Category Archives: Books

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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.

Song of Myself

8,992 words from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” spiral outward from a fountain in New York’s newly dedicated AIDS Memorial. Located in St. Vincent’s Triangle, across from the former site of St. Vincent’s Hospital where an AIDS ward opened in 1984, the memorial was designed by Jenny Holzer and will be completed before the end of 2016. http://nycaidsmemorial.org/

The first Leaves of Grass was put on sale in at least two stores, one in New York and another in Brooklyn, in late June of 1855. Printed in the shop of Andrew Rome of Brooklyn (where Andrew was assisted by his younger brother Tom), the quarto-size volume was designed and published by Whitman himself, who is also believed to have set the type for a few of its 95 pages. As William White has shown, 795 copies were printed in all, 599 of which were bound in cloth with varying degrees of gilt, the rest of them in paper or boards. A recent census of extant copies of the first edition reveals that nearly 200 copies survive today. Ivan Marki, “Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition,” in J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds., Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Princeton University Library has three copies of Whitman’s 1855 edition. Seen here: Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass (Brooklyn, N.Y.: [Walt Whitman]; [Brooklyn: Rome Bros], 1855). Rare Books (Ex) Behrman American no. 226q.

SONG OF MYSELF.

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Read the entire poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45477

Donald Trump, The Magazine of Poetry

Donald Trump, The Magazine of Poetry (Upper Montclair, NJ: Henry Wessells, Temporary Culture, 2016). Edition: 126. Graphic Arts Collection GA2016- in process. Gift of John Bidwell.

Temporary Culture is the imprint of Henry Wessells, Princeton University Class of 1983. He was inspired to create Donald Trump The Magazine of Poetry by Tom Disch’s Ronald Reagan The Magazine of Poetry (London: John Sladek and Pamela Zoline, 1968). Rare Books RECAP-91154631.

Wessells tells us that it took fifty burning marshmallows, thinking about how to illustrate the piece on page 1, before he got the front cover. Temporary Culture has an instagram page http://instagram.com/temporaryculture where there are a couple of clips of readings from the launch on the web. Temporary Culture also produces the Endless Bookshelf http://endlessbookshelf.net.

On the left Brendan C. Byrne and on the right, Henry Wessells at the book launch.

Ahí Va El Golpe (There Goes the Punch)

Ahí Va El Golpe (Mexico, 1955-1956). 20 issues: numbers 5-9,11-21,23-26. Letterpress and lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

Under the direction of Alberto Beltrán Garcia (1923-2002), this Mexican satirical magazine flourished for only two years. Beltrán was an active member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (The People’s Print Workshop or TGP, see: http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0012) then later, worked as deputy director for graphics for the newspaper El Día. On his own time, he drew, printed, and self-published several journals including Ahí Va El Golpe (There Goes the Punch) and El Coyote Emplumado (The Feathered Coyote).

We are fortunate to have acquired 20 rare issues of the first, ephemeral publication from the 1950s. Each issue has only four to six pages, primarily caricatures. Fellow TGP member Leopoldo Méndez contributed several illustrations.

The Ten Birth Tales and the Legend of Phra Malai

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired a mid-nineteenth century illustrated folding Funeral Book/Book of Merit containing a collection of Buddhist texts in Pali and Thai languages, in Khmer (Cambodian) script. Executed in watercolor, gilt, and ink, the stories include the legend of Phra Mali and the Ten Birth Tales. Although it is not dated, this wonderful volume is likely from Central Thailand between 1850 and 1900.

This large folding leporello of heavy paper (probably made from mulberry bark) is comprised of 48 leaves penned in a single neat hand in Khmer script and completed on both recto and verso. The work includes 17 paintings: 8 pairs of vibrant watercolors, several embellished with gilt, and one full double-page panel depicting scenes in Hell.

