This Just In: Growing the Gothic

Posted on September 19, 2013 by

Regular readers will know of our fondness for the English Gothic novel, and our pride in the recent bequest of the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic (described in two recent blog posts). We have now acquired a key edition—the rare first edition in French (Lausanne, 1787) of William Beckford’s Vathek—which nicely links the Lévy Collection with its progenitor, the unparalleled Sadleir-Black Gothic Novel Collection housed under Grounds in the Small Special Collections Library.

Title page of the second published edition (and the first printing of the original French text) of William Beckford’s Vathek. Lausanne: Isaac Hignou, 1787. (PR4091 .V39 1787)

One of the earliest, and now one of the most widely read English Gothic novels, Vathek has a complicated textual history. In a very important sense it is not even an English novel, for when Beckford composed the text in 1782, he did so in French! Indeed, Beckford never prepared an English translation of his best known work. Rather, most readers have encountered Vathek in the English translation (or in translations of this translation) prepared by the Rev. Samuel Henley, sometime professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The first page of the Rev. Samuel Henley’s translation, from the first edition of Vathek, published under the title, An Arabian Tale. London: J. Johnson, 1786. (PR 4091 .V4 1786)

Born in 1745 in Devon, Henley was recruited in 1770 for the faculty of William and Mary, where he taught moral philosophy. Popular with his students—who included James Madison and James Monroe—Henley also formed strong friendships with prominent Virginians such as George Wythe and Thomas Jefferson. The looming clouds of war prompted Henley’s return to England in 1775, where he accepted a teaching position at Harrow School. By 1783 Henley had entered the intellectual circle of William Beckford, who entrusted him with translating the as yet unpublished Vathek into English. But Beckford, distracted in part by a scandal which necessitated an extended sojourn in Switzerland, insisted that Henley’s version remain unpublished until he saw fit to publish the original French text.

And for comparison, the first page of Beckford’s French text, as it appeared in the Lausanne, 1787 edition.

Disobeying Beckford’s wishes, Henley instead sent his translation to the press. Published in London in 1786 as An Arabian tale, Henley not only concealed Beckford’s authorship but pretended that the work was translated from an “Arabick” source. When the news reached Beckford in Lausanne, he was furious. Placing the original manuscript in the hands of a Swiss friend, Beckford directed that his French be corrected where necessary and the text rushed into print. The latter request was easier to meet than the former: the novel was published early in 1787 at Lausanne as Vathek, but with Beckford’s faulty French little improved. Today the Lausanne edition is very rare and, because Beckford’s manuscript no longer survives, remains our closest witness to the text as originally written. In subsequent editions, Beckford continued to tinker with both the French text and Henley’s translation, creating an interesting challenge for the textual editor.

The Small Special Collections Library possesses two copies of the London, 1786 edition. One is in a fine binding with distinguished provenance. The other, rather shabby copy is even more interesting, for it bears the contemporary wood-engraved label--by Thomas Bewick, no less!--of Humble's Circulatign Library in Newcastle.

The Small Special Collections Library possesses two copies of the London, 1786 edition. One is in a fine binding with distinguished provenance. Despite its rather shabby appearance, the other copy is even more interesting, for it bears the contemporary wood-engraved label–by Thomas Bewick, no less!–of Humble’s Circulating Library in Newcastle.

This Just In: Summer Beach Reading, Part II

Posted on August 29, 2013 by

Some of our summer beach reading: 19th-century American fiction newly added to the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature

You may have noticed that “This Just In” took a brief summer hiatus. Yes, it’s true: we were vacationing at the beach, reading! Catching up, not with the latest Dan Brown thriller, but with an influx of 19^th-century American fiction to the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. It is unlikely that any of these works ever made the best-seller list, but we recommend them to you nonetheless, for they significantly enrich the Barrett Library’s holdings in interesting ways.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Septimius: a romance. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1872. (PS1872 .S4 1872d)

The Barrett Library is so comprehensive for major American authors that it is hard to believe that it lacked a Nathaniel Hawthorne first edition! But only this spring did we obtain the true first edition of Septimius: a romance. Left unfinished at Hawthorne’s death, Septimius was prepared for publication by his daughter Una with assistance from Robert Browning. The first edition appeared in London in 1872, with the first American edition, retitled Septimius Felton: the elixir of life, following two months later. Initially well received, Septimius was soon deemed a “failure” by critics, though there are signs of renewed scholarly interest in Hawthorne’s “romance of immortality.”

Catherine Eaves, How I twice eloped: an Indiana idyll. Chicago: Oak Print. and Pub. Co., 1901. (PS1567 .E36 H6 1901)

Catherine Eaves, How I twice eloped: an Indiana idyll. Chicago: Oak Printing and Publishing Co., 1901. (PS1567 .E36 H6 1901)

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln authored a short novel? Neither did we, until we encountered at a small book fair a copy in original illustrated wrappers of How I twice eloped: an Indiana idyll, billed as “the only novelette ever sketched by Abraham Lincoln.” Actually, a closer perusal reveals a sort of Lincolnesque tall tale, as Lincoln’s agency in this work was scant indeed. How I twice eloped was penned, we are told, by Catherine Eaves, a member of the Lincoln Literary Society in Hoosier Heights, Indiana, a stone’s throw from Lincoln’s boyhood home near the banks of the Ohio River. (Or perhaps the true author was the copyright holder, Albert Alberg.) Taking her cue from an anecdote (related in Ida Tarbell’s recently published Life of Abraham Lincoln) that Lincoln reputedly told about his youth in Indiana, Eaves “elaborated” it into a short novel. How I twice eloped is one of many fascinating works of regional American fiction to be found in the Barrett Library.

Lois Waisbrooker, Nothing like it: or, steps to the kingdom. New York: Murray Hill Publishing Co., 1885. (PS3129 .W38 N68 1885)

As the 19^th century progressed, women’s issues loomed ever larger in American literature. Lois Waisbrooker was one of many who sought to advance the cause of women’s rights through didactic fiction. Born Adeline Eliza Nichols, Waisbrooker adopted a new name and a feminist outlook following a forced marriage. Her career as a radical reformer led her from spiritualism to anarchism, but it was as an advocate of women’s rights and sexual freedom that she was best known. Nothing like it: or, steps to the kingdom, first published in 1875, takes free love, public morals, and the true meaning of marriage as its ambitious subject. The Barrett Library still lacks the first edition, but we have acquired the second edition, published in New York in 1885 by the Murray Hill Publishing Co.—the publishing arm of free speech and birth control advocate Edward Bliss Foote.

