Rare Book Collections @ Princeton

Eight titlepages • typical of the whole

This new accession is a curious mix of 38 short works. Bound together in one single volume are some of a hyper-Protestant character (that is, anti-Romanist, anti-Mormon), some of the ‘Newgate Calendar class’(stories of criminals and their punishment), some on popular leisure (‘comic songs,’ ‘authentic history of the prize ring’) and others dealing with fires, massacres, tortures, atrocities, ‘the confessions of an undertaker,’ as well as the story of one of ‘the pretty horsebreakers of Rotten Row.’ Price of each? At least one pence, never more than 2. Readers were always told where to obtain copies, such as at the office of “H. Elliot, 475, New Oxford Street” but usually never does the pamphlet give its date of publication. Typographic style, textual content, method of illustration and other factors date and place them in the London penny press trade of the 1850s and 1860s. Taken as a whole, the volume is a marvelous array of cheap reading targeting the interests of the British working classes.

A goodly number of the penny and tuppence pamphlets in this new accession are not recorded as being held in research libraries in either the UK or the US. This makes sense because in the day of their publication, library collecting dogma did not consider their content and ephemeral form appropriate for what was deemed a ‘permanent’ collection. By the mid-twentieth century, this dogma had been replaced by a total reversal of doctrine. Ephemera of this sort was and continues to be considered the quotidian building stones of research collections.

Recently acquired • Bound in one volume with spine title: Penny Chap Book • Vol 1. A collection of 38 publications, priced 1d and 2d, printed during the 1850s and 1860s, chiefly in London.

Call number (Ex) Item 5623495
Contents

1. The Trials and Vicissitudes in the Life of Villiers Pearce. 
Printed & published by H. Elliot, 1856. Yellow wraps. 2d.  16pp.

2. An Authentic History of Freemasonry, ... 
Printed & published by . Elliot, 1853.
Illus. Yellow wraps. 2d.  16pp.

3. Priests and their Victims; or, Scenes in a Convent.  
Printed & published by H. Elliot, 1852. 
Illus. Yellow wraps. 2d.  16pp.

4. Confessions of a Detective Policeman: ... 
Printed & published by H. Elliot, [c.1852]. 
Illus. cutting inserted. Yellow wraps. 2d.  16pp.

5.  Mormon Revelations, being the history of fourteen females, ... 
Printed & published by H. Elliot, [c.1858]. 
Illus. cutting inserted. Yellow wraps. 2d. 16pp..  
*Title headed: Appalling Disclosures!

6. Bennett's Official Account of the Great Fire 
near London Bridge, Shocking death of Mr. Braidwood, 
and great loss of life. 
Printed & published for the booksellers, [1861]. 
Two column text 16pp.

7. The life, Death, and Burial of the late Mr. James Braidwood. 
A.P. Shaw, [1861]. Port., illus. cutting inserted.  8pp.

8. The Dreadful Fire at the Wharves, near London Bridge 
with the death of Mr. Braidwood. H.Disley, printer, [1861].  
Quarter sheet broadside, largely in verse.

9. The Yelverton Ballad and Love Songs, ... 
and Extraordinary Marriage of Teresa 
Longworth and Major Yelverton, ... 
E. Harrison, [1862]. Portraits, largely in verse. 8pp.

10. The Yelverton Marriage Case, ... Verdict of the Jury. 
Sold by Winn, [1861]. Tide headed: Price one penny. 8pp.

11. Narrative of the Massacres of Christians in Syria. 
Dreadful sufferings of women, and children cut to shreds, ... 
H. Vickers. Illus.id.  8pp.

12. Dassel, Adolph von. The Melancholy History and 
Miserable End of the Two Monsters of the Continent, the 
Communist Ox and the Socialist Ass.  Published by 
the Propaganda of Good Sense (A. Munro), 1851. 
Without the engraving, first leaf 
slightly torn at inner margin. 16pp.

13. The Life and Death together with the Extraordinary 
Exploits of the redoubtable Gen. Havelock, ... 
Elliot, Panic, 1858. 1d. 8pp.

14. The Dream of Miltiades; or, The Fall of Sebastopol. 
By the Author of "The Battle of Inkermann". 
Brighton: printed at C.Tourle's Office, [1856?]. 
Verse. Yellow wraps.  8pp. 
*'The Battle of Inkermann' may be 
the poem by a retired Liverpool Merchant, 1855.

15. The Original Comic Song Book, 
compiled by Hardwick, Labern, Ramsay, &c. ... No. 11. 
Pattie, [c. 1850]. Illus.  1d. 8pp.

16. (Young, James) The Rev. C.H. Spurgeon in a 
Fix, and Completely Confounded. 
Printed & published by James Young, [1863]. 1d. 7pp. 
James Young who signs the pamphlet on p.7, 
describes himself as a convert to the Jewish religion.

17. Mysteries of Mormonism. A history of the rise 
and progress of the notorious Latter Day Saints, ... 
H. Wilson, [c.1855]. 1d.  8pp.

18. Anti-Conspirator, pseud. 
 Regicide. Are refugees our enemies.  
Is Napoleon our ally.  J. Allen, 1858. 1d.  8pp.

19. An Authentic History of the Prize Ring 
and Championships of England, ... 
(Verbatim account from "The Times" and "Bell's Life" newspapers.)  
Diprose & Bateman, [1860]. 16pp.

20. (Wilkes, George).  A True Narrative of the Horrid Tortures 
practised in Naples, ... the Virgin's Kiss ... By an eye witness. 
H. Vickers, [c. 1860].  Illus. 1d.  8pp.

21. Watts, John. The Criminal History of the Clergyman. (No. 1.) 
Compiled byJ. Watts. Holyoake & Co., [1857]. 2d. 16pp.

22. The Dangers of Crinoline, Street Hoops, &c. 
G. Vickers, [1858]. Illus. 1d.  16pp.

23. The What is it? The extraordinary adventures, 
startling revelations, 
and narrow escapes of Du Chaillu, ... 
Printed & published at the City Printing Press, [c.1860?]. Illus. 
Front  wraps with repeat illus. hand col. 2d. 16pp.

24. The Five Great Americans ... Gough, Northrop, Finney, 
Rarey, and Heenan. H.J. Tresidder. 
(Leaders of the day, no. 4.) July, 1860. 1d.  8pp.

25. The Reverend Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Continental Tour. 
H.J. Tresidder. (Leaders of the day, no. 10.) [c.1860]. 12pp.

26. The life of His Late Royal Highness the Prince 
Consort, with an account of his last moments, ... 
5th edn. W. Oliver, [1862]. Port 1d.  16pp.

27. A Full Account of the Windham Lunacy Case,
 with anecdotes ... 
Elliott, [1862]. Port.  1d. Misbound but complete. 20pp.

28. Williams, Dr.  A Thunderbolt 
for Colenso, the 
Heretic Bishop of Natal. 
Elliot, [1862?]. 1d.  16pp.

29. Appalling Narrative of Russian Atrocities: 
... By a Polish Exile. 
H. Vickers, [c.1860]. Illus.1d.  8pp.

30. Midnight Meetings and the Social Evil !!! 
The life of Lucy Anderson, one of the pretty horsebreakers 
of Rotten Row, written by herself. 
Elliot, [c.1860]. Illus.1d.  8pp.

31. Tommey, Henry, Sen.  Let Justice be done!
The startling narrative of an old veteran who served 
under Wellington ... 
Printed & published by H. Tommey, 1863. 
Orig. green wraps. 1d. 12pp.

32. Mr. Somes and his foolish, mischievous, and obnoxious Beer Bill 
and its tyrannical effects upon the Working Classes; 
... Sunday riots in Hyde Park. 
Farrah & Dunbar; J. & H. Purkess, &c. [1863.] 1d.  8pp.

33. The Astounding Confessions of an Undertaker, 
... Shocking Disclosures. 
News Agents' Publishing Co., [c.186-?]. Illus. 16pp.

34. The Manchester Murders. 
Manchester: John Heywood; London: G. Vickers, [1862?[. 
Illus. 16pp. 
*Sent by post with 1d stamp to M. Beggs, 37 Southampton St., London.

35. Mormon Disclosures ... 
Liverpool: James Gage. [c.l860?]. 1d.  16pp. 
*The same text as 'Mormon Revelations' q.v.

36. The Three Skeletons: a ghostly Christmas story. 
Revelations of a French physician. 
The mysterious casket. The burning furnace. 
The lost child. E. Harrison, [1862?]. 
Illus.,  two column text. 1d.  16pp.

37. O'Kane v. Lord Palmerston.  
All about the great scandal ... 
Published at the Office of the "City News", [1863]. 
With cutting tipped in at front & 4 at end. 1d.  8pp.

38. The Disgraceful Death of an English judge, 
in a House of Ill-Fame. Leeds: T. Pinder, [1884]. Illus.(8 pp.)  
*Added later to the collection.

To be published. Scheduled to be available after Wednesday January 20, 2010.

Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline.
Authors: Anthony Grafton, Daniel Rosenberg
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010
8-1/2 x 10-1/2 in; 272 pp ; 268 color and 40 b/w images
ISBN-13: 9781568987637
ISBN: 1568987633

Details: http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/main,book-info/store,books/products_id,8500/path,1/title,Cartographies-of-Time/

Professor Daniel Rosenberg writes

“Cartographies of Time is a history of graphic representations of time in Europe and the United States from 1450 to the present. The book argues that this history may be divided into two main phases, the period from 1450 to 1750, during which scholars relied heavily on the tabular system of representation developed by the fourth-century Christian scholar Eusebius, and the period from 1750 to the present during which the simple, measured line displaced the tabular matrix as the standard mechanism for representing historical chronology.

The story that we tell in the book has many twists and turns—it takes detours through sixteenth-century astronomy and follows Canadian missionaries to Oregon, turns up little known works by famous figures including a historical chronology by the mapmaker Gerardus Mercator and a chronological board game patented by Mark Twain—and, as I will shown in a few slides, the table and the line are only two of many possible ways of graphing history. In the book, the circle, the tree, and many other figures get due consideration. Nonetheless, the book argues that in Western history and chronology, the table and the line hold a peculiarly central place. The book is a study of these two favored forms in relation in relation to a changing ecology of images and ideas.”

Preliminary draft of the introduction

In preparing this book, Professors Grafton and Rosenberg spent many, many hours in Princeton’s rare book reading room closely researching the Library’s extensive holdings of chronological charts, tables, and timelines.

“The Library of Grand Vizier Ragib Pasha,”
engraving in the
Tableau général de l’empire othoman
by Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson
published in Paris, 1787-1790.

In the new issue of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, a newsletter issued by the department, editorial assistant, William Blair, tells the story of the Library’s collecting books printed on the first Muslim-owned and operated printing press. Any copy of books from the press of İbrahim Müteferrika are rare, yet the Library’s collecting success has been remarkable. The Library now owns fourteen of the seventeen titles published by his press.

Full text of the article

Oak Knoll Press reports copies of the Virgil catalogue, ever so carefully prepared by Prof. Craig Kallendorf, are now in stock.

It is an exuberant production!
• Color-printed dust jacket [ in full ]
• 49 color-printed illustrations, some full page (page size: 8.5 x 11 inches)
• 488 pages of descriptions covering more than 900 volumes, divided into 8 sections (Latin editions, translations into Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other languages) [sample pages]
• 4 indices: i) printers, publishers, booksellers; ii) authors, commentators, translators, editors; iii) illustrators; iv) owners (“The index … includes the names of auction houses and booksellers, as well as of former owners, so that the movement of the books can be tracked as fully as possible.”) [The estimate of the total number of names tracked by all four indexes is more than 2,200.]
• 17 page introduction, set double column, with 48 notes, and covering such topics as the illustration of Virgil’s works, evidence of reader experience, and the material production of Virgil editions as an index of taste.

Copies may be obtained via the publisher’s website http://oakknoll.com/detail.php?d_booknr=100481

Earlier this year, the Library acquired a remarkable book consisting of eight texts selected from Aristotle’s Organon and Nicomachean Ethics. The texts were published in Paris by Denis du Pré and Gabriel Buon between 1569 and 1573 and bound in two volumes.

Their owner, Pierre Maillet, of Lyon, intensively annotated the texts while attending lectures given by Nicolas de Bonvilliers, from November 1573 to September 1574, at the Collège de la Marche in Paris. His annotations are interlinear, in the margins and on inserted pages. Maillet dates and signs his notes several times and names his teacher in a note in French on fol. 95v of the Ethics. Call number for the Maillet volumes: (Ex) 2009-0499N

Princeton owns other comparably annotated Renaissance texts. A number of these are reported in the Princeton University Library Chronicle. Ann M. Blair, “Lectures on Ovid’ Metamorphoses: The Class Notes of a 16th-Century Paris Schoolboy” (L,2 [Winter 1989], p. 117-144 [ full text] and Anthony Grafton, “Gabriel Harvey’s Marginalia: New Light on the Cultural History of Elizabethan England” (LII,1 [Autumn 1990], p. 21-24 [ full text].

Also see Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986) for discussion of the volume of texts annotated in 1572 by Gerardus de Mayres from lectures by Claude Mignault [Call number for these Renaissance editions is (Ex)PA260.xC6.1550].

But, in addition to the Renaissance, in general, how does one find books with contemporary annotations in the Princeton rare book collections?

Go to the Main Catalog -> catalog.princeton.edu. The opening screen is headed ‘Basic Search.’ In the search box, enter ‘annotations provenance,’ then search by subject heading. You will see a list that looks like this.

To use this table of results, click on a link of interest, such as ‘Annotations (Provenance)—16th century.’ You get a list of 79 books, each individually described.

A list such as this allows analysis of holdings. Here is a table in rank order of rare books at Princeton signaled as having handwritten annotations, usually contemporary. Detail about the kind of notation varies for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, for those seeking primary evidence about a reader’s response to a text, searching ‘annotations provenance’ is the way to start.

279 Annotations (Provenance)
79  Annotations (Provenance)--16th century.
57  Annotations (Provenance)--18th century.
57  Annotations (Provenance)--19th century.
35  Annotations (Provenance)--20th century.
26  Annotations (Provenance)--'Collated and perfect'
24  Annotations (Provenance)--17th century.
22  Annotations (Provenance)--England--19th century.
14  Annotations (Provenance)--15th century.
3   Annotations (Provenance)--United States--New Jersey--Princeton--19th century.
2   Annotations (Provenance)--France--18th century
2   Annotations (Provenance)--Germany--16th century.
2   Annotations (Provenance)--Italy--15th century.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--18th century.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--20th century.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--France--19th century
1   Annotations (Provenance)--France--Paris--1556.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--France--Paris--1560.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--France--Strasbourg--1515.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--Germany--17th century.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--Germany--Frankfurt am Main--1793.
1   Annotations (Provenance) Germany--Tübingen-- 16th century.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--Italy--Venice--1487.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--Switzerland--Basel--1511.
1   Annotations (Provenance)--United States--New Jersey--Princeton--20th century.

Front cover: The Scholar’s Arithmetic, Keene, N.H., 1814

Back cover: The Scholar’s Arithmetic, Keene, N.H., 1814

We’re still not there yet, that is, at a full answer to the question about how this fragment of Fanny Hill was used as covering material. However, we now have a better sense of what the fragment looks like overall. Thanks to the work of Ted Stanley, Special Collections Paper Conservator, Princeton University Library, we now have two images of the printed fragments of “Fanny Hill.” These pictures were obtained by a method called “infared reflectography.” [http://www.clemusart.com/exhibcef/battle/gloss/g4411438.html ] In brief, he used a high quality SLR digital camera with a filter than excludes visible light but passes infared. The CMOS array of the camera is sensitive to the IR end of the spectrum, 830-1100 nanometers. The technique is useful in this case because the printer’s ink has different optical properties from the pigments of the marbling. In other words, the ink absorbs / reflects light differently than marbling paints. This differential is then carried over into an image which is visible, with the ink rendered darker than the pigments.


[More is available on this technique in C. M. Falco, “Invited Article: High resolution digital camera for infrared reflectography,” Review of Scientific Instruments 80, 071301
2009 [link]

A book historian has said: “Printers print sheets, but binders make books.” That dictum is well shown by close examination of the bindings on these two books.

The first example is from the library of John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration, and President of College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). It is volume 29 of his collection of sixty bound volumes of pamphlets. Most are bound with boards covered with decorative papers, usually marble paper. Some have remarkable tan paste paper covers which, because of age and wear, reveal printing beneath the decorative pigment. In this case, we can see page 331 of the 1784 edition of the Acts of the Council and General Assembly of the State of New-Jersey printed in Trenton by state printer Isaac Collins. In an age of scarcity, paper had value even after its original use. The trade in printer’s waste paper, for example, included a number of after-market uses, such as linings for hat boxes. Here we see printer’s waste as substratum for a decorative paste paper, tan in color, patterned in a wavy manner (done by comb while paste and pigment are still wet.)

The second example keeps us still in the world of reused printer’s waste but takes us far from the rectitude of the Reverend Doctor. This is the binding on a recently acquired copy the Scholar’s Arithmetic, or, Federal Accountant, a textbook published in 1814 at Keene, N.H. by John Prentiss “proprietor of the copy right.” [(Ex) Item 547834] The book is still in its original binding as issued. In this case the decorative paper is marbled paper, whose color and pattern results from laying the paper over oil pigments floating on water. Again, wear and age allow us to see what was once hidden by blue pigment. There are blocks of print separated by wide margins, signaling this sheet to be several pages of text imposed for book printing. There are 31 lines per page with a page number centered in brackets over the middle of line one. Layout is the same on both front and back covers.

What is this text? Closely reading one portion reveals a surprise.

Transcription:

                              [18]

[service] under these good people; and after 
[supper] being showed to bed, Miss Phoebe, 
[who ob]served a kind of reluctance in me to 
[strip and go] to bed, in my shift before her, now 
[the maid] was withdrawn, came up to me, and 
[beginnin]g with unpinning my handkerchief 
[and gow]n, soon encouraged me to go on with 
[undressi]ng myself; and, still blushing at now see
[ing mys]elf naked to my shift, I hurried to get 
[under th]e bed-cloaths out of sight.  Phoebe 
[laugh'd] and was not long before she placed

Racy stuff, indeed. One library describes books with comparable decorative papers as “Bound in boards covered with a marbled sheet from a suppressed edition of John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. [Boston?, ca. 1810]” How did this happen? [More later.]

“Any attempt to determine the dating and sequence of the majority of Piranesi’s etched works must begin from the artist’s own Calalogo, confined to a single plate. This appears to have been first issued around 1761 when Piranesi set up his print-selling business near the top of the Spanish Steps at Palazzo Tomati, Via Sistina — an address which appears on many of his subsequent plates. In particular the Catalogo is crucial for arriving at the dating and order of the Vedute di Roma and already on the earliest known example presented to the Accademia di San Luca on his election in the spring of 1761, some fifty-nine specific titles are listed. Thence forward until his death in 1778, Piranesi issued revised states of the Catalogo which can be dated approximately by the addition of new publications. At the same time, fresh titles of the Vedute were added, individually or in groups (these were sometimes inserted in ink before being etched). So far, well over twenty-five separate states of this key work have come to light.” — John Wilton-Ely, Piranesi (London, 1978), p. 45.

Recent study of the Catalogo by Andrew Robison, Mellon Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), has identified as many as 31 known states.

