Chumley & Pepys On Books

Vesica Piscis s1c3

2012-01-25T22:56:00.008-05:00

I don't consider myself a visual artist per se, but some of my wife's many interests include labyrinths and sacred geometry, and as I have been absorbing these interests, I may consider her to be the reason behind my recent return to paper and pen with this artwork. I should also consider the musical group known as U2 somewhat to blame for they had a contest to come up with a piece of artwork for their next album, a collage to mirror their collage art for their 1991 Achtung Baby release, but one that would reflect our present times. Sixteen pieces will be chosen for the collage cover art.

It seems that my wife's influences and the contest came together at the same time. I thought about it for quite awhile, but only sat down to work it out on paper the last day of the contest deadline. The example I sent in was not quite finished to my mind but I was running out of time. I continued to work on it and the image above, entitled Vesica Piscis s1c3, is the finished work. I think.

Working with two circle to create the vesica piscis in the middle, a symbol rich in meaning and representation in works of art, I then inserted an inverted pyramid to reflect contemporary changes and challenges facing the present day, and drew a human form in a classic yoga position to signify rebirth and spirituality.

I think it would work well for a cd or album centre. It looks fairly interesting spinning around.

The version I sent in for the contest can be seen here. Hey, you can even vote for me--I don't stand a chance, but it got me back to the desk at least.

The Man Within My Head by Pico Iyer

2012-01-22T14:44:00.012-05:00

The Man Within My Head by Pico Iyer
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012)
242 pp.

When my attention was first drawn to this book a few months before publication by my wife, a librarian, I thought how intriguing. She knew I would find it so. It surprised me to hear that Graham Greene had played a significant role in the life of Pico Iyer. They were not authors I would have associated as having much in common. I had read a few books by Pico Iyer and enjoyed his subject matter and style, and I have, like many, read a great deal of Graham Greene's works over the years and enjoyed them as well. I began to visualize a Venn diagram to try and see what they had in common. My knowledge of Pico Iyer's life was limited but I could see that they were both writers, both had English schooling, both travelled and used their travel experiences in their work. The well known “Greeneland” landscape with its Catholicism, guilt, spies and solitary male protagonists seemed to be absent, more the terrain of John Le Carré and other writers.

It is a difficult book to review without spoiling it for other readers for it conceals a shadowy influence between the two writers as if written in sympathetic ink, with Iyer providing the necessary heat to reveal its nature in this “counterbiography” of his “unsought familiar.”

This is a book that is utterly fascinating to read and provides a rich texture of insights into both Pico Iyer's life and Graham Greene's life and writings. It is a book that bridges the gap between such books as on the one hand, Shirley Hazzard's “Greene on Capri” with her intimate knowledge of the day to day Greene with all his idiosyncratic mannerisms, moods, issues and baggage, and on the other hand, the exhaustive pursuit of the details of the writer's life by Norman Sherry. Pico Iyer explores the shadows of influence, for he never sought out Greene, nor at first thought of him as being the one to have such influence. Logically he thought he had more in common with the life of Somerset Maugham or Aldous Huxley and such is the fascination as we learn how Greene's life and work was a much deeper and more consistent presence as Iyer travelled the world and recognized and experienced facets of "Greeneland" first hand.

The book is divided into three parts, 'Ghosts,' 'Gods,' and 'Fathers.' Each is interlayered with stories of Pico Iyer's travel, autobiographical revelations, interpretations of Greene's works, the often poignant interplay of fathers and sons, and the dance of opposites and dualities such as idealism and skepticism, shadow and light, east and west. The writing is wonderful and each page will find a place in someone's mind.

I think I will leave with a quote of this ultimately very readable and quotable book:

Graham Greene the novelist appeals to some of us, I think—even challenges our sense of who we are—in part because he is so acutely sensitive to all the ways we can fail to understand one another, even those people closest to ourselves; he knew his characters, he wrote in his memoirs, better than he knew anyone in real life. He becomes the caretaker of that part of us that feels that we are larger and much harder to contain than even we can get our heads around, and that there is a mystery, fundamental and unanswerable, in ourselves as in the world around us, which is in fact a part of what gives life its sense of hauntedness. It's the best side of us, in his books—our conscience, our sense of sympathy, our feeling for another's pain—that causes us the deepest grief. And God, if he even exists, is less a source of solace than a hound of Heaven, always on our path. (pg. 39)

Saturday Snapshot

2012-01-07T23:38:00.004-05:00

My blogging is not a daily affair, but I do like to check out bloggers like Book Puddle who manage a daily post--something quite beyond my capacity. I discovered this interesting meme via his blog and thought I would jump in.

I have recently finished Pico Iyer's The Man Within My Head, which I greatly enjoyed, and this photo rather depicts my present state of mind. A rather bookish Saturday within.

Although, I did go out with my wife--to a bookshop.

Late For Layton

2011-12-16T19:00:00.003-05:00

Browsing my small record collection--hardly a collection anymore, more a remnant from youth having sold many during the late 80s to that wonderful source of so much, L'échange in Montreal--I felt for every LP I flipped through, four or five ghost LPs would be conjured up. Sometimes with regret. I was not like a few of my adolescent friends in the early 1970s who saved up a substantial amount of money and stood in line outside Sam the Record Man in Montreal on Boxing Day in the early hours to shiver with more than anticipation, envisioning every desired pristine record on their wanted list to be resting gently awaiting their nimble half-frozen fingers. No, I was likely down at the local park's outdoor rink with my brother, pretending to be Guy LaFleur or Ken Dryden. (There was something special about outdoor rinks in Montreal in the 1960s and 1970s, rinks where they left the shovels for you to remove the snow yourselves while the caretaker drank his coffee in the building talking to his compatriots, often in French or Italian; the sound of skate blades sliding across the ice, the sound of the the Victoriaville hockey sticks tapping the ice, the smell of hockey tape, the sound of pucks as they hit the aged frozen boards with an invigorating thud.) I knew I could always check out my friend's LPs in the New Year and wait for a later sale and browse without the crowds elbowing me for that prized LP.

(Why did I sell--or was it one of the lost--Sing it Again Rod (1973) one of my favourite LPs from that year and with that fabulous record sleeve? Oh, well. And Clapton's Rainbow Concert? Rick Derringer's All American Boy? Young's After the Gold Rush? Frampton's Camel? Somethin's Happening? Tubular Bells?..... I guess I changed, outgrew some, moved on to Jazz and classical. Perhaps it is all just nostalgia now. They moved me then, and now rekindle memories. But it would have been nice to have kept those and so many more, and have the senses of touch, sight, smell, and sound fully involved. Rather like old love letters.)

Well, life is a progression of sorts. So, to get back to the browsing, I came across an unusual LP.

