Bibliophemera

  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 that belied 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 ...

Here is an elaborately illustrated Victorian trade card for bookseller Samuel J.W. Reynolds (or S.J.W. Reynolds) of Cooperstown, New York. I stumbled across it in my collection today and remembered blogging about it years ago—15 as it turns out. I thought I’d lost it! It’s one of my favorite items and deserves an upgrade in both the writing and imaging departments. I don’t recall having a scanner at the time and did the best I could with a cheap digital camera for the images. The die-cut card conveys an image, rich in colorful, busy detail, appropriately in the shape of a book. The binding of that book provides the business vitals, while the cover invokes an imaginative scene of mischievous elves at play while the owner's away. Actually, he's just returned and caught them in the act. See him in the upper-right corner of the card peering in from the doorway behind a slightly opened door. There is actually a method to the madness of the chaotic scene as it provides additional a...

This billhead from 1951 is from the Carnegie Book Shop, one of Midtown Manhattan's premier antiquarian booksellers during the 20th century. During the shop’s lifetime, it specialized in first editions, fine bindings, standard sets, rare autographs, historical documents, and manuscripts. The customer’s purchase reflects an example of the shop’s inventory with the notation  Burns , likely referring to the works of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. The volumes were priced at $3.75 and $3.00, bringing the total order to $6.75, or $80 in today’s dollars. The shop's address on the bill, 140 East 59th Street, was across the street from Bloomingdale’s in a Midtown hub for high-end dealers for much of the 1900s. David Kirschenbaum, the book shop's proprietor, was a legendary figure in the New York rare book trade. He operated the Carnegie Book Shop for the majority of the 20th century. Kirschenbaum opened for business in 1928 on West 57th Street next door to Car...

Laughter provided by Theodore R. Ernst. The industrialist was H.M Quackenbush. The Great Depression was underway after the recent stock market crash of 1929. A good laugh was probably welcome. The author of this letter and publisher of the Laughter books was the impetus for this blog post when I acquired the letter, but he quickly fizzled out in research as someone of importance or general interest for the theme of this blog. The industrialist who ordered 50 books had the more interesting claim, with much information available on his life, though any ties to the book trades appear limited to being a buyer of books. But let's start with him. Henry Marcus Quackenbush (1847–1933) was an American inventor and industrialist who founded the H.M. Quackenbush Company in Herkimer, New York, in 1871. This letter addressed to Mr. Quackenbush in 1929 confirms he was still running his company, or at least had a hand in it, nearly 60 years after he founded it. He appears to have gotten his bu...

The Protective Association for Publishers and Booksellers was established in New York in 1888 in an attempt to help protect copyrights and enable publishers and authors to keep more of the profits. Regional publishers such as A.M. Thayer, were early pioneers in this effort. Authors such as Mark Twain were paid in royalties tied to the subscription orders. Twain, through his financially backed publishing company, Charles L. Webster & Company, also earned income this way from the publication of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. A number of publishers used a network of subscription agents to secure orders that they'd take back to the publisher for fulfillment. They were contractually forbidden to sell to retail stores, which in turn would undercut the subscription prices that were generally two to three times higher than similar publications in retail stores. The agents at times wound up with overstock and the temptation was too much to make a buck. Add the piracy issue with cheap k...

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...

This small sample book, 2.5 X 3.5 inches, has seven examples of the buckram cloth produced at the Norwood, Massachusetts mill, which became popular for library binding and rebinding. The Democrat Printing Co. in Madison, Wisconsin is named on the front cover as a vendor of the product, circa early decades of the 20th century. The Holliston Mills story, dating back to the 1890s, is found here at the Norwood Historical Society: https://norwoodhistoricalsociety.org/holliston-mills.../

  Charles Keller Reed (1851-1921) immersed himself in nature from an early age. This led to work in taxidermy, which encouraged his interest in ornithology, natural history, and art. He later wrote, edited, and published books about birds, many of which were illustrated by his son, Chester Albert Reed. I wonder if Chester illustrated the stationery for his father's business correspondence. A site devoted Chester A. Reed, offers a well-researched article by Michel Chevalier on Chester K. Reed's fascinating life and work with ornithology and books. https://chester-reed.org/.../charles-k-reed-businessmant.../ Boost post Like Comment Send Share