This Just In: Please Welcome P. Virginia 1!

Posted on May 14, 2015 by

Please note: This post has been updated by a follow-up post.

The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library’s collections span over 4 millennia, from Babylonian clay tablets dating to ca. 2000 BCE, to poetry published only this spring via 3-D printer. Impressive as this may sound, it actually conceals a glaring gap, for until last week we possessed no original manuscript written in the nearly three-millennium period between our two clay tablets and our earliest parchment manuscript fragments, which date to the 9^th century CE. We have now begun to address that gap with the acquisition of the U.Va. Library’s first original manuscript from Classical antiquity: a papyrus document from Egypt tentatively dated to the 3^rd century CE.

P. Virginia 1, U.Va.’s first papyrus document, measures 16.5 x 8 cm. It was written in Greek, probably in Egypt during the 3rd century CE. Purchased on the Associates Endowment Fund.

Papyrus was already employed as a writing surface in Egypt by 2500 BCE, and it was used widely throughout the Mediterranean and Near East from ca. 500 BCE up to ca. 1000 CE before being superseded by parchment and paper. Papyrus sheets were formed by taking the stem of the papyrus plant, cutting the inner pith into long, thin strips, laying the strips side by side to form a sheet, laying another layer of strips crosswise over the first, then hammering the two layers together. The sticky pith strips would naturally adhere to one another. After polishing, the papyrus sheets could either be pasted together to form a scroll, or used individually. Taking up a reed pen, scribes would typically write on the “recto” side—that is, the side on which the strips ran horizontally—though both sides could be used.

Few of the many millions of papyrus documents written over the millennia have survived to the present day. Because papyrus is an organic material and easily damaged by water, the vast majority of the extant documents have been obtained from two sources. Most come from desert areas in Egypt, where documents were quickly buried by sand and protected from moisture until excavated from the late 19^th century onward. These mostly fall within the period 300 BCE – 500 CE and are written in Classical Greek, though many papyrus documents in Demotic, Coptic, Arabic, and other languages also survive. A lesser, though productive, source has been mummy wrappings, for papyrus documents were frequently recycled (and thereby preserved) in this fashion. Regardless of the source, most of the surviving documents are fragmentary in nature, having been torn, crumpled, nibbled, or otherwise damaged at various points over the centuries.

The verso of P. Virginia 1 clearly shows the vertical papyrus strips which form the document’s secondary layer. Additional lines of Greek text–perhaps docketing, or unrelated manuscript notes–are also visible.

Even in fragmentary state, papyrus documents have a great deal to tell us about the cultural, economic, political, and social history of the Ancient World. Deciphering them is the task of papyrologists—classicists who have received specialized training in the skills necessary for working with these documents. First the papyrus pieces need to be cleaned, flattened, fibers straightened, and fragments aligned before the texts can be studied in full. Sealing them between two panes of glass greatly facilitates their handling, study, and long-term preservation. In transcribing and translating the documents, papyrologists face the problems of missing text, poor handwriting, faded or flaking ink, variable spelling and grammar, unfamiliar vocabulary, local dialects &c. Over the past 125 years, however, an impressive corpus of tens of thousands of papyrus texts has been published. These texts are now being digitized and placed online—Papyri.info is a leading web portal—furnishing papyrologists with powerful new tools for comparing texts and readings, and even for locating fragments of the same document scattered in collections around the globe.

Although not complete, U.Va.’s papyrus document—which we will designate as P. [for Papyrus] Virginia 1 (it will also receive a MSS number)—is a large and wonderfully representative example, measuring 16.5 x 8 cm. Probably originating in the Fayyum region southwest of Cairo and dating to the 3^rd century CE, the Greek text may be a receipt or tax document concerning grain. Faculty in U.Va.’s Department of Classics are already at work studying the text and planning student practicums for the coming academic year. Soon, we hope to know more about the document and to see it published. Meanwhile, we have begun the search for P. Virginia 2!

This Just In: Mapping with Movable Types

Posted on February 19, 2015 by

This week we feature an acquisition made many years ago, but one whose true significance was discovered only this month. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library has long possessed a copy of Tableaux historiques & topographiques, ou Relations exactes et impartiales des trois événemens mémorables qui terminèrent la campagne de 1796 sur le Rhin (Basel: Chrétien de Mechel, 1798). Although lacking several plates, the U.Va. copy retains what turns out to be the key plate: a large folding map captioned “Retraite de Bavière en France … 26 Octobre 1796.”

“Retraite de Bavière en France … 26 Octobre 1796,” from Tableaux historiques & topographiques, ou Relations exactes et impartiales des trois événemens mémorables qui terminèrent la campagne de 1796 sur le Rhin (Basel: Chrétien de Mechel, 1798). (DC220.8 .T3 1798)

This plate is one of the few known examples of a map set entirely from movable types. Everything—text, borders, and topographic features—has been set by hand using a variety of text fonts as well as a specially designed cartographic font (here heightened with red and greenish-blue hand-coloring).

The map, “composed with movable types,” bears the imprint of G[uillaume, i.e. Wilhelm] Haas, the Basel [Switzerland] typefounder who cut and cast the special cartographic font.

Until the later 18^th century, maps were printed in one of two ways: either from a relief block (typically a woodcut, with all non-printing areas cut away from the block’s top surface); or from an intaglio plate (typically an engraving, with the map’s lines cut into the surface of a copper plate). The same could be said for nearly all pre-1800 book illustrations, that is, they were produced using a limited repertoire of relief and intaglio processes—chiefly woodcut, wood engraving, engraving, etching, and mezzotint—rather than being set (like text) using fonts of metal type.

A detail showing the special symbols used to denote towns of various sizes, mountainous areas, rivers, roads &c. Note especially the tiny gaps (printing as white lines) between, e.g., the types used to set the meandering rivers.

In the early 1770s, August Gottlieb Preuschen of Karlsruhe, Germany, invented an alternative to the printing of maps from engraved copper plates: a 21-character cartographic type font. Preuschen’s idea was realized through the technical skill of Wilhelm Haas, a typefounder in Basel, Switzerland, who perfected and cast the cartographic font and, in 1776, published the first map composed entirely from movable types. Over the next two decades, Haas continued to refine and expand his cartographic font until it contained at least 139 different characters, or “sorts.” These were special symbols, not letters, including 24 designed for depicting streams and rivers, 17 for borders, 14 for roads, 31 for charting military movements, 15 for human habitations, 6 for mountains and forests, and 32 for coastlines. All told, Haas employed his proprietary font to publish approximately two dozen typographic maps, including the “Retraite de Bavière en France … 26 Octobre 1796.”