The year was 1992. The Montreal Library in which I worked was planning its annual fund raising campaign. The chair of the board of directors, having a background in Canadian literature, put forward the name of Irving Layton to be their fundraising spokesperson. He accepted. The chair thought it would be appropriate to have a display of the poet's works and she made the request of the poet whether he had anything of interest that could be used in the display. He said he would look for items. Since I was overseeing the archives and displays at that time, I was generously given the opportunity to go to the poet's house and make a choice of the selected material. I was truly excited. This was not the kind of opportunity that ever came my way. I had a week to think about the approaching day. I had a couple of Irving Layton's many, many books of poetry, and wondered if I should scour the shops for additional titles so I could bring him a handful of books to sign. I did, I confess, pick up a few more.

The day arrived, August 29, 1992. I was given the afternoon off to visit his home in my old neighbourhood of Notre Dame de Grace. I was fairly nervous to meet him. His poetic reputation and his robust personality was on my mind as I entered the taxi. Half-way there I realised I had forgotten his books. In my nervous haste I had left them on my kitchen counter. To turn back and retrieve them was a fleeting thought, but I would be late for Layton. I didn't want to be late for Layton.

Arriving on time, I approached the front door on Monkland Avenue and rang the bell. As I readied myself to say hello to a renowned poet, the door was opened by an attractive younger women, his partner and companion of the time, and she invited me in. I waited in the entrance as she quietly disappeared to the back of the house. As I waited, I heard some movement upstairs and the great poet came into view at the top of the stairs and began a composed descent. For his age, 80, he seemed in robust health, his thick long grey hair was impressive, an ideal poet's mane. A strongly built man who in his prime could probably have taken me out with his pinky. Though not a tall man, he had a strong physical presence. Our pleasantries over, he ushered me into the living room and back to the dining room where he had laid out the chosen materials. I think he recognized a devotee and he was quite lovely. There were a number of foreign language translations of his works and he was proud of his popularity in Italy. I looked over the material and made my choices. Then he brought out an LP of a reading he did back in the 1980s. I said that was terrific for the display. I told him I had forgotten a few of his books to sign, and he brought out another copy of the LP. He bent over the dining room table, rested the LP on the books and papers and delicately inscribed it for me in a somewhat shaky hand.

I left with the materials, feeling invigorated by the meeting. I walked back into my old neighbourhood before setting off for lower Westmount. It had been an interesting visit.

When the annual board meeting took place in September and Irving would give a speech, I was unable to attend as I had a university class that evening, so I missed out on a bonus meeting and chance to have my books signed. I did get one however. A few years later I came across a limited signed fine press edition of one of his books in Italian translation illustrated by an artist. Some things take time.

The LP: Layton Reads Layton The poetry of Irving Layton as read by the poet himself. Recorded live at the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario Public Library, November 10, 1981. (A Karlay Production, recorded by Satalite Sound, 1981.)

Nabokov Covers

2011-12-05T17:30:00.002-05:00

I am in the midst of reading Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, and the latest warm-hearted offering by Alexander McCall Smith, but I now find myself 90 pages into The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov.

I blame housecleaning.

In a moment of vacuous calm after a bout of dusting and vacuuming, I happened to be staring at bookshelves, no doubt through the rise and fall of imperceptible dust motes, when I noticed how very plain the dustwrappers of the Nabokov hardcovers issued by Putnam in the 1960s were in comparison to the surrounding books. My initial reaction to the covers was to wonder why they were so drab. Was there a lack of direction in the art direction department? Was there a lack of funds? Was it a style of the period? Was it due to the sophisticated nature of the text that made them avoid putting a foot wrong, and resort to plain typographic design with a wash of backcloth colour? The contrast with contemporary designs for Murakami's works by Chipp Kidd made these covers seem exceedingly plain.

While these questions settled in my mind, I looked at some of the paperbacks of his work for which I have a fondness. The vintage illustrations for the Popular Library editions issued in the late 1950s and early 1960s do not tend to correspond to the text within but at least they are on the conservative side of the lurid illustrations of the day, when sex was used to sell paperbacks. These latter covers generally remind me of the 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, where the actor Tom Ewell, portrays a character who is overseeing a manuscript by a pyschiatrist, and the cover art designs for this non-fiction work are luridly ridiculous.

My first encounter with Nabokov's work was with Nabokov's Dozen (Popular Library, 1958), a paperback I picked up secondhand. I still return to this slim volume to reread Spring in Fialta and other short stories, sporting my pencil marks, signposts of a youthful passage. These illustrations are by the talented and prolific illustrator Stanley Zuckerberg (1919-1995), a New Yorker who illustrated many paperback covers during the 1950s and 60s, and according to Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History by William B. Jones, Jr., he illustrated two Classics Comics, A Tale of Two Cities (1942) and Robinson Crusoe (1943). He married a fellow artist, Lillian Chestney who also had a long and prolific career as an illustrator, and she also illustrated two Classics Comics, Arabian Nights (1943) and Gulliver's Travels (1943).

I cannot find a reference by Nabokov to this specific cover art for Nabokov's Dozen, nor to The Gift, but I gather from reading his selected letters, that he was adamant about what he did and did not want, and was often provided with cover art that was not to his liking in the extreme. The cover for Nabokov's Dozen does seem more like an advertisement for hair styles, but as a reader, I am rather fond of the volume.

The one-line blurbs on the back of the Popular Library edition of my 1963 copy of The Gift pictured here, are rather amusing: "A bizarre and special romp" (St. Louis Globe-Democrat), "A powerful kick" (Associated Press), "An occasion of delight" (Commonweal). On the back of my 1964 Popular Library copy of The Defense is the following hyperbolic purchase-motivating blurb: "Superior to Lolita and, in its way, as much of a shocker" (W. G. Rogers, Saturday Review Syndicate). Anything to sell a book.

In the late 1960s, Nabokov's son Dimitri provided paperback cover art sketches for a number of his father's works, The Defense being one. When it was to be reissued in the early 1970s, Nabokov was unhappy with the new cover. Writing to Rosa Montague of Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, the author wrote :

I do not wish to appear choosy, but the new cover design won't do. The banal pop-arty combination of a broken chessboard inserted between Siamese twins (identical except for the forlock on one brow) is meaningless and repulsive. I do not insist on cover designs illustrating a novel realistically, but I do object to a pseudo-realism unconnected with anything in the book. It is a great pity Panther does not wish to use the 1967 cover-design, but if so, let us have some purely ornamental pattern without eyes, noses, or hands. -September 9, 1970. (Vladimir Nabokov Selected Letters 1940-1977, HBJ, 1989, p.472.)

Dimitri Nabokov also provided the cover art for The Gift issued by Panther in 1967, one that his father approved of fully, referring to it as a "subtle and intelligent sketch. . . with the keys on the floor of the hall."

It seems if the art departments of publishers could not figure out a proper concept for his covers, large black lettering on a pale background was preferable. I gather that is what helped sway the decision process at Putnam's when they issued his books in hardcover with similar dustwrapper designs with the only variation being the subtle colour shadows to the titles.

Much more could be written about Nabokov covers, especially the wonderful book, Pnin, but I will leave that to another day, or to another altogether. I really should get back to 1Q84, but I so enjoy the rich textured prose of The Gift that I forget I have already been there before, walking beside Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev listening to his thoughts.

