The Enlightenment produced many great thinkers, but Immanuel Kant stands out as one of the most influential philosophers in history. As celebrations take place around the world to mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, it’s an ideal time to reflect on his legacy in the world of rare book collecting. While Kant may be most renowned for his work in philosophy, his books reveal contributions in areas as diverse as physics, geopolitics, and theology. The remarkable scope of his achievements should secure him a place in collections of science, politics, and religion, as well as philosophy. So, what does the Kantian oeuvre look like, which works offer an accessible foothold into the market, and what do you need to know as a new (or established) collector?

Kant: The Man and the Books

Despite the international spread of his books, Kant spent his entire life in the small city of Königsberg (modern-day Kaliningrad), in the Kingdom of Prussia. An academic at the University of Königsberg, he was by turns an undergraduate, a freelance lecturer, a sub librarian, and finally, the university professor of logic and metaphysics.

As a full-time academic, Kant left an extensive body of work – one bibliography lists 159 separate items. His earliest work in the 1740s and 1750s developed from his undergraduate studies, and focusses on scientific investigations. Physics gradually gave way to metaphysics, and his work in the late 1750s and 1760s increasingly criticises the rationalist philosophies of Leibniz and Wolff. The period from 1770 to 1781 is known as the silent decade: he published no major works and concentrated on writing the Critik der reinen Vernunft (1781). The 1780s, in turn, are dominated by the Critiks of reinen Vernunft, of practischen Vernunft (1788), and of Urtheilskraft (1790) – his key texts on epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. From the 1790s onwards, he wrote his principal books on politics, anthropology, and religion, and arranged several editions gathering his early articles and lecture notes.

With a couple of exceptions, the three Critiks remain the major treasures for collectors. The Critik der reinen Vernunft, arguably his single most important work, has always been the most highly sought-after, with good copies often selling for around £35,000.

Presentation copies, as always, add an extra level of interest. Kant’s letters suggest that he sometimes commissioned four or five such copies of his major works, printed on paper around three times thicker than that of standard copies, and with generous margins. Reflecting his modest personal ambitions, these were often sent to fellow philosophers and theologians, although at least one appears to have made it to an aristocratic patron. Presentation copies have been identified for the Critik der Urtheilskraft and for Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793).

Science, Newton, and nebular hypotheses

Other than the three Critiks, the major jewels for Kantian collectors are undoubtedly his scientific works, which date from the earliest period of his career and are extremely scarce on the market. Kant’s early studies at the University of Königsberg included mathematics and physics, so it’s not entirely surprising that his first published works deal with scientific questions. His professors introduced him to the work of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, and the Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (1749), his very first book, mediates between the Newtonian and Leibnizian approaches to measuring kinetic force.

Kant continued to write on scientific matters for many years, and with considerable success. Alongside the Gedanken, his most significant text for the collector of science is the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (1755), in which he develops the theory that planetary systems coalesce from the condensation of large gaseous clouds. The Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis, although heavily revised in the 20th century, remains widely accepted to this day. The Allgemeine Naturgeschichte, which was privately financed by Kant’s uncle Richter, is the most valuable of all his works, with one copy recently listed for just over £100,000.

Politics, Globalisation, and Democratic Peace Theory

Although Kant isn’t often thought of as a political theorist, the collector of political theory will find in him a prescient and perceptive writer – particularly in his Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf (1795). Against the backdrop of the French Revolutionary Wars, Kant envisages a global federation of states, reorganised as democratic republics – an idea which, as many have noted, contains something approaching a world league of nations. Kant’s belief that democratic republics are inherently less willing to engage in armed conflict anticipated the modern doctrine of democratic peace theory, and so the foreign policy of many 20th-century liberal states.

Religion, Rationality, and the King of Prussia

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of Kant’s most immediately controversial books was his major treatise on religion. Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, his final major work, argues that religious knowledge can be entirely grounded within human rationality – and not divine revelation. That argument led to censorship by the Prussian royal authorities, and then, when Kant ignored them, by King Friedrich Wilhelm II himself. In 1794, Kant was forced to promise the King not to publish anything further on religious matters: a promise he instantly dropped when Friedrich died in 1797. Although Kant led a famously uneventful life in Königsberg, the Religion episode indicates that this was due more to circumstance than to any inherent docility on his part.

Collecting Kant

Many of the aforementioned works provide accessible entry points to the Kantian market. The political and religious works of the 1790s come up regularly and can usually be found for under £5,000, while the philosophical treatises of the 1760s, many of which anticipate the later Critiks, often sell for under £2,500. A good example here is the Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grössen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (1763), a critique of Leibnizian rationalism. The collected editions of the 1790s, among the less appreciated of Kant’s books and a key source for his early lecture notes, can be picked up for under £1,000.

The major bibliographies on Kant are those by Arthur Warda (1919) and Eric Adickes (1970), both of which are accessible on Archive.org. The Kantian collector should ideally consult both, for while Adickes writes in English, Warda provides a more comprehensive breakdown of each text’s contents, including blank leaves (Blatt weiß), errata (Blatt Druckfehler), and more. Neither bibliography, however, documents the numerous translations of Kant’s works.

When Kant died in February 1804, the final words of a lifetime of contemplation were, “it is good”. Challenged and championed in equal measure, the diminutive academic from Königsberg had forever changed the course of Western philosophy. The depth of his thought, and the breadth of his contributions, make him an essential figure for collectors across the board.

Written by Bookseller and Cataloguer Simon Cumming

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The Hejaz Railway, the lifeline of the Ottoman Empire in Arabia and a strategic target of the Arab Revolt, began to be constructed by imperial decree in 1900, at the behest of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909). It was an astounding feat of engineering which demonstrated to the world the Ottoman programme of modernization and ushered in a new era of communication. Extending 1,300 km across vast tracts of inhospitable desert towards the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, the railway simplified travel between Damascus and the heart of Arabia, replacing arduous journeys by caravan with swift and comfortable transportation. From 1908, when the line reached Medina, it allowed hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims to make the hajj to Mecca in safety and with relative ease. It also supported Abdülhamid’s project of Pan-Islamism, allowing Ottoman troops to stream into Arabia and increase the empire’s influence in the region.

Breaking Ground

The central line from Damascus to Medina largely followed the old caravan route. Its course was surveyed in 1900 by the veteran military engineer Hajji Mukhtar Bey, who conducted expeditions in east Africa in the late nineteenth century. This rare and important official map from 1903 is based on a manuscript drafted by two Ottoman cavalry officers, Captain Umar Zaki and Lieutenant Hasan Mu‘ayyin, under Hajji Mukhtar Bey’s supervision. The map covers the entire region, from just north of Hama, Syria, all the way south to Mecca. It provides a rare perspective on the railway’s embryonic development, clearly delineating those parts that had already been built in 1903 and those under construction, and each station is labelled. Additionally, it depicts the two alternative routes proposed for extending the line to Mecca and traces the suggested (but unrealized) route of a rail line from Mecca to the port of Jeddah. Early Accounts of the Route

On 1 September 1904, Abdülhamid arranged a splendid inauguration ceremony to celebrate the laying of the track between Damascus and the town of Ma’an (now in Jordan). Many Ottoman dignitaries attended, and journalists from around the world were invited to document the empire’s great engineering achievement. Among the attendees was Eduard Mygind, a roving reporter for the Berlin Tageblatt, who had been based in Istanbul for some years. Mygind later published an account of the railway entitled Vom Bosporus zum Sinai (From the Bosphorus to the Sinai), a wry narrative which relates his preparations in Istanbul and journey to Damascus, before describing the technological achievements involved in the construction of the railway. Mygind also highlights the importance of the Hejaz Railway to pan-Islamic unification, concluding by emphasizing the significance of German expertise in its construction and praising Abdülhamid II as the driving force behind the project. Changing Priorities: The First World War

After the deposition of Abdülhamid and the sudden loss of the empire’s North African and European territories, the Hejaz Railway acquired an even greater significance in holding the remaining Ottoman territory together. The strategic demands of the First World War encouraged the Ottoman state to build branch lines, particularly in the direction of the Suez Canal, which was under British control. This rare decree by the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies, written in the opening months of the First World War, vividly demonstrates Ottoman military preparations in action. It outlines the state’s commitment to constructing a 23-kilometre railway connection between the towns of Jenin and Nablus in what is today the West Bank, as an extension of the Jerusalem branch of the railway. The railroad was a key piece of infrastructure in supplying Ottoman troops in the Sinai, hence the decision of the Ottoman government to spend large amounts of money on its expansion as the war began. The Arab Revolt

On 10 June 1916, the Arab Revolt against Ottoman authority was launched at Mecca. The Hejaz Railway immediately became an important target for the Arab forces: if the principal Ottoman supply line could be disrupted, the Arab bid for independence would have a far greater chance of success. While T.E. Lawrence fought alongside the Arab forces on the ground, British officers at the Arab Bureau in Cairo, the famed military intelligence unit of which Lawrence was a part, closely followed the course of the Revolt. This exceedingly rare and important map of January 1917 was produced by the bureau and focuses on northern Arabia, which became the epicentre of the revolt in the months immediately following publication. The locations depicted include Aqaba, which fell to Arab forces in July 1917 with the assistance of Lawrence, and the Hejaz Railway, which was targeted in Arab-British raids at al-Akhdar and Mudawwara. This map would have been hurriedly produced in a very limited print run. It was almost certainly the most accurate map of this critical theatre available to the British high command at a vital moment in the campaign. Lawrence’s Involvement with the Railway

Lawrence’s famed assault on the railway is described in detail in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom. This outstanding exemplar of his “big book” was presented by Lawrence to his “imperturbable” brother-in-arms, Lieutenant Samuel H. Brodie, and is accompanied by a collection of photographs which draw us into the world of front-line service on the Hejaz Railway. This copy is inscribed on a preliminary blank in the hand of Brodie’s mother “Samuel H. Brodie from Colonel T. E. Lawrence, December 1926”, and is one of 32 incomplete subscribers’ copies (from a total edition of 211) intentionally issued in this way under Lawrence’s instructions.

The core of the accompanying collection consists of over 150 original photographs, loose and in albums. Highlights include wonderfully evocative images of Brodie’s unit in the field, including Brodie himself, his second-in-command George Pascoe, and attacks on strategically important stations along the Hejaz Railway. Images illustrate the 8 August 1918 attack at Mudawwara, a key station south of the heavily fortified Ottoman stronghold at Ma’an. Brodie’s snapshots show the destroyed station from different positions, including images of shattered buildings and a shot of the explosion that destroyed the well. Hejaz comes to Hollywood

Finally, perhaps the most famous representation of the Hejaz Railway appears in David Lean’s classic film of 1962, Lawrence of Arabia. The centrepiece of this insightful archive is a gift given to the film’s star, Peter O’Toole, shortly before the film’s premier, by his wife Sian Phillips and his close friend, the Welsh actor Kenneth Griffith. The gift consists of an unpublished Lawrence letter and a postcard, framed as a piece, intended to help O’Toole through two anxious months of post-production, providing the actor with a tangible link to the man whom he portrayed so memorably on screen.

Written by Arabist James White and Travel Specialist Cecilie Gasseholm  BROWSE TRAVEL ABU DHABI CATALOGUE

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The desire to replicate nature in print has created some of the most desirable and collectable publications in the book world, as well as incredible developments in printing techniques. These have consequently often been adopted by artists interested less in botanical science and more in aesthetics. From the woodcuts used in the monumental early herbals, to the use of collotypes to reproduce the essence of flowers in the artwork of Gustav Klimt, our blog today takes us through some key moments in the history of botanical illustration.

Leonhart Fuchs De historia stirpium, printed in 1542, was “one of the landmarks of pre-Linnaean herbal-botanical literature”, richly illustrated with woodcuts and containing the first printed glossary of botanical terms. It encompasses over 400 German species and 100 foreign species of plants, most of which were drawn from samples in Fuchs’s personal garden. The woodcuts of the plants are to scale and include their root systems and, often, sample-specific details such as leaves damaged by insects. They established a standard of plant illustration still followed to this day. For the illustrations, Fuchs employed three artists: Albrecht Meyer, who drew the plants from life, Heinrich Füllmaurer, who transferred the images to woodblocks, and Veit Rudolph Speckle, who undertook the woodcutting. Portraits of these men all appear in the book itself, making it “one of the earliest examples of such a tribute paid to artists in a printed book” (PMM).

The first German edition of 1543 was extensively revised and enlarged with six additional illustrations and a new index. With these changes and its stronger medicinal focus, the function of woodcuts was further sharpened with their accuracy to nature paramount for their scientific use.

What is a woodcut?

Woodcuts are a form of relief printing. They are difficult to get right and take considerable skill to produce. The image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, that crucially has been cut along the grain. The nature of wood means the grain can have a significant effect on the final product if not carved with care.

The areas to show white in the finished image are cut away with a gouge, knife, or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show at the original surface level. The surface is covered with ink using a roller and the paper is then pressed over the inked surface to produce the image.

As woodcuts and movable type are both relief-printed this method was the main medium for book illustrations until the late 16th century.

John Gerard’s The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes was published in 1597 and became most famous herbal in the English language. For that richly illustrated edition the publisher used borrowed woodcuts from the German physician Tabernaemontanus’s Neuw Kreuterbuch, published in 1588. The production of the woodcuts was funded by Count Palatine Frederick III and the publisher Nikolaus Bassæus, and the first volume took 36 years to produce. They were later acquired by the printer John Norton and thence used to illustrate the plants described by Gerard, demonstrating the practical nature of book production at the time.

In 1633 a much revised and enlarged edition of Gerard’s Herball was issued by the keen botanist Thomas Johnson, his corrections to Gerard’s original text diligently marked up. Johnson’s edition was also expanded with new illustrations. These were taken from Rembert Dodoens’s herbal Stirpium historiae pemptades sex, originally published by the famous Antwerp printer Christopher Plantin in 1583, and they were praised for the finer level of detail they provided.

During the 1700s the flourishing genre of travel accounts meant an increase in botanical plate books depicting plants from across the globe. Griffith Hughes’s The Natural History of Barbados was published in 1750 with a large paper issue that featured 25 of its 30 engraved plates hand-coloured. 12 of the plates featured were after renowned botanical artist Georg Dionysius Ehret, one of the greatest botanical painters of the 18th century and the most dominant influence in the field. The botanical plates in Hughes’s work are listed as engraved by James Mynde, George Bickham (who also drew the artwork), and, some scholars claim, Ehret himself. Unfortunately, his skill as a painter was not matched by that as an engraver, being described as “usually competent – but uninspired” (Blunt, p.149).

What does it mean for an engraving to be “after” someone?

Engraving (intaglio printing or gravure) was invented in Germany in the 1430s and was developed as an original art form in the 15th and 16th centuries by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden, and Andrea Mantegna. The image is incised into a plate, initially copper and later steel, and the cut line then holds the ink: the deeper the cut the darker the impression. This is the reverse of a relief print like a woodcut. Incisions can be made by a wide variety of methods, including using a burin, needles, or acids. A plethora of printing techniques were consequently developed in this medium and they allowed a greater accuracy in reproducing drawn and painted works.