Note how the outline of Lake Constance is formed using separate pieces of type, each consisting of multiple horizontal lines; many of the pieces probably were individually filed down to create custom shapes. The bluish tint and red highlighting were hand-applied.

In setting these maps, Haas’s compositors worked from manuscript maps drawn on gridded paper. By breaking the complex cartographic image into small units, the compositors were better able to translate the image into small blocks of type metal. In doing so they faced two principal problems. First, the twists and turns of rivers and roads could be approximated but not rendered exactly, as could be done through engraving. Second, great care was needed to “lock up” these disparate assemblages of movable types so that they would not shift during printing. Type fonts are designed so that each sort has the same height, or “body size.” As long as each horizontal row of movable type contains sorts of the same height, a page consisting of several thousand small rectangles of metal type will “lock up” easily. Because Haas’s cartographic font contained sorts with a range of body sizes, which could not be arranged into uniform rows, it was necessary to painstakingly add filler material to the irregular gaps between types. In essence, the process was more like assembling a mosaic than setting type.

Haas’s cartographic font contained types in at least five different widths for setting rivers and streams–note how some rivers progressively narrow in width. Rivers follow a meandering course, though their paths look more representational than accurate–a major limitation of Haas’s font.

In principle, Haas’s cartographic font could claim several advantages over copperplate engraving: maps could be prepared more quickly, revision was easier, and unlimited impressions could be taken. But decided disadvantages remained for the prospective map publisher: only a limited level of accuracy could be achieved, and a large initial investment would be necessary to purchase the requisite types. Soon, however, the invention of lithography (and later, wax engraving) gave cartographers a far easier method for reproducing maps accurately, and Haas’s font was never adopted by other map publishers.

This Just In: We Welcome The Day of Doom!

Posted on January 8, 2015 by

Today’s post actually concerns an important acquisition made nearly two years ago. At that time the item was too fragile for reader use. But after extensive conservation treatment, it is now ready and available. Please join us in welcoming to our shelves Michael Wigglesworth’s celebrated didactic poem, The day of doom!

The title page to Michael Wigglesworth’s The Day of Doom (Boston, 1701). It is bound, as issued, following the second edition of Wigglesworth’s other verse collection, Meat Out of the Eater (Boston, 1689).

The day of doom, a quintessentially Puritan poem of over 200 eight-line stanzas vividly describing Judgment Day and the torments awaiting sinners in Hell, was the first book of poetry printed in the American Colonies and the first American bestseller. Its author, Michael Wigglesworth, graduated from Harvard in 1651 and served the town of Malden, Mass., as minister and physician. The day of doom is the foundation of any collection of early American literature, yet it is also one of the legendary rarities of early American printing. Only one fragmentary copy survives of the first edition, printed in Cambridge, Mass., ca. 1662, and only four fragmentary copies of the second edition of 1666. For the past century the Boston, 1715 edition (there is a copy at U.Va. in the Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History) has been what booksellers term the “earliest obtainable edition,” that is, the earliest one could still hope to find a copy of.

Wigglesworth explains (and the popularity of his Day of Doom proves) why a stanza of verse is worth more than the proverbial thousand words of sermon.

Two years ago a previously unrecorded copy of the Boston, 1701 edition—the third printed in America—unexpectedly surfaced. It is the eighth known copy, and one of only three that are complete. Passed down from generation to generation in one New England family for three centuries, it was acquired by a bookseller who immediately gave U.Va. first refusal. The offer could not be refused, for U.Va.’s otherwise superlative American literature collection has notable gaps in its Colonial-era holdings. This acquisition, purchased on the McGregor Endowment, Library Associates, and Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Funds, significantly remedies that weakness.

A portion of Wigglesworth’s vivid verse description of the torments awaiting sinners in Hell.

The volume actually contains two works bound together: the 1701 Day of doom (Boston: Printed by B. Green, and J. Allen, for Benjamin Eliot), and the second edition (Boston: Printed by R. P[ierce] for John Usher, 1689) of Wigglesworth’s only other book of poetry, Meat out of the eater or meditations concerning the necessity, end, and usefulness of afflictions unto Gods children, of which this is only the sixth known copy. This newly discovered copy is especially important because it proves what bibliographers have long suspected: that the 1689 work was reissued in 1701 with a new printing of the Day of doom to form a volume containing Wigglesworth’s collected works.

An opening from Meat Out of the Eater, showing a bit of textual loss and some of the marginal mends made to virtually every leaf.

When received, the volume lacked two leaves and portions of others and was in very fragile state, with marginal tears to virtually every leaf. The blind-tooled calf binding, probably done in Boston shortly after publication, was quite worn, and a previous owner had crudely repaired the original sewing. Several generations of owners had added their signatures to the book. Clearly the volume had been read so frequently as to nearly wear it out. All in all, a very evocative object, but one that was too fragile to use. But because this unexpected opportunity would almost certainly be the only chance we would ever have to obtain a copy of either of these exceptionally rare works in any condition, we decided to acquire it.

At left is the volume’s original blind-tooled calf binding. At right is the volume in its new calf binding by U.Va. Library conservator Eliza Giligan, copying the original style and structure.

In order to preserve the volume and make it available for research, teaching, and exhibition, the U.Va. Library’s conservator, Eliza Gilligan, undertook a thorough conservation treatment, now successfully completed. First, the original binding and sewing were thoroughly documented. Then the binding was carefully removed (it will be retained permanently for research purposes); the text leaves carefully washed, deacidified, and mended with Japanese tissue; the textblock reassembled and resewn; and a new calf binding, tooled like the original, added. Now nearly as good as new, the book can be handled safely and will inform many future generations of readers about the Day of Doom!

This Just In: New in the McGregor Library

Posted on November 6, 2014 by

Every autumn the U.Va. Library hosts the annual Tracy W. and Katherine W. McGregor Distinguished Lecture in American History. This year the speaker was Edward L. Ayers, President of the University of Richmond and formerly professor of history at U.Va., who on October 28 delivered a brilliant talk on “The Shape of the American Civil War.” October is also the month during which we compile a listing of books and manuscripts added over the past year to the Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History. Here are a few highlights.

Increase Mather’s notes for a Thanksgiving day sermon, December 2, 1718

Manuscripts by the Puritan minister Increase Mather are of great rarity, hence we were delighted to acquire these notes for a sermon, “Thanksgiving throughout ye province,” delivered in Boston on December 2, 1718. Written when Mather was 79, these notes confirm contemporary accounts of his working methods. After decades of experience, Mather no longer needed to write out sermons in full; rather, he preached from memory after sketching out sermons in notes such as these, which he carried to the pulpit as a memory aid. What makes this acquisition even more special is that it had once resided in the celebrated Mather collection formed by a descendant, William G. Mather. When Tracy McGregor purchased Mather’s collection in 1935, he permitted Mather to retain a few items, including this manuscript. Now that it was once again available, we promptly reunited it with the Mather Collection after, coincidentally, a 79-year absence.

