap. I shall wait till they reach the heap.”

 


“You may not believe it, but his name is John Cabbage. He works on a garbage scow—and writes poetry. John is ‘captain’ of Scow F of the Street Cleaning department of the city of New York He likes his unlovely but necessary job because it provides him with more leisure and privacy to write than he used to experience on freighters. Every afternoon at a time which varies according to the tide John makes his scow shipshape at the city dump in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. …The trip is a long, slow one. When darkness comes a blog of light appears on the end of each scow and three highpoints glow in the shape of a cross on the tug ahead. If the water is rough when the open ocean is reached there may be hard work in keeping the tow intact. Otherwise there is little to do but watch the receding harbor “with a thousand little stars abreast” as John puts it.– “Men, Things, and Places: In the Mud and Scum of Things” The New York Sun, February 21, 1930.

 

Sequestered in 1767

https://dpul.princeton.edu/ga_treasures/catalog/9593tz72p
The History of the Holy Jesus … Being a pleasant and profitable Companion for Children : composed on Purpose for their Use. By a Lover of their precious Souls. 15th edition (Boston: Printed by I. Thomas, for Z. Fowle, [1767?]). Graphic Arts Collection Sinclair Hamilton 68 (2) s

The History of the Holy Jesus: containing a brief and plain account of his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascention into heaven : and his coming again at the great and last Day of Judgment : being a pleasant and profitable companion for children : compos’d on purpose for their use / by a lover of their precious souls. Sixth edition (Boston: Printed by J. Bushell and J. Green, 1749). Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 28s

 

The Sinclair Hamilton Collection has six editions of The History of the Holy Jesus, 1749: Hamilton 28s; 1749: Hamilton 1311(1)s; 1767: Hamilton 68(2)s; 1774: Hamilton 68(1)s; 1779: Hamilton 88s; and 1958 (1746): Hamilton 1311(2)s. According to Hamilton, the 4th edition, published by D. Gookin in Boston in 1747 was the earliest American edition of this book, with similar plates in the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions attributed to James Turner (1721-1759?). Turner is best known for “Join or Die” the snake representing the early American states commissioned by Benjamin Franklin (See: Karen Severud Cook, “Benjamin Franklin and the Snake That Would Not Die,” The British Library Journal 22, no. 1 (spring 1996)).

Later on the Boston printer Zechariah Fowle (1724-1776) published several editions of this book with illustrations recut by young Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831). Hamilton notes “Certain of the cuts in these two edition of 1766 and 1767 appear to have been re-engraved from those which James Turner may have made for the earlier edition…. All of these are in reverse form the earlier cuts and are of poorer workmanship than the originals. Some changes have been introduced such as … in the cut of the prodigal son the number of swine has been reduced from two to one. There is also a small cut of a three-masted square rigger, presumably representing the ship which figured in the miraculous draught of fishes, which may have been copied but not in reverse, from the more elaborate cut of a ship, proudly flying what looks very much like the English flag, in the earlier editions.”

Besides the changes in cuts, Princeton’s 1767? volume has a unique hand painted paper wrapper with the design continued on the back. This copy is missing pages 1-10 and 41-45 but the rest is usable and a great comparison with the earlier cuts.

Left: 15th edition 1767?  Right: 6th edition 1749

 

15 edition, 1767? above

6th edition 1749 below

6th edition 1749, not in later editions

6th edition 1749 above

15th edition 1767? below

15th edition 1767? not in earlier editions

 

15th edition 1767? above

6th edition 1749 below

 

 

Above: 15th edition 1767?    Below: 6th edition 1749

See another copy: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2017/09/29/being-a-pleasant-and-profitable-companion-for-children/

 

 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Are you following the Ancient Mariner Big Read presented by The Arts Institute at the University of Plymouth plymouth.ac.uk/arts-institute; an inclusive, immersive work of audio and visual art, commissioned by @theaiplym @plymuni #marinerbigread www.ancientmarinerbigread.com? Readers include Simon Armitage, the 2019 Holmes Visiting Professor and Poet at Princeton University.