In the 18th century the practice of engravers reproducing the work of artists in a more accessible form became highly popular. Although a remarkably close copy of the original was possible, at this point it was impossible for a reproductive print to be a perfect replica of a painting. Reproductive prints therefore often distorted the intention of the painter, whether unintentionally or not: some engravers gaining a reputation for softening images, idealizing them, or making them more picturesque. Indeed, some artists such as Joshua Reynolds were particularly careful to allow only those engravers in which they had certain confidence the privilege of reproducing their work, recognizing the interpretive nature of the job.

Engravers were often named alongside the original artist on the plates, their skill in copying the details of the original artwork recognized, and their plates listed as “after” the artist.

Hand-colouring of botanical plates existed from the earliest herbals: the publisher of Fuchs for example issuing copies in a coloured state based on Fuchs’s coloured drawings of living specimens. Hand-colouring of copper-engraved plates theoretically allowed a level of accuracy that the black and white printing could not, and it was standard in botanical works into the 19th century.

Thomas Green’s The Universal Herbal, for example, first issued in parts from 1816 to 1820, was an encyclopaedic work that claimed to list all the known plants in the world. The revised edition of 1823 featured 106 hand-coloured engraved plates. From the 1830s that form of colouring was replaced by a wave of new methods, including aquatints, mezzotints, and stipple engravings, often printed in colour. This period is often referred to as “the finest hour of colour printing” (Sitwell, p. 1). By the end of the 19th century the chromolithograph, the colour printed directly on the stone with the etched design, had become the predominant method of botanical printing for books, with some regretting the loss of detail this more efficient and cheaper method entailed.

New methods of printing, including photographically based reproductive printmaking, appealed both to botanists and artists alike. While the botanical illustration discussed thus far aimed for near perfect accuracy with a scientific purpose, the corresponding world of flower painting that developed alongside it was all about the aesthetic. Although remembered most for his portraiture, botanicals and landscape painting became an increasingly important outlet for Gustav Klimt from the 1890s onwards, and stylised floral motifs appear throughout his work.

His portfolio Eine Nachlese, was printed in 1931 by the art historian Max Eisler using the collotype printing method. This fragile technique was often employed by artists for its ability to reproduce the subtle delicacy of drawings, as well as the tonal gradations of the original work. The fine chine colle paper Eisler used for the portfolio allowed even greater colour saturation, and the resulting prints are now some of Klimt’s most well-regarded.

What is a collotype?

Collotype is a form of photographic printing invented by Alphonse Poitevin in 1855. It was the first form of photolithography. The complicated, lengthy process involves gelatin colloids mixed with dichromates (salts of certain acids). A photographic negative is projected onto a printing plate coated with light-sensitive gelatin that hardens and becomes receptive to the application of ink. Paper is laid on top and the image is printed. It became an increasingly popular form of fine art printing in the 19th century. Fragile hand-printed collotype plates cannot be reused, so the run must be completed on the first go and in only a limited number, adding to its appeal, if not cost-effectiveness. Endeavours to make this labour-intensive and time-consuming process economically viable for large print runs failed, and consequently it fell out of popularity by the latter half of the 20th century.

Written by Rare Book Specialist, Suzanna Beaupré

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Bibliography

1. Wilfrid Blunt, The Art of Botanical Illustration, Collins, 1950.
2. Sacheverell Sitwell (ed.), Great Flower Books 1700-1900, H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd, 1990.

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Live theatre is, by its very nature, transient. It is experienced by an audience on a specific evening and, after the curtain falls, it is only the memory of the performance that remains. Or is it? 

In this blog I’d like to look at a few special scripts that are textual witnesses to the changes that happen during rehearsal. They help provide a context or evidence for this most ephemeral of short-lived spectacles. 

​But, first, let’s take a very quick look at other types of source material. Most stage shows are based on something else. Shakespeare plundering the chronicles of Holinshed is well-known. As are sources for musicals. There should be no prizes for knowing the inspiration behind Bart’s Oliver!, Minchin’s Matilda, Boublil and Schonberg’s Les Misérables, or Loesser’s Guys & Dolls. With a few obvious exceptions, however, it’s rare to find a hugely successful adaptation of an extremely well-known book. There have, for example, been musical versions of Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, The Lord of the Rings, and Robinson Crusoe. But they’ve rarely been palpable hits. On the other hand, Fiddler on the Roof is far better-known than the source stories by Sholem Aleichem. I’d also suggest that more people are familiar with The Sound of Music than The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, or The King and I than Anna and the King of Siam. There are, naturally, plenty of musicals based on films, or jukebox musicals which have no book source. There are musicals based on comic strips (The Addams Family, Annie and, my personal favourite, Snoopy! The Musical) or true events, or biographies, or plays, or a vast number of other sources. My point is that, within the book world, there are excellent opportunities to assemble a collection of interesting source texts that have significant interest as books in their own right.

How source material has been developed and transformed from page to stage provides many insights into the creative process. But once that process has started, to what extent can we chart or understand this development? It’s at this point that original scripts become important.

At Peter Harrington, we are privileged to be handling some scripts from the significant theatre collection of Clive Hirschhorn, the distinguished film and theatre critic for the Sunday Express and whose histories of the film industry include The Warner Bros (1978) and The Hollywood Musical (1981). The collection includes a number of rehearsal scripts used during the creative process and these provide a fascinating insight into the development of some exceptional productions.

 

A working rehearsal script for West Side Story was once owned by Mickey Calin, who created the role of Riff. It’s a fascinating combination of carbon and mimeographed leaves and suggests that changes to the script were distributed in carbon copies to appropriate members of the cast (to replace mimeographed pages). The text was seemingly being revised throughout rehearsals. In all, this copy has 27 different sections in either carbon or mimeograph. One section, Act 1, scene 2, is represented twice. One part, Act 1, scene 8, is not represented at all (beyond a title). It is significant that the musical numbers are indicated within the script, but that the lyrics are not present. The songs “America”, “Maria”, and “I feel pretty” are named, but the opening number “When you’re a Jet” is simply introduced as “Riff sings first chorus of song”. Elsewhere there are a large number of changes to the text for the character of Schrank (Officer Krupke’s sidekick), suggesting that ownership of this script changed during the rehearsal period. Intriguing notes also include a few snatches of “America” with “Puerto Rico, you lovely island / Island in the tropic breezes”. This is not exactly the version that survived to the opening night. Given that Clive Hirschhorn worked within the theatre industry, he frequently had an opportunity to acquire an interesting signature or inscription. This script is no exception. It is inscribed by the author of the “book”, “To Clive Hirschhorn, Best wishes, Arthur Laurents, 4/21/99” and the lyricist has provided an inscription using Clive’s occasional pseudonym, “To Clive Errol, Stephen Sondheim, 4/24/98”.

 

If West Side Story changed the Broadway musical in the late-1950s, it was the partnership of Rodgers and Hammerstein who first started to shake things up in the mid-1940s. Oklahoma! is generally remembered as a musical in which musical songs are integrated into the action to advance the plot (compared with stand-alone numbers which did nothing for the narrative). It was in Carousel, their second musical, in which this was further developed. The courtship of Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan is one of the longest in any Broadway show and through dialogue, underscore and song the story advances in a new and stunning way. It is therefore exciting to have the rehearsal script owned by Jan Clayton, the creator of the role of Julie, and see a small change in her dialogue in this scene. The line as present on the mimeographed script is “I like to watch the moon upon the sea”. This has been changed by hand to “To watch the moon come closer to the sea”. A significant revision is the scene when Billy dies and is received into Heaven by the characters of “He” and “She”. It was a scene that caused Rodgers and Hammerstein considerable difficulty. Rodgers would later refer to the characters as “Mr and Mrs God” and the general feeling was that the scene didn’t work. It was cut and a replacement character, the Star-Keeper, created. The original scene is, however, contained in the present script.

 

When the original owner, Jan Clayton, left the cast for another show, she evidently asked some of her fellow cast members to inscribe her script. She was, evidently, going to be missed. Inscriptions include “Dear Jan, I wish the west could send us more leading ladies like you. Everyone in the company loves you and how we’ll miss you – But, we are wishing you all the success in the world in Show Boat and then on and on and on and on” and “Some replacements are ok – but you are Julie”.

Turning to plays, the Hirschhorn Collection includes a rehearsal script of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, formerly owned by Beatrice Straight who created and won a Tony Award for the role of Elizabeth Proctor. Set during the Salem witch trials of the 1690s, The Crucible was a thinly-veiled attack on the persecution of left-wing individuals in the US, known as McCarthyism. The play won the 1953 Tony Award for “Best Play” (and therefore made Miller the first recipient of two Tony Awards in this category). It opened on Broadway on 22 January 1953 starring Arthur Kennedy as John Proctor, Walter Hampden as Deputy-Governor Danforth, E. G. Marshall as Reverend John Hale, Madeleine Sherwood as Abigail Williams, and Beatrice Straight. During the run, Miller revised the piece and added a brief scene between Abigail Williams and John Proctor that motivated their clash in the following court room scene. The present script appears to represent the text in this revised version. It differs, however, from the version published by the Viking Press in April 1953. Miller’s published edition is aimed at readers, not actors. There are lengthy descriptions of characters which would be out of place in a rehearsal script. Of significance are very precise staging directions in the present script, later changed for publication. The rehearsal script is also provided with stresses indicated by underlining to certain words. These stresses are abandoned for the published version. The script is signed by the author on the title page.

 

Another hugely important American play from the 1950s is Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The work would win Williams his second Pulitzer Prize and the version in the Hirschhorn Collection is a rehearsal script for the pre-Broadway tryout in Philadelphia. An academic research paper, published in 1996, entitled “A Preliminary Stemma for Drafts and Revisions of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” noted that one task in Williams scholarship (and “perhaps the most daunting of all”) is “to collate, put into sequence, and analyse the… drafts and revisions that lie behind… Williams’s published work”. The present script is one of those drafts and includes two aspects omitted in later versions. These comprise an episode in which Big Daddy sensually touches Maggie’s stomach to determine if she’s pregnant, and Brick’s admittance that “I might be — impotent”. In the present script, Margaret’s last speech, in which she makes reference to a cat on a tin roof, is longer than the published version.

The transition from page to stage is a process that includes a large number of talented individuals and can create a wonderful experience in the theatre. The scripts that originate from rehearsals can help us understand something of the creative process and provide a fascinating insight into this most transient of creations.

Dr Phil Errington, Senior Specialist, has been known to indulge in amateur dramatics. From Gilbert and Sullivan to Sondheim, roles include Scrooge to Prince Charming!

BROWSE PERFORMING ARTS

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William Morris looms large in British literary history, for his own writing, his politics, and his radical impact on others. His birth on 24 March 1834 was followed exactly 28 years and 1 day later by that of his second daughter, Mary “May” Morris on 25 March 1862. Every bit the pioneer, activist, and tumultuous personality as her father, in this blog we celebrate both their birthdays by exploring May’s life and legacy.

May grew up in the very heart of the arts and crafts movement. The dignitaries of the set regularly visited the Morris family, first in their Red House in Kent, where Morris & Co. was first founded, and then from 1865 in No. 26 Queen Square, Bloomsbury: the family’s flat directly above “the Firm’s” shop. Growing up in such an environment, and largely educated at home, May was immersed in the contemporary literary and artistic milieu, occasionally startling guests with her seemingly precocious desire to join conversations, and often modelling for Edward Burne-Jones, regular visitor Gabriel Dante Rossetti, and artist George Howard.

In 1881, May enrolled at the National Art Training School in Kensington (later the Royal College of Art) and chose embroidery as her field of study, having been trained in the art by her mother, Jane Morris, from a young age. In 1883, she designed one of Morris & Co.’s most popular pattern designs – ‘Honeysuckle’, followed by the equally enduring ‘Horn Poppy’ in 1885. May was given responsibility for the embroidery operations of Morris & Co in 1885, when she was just 23 years old. She took this on directly from Jane, who led the department herself for over 20 years. She regularly took part in Arts & Crafts exhibitions from 1888 onwards, gaining renown for her designs and skill.

Angered by the lack of support for the women practitioners she saw around her, despite the proliferation of influential women in the movement, she founded the Women’s Guild of Arts in 1907, with fellow embroiderer Mary Elizabeth Turner. Their aim was to create an “atmosphere of camaraderie” through meetings, exhibitions, and training. May was an active teacher, at the Royal School of Art Needlework, the Birmingham, Leicester, and Hammersmith art schools, and the London County Council School of Art, where she was head of the embroidery department from 1899 until 1905. In 1893, she published a definitive thesis on embroidery, Decorative Needlework, which is still referenced today. In the work she recommends carefully using simple stitches over attempting difficult needlework, and states that “the most important element in successful work is the choice of design” (Morris, p. 79). She suggests that “inferior work can be tolerated for the sake of the design” but “excellent work on a worthless design must be cast aside as labour lost” (Morris, p. 79).

An avid socialist, May joined the Social Democratic Federation in 1884, in which her father was already active. By the end of the year father and daughter were key in the break from the Federation and the consequent formation of the Socialist League, for which she ran the library. May developed a close friendship with fellow founder Eleanor Marx based upon their politics and love of the plays of Henry Ibsen, and the two regularly acted in the socialist plays the League put on to raise funds. William Morris attended at least one such performance: in January 1885 he was in the audience when May appeared with Eleanor and George Bernard Shaw in the comic drama Alone by Palgrave Simpson and Herman Merivale. William Morris was famously never a fan of the theatre: May wrote that those who accompanied him sat in “terror as to whether his muttered exclamations could be heard right or left” mingled “with a certain high glee over the picturesqueness of his unmanageable playgoer’s comments” (Morris, p. xxviii). May herself took to the world of drama, writing and publishing two plays: Lady Griselda’s Dream, published in Longman’s Magazine in June 1898 and White Lies: A Play in One Act, privately published by the Chiswick Press in 1903.

Following William Morris’s death in October 1896 May worked tirelessly on publishing his collected works, which amounted to 24 volumes of his literary, artistic, and political writings, each with her introduction. These introductions were themselves so detailed and copious that they have been published separately, in 1973, in their own two volume set. The Collected Works were published by Longmans Green and Co. between 1910 and 1915, and were followed in 1936 by a supplementary work, William Morris: Artist, Writer, Socialist, rejected by Longmans on economic grounds and consequently published by Basil Blackwell. Two of the volumes constitute the first editions of the text: Scenes from the Fall of Troy and Other Poems, issued as volume 24, and Journals of Travel in Iceland in 1871 and 1873, issued as volume 8.

William Morris’s love of Iceland is no secret: his own writing was hugely influenced by the medieval sagas and poetry of Iceland, in particular his long poems “The Lovers of Gudrun” and Sigurd the Volsung. Between 1868 and 1876 he translated several major Icelandic sagas into English for the first time with his collaborator Eiríkur Magnússon. He visited the island twice, in 1871 and 1873, travelling the interior on horseback. In the summer of 1924, May followed in her father’s footsteps, travelling to Iceland with her partner Mary Frances Vivian Lobb, returning again in 1926 and 1931. In Iceland, May built a wide network of friends, promoted the country‘s medieval literary inheritance, and donated 400 books to the library in Húsavik. In June 1930 she was awarded the Order of the Falcon by the Icelandic Government for her championing of their literary heritage in England, and for her advocacy in English newspapers for the 1,000th anniversary of the ancient Icelandic parliament.

