C-SPAN to Film Author Kevin Hayes and ‘The Road to Monticello’ at Full Circle on Friday, July 18 at 6:30 p.m.
Join us this Friday for a special event featuring Kevin J. Hayes, Professor of English at University of Central Oklahoma and author of The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson, a biography of Thomas Jefferson as an intellectual. C-SPAN will be on site to film Hayes’ talk about his new book.
In The Road to Monticello, Hayes, looking at Jefferson’s correspondence, literary efforts, and libraries, follows Jefferson’s education from a young man to lawyer; from his original estate which burned down to his time in Europe, his time in office, and finally to his retirement at Monticello. Jefferson, mythic American figure and third President of the United States, was an able statesman and politician, as well as a philosopher, a scholar, and a gentleman.
Publisher’s Weekly says of the book: “Hayes… takes us through Jefferson’s hugely wide and eclectic reading with an ease and lightness often missing from a subject central to American history”
Books are lent -free of charge- to passengers and Officers daily between 10.00 and 10.30 a.m. and between 5.00 and 5.30 p.m.
One book at a time may be borrowed by each person for a maximum period of 7 days. An extension may be obtained upon application to the Chief Steward. All books should be returned before disembarkation.
The equivalent of Nf.10- will be charged for any book lost, damaged or defaced. If any book is received from the Library in a damaged condition, the Chief Steward should be notified immediately.
Received Into Ship’s Library ___________ (Nov- 1966)
What a week! Busy, but also very good. Well, true friend of the Bibliophiles of Oklahoma, Kevin J. Hayes’s new book The Road to Monticello got a nice long review in the New York Sun this last week by Adam Kirsch. I mean to post a link to it then, but the holiday got in the way. So, read the review then go pick up a copy.
“The Jefferson we get to know in these pages, rather, is the voracious reader and book collector, the happy victim of what he called ‘bibliomanie.'”
. Hooray! Not to disparage the Natural State, but this is the very first piece of book trade ephemera I’ve seen from Arkansas. Granted, I have not been specifically looking for ephemera from Arkansas, but nearly all states have a set within the American Book Trade Index. Even Mississippi! Not to dig on Mississippi… but it is Mississippi.
According to History of the Arkansas Press… by Frederick William, Jonathan Kellogg started his printing company in 1880 and closed in 1886. In that time he published the Arkansas School Journal which later became the Kellogg’s Eclectic Monthly. Thanks Google Books! I didn’t have that title on my shelf. It is also a very pretty billhead…
How could I forget the best part?! I was sure I loaded the photo of the interior of this marvel, but I guess I didn’t. Here it is: The Interior of the Book Detektive (complete with pencil and foil label).
. There. I’ve said it. Hold it against me if you wish, but I can’t change. I won’t. Christopher Morley is one of my heroes. Not only for the Parnassus on Wheels and Haunted Bookshop, which are fantastic, nor merely for his insight into the return of a book. I keep thinking if I could get it small enough, it would make a fine bookplate. With a tasteful border, of course.
” I give hearty and humble thanks for the safe return of this book, which having endured the perils of my friend’s bookcase and the bookcases of my friend’s friends, now returns to me in reasonably good condition. I give my hearty and humble thanks that my friend did not see fit to give this book to his infant for a plaything, nor use it as an ash tray for his burning cigar, nor as a teething-ring for his mastiff. When I loaned this book, I deemed it as lost; I was resigned to the business of a long parting; I never thought to look upon its pages again. But now that my book has come back to me, I rejoice and am exceedingly glad! Bring hither the fatted morocco and let us rebind the volume and set it on the shelf of honor, for this my book was lent and it is returned again. Presently, therefore, I may return some of the books I myself have borrowed.”
I truly admire the man for projects like The Book Detektive. The Book Detektive is a book shaped kit that could sit camouflaged in your bookcase and spring into action if a book were to be swept away in the moment of fool-hardy good hostmanship. That may not be a word. This is something I’ve had to learn how to deal with. I for one make it a point to say good-bye to books I “lend”. In my experience (like Morley’s), I *know* book borrowers have good intentions. Often have good intentions. Ok, it’s rare… and they are deluding themselves. To the point, I’ve never seen one of these little kits until one crossed the counter at ebay. Well, the opening bid was somewhere around $70.00. If it had included more than one foil Book Detektive label, I would have faltered and bid to my ruin. However, I couldn’t chase it past its closing price of $153 and change. Heartbroken, I browsed the venerable Bookfinder.com for a consolation copy. There seem to be two listed online. Both over $100. Only one lists the contents, and it doesn’t sound as complete as the one on ebay.
Now I’ll have to start that Morley collection, or start a collection of book reclamation systems. I wonder if there are others? Maybe I should market my own… Hmmm… THE EXILE BIBLIOPHILE PRESENTS….
The text of the auction for your benefit:.
THE BOOK DETEKTIVE A satirical item poking fun a people who borrow books and don’t return them! Planned by Beach Cooke With an admonition from Christopher Morley Published by William Morrow & Co, NY copyright 1938. First Edition, 1st Printing.