The British Library online notes: “The production of illustrated folding books ranks as one of Thailand’s greatest cultural achievements. They were produced for different purposes in Buddhist monasteries and at the royal and local courts, as well. First of all, such books served as teaching material and handbooks for Buddhist monks and novices. Classical Buddhist literature, prayers (Sutras) and moral teachings were also read to the lay people during religious ceremonies. The production of folding books-–and even sponsoring their production–was regarded as a great act of merit making. Therefore, folding books quite often are a kind of “Festschrift” in honour of a deceased person.”

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/remarkmanu/thai/index.html

Thanks to the assistance of Deborah Cotham and Dr Jana Igunma at the British library, we believe that the present example is one such funeral book, most probably completed by one scribe in Khmer script, though the language of the text is a mixture of Pali and Thai. I quote their notes in full:

The first part of the manuscript refers to the ten qualities of the Buddha, which are usually illustrated by the Buddha’s last Ten Birth Tales (Thai thotsachat). This section would be written in Pali, the language of the Buddhist canon. Funeral books were often commissioned by family members in order to make merit on behalf of the deceased person and to ensure that their family would not end up in hell, but be reborn in one of the Buddhist heavens. Thus the manuscript also includes the legend of Phra Malai, the famous Buddhist Saint, who traveled to the Buddhist heavens and hells.

During his visits to hell (naraka), Phra Malai was said to bestow mercy on the creatures suffering there, and who implore him to warn their relatives on earth of the horrors of hell and how they can escape it through making merit on behalf of the deceased, meditation and by following Buddhist precepts. Indeed, one of the most striking of the illustrations found in the present example, is the double-page depiction of the horrors of hell. Most of the text is in black ink on thick paper, most probably made from the bark of the khoi tree (streblus asper).

The first part in particular, has been accurately and quite beautifully penned and with great care taken, suggesting the work of a skilled scribe. It is impossible to say whether he also illustrated the work, although academics believe that they were more often the work of a different artist. A number of the vibrant illustrations have been embellished with in gilt, which further added value and prestige to such manuscripts, and a way of earning further merit on behalf of the deceased. In this instance, some of the images appear to have been influenced by Western painting techniques, suggesting that the painter may have been a student experimenting with new styles and techniques.

The legend of Phra Malai, a Buddhist monk of the Theravada tradition said to have attained supernatural powers through his accumulated merit and meditation, is the main text in a nineteenth-century Thai folding books (samut khoi). He figures prominently in Thai art, religious treatises, and rituals associated with the afterlife, and the story is one of the most popular subjects of nineteenth-century illustrated Thai manuscripts.

Thanks to Martin Heijdra, Ph. D. 何義壯, Director, East Asian Library, for his help with this acquisition.

For further information see Henry Ginsburg, Thai Art and Culture. Historic manuscripts from Western Collections (London: British Library, 2000).

Bibliosophia VS Bibliomania

Between the time of William Miller’s 9^th edition and Thomas Tegg’s 4^th edition of James Beresford’s massive best-seller Miseries of Human Life, the author took time out to write something else. But rather than continue to write about fictional characters, he bravely (or brutally) chose to publicly satirize one of his Oxford colleagues Thomas Dibdin.

Bibliomania had been released the year earlier, to some success. Beresford jumped on it and in Bibliosophia or Book-Wisdom, he chronicled in minute detail the improper and unseemly elements of Dibdin’s work. Although Beresford’s name was not included on the title page, the identity of the author was not a secret.

Given his notoriety with Miseries, Beresford must have known that people would read and listen to his opinions. In fact, the attention he gave Bibliomania may have inadvertently given it the boost it needed and an even larger edition was published the following year.

In Matthew Beros’s book Bibliomania: Thomas Frognall Dibdin and the Early 19^th Century Book Collecting, he notes:

The reception of Dibdin’s book however was mixed. Thomas De Quincey and William Beckford satirised his scholarly pretensions as a bibliographer and tended to dismiss Dibdin as a self-indulgent dilettante. Part of this dismissive attitude towards The Bibliomania on the part of the literati is due to the lowly status assigned to bibliography during the 19th century. The Monthly Review deplored the ‘extravagant value placed on petty and insignificant knowledge’ such as bindings, format and paper. Also they heavily condemned the tendency for bibliomanes such as Dibdin to prefer the anecdotes of printers, publishers and purchasers to ‘historians, orators, philosophers and poets of antiquity’.