Kelmscott Manor, which the family had rented since 1871 and bought in 1913, passed to May in 1914, and she moved there permanently in 1923. Mary Lobb (1878-1939) first came into May’s life as member of the local Land Army, put to work near Kelmscott Manor in 1917. Having been fired from the land army (accounts suggest she was so foul-mouthed that it became imperative she work alone) Mary joined the Kelmscott household as a gardener, and became a lifelong companion to May. She died in the Spring of 1939, just a few months after May’s own death in 1938. While the particulars of any relationship are only known to those involved and are subject to the vocabulary and social norms of any given era, contemporaries regularly commented on the joy their relationship brought one another, as well as speculating on its nature. The two women were active partners in their public as well as personal lives. Both became leading figures in the local Women’s Institute, and the two worked together on May’s commission of a pair of cottages in Jane’s memory, one of which was to be the village school-house, as well as a Village Hall, which was completed in 1934 and opened by George Bernard Shaw.

As much a polymath and influential artistic figure as her father, May was described by Evelyn Waugh in his diary entry for 6 October 1927 as “a singularly forbidding woman … dressed in a slipshod ramshackle way in hand-woven stuffs” (Waugh, p. 291). Undoubtedly true, she was also, as she states in her own words “a remarkable woman, always was, though none of you seemed to think so” (May Morris, 1936, letter to George Bernard Shaw).

Written by Suzanna Beaupré, Rare Book Specialist

BROWSE PRIVATE PRESSES

Bibliography

May Morris (ed.), The Collected Works of William Morris, XXII, Longmans, Green & Co. 1910-15.  

Evelyn Waugh, The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, 1976. 

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Gustav Klimt, one of the most recognizable artists of the 20th century, scandalized the Viennese establishment and awed his contemporaries with his opulent and erotic nudes. He rose to fame as a leading member of the Vienna Secession, a movement closely related to Art Nouveau, and while his works include paintings of landscapes and gardens, he is best remembered for his sensuous depictions of the female form.

The Kiss (1907–08) is one of the world’s most iconic artworks and a masterpiece of fin-de-siècle painting. The intimate artwork, heavily embellished with gold leaf, silver, and platinum, was painted at the height of Klimt’s brief but majestic “Golden Period” (1901–09). Although KIimt’s output from these years represents only part of his oeuvre, the golden paintings from this time are his most well-known. They include Judith I (1901), The Three Ages of Woman (1905), and the lavish commission The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1903–07), which is so elaborately gilded that art critic Ludwig Hevesi hailed it as “a dream of bejewelled lust” 1. It made its model, a 26-year-old Viennese socialite, an instant celebrity.

Original artworks by Klimt fetch staggering prices. A subtler painting of the same model, The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912), sold for $87.9 million in New York in 2006. In 2022, the landscape Birch Forest (1903) was auctioned for $104.6 million at Christie’s New York, setting a new record for Klimt. This record was broken the following year by the sale of Klimt’s final painting, Lady with Fan (1918), which was famously found on an easel in his studio at his death. The painting sold for $108.4 million at Sotheby’s, making it the most expensive public sale of any artwork in Europe.

While these soaring prices prevent all but the wealthiest collectors from acquiring original works by Klimt, his editioned prints offer an accessible foothold to the market. Limited edition prints are a coveted area for serious collectors, with prints by Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Banksy achieving seven-figure sales. The prices for individual prints from Klimt’s three editioned portfolios, Das Werk (1914), Fünfundzwanzig Handzeichnungen (1919), and Eine Nachlese (1931), sell for between £1,750 to £20,000 depending on variables such as condition, colouring, and the desirability of the original artwork.

 

Das Werk (1914)

Das Werk is the only editioned portfolio produced during Klimt’s lifetime. Overseen by Klimt in partnership with the Galerie Miethke, it was produced for the Kunstschau Wien 1908 exhibition, held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph I. The portfolio was intended to advertise Klimt’s work to a wider audience and proved a success: Emperor Franz Joseph himself was a subscriber to the portfolio.

Comprising 50 unbound prints, the portfolio was issued to subscribers over the course of six years. Ten prints were released every 18 months, and each print was embellished by a unique gold signet designed by Klimt. The full portfolio comprises 40 monochromatic prints and 10 colour prints heightened with gold and silver: the latter are the most desirable, and include The Kiss, Judith, and several others from his Golden Period. Only 300 portfolios were produced and complete sets cost between £20,000 and £30,000. Many of the portfolios were broken up and individual prints circulate for sale individually.

Klimt died in 1918, shortly after the completion of Das Werk.

 

Fünfundzwanzig Handzeichnungen (1919)

The year after Klimt’s death, Vienna’s Max Jaffé issued the portfolio Fünfundzwanzig Handzeichnungen (“Twenty-five hand drawings”), comprised mainly of erotic sketches of nude women. It was posthumously published in an edition of 500, each portfolio containing 25 prints after line drawings by Klimt. There was also a Collector’s Edition of 10 portfolios numbered IX, each of which included an original drawing by Klimt.

 

Eine Nachlese / Dernière gerbe / An Aftermath (1931)

Eine Nachlese was published by Max Eisler, an art historian at Vienna University who had helped with the publication of Das Werk. The portfolio, published in a total edition of 500, comprised 30 prints, 15 of which were in colour. It was printed in three different languages: 200 copies in German, of which 30 were bound as a deluxe book; the French and English portfolios were printed in a run of 150 copies each, of which 20 were bound as a deluxe book.

Six of the paintings reproduced Eine Nachlese were lost, presumably destroyed, during the Second World War. They were in storage in the castle Schloss Immendorf in Austria when it was set on fire by a retreating division of the German army on 8 May 1945. They include two from Klimt’s Faculty Paintings, originally created for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna, Medizin and Jurisprudenz, and four from the famous Lederer collection: Die Freundinnen, Malcesine am Gardasee, Bauerngarten mit Hühnern, and Gastein.

 

Collotype Printing

All the prints in the three Klimt portfolios were produced using collotype printing – a delicate, laborious process, rarely used today. It is still considered one of the most faithful methods of reproduction, employed by artists including Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and Gerhard Richter. In modern digital and offset prints, a photographic image is broken down into groups of tiny dots to give the impression of gradation, whereas in collotype printing, a photographic image is burnt into a thin layer of gelatin, which is then coated in ink and printed. The ink seeps into the gelatin, which allows for microscopically delicate reticulations, producing a more sincere reproduction of the image. Short runs are essential, as collotype plates are notoriously delicate and cannot be reused.

While collectors can still nurse the hope that a lost Klimt turns up in their attic (his Portrait of Fraulein Lieser was rediscovered in January of this year), the craftsmanship involved in the production of these prints, particularly those demanding multiple colours and metallic detailing, makes them very desirable for collectors who’ve yet to stumble upon an original work.

Written by Anna Middleton, Bookseller and Cataloguer

BROWSE KLIMT BROWSE GALLERY

1. Quoted in Philip Hook, Art of the Extreme 1905–1914, 2021.

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How did people learn how to cook in the 18th-century? Many might think that the answer is “at home with their parents”, but the methods of culinary education in the 18th-century were more diverse than one might imagine. Manuscript cookbooks from this time offer a treasure trove of culinary insights not found in their printed counterparts. Unlike printed books – often created by non-culinary authors and read as a form of entertainment – these handwritten manuscripts offer authentic glimpses into the dishes prepared and the techniques that were employed.

From about 1600 onwards, the most common type of cookery manuscript is the household cookbook, serving as repositories for recipes collected from family, friends, or transcribed from existing books. These intimate collections, reflecting the unique tastes of individual families, were never intended for public consumption.

We’ve recently encountered two rather unusual early 18th-century manuscripts which were instead produced for an audience, and which shed light on the period’s culinary landscape. They feature original recipes by the prominent chefs Edward Kidder, perhaps the best-known cookery teacher in London at the time, and Ralph Ayres, head cook at New College, Oxford.

 

Edward Kidder 

Edward Kidder, a renowned culinary educator in London during the early 18th century, left a lasting mark on the culinary world. This manuscript, produced in his cookery school, is a rare example of a culinary textbook.

Kidder’ school of pastry and cookery was one of the earliest in England. According to Kidder’s obituary, he “taught some 6,000 ladies in his time” (Notes and Queries, p. 185), leading scholars to conclude that “a substantial number of London households of the time must have had Kidder-trained cooks” (Potter, p. 10). Around 1720, he published a guide for his students, Receipts of Pastry and Cookery.

Before the printed edition came out (and indeed even after), his recipes had a wide circulation in small hand-written books: our manuscript is one of only eight known examples remaining. The contents are divided into chapters on meatballs, pies, broths, meat, fish, and poultry dishes, puddings, cakes, potting, collaring, pickling, and jellying.

Interestingly, some recipes or variants present here were not included in the printed edition. Among them, we find: “A Lambstone & Sweetbread Pye”, “A Green Pease Soop”, “A Batter Cake”, “A Bisk of Pidgeons”, and a few more.

But who wrote the manuscripts? Some scholars believe that Kidder provided blank notebooks to his students, who would then transcribe the cookbook “to reinforce its contents into their minds” (MSC). However, as the handwriting of the text often doesn’t match that of the ownership inscriptions (as in our case) and many examples are in a very similar hand, it seems plausible that some of them were transcribed by copyists and then provided to students at the beginning of their course, to be used during the practical sessions.

These manuscripts played a crucial role in Kidder’s teaching methodology, influencing subsequent generations of cooks, as evidenced by instances of plagiarism by renowned authors throughout the 18th century, including Mary Kettilby, Charles Carter, Robert Smith, and Sarah Harrison.

The present example belonged to Dorcas Thornycroft (c. 1690-1759), a landed lady of Kent, who inscribed her name on the front pastedown with the date “1718-9, March ye (the) 23”. The occasional stains (particularly in the section dedicated to fish, at pp. 46-51) indicate that she took Kidder’s classes very seriously.

  Ralph Ayres

Delving into the life of Ralph Ayres, head cook at New College, Oxford, unveils another intriguing culinary narrative. We know him from a small number of manuscripts, all containing the same collection of recipes, charmingly written, and bound in similar flower-patterned paper. Our example is one of seven known, and one of the earliest.

The dates on the manuscripts indicate that Ayres was head cook at the college from c.1714 to at least 1722. The details of his life before becoming a cook are elusive – scholars tend to identify him with a wheelwright recorded in the parish registers of St Cross Church, who married in 1691.

If the man is quite mysterious, his recipe collection is instead very well-known and formed the basis for meals at New College for decades. Reverend James Woodforde, remembering in his diary the menu of a private dinner with friends at the college in 1774, mentions many dishes appearing in Ayres’s book. One of them is the famous New College pudding, which is still occasionally served by the chef today, although the recipe has changed throughout the years.

The pudding is one of 70 recipes in this manuscript. Some of them are very traditional, including dishes now unfamiliar but with a long culinary history: we find the instructions for adding anchovies to a gravy, and a mention of “verjuice”, an acid condiment obtained from unripe fruit which originates from the Roman cookery book of Apicius. Other recipes are still popular today, such as Queen Cakes, Oxford sausages, gingerbread, and tarts (a recipe that a century later perhaps inspired Alice in Wonderland). 

Ayres’s book was rediscovered in the 20th-century, when L. G. Wickham Legg found and published one of the manuscripts in 1922. A modern edition appeared in 2007, edited by Jane Jakeman and based on a different example. Comparing our manuscript with Jakeman’s revealed intriguing differences. Our example, 6 years earlier, features many recipes which were later excluded, including “To Candey Angelica Stalks”, “To make biscakes”, “To make a Tanzey”. It also contains a recipe titled “To make pancakes courtfashen”, which reoccurs almost identical in the 1721 manuscript as “To make Ayres his pancakes”. They must have been so delicious and frequently requested that the recipe eventually became known as “Ayres’s” version.

The standardised contents and attractive production of Ayres’s manuscripts suggest that they were not personal working-cookbooks; the absence of prominent cookery stains or corrections in our example supports this idea. Instead, they appear to be items made especially made for other readers to enjoy, perhaps given by the cook as gifts to his friends.

The significance of Kidder’s and Ayres’s manuscripts extends beyond the recipes themselves, offering valuable insights into the transmission of culinary knowledge. They allow us to connect with the past and gain a deeper appreciation for the culinary traditions that continue to shape our tables today.

Written by Alessia Colombo

Bibliography

1. David Potter, “Some notes on Edward Kidder”, PPC, vol. 65, 2000
2. Jane Jakeman, Ralph Ayres’s Cookery Book, 2006
3. L. G. Wickham Legg, A Little Book of Recipes of New College Two Hundred Years Ago, 1922
4. Manuscript Cookbooks Survey 183
5. Notes and Queries, vol. VII, Mar. 1895
6. Peter Targett, “Edward Kidder: his book and his schools”, PPC, vol. 32, 1989
7. Simon Varey, “New light on Edward Kidder’s Receipts”, PPC, vol. 39, 1991

BROWSE COOKERY & WINE

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​Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland opens with an arresting illustration of the White Rabbit and the first thought from Alice is “what is the use of a book… without pictures or conversations?” It’s a great joke as Lewis Carroll shows us his book will have both pictures and conversations, but it’s the picture that starts it all.

In fact, picture books are usually the first books we encounter in our lives before text starts to creep in. As we develop as readers the text acquires greater presence and, ultimately, most books dispense with pictures altogether. In this blog I’d like to look at some of the great partnerships when pictures and text are of equal importance and author and illustrator both contribute equally to the success of a book. When magic happens, the result is greater than the sum of the parts.

 

Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel

When Lewis Carroll decided to publish Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, he tried to illustrate it himself but came to the conclusion that ‘it would take much more time than I can afford, and the result would not be satisfactory after all’. He therefore asked John Tenniel, one of the leading political cartoonists of Punch magazine, to undertake the job.

Originally Tenniel agreed ‘on about 34 pictures’ but would eventually provide 42 illustrations. He worked closely with the author and the two men discussed the book in detail. Indeed, such was Carroll’s respect for his illustrator that he showed considerable patience while Tenniel worked slowly and then, on publication, withdrew the entire first printing when Tenniel expressed that he was dissatisfied with the printing of the illustrations.

When eventually published, reviews noted the extraordinary contribution of Tenniel. In The London Review on 23 December 1865 a critic stated “exquisite also are the illustrations… by Mr Tenniel – a most charming contrast, in their grace, delicacy, finish, and airy fancy, to the ugly phantasmagoria in which so many of the artists of the present day indulge”. A week later the same periodical was still gushing praise on the book noting “text and pictures will survive in the memory of the rising generation”.

Tenniel originally rejected the invitation to work on Through the Looking-Glass, but eventually agreed. Again, it was a collaborative effort and Tenniel even succeeded in cutting sections of the text (the “wasp” chapter). There’s no doubt Carroll was listening to the criticism of his illustrator.

Again, the result was a spectacular fusion of text and image. One of Tenniel’s biographers noted that there may be better drawings, but no better illustrations. When the copyright on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland expired in 1907 most major publishers commissioned new illustrations to the general consternation of reviewers. Some of these new illustrations succeeded (work by Arthur Rackham, Mervyn Peake, Willy Pogany, and Ralph Steadman, for example), but the original drawings continue to hold a fascination with readers.