Princeton owns three states, as follows:

State IV - copy bound as last leaf in Piranesi’s De Romanorvm magnificentia et architectvra / Della Magnificenza ed architettura de’Romani. (Rome, 1761), call number (Ex) NA310 .P64e. Link to digital image.

State V - held at the Princeton University Art Museum, Prints and Drawings

State XXIV - copy at call number (Ex) 2007-0052E, dating ca. 1776. Link to digital image.

Lists of private libraries in the United States — contemporary to date of publication

1855 — A Glance at Private Libraries (Boston) by Luther Farnham (1816-1897) Boston, Press of Crocker and Brewster, 1855.

1860 — Private Libraries of New York by James Wynne (New York : E. French, 1860)

1863-1864 — Hubbard Winslow Bryant publishes notices of private libraries in the Portland (Maine) Daily Press. Collected by Roger Stoddard and reprinted in 2004.

1875 — Washington Chronicles, Sep 15, 1875. William H. Dorsey Scrapbook Collection 247.1. “Our Libraries. The Public and Private Libraries of Washington”

1878 — Private Libraries of Providence by Horatio Rogers. Evidently first appeared in 1875 as a series of newspaper articles in the Providence Press

1878 — “Our Private Libraries” - Philadelphia Ledger and Transcript, Nov. 30, 1878. Clipping in William H. Dorsey Scrapbook Collection, vol. 249, p. 28. Continued: [From a Philadelphia newspaper] 1878 William H. Dorsey Scrapbook Collection, 249.2 “Private Libraries. Rich book collections in this city—the library of B.B. Comegys, Esq.—a glimpse at his literary treasures. That excellent literary journal, Robinson’s Epitome of Literature, has been, for the past few months, publishing a series of interesting articles upon the private libraries belonging to citizens of Philadelphia. From the issue for June we take the following …”

1878 — The Libraries of California: Containing Descriptions of the Principal Private and Public Libraries throughout the State by Flora Haines Loughead (San Francisco, A. L. Bancroft, 1878)

1879 — Philadelphia Ledger and Transcript, Jun. 28, 1879. William H. Dorsey Scrapbook Collection, 249.54 “The Private Libraries of Philadelphia. The library of George W. Childs, Esq.”

1886 — Brooklyn Eagle, Jul. 18, 1886; page 11. “Books and Pamphlets. Observations among curious Brooklyn shops.” Includes section enumerating the private libraries of Brooklyn. beginning “The great private libraries of Brooklyn are many. …”

1887 — R.R. Bowker in the Preface to the 1887 edition of The Library List proposes to publish a list of private libraries “in the next record number of the Library Journal, at the beginning of 1887”

1892-93 — Charles Sotheran, “Private Libraries” pp. 112-132 in James Grant Wilson (ed.) The Memorial History of the City of New York. Contents: Book-collecting in the Seventeenth Century — The First Private Library Known in the City — Libraries of Frederick Philipse, General Philip Schuyler, and others — The Livingston Family’s Libraries — General Use of Book- plates— A New Literary Spirit Developed at End of the Colonial Period — List of Fifty Important Private Libraries in 1860 — Fate of these Valuable Collections — Changes in the Character of Collections of To-day — Robert Hoe’s Library and its Features — Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet’s Historical Library — The Drexel Library — Libraries of the Rev. Dr. Dix and Samuel P. Avery — William Loring Andrews’s and Rush C. Hawkins’s Collection — Marshall C. Lefferts’s Early Americana—Jay Gould’s Books — The Astor and Vanderbilt Libraries — Thomas J. McKee’s Works on the Drama — Charles W. Fsederiekson’s Shelleyana — Other Private Libraries.

1892 — Four Private Libraries of New York by Octave Uzanne

1897 — List of Private Libraries. I. United States, Canada [title repeated in French and German]. Leipzig, G. Hedler, 1897. Copy: Harvard University Library, available in Google Book Search [July 2006]. Lists more than 600 entries; index by topic; ads for antiquarian booksellers at end.

1900 — Descriptive Sketches of Six Private Libraries of Bangor, Maine by Samuel Lane Boardman (Bangor: printed for the author, 1900)

1910 — “Private Book Collectors” published in the Annual Library Index, 1910 (New York: Office of Publishers’ Weekly, 1910). Note: possible that the predecessors to this annual carried lists of collectors, see: Annual Library Index, 1905-1910, and the previous Annual Literary Index, 1892-1904.

1912 — “Private Book Collectors” listed on pages 195-220 of the American Library Annual, 1911-1912 (New York: Office of Publishers’ Weekly, 1912). Updates the list first published in 1910. Headnote explains scope and changes (approx. 200 words). Arranged geographically.

1913 — “Private Book Collectors” listed on pages 317-348 of the American Library Annual, 1913 (New York: Office of Publishers’ Weekly, 1913). Updates the list published in 1912. Headnote explains scope, notes 300 changes (approx. 200 words). Arranged geographically.

1914 — “Private Book Collectors” listed on pages 303-339 of the American Library Annual, 1913-1914 (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1914). Updates the list published in 1912. Headnote explains scope, notes 500 changes (approx. 200 words). Arranged geographically.

Not in Annuals for 1914-1915, 1915-1916, 1916-17, 1917-18. Replaced by listings for business, special, religious, theological, law, medical, normal and high school libraries.

1919 — J. A. Holden, A List of Private Book Collectors in the United States and Canada (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1919), which went through several editions up to 1948 under the title Private Book Collectors in the United States and Canada.

The Publisher’s Weekly, April 24, 1886 [No. 743], page 549 under “Literary and Trade Notes”

“The Writers’ Publishing Co., 25 University Place, N. Y., have issued a chart of temperance and physiology entitled “The Road to Ruin and How to Avoid it.” It is 22x34 in size, and paints the vice of intemperance in such horrible colors that must at once convince the reader that “abstinence is the best policy.” Due attention is also given to the economic side of the question, tables being given that show at a glance that intemperance does not pay in any sense of the word. The price, half mounted, is $1; full mounted, $1.50.”

“List of educational publications of 1885-‘86; compiled from publisher’s announcements by the United States Bureau of Education.” This list gives a total of 609 publications distributed across 40 categories. Under the heading of ‘Physiology and hygiene’:

“Temperance and Physiology - Chart No. 1, strikingly illustrated, showing the road to ruin and how to avoid it. By the “The Writers’ Publishing Co., 21 (sic) University Place, New York City. (New England Journal of Education).”

[Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1885 - ‘86 (Washington, D.C., 1887) p. 704 ]

Chart of Temperance and Physiology - Number One : The Road to Ruin and How to Avoid It. … Published by Miss Julia Colman, Superintendent, Literature Department, National Women’s Christian Temperance Union. 72 Bible House, New York City. Copyright 1885 by the Writers’ Publishing Company. Call number: (Ex) Broadside - Oversize - 411

Two works by

Songes Philosophiques, Première [-Seconde] Partie. Par M. Mercier. A Londres, et se trouve à Paris, chez Lejay, Libraire, Quai de Gêvres, au grand Corneille. 1768. Call number: (Ex) HX811 .M42

L’anno due mila quattrocento quaranta. Sogno di cui non vi fu l’eguale. Seguito dall’Uomo di ferro. Opera del cittad. L.S. Mercier … Traduzione dal Francese sull’ultima Edizione fatta in Parigi l’Anno VII della Repubb. Francese. Corretta, Riveduta, ed Augmentata dall’ Autore. Prima Edizione Italiana. In Genova. Stamperia de’ Cittad. Domenico Porcile, e C. nella strada della Posta vecchia no. 487. Anno II. della Repubb. Ligure [1798]. Call number: (Ex) 2007-3277N

…………….

Songes Philosophiques contains ten philosophical dream sequences, eight of which were reused in Mercier’s Mon bonnet de Nuit, 1784-1785 and seven of which were used in his landmark utopia L’An deux mille quatre cent quarante, 1785. This practice of borrowing and rebranding his own work was very much part of what became Mercier’s distinctive style. — Amanda Hall

‘He published prodigiously by recycling passages from one book to another and stretching essays into multivolume tracts. His major works - L’An 2440, Tableau de Paris, and Mon Bonnet de Nuit - therefore have a formless character. They are composed of short chapters on a wide variety of subjects, which Mercier cobbled together without worrying about narrative coherence. When a book caught on, he expanded it, cutting and pasting and fighting off pirates as he advanced from one edition to the next. The result was never elegant, but it often had a gripping quality, because Mercier knew how to observe the world around him and to make it come alive in anecdotes and esays. There is no better writer to consult if one wants to get some idea of how Paris looked, sounded, smelled, and felt on the eve of the Revolution’ (Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers, 1996, p. 118).

…………………….

First edition in Italian of Mercier’s famous utopian novel L’an 2440. Placed on the Index on 26th August 1822. Only copy recorded to be in an American library.

‘The translator was thought to be Filippo Castelli’, writes Everett C. Wilkie, ‘however, in his Saggi di Eulogia, Genoa, 1838, he himself takes credit for having translated only ‘L’Homme de Fer’. One possibility for the translator of L’An 2440 is Elisabetta Caminer, who translated several of Mercier’s dramas into Italian … Nevertheless, Caminer had died in 1796, two years before this translation appeared. However, this translation has one of the hallmarks of her work, liberties with the original text; and her other translations of Mercier’s works show her sustained interest in his writings. One can speculate that she was the one who began the translation, finishing only a part of it before her death. Castelli might well have finished the translation and gone ahead to do ‘L’Homme de Fer’, which was the last part of the book. Castelli was in Genoa at this time and was active translating other French works into Italian’

Everett C. Wilkie, “Mercier’s L’An 2440: Its Publishing History During the Author’s Lifetime,” in the Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol. XXXII, 1984, p. 393.

Many at Princeton remember with great esteem the late Lara Moore, who, when she died at age 32 in 2003, was the History Librarian of the Library. Her example and achievements endure in many ways, such as in the able work of her successor, and, now, with the publication Lara’s book, Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870, based on her Stanford dissertation. Her book is an important contribution to the history of libraries and archives.

Lara argues that the changing French governments shaped and re-shaped libraries and archives in order to mold public perception of their regime. Form and function traced back to policy. From this perspective, the trajectory of library development was not a smooth, upward, continuously progressive path from the disorder of the 1789 Revolution to post-Revolutionary order. Rather, the path was really “a series of very different attempts to recreate both ‘disorder’ and ‘order’ ” (p. 17). She also points out that while we may think we study the past, we should not overlook that we concurrently study previous generations’s conceptions of what they thought about the past (p. 22).

Is there an analog in American library history for this phenomenon? Or, put another way: “Was there an ancien regime to affirm or repudiate?”

Certainly for the ruling Protestants of nineteenth century America there was such an ancien regime to repudiate. I have encountered this attitude in an incident in the history of the Princeton University Library.

In 1878, Evan James Henry, a local Princeton lawyer, presented to the Library rubricated leaves of the Book of Psalms, once part of a Latin Bible printed in Strasbourg, ca. 1468. [Call number: (ExI) 5168.1468q].

At the time of donation, Princeton librarian Frederic Vinton interpreted the value of the gift as follows:

We may, therefore, fearlessly assert that we have a book printed more than twenty years before the discovery of America; about the time Warwick drove Edward IV out of England; while Louis XI reigned in France; before Lorenzo reigned in Florence, or Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; just after Erasmus saw the light, and before Michael Angelo was born. Scarce one of the existing Universities in Christendom had been founded. All Europe was Catholic then, and free institutions had not begun to be. The spirit of modern discovery had not awakened, and men were still living in the dull ways of the middle ages. Until the Egyptian obelisk arrives, this book will be one of the most venerable things in America. [Frederic Vinton] “A Rare Book in the College Library,” Princetonian 2, no. 15 (February 7, 1878): 173-174.

Restoring Order (Duluth, Minn.: Litwin Books, 2008) also reviewed in Reading Archives.

Obituary for Lara Moore (1971-2003)

Actual size: 3 ft tall x 2 ft wide

Jesuit Thesis Print • Douay, 1753.

Recently purchased for the Library’s holdings on the material culture of academic life was a Jesuit thesis print. In general, this genre of publication joined the visual and textual, markng in word and picture an important milestone in the education of a youth at a Jesuit college. Upon completion of a course of study, the student became the centerpiece of a staged show of his learning and rhetorical skills. This was done before an audience, sometimes with musical interludes. During the event, before a panel of his superiors in learning, the student elaborated on theses - topics of learned discourse. According to Louise Rice in her “Jesuit Thesis Prints and the Festive Academic Defence at the Collegio Romano,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773, ed. John O’Malley et al., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999, pp. 148-69, “… the sheet was distributed to members of the audience during the defence itself; it served as a kind of program, which enabled the audience to follow the progress of the disputation, and was taken home as a record or souvenir of the event.”

As a rule, a Jesuit thesis print featured a large picture surmounting the text of the theses. (For this particular one text and image together measure 43 inches tall and 28 inches wide, being two full sheets pasted together at one edge.)

In this case the scene is the famous story of the judgement of Solomon. This story of two mothers, a disputed baby, and a cunning strategy to determine the truth was widely known and illustrated. Raphael’s rendering is in the Loggia of the Papal Palace in the Vatican. In this print, engraved by Laurent Cars in Paris after a design by Serviatus Paira, the moment depicted can be read as the instance either before or just after his decision. One mother stands before King Solomon either in supplication or abjection, while in the foreground the baby is with the other mother. Onlookers point to the center of the drama.

Discoursing on the theses was Joannes Antonius Dominicus Verhulst from Bruges at the culmination of his course in the Jesuit College Aquicinctinus in Douai. This occurred in 1753. Twenty years later the Jesuits were suppressed and this practice declined.

Verhulst is discoursing on topics in rational philosophy - before judges, in this case, presided by Pierre de Cassal, Professor of Philosophy at the College. There was a tradition of dividing rational philosophy into three parts and so it is done here in three distinct columns: Idea (science of ideas), Juridicum (laws of thought), Discursus (science of the criteria of certitude).

Customary for the Jesuit thesis print was a thematic connection between the pictorial scene and the theses. Solomon was a symbol of many meanings, of which one was that he was a sage whose determinations of truth led him to wisdom.

Title: Philosophia rationalis. Imprint: Douai : Jacobus Franciscus Willerval, 1753. Format: Over-all dimensions 110 x 73 cm.; made up of two equal size sheets (upper: engraving (judgement of Solomon); lower: engraved architectural tablet surrounding letterpress text. Summary: Announcing defense of theses in rational philosophy by Joannes Antonius Domincus Verhults of Bruges, held at the Jesuit College Aquicinctinus in Douai on March 4, 1753 and presided over by Petrus de Cassal. Call number: (Ex) Item 5324301 broadside

NB - The practice of public display of a student’s rhetorical skills continued at colleges in the New World. The archives of the University have a number of such broadsides - just text, pictures were either not allowed or not affordable or both. These are found at Mudd Library in collection number AC115, Series 5, Oversize Items, 1748-1948, Commencement Broadsides, 1754-1764.

Sunday, April 5th’s New York Times Book Review includes a notice of the following by Professor Donna Dennis of Rutgers School of Law — Newark:

Licentious Gotham: Erotic Publishing and Its Prosecution in Nineteenth-Century New York (Harvard University Press, 2009). [See announcement and excerpt (pdf)]

In preparing her study, Professor Dennis used the Library’s copy of Venus’ Miscellany.
New-York : J. Ramerio & Co., [alias for George Akarman]
“A weekly journal of wit, love and humor.”
Editors: Ramerio & Clarke, <1857>.
Library has issues for May 9, 16, 23, 30,
June 6, 20, 27, July 4 and 11, 1857.
Location: Rare Books (Ex) Call number: Dulles drawer E2
Electronic access (pdf, large file)

“By the mid-1850s, working out of a series of offices in the vicinity of Nassau Street, [George] Akarman was well on his way to becoming one of the century’s largest producers of pornography, second only to a legendary publisher of bawdy books named William Haines.” (p. 5)

“In 1856, for instance, Akarman decided to launch a new venture, a highly risky, innovative periodical called Venus’ Miscellany. Calculating that he could not sell the magazine in New York without triggering prosecution for obscenity, Akarman planned to market it solely to an upscale audience of out-of-town subscribers, the sort of people who possessed the financial resources and sophistication to negotiate mail-order subscriptions and purchases.” (p.6-7) He told his readers he intended to put the paper “entirely into a subscription circulation, which will insure it to those who want it, and keep it from who do not want it.” (Venus’ Miscellany, Jan. 31, 1857, p. 3)

The index to Licentious Gotham gives the following entries for this ‘weekly journal’: Venus’ Miscellany (magazine), 6, 7, 109, 170-182, 197, 207; contraceptives advertised in, 171-172; “flash” weeklies compared with, 187-188; letters from female readers, 175-179; mail-order sale of, 182-190, 198; prosecutions involving, 190-192, 194; “racy” reading materials advertised in, 173, 174; story excerpts from, 259

Recent recovery of her card catalogue sheds new light on the reach of her generosity toward libraries as well as the full scope of her book collection.


Susan Dwight Bliss was born in New York City on January 16, 1882 to George T. Bliss and Jeanette Atwater Dwight Bliss. Her father was a member of the banking firm of Morton, Bliss & Co. and a large shareholder in several corporations, such as Phelps Dodge. Her mother inherited substantial wealth from her father, Amos T. Dwight, a cotton merchant (New York Times, 10 Feb. 1926).

Never marrying, she lived many years in the family mansion at 9 East 68th Street (1906-07, architects Heins and LaFarge, see library plans, part of the originals for entire house held by Princeton), first with her widow mother (her father dying in 1901) and then on her own after her mother’s death in 1924. There she maintained and continued book, manuscript, and art collections tracing back to her father and mother.

She was known for her philanthropy. “She was a founding member of the social service executive board of St. Luke’s Hospital and served for many years on the hospital’s Auxiliary. Besides her work with St. Luke’s, she was active in many other organizations concerned with the social and medical welfare of children and of psychiatric patients.” [ Biographical note provided by Health Sciences Library at Columbia University]

She made numerous donations of art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1959, she gave 42 acres of green-space to the town of New Canaan, Connecticut (New York Times, 2 Oct. 1959). At her death in 1966, she bequeathed approximately $2 million to Yale University for establishing professorships in epidemiology and public health as well as a scholarship in the field.

The libraries of Bowdoin, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale received major benefactions, as did the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The most spectacular is that to Bowdoin. Named the Susan Dwight Bliss Room shortly after her death, it consists of the interior carved paneling (18th century French) and furnishings of her mansion’s library together with more than 1200 specially bound rare books for its shelves. See: http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/exhibitions/Bliss/bliss.shtml

In 1967, Harvard received her bequest of a collection of autographs of French royalty, deposited in 1957-58. (According to the New York Times, 10 Feb. 1926, a number of these first belonged belonged to her mother.) See: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou01258

Yale was given a collection documented in the article “Royal Association Books in the Bliss Collection,” in the Yale University Library Gazette 40:30 (January 1966), pp. 160-167.

Her gift to Princeton first arrived as a deposit in October, 1957, with two provisos: that it be anonymous and that it was an intended gift. In June 1964, the entire deposit was converted to an outright gift. The following articles detail the contents, mostly festival books, making up this gathering: • [Alexander Wainwright], “An Anonymous Gift” in the Princeton University Library Chronicle XIX, 3 & 4 (Spring & Summer, 1958) pp. 209-211 [full text] • Dale Roylance, “Illustrated Books” in the Princeton University Library Chronicle XX, 1 (Autumn, 1958) pp. 53-56 [full text] .