Book shaped, folding box in a paper dust jacket with red and black decorations and titles. The box is made of hard cardboard with a pebbled finish. The box size is 6 by 7 inches. Advertised as “A trusty one-volume book police force that will pay for itself over and over again in a few months”. An unusual publication indeed. Consists of a multiple folding box with pockets for various items to help track and secure the return of loaned books.
Contains: 1) an 8 page booklet “The Little Black Book” with “a most important admonition by Christopher Morley being the hitherto unpublished transcript of the Criminal Trial of Pandowdy V. Librovore”; 2) A card “Confidential Instructions for using The Book Detektive”; 3) A card on “luring your books back diplomatically”; 4) Cards for recording loaned books (3 red & 3 green); 5) Cards with sample letters to entice borrowers to return books (11 different); 6) bookmarks (22) with Christopher Morley quote. 7) one unused pencil 8) one unused foil ‘The Book Detektive’ Book Plate (label)
Condition: The box is in Near Fine condition in a Good dust jacket. The book covers are bright and clean; with only slight edge wear. The binding is tight, one of the foldable hinges beginning to crack all others hinges are firm with no cracks. The inside items above are in like new condition. There is a neat bookstore stamp on the front cover. There are no names, markings, tears or folds. The dust jacket is bright and clean with edge wear and small closed tears.
. Memorial Day was typically a fun holiday for me and mine. It usually meant cookouts and warm weather. These don’t always go together in Nebraska where I grew up. Every few years it would mean a sojourn out to the family cemetery to lay flowers on graves, almost entirely for relatives I never knew. I enjoyed the quiet graveyard by the little abandoned church and read the familiar names- names I had only heard in stories. I liked trying to find the oldest markers, trying to decipher the military markers, and always stopping to admire the stone featuring a detailed drawing and patent number awarded to my kin for some kind of stump grinding device.
What does Memorial Day have to do with books? Henry Carter Welles was a hyphen bookseller. Not another Barber-Bookseller, but a more common Druggist-Bookseller. Welles, born in 1821, was too old to serve during the Civil War. Sure, there are many, many recorded volunteers who were in their 40s, and beyond, but it was not the norm. However, Mr. Welles, like the rest of the nation, was certainly thinking about the war and how many boys from home never returned.
At a social gathering in the summer of 1865, Welles suggested that a day should be set aside to honor the dead of the Civil War. The next year, he repeated his suggestion to General John B. Murray. The two men and a group of local citizens gained the support of the village, and on May 5, 1866, the first complete observance of Memorial Day took place in Waterloo, NY. On that day, civic societies joined the procession led by veterans marching to martial music to the three existing cemeteries. At each cemetery there were impressive and lengthy services including speeches by General Murray and a local clergyman. The ceremonies were repeated on May 5, 1867.
Henry C. Welles died in July 1868 but had lived long enough to see Memorial Day nationally proclaimed by General John Logan, the first commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. The GAR was the veteran’s organization for Union vets of the Civil War. This was General Order No. 11 establishing “Decoration Day” as it was then known. The date of the order was May 5, 1868, exactly two years after Waterloo’s first observance. That year Waterloo joined other communities in the nation by having their ceremony on May 30.
The Centennial Committee, formed in Waterloo, New York for the 100th observance in 1966, found old newspapers from the 1860s honoring Henry C. Welles, crediting him for suggesting the first Memorial Day. Until that time it was believed that General Murray started Decoration Day.
So, we have one more to remember this Memorial Day. Henry C. Welles, the bookman who helped organize recognition for those who preserved our Union.
At least, that’s how it goes officially. Since I first wrote this, there has been a lot more historical research done in the matter of the founding of Memorial Day.
Pictured above is what coin collectors refer to as a store card. It’s a token advertising a particular establishment, Mr. Welles in this case around 1861, minted these tokens. Tokens were widely used as small change, usually, pennies during the Civil War since there was a shortage of official minted money. This was back when our change actually had intrinsic value, unlike today. So, merchants of all sorts saw an opportunity to spread the word about their particular business. However, the story goes, one saloon keeper in New York City took it too far and minted as many as one million tokens with his name and “Remit for 1 Cent”. When the NYC streetcar company tried to remit the hundreds of thousands they’d received for fares, he told them to jump in a lake. They went to Congress, which created stricter laws about private citizens minting US currency.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
Received a small stack of old books, including a couple readers from the 1960s. One had this wonderful discard label inside the front cover. I got kick out of it and thought you would too.
Maryland Historical Society has further info: COOK FAMILY PAPERS, MS. 2328 Land transactions of Isaac P. Cook (1808-84), Baltimore bookseller and stationer, and his wife, Laura (d. 1876), and daughter, Isabel (fl. 1877-87); correspondence, 1877-80, about property assessment; deeds for Baltimore City and County land, 1808-87. 47 items, 1808-87
Cover posted to ebay here. Sold for under $3. Very little. At that price, I should have grabbed it, but I thought it would go higher. I can always console myself it is out of my collecting area… but I don’t feel any better about it…
WW Harding was bankrupt by 1878, according to this article from the NY Times.
Join us this Friday for a special event featuring Kevin J. Hayes, Professor of English at University of Central Oklahoma and author of The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson, a biography of Thomas Jefferson as an intellectual. C-SPAN will be on site to film Hayes’ talk about his new book. 
