Bibliophemera

A Rudolf Flesch letter to a bookseller  (high readability score!) Rudolf Flesch (1911-1986), a writer, readability expert, and proponent of the Plain English Movement, collected books on language, English, and writing. So it comes as no surprise that a letter he wrote to a New York bookseller in 1948 included an order for a book on language and a request for more books on the subject, particularly rare books. Flesch, an Austrian immigrant who fled to America ahead of Hitler's invasion in the 1930s, had earned a law degree in Vienna, but in his new country, his scholarly pursuits turned to Library Science (Ph.D. from Columbia University), reading, and writing about the English language. In 1955, he wrote the classic,  Why Johnny Can't Read and What You Can Do About it , which advocated phonics for teaching students how to read. The book was a best-seller. Parents loved it, educators not so much. Today, more than 60 years later, cognitive neuroscientists still advoc...

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...

From that wonderful cache of Schulte's Bookstore correspondence I obtained a few years ago, I've plucked another interesting letter to showcase here. This one was written to Schulte's in 1944 by the renowned woodcut illustrator  Julius John (J.J.) Lankes  (1884-1960) , whose illustrations I featured in a recent post about Robert Frost . Mr. Lankes wrote the New York bookseller from his Hilton Village, Virginia home in August of 1944 seeking a particular title: Hillier's Treatment of Manic Depressive Psychosis .  He also expressed an interest in other titles the bookseller might have on the same subject. He signed off his book request with another request about how to answer him--specifically, by letter, but if the response were by post card, Schulte's should do so without reference to the subject.  Who's privacy was Lankes trying to protect? His own? A family member's? At the time this letter was written, Lankes was working for the  National A...

Booksellers Durrie & Peck started their business in New Haven, Connecticut in 1818. They would grow to add bookbinding, publishing, and printing to their services. Related to those areas of business,  The New Haven Museum  has about 1700 pieces of ephemera documenting the company's history up to 1860. One they don't have is this piece from my collection. In the stampless, wax-sealed letter above, or what's left of it (see below), E.A. Luce has written to Durrie & Peck, and Durrie (with two r's) is the correct spelling, to order a few books, hoping they're in stock and hoping they can be delivered by the day's mail. I began a search for information on the customer E.A. Luce and kept running into Edwin A. Luce, who was a Master Mariner on a whaling vessel. I thought this would lead to an interesting story on the reading habits of an old salt on whaling voyages. But he was from Tisbury, Massachusetts and the Durrie & Peck customer was from Litc...

Charles Hoy Fort was a writer who, after several failed novels, finally found his audience with a nonfiction book titled The Book of the Damned (Horace Liveright, 1919), which is regarded as the first book to deal with the field of anomalistics , or paranormal phenomena. Fort and his writing attracted some very influential literary pals, such as Theodore Dreiser, an old friend who was instrumental in getting Fort's work published. Many others admired his writing and became founding members in a society dedicated to Fort and his works--the appropriately named Fortean Society. Writer Tiffany Thayer started the society. Dreiser served as the first president and they were joined in membership by notable literary figures such as Ben Hecht, Alexander Woolcott, Booth Tarkington, Dorothy Parker, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and H. L. Mencken. Ironically, Fort shunned the notion of such a society and refused to participate beyond the first meeting, in which he was lured to under false prete...

This is about a letter about a book. A very important book to the letter writer. A few years ago, I purchased a letter written in 1922 by an old Civil War soldier--a veteran of the Confederacy living in Austin, Texas at the Home for Confederate Veterans. The envelope bears the Confederate insignia flag and address of the home. The letter was addressed to a Mr. J.J. Wolfe of Houston, whom I have presumed to be a bookseller. I wrote about this in another blog a few years back and now it seems more fitting that it be posted here, especially if my assumption about Wolfe's occupation is right. For the sake of this post, let's say I'm correct and Wolfe was a Houston bookseller in the 1920s. But even if I'm not correct, the letter is still about a book. So either way, we have a bibliophemera connection. The writer of the letter--the old Rebel vet--thought Mr. Wolfe might be able to help him momentarily escape his "prison" (he states he is an "inmate of the Ho...