Henri Gordon, Alva Vine, or, art versus duty. New York: American News Co., 1880. (PS1757 .G42 A7 1880)

The changing role of women is addressed from a different perspective by Henri Gordon in Alva Vine; or, art versus duty, published in 1880. Noting that “one class now rapidly developing in the United States” is that of the career woman, Gordon tells the fictional story of opera singer Alva Vine, who “thinks and acts for herself as an individual endeavoring to do right and follow the dictation of the spirit given her for self direction, without regard to prejudices or received ideas of the exact boundaries of woman’s sphere, or the right she has to be a self-poised untrammeled, helpful woman, being bound only by a sense of duty and good judgment.” The novel is also interesting for its two “Artotype” illustrations, which are unrelated to the text. These probably were inserted at the request and expense of the Artotype patent holder in order to advertise this new photomechanical process. In any case, this is a very early use of Artotype for book illustration.

James Daly, The little blind god on rails: a romaunt of the Gold Northwest. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1888. (PS1499 .D87 L5 1888)

Another unusual late 19^th-century example of “product placement” in American fiction is The little blind god on rails: a romaunt of the Gold Northwest, published in Chicago in 1888. This large-format work, authored by “James Daly” (pseudonym of Frank S. Gray) and profusely illustrated by True Williams (who earlier had illustrated Tom Sawyer), was written to promote leisure travel to the American northwest on board the Chicago & North-Western Railway. Train travel is the true hero of this tale, whose human characters, when not enjoying the sights or pursuing the “little blind god” (i.e. Love), extol the comfort and convenience of riding the rails.

J. McHenry Jones, Hearts of gold: a novel. Wheeling [W.Va.]: Daily Intelligencer Steam Job Press, 1896. (PS2151 .J28 H43 1896)

The Barrett Library has also acquired a fine copy of Hearts of gold, the only novel published by J. McHenry Jones. An African American born in Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1859, Jones distinguished himself academically before moving to West Virginia in 1882. There he became a leader in the African American community, serving as a school principal and president of what is now West Virginia State University, a prominent member of fraternal organizations, a Republican Party stalwart, and newspaper editor. Jones opens Hearts of gold, published in 1896, in an idealized African American settlement north of the Mason-Dixon line. Its protagonists then move southward to attend a fraternal gathering, only to fall prey to the new forms of racial injustice being instituted by whites in the post-Civil War South.

Faddeĭ Bulgarin, Ivan Vejeeghen, or, life in Russia. Philadelphia: Carey and Lea, 1832. (PG3321 .B8 I815 1832)

Thanks in part to the enterprise of British publishers—and to the absence of international copyright agreements—19^th-century American readers also had access to a surprisingly broad range of foreign literature in translation. In 1832, for instance, the Philadelphia firm of Carey and Lea—then the American publisher of James Fenimore Cooper’s best-selling novels—offered to their readers what may be the earliest work of Russian fiction to be translated into English, and the first to be published in the United States: Faddeĭ Bulgarin’s Ivan Vejeeghen; or, life in Russia. Set in early 19^th-century Russia, Ivan Vejeeghen is less the story of its rather bland hero than a lively panorama of contemporary Russian society. Bulgarin’s novel proved popular in Europe following publication in 1829, and an English translation by George Ross followed two years later. Carey and Lea promptly reprinted Ross’s translation, presumably without permission or royalty payment, but it is unlikely that they profited much from this speculation.

This Just In: “Billy” Cook’s Verse Chapbooks

Posted on July 18, 2013 by

Front cover of Cook’s Fremont: a poem (Salem, Mass., 1856) bound with The Eucleia (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

Special Collections is world renowned for its printed and manuscript holdings of American literature, amassed through purchase, gift, and the happy receipt of several substantial collections, most notably the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Deposited at the University of Virginia Library in 1960 and gradually given to the Library over the next three decades, the 250,000-item collection comprehensively surveys American literature in all genres from ca. 1775 to 1950. On its arrival the Barrett Library was rather awkwardly arranged in terms of “major” and “minor” authors—distinctions which of course lose meaning as literary reputations wax and wane and as scholarly interests shift.

Title page verso to William Cook, The Eucleia: works (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

This week’s post highlights one of these “minor” authors—William “Billy” Cook—whose work deserves wider recognition. The son of a ship captain and a lifelong resident of Salem, Mass., Cook (1807-1876) studied at Yale before his ambitions were checked by physical and mental illness. Back in Salem he conducted a private school for some years, where his students studied Latin, Greek, and mathematics (at which Cook excelled). He also studied for the ministry and conducted religious services at his home, though Cook never advanced beyond the rank of deacon. Beloved for his eccentricities and known locally as “Reverend,” Cook was for decades a fixture of Salem life.

Back cover of Cook's The Ploughboy, part third (Salem, Mass., 1855) and front cover of his The Telegraph, or Starr-banner song (Salem, Mass., 1856); both bound with The Eucleia (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

Back cover of Cook’s The Ploughboy, part third (Salem, Mass., 1855) and front cover of his The Telegraph, or Star-banner song (Salem, Mass., 1856); both bound with The Eucleia (Salem, Mass., ca. 1865) (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

Finding himself jointly summoned in the early 1850s by the Muses of Poetry and Art, Cook began composing verse in which Salem and its residents, contemporary political events and figures, and various philosophical themes loomed large. Unable to afford the services of a commercial printer, Cook salvaged some worn type and a small cast-off jobbing press from a local newspaper office. With this equipment Cook could print only a page or two at a time, but time was a commodity he had in abundance. Over the next two decades Cook issued nearly 50 broadsides and poetry chapbooks, the latter hand-stitched by Cook in printed wrappers or bound in decorated cloth covers. Many were illustrated with Cook’s charming woodcut illustrations, which were typically heightened with pencil (mostly to correct uneven inking) and sometimes in colors. Because Cook often assembled and hand-bound his chapbooks in customized collections, his works exist in many variants.

Many of Cook's woodcut illustrations (this one heightened with pencil) are useful contemporary depictions of Salem street scenes, such as this view of Liberty Street. William Cook, The Columbia (Salem, Mass., 1863) (Barrett PS586 .Z93 C673 C6 1863)

Many of Cook’s woodcut illustrations (this one heightened with pencil) are contemporary depictions of Salem street scenes, such as this view of Liberty Street. William Cook, The Columbia (Salem, Mass., 1863) (Barrett PS586 .Z93 C673 C6 1863)

Strictly speaking, one might classify Cook’s works as examples of “mendicant verse,” a not uncommon sub-genre of 19^th-century American minor poetry. Cook supplemented his modest income by peddling these chapbooks on Salem’s streets and to the increasing number of visitors who sought out his singular company. Late in life Cook took up painting, establishing a gallery in his home on Charter Street which attracted a new generation of visitors and chapbook purchasers. Although it would be stretching a point considerably to compare him with, say, William Blake, Cook is undeniably a fascinating practitioner of “folk” or “outsider” art.