Woodcut of a Sioux Indian “queen” from Der Reisen der Capitaine Lewis und Clarke … (Lebanon, Pa., 1811) (A 1811 .T73)

Perhaps the year’s most gratifying acquisition has been Die Reisen der Capitaine Lewis und Clarke, which had long been on our desiderata list. Given that Meriwether Lewis and Thomas Jefferson both had deep Charlottesville roots, we have long been interested in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Thanks to the McGregor Library, U.Va. has a superb collection of primary printed sources relating to the expedition. The only significant lacuna was this very rare work—a gap now filled. Lewis and Clark returned home in 1806, but publication of the official expedition report was delayed until 1814. Meanwhile the public’s intense interest in the expedition and what it found out west was whetted piecemeal by expedition participants’s published memoirs, newspaper articles, and the like. In 1809 an unauthorized account, culled from published sources, was issued in Philadelphia under the title, The Travels of Capts. Lewis & Clarke. Two years later this abridged German translation helped spread news of the expedition to the Mid-Atlantic’s substantial German-American population. Included are four full-page woodcut Indian portraits copied from the Philadelphia edition.

Public lands in Illinois: January 17, 1839 … [Vandalia, Ill., 1839] (A 1839 .I55)

This unprepossessing (and very rare) three-page Illinois state document, Public lands in Illinois: January 17, 1839, might not seem of much interest. However, it takes pride of place as item #1 in the standard bibliography of Abraham Lincoln’s writings, being his first separate publication. Then a 29-year-old Illinois state legislator, Lincoln urges that Illinois borrow $5 million to purchase the 20 million acres of state land then held by the federal government. Income from land sales would fund the state’s ambitious program of public works while simultaneously paying off the loan. The resolution was approved, but Illinois’s senators and congressmen were unable to secure passage in Congress of the requisite federal law.

Augustus Q. Walton [i.e. Virgil Stewart], A history of the detection, conviction, life and designs of John A. Murel … (New York, 1839) (A 1839 .W26)

A livelier read is this very rare popular biography of one of early America’s most notorious bandits. Born in Virginia ca. 1806, John Murel (or Murrell) grew up in Tennessee, where he and his brothers pursued lives of crime. Murel’s gang was most active along the Natchez Trace—the trail winding southwest from Nashville down to Natchez on the Mississippi River. His criminal activities all but ended in 1835 when Murel began a ten-year jail term, but his legend was just beginning. The chief trial witness, one Virgil Stewart, promptly published under a pseudonym this sensationalist (and mostly fictional) biography, in which he identified Murel as head of a 455-member “mystic clan” masterminding a national slave insurrection planned for December 25, 1835. Stewart’s warning was widely believed in the South and provoked a series of deadly vigilante actions. Murel’s legend lives on in such venues as Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Eudora Welty, and even a Hollywood western starring Humphrey Bogart.

William Wells Brown, A lecture delievred before the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Salem ... Nov. 14, 1847 ... (Boston, 1847) (A 1847 .B74)

William Wells Brown, A lecture delivered before the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Salem … Nov. 14, 1847 … (Boston, 1847) (A 1847 .B74)

A lecture delivered before the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Salem at Lyceum Hall, Nov. 14, 1847 is the second published work by William Wells Brown, one of the most prominent African Americans of the 19^th century (and the subject of a newly published biography). Born into slavery in 1814, Brown escaped to Ohio in 1834 and soon joined the abolitionist movement. In 1847, shortly before delivering this impassioned lecture, Brown published an autobiography, which for a time made him as prominent a figure in abolitionist circles as Frederick Douglass. Brown was in England when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850, and he remained abroad rather than return and risk capture. There, in 1853, he published what is considered the first novel written by an African American, Clotel. Brown eventually returned to Boston, where he was prominent in its African American community and published several more books.

Robert A. Slaney’s account of a Richmond, Va. slave auction, from his Short journal of a visit to Canada and the states of America, in 1860 (London, 1861) (A 1861 .S53)

A new addition to the McGregor Library’s comprehensive collection of American travel narratives is this fascinating and candid diary kept by Robert A. Slaney, a member of Parliament, while traveling in the entourage of the 18-year-old Prince of Wales during his 1860 American tour. From Boston the prince traveled to Niagara and then to Detroit, where Slaney found the residents to be “all pale, none fat. How is this? … Detroit is laid out with noble, wide streets … there are many nice villas, as of retired or rich persons, in and about this flourishing town.” In Chicago they witnessed a torchlight procession supporting Abraham Lincoln’s presidential bid. From St. Louis the party journeyed overland by train to Washington, DC, which they explored at length. President Buchanan’s White House reception for the prince was somewhat disappointing: “No refreshments but two large bowls of punch.” Perhaps of greatest interest is Slaney’s disapproving account of the slave auctions he witnessed in Richmond, Va., which reflects his liberal leanings. Indeed, this rare work was one of the first printed at the Victoria Press, established by English women’s rights advocate Emily Faithfull and entirely staffed by women.

The grant of the Venezuelian Emigration Company, with full explanation of their laudable object … [St. Louis?, 1866] (A 1866 .G73)

The grant of the Venezuelian Emigration Company is the only recorded copy of a fascinating prospectus, distributed by a New Orleans real estate agency, promoting emigration to Venezuela. Immediately after the Civil War, Henry M. Price of Scottsville, Va. (just south of Charlottesville) secured from Venezuelan officials a grant of 2400 square miles. There he hoped “to provide a home for those in the South, that had the foresight enough to see, could not remain in their old homes, under the domination and rule of their heartless victors.” Unreconstructed Southerners who bought company shares would receive a substantial land grant and promises of greater freedoms than they expected under Reconstruction. The first 50 settlers claimed their land in 1867, and dozens more soon followed, but the expatriate colony shut down in 1869.

This Just In: Perspectives on Publishing

Posted on September 11, 2014 by

What, no book tour? Francis W. Doughty and his agent Sinclair Tousey scheme to place copies of Doughty’s science fiction novel, Mirrikh, or, a woman from Mars (1892) in the hands of eager readers. (MSS 15790)

Followers of “This Just In” will know of the Small Special Collections Library’s deep interest in primary sources relating to all aspects of publishing, whether from the perspective of author, publisher, bookseller, reader, or even censor. Here we present a diverse miscellany of relevant items spanning three centuries and two continents, all acquired in recent months.

