A friend of mine at work has been reading. This is dangerous enough, but he’s been reading old books. He’s asked for recommendations of 19th Century American fiction. Reading old books can be downright alarming. I’ve been thinking about readers and their books the last few days, as I’ve added a personally coveted edition of Don Quixote to my collection. It’s the Illustrated Modern Library edition with illustrations by Dali. Just fantastic stuff. I also recently found a bookseller trade card advertising a specific title. I don’t see these types of cards as often as trade cards only advertising the merchant, and the title of the book was completely new to me.

According to WorldCat, 59 libraries carry copies of We Von Arldens, which was actually written by Clara Louise Burnham, not a “Miss Douglas”. It was originally published by Henry A. Sumner, in Chicago in 1881. There also seems to have been another printing in 1882. I’m not familiar with any of Burnham’s work, but according to bookfinder she did write a lot of novels. It was interesting that although there are hefty library holdings, there are no copies of this novel for sale online. At least none I could find. Has anyone read any books by Clara Louise Burnham, and more importantly, can you recommend any?

One thing I can recommend to anyone wanting to start a book collection, but not sure where to begin, is the Modern Library series. Did you know some people *collect* the Modern Library series? Yes, I’m one of them, and there is a great website that collectors have built up over several years which is really worth a look. If you’ve seen it before and have lost the link, it was formerly called www.dogeard.com, but the domain name was sold and it is now www.modernlib.com. So, why collect the Modern Library? There is a lot of great writing, both fiction and non-fiction, poetry, philosophy. The books are readable, handy, uniform size, and look good on the shelf.

Many titles feature original dust jacket art by some fantastic artists, like Rockwell Kent and E. McKnight Kauffer. There were also several editions that received new introductions by the author and in many cases, these editions were the only time these intros were printed. Folks like CS Forester (African Queen, which includes a final chapter the original publisher omitted), F Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsby), Robert Frost, William Faulkner, Dashiell Hammett (Maltese Falcon), and many many more. The best part about collecting the Modern Library series is that it is quite affordable. You can make it quite expensive (try finding an illustrated Alice in Wonderland!), but it doesn’t have to be. For instance, I currently own 6 London imprint Modern Library books, including one in dust jacket, but these were all found using tenacity, not spreading dough. Go visit www.modernlib.com for more.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

2007 is drawing to a close. Folks are setting goals, evaluating old ones. For instance, a couple months ago I decided to go ahead and write a little on bookseller ephemera, my own book collecting, and getting a collector club started. I really shouldn’t let the blog drift into a being all about “Stuff I couldn’t afford on eBay”. After all who wants to read about that? And look at this monster: Who would call that ephemera? I don’t have absolute answers here, but I am the only one shouting into the darkness at this webress, so I get to do as I please. That, and I just had to share this wonderful object, even though it is not en route to my house. I tried. It looks to be a cast brass embossing stamp (embosser?) for EJ Copp & Company of Nashua, New Hampshire. I wonder if they used it on stationery, invoices and receipts, or if some of these embossed stamps made it into books. For shame! After some light digging at Google, a couple details about this man emerge. Like many men of his generation, EJ Copp was a veteran of the Civil War.

According to John H. Goodale, author of History of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire (Philadelphia: JW Lewis & Co., 1885) page 182, “In the battle of Drury’s Bluff, May 13, 1864, while making an advance on Richmond, this regiment bore the “brunt” of the contest. Major James F. Randlett, now captain of a cavalry company in the regular army, was wounded. Adjutant Elbridge J. Copp, who, entering the service as a private at seventeen, had won promotion, was also wounded. On the 16th of August a fierce engagement took place at Deep Bottom, at which Adjutant E.J. Copp was severely wounded, which compelled him, in October following, to return to Nashua.” An obit from 1887, for his father gives us a shade more info about his war service and the years after “Mr. Joseph Copp, a prominent citizen of Nashua, NH, died recently at 86. He left a married daughter and five sons, among the latter being Rev. H.B. Copp, Capt. C.D. Copp and Col. E.J. Copp, the last-named in command of the Second Regiment of the State National Guard.”

I’m going to assume that Mr. Copp was not yet in business at the outbreak of the war, being 17 years old. However, it doesn’t seem like he waited long after the war. An insurance report from a fire in Nashua in April 1870 records a slight loss at “C. D. & E. J. Copp, books, etc.”