https://www.ancientmarinerbigread.com/reading/

The readers and artists:

No.1, Reader Jeremy Irons, Artist Glenn Brown “The Shallow End,” Oil on panel (oval)

No.2, Reader Jeanette Winterson, Artist Lisa Wright “Lucent Blue,” Oil on canvas

No.3, Reader Samuel West, Artist Ackroyd + Harvey, “Storm Drawings” Luminescent paint on card

No.4, Reader Peter Wilson, Artist Peter Wilson, “Polar guide” Filmed + recorded by Eric Wehrmeister, Point Wild, Antarctica

No.5, Reader Willem Dafoe, Artist Gordon Cheung, “Albatross Glitch”

No.6, Reader Hilary Mantel, Artist Linder “Post-Mortem: Yura” Photomontage

No.7, Reader Simon Armitage, Artist Sarah Chapman “Immersion” Photograph, oil + ceramic on aluminium

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
‘There was a ship,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Plymouth students write: “Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born 21 October 1772, at Ottery St Mary, Devon, where his father was the vicar. As a young man at Jesus College, Cambridge, he won a prize for his poem protesting the slave trade, and briefly absconded to enlist in the dragoons under the alias, Silas Tomkyn Comberbache; he spent most of his time falling off his horse and was officially discharged for being ‘insane’. After leaving Cambridge he and Robert Southey tried to set up a utopian settlement in Pennsylvania, but this faltered. He married Sara Fricker in Bristol in 1795, and became close friends with William and Dorothy Wordsworth.”

 

 

First published in 1798 – we [University of Plymouth] use Coleridge’s revised version of 1817 – but still vitally relevant today, it is no coincidence, perhaps, that this poem is the first great work of English literature to speak to isolation and loneliness – and the possibility of redemption if we mend our ways. Three years in the making, drawing on the talents of actors, artists, performers, poets, and writers, The Ancient Mariner Big Read is a brand-new digital work of art in its own right – a wild and tempestuous voyage into the unknown.

 

See also the short silent film by Abishek Daniel Chawla:

See also this version using images from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated by Gustave Doré (London: Doré Gallery, 1876). Graphic Arts Collection GAX Over 2006-0220F; more about that edition here: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2016/03/02/coleridge-and-dore/


Ricky Jay’s Magic Magic Book

Ricky Jay (1946-2018), The Magic Magic Book: an inquiry into the venerable history & operation of the oldest trick conjuring volumes, designated ‘blow books’… / adorned with original renderings from the ateliers of these esteemed delineators of artistic impression, Vija Celmins, Jane Hammond, Glenn Ligon, Justen Ladda, Philip Taaffe, William Wegman ; embellished with ancient iconography from the collection of the author of this curious compendium, Ricky Jay (New York: Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994). Copy 247 of 300. 2 volumes. Special Collections GAX GV1559 .J39


“The edition is three hundred copies, numbered one to three hundred. Ninety copies are reserved for the collaborators and sixty are reserved for the members of the Library Fellows. The first eighty copies are accompanied by an additional suite of prints.”–colophon

“The text volume was designed by Patrick Reagh and Ricky Jay and edited by Susan Green; the blow book was designed by Patrick Reagh, Ricky Jay, and Leslie Miller, with May Castleberry.”–colophon

 

 

Beginning in 1990, Jay spent four years working with May Castleberry, then at the Whitney Museum of American Art, on a two-volume set called The Magic Magic Book. One volume presents Jay’s historical essay on the magician’s conjuring book known as a “blow book,” and the second volume is a blow book using images from contemporary American artists including Vija Celmins, Jane Hammond, Glenn Ligon, Philip Taaffe, and William Wegman.


Blow books have special manipulatable tabs that make the content of the book appear to change. Each time the magician flips through the book the contents appear different. “With a flick of the finger, the performer can make a range of images appear and then disappear.” Here is a twitter video of Brandon Sheffield flipping through the Magic Magic Book: https://twitter.com/i/status/1080186210625249281

 

Some sources list the earliest known mention of the blow book as by Gerolamo Cardano in 1550, who described the trick by mentioning “conjurors show different and always unlike pictures in one and the same book.” Another early mention is by Reginald Scot in his book The Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in 1584.