 

A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard

When Milne and Shepard both first worked for the magazine Punch, the author had little regard for his future illustrator. Milne is said to have asked Punch’s art editor, “What on earth do you see in this man?” and also gave his opinion that “he’s perfectly hopeless”. The art editor apparently replied simply “You wait”.

Milne later acknowledged his error and, introducing a collection of Shepard’s drawings in 1927 he wrote “the Shepard you see here is the one for whom I waited; whom, if the end, even I could not fail to recognize”.

Shepard visited Milne and got to know Christopher (Robin) Milne and his toys. He visited Ashdown Forest and immersed himself in the text. When the four Winnie-the-Pooh books were published the publishers broke with tradition. Traditionally a publisher would present text and then illustration. In these books the text frequently flows around illustrations and the two become a single story-telling unit.

Look at the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh. This is the story of Pooh trying to steal honey from some bees at the top of a tree. One of the first illustrations shows Pooh climbing to the top of the tree and is printed on the left margin of the page. On the right margin is the text “He climbed and he climbed and he climbed and as he climbed…” Only one word is printed on each line and, as readers, we move clumsily down the page of text as Pooh hauls himself up the tree. It’s a wonderful collaborative effect.

One critic argued that the texts and illustrations belonged together “as intimately as the echo does to the voice”. When Milne presented a first American edition of Winnie-the-Pooh to Shepard he inscribed it with an eight-line verse:

When I am gone,
Let Shepard decorate my tomb,
And put (if there is room)
Two pictures on the stone:
Piglet, from page a hundred and eleven,
And Pooh and Piglet walking (157)…
And Peter, thinking that they are my own,
Will welcome me to Heaven.

After the publishers had returned the original artwork to Shepard, he sold it in a series of exhibitions. As a result, some of the drawings – reproduced for a hundred years – are occasionally available on the market. As the drawings were often shrunk for publication, there is frequently more detail in the original piece and the artistic skill of Shepard leaps from the flat sheet of artist’s board.

 

Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake

Dahl had published books for children since 1943 but it wasn’t until 1978 that he was introduced to Quentin Blake. Their first collaboration was The Enormous Crocodile and a prophetic contemporary review in the Times Literary Supplement stated that “the combination of Roald Dahl as storyteller with Quentin Blake as illustrator must be the recipe for a bestseller”.

Many of Dahl’s earlier illustrators had a distinguished career (Faith Jaques, for example) but Blake’s distinctive style worked perfectly with Dahl’s subversive stories.

In his book, Words and Pictures, Blake explained his working method with Dahl. “It began”, Blake notes, “with reading”. Then, “after that I would produce rough sketches of likely incidents throughout the book and at the same time rather more developed drawings of what I thought the characters looked like”. When these drawings were ready Blake would visit Dahl at home and “we would sit and go through the drawings, and I would get Dahl’s comments”.

Frequently Blake would instinctively use his illustration to supplement one of Dahl’s aims. His drawings of Matilda prompted Dahl to write “what particularly delights me is the fact that you have accentuated, by all sorts of subtle juxtapositions, the tinyness of Matilda. Nearly everyone wanted her bigger, but the whole charm of it is that she is so frail and titchy. You have brought that out beautifully…”

After The Enormous Crocodile, Blake worked on The Twits (1980) then George’s Marvellous Medicine (1981). Dahl’s publishers quickly recognized that Blake and Dahl were synonymous. Dirty Beasts was first published in 1983 with illustrations by Rosemary Fawcett, but the Quentin Blake edition was published only a year later.

After Dahl’s death, Blake would start a retrospective series of drawings and eventually illustrate all of Dahl’s books for children. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in 1964, but the first Blake edition appeared in 1995. It is the Blake illustrations which are known and loved.

There are many other partnerships between author and illustrator in the collecting area of children’s books: L. Frank Baum with W. W. Denslow, Graham Greene with Edward Ardizzone, C. S. Lewis with Pauline Baynes, Dodie Smith with Janet and Anne Grahame-Johnstone, P. L. Travers with Mary Shepard, E. B. White with Garth Williams, or Margery Williams with William Nicholson. Such fruitful collaborations continue to this day, look at the partnership of Julia Donaldson with Axel Scheffler, for example.

Written by Dr Phil Errington, Senior Specialist BROWSE CHILDREN'S BROWSE ILLUSTRATIONS

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The historic catalogue Printing and the Mind of Man, or PMM as it is usually abbreviated, was first published in 1967. Its origins lie in two exhibitions: the first, held at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1940, and the second, held at IPEX in London in 1963. The aim of both, to differing degrees, was to examine the impact of printing technology and printed books on the development of Western civilization. (1) The resulting catalogue soon became an important reference work for booksellers, librarians, and bibliophiles alike. It remains an indispensable resource and is itself a collectible.

It is just over sixty years since the 1963 exhibition, which gives us and many others a timely opportunity to reflect on its significance. In their introduction to PMM, the compilers, John Carter and Percy Muir, took care to define the parameters of their ambitious project. “Our task has necessarily been that of exclusion rather than inclusion, and no doubt each reader will make his own list of deplorable omissions”. (2)

The almost total omission of women from PMM is a topic that interests us, both professionally and personally. Of the 424 works selected for inclusion, only seven are credited to women – to Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Florence Nightingale, Mary Baker Eddy, Marie Curie, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, and Lise Meitner.

While the reasons for this are multi-faceted, it is nevertheless a tiny fraction of the whole: 1.6%. Women were present in the technical and intellectual history of print from its earliest days, working not only as writers, but also as printers and press owners. Many valuable conversations have redressed the gender imbalance in PMM. Miranda Garno Nesler’s article on Elizabeth Holt, who printed John Locke’s Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (PMM #164), encourages readers to “recognize diversity both without and within” the catalogue.

What follows is our assessment of the representation of women within PMM. In some cases, we suggest the revision of certain entries to reflect women’s involvement more accurately. In others, we propose landmark texts by female authors which we feel were overlooked.

Many women are rendered invisible, in part due to the “Matilda Effect”, and several entries could be lightly amended with this in mind. (4) Antoine Laurent Lavoisier “accomplished a chemical revolution” with his Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (#238): the essential role played by his wife Marie-Ann Paulze in its creation should be noted.

The entry for Lewis and Clark’s expedition (#272) would today be re-written to acknowledge the importance of their guide and interpreter Sacagawea. The heading for the Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (#326) silently attributes “Workers of the World, Unite!” to Marx and Engels. However, the slogan was coined by Flora Tristan in her Union ouvrière (1843) five years before the Manifesto was published. Harriet Taylor Mill is the unnamed “wife” of John Stuart Mill in On Liberty (#345) – a conspicuous omission, given that, in his words, On Liberty “was more directly and literally our joint production than anything else which bears my name”.

In approaching this topic, we reviewed the subject composition of the first edition of PMM; the diagram below visualizes the results.

PMM has a strong focus on the sciences, and three women are found in this category: Nightingale, Curie, and Meitner. There are numerous women whose inclusion would profitably broaden the horizons of this sector of PMM. “The Foundation of Obstetrics as a Science” would be an appropriate heading for midwife Louise Bourgeois’ pioneering work of 1609, Observations diverses sur la sterilité. The first edition of Urania Propitia (1650), a simplification of Kepler’s Rudolphine Tables by Maria Cunitz, provided a parallel Latin–German text which helped establish the latter as a leading scientific language. This typographic choice is precisely the kind of detail that dovetails nicely with PMM’s interest in book production. Mary Anning’s paleontological discoveries brought about a crucial shift in our understanding of the Earth’s geological history; she never published articles under her name, so we can only propose a letter she wrote to the editor of the Magazine of Natural History, an extract of which was published in 1839. Maria Montessori’s educational techniques were among the first to be marketed as empirically grounded; the first edition of her 1909 work, Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica…, sold over 5,000 copies in the first week and changed the course of teaching.

PMM cannot have foreseen those texts significant to the nascent digital revolution, but it does feature a few key works which illustrate early technological developments. The committee considered, but decided against, including an article on Charles Babbage’s Calculating Engine in the 1963 exhibition. It was around this time that Ada Lovelace’s contributions to computer science were beginning to be recognized; her Sketch of the Analytical Engine (1843) is a strong contender. (5)

Marie Stopes’s Married Love (1918), which was similarly discussed and dismissed, is deserving of a place: by 1935 it had already appeared in shortlists of influential books ahead of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams (#389), Einstein’s Relativity (#408), and Keynes’s Economic Consequences of the Peace. (6) While the 1953 DNA papers of Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, Francis Crick, and James Watson did not feature in PMM proper, those by Crick and Watson were included in the Printing and the Mind of Man auction at Christie’s London, 20 October 1999 (lots 88 and 89). Franklin and Wilkins were not represented, despite their crucial contributions to the discovery.

An idea built the wall of separation between the sexes, and an idea will crumble it to dust” – Sarah Moore Grimké, “Education of Women”

When it comes to women’s rights, PMM connects two fulcrums of English feminist philosophy, Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (#242) and the Pethick-Lawrences’ Votes for Women (#398) as the representative text of the suffrage movement. Works by their American counterparts, such as Victoria Woodhull’s The Origin, Tendencies, and Principles of Government (1871), Anna Julia Cooper’s A Voice from the South (1892), and Susan B. Anthony’s History of Woman Suffrage (1881–1922) would offer a welcome complement. Earlier works like Mary Astell’s radical treatises on education and marriage (A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, 1694 & 1697, and Some Reflections upon Marriage, 1700), which predate Wollstonecraft by almost a century, and later second-wave classics like Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe (1949), would bring to life this narrative of progress.

One reason why so many of these political and philosophical figures are overlooked is that PMM tends to subscribe to the so-called “great man theory” of history. Its coverage of the Second World War, for example, includes Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf (#415), and, while the entry condemns the dictator’s grand narrative, there is no counterpoint in the catalogue to it. The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951), one of the most astute critiques of fascism ever written, might have fulfilled this role. Given that the origins of PMM itself lay in wartime – its earliest iteration, in 1940, opened as an exhibition to issue “a challenge to the forces of destruction” (7) – incorporating Het Achterhuis (1947) by Anne Frank would have focused attention on the catastrophic effects on the lives of Jewish people, rather than the fascist leader’s defence of antisemitism.

“That Keats and Shelley stuff”

The committee were particularly selective when it came to works of “imaginative literature”, due in large part to Stanley Morison’s dislike of “that Keats and Shelley stuff”. To forestall inevitable criticism, Carter and Muir set out a disclaimer that works of creative literature were restricted, “with a few exceptions, to the propagation of ideas (e.g. Candide, Alice in Wonderland) or characters (e.g. Hamlet or Faust) which have sensibility affected his thinking and thence his actions” – it was not enough for literature to simply inspire “the spirit of man” (PMM, p. xi).

However, this had unintended effects on gender representation within PMM. Literature is a field that has had fewer barriers to entry for women than science, philosophy, or politics – subjects towards which PMM is heavily weighted. Of the 26 works of creative literature which made the final selection, one was written by a woman – Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (#332), included for its social impact on the abolitionist cause. Phillis Wheatley’s Poems (1773) would likewise have satisfied the committee’s parameters: her written work helped further the cause of abolition and she was the first African American to publish a book of verse.

Other startling exclusions include Aphra Behn, whose Oroonoko (1688) has at least as strong a claim to being the first English novel as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (#180). Behn was also the first English woman to earn a living from her pen. Virginia Woolf famously wrote in A Room of One’s Own (1929) – itself an excellent candidate for inclusion – that “all women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn . . . for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds”. Jane Austen received only a brief mention in the entry for Walter Scott (#273), who is credited with establishing the genre of historical fiction. None of her closest contemporaries in PMM – Scott, Wordsworth (#256), Lord Byron (#270) – come close today to the readership or impact that Austen has. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is another conspicuous absence, not only as the catalyst of the science fiction genre but also for its prescient commentary on the consequences of scientific progress. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights (both 1847), the masterpieces of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, redefined the novel and are equally eligible candidates.

Translations hold the power to transform highly specialized or otherwise broadly inaccessible texts into canonical works, and many of the earliest and most influential were produced by women. Margaret More Roper, Lucy Hutchinson, and Charlotte Guest, the translators of Erasmus (#53), Lucretius (#87), and the Mabinogion (1838–49) respectively, are three worthy contenders. (8) Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (#161) and Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste (#252) became widely read due in part to Emilie du Châtelet’s Principes mathématiques de la philosophie naturelle (1759) and Mary Somerville’s The Mechanism of the Heavens (1831). In recognition of this, Du Châtelet’s translation was sold as part of the PMM auction at Christie’s (lot 37).

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Although the field of travel and exploration contains many famous names, such as Hakluyt (#105), Dudley (#134), and Cook (#223), it is represented at the lower end of the scale within PMM (4.9%), receiving a similar weighting to that of literature. However, it is less surprising that no female candidate appears here; historically, the barriers to this field have been more difficult for women to surmount.

Illustrating this point, the first woman on record to have circumnavigated the globe, Jeanne Barré, who accompanied Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s 1766–69 circumnavigation, had neither the resources nor education to publish her own account. Maria Sibylla Merian, however, is a compelling candidate for inclusion. Merian travelled to Suriname without male family members at a time when it was virtually unprecedented for a woman to do so. She funded her own travels and scientific work, publishing her magnum opus Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium in 1705. Later pioneers such as Gertrude Bell, Isabella Bird, Amelia Earhart, and Freya Stark published more widely and are names with which any travel collector will be familiar.

Other areas of society in which women were traditionally freer to contribute, such as cookery and music, though not explicitly commented upon by PMM’s editors, were given a low weighting in PMM or excluded entirely. Hannah Glasse’s highly influential Art of Cookery (1747), probably the best-selling non-religious title of the 18th century, is notable in this regard.

The role of women in the development of print history also merits acknowledgment. Elizabeth Holt and the other female printers in PMM, the widows of Jean Boudot and Eberhard Klett, should be joined by Yolande Bonhomme, who, in 1526, was the first woman to publish the Bible. Elizabeth Glover owned the printing press on which the Bay Psalm Book (1640), the first book printed in British North America, was set. It holds the record for the most expensive printed book ever sold at auction: Sotheby’s New York, 26 November 2013, $14,165,000.

“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry” – Umberto Eco, The Name of The Rose

PMM remains a remarkable monument to a specific project, conceived at a specific point in history, by a specific group of people. Its omissions naturally reflect larger systemic issues of the time. Gutenberg’s status as the herald of “the first age of printing” is a Eurocentric belief tempered today by our awareness of far older Asian technologies. The abolitionist movement is traced through several entries, but none of the amplified voices belong to African Americans. There are no works by people of colour on this subject, nor on any other. To move beyond women’s writing for a moment, the addition of texts such as Ignatius Sancho’s Letters (1782) and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life (1845) would immeasurably enhance its ethnic diversity. The addresses of Angelina and Sarah Moore Grimké (1837) would amplify these accounts further.