Gleanings from the Odd Book Book Shelf: No. 2, Alexander Gardner, Publisher

2011-10-30T18:08:00.006-04:00

The New Testament in Braid Scots rendered by William Wye Smith and published by Alexander Gardner in 1901, is not an uncommon or scarce title but it is a bit of an odd fish in my collection. I picked it up at library sale in London a number of years ago for a few dollars. I thought I would research this publisher and book and hopefully find some interesting gleanings for the odd book bookshelf.

The publisher's device to the left belongs to Alexander Gardner, the Scottish publisher based in Paisley, whose history can be traced back to the late 1820s. The device was a fairly recent addition to this publisher as it only begins to show up in books published in the first decade of the last century, and is generally found at the back of the book centered on one of the penultimate pages. It reflects a certain modernity in its design with its use of the silhouette of an oak tree and a man planting what I assume to be an acorn, and the publisher's initials bookending oak leaves surrounding a Scottish thistle image. The latin motto, vive ut vivas, and its placement around the outside, hearkens back to older designs used by printers and publishers.

According to the Scottish Book Trade Index, Alexander Gardner began as a bookseller, stationer and printer and first appeared at 14 Moss Street, Paisley, from 1828-1830 and their Printing office was at 4 Lillia's Wynd in 1831. This narrow street, “wynd” no longer exists today, but according to an old Paisley Street Directory, it ran up from High Street and met Dyer's Wynd, another narrow street which still exits (truly but an alley today). They moved about over the years, but stayed in this vicinity which is just around the corner from the present City Hall and nearby Paisley Abbey.

They began printing mainly religious tracts, pamphlets, and other theological publications which became the foundation of their business. This is not uncommon for a provincial publisher of this period. Some of their earliest publications I can find are: Letters to a Minister of the Gospel on His and Other Interpretations of Our Saviour's Predictions of His Return by James A. Begg, published in 1831; Sermons Preached to the First United Associate Congregation, Paisley, on Sabbath, 27^th December, 1835, by John Mitchell (1768-1844) published in 1836; Symbola Classica, Intended to Assist the Classical Student by William Hunter (Rector of Paisley Grammar School), published in 1833; The Sabbath, a Day of Rejoicing by Rev. Alexander A.M. Rennison, 1849; and Sermons by the Late Alexander Rennison M. A. Minsiter of St. George's Church Paisley, with Memoir, 1868.>

In Fowler's Paisley and Johnstone Commercial Directory for 1845-46, a relation of Alexander Gardner, one Archibald Gardner, is also listed as working at the printing business, and is listed as a “writer” whose domicile was in Nethercommon. He was the author of Morisonianism Refuted: A Review of the Rev. James Morison's Exposition of the Ninth Chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans published by Alexander Gardner in 1852. A list of other titles written by Archibald Gardner is provided and they are: A Defence of Infant Baptism; A Catechism on the Nature, Design, Subjects and Mode of Christian Baptism, 3^rd. Ed.; and A Catechism on the Lord's Supper for the Use of Young Communicants. A one page advertisement of works published by Alexander Gardner is also at the back of this volume and includes: A Brief Commentary on the Epistle of James by Rev. Alexander S. Patterson; The Judgement of the Papacy and Reign of Righteousness by Thomas Houston; and a reprint from an American edition, Hodge on the Romans with an Appendix on the Nature and Extent of the Atonement

By the 1870s they have diversified and expanded their range of publications. Issuing reprints is fairly common pursuit and they came out with a series of literary reprints, poetry, books on local history, travel, as well as their books on religious subjects. A few examples include: Folklore: or, Superstitious Belief in the West of Scotland Within This Century: with an Appendix Shewing the Probable Relations of the Modern Festivals of Christmas, May Day, St. John's Day and Halloween to Ancient Sun and Fire Worship by James Napier, 1879; The Poems of Allan Ramsay 2 vols., 1877 (being a reprint of a well-known 1800 edition of George Chalmers); Cantus, Songs and Fancies to three, four. . . by John Forbes, 1879 (originally published in 1662); The Songs and Poems of Robert Tannahill ed. By David Semple, 1879; The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson, the American Ornithologist ed. by Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, 2vols., 1876; and the unusual Colquhoun's Closets: or, The Dry and Ventilating System in Lieu of the Present Water Closet and Sewage System by John Colquhoun, 1870. Their publication of John Jamieson's An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 4 vols., 1879-1882, plus the supplementary volume issued in 1887 is one that can be readily found through online bookselling sites but it seems to be the most expensive multi-volume issues of Alexander Gardner's publications presently available.

Some interesting titles from the 1880s include: Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, by R. H. Cromek, 1880 (a re-issue of an 1810 London publication, the poems and songs really belonging to the pen of the Scottish poet, Allan Cunningham); Saga of Halfred the Sigskald by Felix Dahn, translated by Sophie F. F. Veitch, 1886; Benderloch: or, Notes From the West Highlands by W. Anderson Smith; Loch Creran: Notes From the West Highlands by W. Anderson Smith; Biographical Dictionary of Musicians: with a Bibliography of English Writings on Music by James D. Brown (Mitchell Library, Glasgow),1886; Martyrs of Angus and Mearns: Sketches in the History of the Scottish Reformation by Rev. J. Moffat Scott (Arbroath), 1885; Wit, Wisdom and Pathos from the Prose of Heinrich Heine, with a few pieces from the “Book of Songs” selected and translated by J. Snodgrass, 2^nd. Rev. Ed., 1887; Law Lyrics (anonymous author: Robert Bird) 2^nd Ed., 1887; Pinkerton's Lives of the Scottish Saints revised and enlarged by W. M. Metcalfe, 2vols.,1889; Loch Etive and the Sons of Uisnach by R. Angus Smith, New Ed., 1885; The Tragedy of Gowrie House, an Historical Study by Louis A. Barbe, 1887; Life in Shetland by John Russell, 1887; and Idylls of the Captive King by James Sharp, 1887.

On August 23^rd, 1888, Queen Victoria visited Paisley in honour of the city's fourth centenary, and somehow Alexander Gardner managed to procure the licence to print on his title pages from that time onwards, “Publisher to Her Majesty the Queen.” After her death it was continued with “Publisher by Appointment to the Late Queen Victoria.”

The Scottish Review

From November 1882 to July 1886, Alexander Gardner published and collaborated in editing the Scottish Review. Antoinette Peterson in the 1972 publication The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900 edited by Walter E. Hough writes:

And although Scotland possessed two influential newspapers, the Glasglow Herald and the Scotsman, no monthly or quarterly was engaged in the fight for Scottish Home Rule and other liberal-national measures. To correct this situation, two men living in Paisley, both intensely Scottish, determined in 1882 to found a new quarterly in order to “protest against the idea that London is the center of Scottish life, as also against the idea that Scotland is not strong enough to have a literary organ of its own.” The Reverend W. M. Metcalfe, a minister of the Established Church of Scotland, was the “originator and editor” of the Scottish Review. His collaborator was the Paisley publisher whose name was associated with so many Scottish literary revivals, Alexander Gardner. Gardner described the venture as one in which he was to take the pecuniary risk and Metcalfe was to do the editing, though in point of fact this division of labor was never precisely adhered to. (p. 1144).

