Outtakes from First Impressions: The Print Trade in Children’s Books

“Children, for this small book some thanks are due,

The Printer made it purposely for you.”

From William Darton, Little Jack of all Trades (1804).

The curatorial staff of the Cotsen Children’s Library is proud to announce the opening of the exhibition, First Impressions: The Print Trade in Children’s Books. This exhibition explores the representation of the print trade in children’s books and toys from the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.

Our exhibition cases are filled with engaging illustrations of printing techniques, engravers, xylographers, bookbinders, and a wood-engraving block, electrotype plate, and even a child’s hobby printing press from the 1930s. However, not every book that we initially selected for this exhibition made it into our cases. Some weren’t selected simply because they didn’t fit the case or because another book had a better illustration depicting an aspect of the print trade.

George Dodd. Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

Others, like George Dodd’s Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]) were excluded from the exhibition because the book is not stable enough to display. As you can see from the above photo, even closed you can see that the pages of the book are loose though the binding is relatively strong.

George Dodd. “Printing Machine.” Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

Unfortunately, we were not able to display this detailed image of a Koenig “Printing Machine” because the foldout has completely detached from the binding. This image, like many others in this book, seems to have been pasted into the book after it was sewn. Normally when an image is “tilted in,” it is printed separate from the text, collated, and sewn directly into the book.

George Dodd. Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

What appear to be dried paste can be seen on the printed image and the adjacent page, leading us to think that the image was pasted into the book after it was bound.

George Dodd. Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

A book in this condition would never be able to handle a display cradle for very long. It would only exacerbate its delicate state and would cause more damage. It should be carefully handled and properly cradled with foam book cradles to prevent stress on the spine and binding, as shown above.

Kosai Miki. Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children), vol. 1, 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383

Kosai Miki’s Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children, vol. 1), 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383] was also removed from the final selections for the exhibition, but for an entirely different reason. This book is structurally sound and would have made a wonderful addition to the display, if only the images of the bookbinder, bookseller, and paper manufacturer were more prominent.

Kosai Miki. Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children), vol. 1, 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383]

Meant to teach English to Japanese children, each page contains nine, colored illustrations of a tradesman performing his trade.  The images are accompanied by both, the English word and the Japanese characters for the name of the trade. When held in the hand, this book is easily understood as the reader slowly moves their eyes over each panel, connecting the word and characters to the picture. However, if this were displayed in one of our exhibition cases, the intended images of the bookbinder, bookseller, and paper manufacturer would be overwhelmed by the other objects.

Kosai Miki. Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children), vol. 1, 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383]

Be sure to visit the Cotsen during our normal business hours to see the books and objects we’ve selected for our exhibition, First Impressions: The Print Trade in Children’s Books. The exhibition is open to the public until January 3, 2020. And make sure you visit this blog next week for more outtakes from our current exhibition.

New Exhibition “Ice and Snow” Opening December 20th!

bothshoppedOur next exhibition is right around the corner! This one will celebrate all things cold, frozen, and snowy. Opening on December 20th and on view until March 26th, “Ice and Snow,” will feature wintry scenes from Cotsen Children’s Library that celebrate the season.

Advertising for our show is provided by none other than Fall and Winter themselves. The above images have been blown up for display in the exhibition cases in preparation for the show:

bothcasesThese images have also been sourced from the collection. The original prints were created by the Czech illustrator Helena Zmatlíková (Praha : Odeon, c.1968) titled, in both Czech and French, Podzim : L’Automne and Zima : L’Hiver (respectively).

Our blow-ups measure 54 X 55 inches and old man Fall and old lady Winter have come a long way since they were found as prints pasted on 12 x 15 inch drywall panels:

originalscan2

Cotsen 40757

original-scan

Cotsen 151645

So come see Podzim and Zima before they are taken down to reveal the real surprise. Join us in the Cotsen Children’s Library from 9-5 on weekdays and 12-5 on weekends starting December 20th for a celebration of Winter!

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Special thanks to Squirrel Walsh, RBSC Imaging Services Coordinator for the excellent digitization of the original items (and many more!), and to Barbara Valenza and the rest of the Princeton University Print and Mail Services team for the awesome job (that they always do) making our collections larger than life and entertaining my unorthodox print requests. . .