In bad company: Pietro Aretino joins Philipp Melanchthon, Poggio Bracciolini, and Polydore Vergil on the Roman Catholic Church’s Index of prohibited books. This 1569 pocket edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum was issued in Cologne. (BX830 1545 .A2 1569 no. 2)

One of several key achievements of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) was the creation of a central mechanism by which the Roman Catholic Church could restrict the publication and dissemination of works considered heretical, immoral, and anti-clerical. The first official listing of such works—the Index Librorum Prohibitorum—appeared in 1559, with a substantially revised edition following in 1564; the Index was regularly updated until 1966. Finding to our surprise that U.Va. had no pre-19^th century edition of this landmark text, we obtained a rare 1569 Cologne reprint of the 1564 edition in handy pocket format, bound (as often) with a complementary edition of the Tridentine canons and decrees. The Index begins with the ten rules governing the selection of prohibited works, followed by a comprehensive alphabetical listing of banned titles, or more often simply the names of the many authors whose entire oeuvre was proscribed.

The truth is in the type: this imprintless 1588 edition of Petro Aretino's Quattro comedie was printed, not in Italy, but in London by the Elizabethan printer John Wolfe. (PQ 4563 .A4 1588)

The truth is in the type: this imprintless 1588 edition of Petro Aretino’s Quattro comedie was printed, not in Italy, but in London by Elizabethan printer John Wolfe. (PQ4563 .A4 1588)

Instead of preventing the publication of forbidden texts, the Index simply shifted the printing elsewhere while guaranteeing a steady readership among those fortunate enough to obtain copies clandestinely. One of many publishers to profit from the ban was the enterprising John Wolfe (1548?-1601) who, during the 1580s and 1590s, printed in London (of all places) a number of proscribed Italian works for export to the European continent. Wolfe’s surreptitious editions either lack his name and place of publication—as in his 1588 edition of Pietro Aretino’s Quattro comedie—or bear false imprints, but the typography reveals their true origins.

Rules to live by: a comprehensive set of regulations governing all members of the Paris book trades. Published in 1688 in a small format suitable for carrying around in one’s pocket. (Mini KJV5973 .A35 1688)

Rarely have printers been entirely free of regulation, and a key theme of “book history” is the ways in which printers have adapted to the various legal and economic constraints placed on their activities. We were fortunate to obtain fine copies with notable provenance—from the libraries of book historians Graham Pollard and Giles Barber—of the two earliest comprehensive sets of regulations governing the Parisian book trades. The first, promulgated in 1686, contains sections pertaining to printers, booksellers, typefounders, apprentices, journeymen, correctors at press, colporteurs, privileges, and other matters, as well as a separate set of regulations governing the bookbinding trade. The second is the greatly expanded revision approved in 1723.

Heed the advice of M. Linguet: neither a lover of literature nor a writer be! (PQ1977 .D63 P5 1760 no. 2)

Historians have traced to the 18th century the rise of authorship as a professional occupation, and it was not long before budding authors could find career advice in print. In 1768 Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet, a lawyer and denizen of the Parisian equivalent of Grub Street, published anonymously L’aveu sincere ou, lettre a un mere sur les dangers que court la jeunesse en se livrant à un gout trop vif pour la littérature. Written in the form of advice directed at a parent, Linguet spells out at length the bitter disappointments awaiting those who envisage a literary as a path to wealth and social advancement. Linguet was of course unable to follow his own advice, eventually dying, not of poverty, but on the guillotine for his opinionated writings.

What it cost in 1825 to publish 750 copies of a 96-page octavo book in Leipzig; from Johann Adam Bergk’s Der Buchhändler oder Anweisung, wie man durch den Buchhandel zu Ansehen und Vermögen kommen kann (Leipzig, 1825). (Z313 .B474 1825)

If not writing, perhaps bookselling is the career for you? This spring we obtained two very rare early 19^th-century German how-to manuals for booksellers (who at that time often dabbled in publishing, too). Der Buchhandel von mehreren Seiten betrachtet was written and self-published in 1803 by the Weimar bookseller Johann Christian Gädicke. Although quite revealing on the specifics of running a bookshop, it is invaluable for its detailed exposition of the contemporary publishing business: selecting titles, dealing with authors and how much to pay them, obtaining financing, choosing paper and designing the publication, marketing one’s imprints &c. Johann Adam Bergk’s Der Buchhändler (Leipzig, 1825) offers similar advice, including breakdowns of the costs for printing a typical book.

An unusual London bookseller’s retail binding, ca. 1806, on a copy of Robert Bloomfield’s Wild flowers; or, pastoral and local poetry (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, and Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806). The front board consists of a printed advertisement for bookseller James Asperne; the binding also bears Asperne’s bookseller’s label on the rear pastedown. (PR4149 .B6 W5 1806)

Other tricks of the bookselling and publishing trades are revealed through the books themselves. The early 19^th century was a time of transition between retail bookbindings (added to some copies of an edition at the bookseller’s direction) and uniform publisher’s bindings (placed on most or all copies at the publisher’s direction). Recently we acquired a very unusual hybrid on a copy of Robert Bloomfield’s Wild flowers; or, pastoral and local poetry (London, 1806). The London bookseller James Asperne obtained some copies for stock, then had them bound in a retail binding of paper-covered boards. The front cover, however, consists of a large printed advertisement for his business. Nearly 40 years later, the New York publishers Harper & Brothers creatively addressed the perennial problem of how to move slow-selling titles out of the warehouse. Their solution was to bind unsold sheets, not in boards or cloth, but in inexpensive printed paper covers, and to market these titles for 25 cents each in a “Pocket Editions of Select Novels” series. Our newly acquired copy of James K. Paulding’s Westward ho! consists of the original first edition sheets, dated 1832 on the title page, reissued in paper covers dated 1845.

James K. Paulding’s novel Westward Ho!, published in 1832, evidently was not the success Harper & Brothers anticipated. In 1845 unsold sheets (with title pages dated 1832) were reissued in less expensive form in the “Pocket Editions of Select Novels” series, dated 1845 on the paper covers.

Our Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature is world renowned for the extent and quality of its literary manuscripts and related correspondence. Two new additions help to illuminate different aspects of the late 19^th-century publication process. In 1894 author Frank R. Stockton—perhaps best known for “The Lady, or the Tiger,” submitted the typescript of a science fiction story, “The Magic Egg,” to The Century Magazine. At editor Richard Watson Gilder’s urging, Stockton tightened up the original, ambiguous ending. The original typescript we acquired includes both endings as well as numerous other editorial revisions.

