Whither.
The American writer Dawn Powell wrote sixteen novels, of which Whither was her first. However, following its publication, she disowned it, and went around to bookstores and bought up all the copies she could find. Thus, she always called her second novel, She Walks in Beauty (1925), her first. She refused to acknowledge Whither in her official biography; her friend Hannah Green recalled that, some thirty-five years after the book’s publication, Powell was not pleased when Green found a copy in a secondhand bookstore. Consequently, Whither with its dust jacket is very rare, with only two known copies, and any inscribed copy, such as this one, rarer still.
Powell’s books cover two subjects: small town American life in the Midwest, where she grew up, and the sophisticated and literary life of New York City, of which she was very much a part, including spending considerable time in speakeasies. Whither describes a small-town girl in her twenties living in a New York City rooming house, trying to become a writer, and it has an unconvincing happy ending. But because it is so autobiographical, it will be fascinating to anyone interested in Dawn Powell’s life, which her biographer, Tim Page, has so admirably described.
I have collected Dawn Powell for many years, and others have described my collection as the best in private hands. I greatly admire her writing, which I find both moving and hilarious. When Dawn Powell died, virtually all of her books were out of print and she was unknown. However, after Gore Vidal commented that, along with Mark Twain, she was “the best American comic novelist,” she has been brought back into print, including as volumes in the Library of America.
Dawn Powell (1896–1965).
Susan Brynteson
Small, Maynard & Company
1925
Boston
Types of the De Vinne Press: Specimens for the Use of Compositors, Proofreaders, and Publishers.
Theodore Low De Vinne (1828–1914) was a very enthusiastic Grolier Club founder who involved himself in every aspect of printing. This is my favorite De Vinne item because it reminds me of the one subject that defined his life to the end: type itself.
This 449-page specimen book describes the typefaces available at the De Vinne Press, “diligently gathered from leading foundries of this country and Europe to please the tastes of many customers.” Never one to miss an opportunity for instruction, De Vinne made it a compendium of typographic information. The volume was produced at an important moment, just before his firm was incorporated in 1908 as The De Vinne Press (which it had long been called).
It is open to Great-Primer No. 4 from the Conner Type Foundry, the face used in two large and famous De Vinne Press productions, as the page explains.
De Vinne Press.
Irene Tichenor
New York: [Theodore L. De Vinne & Co.],
1907.
The Ristigouche and Its Salmon Fishing.
Edition of 105.
Among other superlatives, experts in the rare-book world have described Ristigouche to me as being of almost legendary beauty, rarity, and importance. I agree, and it’s also my view that this is the most beautiful book on salmon fishing. I enjoy sporting books, and I enjoy finely printed books. Unlike many of its fellows, this book carries both attributes. If it has a flaw, it is that the prose is workmanlike and uninspired. But the dedication compensates for that: “To my father, to whom I owe the leisure which has enabled me to write it.” Sage grew up in great wealth, and had the sense to be grateful for his good fortune.
Dean Sage.
Philip E. Bowles
Edinburgh: David Douglas,
1888.
Echiridion militis Christiani.
Provenance: Surgeon and bibliophile François Rasse des Neux, both works signed and dated 1548; and Anthonii Hellin, with his very familiar motto, “et amicorum.”
The foremost scholar-priest of the sixteenth century and the best-selling author of his time, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote two books on great professions: humanist manuals for a Christian knight and for a Christian prince. They rank among his most important works.
Enchiridion militis Christiani (The Handbook of a Christian Knight) is addressed to an anonymous wayward soldier, who read it and became an honorable Christian; it was nonetheless intended as a guide for all to achieve a faithful, decent and worthwhile life. Institutio principis Christiani (The Education of a Christian Prince) was written for a young Spanish prince, the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Erasmus offers a humanist view of the intellectual, moral, political and religious standards required for a ruler, and urges the rapprochement of the Catholic and reformed views of Christianity.
François Rasse des Neux (d. 1587), a famous royal surgeon, man of letters, and bibliophile in Paris, was one of the earliest doctor-collectors of printed books. One of my major collections is early manuscripts and printed books related to the learned professions and skilled trades (expanded in scope from Doctors of Medicine after my 1996 member’s exhibition), These post-incunables—written by a great thinker in editions published during his lifetime, concerning occupations, their attendant responsibilities, and broader applicability, with a significant contemporary provenance and binding—are particularly suited to my collecting goals.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536).
Andrew T. Nadell
Antwerp: Michael Hillenium,
October 1523.
Ranchos de Taos.
<p><strong>Color transparency rendered as a Fresson print, 9</strong><strong>½</strong><strong> x 14</strong><strong>¼</strong><strong> in. </strong></p>
<p>This print is part of an elegant series in which each image of New Mexico’s Rancho de Taos church has its own palette based on the moment’s reflected light.</p>
<p>As with Monet’s paintings of the Rouen Cathedral, Douglas Keats created a significant body of photographs with different moods over the course of a year. Using the the same iconic Ranchos de Taos church, Keats, along with Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Georgia O’Keefe and John Marin, memorialized the deep-rooted, timeless Spanish Southwest culture.</p>
The print was rendered at the Atelier Fresson in Paris with a proprietary technique developed in the 1880s. Each print requires six hours to produce through a four-color separation process. The handmade paper and layered inks produce textures echoing Ranchos de Taos’s hand-plastered, stucco structure.