In 2014, Ricky Jay appear at the New York Public Library’s “Live at the NYPL” series to talk about The Magic Magic Book. Although a video of the 1 ½ hour conversation is not available, there is an audio recording and a complete transcription: https://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/ricky-jay. Jay comments,

“I had been researching for some years the history of something called the blow book, which was the oldest trick book in the world. It’s more of a prop than an actual book and there had never been a history of it. And if you can see this this is just the title page announcing that this is a history of The Magic Magic Book and it was called the blow book, because whoever blew on the pages was able to make the images on the pages change I think the quote was “many several ways.” And this particular book was a collaboration with a number of well-known modern artists, Vija Celmins, Jane Hammond, Glenn Ligon, Justen Ladda, who made this beautiful case, Philip Taaffe, and William Wegman.

And so I visited the studios of these artists with May Castleberry to talk about images they had that might have to do with magic, but basically this first volume was a history of how these blow books had been made and used going back to the sixteenth century and the two major sixteenth-century books on magic, Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft in England and Jean Prévost’s wonderful working book of magic in French, both published in 1584, both have explanations of the making and presentation of this thing called a blow book, and they’re completely different, which is interesting, and then the blow book that we have from the New York Public Library that I’ll show you in a minute is also slightly different, and so we decided to re-create a blow book, and we literally made this. I daresay this was the greatest miscalculation of time in my life because this took an enormous amount of time to do as a pro bono job, but I’m incredibly proud of it.

…And it was performed—in this history of the blow book, I talk about it being performed by magicians for years. At times it was an incredibly cherished, very expensive item in their repertoire. Certainly that was true in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. By the early nineteenth century, magicians often sold them after their shows, as a prop and also as a trick to garner money for the magicians and a little bit of publicity. But when I wrote the book, the earliest blow book extant was a seventeenth-century book probably printed in Belgium, completely manuscript. And, if you recall, the last thing I flipped through were a series of devils. They came from that book….”

See also: Reginald Scot (1538?-1599), The Discouerie of Witchcraft, Wherein the Lewde Dealing of Witches and Witchmongers is Notablie Detected…Heerevnto is Added a Treatise Vpon the Nature and Substance of Spirits and Diuels, etc.: all latelie written by Reginald Scot ([London, William Brome] 1584). Rare Books GR535.S41

See also: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2017/10/31/bilder-zauberei/

See also: https://rickyjay.com/

 

 

Need a Project, no. 7? 1626

What happened in 1626 to account for the surge in usage of the word “editor”?

This blog has no editor, other than valued friends and colleagues who catch the many typos and write to me, much as Titus Pomponius Atticus (ca. 110-32 BCE) wrote to his friend Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) to suggest corrections and edits. As part of a search for early professional editors of modern printed books, a Googlebooks Ngram search led to this odd phenomenon (similar searches in German, French, and Spanish are completely different). What happened in 1626 to account for the surge in usage of the word “editor”?


Might it have something to do with Samuel Purchas’s magnum opus: Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, London, 1625 and the obituaries for the author the following year? https://doi-org.ezproxy.princeton.edu/10.1093/ref:odnb/22898

 

Samuel Purchas (1577?-1626), Purchas his pilgrimes: in five books. The first, contayning the voyages and peregrinations made by ancient kings, patriarkes, apostles, philosophers, and others, to and thorow the remoter parts of the knowne world: enquiries also of languages and religions, especially of the modernediuersified professions of Christianitie. … (London: Printed by William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-hard at the signe of the Rose, 1625-[1626]). RB Oversize 1007.741.2q; EXKA Oversize Americana 1625q; and Scheide Library 25.1

 

 

 

Or rather is it something to do with Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban (1561–1626)?
https://doi-org.ezproxy.princeton.edu/10.1093/ref:odnb/990

A note in the DNB mentions “…many of those contemporaries who knew Bacon more intimately depicted his personality and character in highly positive terms. William Rawley compiled and published a commemorative volume in Bacon’s honour in 1626. The volume contained thirty-two Latin poems in his praise. These poems called Bacon ‘the very nerve of genius’ and ‘the greatest philosopher since the fall of Greece’ (Mathews, 7). But those who thought highly of Bacon admired his moral and personal traits as well as his intellectual powers. Ben Jonson called Bacon:

one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that hath been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength … knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.”