To echo Katy Hessel’s phrasing from her recent reappraisal of E. H. Gombrich’s Story of Art, which included no female artists until its sixteenth edition: “It’s not that I believe there to be anything inherently ‘different’ about work created by artists of any particular gender – it’s more that society and its gatekeepers have always prioritised one group in history”. (9)

In 2014, Nicolas Barker said that the original committee “did not guess how much it would influence both private and institutional collecting, nor the extent to which it would increase the prices of the books, those, at least, that were accessible . . . we wondered whether posterity would reverse our verdicts, or at least see not one but conflicting views as equally significant”. (10) PMM has undoubtedly shaped the business of rare books, but it is now one of many tools used by booksellers, curators, and collectors. (11) By considering the choices made in the publication of such reference works, we simultaneously acknowledge their continued significance and advocate for a more complex and diverse version of print history and the canon.

By Theodora Robinson & Emma Walshe, with graphics by Abbie Ingleby 

PRINTING AND THE MIND OF MAN WORKS BY WOMEN

(1) For more on the genesis of PMM, see Anna Middleton, “The Origins and Legacy of Printing and the Mind of Man, The Book Collector, vol. 72, no. 4, Winter 2023, pp. 637–43, and the issue in its entirety.

(2) In a recent article on the papers of Percy Muir, Sandy Malcolm notes that “only three out of the 315 works considered , i.e. less than 1 percent, were by women” (p. 649). Of these three, one made it into the final catalogue: Curie on radium. The other two, Elinor Glyn’s Three Weeks (1907) and Marie Stopes’s Married Love (1918), were dismissed. See Malcolm, “The Percy Muir Archive: Titles Rejected for PMM”, pp. 645–53; see footnote 1.

(3) Miranda Garno Nesler, “Elizabeth Holt and the Early Modern Women Imprinting the Mind of Man”, in Cathleen Baker & Rebecca M. Chung, eds, Making Impressions: Women in Printing and Publishing, Ann Arbor: The Legacy Press, 2000, p. 79.

(4) This bias phenomenon was first described by Matilda Joslyn Gage in her essay “Woman as Inventor” (1870). The term itself was coined by Margaret W. Rossiter in “The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science”, Social Studies of Science 23, no. 2, 1993, pp. 325–41.

(5) For further details on PMM and Babbage, see Malcolm, pp. 650–1.

(6) Edward Weeks, This Trade of Writing, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1935, p. 276.

(7) Brooke Crutchley quoted by Middleton, ibid., p. 638.

(8) Margaret More Roper, trans., A devout treatise upon the Pater Noster, 1525; Lucy Hutchinson, trans., English translation of De rerum natura, circulated in manuscript c.1650s but not published until 1996; Charlotte Guest, trans., The Mabinogion from the Llyfr Coch o Hergest, and other ancient Welsh manuscripts, 1838–49.

(9) Katy Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men, London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022, p. 11.

(10) “Fifty Years On: The Book Collector and ‘Printing and the Mind of Man’”: a talk delivered by Nicolas Barker to the University of Otago Centre for the Book on 29 May 2014.

(11) See Rebecca Romney, “On Feminist Practice in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Trade: Buying, Cataloguing, and Selling”, Criticism, vol. 64, issue 3, article 13, 2022.

 

 

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Ernest Shackleton embarked on four journeys to the Antarctic in his lifetime, and his aptly-named Endurance expedition was his third and perhaps most challenging. South (1919) is the first printing of his account of the expedition, which may have failed in its mission, but has since been remembered as a feat of great fortitude, survival, and leadership.

 

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917

Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was the last great undertaking of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. He embarked in 1914 on the Endurance to make the first traverse of the Antarctic continent: a journey of some 1,800 miles from sea to sea. In 1915 the Endurance was sunk by pack ice, leaving Shackleton and his 27 crew members in smaller boats that were ill equipped for the rough Weddell Sea. They sailed to Elephant Island, where they made an encampment from two upturned boats. Shortly thereafter, Shackleton, Worsley, and Tom Crean made a gruelling trip for help, which they found at a whaling station on the north side of South Georgia. Subsequently, four separate attempts were made to rescue the remaining crew members on the desolate Elephant Island. By the time they were rescued, the men had survived for five and a half months on a diet of seals and penguins. Shackleton’s expedition succeeded in creating a polar epic of bravery and leadership. An astonishing scientific discovery was made on 5 March 2022, when the Endurance was discovered in the Weddell Sea. It was found intact, just four miles south of the last location recorded in 1915.

 

South – The Story

South is a polar classic told in Shackleton’s distinctive style. He notes in the preface: “I think that though failure in the actual accomplishment must be recorded, there are chapters in this book of high adventure, strenuous days, lonely nights, unique experiences, and, above all, records of unflinching determination, supreme loyalty, and generous self-sacrifice”. Shackleton is sure that it “will be of interested to readers who now turn gladly from the red horror of war and the train of the last five years to read, perhaps with more understanding minds, the tale of the White Warfare of the South”.

   

 

Is your copy a first edition, first impression?

The account quickly became popular, and it was published in 14 editions and 46 impressions. The first edition was published by William Heinemann and issued in four impressions. The following six points are a collector’s guide to identifying a first edition, first impression and to assess condition.

What does it look like?

The binding is in a dark blue cloth with the spine lettered in silver. The front cover is decorated with a silver vignette of the Endurance, based on the photograph “The Long, Long Night” by Frank Hurley. The back cover has the blind stamp of Heinemann. The edges of the book block are trimmed, and the top edge has a faint blue colour.

 

 

Which impression is it?

The publisher is listed as William Heinemann on the title page. Later impressions are noted as such on the verso of the title page; this page will be blank in first impressions.

 

 

 

What is the paper quality like?

First impressions are printed on poor-quality paper which is prone to toning. Later impressions are printed on improved paper and will appear whiter.

 

 

 

 

Do you have the right collation?

The first impression must have the collation “2 pp., xxii, 376 pp.” and an errata slip tipped onto p. 1. The second and third impressions have a similar collation though without the errata slip, as the errors have been corrected. The fourth impression is also without the errata slip, though with two additional pages in the preliminaries (pp. xxiii-xxiv) plus an addendum on the last index page. All impressions have a colour frontispiece, 87 half-tone plates, and a colour folding map at the end. The frontispiece has a tissue guard with the text “In the Pride of her Youth”, while the half-tones are identified by their well-defined dot structure. Check that your map is not a later photocopy, as maps are sometimes removed from books and sold separately.

 

 

What is the condition like?

Shackleton’s book, produced while the effects of the First World War were still a reality, is rarely encountered in collectible condition. The poorly crafted binding is likely to split at the joints and the silver printing is prone to oxidizing. A fine copy is without any of these flaws.

 

 

 

Does it have a dust jacket?

A dust jacket for this title is a nice to have, not a need to have. They are incredibly scarce, so if one is present, it is tinted in light blue and the text and image of the Endurance are printed in black. We have also encountered one example in a cream colour with the lettering and image printed in blue.

Written by Cecilie Gasseholm, Travel Specialist

BROWSE TRAVEL

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One of the satisfactions of putting together a catalogue is the opportunity to tell a story – arranging books and paper, these chance scatterings of time, into a narrative that captures some of the passion, struggle, or triumph in the lives of their authors or readers. This Poetry catalogue is no exception.

Derek Walcott

One of the poetic careers I’ve always been moved and impressed by is that of Derek Walcott. Walcott was born in 1930 in the Caribbean on the island of St Lucia, the son of a civil servant who loved to paint, and a teacher at the local Methodist school who cherished poetry. From this relatively humble, though evidently nurtured, beginning, he would become one of the world’s most respected poets, and with the publication of Omeros in 1990, a bold transposition of Homer’s Odyssey to a Caribbean idiom, he would go on to be awarded the Nobel Prize, becoming the first Caribbean Nobel laureate.

In a Green Night

Walcott’s first big break came in 1962 when Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape (who incidentally had a knack for bringing in talented voices from outside the British literary world, several of whom would go on to be Nobel Laurates, including Pablo Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez) published his poetry collection In a Green Night. In the catalogue we have a scarce proof copy of this collection, which stands as the middle point in the story being told.

 

 

25 Poems

Finding anything from Walcott before this date is hard, though the precocious young poet had in fact published many poetry collections and plays throughout his late-teens and twenties. These were all printed locally on various islands of the Caribbean: Trinidad, Barbardos, and Jamaica, usually in very small numbers, and often self-funded, with his devoted mother reportedly working two jobs to help raise money for the printing of her son’s poems. Consequently, surviving copies of these are rare, and the rarest of these is his debut collection, 25 Poems, published in 1949. The trio of Walcotts in our Poetry catalogue starts its narrative here – but it’s not just the survival of the copy that’s significant (there are only a mere handful recorded in libraries around the world), but the rare and rather moving inscription in the hand of the young poet: “To Roy Fuller, compliments of Derek Walcott, gratefully”.

 

Fuller and Walcott

Roy Fuller was a British writer who, like Walcott, had carried a love of poetry through an underprivileged upbringing. By the time of the book’s inscription Fuller was an established poet. He appeared on the BBC’s 1949 radio programme Caribbean Voices, and made special notice and praise of Walcott’s poetry. His praise, moreover, was analytical, respecting the poet on equal terms and without condescension. Walcott then sent this copy, “gratefully”, to this main whose praise must have felt like one of the first beckonings from literary world outside the Caribbean, setting him on the road that would lead to his Nobel laureateship.

Letters from Walcott to Giroux

The final point in our story comes with a new discovery, which I made recently while digging through a trove of material from the archive of American publisher Robert Giroux – a collection of three unpublished letters from Walcott to Giroux. Giroux had been a major figure at Harcourt, Brace, & Co., before moving in 1955 as a leading editor at FSG (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux), where he shepherded the careers of many great American writers such as Elizabeth Bishop, Jack Keroauc, and Flannery O’Connor. Walcott was one of his poets – it was under Giroux’s wing that Walcott’s career really took off, leading eventually to the publication of Omeros and the Nobel prize that followed. The letters are written from Trinidad in the mid-60s, marking the early stages of their friendship and collaboration leading up to the publication of Another Life, and are full of evident enthusiasm and excitement.

Written by Sammy Jay, Senior Literature Specialist BROWSE POETRY CATALOGUE

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It goes without saying that On the Origin of Species is one of the most significant books in history and a desirable addition to many collectors’ libraries. Yet the emphasis on Charles Darwin’s evolutionary writings – although richly deserved – often overshadows the breadth of his other interests and influences. Most Darwin enthusiasts know about his time as an explorer on the HMS Beagle, but what of his obsession with barnacles and his enthusiasm for backgammon? Amongst these diverse interests emerges a dynamic portrait of not only a scientist but a fascinating man.

“No pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles” – Darwin and collecting

Darwin collected seals, pebbles, and minerals as a child and compiled a huge array of specimens and plants throughout his life, but there was one collection in particular that brought him the most joy: his beetle boxes. “It was the mere passion for collecting, for I did not dissect them and rarely compared their external characters with published descriptions”. As a student, he frequently got into debates with the aptly named Charles “Beetles” Babington about who would acquire new species first. His zeal for collecting is demonstrated through an anecdote in his autobiography: “I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one”.

“When 9 or 10, I distinctly recollect the desire I had of being able to know something about every pebble in front of the hall door” – Darwin and geology

After his time as a traveller on the Beagle, Darwin’s interests turned to geology, a subject that was of paramount importance to the development of his evolutionary theories. The geologist Charles Lyell was the formative influence on Darwin; he religiously studied Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-3) on the Beagle and later asserted that his theories “came half out of Lyell’s brains”. By the mid-19th century, geologists had moved from speculation to scientific evidence due to Lyell’s insistence on the principle of uniformity. In contrast, although evolution-adjacent theories had been floated by thinkers such as Lamarck, evolutionary biologists remained firmly in the realm of scientific speculation. It was the geologists, spearheaded by Lyell, and their insistence that evolutionary theory needed to prove a mechanism before all else to be accepted, that inspired Darwin’s succinct, evidence-based case for evolution that he laid out in the Origin.

“Then where does he do his barnacles?” – Darwin and palaeontology

Darwin spent eight years (1846-54) studying Cirripedia (barnacles), both living and fossilized, on which he published four monographs. These provide insight into his scientific method and are accomplished taxonomic works that provide a catalogue of all free-living cirripedes known at the time. Darwin’s enthusiasm for his barnacle project is charmingly summed up in a story by his neighbour John Lubbock: “One of Mr Darwin’s children is said to have asked, in regard to a neighbour, ‘Then where does he do his barnacles?’ as though not merely his father, but all other men, must be occupied on that group”.

“In all views plants form the chief embellishment” – Darwin and botany

After biology, Darwin’s most influential exploit was botany. The protégé of the botanist John Stevens Henslow whilst at Cambridge, Darwin published on a variety of botanical topics ranging from carnivorous plants to plant movement. His 1862 book on orchid fertilization provided data that strengthened his evolutionary arguments by demonstrating the process of botanical natural selection. He showed that self-fertilisation was largely undesirable to organisms, thereby providing the variation which was essential to Darwin’s theory and proving that the ideas expounded in the Origin were not just theoretical but could be experimentally verified in the plant world.

“Glorified friend!” – Darwin and his correspondence 

Darwin suffered from poor health for most of his life; after he returned from the voyage of the Beagle at the age of 27, he never left England again. He therefore developed a colossal international correspondence network with some of the greatest minds of the age. He relied upon this network to remain up to date with discoveries and to receive botanical and biological samples. He was a friend of the co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russell Wallace, and was particularly close to Joseph Dalton Hooker, a friendship demonstrated by over 1,200 surviving letters.

Hooker was invaluable for his part in keeping Darwin, now sequestered at Down House, up to date with geological advances. During Hooker’s trip to the Himalayas, he wrote frequently to Darwin, responding to his questions and sending details that supplemented Darwin’s theories. Darwin trusted Hooker so much that he left instructions that if his health were to prevent him from publishing his theory of evolution, Hooker was the one to which he entrusted the task.

Darwin also had a large correspondence with the Wedgwoods, of porcelain fame: he was the grandson of Josiah Wedgwood – the renowned entrepreneur – and married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood. Members of the family corresponded with Darwin about the publication of his first book, the Journal and Remarks, and were invited to read the manuscript notebook of his travels upon which the work was based. In particular, Fanny and Hensleigh Wedgwood were asked to provide feedback, describing it as a “very interesting journal”.

“I have won, hurrah hurrah!” – Darwin and entertainment

Due to his health, Darwin spent a lot of evenings at home, where one of his favourite hobbies was playing backgammon with Emma. They played two games every night which he kept detailed notes on, writing in 1876 to Asa Gray that “she poor creature has won only 2490 games, whilst I have won, hurrah hurrah, 2795 games!”.

“Darwinism” – Darwin the originator

Since his death, Darwin’s theories have been applied to a multitude of subjects. The term “Darwinism” refers to many different things – in fact, it predates Charles Darwin, having been originally used to describe the theories of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, and was first applied to Charles by his “bulldog”, Thomas Henry Huxley, in 1860. It soon expanded to include not only Darwin’s ideas but the whole field of evolutionary thought, including that of Herbert Spencer and August Weismann. Gregor Mendel’s discovery of the mechanism of heredity led to “neo-Darwinism”, which evolved into what Julian Huxley termed “the eclipse of Darwinism” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period, scientists did not consider the mechanism of natural selection entirely scientifically sound despite their acceptance of evolution, a problem that was solved by Huxley’s coining of “modern synthesis” (a combination of Darwinian theory and Mendelian genetics) in 1942.

