Bibliophemera

Thanks to Leap Year, I have one last day to post something to this blog for February. As I've just finished reading Killing Lincoln , by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, here's a publisher's double-sided advertisement for a biography of a man close to Lincoln-- Ulysses S. Grant , the great Union General in the Civil War and the 18th President of the United States: A Personal History of Ulysses S. Grant , by Albert D. Richardson, published shortly after Grant's death. Grant and his wife were invited by Lincoln to accompany the Lincolns to Ford's Theater the night of the assassination, April 14, 1865, but Grant deferred to his wife's wishes to get out of town that afternoon. There's a lesson in there, I suppose. Had he accepted the President's invitation, there may not have been a President Grant. John Wilkes Booth had hoped to kill Grant along with Lincoln when he heard they might be watching the play together that night. Grant would live anoth...

G.F. Warfield, a Hartford, Connecticut bookseller, issued the little sales booklet above in January 1923. After several full-page ads for various books, there is a message to January book buyers: January--a time when winds blow and snows come deep, when open fires feel cozy and an easy chair spells comfort. A "stay-at-home" month, when, with a good book as companion, one travels the fireside reading route without stirring from the home circle.  Are you one of the lucky ones who has discovered its charms? If not, take a tip from your trusted friend, the bookseller, and engage passage at once on a literary cruise that takes you the land of books. There are varied routes and a choice as to tickets, but all lead to a winter of real content and enjoyment. G.F. Warfield was in business between 1910 and 1929, but his tenure with the bookstore was only one of many booksellers who preceded and followed him. About two years ago, writing about Witkower's in Hartford , I unc...

from Bibliophemera... ...and Margaret & Nancy!

In 1875, Boston publisher D. Lothrop & Co. advertised a book on the envelope below, presumably in time for Christmas since they referred to it as "The Children's Book of the Season." The back side of the envelope offers additional evidence that Christmas was approaching. More on that in a minute.  The book is Wide Awake Pleasure Book , and it came out about 1875, as best as I can tell. I have come across only one bookseller claiming a first edition of this book and the year given was 1875. The address for D. Lothrop & Co. offers a clue as well. Daniel Lothrop , according to a Wikipedia page about him, established his publishing business at the Cornhill address in Boston indicated on the above cover above in 1868. In 1874, he began publishing a magazine for children that shares the name of the book advertised on this cover. A year later, the Wikipedia article states, he needed more space and moved from his Cornhill address to another Boston location. If the...

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...

Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941. Maher's Bookstore in Laconia, New Hampshire sold the promotional calendar (Rust Craft of Boston) below in 1941. That year would turn out to be quite a significant year in US and world history, for on December 7th the Japanese attacked the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing more than 2,400, wounding another 1,100. The US declared war on Japan the next day and entered World War II. Lives and nations were changed forever by the events set in motion that day.  The person who owned this calendar filled it with birthdays of friends who were all teenagers by 1941. That young person may not have immediately appreciated how the course of history would be changed by the events of that day. The calendar entry for December 7th simply states: "Pearl Harbor."  But, space considerations aside, what else could one say that day as the shock set in about what had just...

Last year, I posted to this blog about a book-related piece of ephemera with a very weak link, if you could even call it that, to the Thanksgiving holiday we celebrate today in America. It was a blotter for the Pilgrim Bookshop in Brooklyn, NY . Pilgrim was as close as I could get to Thanksgiving. Told you it was weak. I also lamented that the bookshop wasn't in Plymouth, Massachusetts, for at least then it would have some connection to the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving celebration . This year, I have a better connection--a postcard from the Guides Pilgrim Bookstore. I knew there had to be a bookstore in Plymouth with the Pilgrim name at some point in history. It's just too obvious a choice. The bookstore was run by publisher and bookseller, A.S. Burbank (1856-1946), and was known for its pilgrim and Plymouth souvenirs.  This postcard was made in Germany and distributed by A.C. Bosselman & Co. in New York. It is likely a Plymouth/Pilgrim souvenir postca...