Bibliophemera

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 ...

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...

  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...

I'm sad to hear of Bill Wittliff's passing yesterday, June 9, at age 79. He was a creative force in Texas as an author, screenwriter, photographer, publisher, bookseller, book collector, and designer of books and ephemera. Al Lowman, in Printing Arts in Texas (1975) ,  wrote, "Quite likely there is no more diversely creative talent in Texas today than this gifted designer, artist, sculptor, historian, writer, photographer, and poker player." I never really got to meet him other than exchanging greetings and thank yous at a book signing in Houston in 2007. I bought five copies of A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove , a collection of his photographs on the set of the Lonesome Dove miniseries in 1989. He was the screenwriter for that much beloved and now classic Western. He personalized a few copies for gifts, signed just his name on a few copies, which went up for sale later in my online shop, and, of course, I kept one copy he signed for my wife and me. It is...

In May of 1961, British journalist and author, George Bilainkin, sent an inscribed copy of his 1947 book, Second Diary of a Diplomatic Correspondent  to  the new First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy.  He also included a typed, signed letter on his letterhead and indicated a few pages of interest to the First Lady and perhaps the new President, whom he had known and met with on several occasions in 1945 at the close of World War II. The book and letter were sent to Mrs. Kennedy in advance of an upcoming trip to London, in which the author hoped to meet with both, or at least the First Lady, and revisit a few sites pertinent to his meetings, as a journalist, with a young Jack Kennedy in 1945. He also knew the President’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., when he was the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Bilainkin also expresses his wish to take Mrs. Kennedy to lunch and, as if that weren't enough, further requests she bring photo...