Frotn cover of Cook’s The Columbia (Salem, Mass., 1863) (Barrett PS586 .Z93 .C673 C6 1863)

At one time it was not hard to find Cook’s ephemeral publications in New England, but today these are rarely encountered. Until recently the Clifton Waller Barrett Library could boast of holding only 13 Cook chapbooks. Now we have added ten more, increasing our holdings to approximately half of Cook’s recorded oeuvre. Fortuitously, all ten are gathered in one of Cook’s nonce collections, entitled The Eucleia with special added title page, hand bound by Cook in a remnant of striped cloth with woodcut title block stamped on the front cover. As far as we can tell, nothing has been written about Cook since 1924, when Lawrence W. Jenkins’s short article and checklist appeared in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. Perhaps by having now gone “under Grounds,” Billy Cook will soon receive the attention he deserves.

Front cover of William Cook's nonce collection of some of his works, The Eucleia: works (Salem, Mass., this copy assembled ca. 1865)

Front cover of a William Cook nonce collection containing ten chapbooks, The Eucleia: works (Salem, Mass., this copy assembled ca. 1865). Cook bound this copy in a “publisher’s binding” covered in a striped cloth remnant with woodcut title stamped in red. (PS1378 .C7 1865; Robert & Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund)

This Just In: Summer Beach Reading Edition

Posted on June 27, 2013 by

The following miscellany of recent book acquisitions is intended, not for those basking and basting on a sandy beach, but for those who prefer the cool, calm, and comfortable surroundings of the Special Collections reading room under Grounds. Take a break from tanning and pay us a summer visit!

Plate 13 in William M. Woollett, Old homes made new: being a collection of plans … illustrating the alteration and remodelling of several suburban residences (New York: A. J. Bicknell & Co., 1878).

A new addition to our extensive architecture holdings reminds us that architecture can be a process of renovation as well as creation. In Old homes made new (New York: A. J. Bicknell, 1878), Albany, N.Y. architect William M. Woollett offers remodeling advice to American homeowners. Stuck with a New England saltbox, Federal mansion, Greek Revival temple, or Gothic Revival embarrassment? Through before-and-after floor plans and exterior views, Woollett shows how to update one’s ancestral family home to the then-fashionable Queen Anne style. The work closes with exterior photographs of a mid-18^th-century home in Ridgefield, Conn. that Woollett had transformed into a Victorian showpiece. Architectural historians, historic preservationists, and others charged with reverse-engineering historic structures may find Woollett’s approach illuminating.

When money is THE object: one way to select a spouse in the Antebellum South, as explicated in S. S. Hall, The bliss of marriage: or, How to get a rich wife. (New Orleans: J. B. Steel, 1858)

But the nest must be built before it can be renovated. Populating that nest is the subject of S. S. Hall’s rare and unusual Bliss of marriage: or, How to get a rich wife (New Orleans: J. B. Steel, 1858). In some respects similar to the many courtship guides published in Antebellum America, Hall’s work is in other ways different in claiming to be written for a Southern audience. A New Orleans attorney (and not the prolific dime novel writer “Buckskin Sam” Hall, as often claimed), Hall based this work on three years’ “personal experience and general observation.” After offering advice such as “Marry no woman who sleeps till breakfast,” Hall devotes most of the book to the art of marrying well, and well-to-do. At the end is a 15-page appendix of nearly 400 wealthy “unmarried young ladies and gentlemen”—the former identified only by initials, the latter by full name—residing in various Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky towns, with their estimated net worth. One wonders how successfully Hall followed his own advice.

Title page to Wänskaps och handels tractat emellan Hans Maj:t konungen af Swerige och the Förente staterne i Norra America … = Traité d’amitié et de commerce entre Sa Majesté le roi de Suède et les Etats-unis de l’Amérique septentrionale … (Stockholm: Kongl. Tryckeriet, 1785)

To the McGregor Library of American History we have added the rare Swedish printing (Stockholm, 1785) of the landmark 1783 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Sweden and the United States. In September 1782, with the American Revolution drawing to a close, Congress empowered John Adams, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and Benjamin Franklin to negotiate peace with Britain. At the same time Franklin was appointed minister to Sweden, and he quickly entered into discussions with his Swedish counterpart. A treaty was concluded on April 3, 1783, and ratified by both countries later that year. Sweden thus became the first neutral country to officially recognize the United States. The treaty’s text is printed in parallel columns in Swedish and French, with Congress’s act of ratification appended in English.

A detail from one of the massive (53 x 36 cm.) engraved plates in André François Roland, Le grand art d’ecrire. (Paris: Chez Esnauts et Rapilly, [between 1777 and 1791]

Summer is no time to dredge up dreary memories of primary school penmanship class, but we can’t resist pointing out that the history of handwriting and calligraphy are strongly represented in Special Collections. At a recent auction we were able to acquire several very rare 18^th-century French, Italian, and German penmanship manuals, thereby adding significant depth to our holdings. Penmanship instruction was long the province of writing masters, some of whom published manuals for their students’ use. Typically these consisted of engraved plates reproducing examples of the master’s penmanship. Some plates would demonstrate how to hold the quill pen and execute the basic strokes, others would illustrate the various hands, and still others would advertise the master’s expertise, particularly his command of hand in which texts and even elaborate images were drawn without once lifting the pen from paper. These writing books were often published on demand, with students customizing their copies by selecting from among the available engraved plates, hence copies are rare and tend to vary in content. Shown here is a detail from Le grande art d’ecrire, which features the work of André François Roland, a Parisian writing master active in the mid-18^th century. The U.Va. copy, in its original blue paper wrappers, contains 31 plates and was issued sometime between 1777 and 1791. Other copies are known issued as early as 1758. This work is extremely unusual for its large format, with plates measuring 53 x 36 cm.

[Harvey Newcomb], The “Negro pew”: being an inquiry concerning the propriety of distinctions in the House of God, on account of color. (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1837)

Another spring auction added several anti-slavery and abolitionist works to Special Collections, including a fine copy in its original publisher’s binding with printed cover label of Harvey Newcomb’s The “Negro pew”: being an inquiry concerning the propriety of distinctions in the House of God, on account of color. Published in Boston in 1837, Newcomb’s book advanced the abolitionist movement a step further by confronting Northern prejudice against African Americans. Taking as his starting point the common practice of restricting where blacks could sit in church, Newcomb marshals many arguments to support his thesis “that every man is entitled to be esteemed and treated according to his social, moral, and intellectual worth.”