In 1927, she presented to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, her mother’s collection relating to Mary, Queen of Scots, consisting of 113 manuscripts, 687 printed books, 627 prints, and 22 medals and other items. See: Bibliothèque nationale. Collection de manuscrits, livres, estampes, et objets d’art relatifs à Marie Stuart, reine de France et d’Écosse (Paris, 1931).

• Recovery of her card catalogue

The catalogue originated in her home at 9 East 68th Street. Several years ago it was discovered in a Connecticut barn among items remaining from the estate of the executor of the will of Susan Dwight Bliss. A relative of the deceased executor brought it to the attention of staff here a Princeton. This relative has courteously allowed digitization of the cards.

The catalogue consists of approximately 18,000 cards and can be viewed at http://libweb2.princeton.edu/rbsc2/Bliss/.
The digital version essentially maintains the original order which fell into the following groupings:

• Main listing, A-Z (6 drawers) plus 1 drawer of cards arranged by subject heading. Most cards are unmarked for location in the house, so it is assumed that these were in the library. Occasionally there are markings on the cards, such as “Hall, cab. 3” “Table.” A number of the cards state “collated on large card.” These were 5x8 cards maintained for especial rare books such as the ones she gave Princeton. This link is an example.
• Seven drawers comprising a group labeled “Given away to Bowdoin, 1949-1963.”
• Four drawers comprising a group labeled “Given away, All but Bowdoin.”

Among the “all but” group are: American Museum of Natural History, Amherst College, Birmingham College, Brooklyn Museum, Brown University, Cooper Union, Frick Art Reference Library, Fryeburg Academy, Grolier Club, Hudson River Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of the City of New York, New York Public Library, Portland Junior College (now part of the University of Maine), Wilson College, and others in addition to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Keyword searching of the cards is available, thus allowing convenient exploration of names of binders, details of association copies, names of former owners, and other bibliographical notabilia. For example, enter “Stikeman” to return cards for books bound by this New York City binder.

Louis Guillaume de La Follie, 1733?-1780. Le Philosophe sans prétention, ou L’homme rare. Ouvrage physique, chymique, politique et moral, dédié aux savans. Par M. D. L. F., Paris, Chez Clousier, 1775. Call number: (Ex) Q157.L25. Purchased by the Library in 1998-99. Princeton copy has contemporary signature “Mlle de Beaufort” at the head of the frontispiece.

“A picaresque Oriental romance and conte philosophique that created the first airship powered by electricity. (Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with lightning in the 1760s had impressed many observers, including, some years later, a young Percy Shelley.) The fact that fiction soon abandoned this opening to follow the balloon trail of the Montgolfier brothers should not reflect poorly on la Folie, argues Versins (see his Encyclopédie de l’utopie, des voyages extraordinaires et de la science fiction, 2e ed., Lausanne, 1984, page 505), but on the writers whose imaginations could rise no higher than the earth’s atmosphere. But the author’s importance is far greater than that. Here, for the first time, he adds, is the outline of a theory for a new type of literature inspired by science and technology: a theory that would not be truly implemented until nearly a century later with the works of another Frenchman, Jules Verne. In his dedicatory epistle, La Folie compares science to a beautiful woman whose inherent charms are not noticed until she is dressed up attractively enough to excite the curiosity of onlookers. (Through the ages it has not been unusual for writers to misdirect readers in such prefaces, to avow sound utilitarian purposes which they could use for cover from certain kinds of criticism. Whether la Folie’s work really does function as a procurer for Science is another matter. Yet the argument could be made that sugar-coated science constitutes the main course served up by Verne — and many subsequent authors of science fiction.) The ostensible narrator of la Folie’s tale is an Arab named Nadir (an astronomical pun) who, in a vision, beholds the voyages of a Mercurian named Ormisais. In his description of life on Mercury, Ormisais relates the workings of an elite scientific-literary organization (like the British Royal Society or the French Academy) but much more restrictive, with only a dozen members. One of the applicants for the latest vacancy is a young inventor, Scintilla, the true hero of the tale. He shows the Academy members his flying machine, ‘an elaborate combination of wheels, globes of glass, springs, wires, glass-covered wooden uprights, a plate rubbed with camphor and covered with gold leaf’ (Nicolson, Voyages to the Moon, p. 197): altogether a far cry from the winged contraptions of the past. After a short demonstration flight, Ormisais is chosen to take the trip to Earth, but he crash lands and is thus stranded, a stranger in a strange land. He tells Nadir that it took him 500 hours to ‘ascend’ or ‘descend’ to Earth: take your pick, for the universe, he says (enunciating a surprisingly modern cosmology) has neither height nor depth nor center nor frontiers. An important landmark in the evolution of interplanetary science fiction.” - Robert Eldridge (courtesy of L. W. Currey, Inc., Elizabethtown, N.Y.)

See also: “The First “Electrical” Flying Machine” by Nora M. Mohler and Marjorie H. Nicolson in Essays contributed in honor of President William Allan Neilson. (Northampton, MA: Smith College, 1939), pp. 143-158.

“Lafolie, (Louis Guillaume), a French chemist, born at Rouen in 1739. Discovered the yellow dye extracted from gaude, (dyer’s weed,) and wrote an imaginative work called the “Philosopher without Pretension,” (‘Philosophe sans Prétention,’ etc., 1775.) D. in 1780.” — Joseph Thomas, Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology (Philadelphia, London: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1915), vol. 2, page 1471.

More biographical information at http://www.gutenberg-e.org/lowengard/glossShell.html?f#f07.

For more on the Library’s Aeronautica, see this article concerning chiefly books, and this article concerning prints.

Esteemed Princeton Librarian and founding editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Julian Boyd (1903-1980) described former University Librarian, Ernest Cushing Richardson (1860-1939), as an extraordinary man. “…There are few major ideas stirring the library profession today that did not, in one form or another, germinate in his fertile brain.” (Annual Report, 1947, p. 9)

Richardson’s tenure at Princeton was from 1890 to 1920, and his connection with the University continued even later first with the courtesy title of ‘Director’ and later as emeritus. These were vibrant, expansive years for academic and research libraries, when for the first time librarians in American higher learning began to think about programs of national scale. In many respects, their collective thinking synchronized with comparable thinking occurring in the learned professions, government, cultural institutions, and higher education. Richardson’s ideas ranged from standardized, national rules for cataloguing to various ideas for sharing the resulting catalogue records among libraries. He was insistent on establishing all manner of union lists, including what we now know today as NUC Pre-56. He devised methods for inexpensive distribution of holdings information, using the ‘title-a-line’ format resulting from the easy production of a 100 character lead-type line by a Linotype machine. Richardson also had wide-ranging ideas about adventurous schemes for collection development in academic and research libraries in the United States.

What academic libraries should buy, how they should buy it, and where they should buy it were all open questions in Richardson’s day. In 1891, the University of Chicago sought to resolve these questions initially by purchasing the entire book stock of the learned German bookselling firm of S. Calvary Buchhandlung in Berlin - a projected purchase of over 300,000 volumes and 150,000 pamphlets. In the end, Chicago took only about quarter of all these items, but set a basis for rapid growth. By 1900 they possessed the fourth largest academic library in the United States at over 303,000 volumes. Other libraries continued a program, first begun in the nineteenth century, of purchasing the libraries of learned professors. The progression of these purchases is well documented in the 1912 publication issued by the United States Bureau of Education entitled Special Collections in Libraries in the United States.

Yet another model resolving these questions was individual local work done by a head librarian carefully developing lists of wants, then foraying into the book market to fill those wants. During the 1890s at Princeton, records indicate that Richardson labored over producing a list of over 200,000 wants for the library. This was, in short, his reckoning of what the core collection of a leading American university library should be. Unfortunately, no individual particulars about those 200,000 wants are known; we only know the fact that he intensively developed such a list.


In the document that follows, dated October 12, 1908, we get a glimpse of Richardson the individual at work. He has returned from a long working tour of Europe during the winter of 1907 - 08. He was excited about the outcome of his book hunting, financed partly at his own expense and partly through the support of two long-time boosters of university development at Princeton —— Moses Taylor Pyne (1855-1921; Cl ’ 1877) and Arthur H. Scribner (1859-1932; Cl’ 1881). The former being a scion of the wealth stemming from Moses Taylor (1806-1882), one of the richest men in New York, and the later of the famous publishing firm. Richardson was constantly aware that they were of the ilk who thought daily about ‘return on investment’ and who sought reassurance that their money was well-spent. Richardson knew that spending other people’s money was an exercise in confidence-building, so the tone of his report is that of providing evidence of cunning stewardship. For him, future gifts were the result of present actions.

[Princeton, October 12, 1908
Annexed to Librarian’s Report to the President and Trustees
By Ernest Cushing Richardson, Librarian]


EXHIBIT F
Special Report on Purchasing Trip Abroad
    As mentioned in June and in the report to which this is annexed, the librarian, who was spending last winter abroad, took advantage of the gifts of Messrs. M. Taylor Pyne and A. H. Scribner with certain other provisions to buy something less than 12,000 volumes of acknowledged value, for something over $5,000.
    The effort was made to test for his own information and for the information of the trustees how far the market cost of books could be improved on by special methods of purchase when there was capital in hand.
    Pains were taken to exhibit as many as possible of the various kinds, classes and ways in which advantage may be had: (1), buying in bulk (2), buying in quantity (3), buying from small dealers (4), buying in out of the way shops (5), occasional bargains from large dealers (6), buying at auction (7), buying of non-booksellers.

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    Purchase memoranda were roughly classified (1) immediate wants, (2) early wants, (3) books of acknowledged value but not presently needed. Books of the first class included those which it was known would be, if not gotten this winter, shortly bought in routine at the market price. Any reduction at all on the market price for these was of course so much clear gain. The second class, that of early wants, included the books which it was likely might at any moment pass into the first class and the general plan was to buy such if they turned up at half market price. The third class included the very large number of books evidently useful sooner or later. Beyond this class and shading into it is a great mass of minor usefulness or valuable for rarity or curiosity to be bought in general only when the bargain is great. In this class this year were a great many Americana which in many American Libraries would be counted at least in the second class.
    Booksellers were visited in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the South of France and Spain. Few books were purchased in Holland and Germany, except the Goertz: lot of 3800 at Berlin. In Switzerland perhaps a couple of hundred were gotten at Lucerne, Zurich and Stans. In Italy, a few were gotten on the Lakes, a few more at Milan and Bologna, a couple of thousand more or less at Florence, Leghorn, Pisa, Siena and neighboring points, as many at Rome, a few hundred on the Rivera, a thousand or fifteen hundred in the South of France and perhaps half as many more in three or four places in Spain, chiefly in Madrid.
    Germany, where the book trade is so well organized, proved as always not so good a hunting ground for individual bargains as Italy or the smaller cities of France but the Goertz collection this year has afforded an excellent example of what may sometimes be done even in Germany by buying a bulk. In general we do nothing with this class of buying (as I said when this collection was first offered) but, properly managed, it may be one of the best methods for cheap buying. The principle of such buying is, to be sure that a certain number out of the lot is worth the price of the whole and consider the rest thrown in. In

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this case I satisfied myself before purchase that 1/3 the books would be priced in a fair priced German catalogue at three times what was paid —- having satisfied myself first of all that it was an unusually useful lot, in unusual condition, and with almost no duplicates.
    Auctions were attended at Florence and Rome and it was found that, with careful preparation, these Italian auctions are still among the very best sources of reasonable purchase in the world. Among the best sources of purchase when one has a large purchase list and a good memory for prices are the bookshops in the smaller places and those shops in the larger places which have no printed or even written catalogues and where no language in spoken save the vernacular, but when one’s range of wants is small the searching book for book through hundreds of thousands of volumes of stock is hunting a needle in a haymow. The larger and more disorganized stock, the better the chance of bargains, but to look at each one of one hundred thousand volumes takes much time patience and industry and does not pay unless one has so many wants, that he may expect to find, say, 1 in 1,000 volumes examined.
    With careful memoranda, another of the most satisfactory sources of purchase especially when the list of wants is moderate is the native shop with the priced slip catalogue of stock. Here one may purchase from his memoranda with mathematical certainty. In Florence where there was most time available, three book-sellers were worked in this way, under the uniform understanding that if more than $40.00 worth was bought, there should be a 25% discount. In each case it would have been possible to have bought two or three times as many books at 1/3 the known market price, if time and money had permitted, but it was necessary to save both for other cities.
    It is often asked if one cannot buy just as well from catalogues as from shops and it is true that the catalogues of the smaller dealers are a great possible

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source of bargain, but in the first place none of the minor dealers publish more than a small fraction of their stock and, in the second place these same catalogues are one of the chief sources for the organized trade especially in Germany and the most obvious bargains are immediately snapped up. Even a telegram was not quick enough to get for us a $50.00 copy of a $200 set which appeared in a little South Italian catalogue —- a set for which we were glad to pay $90.00 later; as it stood almost to the head of our list of wants.
    The only really satisfactory way to purchase is to have memoranda of precise prices. This implies large want lists and very careful preparation, for it requires the utmost familiarity with prices and the kind of things which go to make up values in order to judge from general knowledge. With such familiarity a good deal can be done by guessing prices, and it must often be done. There is for example no way of getting actual quotations on unique documents and there is no great risk either in purchasing say a book on America, before the year 1700 for 25 or 30¢ whenever the opportunity offers. If, however this is done on any very large scale a certain percentage of errors may be allowed for. Mistakes are sure to be made now and then in both directions and one has not only the pain of having paid too much sometimes but often the chagrin of having missed good opportunities through ignorance of values. There were at least two narrow escapes last winter; in one case I hesitated to pay $2.50 for a book which proved worth $35 and at another time hesitated over giving $3.00 for a lot which proved worth several hundred dollars. If another dollar had been asked in either case, Princeton would have lost the bargain.
    In general the buying from non-book-sellers in not very satisfactory. If one knows exact values, it seems morally necessary to pay a private individual at least 1/3 of the average memorandum price as being what he might hope to get from a dealer. The dealer in art antiques however often has a few books, and although the prices for these are apt to be extravagant, there are liable to be bargains among them. This was found to be the case at Lucerne, at Pallanza, in one case at

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Rome, at San Remo and since returning to America in one excellent case at New London. In purchasing of dealers whether of books or of antiquities, one may purchase in good conscience on the best terms that he can get since the dealer has made his legitimate profit in any event.
    While dealers everywhere in general claim not to give more than 10% discount and many of the best dealers are stiff in this, it was found that purchase of quantity often led to a 25% or even 40% discount and one dealer hinted even at 50%. No less than three large dealers practically said that their figures were for amateurs and that they would make the prices “right” for a librarian. Many such dealers offered to consider any offer and to “adjust” any difference of opinion: in one case a well known expensive dealer “adjusted” for about 1/3 the price printed in his catalogue.
——————-
    Turning to report on the net result or purchasing last winter as compared with the routine purchases at the market rates, two or three things should be stated. In the first place 10% must be deducted from catalogue prices in reckoning the net catalogue price compared with cash price paid. In the second place it is true that the catalogues differ a great deal among themselves and no doubt the prices of many of them are excessive, but in point of fact the more expensive dealers quoted are those recommended by the American Library Association’s Committee on book buying and who are known to have sold largely to American libraries and Professors in our a University recently, at a maximum discount of 10%. The comparisons made are generally on a basis of 20 cts. to the franc and .25 to the shilling or mark.
    In comparing prices it is always necessary to take into account condition and binding and these have been so taken into account go far as possible, but it has not always been possible to discriminate in detail between auction and catalogue and cash prices.

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    The comparisons of prices here given are of necessity chiefly by comparison of the price paid with the auction or catalogue prices. The very best comparison would be with prices known to have been actually paid by American libraries for the same books. This is by the nature of the case difficult to get at, but in a few cases this method may be applied to duplicates among our own purchases and to books bought by Professors for their own use. In one important case the Goertz collection, we are able to make a pointed illustration of this most concrete of all bases, that of prices actually paid by another library.
    This Goertz collection is the chief, and practically the only example of buying in bulk among these purchases. The collection consists of about 3800 or (if separate works bound in the same volume are counted) 4,000 volumes printed in the 16, 17, 18th centuries, in admirable condition. They represent that part of an excellent library, collected in the 18th century, which was not wanted by the Berlin Royal Library, simply because it already had the books. They represent, therefore, books which had been deemed worth adquiring for the Berlin Library and presumably thus form on the whole the more immediately useful, if less rare, portion of that library. We paid less than $750 for them on the spot or perhaps .18 a volume. The bulk was so disproportionate to price however that they had cost over $1,000 when laid down here, although the expenses of packing and transportation were reduced to the lowest terms.

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In this matter we have the following clear case of comparison with the actual purchase price of another American library. At the Sunderland Library sale, some years ago, Professor Hartranft of the Hartford Theological Seminary, of is library, checked through in the catalogue those numbers for which he saw definite scholarly use, checking in general history and philology as well as theology. The numbers were checked with 1 2 3 4 5 or 6 crosses to indicate the order of importance and directions were given to the agent to purchase only such as went cheap. In the Goertz collection are some 356 volumes which were in that sale. 113 of these volumes are unavailable for comparison because the Sunderland copies had special bindings or autographs which affected the price, but 243 volumes sold for 2225 shillings and of these Hartford got 92 volumes for 906 shillings. These books represented what the agent counted select bargains among the much larger number of books checked. These 92 books, now in the Hartford Library, cost it about $225 on the spot while our copies of the same cost us $18. The whole 243 volumes that we have cost us $45., while the corresponding copies cost Sunderland buyers $550. Examining whether the Sunderland prices are excessive we find recent quotations on twenty two of the volumes. These cost at Sunderland sale $58.75 and in the recent catalogues $110. - or nearly double. It appears thus that the 243 volumes which cost us $45, cost in the Sunderland sale $550 and are presumably priced in recent catalogues at not less than what we paid for the whole 3800 or 4000 volumes.

