Bibliophemera

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...

An unusual specialty for a bookseller and publisher--books about the game of checkers. In this little sales brochure, Wendemuth is promoted as the largest dealer and publisher of checker books in the world. Wendemuth (1860-1938) was not just a bookseller and publisher with a narrowly-focused inventory; he was also the draughts editor of the Chicago Daily News and a former draughts champion of Illinois and Chicago. The December 2010 issue of the ACF (American Checker Federation) Bulletin named him as one of the greats of the Chicago checker players. So he knew what he was talking about when customers inquired about books on draughts, or checkers. By the way, if you don't know, draughts is the British word for the game and checkers the American equivalent. In this little catalog, Wundemuth promoted his books as investments, advising customers to always buy First Editions. Let's check in on some of his investment advice and see how certain purchases played out in th...

In 2009, I blogged about an old billhead from New Orleans bookseller, F.F. Hansell &Bro. , dated 1900. There wasn't much information on that piece to indicate what kind of stock Hansell had in his store, but comments on that post indicated office furnishings were in the mix along with a few books. I wondered if they sold "real" books or maybe just account books and ledgers for businesses in addition to a few school texts a standard author or two. That question was answered with a recent addition to my collection--a Hansell brochure/catalog of popular books and standard authors representing an impressive inventory of quality literature. Real books. This undated (appears circa 1900), 7 X 10-inch folded sheet features Hansell's Home Library on the front (and continuing on the next page), with 204 cloth-bound volumes dressed in gilt tops to choose from. Titles such as Aesop's Fables, Alice in Wonderland, Emerson's Essays, Carlyle's French Revolution,...

I wake up one day knowing nothing about an old, private Roman Catholic women's college in Chicago called Mundelein College . Never heard of it. Within hours, the defunct college, its library, and once-great collection of books are at the forefront of my thoughts and research. That morning, I find in a second-hand shop a beat-up, damaged copy of Pope Leo XIII's Memoir, Life of Leo XIII: From an Authentic Memoir  (1896), which introduces me to Mundelein and an interesting and benevolent bibliophile that helped shape their library. The old book's covers are detached, it's falling apart, and a rubberband holds the pieces together. Still, I must look inside for hidden treasure and I am rewarded for doing so. I find pasted on the marbled endpaper a bookplate from Mundelein College, specially designed to acknowledge the gift of a man identified as Rev. John Rothensteiner. Back home a bit later, I research Mundelein College, which no longer exists, and i...

More than one hundred years ago--1909 to be exact--somebody probably enjoyed browsing new books in this holiday catalog from Jones Book Store in Los Angeles. Today, I am enjoying browsing the antiquarian selections from this now old catalog. But it is one of the best preserved old bookseller catalogs of this vintage I've run across. Lest the catalog reader be confused by the title about what kinds of books Jones' Bookstore was selling, they were not books about Christmas, the image above being the lone title. Most books appearing in this catalog seem to deal with exotic lands around the world, travel, history, biography, and a smattering of juvenile and religious works. Popular novelists of the day were not excluded either, as evidenced by the books of Jack London, shown below (featuring Martin Eden). Just last month, I got acquainted with Jones' Bookstore through an article by another old-time Los Angeles bookseller, Ernest Dawson , in his remi...

A chariot driver and team of horses leap across the landscape (Manhattan?). Following that graphic, the title, Today's Books , jumps out at you on the cover of this little bookshop catalog. Today is March 1946 and Today's Books could be purchased at the Mayfair Bookshop, owned by George W. Stair in New York City at 7 West 49th Street--Rockefeller Center. Thumbing through the catalog for items of interest sixty-five years ago, an ad for this book caught my eye: The Story of the Stars and Stripes: A Paper for Joe , by Bud Hutton and Andy Rooney. Yes, that Andy Rooney --the 60 Minutes journalist and author. You could also call him an ex-college football player (Colgate University) and a World War II veteran . And he was already a veteran author in 1946, having written his first book while serving in Europe in 1944. Rooney was drafted into the Army in 1941. In 1942 he began reporting for the military newspaper The Stars and Stripes in London. The following year, 1943, he and fiv...