It was a long road for Darwin and a longer road still for the world to accept Darwinism. This was a path that Darwin foresaw, writing apprehensively to Hooker in 1844 that his theory that species were not immutable was “like confessing a murder”. Yet, he never doubted the veracity of his views, an opinion he expounded to his publisher John Murray in 1859 while preparing to publish the Origin: “I fear all Reviews of my present Book, will be very unfavourable; but I now feel confident my views will ultimately prevail”.

Written by Alice Gregson, Cataloguer and Bookseller

BROWSE SCIENCES BROWSE CHARLES DARWIN

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Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928) is one of the most memorable cases of the benefits of a muse in modern literature – dedicated to Vita Sackville-West, whose androgynous personality inspired the title character, the book was described by Sackville-West’s son, Nigel Nicolson, as “the longest love letter in history”. Woolf and Sackville-West’s decades long relationship, with its passionate forays into romance and underpinning friendship, undoubtedly came with creative benefits to both women. In this blog we are delving into other examples of literary “friends with benefits”: looking at creatively fruitful relationships both platonic and romantic in nature.

 

Vita and Virginia

Woolf and Sackville-West first met at the end of 1922, when Vita was 30 and Woolf was 40. Their relationship has been the topic of much scrutiny, including in the 2018 biopic Vita & Virginia. It began against the backdrop of two open and creatively beneficial marriages: Vita and Harold Nicholson both carried out numerous extra-marital affairs, mostly with people of their own gender, while remaining devoted to one another, their children, and their famous garden at Sissinghurst. This shared creative project was the basis for one of Sackville-West’s most beloved works, her 1946 poem The Garden. Virginia and Leonard’s relationship was one of much mutual devotion, though a chaste one. The creative output of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s marriage came in a different form: he was her first reader, and their Hogarth Press brought a plethora of literary greats into the world.

 

 

Seducers in Ecuador

It was Sackville-West who initiated the dedication of their works to one another, four years before Orlando was published in her honour. Woolf invited Sackville-West to submit a novel to the Hogarth Press, the result being Seducers in Ecuador, published on 30 October 1924, with a dedication to Woolf. Woolf praised Sackville-West’s novel as “the sort of thing I should like to write myself”, and in a letter to the author described how much she liked “its texture – the sense of all the fine things you have dropped in to it, so that it is full of beauty in itself when nothing is happening … I am very glad that we are going to publish it, and extremely proud and indeed touched, with my childlike dazzled affection for you, that you should dedicate it to me” (15 September 1924). The two women began their affair the next year.

 

 

  Katherine Mansfield

Woolf would write in her diary while producing the work, however, that it was not Sackville-West’s mind that first appealed to her, but her capacity as a woman: “She is stag like or race horse like … and has no very sharp brain. But as a body hers is perfection” (5 July 1924). In contrast, in the months after first meeting her fellow Bloomsbury novelist Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) she wrote: “to no one else can I talk in the same disembodied way about writing; without altering my thought more than I alter it in writing here”; and noted that she got “the queerest sense of an echo coming back to me from mind the second after I’ve spoken” (2 June 1917). Their important, complicated literary friendship and rivalry never delved into the romantic but was undoubtedly creatively beneficial. It was based around their shared desire to discuss their art, Woolf later describing their conversations as “priceless”. She asked Mansfield to submit a work to be published by the Hogarth Press, and the result, Prelude, was the first novel commissioned. Critics have made much of their relationship: describing them as foils to one another, producing strikingly similar work, and nursing a shared anxiety about being the lesser artist.

 

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Another of Woolf’s literary friends was Sylvia Townsend Warner, an English novelist, poet, and musicologist, who shared similar mutually beneficial, if emotionally turbulent, creative relationships.

Warner lived as a married couple with her partner, the poet Valentine Ackland, for 38 years, remaining faithful to Ackland despite the latter’s various affairs. Their relationship is visible in their creative output: in their collection of 109 love poems, Whether a Dove or Seagull (1933), their individual boundary pushing publications (Warner notably espoused “unconventional moral fables” in her collection of fairy tales Kingdoms of Elfin in 1977), and in their posthumously published love letters, I’ll Stand By You (1998).

Ackland’s work primarily took the form of poetry, although with her political critique she contributed articles to magazines such as Country Standard, Left Review, and The Countryman. Warner, the more successful and prolific author, was supportive of Ackland’s writing, often putting it before her own, and she used her friendships with many key authors and literary figures of the time to help get Ackland into print.

 

Nancy Cunard

One such friendship was with the author and activist Nancy Cunard. Indeed, it had been one of Cunard’s articles in the Daily Worker which prompted the couple, both signed-up members of the Communist party, to travel to Barcelona to volunteer as first-aid workers for the Red Cross in late September 1936. By 1944 the pair had returned to their home in Dorset, and Cunard visited them there to escape the second London Blitz of that year. She too benefited creatively from their friendship, writing Man-Ship-Tank-Gun-Plane while with them; a modernist poem evoking the terror of experiencing war raids. 

These literary relationships represent just a handful of those to explore: discover more tales of unusual writing duos with our blog post on Michael Field, or the world of Renée Vivien, Sappho’s first lesbian translator who would go on to set up a school on the island of Lesbos with her lover, and renowned literary host, Natalie Clifford Barney.

 

Written by Suzanna Beaupré, Rare Book Specialist  BROWSE LITERATURE

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One of the pleasures of cataloguing books is coming across bookplates. These are often interesting, delightful, sometimes infuriating, and occasionally alarming. They are a source of fascination and have been written about extensively, so we thought it might be a good idea to share some examples from the shelves here at Peter Harrington. “Familiar signs of ownership”

So, what is a bookplate? Book historian David Pearson explains: “the use of engraved or printed paper labels, carrying an owner’s identity, to mark the possession or gift of a book, is almost as old as printing itself, and it is one of the most familiar signs of ownership seen by students of provenance”.

Chronology of Styles

One of our earlier examples is that of the quarrelsome bishop of Bangor, John Evans (c.1652-1724), who was foolish enough to pick a fight with Jonathan Swift. His handsomely curlicued plate, a fine example of what is known as the Early Armorial style, appears in a special copy of the Earl of Clarendon’s Survey (1676), a fierce critique of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. The plate displays the symbols of his office (the mitre, crozier, and key) and bears a very close resemblance to that of another bishop, Henry Compton of London. This is illustrated in David Pearson’s Provenance Research in Book History, where he identifies the engraver of Compton’s plate as William Jackson, “who actively solicited clients for bookplates and who thereby became a major influence in popularising their usage”.

Chronology of Styles

One of our earlier examples is that of the quarrelsome bishop of Bangor, John Evans (c.1652-1724), who was foolish enough to pick a fight with Jonathan Swift. His handsomely curlicued plate, a fine example of what is known as the Early Armorial style, appears in a special copy of the Earl of Clarendon’s Survey (1676), a fierce critique of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. The plate displays the symbols of his office (the mitre, crozier, and key) and bears a very close resemblance to that of another bishop, Henry Compton of London. This is illustrated in David Pearson’s Provenance Research in Book History, where he identifies the engraver of Compton’s plate as William Jackson, “who actively solicited clients for bookplates and who thereby became a major influence in popularising their usage”.

The next fashion to emerge in Britain is the rather confusingly named Jacobean style, introduced a little before 1700 and popular until around 1745. A nice example of this is that of Henry Home, Lord Kames (1695-1782), whose plate appears in a collection of works by the Scottish philosopher Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. Here we have vigorously scrolled mantling surrounding his coat of arms, below which is placed a scallop-shell, a common feature of such plates.

The next fashion to emerge in Britain is the rather confusingly named Jacobean style, introduced a little before 1700 and popular until around 1745. A nice example of this is that of Henry Home, Lord Kames (1695-1782), whose plate appears in a collection of works by the Scottish philosopher Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. Here we have vigorously scrolled mantling surrounding his coat of arms, below which is placed a scallop-shell, a common feature of such plates.

Next is Chippendale, the style that succeeded the Jacobean, named after the famous cabinet-maker, and fashionable between roughly 1740 and 1780. This example belonged to Sir Edward Winnington (1749-1805), of Stanford Court, Worcestershire; a pretty plate, alive with rococo flourishes and a hint of chinoiserie (very much en vogue) and is pasted into his handsomely bound Cambridge-printed Bible of 1768.

Next is Chippendale, the style that succeeded the Jacobean, named after the famous cabinet-maker, and fashionable between roughly 1740 and 1780. This example belonged to Sir Edward Winnington (1749-1805), of Stanford Court, Worcestershire; a pretty plate, alive with rococo flourishes and a hint of chinoiserie (very much en vogue) and is pasted into his handsomely bound Cambridge-printed Bible of 1768.

Now we come to a personal favourite, the eye-catching military bookplate of Charles William Vane, third marquess of Londonderry (1778–1854): pendant to his arms are his many military awards, and for good measure there are supporters in the shape of prancing hussars; at the top there are two crests flanking his coronet and below a flowing banderole bearing his motto. A brave but not particularly brilliant soldier – Sir John Moore described him as “a very silly fellow” – Vane served with variable distinction throughout the Peninsular War. The plate reveals something of the character of the man, whose dashing and dandified portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence is at the National Portrait Gallery. “Silly” he may have been, but Vane was a discerning collector; his plate appears here in The Antient and Present State of the County of Down (Dublin, 1744) by the Irish antiquary Charles Smith.

Now we come to a personal favourite, the eye-catching military bookplate of Charles William Vane, third marquess of Londonderry (1778–1854): pendant to his arms are his many military awards, and for good measure there are supporters in the shape of prancing hussars; at the top there are two crests flanking his coronet and below a flowing banderole bearing his motto. A brave but not particularly brilliant soldier – Sir John Moore described him as “a very silly fellow” – Vane served with variable distinction throughout the Peninsular War. The plate reveals something of the character of the man, whose dashing and dandified portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence is at the National Portrait Gallery. “Silly” he may have been, but Vane was a discerning collector; his plate appears here in The Antient and Present State of the County of Down (Dublin, 1744) by the Irish antiquary Charles Smith.

Women Collectors

A trio of women collectors can here stand-in their sister-bibliophiles. Preeminent among them is Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861). Her simple but unusually shaped armorial plate can be seen in a lovely copy of a fine edition of the works of Caesar (1790), a testimony to her taste and discernment.

Women Collectors

A trio of women collectors can here stand-in their sister-bibliophiles. Preeminent among them is Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861). Her simple but unusually shaped armorial plate can be seen in a lovely copy of a fine edition of the works of Caesar (1790), a testimony to her taste and discernment.

A rather delightful plate (designed by one L. Bradshaw) enlivens the front pastedown of Dorothy Bussy’s novel Olivia (1948). This belongs to Muriel Orr-Ewing (1900-1994), who, after years of travel and three marriages, in 1940 set up a finishing school in London called The Grove. She was a founding president of the British Association of Women Executives and dabbled in filmmaking.

A rather delightful plate (designed by one L. Bradshaw) enlivens the front pastedown of Dorothy Bussy’s novel Olivia (1948). This belongs to Muriel Orr-Ewing (1900-1994), who, after years of travel and three marriages, in 1940 set up a finishing school in London called The Grove. She was a founding president of the British Association of Women Executives and dabbled in filmmaking.

In her first edition of Frank Baker’s Miss Hargreaves (1940), Kathleen Joan Dawson has pencilled in the space at the foot of her Walter Crane-inspired bookplate that it was “a gift from the author”. Hopefully his comic fantasy lightened the war years, and she would surely be cheered to know that the book has been carefully looked after and remains in very good condition.

In her first edition of Frank Baker’s Miss Hargreaves (1940), Kathleen Joan Dawson has pencilled in the space at the foot of her Walter Crane-inspired bookplate that it was “a gift from the author”. Hopefully his comic fantasy lightened the war years, and she would surely be cheered to know that the book has been carefully looked after and remains in very good condition.

Stepping into the limelight among celebrity bookplates is that of Noël Coward, an unsurprisingly elegant affair that combines the masks of comedy and tragedy into a single persona. It adorns a first edition of Thunderball (1961), jokingly inscribed to “The Master” by Ian Fleming.

Stepping into the limelight among celebrity bookplates is that of Noël Coward, an unsurprisingly elegant affair that combines the masks of comedy and tragedy into a single persona. It adorns a first edition of Thunderball (1961), jokingly inscribed to “The Master” by Ian Fleming.

Open this first edition of Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and you are confronted by an alarming memento mori in the form of a skull through which a worm wriggles. The owner’s initials “PMF” are tattooed on the forehead. Despite our best endeavours, he or she remains elusive.

Open this first edition of Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and you are confronted by an alarming memento mori in the form of a skull through which a worm wriggles. The owner’s initials “PMF” are tattooed on the forehead. Despite our best endeavours, he or she remains elusive.

Multiple Ownership and Upstaging

Sometimes bookplates show us ownership by more than one person. A copy of the signed limited edition of Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1958) bears the bookplates of two eminent collectors: Robert A. Wilson, proprietor of the famous Phoenix Bookshop in Greenwich Village, and Donald G. Drapkin, whose collection was sold through Christie’s in 2005.

Multiple Ownership and Upstaging

Sometimes bookplates show us ownership by more than one person. A copy of the signed limited edition of Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1958) bears the bookplates of two eminent collectors: Robert A. Wilson, proprietor of the famous Phoenix Bookshop in Greenwich Village, and Donald G. Drapkin, whose collection was sold through Christie’s in 2005.

Here owners share equal billing on the front pastedown. However, sometimes one owner may upstage another. A nice exemplar turns up in a first edition of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891): occupying the front free endpaper is the unremarkable armorial bookplate of American collector E. Hubert Litchfield. Facing him is William Henry Radcliffe Saunders, army officer and member of the Bookplate Society, who in 1904 commissioned a zinger of a bookplate from the distinguished Scottish engraver-designer Graham Johnston. Here the dense foliate mantling embraces his coat of arms and crest, a wonderful betusked elephant head. By comparison, poor Litchfield looks rather timid.