The Review provided an innovation in their section of summaries of foreign reviews which was copied by other prominent publications. According to Peterson, (p. 1145) Gardner lost 1000 pounds by 1886 and could no longer keep it going, so he sold it to J. P. Crichton-Stuart, the third Marquess of Bute. Gardner remained as publisher until the Review ceased publication in October 1900, the same month as the death of Lord Bute. (p.1147) Gardner had published many books by W. M. Metcalfe over the years, including A History of the Shire of Renfrew from the Earliest Times Down to the Close of the Nineteenth Century; History of Paisley; and Ninian and Machor, the Legends of, in the Scottish Dialect of the Fourteenth Century.

I have noticed that quite a few of the publications of Alexander Gardner contained errata pages. Whether that was due to the Paisley compositors being more acquainted with the vernacular broad Scots, or whether it was due to hasty editing I cannot say. I did find a preliminary note to an errata that was rather charming. It is to be found at the back of the second volume of The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson, the American Ornithologist, ed. by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, 1876:

"A final reading of both volumes makes us thankful that the 'slips,' whether of Editor or Printer, are very slight, and of a kind, as the old Divines were wont to put it, as "easily corrected as espied."

Alexander Gardner continued to publish interesting books in the 1890s, and into the next century. The name survives today in Paisley on a modern sign hanging above a nondescript building abutting the rather more interesting wine bar called The Abbey on Lawn Street just around the corner from the Paisley Abbey, and not far from their origins on Moss Street. The sign is the same as the publisher's device found in their books as described at the beginning of this essay. I have made a link to the Google street view here. It seems the company has survived as a printing business, a return to roots it seems. The tree still has life.

The New Testament in Braid Scots

William Wye Smith (1827-1917) was born in Jedburgh Scotland. His parents emigrated to America in 1830 and after some time in New York, made their way to Southern Ontario. He worked in various jobs in his life, including shopkeeper, teacher, court clerk and in the 1860s, owner and editor of the Owen Sound Times. He then became an ordained minister in the Congregational Church which became his life's work, beginning in Listowel, Ontario and finishing off his career in St. Catherine's, Ontario. He wrote poetry typical of early Canadian poetry, Alazon and Other Poems (Toronto: Hugh Scobie, 1850), and The Poems of William Wye Smith (Toronto: Dudley & Burns, 1888). His rendering of the New Testament into the vernacular Scottish dialect is interesting to read and was seemingly popular during its day. In a note to the helpful Glossary at the back of the volume, Reverend Smith writes:

As to the dialect used in this version, the dialect of Burns, which has become fixed as the literary form of the Broad Scotch, has been mainly followed; and that, notwithstanding many Border predilections on the part of the translator. Burns, Scott and Hogg are the great dialectic authorities in Scotch, to whose diction all must conform: and the world has accepted as a representative form of the language, a dialect used by these, which is not strictly peculiar to any definite locality.

This is an example of his translation, from Mark, chapter 4.1:

And he begude again to teach by the Loch-side. And an unco thrang gather't till him, sae that he gaed intil a boat, and sat i' the Loch; and a' the folk war by the Loch, on the lan'.

This volume has one small errata slip tipped into the book, with one correction:

"Page 146, heading of page, for "Peter's treat" read "Peter's trial."

In my copy, there is a personal ownership inscription on the front free endpaper, "J. Crawford Smith, Perth, Scotland."

Addendum: I began to wonder why William Wye Smith who had used Toronto publishers for his other work, decided upon Alexander Gardner to be his publisher for this book. Undoubtedly Smith was familiar with the books issued by this publisher because the libraries of the day in Mechanic's Institutes generally purchased books from the United Kingdom, often following a guide book issued by UK based Mechanic's Institute Societies, on what works to choose. Smith was Scottish and the publisher did tend towards religious books so these facts may have all led to the choice of Alexander Gardner. But moving into the area of supposition, Smith's mother's name was Sara Veitch, and Alexander Gardner published a number of works by a writer named Sophie Frances Fane Veitch, and used her work in the Scottish Review to a great extent. Sophie F. F. Veitch was born in 1858 and died in Wanlochead Dumfries in 1912. If this writer was of some relation to Smith's mother, perhaps that also added to the choice of Alexander Gardner. Pure supposition and an open possibility to explore.

Works by Sophie F. F. Veitch published by Alexander Gardner:
Angus Graeme, Gamekeeper, 2vols. 1883.
James Hepburn, Free Church Minister, 2vols. 1887.
The Dean's Daughter: A Novel, 2vols. 1888.
Duncan Moray, Farmer: A Novel, 2vols. 1890.

Sophie F. F. Veitch also used the pseudonym J. A. St. John Blythe.

Gleanings from the Odd Book Bookshelf: No. 1, Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki

2011-09-28T11:01:00.007-04:00

Although trained in the laws of librarianship, I find I have never ordered my library according to any rules, even those of the thumb. Binding, colour, and author tend to guide my eye and hand as I arrange books on the shelf; more aesthetics than bibliographics (if I may coin a word use). So my "Odd Book Bookshelf" is rather imaginary for the books are found on various shelves in different locations. Perhaps they harbour desires of shelf-hood and my initiating this series is at their silent beckoning, such is the mysterious nature of the book.

The book in question, Japanese Fairy Tales compiled by Yei Theodora Ozaki (New York: A. L. Burt Company) is a reprint copy likely from the 1920s. It is not a valuable book, nor is it hard to find especially with the internet horn of plenty. The binding of black cloth with orange/red titles is likely from the late 1920s or early 1930s, and it is a style which seems to have been in fashion during this period, books by such authors as Rafael Sabatini, Knut Hamsun, and many others were published with similar bindings. It is the binding style that made me arrange such books together on a shelf, the black bindings and orange/red titles forming an aesthetic continuity even though the actual texts vary significantly. A copy of Scaramouche sitting beside a reprint copy of Brave New World may seem odd but for the binding style.

The book was first published under the Andrew Lang inspired title, The Japanese Fairy Book in 1903 by Archibald Constable & Co. in London, and by E. P. Dutton in New York. It included four colour plates and 62 black and white illustrations in the text. Constable issued a second impression in 1904, a third impression in 1906, a fourth impression in 1908, and a New Edition in 1922, dropping the four colour plates and introducing colour illustrated endpapers by Take Sato.