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2. Another test was made in Italian History and 38 out of 87 volumes in Italian History have a market value of 290 lire or say $1.40 per vol. against 18¢ paid by us.
3. Again of 54 volumes on the History of Holland and Belgium, 17 are found in the two most recent catalogues at a value of $40.65, which with 10% off gives a comparison of $36 to $3 cost.
4. Once more: the section of this collection which was counted least useful for our purchases was that of theology, this department being cared for by the Theological Seminary. This section was happily surprisingly small, being only about 1/8 and nearly half of these of direct value in history and philology. The financial value of these as rarities is such that 110 volumes are priced at $298.50 in standard catalogues.
5. Again: Natural Science and medicine. 13 vols. priced at $30.50 cost us $2.30
The question how useful old books of the sort of this Goertz collection are is one which is often asked. It is not easy to answer such a question concretely, but it may be said in the first place that many Professors who have examined these books have found things useful for their purposes. One of the chief points in getting such books and one of the chief reasons why American scholars are so handicapped in their work, when they are working in this class of material, is the fact that it is only by having the material to use that men find the use that it is to them; not having they do their work without it and their work suffers. It is a pity that no record was kept as to actual use of these books during the month after boxes were opened but there were two or three things which are to the point. One of the first books that Prof. Paul Van Dyke saw was one that he had wanted for immediate use, and for which he had already put in an order slip which he canceled when it was found there. At another time another Professor came and said that “Scaliger Poetices 1581” was needed and that three of the departments had agreed to share the expense of getting a copy; could we tell him how much it would cost? We had pleasure in telling him that it was here and bought for a sum quite within the united resources of the three departments, having cost, including importation expenses, perhaps 25 cents.
    Another way of seeing the value of such books comes out by the fact that the prime object of the purchasing last winter was sources for history, this being the object for which Mr. Pyne had given his money. In this line the Goertz collection includes 56 sets properly under the head of collections, 11 of these being series of Scriptores while there were also 27 volumes of Treaties of Peace and 234 volumes of early historical periodicals giving the current events

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of the time and most useful for historical purposes.
    And finally: Shortly after my return last spring the library had specific suggestions from two Professors (one of the Prof. Osgood) as to whether we couldn’t do some thing in the way of Neo-Latin writers in which we were weak. Dean West had previously made a suggestion to the same effect and it had been with a good deal of interest that the librarian had found this collection rich in this line. When considering purchase, it was with much pleasure therefore that the was able to tell Mr. Osgood and Mr. Critchlow that there were no less than 108 items in this field in the Goertz collection.
    It may be said in brief of the Goertz collection that the total number of volumes embraced in these five sample tests is 421, costing us $74.80 having a catalogue valuation of $975.50 or more than was paid for the 4,000 volumes. These 4,000 volumes at the same ratio would be worth more than $9,000 (less 10%) and, although the ratio of the remaining will probably be less, it is fair to say that a reasonable market price is more than was paid from all the 12,000 volumes purchased last winter.

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    Turning from the Goertz collection to the remaining 2/3 of the purchases, it is not quite so easy to get a definite statement for books purchased in such various methods and places without a complete working up of catalogue prices for all but there are two or three lines of analysis which give a pretty good view of general values.
    The chief object in purchase was historical sources for which Mr. Pyne had given money. The figures for these books is especially interesting on account of the fact that the majority of items fall within the first and second classes of purchase i.e. those in which it is a decided economy to buy for 50% of the catalogue price. A report made to Mr. Pyne in January included 343 volumes for which we had clear market prices of $719.60 and which cost us $333.50. To this may be added now 186 volumes giving with the others a total of 529 volumes having a market value of $1149.00 and for which Princeton paid $418.00.
    Another good example is in the field of maps and atlases. Just before going abroad a collection of about thirty early American maps were offered for sale to Mr. Pyne. He asked if we would like them and if the prices were fair. The matter was referred to Prof. Bingham who was our specialist and who had an elaborate system of price memoranda. He pronounced the maps desirable and the prices fair and his judgment was confirmed by quotations from recent catalogues. Purchasing during the past winter it was often necessary to get several maps in a lot or a volume and this resulted in a number of duplicates of these maps and from these we get a basis of actual comparison with our buying at ordinary good rates.
    Nearly 100 volumes of atlases were purchased and perhaps 200 separate maps for not more than $200.00. 27 volumes of these atlases seem to have a fair market value of not less than $785.00 and one of the separate maps, purchased with 59 other for $3.00 is quoted at $80.00, several others being worth $10.00 or more each. Circumstances proved that it is much cheaper to buy maps at wholesale than at retail, one of the best ways being to get imperfect atlases —- although it is hard to tell often in the case of atlases what is perfect as copies were published with very different selections of maps. One not very perfect atlas contained, together with several other American maps and many foreign ones, two duplicates of maps purchased by us for $5.75 each. The cost to us of the whole

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atlas was the cost of one single map and the cost of each American map less than $1.00 as compared with the regular market price of $5.75.
    One more illustration may be taken from the works on Latin America purchase through the aid of Mr. Scribner. The price of these have not yet been so well worked out as in the above cases, but 80 out of 196 volumes, costing Mr. Scribner $109 have a catalogue value of $ 463.
    Among these books too we have a cross check for actual purchase prices as one work of first importance cost one of our Faculty $20.00, and appears in English catalogues for £4-8-0 or more, but was gotten for $6.00.
    Another somewhat different line of illustration is found by analyzing all the purchases made at a smaller center: Toulouse. This is as good as any in prices and the condition of the books is very superior. 1053 volumes were bought here for $551.00. A selection of 101 of these volumes indicates a market price of $553.60 leaving the remaining 952 a clear profit. Quotations are now in hand for 468 volumes out of the whole 1053 and these indicate a fair market price of $1104.75 for these volumes and, although these are quite the more valuable portion, indicate a total value of not less than $1800.00 or 2000.00 for the 1053 vols. costing $551.00.
    In bringing this matter to your attention it is not pretended that foreign purchase is the only method of purchase or that other librarians may not exercise this as well as ourselves. The same principles apply to the auction and book-shops of our own country. Only by the nature of the things the bulk of the books wanted even in English are foreign books. These are found here less often and this fact although it now and then works for cheapness on the average tends to a very much higher price. There are few instances in which other libraries do work the foreign travel method in a practical fashion but there is no reason why anyone would not. It is simply a matter of patience, industry and above all of adequate preparation.
    The net conclusion is that with capital, preparation and attention books may be bought for this library at one third or one fourth the market value for books not needed at once.

Original typescript located in the Board of Trustees Records (AC120), box 25, folder 2 (15 October 1908)

On the front paste down of volume 1 The English in France By the Author of “The English in Italy” Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Carey, 1829. [(Ex) Item 5251517]

According to Joseph Barlow Felt, Annals of Salem (Salem, 1849), vol. II, p. 33, Mrs. Harris’s stock eventually numbered 4,000 volumes.

Note Condition number VII “Subscribers lending their books will be charged for them as non-subscribers, separate from their privilege as subscribers.” She was not going to be undercut by customers “repackaging” her “loan” to them. Her protectionism can also be seen in her final Hint: “It is requested that new books be returned in three days.”

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin is February 12 and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his On the Origin of Species will be in November.

If you look up Darwin in the earliest printed catalogue of the Library to contain mention of his work, you are drawn to pages 220 and 221 of the Subject-catalogue of the Library of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton (New York, 1884), compiled by head Librarian Frederic Vinton.

The entry for Darwin is under the heading ‘Evolution of Species.’ Such is expected. But, library catalogues always provide surprising juxtapositions of headings, and this 1884 Subject-catalogue is no exception. The entry preceding ‘Evolution’ is ‘Evidences of revealed religion,’ subdivided into three sections, the last of which is ‘(Revelation denied).’
Immediately following ‘Evolution of species’ is the ‘Evolution of the universe… (See also Cosmology, Metaphysics)’, followed by ‘Examinations (academic)’

This sequence of entries has an unexpectedly modern tone — in public discourse, these categories are still in close proximity today. Clearly Librarian Vinton was not only an expert bibliographer and cataloguer. He was a cunning compiler who knew the power of lists to both reflect and anticipate debate.

Johann Buxtorf. Lexicon Hebraicum et Chaldaicum (Basel, 1645)
Call number: (Ed) 2291.231.11

Native American and English contact is documented by this copy of Buxtorf’s Lexicon (1645) owned by the Reverend David Brainerd (1718-1747).

Pictured above is the front cover and spine of the book. An otterskin piece, decorated in a pattern characteristic of Native Americans of the Eastern woodlands, wraps over the tattered original spine and boards. Mismatched pattern stripes at the inside corners (not pictured) show the wrapper to be a fragment of a larger piece. This suggests that the wrapper was salvaged from another Indian artifact no longer useful at the time for its original purpose but eligible as repair material. It is unknown precisely when the overwrapper was added but various evidence suggests occurrence during the eighteenth century.

In 1739, Brainerd entered Yale but was expelled for sympathizing with the Whitefield revival and, so it is told, for remarking that a college tutor had ‘no more grace than this chair.’ A missionary of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, the Rev. Brainerd evangelized among Indian groups in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. His most notable success came among the Delaware at Crossweeksung. In the spring of 1746 he and his Indian wards moved their community to Cranbury. In October of the following year Brainerd died in the house of Jonathan Edwards - a future president of Princeton - in Northampton, Massachusetts. Brainerd was engaged to marry Edwards’ daughter Jerusha when he died of tuberculosis at age 29.

The book was bequeathed by Brainerd to Jonathan Edwards and was passed down through Edwards’s descendants, including the Rev. Tryon Edwards, and Dr. Fitzhugh Edwards. It was presented as a gift of the descendants of Jonathan Edwards through Mrs. William F. H. Edwards on September 7, 1907. It followed the family’s earlier gift of books from Edwards’s library made on September 27, 1897.

The Library has loaned this book to Morven for the exhibition “Picturing Princeton 1783: The Nation’s Capital,” on view until June 2009.

Going back to ancient times is a pictorial genre depicting the course of human life — an illustration of a man’s progress from start to end plotted onto the length and depth of a two-dimensional plane. By convention, the beginning point is in the foreground; the end is in the distance. Such images are a single-sheet form of the “picture story,” a means of expression developed so well by Hogarth (“Rake’s Progress”) or Daumier. As Hogarth said “I treat my subjects as a dramatic writer; my picture is my stage, and men and women my players.”

One of the earliest examples of this genre is the “Tablet of Cebes,” a mural said to be in the temple of Chronos in either Athens or Thebes. It showed one’s progress from entry at the gate of Genius to the goal of reaching Happiness in the end. Here is an image from a 1694 work showing the path.

[H. L. Spieghel, Hertspieghel en andere zede-schriften (Amsterdam, 1694), folding plate following page 72.]

[Note: Detail about the picture can be found on page 8 -11 of Richard Parsons, Cebes’ Tablet (Boston, 1901) available in Google Book Search. Much more on the topic is available from Reinhart Schleier,
Tabula Cebetis; oder, “Spiegel des Menschlichen Lebens darin Tugent und untugent abgemalet ist” : Studien zur Rezeption einer antiken Bildbeschreibung im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Berlin, Gebr. Mann Verlag (c1973).]

Equally forceful is the depiction of the course of life in reverse — in the case of this temperance broadside, cast as a railway route from “Sippington” to “Destruction” with 30 stops in between.

[Black Valley Railroad, Great Central Fast Route, colored wood engraving issued by the National Temperance Society, New York and Boston.(1880?) Ex Item 5184327q]

Up until about 1900, a moral dialogue about the Tablet was widely used as a school text for the teaching of elementary Greek, so it is not surprising that the learned advocates of temperance in the United States adapted the genre for popular, moral instruction.

Illustrated above is an uncommon survivor of the book trade: an entrance ticket to a general sale of “several thousand volumes” in Edinburgh in 1818.

Unsold stock is the bane of any bookseller. In this case William Nivison put up for sale at the Royal Exchange Coffee House not only single copies of timely books, such as the London, three volume edition of Lewis and Clark’s Travels, but also offered titles in bulk, such as “100 (copies) Burns’s Works, 4 vol. 12mo, calf, titled, [individually priced at] £1, 6s.” He sold more than books, for the catalogue includes such items as drawing boxes at different prices (at 2s, 6s, 10s, and “complete” at £1, 10s), drawing pencils, quills, “maps published within these last 12 months,” and “Church Music Tunes.”

The 2645 volumes and other items in the 11 page catalogue are listed and priced. How did his prices compare with the market? One case in point may well tell the story of the whole. Nivison offers Hannah More’s Sacred Dramas at 3s 6d in calf. An 1815 Scottish advertisement for this same book offered it at 6s in boards. The price differential may give us a clue as to why Nivison was charging admission to the sale (price on the ticket “seven shillings and sixpence.”) He was underselling the trade, which had several consequences. On the one hand, as his prices approached his cost for stock, it meant slim profits per unit. On the other hand, there was money to be made, because profit could be had from the gate fee charged to the bargain hunters coming to his sale. Nivison realized there was value not only in the stock offered but in the event itself. He did not overlook putting a fee to a customer’s opportunity.

But, were there all that many customers? This ticket is number 1592. If it is indeed the 1,592nd ticket sold, then, he would have grossed £597. (He gave £991 as the total value of the stock on sale.) We will never know, perhaps, the final outcome of Nivison’s sale, but, it is recorded “In October 1819, [the Edinburgh Booksellers Society] … was exercised by the ‘system of underselling [that] has prevailed for some time in the Book Trade of Edinburgh.’ ” (p. 138, Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland [2007], vol. 3)

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Description de l’Égypte, Princeton University Library is currently presenting the exhibition Egypt Unveiled: The Mission of Napoleon’s Savants.

Despite the failure of Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 military campaign in Egypt, the work of the scholars who accompanied him on the expedition was an incredible success. A group of 151 scientists, engineers, and artists was recruited to explore, describe, and document every aspect of the country. From the great temples and tombs of ancient Egypt to contemporary customs and trades, from Egyptian animals, plants, and minerals to local topography, the savants—or scholars—captured it all.

The single greatest archaeological discovery made by the French in Egypt was a dark gray granite slab found in July 1799 near the town of Rosetta, east of Alexandria. Measuring forty-seven inches tall and thirty-two inches wide, the scholars immediately recognized the importance of the artifact. The same decree from 196 B.C. is inscribed on the stone in three scripts: Greek (bottom), Egyptian demotic (middle), and Egyptian hieroglyphics (top). The Rosetta Stone proved to be the key to decoding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, allowing the language to be read for the first time in fifteen hundred years.

Description de l’Égypte, the comprehensive result of all of the scholars’ work and research, was published beginning in 1809. Comprising twenty-three volumes and 837 engraved plates, it is considered an extraordinary scholarly achievement as well as a foundational work of modern Egyptology.

Egypt Unveiled: The Mission of Napoleon’s Savants is on view through Sunday, May 10, 2009, in the Main Gallery of Firestone Library. The exhibition was organized by Jen Meyer, Assistant to the Curator of Rare Books. Former Assistant, Paula Entin, also contributed. For more information, visit: http://www.princeton.edu/~rbsc/exhibitions/main.html

Note regarding the exhibition poster: The scholars enjoyed drawing each other at work in Egypt. In this sketch, an expedition artist contemplates a mighty granite statue of Rameses II in Thebes. Citation: “Thèbes. Karnak. Vue d’un colosse placé à l’entrée de la salle hypostyle du palais.” Antiquities. Vol. III, pl. 20. Description de l’Égypte: ou, Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’armée française. Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1809-1822. Gift from the library of Ralph E. Prime (1840-1920), presented in 1921 by his sons, Ralph E. Prime Jr., Class of 1888, and William Cowper Prime Jr., Class of 1890. Rare Book Division. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

In 1956, a year before Thomas R. Adams became librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, he queried the university librarian at Princeton about the administration of the rare book collections in the library. The questionnaire was part of a larger survey project resulting in Adams’s article in Library Trends, entitled “Rare Books: Their Influence on the Library World.” (April 1957). Adams’s first five questions were headed “Origins of the Collection.”

Tom Adams was always interested in fundamental questions, such as how and why a collection began. I learned this fact when I worked for him between 1969 and 1974. I was reminded again of this characteristic as I listened to several of his closest personal friends in the profession speak at his memorial this past Saturday.

His last publication appears in the Winter 2008 issue of The Book Collector. It is a valedictory entitled “Defining Americana: The Evolution of the John Carter Brown Library.”

He begins with a remarkable sentence: “The emergence of a rare book library as a research centre had its origins in a reaction to the growth of the tax-supported free public library.” In one swoop, Tom Adams has told us how began the enterprise in which he made his career. His reason fits a larger theme common in collecting - that all collecting is reparative. Thus, one aspect of the ‘rare book library as reseach centre’ was to provide a locus apart from the leveling, ‘best books’ approach provided by an agency of the modern, democratic state. On the other hand, his genesis story can also be considered in terms of changing public policy. Indeed, Adams moves in this direction on page three in his summary story of American libraries. Their roots, he says, lay in the reading publics associated with colleges, churches, or subscriptions ‘companies.’ But as the reading public enlarged in the 19th century, and, concurrently, as did their voting rights and their popular powers to shape public policy, so did ideas about what a library could be. Tax support enabled possession without ownership — the actuality that readers could have a book in their hands independent of the means needed to control it as property.

Adams’s point then is that owners of precious, rare books found such developments alarming because they disabled a system for the future public life of a collector’s books. For these collectors - Adams gives the names on page one: … Peter Force, Thomas Aspinwall, George Brinley, James Lenox, Henry C. Murphy, James Carson Brevoort, Samuel Latham Mitchill Barlow and John Carter Brown — in the days of their youth, the college, church, and company model was in place. There was a certain wholeness in this model. But, by their latter years, and certainly by the early years of their children, a new, mixed, more democratic model was in place. To recover ‘the place of grace’ tracing back to earlier times, it made sense to set up a future apart and anew. In this context, then, we come to the words of John Carter Brown’s son who declared in his will “that this library … shall preserve its identity as a whole” (p. 5)

Although it makes sense to conclude that for Carter Brown’s son, John Nicholas, the phrase “to preserve its individual identity as a whole” meant disunion with the merging democratic tendencies of a Boston Public or a New York Public, there is still the question as to what was meant positively by this phrase. What is a library’s “individual identity”? Can its identity really be independent of the community that shaped it?

I suggest that the John Carter Brown represents an idea comparable to the the idea of the States United. It represents the hope that a singular act will preserve an abstraction — just as it was hoped that a particular declaration made in Philadelphia one past July would bring liberty.

Therein lies the positive meaning of ‘to preserve its individual identity’ — namely, the point of the library was to define, to describe, to help us understand an idea rather than mass-commodify it. ‘The rare book library as a research centre’ is about questions, rather than answers.

Note: Page citations above are from the reprint of the article whose front cover is pictured above.

Invented by Emma Willard (1787-1870). Published in 1846 by A.S. Barnes & Co., 51 John Street, New York. At the chart’s lower right, the famed educator of American women states its raison d’être:

“Those laws of mind by which not only the memory is assisted, but the intellect formed, have been regarded in this invention. The attempt to understand chronology by merely committing dates to memory, is not only painful, but it is as useless as to learn latitudes and longitudes without the study of maps. As in geography, the relation of any place to all other places is what is important to know; so in chronology, the relation which any given event bears to others constitutes the only useful knowledge. Whosever wishes, can here locate himself in any point of time, and see what characters are cotemporary [sic], what before, and what to follow. This saves great labor of thought, and may suggest new ideas, even to the learned.

By putting the course of time into perspective, the disconnected parts of a vast subject are united in one, and comprehended at a glance; — the poetic idea of “the vista of departed years”[*] is made an object of sight; and when the eye is the medium, the picture will by frequent inspection, be formed within, and forever remain, wrought into the living texture of the mind. If this be done by a design whose beauty and grandeur naturally attract attention, then the teacher or parent who shall place it before his pupils and children, will find that they will insensibly become possessed of an inner “Temple” in which they may, through life, deposit, in the proper order of time, the facts of history as they shall acquire them. This, we repeat, is as important to the student of time as maps are to the student of place. Nations are here exhibited both ethnographically and chronographically. With any of the most celebrated characters of the world, we may in idea stand within the “Temple,” and look back to the past, and forward to the future.”

• “the vista of departed years” - A line from the poem “The Flight of Time” by John Lowe, published in Edinburgh in 1845.