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Sylva sylvarum, or, A naturall history in ten centuries / written by the Right Honble. Francis Lo Verulam Viscount St. Alban; published after the authors death by William Rawley (London: Printed by J.H. for W. Lee …, 1626). RB 2016-0005Q. Frontispiece by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677).

Title-page to Francis Bacon, ‘Sylva sylvarum or a Natural History in ten centuries’ (London, W. Lee, 1651); two fluted columns with decorated capitals, between which a globe lettered ‘Mundus Intellectualis’; in the background, the sea; above, the sun and rays, two cherubim, a tetragrammaton, and the lettering ‘Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona’. 1627 Engraving–British Museum

Write if you have a better answer: jmellby@princeton.edu and it will be posted.

 

How to improve the world (you will only make matters worse)


Five hours of John Cage reading from his Diary: How to Improve the World (You will Only Make Matters Worse) are posted at UbuWeb, Sound: http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage_diary.html. “Recorded June 22-24, 1991 at Powerplay Recording Studios, Maur, Switzerland. During the recording in the studio each change of typography in the printed text of the “Diary” corresponded to a change in the stereophonic position and a simultaneous change in the volume of John Cage’s voice.”

In 1990, John Cage (1912-1992) wrote an autobiographical statement that ran several pages in length. Here is a section that concerns his Diary:

“In the sixties the publication of both my music and my writings began. Whatever I do in the society is made available for use. An experience I had in Hawaii turned my attention to the work of Buckminster Fuller and the work of Marshall McLuhan. Above the tunnel that connects the southern part of Oahu with the northern there are crenellations at the top of the mountain range as on a medieval castle. When I asked about them, I was told they had been used for self protection while shooting poisoned arrows on the enemy below. Now both sides share the same utilities. Little more than a hundred years ago the island was a battlefield divided by a mountain range. Fuller’s world map shows that we live on a single island. Global Village (McLuhan), Spaceship Earth (Fuller). Make an equation between human needs and world resources (Fuller). I began my Diary: How to Improve the World: You Will Only Make Matters Worse. Mother said, “How dare you!

I don’t know when it began. But at Edwin Denby’s loft on 21st Street, not at the time but about the place, I wrote my first mesostic. It was a regular paragraph with the letters of his name capitalized. Since then I have written them as poems, the capitals going down the middle, to celebrate whatever, to support whatever, to fulfill requests, to initiate my thinking or my nonthinking (Themes and Variations is the first of a series of mesostic works: to find a way of writing that, though coming from ideas, is not about them but produces them). I have found a variety of ways of writing mesostics: Writings through a source: Rengas (a mix of a plurality of source mesostics), autokus, mesostics limited to the words of the mesostic itself, and “globally,” letting the words come from here and there through chance operations in a source text.”


The first installment of his Diary appeared in Clark Coolidge’s magazine Joglars 1, no. 3 (1966) p. 61-68 (Online and RCPXR-8000253) and reprinted in Aspen magazine the following year. The second installment was published in the Paris Review 11, issue 40 (Winter/Spring 1967): 52-68 (online and recap AP4 .P375). All were printed with black type on white paper using only one font regular, bold, and italic. When the text appear in its own publication in the Great Bear Pamphlet series Cage added additional fonts and colors. These three were republished in A Year from Monday (1967) as installment four and so on, through nine differing installments. Here are pdf files of three versions: cage5, cage2, cage

Paris Review added a preface: “This article presents a piece of writing by John Cage titled “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)” which consists of seventeen pages filled with seemingly unrelated sentences strung together in a variety of typefaces. Topics mentioned include chess, aquariums, rock and roll radio, conscientious objectors, bodhisattvas, eugenics, clams, marijuana, Abraham Lincoln, “Love’s Body,” cacti, mushrooms, drugs, garbage cans, LSD, the gold standard, Marcel Duchamp, cows and television.”