Frank Stockton’s revised ending for his short story, “The Magic Egg” (1894). (MSS 15768)

Francis W. Doughty (1850-1917) was a prolific author of “dime novel” detective fiction as well as early science fiction tales. For the Barrett Library we have acquired a series of letters from 1892 detailing Doughty’s negotiations with the American News Company—a powerful distributor of popular, mass market fiction—concerning his science fiction/lost race novel, Mirrikh, or, a woman from Mars. Doughty’s agent, Sinclair Tousey, provided regular updates on the number of copies ordered, marketing plans, and efforts to obtain reviews in influential newspapers.

This Just In: A Tolkien Black Swan

Posted on August 14, 2014 by

This week, we feature a very unusual recent acquisition in a guest post by Special Collections curatorial assistant Elizabeth Ott, doctoral candidate in the U.Va. Department of English.

In the world of Special Collections it may be said that some books are born rare, some achieve rareness, and some have rareness thrust upon them. The last is the case for the unassuming blue pamphlet titled Songs for the Philologists, which recently made its way to the stacks of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. A strange admixture of chance and circumstance has conspired to make this pamphlet, co-authored by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, the rarest publication of Tolkien’s career.

The front cover of Songs for the Philologists, which lists Tolkien first among the volume’s authors. PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.

During his tenure at Leeds University, Tolkien formed, with Gordon, a society known as the “Viking Club” devoted to reading Old Norse sagas and drinking beer. Sometime in 1934, Tolkien and Gordon prepared a set of typescripts of verses, including original compositions of their own devising as well as traditional songs in Old and Modern English and other languages. The typescripts were distributed to students from the club for their amusement.

Among those who received copies was former student A.H. Smith, then of University College London, who used his copies of the typescripts as a printing exercise for his own students in 1936. An unknown (but undoubtedly small) number of pamphlets were hand-set and privately printed by students on a replica wooden common press (not unlike the replica press located on the 2^nd floor of U.Va.’s Alderman Library in the Stettinius Gallery). Smith realized, after the pamphlets had already been printed, that he had not obtained permission from Tolkien and Gordon, so the pamphlet was never distributed. Instead, copies were kept in storage at the pressrooms on Gower Street.

The building was bombed in WWII. The pressrooms burned, along with the presses and any stock stored on the premises. The only copies of the pamphlet that survived were those that had been taken by the students who printed it. It is not known how many copies survived, though H. Winifred Husbands, one of the students involved in the printing, has estimated the number at thirteen.

There are thirty compositions in the book, including thirteen by Tolkien himself. Several of the verses reappear in later publications, altered or repurposed. A notable example is the poem “The Root of the Boot.” The poem was originally titled “Pero & Podex” (Boot and Bottom), but is also sometimes referred to as the Troll Song. In early drafts of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo sings it in the Prancing Pony in chapter nine. Readers will remember that it finally appears as Sam’s song in chapter twelve of the published version of the same book, and as “The Stone Troll” in Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Other poems poke fun at the academic community: Tolkien’s “Lit’ and Lang’” originally contained direct references to Leeds University, and was altered to omit them during printing. Tolkien noted, in 1966, that the alterations had the unfortunate side effect of breaking the rhyme.

J.R.R. Tolkien's Root Boot as it appears in the volume. Image displayed with permission of the J.R.R. Tolkien Literary Estate.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Root of the Boot” as it appears in the volume. (PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.) Image displayed with permission of the J.R.R. Tolkien Literary Estate. ©The Tolkien Estate Limited 2014

J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lit and Lang" as it appears in the volume. Image displayed with permission of the J. R. R. Tolkien Literary Estate

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lit’ and Lang'” as it appears in the volume. (PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.) Image displayed with permission of the J. R. R. Tolkien Literary Estate. ©The Tolkien Estate Limited 2014

So how did such a rare find come to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections? In late 2013, Joan Kellogg, the widow of Professor of English and expert in Old Icelandic Robert Kellogg, generously invited curator Molly Schwartzburg to take from Professor Kellogg’s home library any volumes wanted for Special Collections. Almost two hundred rare and unusual items, from modern first editions to Icelandic travelogues and books of mythology, came to the library as a result of Mrs. Kellogg’s generosity. Many years ago, Professor Kellogg had donated to the library many remarkable books from the James Joyce collection of his father, Joyce scholar Charles E. Kellogg. Songs for the Philologists lacks a bookplate, so we do not know whether the book belonged to the father or the son; it has strong ties to both of their research interests. The library was pleased to be able to share our excitement about the Tolkien item with Mrs. Kellogg before she passed away on December 31, 2013.

The Kellogg copy of “Songs for the Philologists” is one of only four copies held by libraries in the United States and one of eight held by libraries worldwide. Fantasy fans and Old Norse addicts alike are encouraged to consult the pamphlet for inspiration in starting their own “Viking Club” here on grounds.

Detail of the back cover of the volume, showing a device used by the print shop of the University College, London. (PR6039.O32 S65 1936, Gift of Joan Kellogg, 2013.)

This Just In: Jacket Required!

Posted on July 24, 2014 by

The Congalton collection of 19th-century books in original dust jackets and/or removable coverings as it looked before shipment to Charlottesville.

Yes, you read that correctly: the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library has implemented a dress code. Um, for books, that is. Henceforth all future book acquisitions from, say, 1880 to the present are requested to arrive suitably attired in original dust jackets whenever possible. Readers may continue to come as they are (within reason).

Friendship’s Offering, or the Annual Remembrancer, a Christmas Present or New Year’s Gift (London: Lupton Relfe, 1823) was one of the earliest English “gift books,” The fragile binding of embossed paper boards was given added protection (and a marketing boost) by a protective cardboard case, onto which was pasted a hand-colored engraved title.

Our new policy reflects one of three major acquisitions made this spring: a collection of 700 titles (in 829 volumes) of 19^th-century American and English books (with a few European imprints) in original dust jackets and/or removable coverings. Formed over the past two decades by Tom Congalton, proprietor of Between the Covers Rare Books in Gloucester City, NJ, the collection is quite simply the largest such holding ever documented. Add to this the Small Special Collections Library’s existing holdings of nearly 200 19^th-century titles, and the combined collection is—by far—the largest known in public or private hands.

A fine example of one of the earliest surviving American dust jackets. The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets (Cambridge, Mass.: Sever and Francis, 1863) was issued in several binding styles, as advertised on the front of the dust jacket; this copy is bound in “extra cloth” and was priced at $1.25. The fragile jacket is printed on the spine and front panel only, and it is in the form of a wrap-around band sealed on the reverse. This example was torn open rather than slipped off the book, but otherwise it has been carefully preserved.