Front cover: Willard’s Map of Time: A Companion to the Historic Guide. By Emma Willard. New-York, [1846]. Call number: (Ex) Item 5146637q

For more particulars on the Library’s significant holdings relating to the history of charts and tables of chronology as well as timelines, see the relevant entry in the Guide to Selected Special Collections.

“Say, can a greater wonder e’re be found / Than light conveyed by syphons under ground?”

Gas Lamp Lighters Address. Broadside with two poems, illustrated with woodcuts, 500 x 375 mms., with imprint of E. Billing and Son, Printers, 186, Bermondsey Street. [London], c. 185-. [Call number: (Ex) Broadside 408] Purchased in 2008.

Seeking a gratuity at the Christmas season, the gas lamp lighter greets his customer with verse and pictures. His work is heroic, as the verse points out, achieving far greater wonder than steam power (“hurl mankind full fifty miles per hour”) and the “electric stream” (“transmits in moments news to distant land.” (In 1849, a telegraph line was laid under the English Channel connecting Dover to Calais; it took a number of years for locomotives, first introduced in 1804, to reach speeds of 50 miles per hour. Coal gas — a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, etc — first illuminated Pall Mall in London in 1807. )

Delighting the eye are two large pictures:

At top, “The merry dance, the gay and festive throng/ Beneath the boughs of misselto’s bright green/ To jolly Christmas only can belong/ For now’s the time superior pleasures seen….” Certainly this must be Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball. (The original John Leech illustration first appeared in the first edition of Dickens’s masterpiece A Christmas Carol, London, 1843).

At bottom is “View of the Gas Works,” the centerpiece of a triptych flanked by images of dandy “Gasmen” in top hat. This large scene is derived from the 1821 print “Drawing the Retorts at the Great Gas Light Establishment, Brick Lane.”

Between the upper and lower large scenes are depicted further wonders. At middle left, above a scene of the birth of Christ is “The Gasometer.” At middle right, above the scene of the Crucifixion is “Drawing the Retorts.” (A gasometer or gas-holder is a large container for holding gas. “Drawing the Retorts” refers to clearing spent coal from the distilling apparatus.) The parallelism is most subtle — at left, images of promise and supply; at right, images of exhaustion and work done. ‘Tis a curious double message about who is the worker of wonders: God and /or man?

The above is a graph generated by Excel from a table of the holdings for the general rare book collection at Princeton, commonly referred to as the Ex collection.

The x axis (horizontal) is date of publication. The y axis (vertical) is the number of books in the Ex collection with that date.

Of course, the obvious question to ask is: “What does this graph tell us about the general character of the collection?”

On the one hand, there is an expected answer. The number of books held in the collection and printed in a given year rises over time from the beginning of printing in the 15th century down to the present. This enlarging curve is comparable to the standard graph of all books produced worldwide from the beginning of printing down to the present. Print production follows the curve of expanding world population. It makes sense that as there are more books produced for a given year, there are more books collected.

However, if you look closely, you will see spikes at the following points: 1640s, 1680s, 1770s, 1790s, and the 1860s.

Q. What is the reason for these spikes?

A. War, revolution, and the threat of revolution.

The collections have long had a bias toward books printed in either Great Britain or the United States. Such were the cultural origins of many of past donors and providers of endowments. Recovering origins has long been a characteristic of collecting. But these reasons would only account for general trends.

More specifically, war and revolution are periods that produce a surge in the production of print. Contest and controversy accelerate communication. When it is over, however, it makes sense that there are those who seek to recover what has been lost and determine what has come about afterwards by collecting. Their collecting follows the publishing patterns of war, revolution, and the fear of revolution.

1640s - The English Civil War generated innumerable pamphlets
1680s - Restoration of Protestant monarchs to the English throne
1770s - War in the British Colonies in North America
1790s - Fear in England of the invasion of French revolutionary ideas as well as of Napoleon’s army
1860s - Civil War in the US / War between the States

>

August 1940, New York City.
Publishers Burstein and Chappe issue Poor Richard’s Biblomac.
An excerpt from the lead editorial:

For the most part, Poor Richard’s Biblomac reflects and idea we have - an idea that anyone whose stock-in-trade is books - the librarian, the bookseller, the publisher—has a function in democratic society that means something more than delivering books from stack to reader. And, today, when the propaganda of self-acclaimed patriots and pundits is peddled among more and more customers so that democracy is in increasing danger of finding itself saved by totalitarians, when labeling individuals and groups with the neologism “fifth column” is becoming a national pastime and when the word and the book is suspect, there is a need for a publication which will discuss the issues which confront the bookman in his capacity as citizen, discuss his function and urge its exercize. Poor Richard’s Biblomac may not be that publication but we will try.

Because we believe that the book, as much as the bullet, is ammunition for the democratic state—that the needs of our American democracy are best served by more, and not less, democracy, we will expose and oppose trends and movements designed to cripple libraries and hamper book production and reading. We have made a start, we think by devoting part of this issue to the question: shall libraries censor reading?

We have no illusion that we shall turn tides or, more modestly, change attitudes. We are content if, from time to time, we shall be able to create interest and discussion in vital problems, ruffle the calm waters of the status quo and, if necessary, make nuisances of ourselves about things we think matter. Herbert Burstein.

Little is known about Burstein and Chappe. However, one of the contributors to this first issue was Lawrence Heyl, acting head librarian at Princeton during 1939 -1940, and long time library officer, retiring in 1962 as Associate Librarian. Presumably, because of Heyl’s interest in the publication, the Library preserved the Biblomac, which lasted only three issues. Today, it signals the acute concern of American librarians at the time — Archibald MacLeish foremost among them — that preserving democracy meant engagement not isolation.

Sixty years ago today, on September 7, 1948, Firestone Library, the University’s central main library, opened its doors to the public. The opening capped a process of analysis, planning, fund-raising, design, and construction stretching back into the early 1920s when it first became evident that Pyne Library, constructed 1896-97, was running out of space.

According to Meg Rich’s “Firestone at Fifty: History with a Human Face,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 60:1 (Autumn, 1998), p. 9 ff, during the summer of 1948, “thirty-seven undergraduates, 90 percent of them war veterans, worked for ten weeks to move the better part of 1.2 million volumes over a 100-yard ramp from old shelves to new.” The names and classes of all students involved appears together with their group photograph on page 19. [NB - When the author published this article she was known as Peggy Meyer Sherry.]

The photograph above right show students moving books from the dismal basement of Pyne. Adjacent is an early photograph of the front elevation of Firestone.

At right is figure 1.4 in Willa Z. Silverman’s recently published The New Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880-1914 (University of Toronto, 2008). “Binding with silver and gold tooling by Pétrus Ruban (1896) for Voltaire, Zadig, ou, La Destinée (1893).” [Illustration credit: Princeton University Library, Rare Book Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, (Ex) PQ2082 .Z3 1893q]

Explaining why and how this book came into the Library, not to mention that it was first owned by Henri Beraldi (1849-1931), an important character in the New Bibliopolis, is a story unto itself. More fundamental is a larger narrative of two parallel worlds. Considering closely the story of the New Bibliopolis provides an intriguing glimpse at collecting in the New and Old Worlds at the end of the nineteenth century.

Prof. Silverman provides a comprehensive view of a world created by bibliophiles of a post-war generation. They are the “generation that came of age with the disastrous 1870 French defeat by Prussia.” (p.12) They were wealthy, literary men who took language and discourse seriously. They prized being able to recognize what the stakes were — technology was going to displace the humanity of communication. Technology was headed to up-end what they prized in communication, such as the stimulation of the imagination. They “established themselves as champions of a paradoxical ‘newness’ that in fact attempted to combine an allegiance to modernity with a stalwart defence of French traditions.” (p.19)

What is striking here is that this group shared a mood now recognized as part of a larger mood occurring internationally in the advanced capitalist nations at the end of the nineteenth century. For the United States, this mood is best documented in Jackson Lears’s No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920, detailing in full the narrative of “a yearning for authentic experience” (p. xix) among the “ruling groups in a developed capitalist society” (p. xvi). This group too was a post-war generation, coming of age after Appomattox.

In both instances collecting served a restorative end. For the French “bibliophiles contemporains,” documented so well by Silverman, collecting meant creating, distributing, and preserving books signaling the ideals of their own era, rather than purchasing, re-binding, and shelving books from the past. For them, modern bibliophily meant being “creative,” “prospective,” and being “a wise friend of books, free from all ostentation and vanity”(p. 5, 16). They dubbed those of the old school as “the archeologicans of the book” (p. 22, 222 n. 4).

On the other hand, late nineteenth century American collectors sought out old books, paid high prices for “Americana” (early European books about the discovery and settlement of the Americas), and valued the transformative power of the original to “connect the present with the past.” Authentic experience was the prize.

The phrase above regarding “connecting” is that of Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), historian, book collector and first president of Cornell, who added that “in our work, it seemed to me well to impress, upon the more thinking students at least, the idea that all they saw had not ‘happened so,’ without the earnest agency of human beings; but that it had been the result of the earnest life-work of men and women, and that no life-work to which a student might aspire could be more worthy. … ” (Autobiography, p. 407-409)

In June, at Christie’s (New York), the Library acquired the collection of Olympia Press publications consigned by the Press’s bibliographer, Patrick Kearney. The work of many years, the Kearney collection brought together virtually the entire output of the Press, more than 400 volumes, published between the firm’s first imprint in 1953 and its last in 1974. Included are books issued in the firm’s several series, such as the Traveller’s Companion Series (Paris and New York), Ophelia Press, (Paris and New York), Collection Merlin, Ophir Books, Atlantic Library, Far-Out Books, Le Grande Séverine, Othello Books, and Odyssey Library.

Put “Olympia Press” into Google Book Search and back come thousands of citations. These range from appearances in such conventional works as Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature or the Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives to less expected locales such as Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary.

This range of attention reflects that particular double character of the Olympia Press. In 1965, the New York Times noted

“Mr. [Maurice] Giordias began the Olympia Press on a shoestring in 1953. He catered to English speaking tourists, with high priced, highly spiced books in plain covers, stamped ‘not to be introduced into the United States or the United Kingdom.’ Olympia, however, always published more serious books as well. Its current list has such title as ‘The Ordeal of the Rod,’ ‘The Bedroom Philosophers,’ and ‘Lust’ with Lawrence Durell’s ‘The Black Book,’ Valdimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita,’ J.P. Donleavy’s ‘The Ginger Man’ and novels by Samuel Beckett.”

Illustrated above are the cover and first pages of the firm’s 1962 promotional price-list. The provocative red and black design raises questions.

What is censorship? Its history is that of a constant dialogue between the enforcer, the observant, and the violator. The terms of the dialogue change regularly with time and circumstance. Each side is bound by a sense of order. The enforcer and observant appeal to some sense of local, political order, while the violator usually appeals to some larger sense of order, such as that stemming from one’s sense of nature or of humanity.

It would be easy to push aside past known cases of censorship, as simply relics of a former age. On the other hand, if one is to understand the workings and character of the modern political state, then one must try to understand censorship. It is entirely possible that censorship is as definitive of the modern state as the doctrine of military power or the doctrine of copyright.

If we are to know what censorship meant for those who enacted, enforced, observed, and violated it, we need to see and know what was regarded as offending. A scholarly, disinterested motive to know the past is the basis on which the decision to make this purchase was made.

Cataloguing the collection — book by book — is partially completed and continues through the fall. The purchase also included “approximately 34 folders and envelopes containing typescripts, correspondence from Maurice Girodias (signed), Marco Vassi, and others, pamphlets, leaflets, photocopies of journal articles, and additional miscellaneous items relating to the publishing history of the Olympia Press.” These additional materials are in two parts: one gathered as Manuscripts Collection number C1262; the other as (Ex) Item … (in process, oversize).

Princeton’s unique copy of the seventeenth century English engraving “A Mappe of the Man of Sin” is “Print of the Month” for August 2008 on the website British Printed Images to 1700, a digital library of prints and book illustrations from early modern Britain.

The 3,151 word article together with 22 footnotes explains this complicated engraving scene-by-scene and detail-by-detail.

The engraving is also described in Malcolm Jones, “Engraved Works Recorded in the Stationers’ Registers, 1562-1656,” Walpole Society, 64 (2002), p. 1-68 ff., number 176, p. 32 and fig 24.

Below is a detail from A Mappe of the Man of Sin: Wherein is Most Liuely Delineated the Rising Raigning and Ruine of the Kingdome of Antichrist [London, 1622]. Rare Book Division. Call number: (Ex) BT985 .W5e. Purchased from the London bookseller Bernard Quaritch in 1988.

‘Abby-lubber Preest’ • Click on the detail below to see entire original. Dimensions of original: 443 mm x 545 mm.

Year in and year out, during summer, students help prepare finding aids, inventory lists, and the like, all aimed at item level control of collections, especially for collections of ephemera. This year was no exception.

One major project was the checklisting leaf-by-leaf of the contents of the Hodder and Stoughton dustjackets, previously announced in this web log.

Elizabeth Sarah Quirk Goodman (Harvard ‘08) prepared a 100 page listing, giving thousands of details about the more than 1100 jackets in the collection.

She also wrote the following reflections on the project —

Regarding the bound volumes

“The bound volumes look as if they were a running collection, in which the publisher’s staff pasted jackets for books by the same author on adjacent pages and left room for more jackets. The estimates must have been difficult to make, however: the authors are not in any particular order, and sometimes they reappear later or there are blank spaces on the pages. Nearly all of the jackets have yellow as the background color, and those in volume 1 are listed as H&S yellow jacket books. The spines are always yellow, and usually the cover art has yellow as a background or at least a yellow frame around another picture. The cover art, for the most part, varies: complete and colorful illustrations, or illustrations of people with no scenery but the yellow background, or illustrations with only three or four different colors in them. The colors used are usually true hues that all stand out from one another and catch the eye.
Most of the books have captions or catchy slogans on them. They may be thoughts from the book (“Determined to forget”) or lines of poetry, or dialogue supplied for the cover art (such as “The river is being watched,” when the cover art features a man whispering to another man). Sometimes they are more directly about the book (such as “The most romantic couple ever shipwrecked”), or statements advertising the quality of the book. As far as advertising the quality of the book goes, the idea seems to be to inspire author loyalty, to assure new readers or remind experienced ones that the author writes books they should want to read. Therefore, many of the books include the author’s name in a slogan about the author, such as “Switch off the wireless—it’s an Oppenheim”. Some make claims about the author, such as “Everybody likes her”. I have called these slogans “author’s epithets,” and put into that column anything that is more about the author than the particular book. I find that the captions make the book seem like something I would want to read once for a cheap thrill and then discard, because they point out one piece of mystery or romantic angst and one presumes the entire book is about that. The epithets are a bit better, and they may come from the authors themselves: one author, Seldon Truss, wrote a book titled Escort to Danger, and a lot of his books feature the slogan “Let Seldon Truss be your escort to danger”. Perhaps the problem is not the abundance of advertisement so much as its large fonts getting in the way of the rest of the book; more books nowadays have small-text reviews on the front, and perhaps an award stamp, which are easily enough ignored. But at least some of the books probably should not be judged by these covers, since they are the lesser-known books by authors such as L. M. Montgomery.
The first covers in the front of volume 1, which cost 9 pence, are only the front covers. Often they don’t have the author’s full name displayed, only the last name, and even that may be the enlarged part of a catchy slogan about the author. However, the later books in the back of volume 1 and all of volume 2, which cost 2 shillings (10 pence) or more, nearly always feature the spine as well. The spine lists the author, title, price, and H&S. The full dust jackets are quite interesting: in the first part of volume 2 they belong to the “H&S Half-a-crown library”, and the back cover is a simplified version of the front cover. No title or author appears, but the cover art appears in approximate mirror image, as a penciled sketch on a white background with one solid color in some places, and often the caption appears at the bottom. … The two full dust jackets in the inverted part of volume 2, which are not labeled in the same series, have colorless pencil sketches on the back that provide some sort of continuation of the front cover art. One has a man in a spotlight onstage at the front, and the back has an audience and the beam of light for the spotlight; the other has two people sitting and talking on the front, and one person hiding (perhaps eavesdropping) on the back. This art comes across better on a flattened cover, and it would work well when seen on the back of an open book.

Regarding the boxes of loose leaves

The three boxes proved much more difficult to sort out. Box 2 has covers mounted on light sheets of paper, but the sheets cannot possibly all come from the same wrapper book, because not only do they have different numbering styles but they also come in different sizes. Still, I was able to sort most of the leaves and half-leaves out into three wrapper books and put the rest in a folder together, numbering them. I used “M” before the number to show that it was not a page number that had already been written in. Many of the covers in this box were less garish than the usual yellowjackets, which were on perhaps half of the leaves. A lot of the covers had white backgrounds, used more colors for less stark cover art, and were without epithets if not captions. The captions were more often book review quotes such as one might find on covers now, though one caption claimed its book was “transfused with a white flame.”

Box 1 was probably originally a volume much like volumes 1 and 2 (labeled 3), because it has books on brown leaves, some of which are foliated in yellow and some in white. Unfortunately this led to difficulty because some of the leaves had been cut in half and a number appeared only at the corner of the right half, so I had to play a matching game and match unnumbered half-leaves with the numbered ones. This was unexpectedly successful, partly because two covers on one page usually feature the same author, and otherwise because whoever cut or tore the pages in half never did it quite the same way twice; he left a reasonable jigsaw puzzle. Box 3 has the remnants, including some dark brown half-leaves matched up, and a few leaves numbered differently. In these two boxes, one would often see a message such as “This is one of [auth.]’s most famous novels, and this is the edition for your Library” or “This is a completely NEW BOOK now first published”, and these seem to reflect different marketing ploys from the usual captions and epithets. In addition, there are some covers for 1-shilling books in a category one might call “Christian inspiration,” as they seem to have a missionary purpose. These are never yellow jackets, but always have thin white spines. They also didn’t have captions, as the attention was probably meant to be drawn by the titles themselves, such as What If He Came?”

On November 15, 1857, the Philadelphia newspaper The Press carried this notice on page two:

The hopeful wish that the journal become “popular … profitable” clearly did not happen. No library is recorded as having a copy. Recently, a copy was found in the the Library’s Western Americana Collections. The Princeton copy was acquired on December 8, 1969 but was never entered into the Library’s main catalog. Its existence was noted only in two Princeton checklists of American Indian periodicals, one issued in 1970 and the other in 1979. (It still remains a mystery why a publication intended for a fraternal secret society of white men was included among periodicals published by or for native Americans.) Nonetheless, even though its existence was noted, it was not easily retrievable because it had no call number. During recent final days of a now completed five year campaign to box, inventory, and catalog American Indian periodicals, the Chief was found in a large, thin portfolio. During cataloging, its rarity and significance was discovered. The official record for the Chief now reads:

Title: Conestoga chief. Published/Created: Philadelphia, Pa. : H.L. Goodall, 1857. Description: v. ; 50 cm. Began with vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 28, 1857) Notes: “Devoted to the Improved Order of Red Men — popular literature, instruction and amusement.” Intended for weekly publication. Cf. Prospectus (vol. 1, no. 1, p. 8). No more published? Subject(s): Improved Order of Red Men —Periodicals. Related name(s): Improved Order of Red Men. Location: Rare Books: Western Americana Collection (WA) Call number: Oversize 2008-0020E

An extract from the July 1860 issue of The Ladies Repository, (p. 412-413) tells a tale of reader reaction to the Conestoga Chief. The story is titled “Indians’ Newspaper” and appeared in column headed “Recollections of a Deaf and Dumb Teacher, by Joe, the Jersey Mute.” (Actual name of the author was Joseph Mount.)