The most recent installment from Siglio Press in 2019 is an expanded paperback edition reproducing the 2015 hardcover edition of Parts I-VIII along with previously unpublished material from Cage’s incomplete Part IX. Holland Cotter reviewed the new edition for the New York Times stating, “Over sixteen years, beginning in 1965, John Cage compiled anecdotes, observations and koanlike tales, originally typing everything on an IBM Selectric and using chance methods to determine the formatting of texts that twist down each page. The Siglio [hardcover] edition preserves the graphic effects, but, more important, it gives a sense of the company he kept during these years—Marcel Duchamp, R. Buckminster Fuiller, D.T. Suzuki—and of his passionate feeling about a world locked in a state of perpetual warfare. Cage has a reputation for being a Zen-inspired wit. He was also much more, an intensely engaged moral thinker.”

John Cage (1912-1992), Diary: how to improve the world (you will only make matters worse) Continued, part three, 1967 (W. Glover, Vt.: Something Else Press, 1967). Graphic Arts Collection 2006-1991N and recap-92727500. Gift of James Welling, 2019.

Alfred Döblin’s “Das Stiftsfräulein und der Tod”

Alfred Döblin (1878-1957) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), Das Stiftsfräulein und der Tod: eine Novelle (=The Canoness and Death) (Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer; printed by Paul Knorr, 1913). Five woodcuts. Graphic Arts Collection 2007-0658N.

As a student, Alfred Richard Meyer (1882-1956) made the unusual switch from the study of law to literature and philosophy. He moved to Berlin and joined a circle of intellectuals developing radical new forms of music, theater, painting, and poetry, later known as German Expressionism. Initially Meyer found work at the Otto Janke publishing house and wrote for the Berliner Neueste Nachrichten and the Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung but in 1907 he formed his own publishing company: Alfred Richard Meyer Verlag, Berlin Wilmersdorf.


Years later, Meyer remembered, “It is impossible to imagine our excitement in the evening, when at the Café des Westens or sitting out on the street in front of Gerold’s, at the Gedächtniskirche, we waited for Sturm or Aktion [to appear]. Who was in, who out? The stock market reports were not interesting. We ourselves were the quotations. Who was this new star?”—Stanley Corngold, Franz Kafka (2018).

Meyer launched a series a small but seminal publications under the title: Lyrische Flugblätter (Lyrical leaflets) including some of the most important authors of the expressionist period. One of these, Alfred Döblin’s novella Das Stiftsfräulein und der Tod was also the first book that Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) illustrated.

“Kirchner had met Döblin in Berlin in 1912 through Herwarth Walden, the publisher of the avantgarde periodical Der Sturm. Döblin was a psychiatrist by profession but would go on to become one of the most successful writers of the Weimar Republic, best known for his 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz.” https://www.moma.org/collection/works/107155

Like Meyer, Kirchner was drawn to Berlin, together with his own circle of artists known as Die Brücke. Around 1912, the group was quarreling (more than usual) and Kirchner looking for other outlets, when he met Alfred Döblin and painted several portraits of the author. They also worked together on a short story about an elderly women living an isolated, monastic life who becomes convinced that she was about to die. Over a tortured few days, her fear increases until “One night, death brutally climbs into her bed and forcibly grabs her body. Her lips were begging. A gag came. The tongue fell back into the throat. She stretched. Then Death got up and pulled the Missus out of the window by her cold hands behind her.”

Among the “Lyrische Flugblätter” series held at Princeton University Library are:

1. Hebräische Balladen / von Else Lasker-Schüler. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, [between 1900 and 1999]

2. Ahrenshooper Abende: fünf lyrische Pastelle / von Alfred Richard Meyer. Berlin: Privatdruck der Verfassers, 1907. Cover image by Richard Scheibe.

