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Showing posts from 2012

A bookplate for Alfred Sutro of California

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A few posts back ( San Francisco book shop labels ), I referenced a bookplate I had in a book that belonged to Alfred Sutro. While that's true, the reference doesn't hold up. I had the wrong Alfred Sutro it turns out: The author dedicated this book to his friend, Alfred Sutro, whose leather bookplate I have in a copy of Byways in Bookland, by James Westfall Thompson The author was John Drinkwater and he dedicated his 1933 book, Laying the Devil , to Alfred Sutro. Upon further investigation into Sutro's connection to Drinkwater, I discovered this Alfred Sutro was from England, not California as was the Alfred Sutro whose bookplate I have. Two book-world Alfred Sutros across the pond from each other... Who'd a thunk? Not me, obviously. Drinkwater's Alfred Sutro (1863-1933) was a respected playwright, while The Alfred Sutro (1869-1945) I had in mind was a San Francisco attorney and avid bibliophile, who served as President of the Book Club of California. T

A haunted book shop revisited

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Couldn't let Halloween get away without a reference to a previous post about a haunted book shop--the Holmes Book Company in Oakland.   And if you visit the link above, you'll see a comment from a former employee who confirms the place was haunted! And now some of my books, which I've placed in an early 1900s building, known as the Vogelsang Antique Emporium , in Rosenberg, Texas, are showing up as the backdrop for a paranormal investigation in that building! I don't think my books have anything to do with the paranormal activity, they're just innocent bystanders in the investigation. Or are they?

A pair of San Francisco book shop labels

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  Scouting used books the other day, I found a few that had, at some point in their history, resided on the shelves of different San Francisco book shops as long ago, possibly, as the 1930s. The bookseller labels inside the rear cover of each were ones I had not come across before so I had to add them to my collection. Coincidentally, both books were published in 1933. Gelber-Lilienthal In a copy of The Name and Nature of Poetry , by A.E. Housman, Cambridge University Press, I found this Gelber-Lilienthal label. Leon Gelber and Theodore Lilienthal (1893-1972) were the partners in the bookselling firm that bore their surnames. After Gelber died, Lilienthal ran the business and then sold it to Lew Lengfeld in 1946, who renamed it Books, Inc. Under that name, the business still exists today with a dozen stores (ten in California). The Princeton University Library blog, Graphic Arts , has a related post from December 2010 by Julie L. Mellby, which turned up in my initial sea

A Mediterranean Tapestry

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A recent anniversary cruise in the Mediterranean and adjacent seas (Aegean, Ionian, and Adriatic) has me recalling the countries my wife and I visited (Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and Croatia) and searching related ephemera from my collection. The trip was promoted as a "Mediterranean Tapestry," so with a nod to that wonderful vacation here's my own little tapestry of bibliophemera from that region of the world, some of which has been posted here previously. First up is Spain, our embarkation country, where we spent a few days in Barcelona. Here's a newsletter about the Civil War in Spain during the 1930s (actually published in New York) that features a book fair in Barcelona taking place despite the war. These newsletters were featured here on this blog. And, as Barcelona is in the autonomous region of Catalonia, where many independence-minded citizens support secession, I should throw in another piece from elsewhere in Spain just to cover my bases f

Later Bookplates & Marks of Rockwell Kent

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The title of this post is also the title of a book published in 1937 by Pynson Printers . "Later" implies there was an "earlier" and there was. In 1929, Pynson Printers published a limited printing of just 1,250 copies of The Bookplates and Marks of Rockwell Kent . In 1937, Rockwell Kent 's body of work had grown to the point that Pynson decided an update to the 1929 volume was needed. To the left and below are images of the prospectus for that 1937 publication, Later Bookplates & Marks of Rockwell Kent . As with the 1929 volume, Rockwell Kent wrote the Preface and only 1,250 copies were printed, each signed by Kent. The back of the folded prospectus indicates that, as with the first volume, this volume in its limited printing is expected to sell out very quickly. The publisher, it states, hopes that collectors of Rockwell Kentiana will not delay their reservations. While I haven't a copy of either book, I just might have a piece of Kentiana that

Theron Palmer, Marathon Man

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I came across this copy of William Goldman's Marathon Man (Delacorte Press, 1974) and found a card paper-clipped inside for one of the publisher's representatives, Theron Palmer. His card includes two publishers, the other being the Dial Press. A few clicks on the Internet introduced me to Mr. Palmer, courtesy of Chris Stephens and the riverrun bookshop blog , where some wonderful personal memories of the man are recounted and even a photo displayed. In the 1970s, writes Stephens, Palmer's territory was Oklahoma and Texas. That's a lot of ground to cover. You can drive all day and not get out of Texas. So learning of Theron Palmer's territory explains how this book wound up in Texas, where I found it. It was likely hand-delivered to a bookseller by Theron Palmer. Considering the vast territory Palmer had to cover, I wonder if he sometimes felt a bit like a "Marathon Man," driving the miles and miles of highway between bookstores. One thi

Is it or isn't it a bookmobile?

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As defined in Webster's Third New International Dictionary , the giant one that will give you a hernia trying to pick it up, a bookmobile is defined as an autotruck with shelves of books that serves as an itinerant library or bookstore . So when is a bookmobile not a bookmobile? How about when it's a trailer, which is not an autotruck. A trailer is not mobile unless being pulled by a car or truck. But that technicality didn't get in the way of proclaiming the trailers below (two postcards and a photo) to be bookmobiles by their respective libraries. First up is what looks like a recycled horse trailer, being used by the National Catholic Community Service (NCCS) for the USO during World War II.   This was the first library trailer image in my collection and the reason for acquiring the next two images. I found the concept of a trailer an interesting alternative to the traditional autotruck bookmobile, a throwback to the horse and wagon or Parnassus on

Lyndon Baines Johnson Library bookplate

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Forty-one years ago today--May 22, 1971--the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library was dedicated in Austin, Texas. Officially known today by a slightly modified name, The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum, the library is most commonly referred to as the LBJ Library. The former president's memoir, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency 1963-1969 (Holt, Rinehart and Winston) was published the same year the library was opened. A library bookplate was designed for First Edition copies sold at the library that year. Assuming these First Edition copies were available for purchase when the library's gift shop doors opened for business, it is likely that this bookplate was the first or one of the first bookplates issued by the LBJ Library.