Bibliophemera

First one of these I've seen still in the book that made its way downstream into a second-hand market. It should have stayed with the bookstore when the book sold per instructions on the card.  This is an inventory control card—the key piece in the Loreen® Inventory Control System (as stated on the card) for reordering books.  Instructions at the top of the card inform a bookstore worker how to insert it into the last copy of a book as a flag to the cashier to restock that book. The system’s namesake, Loreen, is an elusive figure or name applied to the system. Research comes up empty on the origin, but the system was a proprietary, trademarked inventory method (indicated by the ® symbol next to the name on the card) likely named after a creator, a company founder's family member, or a stylized trade name. As to why Loreen’s card stayed with the book instead of the cashier, a couple of  reasons could account for that. One, the card was not placed in the book where th...

Alfred Lorentz was an antiquarian bookseller whose stock ranged from the academic sciences to fine literature. This billhead features a column of advertising on the left side with a colorful illustration in Art Nouveau style  for t he Toussaint-Langenscheidt Method - foreign language study using a phonetic alphabet - and dictionaries with the same pronunciation system.  Charles Toussaint and Gustav Langenscheidt developed a revolutionary self-study system in 1856 that provided students a course by mail, one of the earliest forms of mass distance learning. The customer on this billhead may have had some connection with the dictionaries being offered in this ad.  Theodor Reichelt  was the customer for the books noted on the billhead, though a Mr. Nebel took care of the payment and may have picked up the books for Mr. Reichelt. A search for this customer turns up a Theodor Reichelt, a  German academic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that seems to fit the...

  Poor William M. Stuart. He must have had high hopes for his book manuscript when he sent it to Bobbs-Merrill for publishing consideration in 1927. He had four questions in his accompanying letter for which he sought constructive feedback: 1. Does the sex interest hurt it? 2. Is the history stressed too much? 3. Does the "double" motif hurt it? 4. Is it well written? The letter and manuscript found their way to Anne Johnston, likely an editor at some level in the publishing firm. She began with a polite response that seemed headed for a graceful exit without having to critique Mr. Stuart’s writing. She even indicated there was no problem with the first three questions. But her response to the fourth question did not pull any punches: “I’m afraid I must confess—as it seems to me--the most striking defect in your work is the style, which is simply not that of the craftsman. This won’t give you any help, I know, and I’m sorry. I haven’t anything to suggest, either, except study...

Conrad Witter was a prominent St. Louis publisher of German language educational books in the late 19th to early 20th century. Some of his books found their way to a German community in Texas in 1912, as indicated on this billhead, less than a decade before their use for instruction in public schools was outlawed. Actually, in 1909, three years before this order was placed, the Texas legislature passed a law mandating English as the primary language of instruction in public schools. Rural schools whose teachers taught a bilingual curriculum with the primary language being German, carried on as usual despite the law. Enforcement was problematic in the rural farming communities and the schools themselves may have been funded by their communities, creating a loophole in the law meant for public schools.  Germans began immigrating to Paige, Texas and the surrounding communities in Bastrop County and Central Texas before the Civil War. After the Civil War, German immigration experienced...

On the surface of this document, you see nothing about books and important literature. It’s a letter from a Mexican diplomat in Mexico City in 1910 to another Mexican diplomat serving in La Paz, Bolivia. But scratch beneath the surface and you will discover an important figure in Mexican letters—Federico Gamboa (1864–1939), the father of literary naturalism in Mexico.   While this letter to the Consul General of Mexico in La Paz, Bolivia provides a window into Gamboa’s diplomatic service to Mexico as Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs during the Porfiriato era (1876-1911), it also provides window into Mexican literary history, complete with an autograph from the author of the classic 1903 Mexican novel Santa . Santa is the tragic tale of a country girl trying to survive in Mexico City against the backdrop of harsh social conditions in pre-revolutionary Mexico during the administration Gamboa served as a diplomat. Cast out by her conservative family in a rural village after ...

Well, this is never a good look for a book shop. Or any business. What looks like a corpse being wheeled out of Mary's Book Shop in Milwaukee in this 1966 press photo, is a book salesman who survived a gunshot wound inside the store. I suppose his face is covered for privacy. So what happened? Mary's Book Shop, a benign name for a second-hand book shop known for its inventory of left-wing political texts, and rare publications, was a gathering space for radicals, activists, and intellectuals in Milwaukee. It's owners, Fred and Mary Blair, were prominent members of the Communist Party in Wisconsin. That earned them the label of major communist bookstore by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. In November 1966, a troubled 17-year-old walked into Mary's Book Shop at 318 W. Juneau Avenue in Milwaukee, carrying a gun and hell-bent on killing a communist (as he would later tell police). Fred Blair was in his sights, but a traveling book salesman, Ralph Sacks, happened to be in th...