Well our stamp doesn’t mention a CD Copp, so I have to track him down. Searching for a CD Copp from Nashua in the latter 1800s reveals one Capt. Charles Dearborne Copp. He turns out to be a Medal of Honor Winner. According to the internet, he was born April 12, 1840, entered the US Army from Nashua NH. He earned the Medal of Honor during the Battle of Fredricksburg December 13, 1862. “In action against Confederate forces, Second Lt. Charles Copp seized the regimental colors after the color bearer had been shot down, and waving them, rallied the regiment under heavy fire.”

Being in the book business, Elbridge Copp’s own contribution came to light in 1911. One bookseller describes Reminiscences of the War of the Rebellion 1861-1865. “Copp claimed to be the youngest commissioned officer in the Union Army during the war. This Scarce reminiscence of the 3rd NH volunteers is nicely done with numerous maps, illustrations and photos of members of the Regiment.” One offering also includes this information “Long inscription by the author’s widow: “Colonel Copp fought his last great battle, with his usual bravery and fortitude, in the summer of 1923, responding to the “roll call” on high on August 3rd, taps were sounded on August 6th.” So, if we presume he was 17 in 1861, he would have been about 79 in 1923.

DESTRUCTIVE FIRE.THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HARPER & BROTHERS IN RUINS.

OVER $1,000,000 OF PROPERTY DESTROYED!

“The enormous Printing, Stereotyping, Binding, and Publishing Establishment of HARPER BROTHERS, which has been for many years one of the most magnificent monuments of private enterprise which our City, and indeed our country, could boast, was entirely destroyed by fire on Saturday last,-and now lies a shapeless mass of mouldering ruins…”

So the headlines of December 12, 1853 read in The New York Times. The four brothers pose for Matthew Brady about 1860. I’m not sure which one is which.

Harper & Brothers was a prominent New York City book and magazine publishing firm which founded Harper’s Magazine, and published books for decades, surviving today in the Murdoch publishing empire as HarperCollins.

James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them in the mid 1820s. The company changed its name to “Harper & Brothers” in 1833. The headquarters of the publishing house were located at 331 Pearl Street, facing Franklin Square in Lower Manhattan (about where the Manhattan approach to the Brooklyn Bridge lies today).

On the night the old building burned down, the brothers met and unanimously decided to rebuild on the original location. According to the family, they ordered 20 new presses, and sent notices to the newspapers that Harper & Brothers would remain in business.

The Harper Establishment; or, How the Story Books are Made, by Jacob Abbott (1855)

On completion of the new cast-iron building housing Harper Brothers, children’s author Jacob Abbott turned his talent for thorough description to explaining the mechanics of how books were produced. This heavily illustrated work explores everything from how type is made to the mechanics behind the building’s wrought iron structure.

Many of the detailed engravings of the building and the machinery are linked to high-resolution versions. The first image is of the Cliff Street front. The second is a wonderfully detailed cutaway of the same building.

 

Searching online I discovered there have been a couple reprints. One in 1956, and another in 2001 by Oak Knoll . The Oak Knoll edition has a very nice introduction by Joel Myerson and Chris L. Nesmith which helps place the book in context. Oak Knoll also produced theirs as a facsimile edition, which appeals to me for some reason. Long after I had made an Oak Knoll copy my own, I found the website Nineteenth Century American Children and What They Read by Pat Pflieger. At this very well done website you will find exactly that, including magazines. Many magazines and some books are reproduced at the website as text with high quality scans of any images. Harper Establishment is one such book, because of the prolific children’s writer Jacob Abbott.

Of course all of the pertinent images were gathered and loaded at the American Book Trade Index for those searching out further information on publishing, book selling, and book making, etc. in America before 1900.

A big thank you to Pat Pflieger for making this wonderful book and images available to everyone.

Well, the holidays are in full swing. We celebrated Festivus at work yesterday with a potluck, airing of grievances and feats of strength. Airing of grievances done “suggestion box” style. Anonymous. Well, as anonymous as possible. For our feats of strength we had a brutal Rock-Paper-Scissor tourney. The physical feat of strength determines our Head of Household for the following year. We then broke up into teams and had our mental feats: 1980s edition Trivial Pursuit. My team did not do all that well. The other teams got questions related to sit-coms, we got Czech politics. While I’m wasting electricity telling strangers about my week, my folks are visiting for Christmas and will be arriving tonight. TO-NIGHT! Add it all up and it makes me think of the town I grew up in, Lincoln Nebraska. I loved living there. I was thrilled a couple months ago to find the deed issued from a bookseller there. I added this cover from the same seller to my collection as well. Turns out, it’s from the same year, only a couple months earlier. I still don’t know a whole lot about Leighton and Brown. There was a Leighton Ave. I recall. I wonder if there’s a connection.