P. T. Barnum (er, Petite Bunkum) and General Tom Thumb make the acquaintance of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in The autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the showman. (New York: P. F. Harris, 1855)

The great American showman P. T. Barnum makes innumerable cameo appearances under Grounds in Special Collections’ rich holdings relating to 19^th-century American literature and culture, hence we were happy to acquire a rare Barnum parody. In 1855, just before financial reversals added further notoriety to his name, Barnum published a best-selling autobiography “written by himself.” The book was quickly and affectionately parodied in The autobiography of Petite Bunkum, the showman (New York: P. F. Harris, 1855), also (and anonymously) “written by himself.” “In these pages I have adhered to the truth as closely as might suit my purpose,” Bunkum allows, before relating his comical rise to fame and fortune. Of the supporting characters, only General Tom Thumb retains his full name. Others receive a modest fig leaf—Joyce Heath (for Joyce Heth, billed as George Washington’s 160-year-old nurse), Jenny [Lind] the Swedish Nightingale, the Fudge Mermaid, the Whiskered Woman—and all are caricatured in image as well as in word.

It’s 5 p.m. and we must close for the day, but perhaps there’s still time for the beach?

This Just In: Rolling in the Stacks with the Charlottesville Derby Dames

Posted on June 6, 2013 by

This week, we feature a guest post from Charlottesville Derby Dame Grëtel vön Metäl, also known as Gretchen Gueguen.

When we here at the Small Library think about new materials we would like to add to our collections we take many factors into consideration: the research quality of the content, connections to the University’s curriculum or history, or alignment with our core collecting areas. Given the breadth of subject, time period, and format of our collections we often come across materials that will complement or counterpoint something we already own, even though at first glance it might not seem to fit with everything else.

Such is the story of how we made our newest acquisition, the Charlottesville Derby Dames Records. The Dames are a non-profit women’s sport club here in Charlottesville founded in 2007. My day-job at the library is Digital Archivist, but on the flat-track I am known as “Grëtel vön Metäl.” When I mentioned one day that I was going to be skating with the Dames in an upcoming match (called a “bout” in derby parlance), our current Head of Technical Services, Edward Gaynor, immediately suggested that a collection of Dames materials would make an excellent complement to our collections of the papers of various local and regional “ladies’ clubs” such as The Garden Club or the Ladies’ Sewing Society. When researchers come to the Reading Room to look at these collections they are usually studying the ways in which women construct their identities in public: how do they present themselves? what kinds of activities do they become involved in? what can these things tell us about women’s roles?

A screenshot of the Dames’ website, ca. 2012 (MSS MSS 15490). Compare with the Team’s current page: http://www.charlottesvillederbydames.com.

A screenshot of the Dames’ website, ca. 2012 (MSS 15490). Compare with the Team’s current page: http://www.charlottesvillederbydames.com.

The sport of roller derby began in the late 1800s as endurance skating races. They were a popular activity for both sexes until entrepreneurs Leo Seltzer and Damon Runyon formed professional leagues featuring women in the 1930s and added elements of competition and physical contact. The sport was immensely popular, a staple of television, until the 70s. While the fights were often staged, the women skaters were skilled athletes.

Roller derby in the fifties was pretty rough and tumble, but with no protective gear (image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c13476/)

Roller derby in the fifties was pretty rough and tumble, but skaters wore no protective gear (image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c13476/)

Roller derby began its resurgence in the early 2000s in Austin, Texas. Doing away with the traditional banked track and playing on a flat oval made it easier to find a place to skate – anywhere you can find a big flat space, you can play roller derby (although a few leagues still use a banked track). The game quickly spread across the country and even across the globe. By 2013 over 1,200 leagues had formed on every continent but Antarctica, and men’s, junior’s, and co-ed leagues are growing in numbers as well.

Derby has a growing fan-base, and an even more passionate following among those who play it. Women’s roller derby is especially known for the colorful personas adopted by players, symbolized by their adopted “Derby Names.” The sport itself requires a high degree of athleticism combining strength, endurance, skill, and strategy, but on the flat track skaters can be as menacing (Soulfearic Acid), tough (Punky Bruiser), flirty (Sexy Sladie), or playful (Snot Rocket Science) as they want to be.

Today the Dames play with helmets, knee and elbow pads and wrist guards. This photo is from a bout in 2012 at Charlottesville’s Main Street Arena against the Charm City Rollergirls of Baltimore, Maryland (MSS 15490. photo by Dan Purdy).

The newly acquired Derby Dames collection here at UVa is unusual in more than just its subject. It was also a chance for us to acquire a modern collection composed almost entirely of electronic materials. As the Dames have only just recently formed, all of our operational documents, promotional material, and ephemera are created as electronic documents and most are never printed. While the library has collected about 30 posters, handbills, programs, and other ephemera, we’ve also collected more than 12,000 electronic documents including bylaws and policies, meeting minutes, graphics, photos, video, and websites.

I worked with the Dames to download a copy of all of the team’s working files from a shared Google Documents folder. These files were immediately copied for safe keeping and stored on an external hard drive. Next, I used specialized software to create listings of all of the files present and some technical details of each. A key piece of information is what’s called a “checksum” – a kind of digital fingerprint in the form of a numerical code created by running an algorithm on the contents of a file. That file and only that particular file will create that particular checksum. This allows me to verify that files haven’t been corrupted or tampered with over time.

After organizing and removing duplicates from the collection, I uploaded the new collection to networked library storage and created a finding aid. Future work will include creating a searchable, online archive of the documents (access will be available on Grounds in the Reading Room initially) and working with the Library IT department to ensure the long-term preservation of the content within the Library and University’s larger IT infrastructure. This work will not only ensure the future access to the Derby Dames collection, but will pave the way for more electronic collections to come.

This Just In: A Happy Reunion!

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

Here at U.Va. Thomas Jefferson looms large both on, and under, Grounds. It is only fitting that the Small Special Collections Library holds one of the world’s best collections of Jefferson manuscripts. Some form part of the U.Va. Archives, for Jefferson founded the university and served as its first Rector from 1816 until his death in 1826. Others have been placed in our care by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello. Still more have been acquired over the years through the generosity of many donors, who have either entrusted their Jefferson manuscripts to us or given funds for new acquisitions.

Jefferson is estimated to have written some 19,000 letters during his lifetime. A great many survive, and a significant number of Jefferson letters and documents remain in private hands. Given our finite resources, Special Collections can by no means acquire every Jefferson manuscript that comes on the market. Instead we patiently seek items of high research value, especially the previously unknown and unpublished. Our latest Jefferson acquisition arrived just last week, and it fits the bill perfectly: an early and highly significant manuscript, previously unknown and unpublished, which is the mate of a manuscript already at U.Va.

Our newly acquired Thomas Jefferson manuscript: the bottom half of a leaf containing his draft revision (ca. November 1769) of the rules under which the Virginia House of Burgesses conducted its business. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

But the story begins in 1988, when Special Collections learned of an unrecorded Jefferson manuscript being offered in an upstate New York auction. The document, for which we were high bidder, was identified by editors at the Papers of Thomas Jefferson as the top half of a leaf, written on both sides, containing Jefferson’s draft revision of the rules by which Virginia’s House of Burgesses conducted its business. Jefferson began his political career in 1769 when, at the age of 26, he took a seat in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. In November of that year he was appointed to a committee chaired by Edmund Pendleton, who assigned Jefferson the task of drafting new rules for the House. Jefferson’s draft was refined in committee before being approved by the House of Burgesses on December 8, 1769. These rules guided its deliberations in the crucial years leading up to the American Revolution.