Here owners share equal billing on the front pastedown. However, sometimes one owner may upstage another. A nice exemplar turns up in a first edition of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891): occupying the front free endpaper is the unremarkable armorial bookplate of American collector E. Hubert Litchfield. Facing him is William Henry Radcliffe Saunders, army officer and member of the Bookplate Society, who in 1904 commissioned a zinger of a bookplate from the distinguished Scottish engraver-designer Graham Johnston. Here the dense foliate mantling embraces his coat of arms and crest, a wonderful betusked elephant head. By comparison, poor Litchfield looks rather timid. A more brutal way of upstaging is to place one bookplate on top of another, not unlike stepping in front of someone as the camera shutter closes. A good example of this can be seen in William Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespeare (1757), where two members of the aristocratic Needham family jostle for attention: the nineteenth-century plate of the first Earl of Kilmorey obscuring all but the crest of a lively plate from the preceding century, probably that of the ninth viscount. A more brutal way of upstaging is to place one bookplate on top of another, not unlike stepping in front of someone as the camera shutter closes. A good example of this can be seen in William Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespeare (1757), where two members of the aristocratic Needham family jostle for attention: the nineteenth-century plate of the first Earl of Kilmorey obscuring all but the crest of a lively plate from the preceding century, probably that of the ninth viscount. Melancholic Remains

And then there are those books from which the bookplate has been torn, roughly erased, or simply annihilated, leaving but a ghost; as if the current owner could not bear the presence of a predecessor. But sometimes enough of a trace is left to give a clue: luckily Victor Duchâtaux (1823-1905), a lawyer and member of the municipal council at Reims, is unaware of the fate that befell his bookplate, the heart of which has been wrenched out. The book in which it clings on, a first edition of Jean Bodin’s De la demonomania des sorciers (Paris, 1580), the most influential witch-hunting guide of the sixteenth-century and a Renaissance best-seller, must have once taken pride of place in his library. He is almost gone but not quite forgotten.

Melancholic Remains

And then there are those books from which the bookplate has been torn, roughly erased, or simply annihilated, leaving but a ghost; as if the current owner could not bear the presence of a predecessor. But sometimes enough of a trace is left to give a clue: luckily Victor Duchâtaux (1823-1905), a lawyer and member of the municipal council at Reims, is unaware of the fate that befell his bookplate, the heart of which has been wrenched out. The book in which it clings on, a first edition of Jean Bodin’s De la demonomania des sorciers (Paris, 1580), the most influential witch-hunting guide of the sixteenth-century and a Renaissance best-seller, must have once taken pride of place in his library. He is almost gone but not quite forgotten.

Written by Duncan McCoshan, specialist BROWSE ALL BOOKS

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From his own design work crafting “epic ephemera” to twenty years’ worth of memories at Peter Harrington, the head of our design team, Nigel Bents, has lots of stories to tell.

Nigel, you are one of the longstanding team members at Peter Harrington; how did you start working here?

I was asked to do a catalogue by Peter Harrington, Pom’s dad, twenty years ago – there were no pictures in it apart from the cover. After its completion, I began working as a freelance designer for the company; and a year later, I’d completed a grand total of five whole catalogues. The work fitted in nicely with my main job of running the first year BA graphics at Chelsea College of Art. Not having to worry about 80-odd students and simply moving type and book pictures around on a page in a quiet carpeted room at 100 Fulham Road became a sort of therapy, much like doing a  sudoku. Through all this time, despite teaching term-time 4 days per week, senior specialist Adam Douglas has always maintained that teaching was simply my ‘hobby’ and that Peter Harrington catalogues were the real job.

How do you feel looking back at your earliest memories here?

This is probably answered best by my son George’s Father’s Day Card from long ago!! The catalogues took a long time to do in those far-off days; I thought they looked great at the time but now I can see clearly that they look utterly hideous. Like when that cool photo of you as a 17 year-old doesn’t look so cool a few years later.

How do you feel looking back at your earliest memories here?

This is probably answered best by my son George’s Father’s Day Card from long ago!! The catalogues took a long time to do in those far-off days; I thought they looked great at the time but now I can see clearly that they look utterly hideous. Like when that cool photo of you as a 17 year-old doesn’t look so cool a few years later.

How have things changed since you started working?

In those early days I would often spend all night formatting text, working 24-hour shifts. Pablo would get on his moped at Fulham Road and drop off a floppy disk/CD/Hard Drive down the road at college that Ruth, our photographer, had produced, so that I could get on with it after my teaching day was done. Those days and nights were long and hard. Nowadays, or course, it’s better. The software does so much more, and the cataloging team are each allocated specific aspects of preparation so that it runs pretty smoothly. We have an IT department too. In those far off days I would get Chelsea College’s IT department to fix problems!

 

How have things changed since you started working?

In those early days I would often spend all night formatting text, working 24-hour shifts. Pablo would get on his moped at Fulham Road and drop off a floppy disk/CD/Hard Drive down the road at college that Ruth, our photographer, had produced, so that I could get on with it after my teaching day was done. Those days and nights were long and hard. Nowadays, or course, it’s better. The software does so much more, and the cataloging team are each allocated specific aspects of preparation so that it runs pretty smoothly. We have an IT department too. In those far off days I would get Chelsea College’s IT department to fix problems!

Your funniest memory at Peter Harrington (if you can narrow it down to one!)?

I was working, at home, one night, finishing the Christmas catalogue – it’s the one catalogue that you can’t move the print deadline on. I was so tired that I left the laptop on the sofa, next to the dog, as I went up to bed at about 4:00 am. I came down a few hours later, all ready for the final push to discover that we’d been burgled – and they’d taken my laptop! I have no idea how we did send it to print, but the dog got a very hard time at her annual performance review. These days I’m re-assured by shop manager Joe Jameson’s adage that ‘there is no such thing as a rare book emergency’.

 

Your funniest memory at Peter Harrington (if you can narrow it down to one!)?

I was working, at home, one night, finishing the Christmas catalogue – it’s the one catalogue that you can’t move the print deadline on. I was so tired that I left the laptop on the sofa, next to the dog, as I went up to bed at about 4:00 am. I came down a few hours later, all ready for the final push to discover that we’d been burgled – and they’d taken my laptop! I have no idea how we did send it to print, but the dog got a very hard time at her annual performance review. These days I’m re-assured by shop manager Joe Jameson’s adage that ‘there is no such thing as a rare book emergency’.

Who do you work with and how does the team work now?

It’s quite amazing that there are three of us designing now, and we’ve all been to Chelsea College! I share the print design workload with Abbie, who was a student of mine, and Sophie too, who works at Dover Street doing mostly on-line design with the marketing team. We all have different tastes so it’s great to see that reflected in design selections as we constantly try to refresh and broaden how we show our mostly antique imagery. Nowadays we have a wide range of specialists who each have their own take on how they’d like their collated material to appear. Working on these diverse collections – whether Poetry, Climate Change, Jazz, Occult – gives us a constantly varied range of visual matter and the opportunity to share their worlds and passions! Theodora flawlessly supervises our catalogue production – which has risen to a startling 18 scheduled this year in some form or other. It’s a pleasant experience in our small attic room at Fulham Road, and with many staff that have been here as long as I have, there are far less sleepless nights these days.

 

Who do you work with and how does the team work now?

It’s quite amazing that there are three of us designing now, and we’ve all been to Chelsea College! I share the print design workload with Abbie, who was a student of mine, and Sophie too, who works at Dover Street doing mostly on-line design with the marketing team. We all have different tastes so it’s great to see that reflected in design selections as we constantly try to refresh and broaden how we show our mostly antique imagery. Nowadays we have a wide range of specialists who each have their own take on how they’d like their collated material to appear. Working on these diverse collections – whether Poetry, Climate Change, Jazz, Occult – gives us a constantly varied range of visual matter and the opportunity to share their worlds and passions! Theodora flawlessly supervises our catalogue production – which has risen to a startling 18 scheduled this year in some form or other. It’s a pleasant experience in our small attic room at Fulham Road, and with many staff that have been here as long as I have, there are far less sleepless nights these days.

What are you passionate about?

I love letterpress and print, and recently completed ‘the Letterpress Manifesto’ – my love letter to print. And now that I have finished teaching, I’ve been delighted to continue to run some letterpress classes, taking Peter Harrington bookshop staff to the New North Press in Hoxton, where I formally took my students. After all, seeing as that’s how most of the books on our shelves were printed, everyone needs to know how it feels to hold type in their hands!

 

What are you passionate about?

I love letterpress and print, and recently completed ‘the Letterpress Manifesto’ – my love letter to print. And now that I have finished teaching, I’ve been delighted to continue to run some letterpress classes, taking Peter Harrington bookshop staff to the New North Press in Hoxton, where I formally took my students. After all, seeing as that’s how most of the books on our shelves were printed, everyone needs to know how it feels to hold type in their hands!

What design work do you do outside Peter Harrington?

I like to produce epic ephemera; meaningless flotsam and jetsam that I post to people. The American artist Ray Johnson with his ‘New York School of Correspondence’ started off what would later become known as mail art, which is how I can happily while away the hours if I’m not at the letterpress. Who needs to write a book when you can send a decent postcard?

 

What design work do you do outside Peter Harrington?

I like to produce epic ephemera; meaningless flotsam and jetsam that I post to people. The American artist Ray Johnson with his ‘New York School of Correspondence’ started off what would later become known as mail art, which is how I can happily while away the hours if I’m not at the letterpress. Who needs to write a book when you can send a decent postcard?

You must come across so many items that catch your eye, are there any you would have liked to keep for yourself?

I used to collect stuff – postcards… trashy paperbacks… midcentury ceramics; but nowadays I’m more inclined to pass things on. It’s a worrying balance between being a collector and a hoarder; between being an obsessive and a health hazard.

 

You must come across so many items that catch your eye, are there any you would have liked to keep for yourself?

I used to collect stuff – postcards… trashy paperbacks… midcentury ceramics; but nowadays I’m more inclined to pass things on. It’s a worrying balance between being a collector and a hoarder; between being an obsessive and a health hazard.

How do you find inspiration?

Wandering around museums and galleries is always useful – I rather like PD James’s assertion that all you need for inspiration is time and a pile of junk.

 

How do you find inspiration?

Wandering around museums and galleries is always useful – I rather like PD James’s assertion that all you need for inspiration is time and a pile of junk.

Which designers do you admire?

I am a disciple of Abram Games with his ethos of ‘Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means’ – he was primarily a poster artist though; I’m not sure he did many book covers. That 1950s postwar period is a diverse mix of austerity and binge, of black & white and colour, of tradition and rock’n’roll. I often seek enlightenment from the creativity of that era. Ley Kenyon who illustrated the cover of People of the City, had forged documents as a captured airman in Stalag Luft III prison camp for the real ‘Great Escape.’ He subsequently taught the Duke of Edinburgh how to scuba dive in the pool at Buckingham Palace. And then taught at Chelsea Art School! Now there’s a CV to aspire to! Victor Reinganum’s cover image for the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which we used on a Spring catalogue one year is a real joy too. Yep those Illustrated book covers from the 1930s-1960s are a glorious mix of lettering and image; I’ve included quite a few in my selection which is essentially a cross-section of what happens in my brain at any given moment.

Which designers do you admire?

I am a disciple of Abram Games with his ethos of ‘Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means’ – he was primarily a poster artist though; I’m not sure he did many book covers. That 1950s postwar period is a diverse mix of austerity and binge, of black & white and colour, of tradition and rock’n’roll. I often seek enlightenment from the creativity of that era. Ley Kenyon who illustrated the cover of People of the City, had forged documents as a captured airman in Stalag Luft III prison camp for the real ‘Great Escape.’ He subsequently taught the Duke of Edinburgh how to scuba dive in the pool at Buckingham Palace. And then taught at Chelsea Art School! Now there’s a CV to aspire to! Victor Reinganum’s cover image for the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which we used on a Spring catalogue one year is a real joy too. Yep those Illustrated book covers from the 1930s-1960s are a glorious mix of lettering and image; I’ve included quite a few in my selection which is essentially a cross-section of what happens in my brain at any given moment.

Interview by Winifred Hewitt-Wright

READ MORE INTERVIEWS BROWSE OUR CATALOGUES

The post Nigel Bents appeared first on Peter Harrington Journal - The Journal.

The year 1848 was famously a year of revolutions. In February that year, a new political party issued its manifesto. Its famous opening line claimed their nascent movement was a spectre haunting all of Europe. The pamphlet was written in high-flown German but published by an obscure printer at an unfamiliar address in the crowded, impoverished East End of London.

The Pamphlet that Changed the World

Any casual reader picking up this 23-page manifesto could be forgiven for failing to recognize the name of this new political party. The party was to take no part in the astonishing revolutions that swept Europe that spring. While the monarchy was overthrown in France and replaced by a republic, the old leaders in several major German and Italian states and in Austria succumbed to pressure to grant liberal constitutions, and the Italian and German states seemed on the verge of unification, this hitherto-unknown band of would-be revolutionaries remained quiet in London.

And yet, long after the political upheavals of 1848 had subsided, this little pamphlet was to have enormous consequences on the world’s political stage, providing the intellectual firepower behind successful revolutions in Russia, China, Africa, eastern Europe, south-east Asia, and the Caribbean, as well as countless unsuccessful attempts elsewhere. This was, of course, the booklet we now know as the Communist Manifesto.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

In the early 19th century, the word “communist” had come to be used to describe those who supposedly took their political inspiration from the left wing of the Jacobin Club of the French Revolution. One such group of Germans, headed by Karl Schapper, formed a secret society known as the League of the Just (Bund der Gerechten) and took part in a May 1839 rebellion in Paris. After the failure of that uprising, the organization moved to London. Meanwhile, in Brussels, Karl Marx and his close friend and co-thinker Friedrich Engels were part of a small political circle of radical German émigrés called the Communist Correspondence Committee. These groups and others eventually formed a fractious temporary union in the Communist League, which held a London congress in June 1847. At the group’s second congress, held from 27 November to 13 December 1847 at Great Windmill Street in Soho, just off Shaftesbury Avenue, London, Marx and Engels agreed to compose a manifesto for the new organization.

A Truly Rare Book

Writing fast and under pressure from the congress committee, Marx completed the task by the end of February 1848. But on its first publication, perhaps the best-known and certainly the most widely translated pamphlet of the 19th century went almost unnoticed. The first edition was issued in dark green printed paper wrappers, printed on poor quality paper, its text proofread only cursorily and littered with misprints and accidentals. As it was intended to be distributed widely, it had a surprisingly large print run, at least 2,000 copies, and was printed three times in quick succession. Nevertheless, it is now astonishingly rare. Most copies were thrown away or perhaps destroyed for fear of the authorities.

A Truly Rare Book

Writing fast and under pressure from the congress committee, Marx completed the task by the end of February 1848. But on its first publication, perhaps the best-known and certainly the most widely translated pamphlet of the 19th century went almost unnoticed. The first edition was issued in dark green printed paper wrappers, printed on poor quality paper, its text proofread only cursorily and littered with misprints and accidentals. As it was intended to be distributed widely, it had a surprisingly large print run, at least 2,000 copies, and was printed three times in quick succession. Nevertheless, it is now astonishingly rare. Most copies were thrown away or perhaps destroyed for fear of the authorities.

Mysterious Publication

As befits a clandestine operation, the first printing of the Communist Manifesto is clouded in mystery. As there are fewer than 30 copies extant of the first edition of this ramshackle little pamphlet, most with minor variants between them, the scholars have been busy for years debating the bibliographical details, a task complicated by the faulty or self-serving memories of those involved. Marx himself, for example, was always keen to emphasize that the Manifesto was published just before the French Revolution of 1848, which began on 22 February. It wasn’t. Although the publication date of the first edition is printed on the title page as February 1848, printing of the pamphlet did not begin until 1 March and continued for a week, with interruptions. Meanwhile, on 3 March, serialization of the original version of the text began in the Deutsche Londoner Zeitung. The publisher’s address given on the title page may be misleading; some claim it was printed in Warren Street, at that newspaper’s offices.