“In November, 1857, an Indian established a weekly newspaper at Philadelphia, called the “Conestoga Chief.” I bought a copy of the Chief for the double purpose of reading the thoughts of the red men, as expressed in the columns of that paper, and of showing it to my class, which was then, as now, composed wholly of boys. They were thrown in considerable excitement at sight of the word ”Chief” printed in such large characters, not exactly knowing that it was a “real, genuine, no-mistake” newspaper. They were in hot water, some declaring that they would be tomahawked, burnt alive, and all that sort of thing, and others that they would arm themselves with axes, knives, and the like, and stand with a strong front before the red face rather than submit to the Indian mode of burning alive, of which they had heard so much. As might be expected, all the school and the paper were together by the ears. I had considerable difficulty in restoring order in the schoolroom. I explained to the excited boys that the “Chief” was got up for the purpose of giving information, the same as the other papers of which the pale-faces had charge. They were convinced of their error, and had the magnanimity to own it up. They insisted upon knowing more of the Indians as they now exist, since I was thus placed in possession of a medium of communication with them. I marked three articles for recitation; namely, “An Eye for an Eye; or, an Indian Justice,” “The Indians,” and “Harper’s Mill,” which, in my opinion, were worth the price of the number. As I read those articles by signs, I never saw a more attentive audience in all my life, a fact which shows that even mute children of tender years regard the red face with lively interest, and ever wish to see more of it. One of my boys told me that the most beautiful girl he ever saw was a young squaw residing in the neighborhood of his home, and he said further that he wished to marry her. My boys particularly wished to see Indian girls, they said. Shame, shame on them for their partiality! But since they were then quite young, their ages varying from seven to twelve years, let their weakness in this respect be winked at.”

London, July 4, 2008. It’s a little before 10 pm. I can hear fireworks out my hotel window. Somewhere in this old metropolis, I would like to think, the loss of empire is ignored while former colonists celebrate independence. And, tonight at the British Museum in the grand room that once housed King George’s library, there were readings from Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The books have moved out to the new British Library building. With minimal intrusion, the room has been converted to exhibition space under the theme ‘Enlightenment.’ Although the trophies of empire are everywhere, from the native goods collected by Sir Hans Sloane to a famous engraved stone labeled ‘captured in Egypt by the British Army 1801,’ modern day labels remind us, in the section regarding eighteenth century overseas exploration, that, in light of the viewpoint of indigenous peoples, ‘discovery is a relative concept.’

Nonetheless, discovery is the reason why I am here. I made the journey in order to answer questions about American rare book collectors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For them the empire of books led to London and a dealer known in his day as the ‘Napoleon of the Book Trade,’ Bernard Quaritch (NY Times, 19 December 1899). Founded in 1847, and continuously in business down to today, the firm generously made its archives available to me for my research. I couldn’t have been better greeted and treated. All the staff were wonderfully helpful and hospitable.

I got some answers, especially about one of Princeton’s primary donors of rare books to the Library, Junius Spencer Morgan. But I also learned a lot about the context in which Junius Morgan made his purchases from Quaritch both retail and via auction. And, surrounding this story of just one American collector is the much larger story of Quaritch’s overseas expansion, in particular into America. Bernard Alfred Quaritch, son of the founder, made his first sales trip to the United States in 1890 and continued thereafter almost annually until his death in 1913. One letter in the archive sums up the outcome of BAQ’s efforts. From New York, on September 15, 1911, he wrote to his business colleague, E.H. Dring: “America is certainly our best market now.” Yet to be answered in detail is the obvious question about how and why did this come to be so. I picked up some signals this trip, but much more exploration is required. After all, ‘discovery is a relative concept.’

L’Album-Guide contient: La vue des Principaux Monuments de Paris, le Plan de l’Exposition, le Plan de Paris, le Plan detaille des differents Theatres, les Services Maritimes, l’Organisation des Services publics, Postes, Telegraphes, Moyens de Transport, Omnibus, Voitures publiques, Tramways, Chemins de fer de banlieue, Promenades dans les environs de Paris; et un mot, tout ce qui est de nature a interesser le Voyageur et l’Etranger venant a Paris. Nota. - Une Table des Matieres se trouve a la fin de cet Album. Administration: 36 , Boulevard Haussmann (Chaussee-d’Antin). D. Lubin, Editeur et Concessionnaire Exclusif. [Amiens, Imp. T. Jeunet]. 1878. (Ex) Item 4943082 oversize

The International Exposition or World’s Fair served for over 150 years as a primary arena for the display of national prestige. Manufactured product and the resources that produced it - natural, inventive, managerial - provided the common means by which nation could be measured against nation. Progress was regarded as visible, tangible and local. Gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded to objects. Achieving individuals were inducted into Legions of Honor. In today’s world focused on speed, process, and individual celebrity, certainly in terms of public visibility, the Olympics have superseded the International Exposition as an arena for estimation by others.

For over one hundred years, the Library has been building its collection of materials relating to international expositions. Frederic Vinton, librarian from 1873 to his death in 1890, recognized the importance of these materials by listing them in his 894 page Subject Catalogue of the Library of the College of New Jersey (Princeton, 1884), under the headings: London international exhibition, 1851; Paris expositions, 1844, 1867, 1878 ; Philadelphia exposition, 1876; Vienna exposition, 1873. Since then, such materials have been gathered by such units as the Art Library, the Geology Library, the Architecture Library, Graphic Arts, the Theatre Collection, Numismatics, General Rare Books, as well as in the general circulating collection.

This latest addition, an Album Guide is the rare first edition of this charming large format guide for English and American visitors to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878. It is not listed in WorldCat.

The following description of the contents is provided by Ed Smith of Pickering & Chatto (London) — “The work, complete with a large folding coloured Paris street map (and on the verso a map of the regional railways) provides all the information necessary for the visitor in negociating the language barrier on their way to, and at, the exhibition. After a brief introduction ‘to the elements of the language’, the first section provides useful phrases on the journey to France (‘the Landing and Custom House’, ‘At the Railway Station’ etc). This is then followed with further phrases useful at the hotel, when eating and drinking, at the Tobacconist or Hairdresser, and even when needing to take a bath. Part II gives details of exchanges and weights and measures, Paris Omnibuses (apparently much more comfortable than in London), Theatres, Music Halls, Promenades and Gardens, and a list of the entertainments to be given at the exhibition. The final section contains the professional and commercial list, bankers, doctors, milliners, perfumers, chemists and dentists, to name but a few. The work concludes with an advertisements section, both for Paris and London businesses. … This exposition was on a far larger scale than any previously held anywhere in the world. It covered over 66 acres (267,000 m²); the main building in the Champ de Mars occupying 54 acres (219,000 m²).

The illustrations and illustrated advertisements are of particular interest, as they are documenting the ephemeral nature of exhibitions, certain business, commercial design and places of entertainment, such as the 22 theatres colour-illustrated seating plans, together with price lists. On p. 7 is a half-page size woodengraved bird’s eye view of the exhibition ground.

Each double-page of this album has a large view of thestreet, landmark or square where the businesses advertised for are located. The highlights among the illustrated advertisements are: a full-page woodengraved composition of views of the workshops and the large shop of the manufacturer of sweets and chocolate Au Fidèle Berger (p. 2), a full-page tinted lithograph of the Grands Magasins de la Paix (p. 40), and a half-page advert for a shoe manufacturer printed in black, silver, gold and bronze (p. 46), a full-page advertisement for the ‘magnificent Summer Garden’, the Alcazar d’ Été near the Champs Élysées. There is advertising for various shipping companies, as well as a section of illustrated advertisements for hotels in Paris and French holiday resorts. Numbered page 99-100 is a large folding handcoloured map, Le nouveau guide de l’étranger dans les 20 arrondissements de Paris, (Paris : J. Gaultier, 1878), 50 x 67 cm.

Provenance: From the fashion shop run buy the Madames Biays in the Rue d’Échelles, whose advert is on p. 53, with their name stamped in gilt on front cover.”

Mr. Cox’s Perpetual Motion, a Prize in the Museum Lottery, single sheet, 225mm. x 174mm., full-page engraving with letterpress on verso, London, 1774. (Ex) Item 4848706

James Cox (c1723—1800) was a noted clockmaker, and developed this ingenious timepiece in the 1760’s in collaboration with John Joseph Merlin (with whom Cox also worked on developing automata). Cox believed that his design was a true perpetual motion machine, but in fact it was powered from changes in atmospheric pressure via a mercury barometer. This provided sufficient movement of the winding mechanism to keep the mainspring coiled inside the barrel. The clock was designed to enable the timepiece to run indefinitely and over-winding was prevented by a safety mechanism.

He exhibited the clock at his Museum in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, London, and as with other such marvels, it was accompanied by extravagant literary puffs to ensure public attention, and promote revenue from ticket sales. Cox’s Exhibition was the talk of London when it opened in 1772; a riot of brilliance, movement and sound, and an accumulation of bejeweled automata valued then at an enormous sum of £197,000. It was recommended by Johnson, visited by Boswell, featured in Fanny Burney’s Evelina and Sheridan’s The Rivals. “A peacock (now in the Hermitage, Leningrad) screeched and spread its tail when the hour struck, while a cock crowed and a cage with an owl inside revolved and twelve bells rang. A silver swan with an articulated neck glided across a surface of artificial water.., sixteen elephants supported a pair of seven-foot high temples adorned with 1,700 pieces of jewelry… a chronoscope inlaid with 100,000 precious stones evidently needed no animal guise.” (See: Richard Altick, The Shows of London, p. 69-72, 350-351, for a long and detailed account of Cox and his exhibition.)

Cox charged admission at the unprecedented rate of 10s. 6d, and the Catalogue was first issued March 2nd 1772, as a 20-page quarto edition. Such was the grumbling amongst even his most well-heeled clients that he was forced to cut the admission price by half to one quarter of a guinea and reduce the size of the catalogue. In 1773 an Act of Parliament was passed “allowing James Cox to dispose of his museum pieces by lottery”, and it is likely that this handbill was printed to promote the sale of this particular exhibit. The verso contains a full description of the piece, as well as a testimony as to its ingenuity by the noted astronomer James Ferguson, dated January 28th, 1774.

A note in Cox’s commonplace book, dated 1769, is the first recorded reference to the clock. It was purchased in the lottery by Thomas Weeks, who opened “Week’s Mechanical Museum” at 3 & 4 Tichborne Street, and after adding his own embellishments, exhibited it until his death in 1833. It was not included in the sale catalogue of his effects in 1834, and remained lost until 1898 when it was exhibited at the Clerkenwell Institute. After a period on loan to the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, is was auctioned, and then finally acquired by the V & A Museum in 1961. The engraving is recorded, occurring as a plate in The London Magazine for February 1774; but this hand-bill is unrecorded by ESTC. [This text supplied by Alex Fotheringham.]

Published in London in 1789, the broadside Description of a Slave Ship is an icon of the antislavery moment in England and the United States. Between March and July of that year, more than 10,000 copies of the plan of the slave ship Brooks, in one form or another, were issued. The plan makes visually striking what until then had been grasped only verbally or by consulting the statistical data gathered by Commons regarding the ships involved in the trade.

The 10,000 printed copies descended from three primary versions of the plan, which can be distinguished by their place of origin : Plymouth, Philadelphia, and London. The Plymouth version is the very first, occurring in two variants: (a) a four-page pamphlet with inserted plate, and (b) a broadside with engraving and text. The earliest Plymouth version appeared in March 1789. The Philadelphia version is based directly on the Plymouth version. It is known in three variants: (a) an inserted plate in the May 1789 issue of the journal American Museum, (b) a broadside with engraving and text in four columns bearing the imprint “Matthew Carey — Price 3d. — or 18s per hundred,” and (c) a broadside with engraving and text in three columns and no imprint. Philadelphia variants (b) and (c) were evidently issued in June and July 1789, respectively. Temporally between the Plymouth and Philadelphia versions is the London version, printed by James Phillips. It is known in two variants: (a) one illustrated by woodcuts, and (b) one illustrated with a copperplate engraving. It was first published between April 21 and 28, 1789. According to minutes of the London Committee of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the printing orders are recorded on July 28, 1789, as follows : “1,700 Description of a Slave Ship with copper plate ; 7,000 ditto with wood cuts” (see Cheryl Finley, “Committed to Memory : The Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination” [Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2002], 94, n.119).

The Plymouth version (a) is very rare ; only three copies of the pamphlet are recorded. One copy of the Plymouth broadside variant (b) is known. The Philadelphia variants are more common but still quite rare. Princeton owns a copy of the May 1789 issue of the American Museum (a) with the plate still intact. Princeton also acquired, evidently in the 1960 s, a copy of Philadelphia variant (b). It is beautifully preserved and shows signs of once having been folded so as to form a postal letter.

This accession was acquired from a London bookseller in early 2006. It was purchased in part with funds donated by Sid Lapidus, Class of 1959.

It is a fine copy of the London version (a), the variant with woodcuts. Historical evidence shows that the London version was by far the most commonly distributed version of the plan of the Brooks. As the years went by and the debate over the slave trade continued, the London version was reprinted time and again. It appeared in the précis of the proceedings of the Commons committee on the slave trade published in 1791. Princeton has two copies of this précis, one in the general rare book collections and another in the Scheide Library. It appeared several times after 1791, most notably in the 1808 History of the … Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the Reverend Thomas Clarkson, a chief agent of the London Committee. (The Library recently purchased a copy of the London edition of the History; the Philadelphia edition has been in Princeton’s collections since the early nineteenth century.) On the eve of the American Civil War, the London version of the Brooks plan appeared in an abolitionist pamphlet, which was given to the Library in the late nineteenth century by John S. Pierson.

The survival of books occurs under contested conditions. In fact, you could say that the whole life cycle of books - creation, production, distribution, use, survival - occurs under contested conditions. Clearly then if the book historian has any job, his or her job is to investigate and understand those contested conditions. Since my work as a curator is chiefly about insuring the survival of books, I’m curious about the back-story to my work, namely, whatever relates to the story over the years regarding the survival of books and the contests surrounding survival.

Lately, I have been trying to understand the world of book collectors and dealers in the United States during the middle of the 19th century. I’ve picked those years because I’ve discovered that they represent a “take off stage” in the arc of the practice of bibliophily in this country. A number of bibliophilic writers maintain that in the US during the period from ca 1885 to ca 1930 there occurred sustained high practice in book collecting, often referred to at the “Golden Age.” It was an age marked by such titan collectors as Henry Huntington and J. Pierpont Morgan, funded by wealth produced the American economy, which by 1900 had become the world’s largest, a position it has held down to the present. It was also an age marked by an unprecedented out-pouring of collectible goods from England and other countries of Europe. One factor precipitating the English flow was the change in the entailment laws, instituted to help English nobles cover the shortfall in income resulting from reduced agricultural production of their lands. The change allowed them to sell manorial property, and the art and books therein were among the first to go. Other factors, such as sales done to meet rising death duties, sustained this flow for years to come. The general contours of the “Golden Age” are pretty well known - there are a handful of histories about this period; there are memoirs of dealers, collectors, accounts of auctions, in goodly abundance. In fact, the period has been institutionalized by the several collector’s clubs founded then and still surviving, the most famous of which is the Grolier Club in New York. The modern era in special collections in university libraries traces back to this period, as does that evidently uniquely American collegiate, bibliophilic institution, the undergraduate book-collecting contest.

My interest is in those years just before this so-called “Golden Age” for several reasons. I have a number of questions: Books, and collectors, and money were around before the t the so-called “Golden Age,” so why didn’t it occur earlier? We know the mores and methods of the generations of the “Golden Age,” so what did their predecessors do that was the same or different? What were the contests relating to the survival of books during these mid-century years? Unlike the story of the Golden Agers, there’s no place to turn to for an explanation of these mid-century years. With no place to turn, I decided to answer these questions on my own.

My hunt for the answers to these questions required and still requires that I look at a number of sources: chiefly, whatever documents I can find by collectors, dealers, or libraries of these years, or about the collectors, dealers and libraries of the mid 19th century. Consequently, I am reading the following:

• newspaper accounts of auction sales, collector’s libraries, stories about the book trade (such as W.C. Prime’s account of bookseller William Gowan’s cellar), etc.

• book trade journals, such as Joseph Sabin’s The American Bibliopolist (1869-1877). [Some vol. available at Google Books .]

• auction catalogues, in particular their front matter, or owner’s annotations. - the Poinier copy of the Rice catalogue (1870) is my best example.

• correspondence - precious little remains in the way of dealer’s correspondence (T. H. Morrell, and then a few others)

• diaries of collectors - see William Templeton Strong

In short, I’m on the hunt for whatever I can find as evidence. Both findings and evidence are very scattered, discontinuous, and scarce. Already emerging are some fragmentary particulars, which I group into three parts as follows: 1) regarding values and mores, 2) further themes and questions centering chiefly around norms, hierarchies, and the notion of gift, and 3) themes and questions yet to be investigated much further, especially the roles of the various agents

Values and norms of 19th cent collectors

• To be “Choice and Select” — “William Gowans, a bookseller who knew American literature better than most of his colleagues, was critical of [Albert Gorton] Greene’s ‘prodigious congregation of dirty second hand hymn books.’ [footnote 1] ‘To put them into a private collection is like choking an elegantly furnished parlor with a quantity of broken and dilapidated furniture, filling up space, and so obscuring the useful and ornamental piece.” [footnote 2]. These quotes from page 16 of Roger E. Stoddard, “C. Fiske Harris, Collector of American Poetry and Plays,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Volume 57, First Quarter, 1963, 14-32.

• Understanding value — Gowans further criticizes Greene: “Had the judge been a more liberal buyer, his books to-day would many of them have realized ten times the cost. He seemed to think a rise in the price of any book was preposterous; and such a conviction prevented him from making many valuable acquisitions.” — page 17 in Roger E. Stoddard, “C. Fiske Harris, Collector of American Poetry and Plays,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Volume 57, First Quarter, 1963, 14-32. Note: preposterous = contrary to the order of nature, or to reason or common sense.

• Value of the quotidian — In March 1875, C. Fiske Harris sent out copies of his Index to American Poetry and Plays in the Collection of C. Fiske Harris (Providence: Printed for Private Distribution, 1874). It listed more than 4,000 volumes of poetry, plays, and songs written by Americans. William Cullen Bryant remarked to Harris “Your work, Index to American Poetry and Plays, has amazed me by showing me what multitudes of persons on our side of the Atlantic have wasted their time in writing verses in our language.” [footnote 3]

• Many vs. the few —- “The Astor Library is truly a noble institution. … I hope it will be taken care of, but in the hands of the millions it will soon be tarnished. Books fare bad enough in a College library but when thrown open to Tom, Dick & Harry in a such a City as N[ew] Y[or]K. Heaven save the mark …” John Carter Brown to John Russell Bartlett. 15 December 1853. Papers of John Russell Bartlett, JCB.