In 1997 U.Va.’s incomplete manuscript was published in volume 27 of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, where it was described as Jefferson’s “earliest surviving documentary contribution as a public official to promoting the orderly conduct of legislative business, a subject of enduring interest that culminated during his vice-presidency with the publication in 1801 of his Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which still helps to guide parliamentary procedure in the United States Congress today.” In some respects it also prefigures Jefferson’s later committee assignment, in June of 1776, to draft another key document: the Declaration of Independence.

Proof that the document’s top and bottom halves were once joined: from left to right, note how the dot of the i and ascenders of the letters h, h and b align perfectly across the divide. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

Last month, on the opening night of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, I was called over to a dealer’s booth, where a modest scrap of paper was placed in my hands. It was none other than the missing bottom half of Jefferson’s 1769 draft! Negotiations were quickly concluded, and last week the two halves were happily, and permanently, reunited. Once the newly acquired manuscript is fully studied and published, we will know far more about this key episode in Jefferson’s nascent political career and the development of his political thinking.

Reunited at last! The top half is cataloged as MSS 10803; the newly acquired bottom half is presently being accessioned. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

Coincidentally, an exhibition of some of our best Jefferson manuscripts is on view under Grounds through June 8. Curated in cooperation with Monticello staff, “Thomas Jefferson Revealed” briefly surveys Jefferson’s pre-presidential years and his life at Monticello. Highlights include a ledger recording Jefferson’s Williamsburg book purchases from 1764-1766; his annotated copy of the London, 1787 edition of Notes on the State of Virginia; a lock of Jefferson’s hair taken on his deathbed, and a letter describing his last hours; and the manuscript autobiography of Isaac Jefferson, a Monticello slave.

This Just In: Horsing Around!

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

From time to time the Small Special Collections Library receives a transformative gift that reshapes its collections and collecting in unexpected, unusual, and ultimately very beneficial ways. One such gift was the 1985 bequest of the Marion duPont Scott Sporting Collection. A direct descendant of E. I. du Pont de Nemours (founder of the eponymous chemical company), Marion duPont Scott (1894-1983) was an internationally renowned horse breeder and equestrian who lived for many years at Montpelier—once the home of president James Madison—some 25 miles northeast of Charlottesville. She also formed a major collection of sporting literature—especially books, manuscripts, and periodicals relating to horses and horse-racing (though sports such as fishing, hunting, even cockfighting, are also represented)—that was entrusted to the U.Va. Library. Accompanying the 1,200-item gift was a generous acquisitions endowment that has so far enabled us to more than double the collection’s size.

Frontispiece to part 2 of Cesare Fiaschi, Trattato dell’imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli (Bologna, 1556)

How does one build such a collection in ways that not only honor the donor’s wishes but enhance its value to U.Va. and the international research community? The challenge has been an exciting one, for sporting and horses are subjects that permit us to forge stronger connections between the Scott Collection and our other diverse holdings. Here are a few examples drawn from many recent Scott Collection acquisitions.

Woodcut illustration from Cesare Fiaschi, Trattato dell’imbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli (Bologna, 1556)

We were able to obtain at auction a fine first-edition copy of a classic sixteenth-century work on horsemanship: Cesare Fiaschi’s Trattato dell’imbrigliare, attegiare, & ferrare cavalla, published in Bologna in 1556. This book now takes pride of place as the earliest work in the Scott Collection. Master of a famed riding academy founded in Ferrara in 1534, Fiaschi distilled in his book a lifetime’s knowledge concerning the training, equipping, and shoeing of horses. The work is also a notable example of early Italian book illustration, filled with dozens of woodcuts depicting bits, bridles, and horseshoes. Of particular note are the unusual diagrams mixing horse, rider, and music, which accompany Fiaschi’s famous explication of why tempo and rhythm are crucial to expert riding.

Engraved plate from Johann Elias Ridinger, Verstellung und Beschreibung derer Schul und Campagne Pferden nach ihren Lectionen (Augsburg, 1760)

Another classic equestrian manual, published two centuries later, is Johann Elias Ridinger’s Verstellung und Beschreibung derer Schul und Campagne Pferden nach ihren Lectionen (Augsburg, 1760). A noted German engraver, Ridinger (1698-1767) was renowned for his depictions of animals, especially horses. For this rare self-published work Ridinger prepared sixty finely engraved plates to illustrate the bilingual German and French text. As was typical of the time, Ridinger’s manual concentrates on riding maneuvers useful for a cavalry officer.

During the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, some of the finest color-plate books ever created were published in England. These works, which embraced a wide range of subjects, typically were illustrated with hand-colored aquatint plates. One of the most popular English illustrators working in the genre was Henry Thomas Alken (1785-1851), who combined a gift for caricature and love of sporting to illustrate many notable works on horse racing, fox-hunting, and other sports. The Scott Collection contains copies of nearly half of Alken’s sporting books, many of which are quite rare, and we are actively pursuing the remainder.

A one-foot section from Henry Alken’s panorama, A trip to Melton Mowbray (London, 1822), which is 26 feet in length.

Our latest Alken acquisition is his delightful A trip to Melton Mowbray, published in 1822. This 26-foot-long panorama consists of 14 hand-colored aquatint plates pasted together end-to-end and was originally issued wound around a wooden spindle. In our copy the plates have been separated and mounted in an album for easier viewing. The Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray, known for its pork pies and Stilton cheese, has for centuries also been famous as a fox-hunting mecca. In this work Alken imagines first the comic misadventures of a sporting party journeying from London to Melton Mowbray, and then its participation in the hunt.

One of two newly acquired pencil drawings by Henry Alken for his book, Ideas, accidental and incidental to hunting (London, ca. 1826)

As fine as they are, the color-plate works cannot do proper justice to Alken’s artistry, for something is inevitably lost in the process of translating his exquisite line drawings into the tonal process of aquatint. Hence we were delighted to acquire two original Alken pencil drawings made for another sporting book: Ideas, accidental and incidental to hunting and other sports (ca. 1826). By placing the drawings side-by-side with Alken’s books, we can teach in the most effective way possible both Alken’s remarkable artistry and the manner in which etchers translated his work to aquatint plates.

Advertisement for Sloan’s ointment in The complete farrier, or, Horse doctor (Chicago, 1848)

The Scott Collection is also strong in ancillary literature concerning horses. Here we are less interested in collecting comprehensively than in acquiring the particularly rare, significant, and out-of-the ordinary works that add distinction to a major research holding. In the area of veterinary medicine, for instance, we snapped up the second known copy of an early Chicago imprint: The complete farrier, or horse doctor, published by W. B. Sloan in 1848. Sloan was a Chicago purveyor of patent medicines, and the primary objective of this veterinary handbook was to advertise his horse ointment (“The best horse medicine in the world!”) and related products to upper Midwest horse owners.