Mysterious Publication

As befits a clandestine operation, the first printing of the Communist Manifesto is clouded in mystery. As there are fewer than 30 copies extant of the first edition of this ramshackle little pamphlet, most with minor variants between them, the scholars have been busy for years debating the bibliographical details, a task complicated by the faulty or self-serving memories of those involved. Marx himself, for example, was always keen to emphasize that the Manifesto was published just before the French Revolution of 1848, which began on 22 February. It wasn’t. Although the publication date of the first edition is printed on the title page as February 1848, printing of the pamphlet did not begin until 1 March and continued for a week, with interruptions. Meanwhile, on 3 March, serialization of the original version of the text began in the Deutsche Londoner Zeitung. The publisher’s address given on the title page may be misleading; some claim it was printed in Warren Street, at that newspaper’s offices.

Rare in Commerce and Institutionally

In 1848, existing British copyright law stipulated that a single copy of every book published must be sent for deposit in the Library of the British Museum, at a cost to the publisher of two shillings per entry in the register kept at Stationers’ Hall and one shilling for a certificate to prove registry. Even the major publishers found this obligation irritating, and it was hardly likely that an obscure gang of German agitators would comply. But it is a further sign of the pamphlet’s rarity that the British Library, which did not receive a copy on first publication, has never since managed to acquire a copy. The same is true of many other of the great world libraries, most of which have no copy in their archives.

Rare in Commerce and Institutionally

In 1848, existing British copyright law stipulated that a single copy of every book published must be sent for deposit in the Library of the British Museum, at a cost to the publisher of two shillings per entry in the register kept at Stationers’ Hall and one shilling for a certificate to prove registry. Even the major publishers found this obligation irritating, and it was hardly likely that an obscure gang of German agitators would comply. But it is a further sign of the pamphlet’s rarity that the British Library, which did not receive a copy on first publication, has never since managed to acquire a copy. The same is true of many other of the great world libraries, most of which have no copy in their archives.

In April 1848, Marx and Engels found time to correct the text for printing and punctuation mistakes. This revised 30-page version was the basis for future editions of the Manifesto. The original 23-page version had already passed into history.

Written by Adam Douglas, Senior Specialist

BROWSE CATALOGUE 200 BROWSE ALL KARL MARX

The post The Communist Manifesto appeared first on Peter Harrington Journal - The Journal.

Whether you like your Winnie-the-Pooh in the original A. A. Milne books or in a Walt Disney cartoon, or both, there’s no escaping the most famous teddy bear in the world. With the made-for-television cartoon series, The New Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, first broadcast in 1988, Pooh became a more popular character than Mickey Mouse for Disney. At Peter Harrington, the original books are exceptionally popular, and we have the privilege of offering some significant Milne or Shepard material.

Bears at the Beginning

Pooh’s story has two bear beginnings. During the First World War, a Canadian soldier brought a female bear cub with him to England from Winnipeg. Winnie eventually lived in London Zoo from 1914 until her death in 1934. It was there that Christopher Milne, the author’s son, made an ursine acquaintance. The other bear was a teddy bear bought for Christopher on his first birthday. Real and toy bears combined in A. A. Milne’s imagination and, crucially, E. H. Shepard’s artwork. The first of Milne’s verses for children, ‘Vespers’, was published in 1923. When Shepard came to illustrate it, there’s a familiar teddy bear at the foot of Christopher Robin’s bed.

When We Were Very Young

Published on 6 November 1924, the first book, When We Were Very Young, is a collection of verses including ‘Buckingham Palace’, ‘The King’s Breakfast’, ‘Halfway Down’, and ‘Vespers’. Many of these are familiar from their musical settings: famously Ann Stephens’s rendition of ‘Buckingham Palace’, and ‘Halfway Down the Stairs’ sung by Robin the Frog (Kermit’s nephew). Shepard’s illustration for ‘Halfway Down’ has Pooh bear at the top of the stairs and the original dust jacket for the book features him on the front panel. There was a standard trade edition and a signed limited edition (100 copies) published by Methuen in the UK. In the US, the Milne books were published by Dutton.

Winnie-the-Pooh

The stories started when, in December 1925, Milne was asked to contribute a tale to the Christmas Eve issue of The Evening News. The story of Pooh climbing a tree to steal honey from some bees was also broadcast on the radio on Christmas Day. Winnie-the-Pooh had arrived, and a full book of adventures was published on 14 October 1926 by Methuen in the UK. It is an indication of the publisher’s faith in the new book that it was first published in three different versions: the standard trade edition, the signed limited edition (350 copies), and the signed extra limited edition (20 copies).

Now We Are Six

For the third book in the series, Now We Are Six, Milne returned to verse. Publication date was 13 October 1927. Winnie-the-Pooh was now firmly established, and Shepard included him in many of his illustrations. When Christopher Robin meets a charcoal-burner, for example, there are three illustrations and Pooh is present in all. There is also the five stanza poem, ‘Us Two’, which commences “Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh, | There’s always Pooh and Me”. Shepard concludes this poem with another illustration of that famous staircase complete with bear. Once again, the English publishers issued a standard trade edition, a signed limited edition (200 copies), and a signed extra limited edition (20 copies).

The House at Pooh Corner

Despite the assurance in ‘Us Two’ that “two can stick together”, it’s the second story book and fourth volume in the series, The House at Pooh Corner, in which Christopher Robin and Pooh “come to an enchanted place, and we leave them there”. It’s one of the saddest episodes in children’s literature when we confront the truth that in growing up the child will spend less time with his beloved bear. Before this conclusion, however, there are the tales which feature a new character: Tigger. It’s a surprise that one of the most popular inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood is such a late appearance. He bounces off the page, however, and becomes one of Milne’s most beloved characters. By now the publishers knew they had a hit on their hands and on 11 October 1928, in addition to the standard trade edition, a signed limited edition (back to 350 copies), and a signed extra limited edition (20 copies) were published.

Deluxe Bindings

It’s worth noting that Methuen also sold a deluxe binding of the trade issue of all the books (although the deluxe binding of When We Were Very Young only appears from the seventh impression). In contrast with a cloth binding dust jacket published at 7/6, the deluxe bindings in calf came with a thin tissue jacket in a box at 10/6.

A Winning Collaboration

It is true that Milne’s texts are inexorably linked to Shepard’s illustrations. E. H. Shepard was a well-respected artist working for Punch when he was asked to illustrate Milne’s work. His standard practice was to create a preliminary drawing in pencil. Having revised this, Shepard would then cover the reverse of the sheet with pencil shading. Placed on top of a sheet of artist’s board, he would then copy the drawing by tracing the appropriate lines of the composition. With a faint pencil outline, Shepard would then draw the finished illustration in black ink. The preliminary pencil sketches were retained by Shepard and throughout his life he would occasionally produce new drawings from them. The preliminaries are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The original ink drawings, once used by the publishers, were returned to Shepard and sold through a series of exhibitions at The Sporting Galleries in Covent Garden. It is because of these exhibitions that it is still possible to acquire Shepard’s original drawings, as published in the four Pooh books.

An Excellent Reference Collection

One of the finest private collections of Milne and Shepard material was handled by Peter Harrington in 2011. Pat McInally (b. 1953), the distinguished former American football player and children’s book collector, assembled a magnificent collection over two decades. Our catalogue is still available as a wonderful source of reference of Milne and Shepard’s work, including a limited edition signed by Pat.

Written by Dr Phil Errington, Senior Specialist

BROWSE A. A. MILNE BROWSE CHILDREN'S

The post “There’s always Pooh”: A. A. Milne, E. H. Shepard and Winnie-the-Pooh appeared first on Peter Harrington Journal - The Journal.

Written by John Ryan, bookseller and cataloguer

This remarkable collection of original material on Winston S. Churchill from the personal collection of Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. (Steve Forbes) represents one of the most significant collections handled by Peter Harrington in more than 50 years as booksellers, and is considered one of the finest such collections in private hands.

Churchill is an icon. He is on the £5 note, his statue is in London’s Parliament Square, he is one of history’s most universally recognizable historical figures. He is also a mythological figure who has had fierce critics and fiercer defenders. The Winston S. Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes allows us to delve deeply into this extraordinary man. It takes us to the heart of his moment of decision. It illuminates his private life away from the spotlight. In every item, the real Churchill reaches out from the legend. 

Steve Forbes, The Leading Churchill Collector 

This collection is a testament to what a private collector can achieve through combining multi-decade perseverance with the ability to grasp every opportunity to acquire exceptional material. 

Forbes is the third-generation chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Magazine, America’s premier business publication. Like Churchill, his life has straddled the spheres of politics and publishing. He ran for US President in 1996 and 2000. For decades he has had a prominent role in America’s politics and remains a keenly sought voice on national political and economic questions. 

Forbes follows his father as a major collector in many fields – it is difficult to find an area which the Forbes family has not collected. Churchill has always been a key interest, ever since as a child, Forbes first heard of the statesman from his father, who had fought and been wounded in the Second World War. In the 1980s Forbes established himself as the leading Churchill collector. As he has written, “The man wrote so many memos, letters, articles and books that my quest easily became a lifetime passion. Things always led to more things!”. Forbes was keenly aware of the market and had his direct pick of the best material: with his phenomenal reputation much was offered straight to him, bypassing all other collectors and public sale. 

The collection has its trophies. Churchill’s desk and one of his paintings sit alongside a breathtaking collection of inscribed books. These showpieces are the gems, worthy of museums and showcases. But the real strength of the collection is not the pinnacles but the sheer comprehensiveness which underpins it – literally thousands of letters, documents, ephemera, objects, and books, representing as complete a collection as could reasonably be hoped in one lifetime. Forbes’s drive, enthusiasm, and knowledge ensures the collection is more than the sum of its parts, and every item is enhanced by its “Forbes” provenance. 

There comes a time when every collection must find its final home or be dispersed for the next generation. Forbes has said that as his family does not share his passion, it is best for the material to go to new collectors, allowing others to share in the pursuit which has enthralled him for decades.

As one of the world’s leading dealers in Churchill’s material, we at Peter Harrington are privileged to be presented with the opportunity to find a new home for this exceptional collection. Items will be sold individually to new and established collectors and to museums and archives, where they will continue to educate and inspire. 

A Collection of Breadth and Depth 

The collection covers the breadth of Churchill’s long career, and illustrates his many roles: as adventurer, soldier, politician, wartime leader, and writer. 

Churchill as Adventurer 

In his autobiography My Early Life, Churchill appealed to the young of all ages: “I cannot but return my sincere thanks to the high gods for the gift of existence … Come on now all you young men, all over the world … Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years!”. By the time he was 27 Churchill had lived more than most people ever do: he had travelled to Cuba to observe their revolution, joined the Malakand Field Force to suppress a rebellion in Northwest India, fought with Kitchener against the Mahdi in the Sudan, and went to South Africa to serve in the Boer War, whereupon he was captured and made a daring escape from a prisoner-of-war camp. 

A relic of these years of adventure is an extraordinary presentation copy of the young Churchill’s novel Savrola, inscribed “To Major General Ian Hamilton from Winston S. Churchill Ladysmith Mar. 1. 1900”. The preceding day Churchill and his mentor, the military commander Ian Hamilton, had finally relieved the city of Ladysmith, ending a 118-day siege by Boer forces: Churchill called it “one of the most happy memories of my life” (My Early Life). That night he and Hamilton uncorked champagne and dined together, and the following day this book was presented, a wonderful link between the young Churchill and the military leader he so admired.  

Churchill the Soldier 

Churchill was not just under fire as a young man. In 1916 he was in the trenches of the Western Front. To many this seemed a tremendous fall – Churchill had risen to one of the leading decision-makers of Britain’s First World War government, but the perceived failure of the Gallipoli Campaign forced his removal from power. Most men in his position would have retired to the backbenches. Instead, the 41-year-old Churchill headed to the trenches to fight with the common soldiers. In an extraordinary series of letters, written “in the field”, Churchill narrates his experience of German shelling, writing he is “under fire every day”, and detailing the action he was seeing. In the Second World War, Churchill never made military decisions lightly: he knew the reality of war.

Churchill the Politician 

Churchill recovered from Gallipoli, and for the next four decades he was one of Britain’s leading political voices, even in the 1930s when his warnings against appeasement was delivered from the political wilderness. Many items in the collection illustrate Churchill’s skills as a politician. Churchill was a profoundly honourable man, but he also recognized politics as a game, and was by no means averse to scheming. A wonderfully resonant item perfectly encapsulates this: in 1922, perhaps as a joke, perhaps very seriously, he inscribed a copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince to the newspaper tycoon Lord Beaverbrook.

The Prince, of course, is the definitive manual of political machination, outlining how to win the support of the masses, safeguard your position, and achieve your end whatever the means. Lord Beaverbrook, whom Churchill later appointed as his wartime Minister of Aircraft Production, was very much at the forefront of British politics, and a behind-the-scenes puller of strings. He was able to make or break a political career – he greatly helped to advance Churchill’s – and is certainly in many ways a Machiavellian figure. But many would argue so was Churchill, who, in the long run, seemed to achieve most of the political goals he set his mind to.

Churchill the Wartime Leader 

Churchill’s career climaxed in his leadership of the Allied powers against the Nazi threat – at one stage, standing alone against them. Countless items from the collection represent this role. One is particularly evocative. Churchill inscribed his book about the First World War “To Admiral Charles Forbes from Winston S. Churchill Scapa Flow March 9. 1940”. That day, Churchill was in the flagship of Admiral Forbes (no relation to Steve Forbes), marking the occasion of Scapa Flow being brought back into use as the nation’s core naval base. Churchill recounted in his memoirs that a false air raid siren led them all to believe they were being attacked, but all reacted with resolution and clear-headedness. 

Such a book transports the holder back, to a specific ship, in a specific place, on a specific day. The past becomes far more real with such objects than in the pages of a history book.

Churchill the Writer 

In a speech in the House of Commons in 1948, Churchill stated “I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself”. This is the source of the oft repeated misquote “History will be kind to me, and I intend to write it”. Certainly, that aptly summarizes Churchill’s two magisterial books on the First World War and then on the Second: part history, part memoir, part a scholarly treatment of events, part a vindication of his conduct.  

Perhaps the star item of the collection is Churchill’s own heavily annotated proof copies of his memoir The Second World War, which he gave to his key literary collaborator Bill Deakin to assist in the final pre-publication revision of the text. This is accompanied by a mass of documents and correspondence illustrating Churchill’s writing of the history. Churchill was always a man who made his primary living as a writer, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. The proofs and associated documentation illustrate Churchill as a wordsmith, crafting books of phenomenal literary power, and constituting what is almost certainly the most important account of the war.  

Churchill the Man 

If a single object could be chosen to show Churchill as a man beyond the wartime titan, it would be one of his original paintings. In the winter of 1935/36, Churchill travelled to Morocco, and for many happy days indulged in one of his life’s great pleasures: simple amateur painting. His watercolours may not reach the heights of the highest level of art, but nonetheless show technical proficiency, strong awareness of light and shade, and certainly strong enthusiasm, all on clear display in this painting of a gorge in the eastern Atlas Mountains. 

BROWSE THE CATALOGUE BROWSE WINSTON CHURCHILL

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