Douglas Keats.
Robert A. Yellowlees
1983.
Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear.
Author Evan Hunter (Blackboard Jungle; screenplay for Hitchcock’s The Birds) wrote, under the pen name “Ed McBain,” two series of classic crime novels: the fabled 87th Precinct series and the lawyer Matthew Hope novels. According to Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York, McBain was “the greatest writer of police procedurals who ever lived.”
I was honored to be Hunter/McBain’s copyright and literary publishing lawyer. The plot of this Matthew Hope novel, Gladly, involves copyright and trademark issues. Evan, a meticulous craftsman in describing police procedure, told me he didn’t want to get letters from readers that he got the legal part wrong. And he didn’t!
Evan graciously dedicated Gladly to me. And Gladly represents a signature merger of vocation and avocation for this lawyer, whose book collection emphasizes author-presentation copies.
Ed McBain (pseud. Evan Hunter).
Richard Dannay
London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1996.
Memoires de Gibbon.
In this translation of Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, published during the French Revolution, his letter dated February 18, 1793, was changed:
The struggle is at length over, and poor de Severy [Salomon de Severy, a close friend in Lausanne] is no more!
La lutte est enfin terminée; le malheureux Louis [Louis XVI, guillotined January 21, 1793] n’est plus.
The anonymous translator notes that he left Gibbon’s French (“anglicisms”) uncorrected; however, someone (translator or printer) adapted Gibbon’s English to reflect contemporary events in France. A fellow Grolierite found this book for me in a dealer’s catalogue. I discovered the Gibboniana.
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794).
George Edwards
Paris: Chez le Directeur de la Décade philosophique. An Ve. de la République ,
[1797].
Original typescript of “The Yellow Thingummy” alphabet.
<p>I wanted to interview Edward Gorey for <em>N is for Newsletter</em>, the monthly newsletter devoted to the alphabet that I had created with a friend. I knew Gorey's inventive, idiosyncratic alphabets and I wanted to know more. The book jacket for his earlier alphabet, <em>The Glorious Nosebleed</em>, said he lived in Barnstable, Massachusetts, so I called information and got his phone number. He answered the phone. “When would be a good time to talk?” I asked. “One a.m. on Sunday,” he answered.</p>
And so I called at 1:00 a.m. on Sunday, May 2, 1993. We talked for 1½ hours. He was charming and forthcoming. During the conversation I learned he had a folder of unpublished alphabets. Breathlessly I asked, “Could I print one in my newsletter?” He sent me his typewritten manuscript of his then-unpublished alphabet, “The Yellow Thingummy” (which later appeared in <em>N is for Newsletter</em>, [vol. 1, no. 4, September 1993]). He eventually sent me two more alphabets, which I proudly printed in subsequent issues. It was a dream come true. For the handful of people who subscribed to <em>N is for Newsletter</em>, they had the privilege of reading the first printing of an Edward Gorey alphabet.
Edward Gorey (1925–2000).
Gretchen Adkins
Thinking of You.
The most precious items in my collection of pop-up and movable books and ephemera are handmade. On rare occasions, paper engineers will construct a unique and personal pop-up for me.
In 2012, while on safari in Botswana, I found sheets of paper made from elephant dung! Coarse but pliable—and NOT smelly—I tried to envision what paper engineers would make from them and sent a sheet to my dear friend and book artist, Ed Hutchins.
Imagine my surprise when I received an envelope from Ed with a note that said, “You are the only person in my life who has sent me rare poopy paper.” Inside was a greeting card made of the dung paper and was itself an elephant pop-up! He didn’t even know that I also collect elephants. And like an elephant, I’ll never forget Ed and this card, which I treasure.
Edward H. Hutchins.
Ellen G. K. Rubin
Salem, NY: Editions,
2015.
Portrait of Matthew Buchinger.
Etching, signed by Buchinger, ink on paper.
Matthew Buchinger (1674–1739) was a phocomelic, twenty-nine-inch-tall overachiever. He was a legless and armless conjurer and calligrapher who danced the hornpipe and played more than a half-dozen musical instruments, some of his own invention. Among his formidable accomplishments was fathering fourteen children.
He is pictured here surrounded by thirteen vignettes of his various exhibitions: executing trick skittle or bowling shots, threading a needle, playing the dulcimer, charging a gun, shaving himself, placing figures within a bottle, drawing, writing, cutting a quill, and performing conjuring with coins, cards, dice, and cups and balls. He was a master of micrography and was able to produce coats of arms, family trees, and portraits with almost unimaginably small calligraphy. He signed this souvenir print in forwards, backwards and mirror writing.
In my many years of collecting books, broadsides, and the iconography of celebrated and unusual characters, no one fascinates me more than Buchinger, “The Little Man of
Nuremberg.” I mention him at every opportunity and am now writing a biography to accompany an exhibition of his work: Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Inventive Drawing from the Collection of Ricky Jay, opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in January 2016.
Elias Bäck (1679–1747), also known as Heldenmuth.
Ricky Jay
1710
Regensburg, Germany