Frontispiece and title page to The wonders of the horse (New York, 1836)

Literature featuring horses and equestrian sports also figures prominently in the Scott Collection. An unusual acquisition in this area is The wonders of the horse, recorded in anecdotes, and interspersed with poetry (New York, 1836). Written for a juvenile audience and first published in London in 1808, this illustrated work anthologizes short extracts about horses from contemporary literature and periodicals. This fine copy is resplendent in its original publisher’s binding of dark green ribbon-embossed cloth with a red glazed paper label printed in gold pasted to the front cover.

Horse breeders take pedigree as seriously as humans take genealogy, and we have taken advantage of an unusual opportunity to acquire several hundred late nineteenth-century catalogs issued by American horse farms and auction firms. Today these catalogs are extremely rare, especially in such a concentrated holding, yet they are essential sources for tracing race horse pedigrees. These join other catalogs and several complementary manuscript collections previously acquired for the Scott Collection that document the history of the American horse breeding industry. We have also added a variety of early trade catalogs featuring products suitable for raising and racing horses, such as an 1890 color-illustrated booklet featuring blankets for the well-dressed horse. These provide a wonderful complement to the extensive and diverse collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century trade catalogs recently given to us by Albert Small.

An opening from Jesse Haney’s Art of training animals (New York, 1869)

Other items in the Scott Collection document the roles horses have played in providing entertainment in circuses, exhibitions, and touring shows. Equestrian and other animal acts have long been circus staples, and they became even more popular in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of the touring circus. Haney’s art of training animals (New York, 1869) was one of the first general handbooks in the field. It begins with a long section on training horses to perform various tricks and to “act” in horse dramas, followed by another long section on training dogs. Other chapters concern elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys, pigs, rats and mice, seals, and birds, though we are told that “cats do not appear to be favorite subjects of the trainer’s art.” Another new acquisition is a profusely illustrated “autobiography” of famed circus horse Princess Trixie, the “Queen of all educated horses.” This pamphlet was sold on the road, wherever Princess Trixie was engaged to perform.

Keepsake pamphlet (ca. 1905) sold at performances by Princess Trixie, “Queen of all educated horses”

This Just In: First Cat in Space?

Posted on April 4, 2013 by

Now that we have your attention, in this post we feature a miscellany of recent book acquisitions.

An account of two balloon ascensions made in Valencia, Spain on March 12 and 15, 1784. The first was unmanned; the second carried “un gato grande.” (Photo by David Whitesell)

Before the rise of newspapers, news was often disseminated in the form of inexpensive pamphlets sold in bookshops and hawked on the street. We recently acquired the second recorded copy of a most unusual relación printed in Valencia, Spain and dated March 24, 1784. Its unnamed author describes what are perhaps Spain’s earliest balloon ascensions, undertaken only nine months after the Montgolfier brothers first launched their hot air balloon. The Spanish balloon, constructed primarily of paper and measuring 18 x 12 feet (1103 cubic feet), was smaller than the first Montgolfier balloon. Its six-panelled blue surface was lavishly decorated with the arms of Valencia and King Carlos III, an inscription from Homer, and other decorations appropriate for a pioneering aerial billboard. At 5:15 p.m. on March 12, 1784, the balloon ascended from an orchard just outside Valencia’s city wall, soon disappearing into the clouds before landing one league distant from the city. After some repairs, the balloon was relaunched from the same site on March 15, this time with “una jaula de alambre con un gato grande dentro de ella” (a wire cage with a large cat inside) suspended beneath. The balloon rose to a height of approximately 3,000 feet, then hovered motionless for ten minutes before making a gentle five-minute descent. Presumably the cat had much to say upon landing but, because it immediately clawed its way free and fled, its feelings about having been “el primer viajante aëreo de su especie” (the first aeronaut of its species) have been lost to posterity. We have found reference to a cat being sent aloft in a French balloon exactly one month earlier, on February 15, 1784, but it did not survive the flight, so the Spanish gato may well have been the first successful feline aeronaut. This relación joins the Small Special Collections Library’s extensive aeronautical history collection.

Original printed front cover to The Philosophy of Kissing, Anatomically and Physiologically Explained. New York: R.H. Elton, 1841. (Photo by David Whitesell)

The second quarter of the 19^th century saw a profusion of popular works devoted to courtship and marriage. Most were issued in a small, portable format and, to make them suitable for gift giving, dressed in attractive bindings. The Philosophy of Kissing, Anatomically and Physiologically Explained (New York, 1841), is one of the more unusual. The book’s perspective is stated up front: “Even Sir Isaac Newton, great philosopher as he doubtless was, kissed, and was kissed, though by no means to a remarkable extent, yet never enquired the WHY–never discovered the WHEREFORE. It was reserved for a later era and a more philosophical age … He ascertained existing phenomena, but found not the cause.” Perhaps so, but one might well add, tongue in cheek, that Newton fully understood the principle of gravitational attraction. The book might have been more successful—only one edition was published—if it had focused more on the how than on the why. This copy retains its original illustrated covers and contains a number of illustrations, including phrenological charts of the brain’s amatory regions.

First page of Specimens of Type in the Journal-Democrat Printing House (Warrensburg, Mo., ca. 1885), showing the smallest text types available in this printing shop. The textual snippets selected for typesetting are fascinating in their own right. (Photo by David Whitesell)

The Small Special Collections Library boasts a large collection of type specimen books dating back to the 18^th century. These can be either specimens issued by typefoundries, alerting printers to the typefaces, ornaments, and vignettes available for purchase; or specimens issued by printers, showing potential customers what resources were on hand for their book and job printing needs. Type specimens range in format from simple broadsides to massive, finely printed trade catalogs. Because most soon became outdated and were discarded, today many type specimens are rare. Although particularly useful to the bibliographer and printing historian, type specimens are valuable sources for investigating the nexus between print and society. One recent acquisition is the only known copy of a type specimen issued ca. 1885 by a rural Missouri printer: Specimens of Type in the Journal-Democrat Printing House. The Journal-Democrat was published out of Warrenton, Missouri and, like many newspapers of the time, also printed pamphlets, the occasional book, and especially all manner of jobbing work: blank forms, letterheads, posters, fliers and the like.

Two pages of stock cuts useful for a wide range of job printing. (Photo by David Whitesell)

This specimen book begins with 18 pages of typefaces in various sizes and decorative styles, most far more suited for jobbing work than for books. Following are 60 pages of ornaments and stock cuts akin to today’s clip art, which provide a unique window into what a frontier printing shop thought appropriate for its clientele.