Given the ubiquity of dust jackets on 20^th– and 21^st-century books, how, you might well ask, could a collection of only a thousand volumes rank as the world’s largest for the 19^th century? The answer lies in the changing views of collectors and libraries toward the preservation of these ephemeral coverings. The origins of the dust jacket remain murky—indeed, our new acquisition may now enable scholars to write an authoritative account of its early history—but we can trace dust jackets back to the introduction of publishers’ cloth and printed paper bindings during the 1820s. It was not until a century later, however, that some collectors and libraries began to reconsider their longstanding practice of routinely discarding dust jackets. Today few collectors and special collections libraries would consider throwing away dust jackets—especially early ones—but the damage has been done. Relatively few 19^th-century jackets survive in institutional collections, and fewer still are available on the market. Acquiring and preserving these for research purposes will be slow and painstaking work.

The back panel of this dust jacket, on a presentation copy of William Cullen Bryant’s The Flood of Years (New York: G.P. Putnam’s sons, 1878) is devoted to ads for this and other Putnam titles, with a new marketing innovation: smaller-print “blurbs” have been added for several books.

Dust jackets and removable coverings originally protected publishers’ bindings, especially those made of more expensive and fragile materials, from fading and excessive wear. When, in the mid-1820s, British and American publishers adopted the German practice of offering “gift books” and annuals bound in silk or fancy printed boards, they also provided decorative cardboard sheaths to protect the delicate bindings. Some publishers also sold books in sealed printed wrappings, which by definition had to be opened and discarded before the book could be read. These wrappings soon evolved into paper jackets with tucked-in flaps, but their adoption by publishers was slow and haphazard until the 1880s. Before then dust jackets tended to be plain or simply printed, carrying little more than author, title, and publisher on the spine and/or front cover.

This color-printed children’s book–Robert Bloomfield’s The Horkey (London: Macmillan, 1882)–is bound in color-printed paper boards. The dust jacket replicates the color-printed title page design in a single color–perhaps color was considered an unnecessary extravagance for this ephemeral covering.

Dust jackets came into their own during the 1880s when many publishers adopted the practice. Most continued to be rather plain in design, serving a basic marketing function by identifying the author, title, and sometimes the price. Publishers often used the back panel to advertise their other recent publications, sometimes glossed with promotional “blurbs.” During the 1890s dust jackets were increasingly viewed by publishers as integral components of their marketing efforts. Many were pictorial in nature, often replicating a book’s decorative binding as closely as possible, though publishers freely experimented with dust jacket design. The previously plain jacket flaps were increasingly filled with publishers’ advertisements, blurbs, and other promotional text. Continuing a practice dating to the 1860s, publishers issued some titles for the holiday and gift markets in deluxe bindings protected by dust jackets and/or cardboard boxes. By the early 20^th century, publishers began to favor plain edition bindings wrapped in highly decorative dust jackets.

The dust jacket on Arabella Buckley’s The Fairy-Land of Science (New York: D. Appleton, 1881) is a very early example of a design which closely replicates in print the elaborate publisher’s cloth binding, here stamped in gilt and black ink.

Why collect dust jackets at all? The status of modern dust jackets as significant examples of graphic design worthy of serious study and collecting is now firmly established, as is our respect (some might say fetish) for the dust jacket covering a literary first edition. But in the words of G. Thomas Tanselle, dean of American bibliographers, president of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, and author of Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (Charlottesville, 2011): “less serious bibliographical attention has been paid to [dust jackets], it is probably safe to say, than to any other prominent feature of modern book production.” The Small Special Collections Library has long collected materials relating to the printing, publishing, distribution, and reception of texts, and it is only fitting that we strengthen our already formidable holdings with the primary sources necessary for studying this neglected aspect of the modern book.

This expensive ($7.50) deluxe copy of W.H. Gibson’s Highways and Byways, or Saunterings in New England (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1883) received elaborate and unusual packaging. The publisher’s richly gilt binding is stamped on high-quality bookcloth. Protecting the binding is a dust jacket consisting of a large printed advertisement for another Gibson work published by Harper in similar format. The book is laid in the publisher’s protective cardboard box bearing advertisements for two Gibson works issued in matching format.

This Just In: Spring Miscellany

Posted on May 22, 2014 by

U.Va.’s Final Exercises have concluded, and Grounds is quiet this week. Shortly the summer session will begin (as well as the inevitable summer construction projects), and both temperature and humidity will, no doubt, rise. Under Grounds it is busyness as usual as we catch up with what so far has been a banner spring for acquisitions. Following is a random selection of some early printed books newly added to our shelves.

A stellar eclipse! This engraved portrait of astronomer Tycho Brahe is actually a cancel slip pasted over another engraved portrait inadvertently printed on the wrong leaf. Note how the lower left corner is lifting upward, and the engraved border of the underlying portrait is visible at left. Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, Illustrium virorum elogia iconibus exornata (Padua, 1630), p. 242. (CT1122 .T6 1630)

Giacomo Filippo Tomasini’s Illustrium virorum elogia iconibus exornata (Padua, 1630) is a collection of biographies of noted scientists, astronomers, doctors, jurists, and theologians, most of whom lived in Padua and taught at its famous university. Of special note are the bibliographies of each subject’s writings, and the fine full-page engraved portraits by the French artist Jérôme David. Indeed, it was the engraved portrait of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe that caught our eye in a bookseller’s booth at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair last month. Unbeknownst to the dealer, this portrait is actually a cancel pasted over a different engraved portrait inadvertently printed in the wrong place! During the hand-press period, serious printing errors were typically corrected by “cancelling” an entire leaf and replacing it with a corrected replacement leaf or, as here, by pasting a cancel slip over the portion needing correction. Text cancels are fairly common in early printed books, but a cancel illustration is rarely encountered.

Engraved reproduction of the famous Dove Mosaic discovered by Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti at Hadrian’s Villa and now in Rome’s Capitoline Museum. Furietti believed it to be the actual mosaic created by Sosus for the royal palace at Pergamon, as described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History. Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti, De musivis (Rome, 1752), plate [1]. (NA3750 .F8 1752)

De musivis (Rome, 1752), by the Italian antiquarian and cleric Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti, is one of the earliest scholarly works devoted to Roman mosaics. Written just as the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum was inspiring new interest in Greek and Roman antiquities, Furietti’s work summarizes what was then known about Roman mosaics, incorporating new findings from Furietti’s own excavations at Hadrian’s Villa. Of particular interest are Furietti’s notes on the musivarii (the Roman artisans responsible for the figurative portions of mosaics), as well as his comments on mosaic art in Italy since the fall of the Roman Empire.