The copy I have, the A. L. Burt reprint, does not have the colour plates and provides only a selection of the illustrations. This publisher began business in the early 1880s in New York and began to print cheap editions of the classics and eventually came out with "Burt's Home Library" which was popular. (The Discourses of Epictetus was a title in this series and it that makes me think of a favourite story by Stephen Leacock, where a bookstore owner, a Mr. Sellyer would direct his scholarly time-wasting browsers to the back of the shop to peruse the cheap reprints of classics, while he pushed the most recent publications of perhaps dubious value on the unsuspecting public.) In the early years of the last century, A. L. Burt competed with the rival Grosset & Dunlop for the rights to reprint works, mainly fiction, and were successful in the areas of popular fiction and children's books; such authors as Henty, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan Doyle, and Edgar Wallace were issued by them. In the 1930s, A. L. Burt was bought by Blue Ribbon Books, a company who also specialized in cheap reprints. (Blue Ribbon Books began using the term "pop up" for their movable books, and it is a term which has certainly outlived their background story.)

The story of Yei Theodora Ozaki (1870-19--) is an interesting one. She was an independent, strong young woman who chose her own path and found her way through literature and teaching. The basic outlines of her life would provide the structure for an interesting movie.

Ozaki Saburo (1842-1918), a junior diplomat of the Meiji period, was in London in 1868 to learn the English language and customs and he boarded with William Mason Morrison (1819-1885) a scholar and private tutor. Ozaki Saburo became close to Morrison's daughter, Bathia Catherine and they were married in 1869. She gave birth to three daughters, Yei Theodora in 1870, Masako Maude in 1872, and Kimiko Florence in 1873. Their father returned to Japan in 1873 leaving his wife and daughters in London. Bathia never visited Japan and she was later divorced in 1881. At the age of 16, Yei went to Japan to stay with her father now a high ranking politician. While there, she grew to know Mrs. Hugh Fraser, the wife of the British Envoy to Tokyo.

Seeing that Yei did not want to participate in an arranged marriage, Mrs. Fraser suggested she come and live with them as her companion and secretary to which Yei accepted. When the Frasers travelled to Italy, Yei accompanied them and while there, she was introduced to Mrs. Fraser's (née Mary Crawford) famous brother the writer Francis Marion Crawford who hired her to catalogue his substantial library. She was like an elder sister or young aunt to the writer's daughters, telling them many of the Japanese fairy stories found in her first book. Her dedication to this book is to Eleanor Marion-Crawford, the daughter who would inherit her father's modest palace in Sorrento. Eleanor's sister, Clare, according to one source, went on to be a nun and she served her order in Japan where she is buried.

When she returned to live and teach in Japan, she began receiving the mail of the rather handsome dashing Yukio Ozaki (1858-1954) a prominent individual who happened to be the Mayor of Tokyo. When they finally met, a deep friendship developed and they were married in 1904. In the year 1912, Yukio Ozaki, as Mayor of Tokyo, organized a gift of 3,000 blossoming cherry trees for Washington D.C., cherry trees that continue to be celebrated to this day. The spring of 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of this gift and there will be special celebrations in Washington during the National Cherry Blossom Festival from March 20th to April 27th, 2012.

Books by Yei Theodora Ozaki:

The Japanese Fairy Book, 1903.
Buddha's Crystal and other Fairy Stories, 1908.
Warriors of Old Japan, 1909.
Romances of Old Japan, 1919. (as Madame Yukio Ozaki)

The writings of Yukio Ozaki were collected in 12 volumes, Works, Ozaki Gakudo Zenshu (Tokyo: Koronsha, 1955). A recent English edition of his autobiography was published by Princeton in 2001, The Autobiography of Ozaki Yukio: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in Japan.

Autumn Reflections

2011-09-22T22:33:00.004-04:00

There is a favourite image I have always loved and keeps coming up in my thoughts with the approach of autumn: a hedge with a dusting of fallen leaves. I seem to fall back on it as a poetic image as these poems of mine from different periods reflect.

Haiku
Under leaf frothed hedge
Dark-eyed crow in stillness lies,
Staring out the sun.

(September 21, 2011.)

Bounden
Beneath ashen clouds
Huddle-wise brewing unhallowed cares,
Fresh linen forms the breeze beyond hedges frothed with leaf.

On this autumn head, this top-dressed sod,
With alluvial shoulder shouldering but another age,
I squat, printing finger's touch on stone,
Feeling the silences that hold.

(October 1985)

Fireflies on Birch
Wood-stove sweet hints of maple
Fluent with the breeze
Swaying over cedars feathered in leaf fall
Grafting
With October's gilded text.

Motionless above me,
Fireflies on birch.
Codelessly camouflaged on a dark window of grace,
A natural scar
Form for their gathering
Beyond the cold light of their old desires,
And beyond the strange embers
Beneath my cigarette ash.

(Lake Malaga, Autumn 1983)

Leafage
Actions as at autumn bent brow
Chestnut cordial countenance.
Oak on over phrases pile
Encausted flicker of leaves on hedges
Frothed with glass imaginings.
Tapered thought, til up was wrought
Rows, rows, sitting so.
Life margining movements, power dives,
Pliant stiffs waxing within wreaths.
Down, down, down each edge flows frozen full.

(Autumn 1982)

poems copyright ralph patrick mackay.

Note: The Haiku was inspired by the sad sight of a dead crow under a hedge and a well- known haiku by Basho; Bounden reflects my searching out my grandfather's grave; Fireflies on Birch was inspired by direct observation of nature; and Leafage reveals a youthful interest in Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is interesting to look back and see subtle influences by some favourite poets such as Edwin Muir, Hopkins, Ted Hughes. I have to admit that the title for the third poem was made with Irving Layton's famous poem, Butterfly on Rock, in mind, (it is not a comment on the great Canadian poets poem) but what I call my light verse lacks his robust life force. I come across as more lapsed Presbyterian than poet.

If, Dear Reader, you are still reading, you deserve a treat for venturing this far into my poetic hinterland, so I shall post this wonderful music, Autumn Leaves with the masters of poetic musical expression:

Sock du jour

2011-09-09T22:34:00.015-04:00

Nothing quite like a large pile of freshly laundered socks,
to keep one's feet on the ground.
So to speak.

They promise autumnal promenades over leaves and rocks,
and toe holds on a future sound,
when snows will squeak.

The game's afoot with emotions, as the seasons and the clocks
in their filial round,
chime antique

Til the day our labeled toes point like compass stars, in dry docks
for our lost and found
souls oblique.

ralph patrick mackay
september 9, 2011.

And See the Land Where Corals Lie

2011-08-22T10:12:00.003-04:00

I can see him walking amid the shadows. He breathes in the heady odours of buckram, Morocco, vellum and calf. There are manuscript pages and a book in his left hand as he walks along humming quietly to himself, thinking of an odd passage from an ancient obscure work, the sheltered light glinting off his spectacles as the dust motes rise and fall invisibly between the bookshelves as he passes.

That is my imaginary vision of Richard Garnett in his lair, the British Museum, a phantom amidst the stacks, shifting books and papers in an endless round.