“I would prefer a half dozen gems of the first water books beyond criticism, to a cartload of unimportant books - A sale of such richness in Americana may never take place again.” - John Nicholas Brown (age 23) to John Russell Bartlett. 7 January 1884. From Dresden, re: the Henry C. Murphy sale, 3-8 March 1884. Papers of John Russell Bartlett, JCB.

Themes and questions relating to norms, hierarchies, and the notion of gift

•With autograph collecting during the nineteenth century there was the assumption that they had an almost magical utility for mirroring directly the soul of the writer. Another way of putting this idea is that autographs offered an intimacy not reproducible any other way. Poe satirized the credulity of those who believed this proposition. That he satirized testifies to how widespread this belief was. See his “Autography” in Graham’s Magazine (Nov. 1841- Jan. 1842). Clearly at stake here are questions relating to norms and hierarchies: what’s collectible and what’s not, and what categories validate something as collectible.

•More on 19th century thinking about collecting — There is evidence that some then considered collecting to be a process of recovery - the process of collocating what belongs together because there’s a pattern which it is our task to come to realize. This is comparable to intuiting Providence by careful study of nature and nature’s patterns. The implication is that collecting is akin to a moral duty. This was the kind of thinking behind a college collecting publications of alumni, or locals putting together the works of a town’s literary lights. Giving a material form to “genius” was considered the right thing to do. The lowly physical acts of gathering material objects served higher, perhaps spiritual purposes.

•Clearly there are hierarchies among and embedded in collectibles - how do these get established, why are they necessary? I suggest one answer to the question about why hierarchies are necessary — it is because of the “gift economy” aspect of collecting, that is, collecting is done inside an exchange economy, but collecting is not, in the end, really about exchange of cash for goods, but goods for esteem. In a gift economy, the point of exchange is not to tie off relationships, to complete them, but rather to re-enforce them, to continue their binding nature.

•One very important aspect of the “gift economy” was literal exchanges between collectors. I am not precisely sure what all was involved here, but it seems to involve passing one’s duplicates to another in exchange for their duplicates. In autograph collecting, duplicate had a special meaning, yet to be fully determined.

•Genesis story - It seems that by the by the end of the century, it was a commonplace for a collector to have a “genesis story” - some sort of narrative which served to mark out the beginning of the endeavor. Another variant on the genesis story was the tale of the first practitioner, such as the Rev. William Sprague being the first collector of autographs in the US. (How could that be proved?) Such a genesis story may not be the real genesis story, but whatever was invented served the need. Where did the need come from? Perhaps as basic as having an individual having personal name in order to function in a society. The genesis story expanded by century’s end into the collector’s memoir. Early memoirs such as Henry Stevens’s is fraught with struggles with “egoism” or “egotism,” which I take to mean a kind of behavior able to undermine the “gift economy” or “love of man” (philanthropic) aspect of collecting.

•The making of privately illustrated or unique books was considered noble because it was creating a kind of gift. Many “illustrators” intended to leave them to their children as an important legacy. The gift economy was in high contrast to the growing capitalist economy of the nineteenth century.

The dictates of the gift economy may be another reason why Princeton librarian E. C. Richardson used the term “Kept Books.” Valuable gifts were included in that group, so the term connoting the role of gifts as books kept as bonds of relationship.

Also under the dictates of the gift economy, “exhibition” takes on another meaning. It is the making visible of what was or is invisible — the outward showing of an inward bond. And, so the exhibition room in a library is not only where you can see rarities, it is also a court of good will.

Note: change later overlays earlier terminology — the term “Treasure Room” — the term in wide use by the 1920s — is from the Greek “thesauros” meaning store or hoard. The denotation is possession rather than a state of being (viz. exhibiting, keeping).

Yet to be investigated much further — the roles of the agents

•Roles of those connected with the process of collecting and, in particular, those who created dialog about collecting — in particular, the <> Role of dealers (such as, Joseph Sabin and his American Bibliopolist, or Charles De F. Burns, who published American Antiquarian: a quarterly journal devoted to the interests of collectors of autographs, paper money, portraits, &c.) <> Role of public interpreters (such as Charles Dibdin, Herman Ludewig (bibliographer), John Russell Bartlett, or the newspaper reporters who wrote chiefly about the public auctions) <> Role of auctioneers (goods were pushed and pulled into the American market from abroad — dealers imported from London and auction these goods — carrying inventory over time was costly, so the auction created a sense of abundance without long term costs — how did they calibrate what to sell? Perhaps the sale of Charles Lamb’s books in New York in 1848 is a useful case study) <> Role of collectors (gossip that they exchanged with each other)

What does role mean here? There’s more than an exchange of goods. Both as a providing agent and an exchange agent for expert information, these men brought to light what had, so the story went, been hidden in darkness and they showed its relevance for current felt needs, such as keeping up with the “aesthetic wave” or preserving what was vanishing, such as the wave of collecting following on after two of the most important last of the Revolutionary generation, Adams and Jefferson, died in 1826. That is how the story went at that time. I sense a story hidden yet deeper, based in a value system understood at the time, but only uncertainly understood today.

1 Gowans. Catalogue of American Books, for Sale at the Affixed Prices, New York, 1864, No. 27, p.26

2 Idem.

3 Bryant’s letter of 12 Mar. 1875, quoted by John C. Stockbridge in The Anthony Memorial: A Catalogue of the Harris Collection of American Poetry with Biographical and Bibliographical Notes, Providence, 1886, p. xi.

“I am, and ever have been, a great reader, and have read almost everything — a library cormorant. I am deep in all out-of-the-way books, whether of the monkish times or of the puritanical aera. I have read and digested most of the historic writers, but I do not like history. Metaphysics and poetry and ’ facts of mind ’ (i.e. accounts of all strange phantasms that ever possessed your philosophy-dreamers, from Theuth the Egyptian to Taylor the English pagan) are my darling studies. In short, I seldom read except to amuse myself, and I am almost always reading.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, November 19, 1796.

This past December, the Library purchased six books formerly owned by Coleridge, thereby doubling the number of books once in his library now held by Princeton. In one day we added as many as it had taken more than 100 years to accumulate. (Among the very first of those earlier arrivals was one acquired by Moses Taylor Pyne and given to the Library in 1895, as reported in the Daily Princetonian of November 8 for that year. The Pyne gift is marked with the accession number “Sesq. 562” which indicates book number 562 in a collection marking the “Sesquicentennial” of Princeton.)

The newly purchased books were among the 24 lots consigned by the direct descendants of the poet and sold at Sotheby’s in London on 13 December 2007. These 24 lots consisted of the following: • 5 lots were materials relating to the Coleridge family • 19 lots were S.T. Coleridge personal letters, papers, and inscribed books. Of the 19 lots, seven were manuscripts. The remaining lots were inscribed printed books.

The Library acquired the following books, listed here in chronological order by date of imprint:
• Hugh of Saint Victor. De sacramentis christianae fidei. Strassburg: [Printer Of The 1483 Jordanus De Quedlinburg (Georg Husner)], 30 July 1485. This copy also formerly owned by Michael Wodhull with his arms on the front cover and his inscription dated “Jan. 5th 1795”.
• Plotinus. Operum philosophicorum omnium libri liv in sex enneades distributi. Ex antiquiss. codicum fide nunc primum Graece editi, cum Latina Marsilii Ficini interpretatione & commentatione. Basel: Perneas Lecythus [I.E. Pietro Perna], 1580. Includes annotations by Coleridge.
• John Spencer. De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus et earum rationibus…libri tres. Cambridge: Joan Hayes For (London) Richard Chiswell, 1685.
• Sir Francis Bacon. The Works…In Four Volumes. With Several Additional Pieces, Never Before Printed In Any Edition Of His Works. To Which Is Prefixed, A New Life Of The Author, By Mr. Mallet. London: A. Millar, 1740.
• William Cowper. The Life, And Posthumous Writings…With An Introductory Letter…By William Hayley. Chichester: J. Seagrave For (London:) J. Johnson, 1803.
• Charles Augustus Tulk (transl. and ed.) of Emmanuel Swedenborg, The Doctrine of New Jerusalem respecting the Lord. London: T. Bensley, Neely, and Jones, 1812. Inscribed on front endpaper: “For my Friend S. T. Coleridge from Cha: Aug: Tulk.”

These six were purchased at auction by antiquarian bookseller Christopher Edwards and were acquired by the Library directly from him shortly thereafter.

Catchpenny Dreadfuls! 24 broadsides given by Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986
by Hannah Lemonick, Class of 2010, University of Chicago, and student assistant in the Rare Book Division, Princeton University Library, 2008

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street first appeared in London plays and urban legends dating back to the 1800s. He did not spring fully formed from the head of film director Tim Burton or composer Stephen Sondheim. The recent gift to the Library of a set of broadsides — single-sheet sensationalist press pieces detailing murders and violent crimes which actually occurred during this time period — is a fascinating illustration of just how much of the Sweeney Todd legend was based in a genuinely terrifying world, and how believable the original urban myth must have been.

The universal constant in these examples of street literature is the firm and absolute judgment they pass on their unfortunate objects. There is no ambiguity; in all cases a terrible crime has been committed, and justice has rightly struck down the perpetrator. The broadside Blackburn Tragedy is especially telling in that it details how an innocent vagrant was nearly hanged for the murder of Emily Holland, a seven year old girl, before a local man volunteered the use of his dogs and allowed the police to discover parts of her body and skull in the home of William Fish. It is perfectly clear - indeed, the text admits - that although there can have been little evidence against the other man, “Yet people have been hanged for less, and Robert Taylor probably escaped a similar doom by the narrowest chances.”

The genre combines absolute, unwavering judgment with unbelievable rapidity — most execution broadsheets were being sold within moments of a hanging, and were often written the night before the hanging even took place, even while purporting to contain the last words of the deceased. Then again, the courts seem to have acted with only slightly more deliberation than the printers; men were hanged within days of being apprehended, and in many cases, for crimes that we would consider mild, like breaking and entering. If life in London’s underbelly in the 1800s was violent and dangerous, so were the courts and the popular press.

The broadsides provide evidence of the need for ordinary people to make sense of a world in which such things happened — where children were starved and beaten by their parents and women were literally torn limb from limb. It was certain that crime was punished without hesitation — an understanding contrasting strongly to today’s concern regarding due process and fair trial.

Illustration: Detail from Particular Account of a most Barbarous and Inhuman Murder Committed by John Holloway upon the body of his Wife by Cutting off her Head, Legs, and Arms, with his Confession[London]: J. Catnach, n.d.   Large tiff image of complete broadside.

• An Account of Matthew Clydesdale and Simon Ross, who were executed in front of the Prison, at Glasgow, on Wednesday the 4th of Nov. 1818, for the crimes of Murder and Housebreaking. [London]: T. Duncan, 1818.[Download file]
• Apprehension and Committal of Mrs. Sloane. London: E. Hodges, n.d.
• Cruel & Inhuman Murder of a little Boy, by his Father. London: H. Disley, n.d.
• Dreadful Cruelty to a Servant. [London]: n.d.
• Dreadful Tragedy at Kingston. London: Taylor’s Song Mart, n.d.
• Horrid Murder and Mutilation of a Woman, and recovery of different parts of the body from various places on the banks of the River Thames. London: Disley, n.d.
• Horrid Murder. [London]: E. Hodges, n.d.
• Inhuman Treatment of Two Children by their Father. London: Taylor, n.d.
• Lamentable Lines, on the Death of Joseph M’Mahon who was Shot in Dorset-street, On the 28th March, ‘82. [London]: 1882.
• Mournful Copy of Verses, concerning John Fawcett, who Shot his own Son, And will take his Trial in a few Days. [London]: Catnach, n.d.
• Murder of a Carrier, at Barrow-on-Soar, and the Committal of the Murderer for Trial. London: Disley, n.d.
• Particular Account of a most Barbarous and Inhuman Murder Committed by John Holloway upon the body of his Wife by Cutting off her Head, Legs, and Arms, —with his Confession. [London]: J. Catnach, n.d.   Large tiff image
• Particulars of the Riot at Dover, Which took place on Friday last, May 26, 1820, in which the Gaol was nearly all pulled down, and the Prisoners set at liberty. [London]: Statesman Newspaper, 1820.
• Sentence of William Fish, the Blackburn Murderer. London: H.P. Such, n.d.
• Shocking Case of Cruelty and Starvation, In Cannon Street Road. London: Taylor, n.d.
• The [Sorr]owful Lamentations and Last Farewell to the World of James Fitzwilliams, Henry Wilkins, William Bull, for Burglary, and John Caffan, a Black Man, for a Rape upon a Child Ten Years of Age. [London]: Catnach, n.d.
• The Leeds Tragedy: Or, The Bloody Brother. [England]: [c. 1790].
• The Trial and Execution of Richard Smith, aged 45, for feloniously assaulting and ravishing Mary Green, executed this Morning, March 30th, 1836, at the new drop. [London]: Robinson, 1836.
• The Trial and Sentence of Frederick Peter Finnigan, for the willful Murder of his infant daughter, and who is Ordered for Execution on Monday next, at Horsemonger Lane Gaol. [London]: Smeeton, n.d.
• Trial and Sentence of G. Bentley, For the murder of John Pool, at Eccleshall, on Wednesday, the 10th of January last. London: H. Disley, n.d.
• A Warning Cry from the Cells of Nottingham! Or, Sorrowful Lamentation of Geo. Needham and Wm. Manderville, the two unfortunate Men who now lie under Sentence of Death in Nottingham County Gaol for Housebreaking. Nottingham: Ordoyno, n.d.
• What do you think of Billy Roupell. London: H. Disley, n.d.
• White, John.Blackburn Tragedy. Liverpool: White, 1876.
• White, John. Thebais Winner of the 1,000 Guineas, Oaks, and Ten other Prizes. Liverpool: J. White, n.d.

A recent gift to the Library reminded me that I had first read about the Broadman Library in an old back issue of The New Yorker. Joseph Broadman (1883-1966) was a Manhattan medical doctor who eventually gathered more than 500,000 pamphlets, posters, periodicals, and newspapers relating to World War I and the unstable peace thereafter. He also developed a patented method for the preservation of wood pulp papers, chiefly newsprint. The story in The New Yorker was like other stories about his collecting — all either mentioned directly or alluded to common themes, namely, that, in the case of Joseph Broadman, collecting had become:

1. A pastime turned into a vocation. The theme here is unintended consequences; also, that fulfillment is found unexpectedly, rather than resulting from a series of conventional steps. Example: “Over twenty years ago Dr. Joseph Broadman of New York City, began the pursuit of an unique hobby. Shortly thereafter that unique hobby began the pursuit of Dr. Broadman.” — opening paragraph by Hayden Welles in 1935 article in New York University Alumnus. [See list of sources below for details.]

2. A private activity now conducted on a scale that makes it a public utility. Example: “Dr. Joseph Broadman of 141 West Forty-first Street, without any previous training in history or library work, without any realization of the magnitude of what he was attempting, has assembled this collection with brings exclamations from historians and librarians.” — paragraph two of a 1930 New York Times article “Novel War Library Grows From Hobby”

3. A lesson as to what our pubic priorities ought to be. Example: “It is our hope that some day this very valuable library will be on public display. It is a commentary on the times - that no money is available for a collection of information that could well be a vital force for peace.” — Editorial headnote to 1959 article on the Library by Broadman published in General Practice.

4. An activity that others will eventually “finally” tally. Example: In the 1935 NYU article, the author Welles closes by speculating: “It will be hard when Dr Broadman’s contributions to history are finally tallied to decide which is the greater. Will it be his Library on the World War …or will it be his paper preservative? Welles answers his own question “Probably the latter, for without the preservative, ravenous Time will slowly but irresistibly devour the Library.”

So what happened to the Broadman library?

For years, he tried to sell the collection. His efforts, starting in the 1930s, were directed at university libraries, such as Indiana, and Princeton. After the end of World War II, he renewed his efforts to place the collection by publishing a 35 page pamphlet entitled Broadman Library of World War I and World War II: Including the Years Intervening and Following. Its Inception, Growth, Contents, World Opinion.

Despite Broadman’s efforts, no one took his collection for many years, and one can only speculate on why this was so, as I do later in this note.

Eventually, late in life, in 1966, he gave the collection to a newly established Quaker institution on Long Island, the Friends World College. The college moved around the island several times and eventually settled on the North Shore in Lloyd Harbor. That is where the collection was last seen.

In the spring of 2006, I gathered the story of its last days from former college officials and from local town’s people. To quote my notes:

“I eventually reached Donald W. Smith of Greenport, NY who was on the board of trustees of the FWC in 1990-1991. (1991 was the year in which the FWC merged into Long Island University and became the Friends World Program. The merger had been brought on by a funding crisis.) He told me on April 2, 2006 that the Broadman Library was stored on the grounds in various buildings such as the second floor of the Barn and in some of the stables. He further said it had been offered around by FWC to a number of public libraries as well as to Swarthmore College. No one wanted it. Thus, he continued, when the remaining real estate of FWC at Lloyds Neck was sold in 1990, the grounds, buildings, and contents such as the Broadman Library, passed to the new owner.”

The FWC property was known as Livingston Manor. The new owner eventually pulled down all the outbuildings together with the main house, evidently ca. 1994-95. When the barn containing the Broadman Library was demolished, the contents too passed into oblivion.

Ironically, all that remains of the Broadman Library, as far as I can tell, are records about it, such as correspondence files at the New York Public Library, the FDR Library, Indiana University, even here at Princeton. Publications about the collection issued by Dr Broadman himself also remain. His collection has vanished.

Further reflection • Broadman tried to claim value for the collection by making it part of a category of value that had not been collected by traditional collectors whose goods are preserved by the workings of the antiquarian book market. Instead, and perhaps because of his professional training, he chose to make it a part of a category of value that was created by universities and research institutions. It is they — the professionals — who value breath, depth and equal opportunity for all viewpoints.

There were advantages and disadvantages to Broadman’s approach.

On the one hand, it brought him regard with those from whom he sought regard, such professional men as university presidents, historians, and diplomats.

On the other hand, he did not completely share their values. He challenged an emerging consensus among them regarding the use of microfilm as a means of dealing with the preservation of large twentieth century archival collections. Broadman challenged claims about the stability of microfilm as a satisfactory means for preservation of records. Evidence of the challenge comes from Broadman’s exchange of letters on this subject with Princeton librarian Julian Boyd. In a letter to Broadman dated November 29, 1941, Boyd wrote: “I have read your comments with much interest, though I regret to say with almost complete disagreement. … I am in most complete disagreement with your suggestion that the National Bureau of Standards has been under undue influence in its tests of films, …” Moreover, Broadman also insisted that his collection be preserved with his patented process. (Such a project would cost the host institution untold sums.)

In the end, it was not just lack of money preventing sale of the Broadman Library . For many years, there appears to have been insufficient funds of institutional good opinion, so that, after any money was spent, those in the institution could feel that their opinion had been validated. Just as Broadman wanted to feel better after adding to the Library — he said “There are hundreds of thousands of doctors, but there’s only one library like this” (1941 New Yorker article) — so those in an institution would want to feel better after acquiring the Broadman Library. It takes more than money to preserve a collection.