A cartographer’s tools, from Manoel de Azevedo Fortes, Tratado do modo o mais facil, e o mais exacto de fazer as cartas geograficas (Lisbon, 1722), plate 3. (GA102.3 .F67 1722)

Special Collections is well known for its distinguished cartographic holdings—particularly of maps and atlases concerning the discovery and exploration of North America—and recently we added the perfect complement: one of the earliest printed manuals on mapmaking. Cartography had long been an essential skill for military engineers and surveyors, who could turn to printed works in their fields for guidance, but manuals specifically directed at cartographers were a late development. Manoel de Azevedo Fortes’s rare Tratado do modo o mais facil, e o mais exacto de fazer as cartas geograficas … (Lisbon, 1722) was the first such manual in Portuguese. Fortes based his work in part on French manuals. Although he writes in part for a military audience, Fortes directs this work primarily at fellow members of Portugal’s Royal Academy of History who desire to complement their writings with maps. Of particular interest are his comments on cartographic symbols and map coloring.

A lesson in caricature: examples of various noses, profiles, and head shapes. Francis Grose, Rules for drawing caricaturas, 2nd ed. (London, 1796), plate IV. (NC1320 .G76 1796)

We have also acquired another early manual on an entirely different subject: the art of caricature. A well known English antiquary and scholar of English slang, Francis Grose (1731-1791) was also an amateur artist who delighted in “comic painting.” In Rules for drawing caricaturas: with an essay on comic painting, Grose sought to explain how artists such as Hogarth and Gilpin manipulated the human form and visage for comic effect. This second, expanded edition, published posthumously in London in 1796, includes 21 plates, seventeen of which were etched by Grose himself. Most are caricatures of himself and his fellow antiquaries.

Front cover of David Claypoole Johnston, Scraps no. 1, new series (Boston, 1849). (E166 .J65 1849)

The art of caricature soon took root in the United States, thanks in part to the influence of English émigré artists. One of the most famous antebellum American cartoonists was David Claypoole Johnston (1798-1865), who excelled in many artistic media. Some of his best cartoon “Scraps” were published from 1828 to 1849 in a series of numbered portfolios, of which we recently acquired two. Their etchings poke fun at contemporary events such as the Mexican-American War, emerging issues such as women’s rights, contemporary fads such as phrenology, and, of course, the art world.

One of the cartoon “scraps” in David Claypoole Johnston, Scraps no. 1, new series (Boston, 1849) (E166 .J65 1849)

This Just In: Printing Planographically

Posted on May 1, 2014 by

Title page to Jean Midolle, Album du Moyen Âge (Strasbourg, 1836) ( NK3630 .M53 1836)

In recent months U.Va. has had unusual opportunities to enhance its already strong collections on 19^th-century planographic printing. Prior to the invention of lithography by Alois Senefelder in 1796, printers used a variety of relief (letterpress, woodcut &c.) and intaglio (engraving, etching &c.) processes for replicating text and image. Senefelder’s innovative method of printing from a flat surface offered printers a new tool which, thanks to continuing refinement during the 19^th century, emerged as the leading method for printing multicolor illustrations. And by the later 20^th century, offset lithography would supplant letterpress as the preferred method for printing text.

A lithographed plate from Konrad Ludwig Schwab. Anatomische Abbildungen des Pferdekörpers (Munich, 1820 ) (SF765 .S45 1820)

Because the technologies of lithography inform many aspects of 19^th-century printing, the graphic arts, and book culture, the Small Special Collections Library has long sought to acquire a representative collection of technical manuals and printing specimens documenting lithography’s gradual ascendancy. Included are rare lithographic “incunabula” printed up to ca. 1820. Five years ago we were fortunate to acquire a fine copy of Konrad Ludwig Schwab’s Anatomische Abbildungen des Pferdekörpers (1813) published (as were many of the earliest lithographed books) in Munich, and illustrated with several large plates depicting horse anatomy. To it we have now added the equally rare second edition (Munich, 1820). This is no mere reprint, for the plates have been redone in more accomplished fashion, demonstrating how far lithography had progressed in only a few short years.

An early lithographic press and related equipment as depicted in Antoine Raucourt de Charleville, A manual of lithography, or memoir on the lithographical experiments made in Paris (2nd ed., London, 1821) (NE2420 .R25 1821)

Lithography quickly spread throughout Europe and beyond, particularly after 1818 when Senefelder published the first comprehensive manual. Others followed in quick succession, and through these we can trace the many technical innovations introduced during the 1820s and 1830s. By 1819 English printers could read not only Senefelder’s work, but also the leading French manual (by Antoine Raucourt de Charleville) in an English translation prepared by the London lithographer Charles Hullmandell. We recently acquired the second edition (1821), to which Hullmandell appended plates depicting a lithographic press, which looked and operated far differently from relief and intaglio presses. Another recent acquisition is the very rare Mémoire sur l’art du lithographe (Paris, [1829]) of Alphonse Chevallier. Included is a set of progressive plates illustrating Chevallier’s methods for creating certain artistic effects lithographically.

Two stages in the creation of a lithographic image, from Alphonse Chevallier, Mémoire sur l’art du lithographe (Paris, [1829]) (NE2420 .C54 1829)

Lithography flourished in the late 19^th century with the perfection of new technologies (most notably chromolithography and photolithography), improved equipment (especially steam-powered presses), and its application to new markets such as advertising matter and commercial packaging. Camillo Doyen’s rare Trattato di litografia: storico, teorico, pratico ed economico (Turin, 1877) is typical of later lithographic manuals: massive, richly detailed, and full of useful insights into regional practices.

A steam-powered lithographic press illustrated in Camillo, Doyen, Trattato di litografia: storico, teorico, pratico ed economico (Turin, 1877) (NE2425 .D68 1877)

By 1900 German and Austrian lithographers were perhaps the most accomplished in Europe, producing high quality book illustrations and other work for publishers as far afield as the United States. The text and sample plates to Friedrich Hesse’s Die Chromolithographie (2^nd ed., Halle, 1906) are important for understanding and identifying the many variant processes in the commercial lithographer’s toolkit.

A specimen chromolithographed map inserted as a plate in Friedrich Hesse, Die Chromolithographie (Halle, 1906) (NE2500 .H47 1906)

Printers have long sought to demonstrate and advertise their prowess through specimen work, and lithographers have been no exception. Perhaps the finest early chromolithographic printing was that executed by the Strasbourg firm of Frédéric Émile Simon. During the 1830s Simon teamed with the innovative calligrapher Jean Midolle to issue three extraordinary specimen books, one of which we have now acquired: Album du Moyen Âge (1836). That many of its plates are heightened with dusted gold, silver, and bronze powders, and even some discreet hand coloring, does not detract from their beauty and technical mastery. Fifty years later the Swedish sign painter advertised his work to potential clients by issuing Skyltmotiv (1884), a very rare portfolio containing 30 sample designs of his best work. Here the ability of Stockholm chromolithographer C. A. Carlsson to reproduce woodgraining and three-dimensional effects planographically is nothing short of miraculous.