Ford Madox Ford in one of his many books of biographical and autobiographical impressions described him as "a queer, very tall, lean, untidily bearded Yorkshire figure in its official frock-coat and high hat." I wrote about Richard Garnett not too long ago in a post about Robert Louis Stevenson, and having recently re-read the above mentioned book of memories and impressions by Ford Madox Ford, the author provides a further dimension to his passing physical description of Dr. Garnett, one which I failed to remember. It would have been apt for my post on Stevenson as it included a reference to umbrellas:

Having a passion for cats, Egyptology, palmistry and astrology, the great scholar could assume some of the aspect of deaf obstinacy that distinguishes cats that do not intend to listen to you. He cast the horoscopes of all his friends and reigning sovereigns; he knew the contents of a hundred thousand books and must have stroked as many thousand "pussies" pronouncing the "pus" to rhyme with "bus." He was inseparable from his umbrella with which he once beat off two thieves, when at five in the morning he had gone to Convent Garden to buy the household fruit. He was the author of the most delightful volume of whimsico-classical stories that was ever written and the organiser of the compilers of the catalogue of the British Museum Library--an achievement that should render him immortal if his Twilight of the Gods fails to do so.

In the older post on Stevenson, I quoted a poem he wrote on the other side of the world in his tropical paradise, thinking of his old friend Sidney Colvin and his visits to Colvin's home attached to the British Museum. I feel I should round off this brief revisit with a poem by Richard Garnett, who in his dusty comfortable haunt, thought of Robert Louis Stevenson in his exotic lotus land and wrote a sonnet about him after the young author died in 1894. It was published in his The Queen and other Poems, 1901:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Wondrous as though a star with twofold light
Should fill a lamp for either hemisphere,
Piercing cold skies with scintillation clear,
And glowing on the sultry Southern night;
Was miracle of him who could unite
Pine and the purple harbour of the deer
With palm-plumed islets that sequestered hear
The far-off wave their zoning coral smite.
Still roars the surf, still bounds the herd, but where
Is one to see and hear and tell again?
As dancers pause on an arrested air
Fail the fast-thronging figures of the brain;
And shapes unshapely in dim lair,
Awaiting ripe vitality in vain.

It is interesting to read the line "the far-off wave their zoning coral smite," for it recalls Richard Garnett's poem Where Corals Lie, written in his youth and published with many other poems in his Io in Egypt and Other Poems, 1859. Edward Elgar used Where Corals Lie in a song cycle, Sea Pictures, Opus 37. Perhaps I should leave this post with a recording of Janet Baker singing the song:

Juxtapositions

2011-08-14T19:31:00.007-04:00

A recent bookish Internet pastime, an internet meme, which rather harkens back to the sortes virgilianae, had me reaching for the nearest book to locate the 5th sentence on the 56th page, a reaching out to the breadth of randomness within a collective readership. (Perhaps these games are unconscious remnant longings for the bicameral brain, a nostalgia of the unconscious mind at play. Our dreams too are perhaps remnant offshoots of this oracular vision.) My eyes alighted on the closest book on the nearest shelf, Michael Dibdin's Cabal, and the sentence: "The Nun backed out, closing the door behind her." This was suitably prosaic in its context. The entertainment and amusement of this pastime being in the out-of-context juxtaposition of this sentence with other randomly chosen sentences posted by other suitably curious individuals. Some sentences were amusing in their singularity.

I am unsure who decided on the page number and sentence chosen, and whether this is but one of many random online bibliographic pastimes, but the specific vectors shared by each book undercut the complete randomness, and add a structural element not present in the ancient pastime of opening Virgil's Aeneid and alighting a finger on a spot whose line or lines of verse would answer a question in mind. But, then again, the latter's randomness was confined to one book and was essentially an event of private divination.

Curiosity led me on and I found myself investigating this specific location in many books. One benefit of this process was it refreshed my view of my bookshelves and the books thereon, many neglected and forgotten. Using this bibliographic dead reckoning I discovered that the great majority of the 5th sentences on page 56 were ones that the eye would sweep over in casual reading, while coming across a blank page was rather like having one's ear up to the sphinx's cold dry lips awaiting the sibilant whisperings of a riddle.

Only a few books provided sentences in that position with some textual weight. Of course that was not the game. It was all about spontaneity and chance, not a search for words dripping with colourful style. The following are a few examples that would go well with “The Nun backed out, closing the door behind her” either preceding or following:

He seemed, leaning on crimson damask, to take in the bright day.
-The Golden Bowl by Henry James.

I liked, as I like still, to make words look self-conscious and foolish, to bind them by the mock marriage of a pun, to turn them inside out, to come upon them unawares.
-Despair by Vladimir Nabokov.

If it wasn't for Anatole's cooking, I doubt if he would bother to carry on.
-Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse.

I fear I wasted too much time on such an amusement, and I apologize Dear Reader, if you have come this far and arrived at the same conclusion. Perhaps to add more gravity to this post, I should resort to a sortes virgilianae, by the asking of my copy of Virgil's Aeneid, whether the world will ever come together and solve the problems of human suffering:

My random finger fell upon a section of the page after the end of Book 3, without text.

Perhaps I should interpret this as we must all provide our own text for the answer to such an important question.

Inscriptions of Interest, or, Croquet in Winter.

2011-07-09T15:33:00.007-04:00

Author signatures and inscriptions seem rather common these days. Behind most title pages there are author tours, book signings, readings, the authorial laying on of hands at book festivals and the blessings of bookshops and libraries. Then again, perhaps it is just a question of scale. Authors in the past no doubt employed their fountain pens just as fervently when faced with pristine fresh printed stacks of hardcover books. Booksellers and bookbuyers, hovering expectantly, no doubt had their moments in time with a celebrated author. One hopes.

Placement of signatures and inscriptions vary like styles. Front free endpapers, title pages, half-title pages, dedication pages have all been used by authors. I find when authors strike out their printed name on the title page and then inscribe their signature beneath in flowing liquid ink, it is rather like an act of existential defiance, as if reclaiming identity from the machine and its machine ways. Authors who hide their signatures on half-title pages intrigue me. Those who go further inland and lay their touch on dedication pages may well have something of the trickster about them. The front free endpaper, however, does not bode well as a place for signing. Too vulnerable. Like being left on the stoop in the rain. Perhaps these authors are extrovertedly adventurous and carefree. Motorcycle drivers and fans of the mountain's edge.

The late and multi-talented author Paul Quarrington was fond of playful line drawings to accompany his artistic flourish. That of Alice Munro, simple and straightforward on the title page. William Gibson, large looping flourishes with occasional dots and underlinings on half-titles. The diversity in this realm is fascinating.

I remember a book that was donated to the library I worked for by one of the Molson family. A wonderful older volunteer had worked for the Senator Molson and she was instrumental in getting book donations from his sons. This book on the Montreal Canadians was a birthday gift and it was signed by all the great Montreal Canadian hockey players, Béliveau, Richard, Cournoyer, Lemaire, and on and on, and each signature revealed exquisite penmanship. Catholic schools of the day truly taught fine penmanship. Through the volunteer I inquired whether it was mistaken donation, such a personal gift that it was, but I was told that he had many other items and it was not a mistake. I had hoped the Library would use it for a fundraising item, but having left the library I don't know of its fate. But certainly an interesting inscribed volume.