3. Fünf Gedichte / Heinrich Lautensack. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1907.

4. Sechs Sonette: Städte und Menschen / Sophie Hoechstetter. Berlin: A.R. Meyer, 1907.

5. Stella mystica: Traum eines Toren / Hans Carossa; Leo Greiner zugeeignet. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1907.

6. Verse / Toni Schwabe. Berlin: A.R. Meyer, 1907.

7. Fünf Gedichte / Ernst Bartels. Berlin: A.R. Meyer, 1907.

8. Jud und Christ, Christ und Jud: ein poetisches Flugblatt / von Heinrich Lautensack. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1908.

9. Lieder der Liebe / von Edmund Harst. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1908.

10. Lieder eines Knaben / Hans Brandenburg. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1908.

11. Rote Nacht: Ballade / von Waldemar Bonsels; für Detlev von Liliencron. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1908.

12. Von einer Toten: Herrn und Frau Karl Wolfskehl in Verehrung / Maximilian Brantl. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1908.

13. Das frühe Geläut: Gedichte / von Paul Zech, Christ. Gruenewald-Bonn, L. Fahrenkrog, Julius August Vetter. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1910.

14. Nasciturs: ein lyrisches Flugblatt / von Alfred Richard Meyer. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1910.

15.Wir alarmieren uns: lyrische Funksprüche / von Fritz Wilhelm Schönfeld ; [den Titel zeichnete Bruno Krauskopf]. Berlin: A.R. Meyer, 1910.

16. Felix und Galathea / Frank Wedekind. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1911.

17. Die frühe Ernte: Gedichte / von Christian Gruenewald-Bonn. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1911.

18. Kleine Balladen / von Leo Sternberg. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1911.

19. Das Schlafzimmer: ein neues poetisches Flugblatt / von Heinrich Lautensack.
Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, [1911?]

20. Ailleurs / Léon Deubel. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1912.

21. Ballhaus: ein lyrisches Flugblatt / von Ernst Blass … [et al.]; mit einem Prolog von Rudolf Kurtz und einem Titelblatt von Walter Roessner. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, [1912]

22. Entelechieen / von Paul Paquita. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1912.

23. Die Dämmerung: Gedichte / von Alfred Lichtenstein (Wilmersdorf). Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1913.

24. Frauen: ein Zyklus Gedichte / von Robert R. Schmidt; in Verehrung für Paul Zech. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1913.

25. Rokoko; ein lyrisches Flugblatt anonymer Autoren, von Resi Langer. Berlin; Wilmersdorf, A.R. Meyer [1913]

26. Das schwarze Revier / Paul Zech. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, [1913]. Titelblatt mit Zeichnung von Ludwig Meidner.

27. Das Stiftsfräulein und der Tod / Alfred Döblin; Schnitte von E.L. Kirchner. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1913.

28. Und schöne Raubtierflecken–: ein lyrisches Flugblatt / von Ernst Wilhelm Lotz; [das Titelbild zeichnete R. Scheibe, Wilmersdorf]. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, 1913.

29. Leonardo … / Meinke, Hanns. [Pritzwalk, Merlin-presse, 1918]

30. An allegra; gedichte aus dem jahrzehnt 1908-18 … [Pritzwalk] Merlin-presse, 1919.

31. Bibergeil: pedantische Liebeslieder / von Edgar Firn. Berlin: A.R. Meyer, [1919]

32. Wir alarmieren uns: lyrische Funksprüche / von Fritz Wilhelm Schönfeld; [den Titel zeichnete Bruno Krauskopf]. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: A.R. Meyer, [1919?]

 

Hamlet in your pocket

 

Around 1909, Saul L. Kowarsky formed the Knickerbocker Leather & Novelty Company at 314 Broadway in New York City. Also on the board were Barnett Epstein as secretary, Morris Epstein, treasurer, and William Tager, director.

As an advertising promotion, Kowarsky printed a series of leather-bound miniature books, with plays by William Shakespeare; 24 in all, each measuring 3 x 2 inches, housed a tiny leather box. Seen here is Hamlet.

