Bibliophemera

A relic now of the pen and ink era, ink blotters fell by the wayside as ballpoint pens gained popularity in the 1950s and all but erased the need for an ink blotter. The ballpoint pen has suffered to some extent a similar fate in the digital world of today where much of our communication is done via texting, messaging, or emailing.  Ink blotters existed to do just that - blot ink on a handwritten piece to keep it from smearing, courtesy of an absorbent paper. For heavier stock paper blotters, such as this one printed on Wrenn's Porcelain Blotting--120-lb Light Buff, one side blotted while the other side advertised. Advertising blotters came about in late 1800s and had a good run to about mid-twentieth century. Union City, New Jersey printer, Herbert Grossman, used this ink blotter for advertising his business in 1932. They were giveaways to anyone who walked in the doors or ordered products through the mail. It seems a rather appropriate medium for a tradesman who dealt with ink on...

Here is an interesting cover with a nice advertising cameo in the upper-left corner for Chicago publisher S.C. Griggs and Co. As a bonus, the addressee, with a little research, provides additional interesting book-related history. Founder Samuel C. Griggs (1819–1897) started the business in Chicago in 1844 as W.W. Barlow & Co. and a few years later became S.C. Griggs & Co. The publishing concern grew into a major distributor of literature and educational texts in the Midwest and Western states. Tragedy struck twice with devastating fires that wiped out their inventory in 1868 and again in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. No doubt, the second fire factored in Griggs’ decision to sell his share of the company to Jansen, McClurg & Co. the next year. That firm evolved into the well-known A.C. McClurg & Co. The Griggs cameo on the cover helps with dating the cover. As the postmark is illegible, the cover was posted prior to 1872, the year Griggs sold his company. Notation...

This billhead offers insight into how issues were dealt with between buyer and seller in the late 19 th century.  J.B. Lippincott & Co., the Philadelphia publisher and bookseller, received an order from J. King McLanahan of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania and shipped what they had along with this billhead containing confusing notation to the customer. Mr. McLanahan evidently sent it back with a question written on the billhead about what they meant regarding the missing book in his order, likely a recent book about Pope and his poetry in the Lansdowne Poetry Series of the 1870s. Lippincott responded that they were out of the book in Morocco binding, but it was presently being bound as ordered. Each communication moved with a pace at the mercy of local post offices in the US Postal System. This back-and-forth about a book that wasn't available for shipping must have taken days if not weeks to clear up. Something that today could be handled with a couple of quick emails in min...

  An elephant in a book shop? And of course it's reading a book. This image accompanies a fable by John Gay (1685-1732) for the book, Fables by the Late Mr. Gay, (London, Hitch, Hawk & Tonson). The 3.5 X 5.25-inch copperplate engraving was created for the publication by an artist known only as Wilson after the original illustration by William Kent. It depicts an Indian elephant and a bookseller in a well-appointed book shop. The elephant reads a book positioned on a lectern as the bookseller turns the pages. Below is the fable: The Elephant and the Bookseller Fable X     The man who, with undaunted toils,     Sails unknown seas to unknown soils,     With various wonders feasts his sight:     What stranger wonders does he write!     We read, and in description view     Creatures which Adam never knew:     For, when we risk no contradiction, ...

  This oversized postcard announcement for a book shop appearance by African American author J. California Cooper was mailed on January 5 th , 1991 and got to me via Madison, Wisconsin, and who knows where else, in 2025. On Juneteenth appropriately enough—the holiday that commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States. Also appropriately enough, the book that the author was reading passages from and signing for customers was set during times of slavery and the Civil War. From the ad on the postcard: “J. California Cooper’s novel, FAMILY , tells the story of four generations of an African-American family whose emotional and spiritual center is Always, a young woman born into slavery. Her mother Clora narrates a tale set in the years just before and after the Civil War. It is a tale in which racism is replaces slavery and humankind continues to suffer from its mental chains. But Always sets into motion two ironic plans to ensure the deliverance of her children. And wit...

This slim catalogue of books from a private collection was published by the Walden Book Shop in Chicago sometime during the Great Depression if I'm reading the references correctly in the introduction to the catalogue, signed A Busted Bibliophile (with apologies to A.E.N). A.E.N. is Alfred Edward Newton (1864-1940), prolific bibliophile from Philadelphia and author of books about books and book collecting. "A Busted Bibliophile" refers to George H. Sargent's "A Busted Bibliophile and His Books: Being a most Delectable History of the Diverting Adventures of that Renowned Book Collector A. Edward Newton of Doylesford in Pennsylvania, Esquire." The Walden Book Shop was owned by a co-operative started by novelist and short story writer Sherwood Anderson as the Chicago Co-Operative Bookstores Company. The Waldenbooks chain in later decades had no relationship to the Chicago co-op. By 1932, in the throes of the Great Depression, the book shop in the Michigan Squar...