A chromolithographic tour de force from Frithiof Telenius, Skyltmotiv (Stockholm, 1884)

By 1900 it was not unusual for lithographers to print chromolithographic images in 20 or more colors, each applied with a different lithographic stone. A successful image required not only perfect registration, but the careful application of colors in proper sequence to achieve the desired effect. How this was done is illustrated through a set of progressive proofs we recently acquired. Formerly in the archive of the American Lithographic Co., it comprises the firm’s official set of 39 proofs documenting job no. 7038K: a cigar box label printed ca. 1900. Many proofs bear annotations indicating corrections to be made, followed by the corrected proofs. At front is the completed image (still marked for correction) showing at bottom a color bar with the ten hues employed, applied in sequence from right to left.

Proof of a 10-color chromolithographed cigar box label, marked up for correction (NE2515 .A54 1900)

This Just In: Display Fonts and Clip Art and Show Cards, oh my!

Posted on April 10, 2014 by

This week, we are pleased to feature a guest post from curatorial assistant Elizabeth Ott, who is a doctoral candidate in the English Department. Liz recently produced preliminary catalog records for the collection she discusses in this post.

Special Collections is known for our fantastic collections in the history of type design; this strength just expanded dramatically with the generous gift of approximately 300 books on typography, letterforms, calligraphy, show cards, and graphic design given by the prolific American type designer Nicholas Curtis (b. 1948). Curtis, a resident of Charlottesville, has had a long a varied career as a graphic artist and type designer dating back the late 1960s when he got his start designing rock posters. He now operates his own independent type foundry, Nick’s Fonts, and his type designs can be found everywhere from Trader Joe’s labels to the titles for the recent film Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)—in fact, Curtis is also responsible for many of those super-condensed fonts you see at the foot of film posters, which help cram in the names of a film’s key cast and crew.

Some of Nick Curtis's type designs. The influence of hand lettering from across the decades may be seen in his faces.

Some of Nick Curtis’s type designs. The influence of lettering and type design from across the decades may be seen in his faces.

The range of books in the Curtis gift reflects Curtis’s eclectic style and nostalgic designs. It includes items such as specimen catalogs from nineteenth-century type foundries, how-to guides for producing calligraphy alphabets, books of clip art for early computers, and many manuals for creating show cards. Most of the items in the gift relate to commercial art and offer a glimpse behind the curtain of nineteenth and twentieth-century graphic design. The show card manuals, in particular, offer an example of a now-obscure commercial art profession that had a profound impact on the visual and print culture of nineteenth and twentieth century America.

Show cards (sometimes show-cards, sho-cards, or sho’ cards) were hand-lettered signs used for local advertising and incidental labeling, popular to the point of near ubiquity between about 1880 and 1920, though the practice of show card writing survived well into the sixties. Show cards filled a niche role in early twentieth-century advertising distinct from printed posters or painted signs, allowing shops, restaurants, and other local businesses to produce inexpensive displays for goods and services. Typical show cards were small in scale, at most 11 by 14 inches, and produced on a stiff cardboard or poster board. Examples may be seen in this series of photographs of Charlottesville in the early twentieth century from the Rufus Holsinger Studio Collection:

A show card rests in front of the cash register in this detail from a 1917 photograph of the Timberlake Drugstore on Main Street. (MSS 9862. Image by UVA Digitization Services)

Hand-lettered advertisements for local businesses surround the Charlottesville train timetable in the Gleason Hotel in 1915, detail from a larger photograph. (MSS 9862. Image by UVA Digitization Services)

A very simple 1914 show card for tomatoes. Sections of the photograph’s background have been whited out, perhaps in preparation for use of the image in an article or advertisement. (MSS 9862. Image by UVA Digitization Services)

Show card writers used water based paints or inks in conjunction with a “rigger” brush—a long-handled sable brush—or nibbed pen to create designs. Show cards could be made and remade swiftly, so they were ideal for displays where signs needed to be rotated frequently.

Two scarce instruction books produced by the Speedball pen company, still in operation today. The company name reflects its origins: Speedball began as a specialty company producing nibbed pens specifically for the quick work of show card lettering.

Two scarce instruction books for Speedball pens produced by the C. Howard Hunt Pen Company, which operates today as Speedball. Speedballs were nibbed pens produced specifically for the quick work of show card lettering. Left: Ross F. George, Lettering, Poster Design for Pen and Brush (Camden: C. Howard Hunt Pen Co., n.d.); Right: Ross F. George, Modern Lettering/Poster Design (Camden: C. Howard Hunt pen Co. , n.d.). (Image by Elizabeth Ott)

Because show cards were meant to be produced quickly, show card writers did not want to spend time creating unique designs and layouts for every new card. Show card manuals offered design templates and best practices for producing attractive, readable show cards that could be easily copied. Manuals instructed writers on how to scale alphabets up and down, how to balance negative and positive space, and how to choose complementary color schemes. More than just a compendium of display alphabets, show card manuals condense the aesthetics of early twentieth-century graphic design into readable, concrete lessons.

A page spread from E. C. Matthews, How to Paint Signs and Show Cards (New York: Illustrated Editions, 1940). (Image by Elizabeth Ott)

A page from Charles Strong’s The Art of Show Card Writing, showing an airbrushing technique used to add depth and texture quickly to a flat design. (Detroit: The Detroit School of Lettering, 1907).

These show card manuals are an important, but often overlooked, aspect of the history of typography, graphic design, and American advertising. The script alphabets of show cards influenced type design, especially for display types, but also diverged from many trends in typography. Similarly, the non-pictorial nature of most show cards and their freedom from the constraints of printing meant they were both like and unlike printed advertisements produced during the same time. Ephemeral and rarely preserved, show cards are largely absent from the cultural record, except in photographs that attest to their prevalence. Show card manuals are thus an invaluable resource for understanding the practice of show card writing. Many of the manuals in the Nicholas Curtis gift are extremely rare, available in only a handful of libraries world-wide—indeed, we were unable to find existing holdings for more than two dozen. We are particularly pleased to add these books to our collections, adding their richness and texture to our extensive collections on the history of typography and type design.

The books are marvelous specimen collections in their own right. Incidentally, we believe the ancient author of the concept of humours, Galen, would put his stamp of approval on the layout of the recto of this page. From Pen and Brush Lettering and Practical Alphabets (London: Blandford Press, [1947].

The books are themselves often exuberant celebrations of the myriad ways to design the Roman alphabet. Pen and Brush Lettering and Practical Alphabets (London: Blandford Press, [1947]).

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

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Category Archives: Acquisitions