Bibliophemera

Regarding bibliophiles, I have come across the word "steward" in conjunction with collections of fine books. Those privileged enough to own fine, rare books are not only collectors, but stewards of these treasures. They preserve and maintain individual books and viable collections until it is time to transfer both the books and the stewardship to another collector or entity. However, until I came across the Canadian publisher's letterhead below, I had never seen the title of Book Steward formally conferred upon an individual. Meet Rev. William Briggs of Toronto. I have a batch of business correspondence here between William Briggs of Methodist Book & Publishing House of Toronto and a Mr. John A. Glasby of Canfield, Ontario. Three billheads and the letter comprise about two months of bookselling for Briggs with Mr. Glasby--December 1902 to February 1903. I found Briggs' title with the publishing house on the letterhead along with an interesting book sale ...

The old label you sometimes find pasted inside the cover of an antiquarian book is not always an ex libris, at least not the typical ownership bookplate we've become accustomed to. This label was printed in 1896 and affixed to the following book for an award presentation to an accomplished young man in grade school. Ice-World Adventures, Or, Voyages and Travels in the Arctic Regions: From the Discovery of Iceland to the English Expedition of 1875 was published by Ward, Lock, and Co. in London, circa 1876, but I'll bet even this second-hand book of some twenty years, with its ornate decorations and many engravings of Arctic adventure, was still an eye-popping prize for the young man. It would have been for me (as it was when I found it some years ago at the "young" age of 40, about 350 miles across the border in a New Hampshire village book shop). Charles Walliss attended the Elgin Street (Central) School in Ottawa, Ontario in the 1890s. He appears to have been awar...