In 1810 James Beresford penned a critique Bibliosophia or Book-Wisdom which he describes as a ‘remonstrance against the prose work, lately published by Thomas Frogall Dibdin under the title The Bibliomania’. Beresford praises an appetite for collecting books which are ‘fully distinguished, wholly unconnected and absolutely repugnant to all idea of reading them’. The superiority of the collector is asserted over that of the ‘emaciated’ student who can never possess more then a ‘wretched modicum of his coveted treasures’. — https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/30027/TXT_Bibliomania.pdf?sequence=1

Bookplate in our copy of Bibliosophia, unfortunately cut-off by a book repair.

Part II of Beresford’s book.

James Beresford (1764-1840), Bibliosophia; or, Book-wisdom. Containing some account of the pride, pleasure, and privileges, of that glorious vocation, book-collecting. By an aspirant. II. The twelve labours of an editor, separately pitted against those of Hercules (London: Printed for W. Miller, 1810). RECAP Z992 .B474 1810

Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847), The Bibliomania; or, Book-Madness; containing some account of the history, symptoms and cure of this fatal disease, in an epistle addressed to Richard Heber, esq. (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, by W. Savage, 1809). Rare Books (Ex) 0511.298

James Beresford

Peregrinations of French Types

Mark Argetsinger, Peregrinations of French Types in the Sixteenth Century: Printing of Robert Bellarmine’s ‘Disputationes’ in Southern Germany. A Bibliographical Analysis of the Second Ingolstadt Edition Printed by David Sartorius, with Leaves Incorporated from Volume II, ‘De sacramentis’ 1591 (Union Springs, New York: Press of Robert LaMascolo, 2016). Copy 183 of 200. Graphic Arts Collection 2016- in process

Nicolas Barker once wrote, “Mark Argetsinger is one of the very few typographical book designers in the world. That is, he thinks in terms of type, not graphical layout. He handles printers’ flowers with the bravura and assurance of Frederic Warde, and can achieve that rarity, optically spaced capitals, with apparent ease….” And so, when Argetsinger writes about typography and book design, it is important that we read and listen.

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired one of Argetsinger’s limited edition Peregrinations of French Types in the Sixteenth Century. The foreword, written by Herbert H. Johnson, begins “This splendid book–the culmination of a long-time wish of mine to publish a series of ‘Leaf Books’ dedicated to the works of famous printers and type designers–has its genesis during my undergraduate days at the Rochester Institute of Technology….” Limited to 200 numbered copies, each book includes two original leaves from Disputationes, printed in 1591.

For more on the LoMascolo Press, see: https://sk-sk.facebook.com/rlpress/. For more on Argetsinger, see: http://argetsingerbooks.com/

Memorials of the Old College of Glasgow

Thomas Annan and others. Memorials of the Old College of Glasgow (Glasgow: Thomas Annan, Photographer, 202 Hope Street. James Maclehose, Publisher and Bookseller to the University, 61 St. Vincent Street. MDCCCLXXI [1871]). 41 albumen silver prints. Graphic Arts Collection 2016- in process

“On July 28, 1870, the Senate of the University of Glasgow met for the last time in the Old College Buildings to confer degrees to outgoing students. The following year the ceremony was moved to the New Buildings.

Annan conceived the present volume as a both a memorial to the 450-year history of the university and as a record of the ‘venerable structure before it underwent any change’. Consequently he here presents fifteen interior and external views of the buildings with various aspects of the Inner and Outer Courts, the Professor’s Court and the Hunterian Museum.

Three professors, Dr. Weir, Professor Veitch and Professor Cowan, agreed to contribute texts in which they record the history and work of the individual faculties. To their notes Annan added twenty-six portrait photographs of members of the Senate at the time of its removal to the New Buildings.”

This is the eleventh album of photographs by Annan acquired by Princeton University Library, in an attempt to document this man’s work in its entirety. Whether in portraiture, landscape, or architectural photography, Annan remains one of the most accomplished artists of his time.

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