Sarah, from Sarah’s Books- Used and Rare alerted me that my email is not listed anywhere! Like I said, I’m not the best with this computer stuff. benjaminlclark@gmail.com is now visible in my profile.

From the blog love files, Marty at the Ephemera Blog was kind enough to include me in the Ten Great Book Blogs list. Thanks Marty!

I subscribe to both of these blogs in my Google Reader. They should be in yours!

Happy Holidays all!

A big THANK YOU to Mr. Lewis Jaffe of Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie for mentioning the Bibliophiles of Oklahoma. I’ve certainly noticed that Lewis’s blog is read not only by bookplate collectors, but bibliophiles of all stripes. I hope those residents of Oklahoma would come on over and help me found The Bibliophiles of Oklahoma. It has been about a year since I decided to put myself out there to start a book collector club. Of course, I need other book collectors. The problem is, I haven’t met any. I do have the name of a university librarian who is willing to join once things get off the ground. I’ve also had an in-state bookseller offer lots of… feedback on the place holder website I threw up. If you’ve used your eyes at my blog (rather than on google reader or such) or ventured over to the BoOK site, you’ll see right away that I’m not very web savvy. Suggestions on improving the BoOK website, or my blog are welcome. Anyone know how to widen the usable area in the middle?

Thanks Lewis!

More bookseller back stamps found. My favorite to date is the ad from Frank B. Clark from Portland Maine. Mr. Clark features a circulating library, and informs us that stereoscopic views are 5 cents. Not only do we get an interesting look at Mr. Clark’s business, but whoever did the typography and chose the ornaments did a very nice job. Then I looked at the offering of JR Barlow and noticed it’s the same frame. Did the printers of the stereoviews print the frames on the back, allowing for the retailer to insert their information? Providing blank space seems to have been the norm for things like trade cards during the later 1800s. Why not on stereoviews? I did find a paper label, like those placed in books, usually at the bottom of the front or rear endpaper, on the back of a stereoview. Did find another back stamp from Bergquest and Johnson in Duluth, Minnesota. This example, from the New York Public Library does not mention that they are booksellers, rather that they are “SPECIAL AGENTS/ For Whitney & Zimmerman’s Celebrated Views of/ Minnesota Scenery. /(Send for Catalogue).” Also, in this week’s findings, another rubber stamp. I had read on a stereoview collector’s website that generally paper labels precede rubber stamps. When rubber stamps came along, did they eclipse the use of paper labels? I know some bookstores today still use rubber stamps, especially paperback exchange types. You don’t see many shops using small labels today. I can think of one…

Scouring the world for bookseller ephemera for the American Book Trade Index, I’ve discovered stereoviews. I love ’em. Stereoviews are taken with a special camera which will produce two very similar images, when placed side by side in a special viewer, create a 3-D experience for the viewer. I really like ones featuring print shop interiors. Apparently these were very popular, beginning in the years following the Civil War until well in to the 20th Century. That’s a guess, as there are millions of these things still in every antique shop from here to anywhere, and private stashes are still being rediscovered. I remember going to an estate sale, I got some very nice WWII related books and stuff, and there were tens of thousands of stereoviews and an huge viewer thingy. I wish I could have bought them, but I was a broke and ignorant grad student at the time. She only wanted $300 by the time I got to the sale. Kinda like the time I passed on a hefty box of matchbooks. The newest ones were from the mid-1940s. Dumb. Back to the stereoviews at hand. It wasn’t only photographers and lithography companies producing and selling these images. I’ve found that booksellers also, at a minimum, sold these little delightful images. Now, I’ve learned that stereoview aficionados collect these images by several methods. By method of photography, only original prints, and content of images. These can be broken into predictable categories like location, trains, cowboys, early racing, ships, military, ooh-la-la (this is a paraphrase), and to my delight: occupational. In occupational categories one can find printers, paper mill inspectors, and booksellers. Lots of crossover collecting going on here, I’m sure. A few brave souls even collect stereoviews according to the back stamp. The first two images have big crisp labels added to the backs, which suggest a regular trade in these views. One featuring a view of the local marina, the other a shot from Yosemite National Park, another hot collecting area. The third is different on several accounts. It is stamped at the back with an ink hand stamp one would see inside books sold by dealers from early on down to today. The first view is an overall shot of the back, the second of the stamp in detail. I close with an image at the front of this interesting piece, which is the establishment of A. Burt and Co. with the proprietor and the Co. standing proudly in front. The seller theorized it was made as a give-away novelty judging by the age (1870s) and the overall “feel”. Oh, this image was like my earlier experiences… it got away from me too… Of course, larger images can be accessed by clicking any of these. Anyone know anything more concrete, or have other examples of booksellers selling stereoviews?