Inscriptions and association copies are always of interest, even from lesser known and forgotten authors. It is humbling to come across an author whose work, for the most part, has been swept into the vast dusty penumbra of pen wielders. Authors who scratched away for years forming sentences and paragraphs, methodically building a body of work, a list of titles, letter by letter, creating a name and reputation which they hoped would have some lasting value, only to slip into the dark shadows of disinterest, and perhaps be only vaguely remembered for a best-selling and unworthy volume.

Moray McLaren (1901-1971) was unknown to me when I picked up three of his books in Montreal many years ago. In doing a bit of research on the author in those pre-internet days, I didn't come up with much. Even now I can't say I have enlarged on my knowledge. There is a such a thin veil of information about the author and his books, the questioning mind begins to wonder why. I am sure most booksellers know of the name and some of the titles, and probably have one or two in stock, but he seems to be one of those authors of his period--one of many perhaps--who is no longer relevant. His books are certainly available for purchase on various bookselling sites but in such great quantities--over 700 volumes on ABE-- that I could possibly conclude that the value of his writings was transitory, the works of their time and place.

He was to a certain degree, a younger contemporary with Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972), and he wrote an address for Mackenzie's eightieth birthday at a gathering at the Scottish Arts Club in Edinburgh. This was later published as a booklet of a few dozen pages: Compton Mackenzie: A Panegyric for his Eightieth Birthday (Edinburgh: Macdonald, 1963).

Dipping into his Stern and Wild: A New Scottish Journey (London: Chapman & Hall, 1948), I found him to be a good stylist, though perhaps dated in his attitudes, the following quote being one example: The one-man business of being a writer has been described as one of the only two professions that can be practised in bed. This is not strictly true. Writing in bed is possible but uncomfortable. (p. 26). Sounds like a joke from Jimmy Carr.

He was born in Edinburgh in 1901 and went to Corpus Christi, Cambridge for his degree. He was an assistant editor of The London Mercury, and The Listener, and was also with the BBC radio service, Scottish region where he wrote plays and broadcast talks. His involvement with the British Foreign Office during WWII led to his being in charge of the Polish Political Institute during the war years.

So he was a Scot who went south for his education and employment and ended up being a freelance writer after the war and garnering an OBE into the bargain. His Scottish brethren might have looked askance at his involvement with the English milieu, but he, like Compton Mackenzie, was a devoted Scot, writing many books on the subject. His first book, Return to Scotland: An Egoist's Journey (Duckworth, 1930) being the first of many. His second book, A Wayfarer in Poland (Methuen, 1934), must have led to his being appointed to the Polish Political Institute. I can imagine the conversations of Foreign Office types, wondering what chap could fill the position, and someone piping up with a tidbit about a friend of theirs having written a book about the country a few years ago. Good enough, sign him up. Images of Evelyn Waugh's William Boot in Scoop come to mind. Poland in the early 1930s, I can only imagine what he wrote. No doubt dated.

Two books of fiction followed after the war, a collection of short stories based on his radio work, A Dinner With the Dead and other Stories (Edinburgh: Serif Books, 1947), and a novel, Escape and Return (London: Chapman & Hall, 1947). This novel is described by Robert Eldridge as: "a dark portrait of an alcoholic writer in wartime Britain and his perilous recovery, all the more forceful for its lack of temperance moralizing or sensationalism. The first half is set in London, the second in Scotland, where the protagonist recovers with the help of sympathetic doctors and priests, finally regaining his Catholic faith along with his sobriety. The story contains hints of Satanic goings-on in London." On the inner flap of the dustwrapper this description is provided: "It is the story, in modern life, of demoniac possession and exorcism, rendered all the more striking for the fidelity with which the scene is constructed, lower Bohemian London during the air raids, a world of black magic, illicit drinking, war-weariness and work-weariness." Sounds like a book Colin Wilson might have read and enjoyed.

I have yet to dip into either of these books of fiction. Life is short. The novel, Escape and Return, however, has an inscription of interest and holds a certain charm. Located on the front free endpaper, and written in a fine hand with dark ink somewhat faded with time, the 46 year old author wrote the following:

Thank you for buying this book. You are the first who (as far as I know) has done so. I hope you won't be the last.
Moray McLaren.

Considering that Moray McLaren did not continue writing fiction, I imagine his sales were not promising. Non-fiction became his area of concentration, mainly popular biographies and histories, books on fishing and wine as well, along with basic newspaper and magazine work.

His inscription in his first and only novel, is one that every author hopes will prove true. For some authors, however, trying to sell fiction is like playing croquet in the snow.

Addendum: Having only dipped into one of his books, I don't want to sound unkind in my judgements of his work. He may very well have been an excellent writer, friend, and associate to the many who knew him. It is also quite likely he was damn good at winter croquet.

Books by Moray McLaren:
Escape and Return, Chapman & Hall, 1947.
A Dinner With the Dead (stories), Serif Books, 1947.
Stern and Wild: A New Scottish Journey, Chapman & Hall, 1948.
"By Me...": A Report Upon the Apparent Discovery of Some Working Notes of William Shakespeare in a Sixteenth-Century Book (edited by Raymond Postgate), J. Redington, 1949.
A Small Stir: Letters on the English, Hollis & Carter, 1949.
The Capital of Scotland, Douglas & Foulis, 1950.
(Editor) The House of Neill, 1749-1949, Neill & Co., 1950.
The Capital of Scotland: A Twentieth-Century Contemplation on Edinburgh, Douglas & Foulis, 1950.
Stevenson and Edinburgh: A Centenary Study, Folcroft, 1950.
The Scots, Penguin, 1951.
(Editor of revision) Desmond Campbell Miller, Questions and Answers on Evidence, Sweet & Maxwell, 1951.
A Singing Reel, Hollis & Carter, 1953.
The Highland Jaunt: A Study of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson Upon Their Highland and Hebridean Tour of 1773, Jarrolds, 1954, W. Sloane, 1955.
Scotland in Colour, Batsford, 1954.
Understanding the Scots: A Guide for South Britons and Other Foreigners, Muller, 1956.
Lord Lovat of the '45: The End of an Old Song, Jarrolds, 1957.
The Pursuit, Jarrolds, 1959.
Fishing as We Find It (letters), Stanley Paul, 1960.
The Wisdom of the Scots: A Choice and a Comment, M. Joseph, 1961, St. Martin's, 1962.
If Freedom Fail: Bannockburn, Flodden, the Union, Secker & Warburg, 1964.
The Shell Guide to Scotland (edited by Yorke Crompton), Ebury Press, 1965,
Poland's Thousand Years: The Vanguard of Christendom, Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1965.
Pure Wine; or, In Vino Sanitas: A Centenary Celebration of, Quotation From, and Comment on Dr. Robert Druitt's Remarkable Book, "A Report on Cheap Wines, 1865," A. Campbell, 1965.
Corsica Boswell: Paoli, Johnson, and Freedom, Secker & Warburg, 1966.
Sir Walter Scott: The Man and the Patriot, Heinemann, 1970.
Bonnie Prince Charlie, Saturday Review Press, 1972.
The Fishing Waters of Scotland, J. Murray, 1972.
Scotland, Ebury Press, 1977.