Spine and front cover of the Mäzmurä Dawit, an early 19th-century Ethiopic manuscript of the Book of Psalms. (Photo by David Whitesell)

Our collection of medieval manuscript codices, fragments, and single leaves on vellum, parchment, and paper, receives constant use from U.Va. classes, Rare Book School courses, and scholarly researchers. The manuscripts are valuable for any number of reasons, including their texts, what they reveal about the materials and methods of medieval book production, manuscript illumination, and paleographical studies of the various scripts employed by medieval scribes. We recently acquired a manuscript codex which, we hope, will prove useful in the classroom for placing the medieval book in broader perspective.

Folio 1 recto, with decorative headpiece and first lines of text. (Photo by David Whitesell)

This finely preserved manuscript of the Mäzmurä Dawit, or Book of Psalms, is written in Ge’ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. It dates to the early 19^th century but looks centuries older. Indeed, it wonderfully demonstrates the close ties between the Western European manuscript tradition and the earlier, and more persistent, Christian tradition from which it sprang. In appearance its blind-tooled goatskin binding over thick wooden boards resembles a 14^th-century European binding. Its parchment leaves were prepared and written using traditional methods that Europe had largely abandoned three centuries earlier as it embraced the printed book. And in terms of illumination and binding construction, it is uniquely Ethiopian.

Two pages from Netter & Eisig’s Bucheinbandstoffe sample book (Göppingen, ca. 1912), with mounted cloth samples showing the range of colors in which this particular fabric was available. (Photo by David Whitesell)

From the 1820s onward, many books have been issued in “publisher’s cloth bindings,” i.e. bound in decorative cloth bindings prior to public sale. Bibliographers, booksellers, collectors, and library catalogers have traditionally described these in simple terms: “bound in publisher’s red cloth, gilt.” Recently bookbinding historians have come to understand that, by consulting sample books distributed to commercial binderies by bookbinding cloth manufacturers, it is possible to describe publisher’s bindings far more precisely. Such sample books are of legendary rarity, in part because the bookbinding cloth market was dominated by a handful of firms, who typically demanded the return of old sample books before new ones were sent. Hence we were delighted to acquire a fine, complete, and previously unrecorded copy of the Bucheinbandstoffe sample book issued ca. 1912 by Netter & Eisig of Göppingen, Germany. Included are 585 mounted samples of some 45 different fabrics showing the range of colors, qualities, and grains available. The first three pages provide samples of 48 different specialty grains which could be embossed into most cloth rolls prior to shipment. These cloths can be found on tens of thousands of publisher’s bindings for early 20^th-century continental European imprints.

This Just In: An Artist’s Book from CODEX

Posted on March 14, 2013 by

In mid-February, I took a trip out to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend the biennial Codex International Book Fair, which began in 2007 and has emerged as the premier venue for artists, printers, and dealers to display and sell artists’ books, fine press editions, and book art, with a particular emphasis on fine limited editions. Held this year at the beautiful Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, which overlooks the San Francisco Bay, the fair was a light-filled, dazzling display of creative production and craftsmanship. This new venue was necessitated by the growing number of visitors and exhibitors at the last fair. If, as they say, the book is a dying medium, “they” haven’t seen the diverse productions of book artists in recent decades, nor have they observed the increasing visibility of artists’ books beyond the small world of book artists and collectors.

Looking down on the Codex booths and buyers. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

I went to the fair seeking items that would help us expand Special Collections’ already robust and diverse collection of artists’ books and fine press editions, which are used widely in teaching by academic and Rare Book School faculty alike. I left having met dozens of artists, printers, and publishers from around the world, and waited eagerly for the arrival of my various purchases for the collection.

A great artist’s book is like a great poem. When you read such a poem the first time, you see it whole, appreciate its beauty and formal sophistication, grasp it fully on some level. When you reread it, you suddenly find that you do not understand it at all, and you’re not even sure what questions you need to ask of the poem before you can begin to understand it again. The deep pleasure that poetry brings me begins when I start formulating these questions, and it does not end until I must put down the poem to go wash the dishes or answer my email. It is this type of engagement I seek when I am selecting artists’ books for the collection.

I had this kind of experience when I came across the elegant Spandrel, a collaboration between Frank Giampietro and Denise Bookwalter, published by Small Craft Advisory Press at Florida State University, which had a booth at the fair:

The front cover of Spandrel. The book is very thick and has the appearance of great heft, but is surprisingly light when you pick it up. This is due to the cut interior and the Hosho paper, which is thick and fluffy. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

The title is an architectural term that refers to the empty space at the side of an arch (I can’t seem to explain this in words–I recommend that you Google it!). The press provides an excellent description of the book’s form: “Spandrel uses traditional and non-traditional processes to play with the reading of a poem. One poem is on the first page and slowly transforms through the 150 pages into the second poem, which is on the last page. In the middle of the book the text is unreadable but as the viewer nears the end the text comes back into focus.”

What this description doesn’t note is that none of this is printed: the text is an absence, cut out of the book with a laser, its font like a stencil. The shadows produced by the stacks of slowly shifting cuts on subsequent pages produces the visible text:

The first page of the text proper. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

A detail view of two words on the first page of the book reveals the edges of cuts below. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

The laser printing very slightly singes the page, producing a tinge of brown around each letter. Near parallels between the text of the poem and the form of the book begin to emerge as one considers the opening page: the singed pages and “roasted almonds” share the same color. The receding darkness behind each cut on the page seems somehow connected to the “dark cabinet.” There are disjunctions too: laser cutting is a relatively new technology associated with high-tech industry, while mason jars evoke homemade preserves. But this jar doesn’t hold preserves, just as this book doesn’t hold printing. Both hold something singed by heat. There is a sort of symmetry here.

But what happens next is more interesting. Looking at the first page, one might imagine that the entire text block (the “stack” of all of the book’s pages), was laser cut in one step. Page after page, the same poem appears again and again, but soon, it begins to shift slightly, and then more, until it moves towards illegibility and then back to legibility. Each page is cut separately from a series of digitally generated tempates:

Photo by Molly Schwartzburg

: Photo by Molly Schwartzburg

In the final pages, the text becomes clearer and clearer, and lighter and lighter, as there are fewer shadows to define the text. It finally resolves into this chilling poem, which takes more effort to read than the first one did:

Photo by Molly Schwartzburg

The image of domestic comfort in the opening poem is replaced by one of urban violence in the latter: ball-peen hammers are a dangerous weapon. The poem’s opening symbol of happiness–whole almonds protected in a clear jar inside a closed cupboard inside a home–is replaced by an image of the layers of someone’s skin, then skull, then brain being violently broken, shattered, and compressed respectively by a heavy blow. The lack of human actors in the first poem suddenly becomes apparent.