I’m way behind on my updates but, I’ve got some cool stuff to show off! As an explanation though, I’ve been busy at work. Last Friday was the 100th Anniversary of Oklahoma Statehood. If you live here, it’s a big deal. If you’re employed by the state historical society, it’s an even bigger deal. Anyway, I got to go up to Guthrie, Oklahoma, which was the capital in 1907, and spend the day running presses for folks at the State Capital Publishing Museum. I got to run a 100+ year old Chandler & Price (Old Style) and other stuff. Unfortunately for everyone around me, I want a real press now. Don’t tell my Baltimore #11, or my Nervine Press. They’re old biddies and get real jealous. This first photo is the front of the 1902 State Capital Publishing building. You can click on the photo for more info, if so inlcined. The bleachers are there for the parade and the Statehood proclimation because it was in this building the telegraph arrived that Theodore Roosevelt had signed Oklahoma into Statehood. I stood close by when the grandson of the man who ran out and hollered “Oklahoma is a State!”, did just as his grandfather had done 100 years ago. Then we shot our guns in the air and hollered some more. Oklahoma is a fun place to live. Back to the beginning.

This isn’t the museum I normally work at, so I was looking forward to a day out of the office, and having some fun. First thing, I cut paper. Typically, this isn’t a fun task, but when you get to use a 1910s Oswego 44″ blade cutter, it was extremely cool. This thing takes the whole body to operate, and can cut half a ream at a time! Also, I was told Oswegos were known for a bad design that did not ensure the blade locked in the up position after a cut. It had a nasty habit of dropping just as you would reach in for your fresh cut paper. I was told to always use a stick to get the paper out. See the stick in my hand? No, I’m not sticking my hand in there, I used the stick. I don’t care what it looks like. I’d already pulled the paper past the cutting point. If all this talk of vintage printing/ bookbinding equipment makes you “geek out” as bad as I do, here’s another shot of a non-public area of the museum: You should be able to click on any photo and get much larger versions. Believe me, there is a lot, lot, lot, lot more. Here’s another shot of me at the Oswego. A bit of another standing press and an old Hancock monster in the foreground:

I ended up having to dust off the Hancock and use it after the Oswego decided to become difficult. It got determined to take a finger or two, I decided not to part ways with any of me… so I switched. However, it was hard finding a sharpish spot on the Hancock blade to cut the paper. The other guy I was working with that day chimed “It’ll look like deckled edging”. Well… I guess so… Then we went down into the public area, where there’s a little mock up print shop with a cabinet of type, an imposing stone, a C&P Old Style, and a little proof press. I ran little bookmarks on the proof press while the other gent got our other material composed and locked up. We decided on a simple text: “I was in Guthrie Oklahoma November 16, 2007” with the state seal. Something like that. Anyway, I really liked the setup they have there for doing live printing demonstrations. It worked ok for two people to be in there working, but it would be better for one. Visitors can see on three sides, and see everything going on, like when the paper starts dropping out the bottom of the press, because I’m too busy talking to get them into the guide pins correctly. “Just let them go.” They’ve framed it out to look like a little building, with the framing providing a barrier for safety. The second picture gives you the other half. The imposing stone, the other half of the type cabinet, furniture and just the corner of the proof press. The whole area is probably not more than 10′ x 12′. At the front we have a simple little swing gate with long pins that drop through the floor to lock them each in place. We still had a toddler make a break for it inside, though. Maybe we need to put up chicken wire! So, that was it. We printed a lot of little sheets, and saw a lot of very nice folks, not only from Oklahoma, but Texas, Kansas, Wisconsin, Connecticut, China, Poland, Italy, Japan… it was a fun day. Did I remember to take home the couple samples I printed and set aside for myself? Of course not. If you’re interested in seeing more of the museum, including the press room, get yourself over to the Amalgamated Printers Association’s July 2007 Gallery Gab for a look at the museum this last summer. Lots of photos! More platen presses, Linotypes, old Miehles, Hickock pen ruler, etc. etc. etc. Enjoy!