As the company grew, it leased 34,000 square feet in the Knickerbocker Building at 79 Fifth Avenue and 16th street, where they remained from 1914 to 1933.

Meanwhile the Cluett Peabody Company, famous for their Arrow shirt collars, suffered after the stock market crash and had to give up their Manhattan headquarters. The Knickerbocker Company moved into their space in the Cluett Building at 32 West 19th Street, continuing to print and sell the miniature Shakespeares.

Eventually, interest in the leather business also waned and Knickerbocker filed for bankruptcy in 1956. The palm-size books continue to appear here and there online.

Digital Shakespeare: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/index.html

Vulgar notes in almanacs 1768 to 1795

Full online digital access to a number of 18th-century American almanacs can be found in the Princeton University catalog; including:
The New York pocket almanack, for the year 1768 : … Calculated for the use of the province of New York, and the neighbouring provinces by Richard Moore, philo. (New York: Printed and sold by Hugh Gaine, [1767]). 4 v. in one. [with New-York pocket almananck for the year 1772 — New-York pocket almanack for the year 1773 — Gaine’s New-York pocket almanack for the year 1795]. Graphic Arts Collection, Hamilton 60s. Full text: https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/3966007

The Journals of Hugh Gaine (1902) provides a rich biography of the Belfast-born printer publisher, which tells us that when Hugh Gaine (1726 or 1727-1807) emigrated to New York City in 1745, “without basket or burden, he secured employment from James Parker, whom Benjamin Franklin had established as a printer in that city in 1742. It is stated that his wages were equivalent to a dollar and a quarter a week, which was later increased by a small allowance for board.” The book continues,

“Gaine also began in 1755 the issue of the “New York Picket Almanac, by Poor Tom,” “handsomely printed in red and black,” written, pretendedly, by one More, or Moore, but really by Theophilus Grew, and this series he also continued till long after the Revolution. This, too, met with popular favor, though of the first he notified his patrons, December 20, 1755, that “There are yet a few of the New-York Pocket Almanacs on Hand, neatly bound in Letter-Cases, which well be sold to those that call first; therefore those that are disappointed must blame themselves.”

The overplus did not last, for in The Mercury he later reprinted a table from this Almanac, “by desire,” “the Almanac itself being out of print from the Great Number sold the Beginning of the Year.” In advertising Moore’s Almanac for 1757 Gaine informed the purchasers that “The Printer has procured a few very neat Letter-Cases, handsomely gilt, just the Size of the above Almanack, with Pockets very convenient for Stuffing in Things that is useful for any Day in the Year.

With the next year’s issue, he warned them that “Many Gentlemen were disappointed of the Use of this Almanack, for the Year 1757, by their not sending for the same in Time: ‘Tis therefore requested they wou’d be less dilatory this Year. It is properly interleaved with fine Paper, on which Memorandums may be made for eery Day in the Year. It contains Twelve Pages more than any other Almanck [sic] of the Kind.” Of the issue for 1774 Gaine gave notice on November 22, 1773, that “The Run for the New-York Pocket Almanack has been so great for a Week past, that no less than one Third of the whold Impression are already sold.”

The Journals of Hugh Gaine, Printer, Vol. 1 (Dodd, Mead, 1902). Graphic Arts Collection 2006-2490N, temporarily online through HathiTrust.

Gaine’s shop was located on what is today Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, formerly known as Queen Street.

Besides the usual calendars, weather, politics, and financial information, each of these volumes include vulgar notes: “The usual method for determining Easter was through the use of a perpetual calendar and a table of “domnenical letters” and “golden” numbers. New England almanacs printed the domenical letter and golden number for the particular year of publication, usually under the heading, “vulgar notes,” but did not supply the necessary tables. For an explanation of the system, see John James Bond, Handy-Book of Rules and Tables for Verifying Dates … (New York: Russell and Russell, 1966), 115-41. –James P. Walsh, “Holy Time and Sacred Space in Puritan New England,” American Quarterly 32, no. 1 (Spring, 1980), pp. 79-95
https://archive.org/details/handybookofrules00bond/page/n4/mode/2up