The second poem seeks actively to shock: mason jars are replaced by snot, and the strange elegance of the opening page is utterly lost.The reader begins shifting back and forth between the two poems, seeking to understand the differences between them, the justification for their juxtaposition, the physical location in which one word or phrase replaces another. I find my own mind running down multiple interpretive paths: which wins out in this book, happiness or the social self? What would happen if the two poems traded places, and it began with the social self and ended with happiness? Once I come to the word “ball peen” this suddenly seems to be a book about a man, since I only associate this kind of violence with men. Is he the subject of both poems? Is there a woman in the domestic space of the kitchen? And why are there almonds in the jar instead of preserves? And while I’m at it, what does any of this have to do with spandrels? It has something to do with empty spaces, with round holes produced by a hammer, with jars, cupboards. With absence–an empty house with an empty space in a cupboard, and a “social self” who experiences only violence. What lesson am I to learn from all of this? What is the poet telling me? What is the book telling me?

There are likely no clear answers to these questions; the two poems are not entirely symmetrical, do not have some kind of straightforward causal relationship. If they did, the book would fail because it would be clever, even smug. Instead, its mysterious, discomfitting texts and physical form together produce a fertile space for contemplating the poetry, heightening the reader’s capacity to observe the very specific elements of sentences, phrases, and lines. It is a dazzling example of the productive relationship that can exist between a book and its contents.

This is just one of the many wonderful items found at the fair. Too bad I have to wait two years for the next one!

If you get overwhelmed looking at books at Codex, step just outside and take in the view. The Bay Bridge may be seen on the left. (Photo by Molly Schwartzburg)

This Just In: A Peek Inside the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic

Posted on February 20, 2013 by

In a previous post Nicole Bouché, Director of the Small Special Collections Library, related the story of how the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic arrived at its permanent home under Grounds. Thanks to the magnificent gift of the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Novels received in 1942, U.Va. has world-renowned holdings in the English Gothic novel, now wonderfully augmented by the Lévy Collection. Here is a brief peek at a few of its riches.

A shelf of Ann Radcliffe in French translation.

At the core of the Lévy Collection are its many contemporary French translations of English Gothic novels. Here, for instance, is a listing of the Ann Radcliffe works to be found in the Lévy Collection:

Les châteaux d’Athlin et de Dunbayne. Paris: Testu, 1797.
Le couvent de Sainte Catherine, ou les moeurs du XIII° Siècle. Paris: Renard,1810.
Eléonore de Rosalba, ou le confessionnal des pénitens noirs. Paris: Lepetit, 1797.
La forêt, ou l’Abbaye de Saint-Clair. Paris: Denne, 1796.
La forêt, ou l’Abbaye de Saint-Clair. Paris: Maradan, 1798.
La forêt, ou l’Abbaye de Saint-Clair. Paris: Lévy, 1880.
L’italien, ou le confessionnal des pénitens noirs. Paris: Maradan, 1798.
L’italien, ou le confessionnal des pénitents noirs. Paris: Lévy, 1873.
Julia, ou les souterrains de Mazzini. Paris: Maradan, 1798.
Julia, ou les souterrains du château de Mazzini. Paris: Lévy, 1897.
Les mystères du château d’Udolphe. Paris: Lévy, 1874.
Le tombeau. Paris: Lerouge, 1812.
Les visions du château des Pyrénées. Paris: Lévy, 1896.

Le moine, comédie en cinq actes (Paris, an VI [1797/98])

The Gothic novel proved so popular with readers that it quickly penetrated popular culture in both England and France, attracting a wider audience. Consider, for example, Matthew Gregory Lewis’s novel, The Monk. It created a sensation when first published in London in 1796. The following year it was translated into French and published in Paris as Le moine, and the Lévy Collection contains a copy of the first French edition. In December of 1797 Lewis’s novel was adapted for the Paris stage, in true French fashion, as a “comédie en cinq actes, mélée de chants, danses, pantomime.” The Lévy Collection includes a fine copy of the rare printed text, which contains a cast list for the premiere performance at the Théâtre de l’Émulation, together with, intriguingly, “des changemens et un nouveau denouement.” (Please, not a happy ending!)

Matthew Gregory Lewis, Le moine (Paris, 1797)

Reversed positions: Matthew Gregory Lewis, Le moine (Paris, an VI [1797/98])

As Nicole Bouché has noted, Maurice Lévy was fascinated by the illustrations found in French Gothic novels, and in 1973 he published a book on the subject, Images du roman noir. Illustrations may reveal unexpected things about a publication. For example, the first French translation of The Monk (Paris, 1797) includes an etched frontispiece depicting one of the novel’s most dramatic moments. The translation sold so well that the same publisher issued a new edition later that same year. But in that edition’s frontispiece, the characters switch positions. It is likely that the publisher, not anticipating the need for a second edition, neglected to save the copperplate and therefore had to commission a new plate of the same image. In copying the original frontispiece (which printed in reverse orientation from the design as etched on the copperplate), the etcher necessarily reversed the image!

The castles of Montreuil & Barre (London, [ca. 1820])

For those English readers who could not afford the cost of a multi-volume novel, publishers offered Gothic fiction in shorter, less expensive form. The castles of Montreuil & Barre was first serialized in The Lady’s Magazine during 1797-1798, then printed in chapbook form (“price sixpence”) with a lurid hand-colored frontispiece to attract purchasers. Special Collections already possesses two early chapbook editions of this work, courtesy of the Sadleir-Black Collection, and the Lévy Collection contributes a third, published by W. Mason and dating to ca. 1820. This copy is in its original blue paper wrappers, which feature on the inside a list of the various chapbooks available at “Mason’s Pamphlet Warehouse” on Clerkenwell Green.

Because many of the Lévy volumes are two centuries old, they display interesting evidence of ownership and use by multiple generations of readers and collectors. Two works in the Lévy collection, for instance, bear the booklabel of noted artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). It is shown here (above Maurice Lévy’s booklabel), pasted into a copy of the intriguingly titled Miss Glamour, ou les hommes dangereux (Paris, an IX [1800/01]). Styled on the title-page as a ‘free translation from the English’ by Théodore-Pierre Bertin, the original English novel has yet to be positively identified. Perhaps Bertin, who self-published this very rare edition, was actually its author?

Emanuella, ou la découverte premature (Paris, an IX [1800/01]) is a French translation of Eliza Haywood’s The rash resolve, or the untimely discovery. First published in 1724, decades before the heyday of the Gothic novel in England, its plot nonetheless contains some Gothic elements, and it is interesting to see it revived at this time for the French market. Also interesting is the provenance: this copy bears the booklabels of (at top) prolific author Paul Lacroix (“Bibliophile Jacob,” 1806-1884) and (at bottom) the founder of Surrealism, André Breton (1896-1966). Fittingly, Breton’s arresting booklabel was designed by Salvador Dalí.

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

Notes from Under Grounds

Category Archives: Acquisitions