Bibliophemera

We’re in the midst of a record-setting heat wave here in Southeast Texas. Yesterday afternoon, in the shade of my back porch, the mercury stretched all the way to 102 on the Fahrenheit scale. In the shade! The humidity doesn’t help matters, either. Anyway, for some reason I decided to leave my cool, comfortable office and get out on the road to do a little book hunting. I’m glad I did. I found a fair number of decent books for my two-hour effort, even if I had to leave my truck baking in the sun for awhile. But it wasn’t any particular title I found that initiated this post—it was what I found inside one of those books: A bookplate for one Justin W. Brierly of Denver, Colorado. Name doesn't ring a bell? Didn't for me either, but I liked the look of the bookplate, which sports the family crest, name and the year 1615. So I bought the book for four bits (cheap French paperback art book from the 1930s) and took it home to research Brierly and see if he was anyone of import...

Looking through an old Journal of Contemporary History (Vol. 3, Number 1, 1968) yesterday, I found a library list of newly acquired books. This little list had a big title: The Institute of Contemporary History and Wiener Library Quarterly Select List of Accessions, Winter 1967/1968 . But then, the Wiener Library is no ordinary library. The Wiener Library, in London, is the world's oldest Holocaust memorial institution. The recent assault at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. makes this discovery for my collection all the more timely, topical, and poignant. This pamphlet of eight pages (two 8.5" X 10.5" sheets folded and stapled) is the first library accession list I've run across. I don't know how prevalent they are, but I would think the journal had a lot to do with this list getting out to the public. Within the eight pages are an impressively diverse range of topics for such a short list. Most of the categories deal with European ...

Yesterday, as the D-Day anniversary approached, I saw a news report about an American vet who had landed at Normandy in the D-Day invasion during World War II 65 years ago . This vet spoke about what the Allies had accomplished and gave a lot of credit to the home front. Without the efforts on the home front--those individuals working back home for the war effort in factories, communities, and individual homes--they would not have been successful, he said. Fifteen years ago, during the 50th anniversary of D-Day, my wife and I toured Normandy, went to Omaha Beach where the American forces landed, and viewed and reflected on all the white crosses at the cemetery. My first thoughts there were about the thousands of soldiers who died that day, represented by all those crosses. How, or what, could I think otherwise? And I thought about those who survived the German defensive and secured the beachhead. As we visited various battle sites in Normandy, such as Sainte-Mere Eglise , met and talk...

The economy of late has drawn more than the occasional comparison to the Great Depression. And a once stalwart company such as General Motors is looking more like Government Motors these days. Against such a backdrop, I found (and had to add to my collection) a Great Depression-era print ad for a General Motors product--a 1934 Chevrolet Master Six Sedan. The kicker for me, and the reason for this post, is that Chevrolet used a bibliophile to represent its target audience for the ad. Most unusual, to say the least, and quite interesting to a bibliophile in tough economic times 75 years later. Chevrolet, along with other auto makers, was undoubtedly struggling in 1934--smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression. The ad campaign above decided to go after those who still had some disposable income and try to persuade them to lower their standards (my interpretation) and spend their money on a more economical model--the Chevrolet Master Six Sedan. This bibliophile is no car connoisseur...

You won't need a ticket to get into the American Bookbinders Museum Web site, but you will find plenty of tickets once you are there. A bookbinder's ticket is actually a small, printed label that advertises the bookbinder's business and craftsmanship in the work the reader is holding. The example above is from a Dutch collector who recently emailed me some scanned samples, which I featured in a recent post here . The bookbinder is identified by name and, most always, location, and there may be additional information about the business. This information may be presented with accompanying decorative graphics or in just a plain vanilla style. The label, or ticket (the two terms are often used interchangeably), is typically affixed to one of the endpapers. I tend to find more on the rear endpaper, but the front endpaper is certainly no stranger to these tiny collectibles. These are typically found in older books (say mid-twentieth century and earlier) when the practice of affi...

I have here two bookplate-related postal covers ( bibliophilately ) advertising an exhibition of ex-libris or bookplate art, I would suppose, in Valencia, Spain, the week of May 15-21, 1950. I cannot find anything on this exposition/exhibition, nor can I find anything on the addressee. Another clue is in the illustration of the bookplate on the first cover (zoomed-in shot below). The name Juan Carsi y Figueras is the owner name depicted on the plate. That lead dead-ends quickly. Perhaps the Bookplate Junkie can shed some light on this Exposicion. I didn't want to wait to find out the story behind these covers. They are too unique, interesting, and attractive not to share now.

With Cuba in the news recently, as the Obama administration lifts certain restrictions and explores lifting others, here is a topical piece of bibliophemera from my collection--a 1943 cover from the Swan American Bookstore in Havana, Cuba. The Swan American Bookstore, as the name would imply, stocked only American books printed in English. If you were looking for a Spanish language book here in 1943, lo siento, pero todos los libros son en Ingles . The bookstore was still in business in 1949 and was referenced in a 1949 St. Petersburg Times article about bookstores in Havana. Obispo sounds like it was the street to do business on. According to the article, "Calle Obispo is a narrow, busy street as full of bookstores as Central Avenue is of fruit stands in the tourist season." The environment along the street amid shopkeepers and book browsers appears to have been laid back: "Proprietors and clerks don’t mind if customers stand around reading their books." Six years ...