Another further reflection • The evidence is only suggestive, but I can not help but wonder if Broadman’s motivation for collecting was to accumulate a protective surrogate. Some examples: Official records state he was born in Austria and that German was his native language. The country in which he made his living and raised his family was anti-German. It was clear that he was defensive about his hertiage, as evidenced by a letter to the editor of The New York Times (September 18, 1924) protesting the Times editorial “The Steuben Society Bloc.” Broadman controverted many points, such as the article of the Versailles Treaty that fixed responsibility for the war on Germany. In reply, Broadman wrote “… the publication of the secret archives, Russian, German, Belgian, and Serbian, proves the fallacy of this charge.” In 1940-41, Broadman began issuing “Research Bulletins” with such titles as “Facts vs. Propaganda” and “Hitler, the Man of Honor …?” New York Herald Tribune reporter Barrett McGurn, in his article on Broadman, August 3, 1941, stated that Secretary of the Navy William Franklin “Frank” Knox responded to Broadman’s bulletins as “warning … the world situation leaves no room for complacency.” McGurn concluded that “Dr. Broadman was now stressing in his bulletins the need for America to use all its forces to make certain a repetition of the Allied victory over Germany.”

Sources

• Newspaper and periodical articles

“Novel War Library Grows from Hobby. Dr. Joseph Broadman’s Collection of Human Data on Conflict Called Best of Kind. Experts Praise It Highly. Contains Magazines, Newspapers, Clippings Costing Thousands - Several Colleges Seek to Buy It. Has Cost Thousands of Dollars. Untrained as Librarian. Fine War Library Grows from Hobby. Foot Notes Give Many Facts.” The New York Times, Sunday, July 20, 1930.
[available at NY Times archive 1851-1980]

“A Hobby That Became an Institution: the Story of the Broadman Library That Grew From a Handful of Newspaper Clippings Into a Collection of 400,000 Items and an Amazing Invention.” New York University Alumnus, vol. XV, no. 5, January, 1935.

“500, 000 Items in War Library Offered as Gift. Dr. Joseph Broadman, Who Collected Big Work, Will Donate to Any Institution That Agrees to Preserve It.” The New York Herald Tribune, September 8, 1938, page 10.

“Library.” The New Yorker, October 4, 1941, page 15-16. [available at The New Yorker archive]

“One-Man, 50-Ton War Library Wins Renown. Doctor’s Collection, Begun in Pockets, Now Arsenal of Facts Against Nazis.” The New York Herald Tribune, August 3, 1941.

“Dr. Broadman, 83, Library Creator. Author of Book on Curative Role for Bee Venon Dies.” The New York Times, February 26, 1966, page 17.
[available at NY Times archive 1851-1980]

• Pamphlets

William Steward Ayars. Broadman Library of World War I and World War II: Including the Years Intervening and Following. Its Inception, Growth, Contents, World Opinion. (New York: Broadman Library Foundation, 1948) 34 pages. Includes several photographs. [Copy of the brochure is at Mudd Library in AC123 (Library Records), series Librarian’s Records, sub-series Boyd, old box number 148]

Joseph Broadman. The Broadman Library on “War, Peace and International Relations” (New York, 1959). 8 pages. Reprinted from the October 1959 issue of General Practice.

[Related work] Joseph Broadman. The Scientific Preservation of Perishable Papers; A Comparison of the Various Processes of Preservation of Originals and Photographic Reproduction. (New York, Broadman process, inc. [1941]). Includes photograph of Dr. Broadman reproduced above. Broadman is pointing to parcels labeled “Letters to Editors.” This category was one of 12 major sub-divisions of the Library as listed in “Section B” of the Ayars 1948 pamphlet. The other sections were: Newspapers, Indices, Scrap Books (about 1500), Propaganda—Pamphlets and Leaflets, Books (about 3000), Official Records, Posters, Cartoons (several thousand), Scrap Book Index (about 60,000 cards), Periodicals, and Miscellaneous.

• Archival

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY • President’s Official File #4825, “Broadman, Dr. Joseph, 1939-45,” contains 71 pages (approx. 20 letters and memoranda) • Samuel I. Rosenman Papers. Folder titled, “Broadman Library of the World War.” It contains 52 pages which consist of some 21 letters and memoranda between March 1942 and November 1943 and attachments. These papers included an 8 page document, “Brief and Incomplete Description of Contents of the Broadman Library.” Broadman and FDR discussed donation of selected runs of periodicals for the library at Hyde Park.

Indiana University. Archives. Bloomington, IN. • File on Broadman in the papers of President Herman Wells, 1938-1943.

New York Public Library. New York, NY. • File on Broadman in the administrative archives of the Library: RG6 (Central Administration Central Administration - Director - Lydenberg, Hopper, and Beals - General Correspondence — Box 7)

Swarthmore College. Friends Historical Library. Swarthmore, PA. • Records of the Friends World College. (RG 4/ 082) Minutes of the Board of Trustees. Vol. 11-13 (April 1971 - January 1974). The minutes of the Trustees Executive Council for August 10, 1972, page 10, “Broadman Library. As previously reported, the Broadman Library collection (an early gift to the college of documents for a peace library comprising a large collection of materials from World War I through World War II). has been badly damaged by vandalization last year of the Nike building in which it was stored. Through the efforts of Francis Koster of C.W. Post College, their chief librarian had taken a look and found it still valuable. That college may help us get funds and a place for it. A further report will be welcomed.”

Princeton University. Archives (Mudd Library). Princeton, NJ. • Library Records (AC123). Sub-series for the papers of librarian Julian Boyd.

During stack reorganization this past summer, staff at the Princeton University Library discovered the only surviving copy of a 1930s Princeton newspaper. When The Local Express began publication on Thursday, October 24, 1935, it described itself as “a newspaper devoted to the interests of the people of Princeton and vicinity.” As part of the local celebration of “Princeton in the 1930s,” all four volumes have been scanned and made publicly available on the Library’s “Digital Collections” website.

“The Local Express is a valuable addition to the body of information available about Princeton in the late 1930s, and its digitization should make it available to a broad audience,” said Howard Green, co-curator of the exhibition “Princeton in the 1930s” currently at the Historical Society of Princeton. “In particular, the paper seems more sympathetic to Roosevelt and the New Deal than the other Princeton weeklies, the Herald, and the Packet.”

The first several Local Express issues were distributed as complimentary copies. William L. Stout and Lloyd Dilks published the newspaper and gave Dilk’s home, 87 Jefferson Road, as its office address. Stout and Dilks were young men, as indicated by listings for their families in Polk’s Princeton Directory for the late 1930s. In an era when jobs were scarce, it made sense to try to capitalize on one’s local knowledge and youthful energy. An early partner, Joseph R. Bourne, dropped out after the first issue and was replaced quickly by Henry A. Rosso. Stout and Dilks quit the paper just six months later, leaving Rosso on his own in late March 1936. Rosso dubbed the Express “Princeton’s Progressive Newspaper,” clearly trying to distinguish it from the two well-established local newspapers, The Princeton Herald and The Princeton Packet.

With the issue of May 12, 1938 (vol. 3, no. 30), The Local Express became The Princeton News. Rosso was sole editor, with Edward E. Felker serving as business manager. Clearly costs were affecting production: the new title was smaller in trim size and printed on cheaper paper stock. The final issue appeared March 9, 1939.

Content of the day was much like today’s local news: politics, schools, business, social, entertainment, and sports. A novelty is the one-time appearance of a color-printed comics section on September 24, 1936 (vol. 1, no. 49), including the following strips: “Happy,” “Peggy Wow,” “Silly Willie,” “The Jamms,” “Pop’s Night Out,” and “Adventures of the Red Mask.”

The University Library received issues of the newspaper as they were published, then bound them for addition to the Library’s PB (Princeton Borough and Township History) collection. An important source for local history, the PB collection was formed by the Library sometime between 1900 and 1920, and new materials were added regularly for several decades thereafter. The PB collection is now in the care of the Rare Book Division at Firestone Library.

Scanning of The Local Express was done by Roel Muñoz and the Library Digital Projects staff during this fall. Cataloguing and interpretative notes were prepared by Joyce Bell and Steve Ferguson. Final arrangements for Web display were done by Jon Stroop and his colleagues in the Digital Library Group.

“The timing of the newspaper’s re-discovery and digitization couldn’t be better, as Princeton in the 1930s continues to be on view through July 13, 2008,” said Eileen K. Morales, Curator, Historical Society of Princeton. “Once the exhibition is closed, the digitized version of The Local Express and the original photographs and manuscripts at the Historical Society of Princeton will continue to enable members of the public to learn about this important decade in Princeton’s history.”

Other local Princeton history materials are available on the Library’s Digital Collections website, such as the Historic Postcard Collection. See: http://diglib.princeton.edu

Click here for directions regarding zooming in for details.

Recently the Library acquired an extensive collection (approximately 1,300 items) of pamphlets, serials, books, and other documents from the Partido Comunista de la Argentina and other communist political organizations from that country. These are now stored and serviced by the Rare Book Division. Publication dates range from 1918, year when the PCA was founded, to the present. The collection includes official party resolutions, declarations, congress proceedings, conferences, bulletins, educational, and electoral materials, as well as the works of numerous communist intellectuals and publishers. Also present in the collection are more than forty periodical titles published throughout most of the 20th century. Some of those periodicals are Documentos del Progreso (1919-1921), Soviet (1933-1935), Problemas de la Paz y el Socialismo (1958-61), and Comentarios (1978-83). The collection consists of duplicates from the Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierdas en la Argentina and obtained through an intermediary. Overall, the collection is one of the most important collections of its type outside of Argentina.
The collection joins the Library’s growing collections of pamphlets, periodicals and ephemera relating to political, social, economic, and religious movements in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Peru, and a number of other countries in Latin America, as well as Argentina.
For further details, contact Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez [facosta@princeton.edu].

Garland C. Boothe, Jr., class of 1954, presented to the Library the only known copy printed as single sheet of Beers’ Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1811 (New Haven, 1811).

Almanacs were a staple of printer’s trade for centuries, with some editions being printed in hundreds of thousands of copies. Purchasers ranged from the hard-scrabble farmer to the prosperous proprietor and everyone in between. “All our domestic operations are carried on by the aid of this daily manual; and we do not stir from our firesides without running over the long thin columns of days, sun’s declination, time of rising and setting, or without a wishful glance at the hazardous assurance of the bright moon-light nights, and pleasant days.” (Atlantic Magazine, August 1, 1824, page 298)

The usual publishing format was a book styled for a gentleman’s pocket or a lady’s desk. For public places, such as a coffee house wall or above a merchant’s desk, printers provided the text imposed on a single sheet. Useful while current and hanging, but, once out of date, requiring disposal, sheet almanacs rarely survive today. Pocket almanacs stood a better chance of survival. They could remain on the shelf with other books, especially if they were handsomely bound so as to complement a fancy mahogany desk.

According to the titlepage of the pocket edition, Andrew Beers, “Philomath,” provided the “Lunations, Conjunctions, Eclipses, Judgment of the Weather, Rising and Setting of the Planets, Length of Days and Nights, Tide-Table, Time of Sitting of the Courts in Connecticut, with other Matter, Useful, Instructive and Entertaining.” He assured the reader that his calculations “may serve for either of the towns in Connecticut, or the adjacent States, without any essential difference.”

The Boothe gift is now catalogued and shelved as (Ex) Broadside 392.

[Illustration above adapted from page 28 of Many Things Upon Money Matters for the Use of Young People in the United States (West Bradford and Boston, 1835)]

Proof covers for the first 51 numbers of the Aldine Publishing Company’s “O’er Land and Sea” Library. 51 single octavo leaves, rough trimmed, some mounted on thin card, others showing signs of mounting. [London, 1890-1891]. Call number (Ex) Item 4697736.

The Aldine Publishing Company, 9 Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, London, “was the foremost of the reprint presses that, from the late 1880s, published American ‘dime novels’ in Britain, notably those featuring such favourites as Frank Reade Junior, Buffalo Bill, and Deadwood Dick.” * In 1890, A. P. C. issued number one in “The Aldine ‘O’er Land and Sea’ Library.” The series ran for 408 numbers, the last issued in 1905. A typical number cost 2 pence, and consisted of 64 closely-printed pages, with color-printed wrappers. The company thrived until the late 1920s to early 1930s, when changes in reading taste caused decline. A book salesman noted this change in a purchaser’s preference: “Highwaymen, pirates, and red Indians don’t excite his imagination; he wants fights with submarines, daring stunts in aeroplanes, and wonderful electric machines, … tales of Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, and Jack Sheppard interest him not.”
This gathering of the covers of the first 51 in the series came from the collection of Barry Ono, the Penny Dreadful King, whose collection was bequeathed to the British Library in 1941. Link here for details about the Barry Ono collection, including a portrait photograph of him surrounded by examples from his collection.
Among his many major purchases was the entire set of editorial file copies of the Aldine Publishing Company. Together with this gathering of covers is a photocopy of a typed note, dated May 31, 1940, signed by Ono announcing his purchase and stating that “these fine old wrappers are undoubtedly the only set in existence.”
*John Springhall, “‘Disseminating Impure Literature’: ‘: The ‘Penny Dreadful’ Publishing Business Since 1860,” The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 47, No. 3. (Aug., 1994), pp. 578.

The Library has just acquired the first illustrated edition of Emile Zola’s famous novel of working class life, L’Assommoir. The novel first appeared in serialized form between 13 April 1876 and 7 January 1877, and sold well. Building on this popularity, the Paris publishers Marpon and Flammarion issued an illustrated edition in 59 parts in 1878. Each part had one illustration, keyed to a particular page. More than ten artists contributed artwork, which was published as a wood engraving. (More than five wood engravers were involved.)

The artists were notable in their day, and, for some, their reputation endured. Among those, the best known today is Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). He contributed four drawings to the project. Illustrated above is that adjacent to page 283, in which the heroine of the novel, Gervaise, and her lover Lantier listen at a café to Mademoiselle Amanda, declared by Lantier to be a “high class singer.” (Click on image for larger view.) Other pages contributed by Renoir are also scenes, indoors or out: page 136, La loge des Boche; page 192, Le père Bru piétinait dans la neige pour se réchauffer.; and page 368, Les filles d’ouvriers se promenant sur le boulevard extérieur. “Elles s’en allaient, se tenant par les bras, occupant la largeur des chausses.” Each work exhibits his painterly, impressionistic line, contrasting sharply with the acute lines of other illustrations by such artists as André Gill (1840-1885) or Maurice Leloir (1853-1940).

The result of this collaboration of artists, wood engravers, printers and publishers was a large, deluxe book with each illustration printed twice: once on a thick stock used also for the text (“papier de Hollande”) and once on China paper, whose soft surface caught shadings of ink more vividly than thick paper. The parts were bound in a red morocco half leather binding by Paul-Romain Raparlier, evidently on the commission of the London bookseller Henry Sotheran. (The names are stamped on the upper left corner of each front endpaper.) The Princeton copy is number 41 of a limited edition of 130 and has the booklabel of Eduardo J. Bullfinch, a lawyer and businessman in Buenos Aires in the first half of the twentieth century.
Call number: (Ex) Oversize 2007-0689Q

No Knowledge=No Bread. Knowledge Lies in Books. Books are on the Cooperatives. (Russia, 1925) Graphic Arts GA 2005.01165

The Girl Who Reads Sensation Story Papers. (United States, ca.1891). (Ex) Broadside 392 [Larger image]

Email: ferguson@princeton.edu

Wrappers of books published by Hodder and Stoughton Limited (London, 1900-1940)
Call number: (Ex) Item 4572624

Freshest advices! A complete listing of this collection is now available (4 August 2008). See http://libweb2.princeton.edu/rbsc2/misc/H-S-summa.pdf

A collection of approximately 1200 wrappers and dust jackets, in albums and loose [viz. 2 vols. and 3 boxes], originally part of the publisher’s archives. Items mounted on leaves, arranged as follows:

Email: ferguson@princeton.edu

    Purchased in spring 2007 with funds provided by the Friends of the Princeton University Library. Professor Anthony Grafton’s comments on this book: “The Milanese humanist Angelo Decembrio provides in his De politia litteraria a uniquely vivid, if fictionalized, record of literary life at the court of Ferrara in the age of Leonello d’Este. His court was the favorite habitat of the great humanist teacher Guarino of Verona; the architect, humanist and theorist of the arts Leon Battista Alberti; the poet Tito Vespasiano Strozzi; and many other scholars, writers, and erudite soldiers of fortune. In Decembrio’s unique dialogues we listen to these men debating the value of ancient and modern poetry, discussing the quality of Flemish tapestries and other works of art, examining the Egyptian obelisk that still stands in Vatican City in the Piazza S. Pietro; and describing the ideal renaissance library and how it should be kept. The text has fascinated students of the Renaissance for the last century and more, and parts of it have been edited (the one on the obelisk, for example, by Brian Curran, now of Penn State, and myself; that on works of art by Michael Baxandall).
“In collaboration with Christopher Celenza of Johns Hopkins, I plan to edit and translate parts of this text, … But it won’t be an easy text to edit. Decembrio’s work survives in two distinct recensions: one preserved in a Latin manuscript in the Vatican, of which we have a full copy; the other in two printed editions based on a manuscript stolen from the Vatican in 1527 and now lost. The differences are multiple and subtle, and the supposedly critical edition that appeared four years ago in Germany is very problematic. We [can] collate the divergent texts far more easily [now that] Firestone ha[s] both printed texts.
“The edition itself is of considerable interest, moreover: its title page illustration is a spectacular rendering of learned conversation, one of the most brilliant ones of this period, and the text it offers is curious in many respects.” Email: ferguson@princeton.edu

Call number for the book: (Ex) Oversize 2008-0435Q

From a descendant, the Library purchased the remaining personal collection of Noah Webster’s son-in-law, William Chauncey Fowler, professor, clergyman and legislator. The 311 titles come to a total of 392 volumes and include books on a wide variety of subjects as well as his personal, marked-up copies of his own works also ranging widely in subject, from anti-slavery to what sorts of books young people should read. Also included are two books formerly owned by his father in law, one of which, Jeremy Belknap’s American Biography (1794), has Webster’s annotation contradicting the author. In addition, because the Fowler family was a share holder in one of the earliest public libraries founded in the United States - the Book Company of Durham, Connecticut (founded 1733), they obtained a number of books from the Library’s stock when the company was dissolved in 1856 and the members voted “to divide the books by auction.” These are variously marked “Book Company of Durham, new library” or “Durham, new library” and include stock numbers (with date of accession as inscribed): 26, 35 (“1789”), 38, 45, 47, 71 (“1791”), 72-76 (“Jan. 3, 1792), 78 (“Jan. 1793”), 86 (“presented by Dr. Stiles, April 8, 1793”), 88 (“presented by Dr. Stiles, April 8, 1793”), 96, 97 (“A.D. 1795”), 101 (“A.D. 1795”), 108 (“1795”), 110 (“A. D. 1795”), 114 (“A.D. 1796”), 129 (“March 5, 1798”), 132, 142-144 (“1800”), 192 (“June 5th, 1812”), 199, 201, 202, 212 (“Jan’y, 1817”), 216, 224, 225, 229, 256, 257, 258, 279, and 286. One book with no stock number is marked “Ethosian Society, Durham, Conn.,” a debating society with a library known to have been formed in 1783 and dissolved in 1793. Few libraries of nineteenth century professors are traceable as a collection today. Equally few are gatherings of books known to have been in one of the thousands of social libraries active in ante-bellum America. Historians of reading are eager not only to know what those books were but to actually examine such documented survivors as these.
Email: ferguson@princeton.edu