Beautiful and Immovable Forever: Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011)

2011-06-29T17:11:00.001-04:00

The recent passing of Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011 ) at the age of 96 has produced a florescence of memories, tributes and obituaries. His passing has led many back to his writings, myself included.

Words of Mercury (John Murray, 2003), a selection of PLF's writings edited by Artemis Cooper is an excellent book to reacquaint oneself with his writings, and it will be a fine companion to her anticipated biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor. This selection reproduces choice excerpts from his published works as well as a selection of his pieces written for magazines and journals. There is a short essay he wrote for Architectural Digest (August 1986), Sash Windows Opening on the Foam, which is a detailed and fascinating look at his home in Greece, a home he designed and helped build. The essay tellingly opens with a reference to books--for though he was a man of action, he was also most definitely a man of the book: a scholar, a gentleman, and an adventurer. The essay also opens with a reference to his dining table, a place of convivial discussion:

Where a man's Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is, there shall his heart be also; and of course, Lempriere, Fowler, Brewer, Liddell and Scott, Dr. Smith, Harrap and Larousse and a battery of atlases, bibles, concordances, Loeb classics, Pleiade editions, Oxford Companions and Cambridge histories; anthologies and books on painting, sculpture, architecture, birds, beasts, fishes, trees and stars; for if one is settling in the wilds, a dozen reference shelves is the minimum; and they must be near the dinner table where arguments spring up which have to be settled then or never. This being so, two roles for the chief room in a still unbuilt house were clear from the start.

The large living room and dining room are surrounded by bookshelves and windows and he describes his convenient device to reach the smaller volumes on the upper shelves:

The bookcases with no divan in front rise nine feet from the floor and we have discovered a brilliant way of reaching the upper shelves without steps: an elephant pole of brass bound teak made by the Hong Kong Chinese to help minor rajahs to climb into their howdahs: it splits down the middle and half the pole drops away parallel with a heartening bang like grounded arms; the rungs, slotted and hinged in hidden grooves, fall horizontal and up one goes.

Such Victorian pole ladders are not uncommon but certainly pricey these days, running into the thousands of dollars at auction houses. Patrick Leigh Fermor's dinner table, however, was unique:

A visiting friend unsettlingly hinted that a Victorian mahogany dining-table was not up to the rest; so, years later, we ruinously exorcized this complex with an inlaid marble table made by Dame Freya Stark's marmorista in Venice. Based on a tondo in the chancel of S. Anastasio in Mantua, flames of Udine stone radiate from the centre of the design of subtle grey carsico rosso di Verona. When it arrived, lugging the triple plinth of Istrian stone down from the road and then trundling the heavy circular top through the trees was as bad as the earlier struggles with the lintel. But the friend was right. Here it was, beautiful and immovable forever, and when set down with glasses and candles, it turns the humblest meal--even oil and lentils--into a feast.

A very recent blog by a writer who was living in Greece and visited the author at his home, provided photographs of his bookshelves, his dinner table, and Patrick Leigh Fermor and his guests. It seems the post has quite disappeared, perhaps due to the personal nature of the photographs. The shelves were interesting to peruse from afar, however, many works of Freya Stark, Norman Douglas, Winston Churchill, Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley among others. Heavy old volumes, bereft of dustwrappers, slightly shabby, well read, well thumbed. A working library. There is still a photograph of his dinner table and I hesitate to post it, but it has so much charm. His home must be imbued with his spirit, a spirit that will also live on in his extraordinary and vivid prose.

The latest on all things Patrick Leigh Fermor.

A Little Flutter, or, a Montreal tavern, a race track, U2, and the Patagonian Groo Groo

2011-06-02T23:11:00.011-04:00

Part 1
“March, my muse! If you cannot fly, yet flutter.” - Byron, Don Juan xv, xxvii 1824.

When U2's 360 Tour rolls into Montreal's disused Hippodrome in July, bringing their wonderful mindful, emotional, multi-textured (from intimate to interstellar) musical soundscape experience, perhaps the ghostly remnant energies of so many countless horse races ever spinning like some enormous invisible ourbouros, tail in mouth, will add to the heightened sense of energy, time and space as the fans surround the enormous stage which may well appear to have descended from above and beyond like some massive intergalatic spaceship.

It is unlikely, however, that latent histories of this island city would be entertained by the many fans as the musical events play out, but perhaps the musicians upon the stage might, in a rare moment of timeless calm, catch a glimpse of reflections on water in the distant south west (if such reflections can be seen from such a location upon such a stage) and think of how over 400 years ago, the great explorer Samuel de Champlain travelled with the First Nations inhabitants past the rapids of the St. Lawrence and viewed the open expanse of Lake St. Louis, and naturally thought that he had reached the passage to China, thereby calling the location, La Chine, or the Lachine Montrealers know. It was there that Champlain created a fur trading post, perhaps the most important of the three, the others being at Tadoussac and Quebec city.

I think of this rather significant moment because the Hippodrome was originally called Blue Bonnets and this name is tied into that historic riverscape close to the present municipality of Lachine.

“I used to flutter the ribbands of the London Croydon and South Coast Coach.” -Eton School Days, i, 11. 1864.

Back before the railroads linked the centre of Montreal to the outlying region of Lachine, there were stage coaches, caleches and other horse-powered vehicles carrying both mail and passengers to the steam boats at the Lachine docks. These stage coaches left from McGill street near St. Maurice Street, and travelled to the dock at Lachine with a number of watering stops along the way such as Deschamps, a stage house near the tanneries, and further on, a tavern known as Blue Bonnets in an old area once known as Cote St. Pierre named after the river that once ran from its origins in present day Hampstead and Cote St. Luc, down towards Ville St. Pierre and eastwards along the Lachine Canal before flowing out into the St. Lawrence at old Montreal's Pointe à Callière.

“Down the rock the shallow water falls,/ fluttering through the stones in feeble whimpering brawls.” -John Clare, Village Minster, 1821.

The river is still flowing underground but a remnant does reveal itself above ground in the old Wentworth and later named Meadowbrook golf course, a golf course I have fond memories of playing—especially that short par 3 on the hill (number 7 I think) so pretty, and so much easier to play for a complete duffer like myself. I never knew that the small picturesque stream I crossed on the way to another green or fairway was the part of the last visible remains of the historic river St. Pierre. It was, and hopefully still is, a lovely spot and I hear small red fox can be seen from time to time, fox who are fairly tame and approachable as this recent video attests. How long such a scarce piece of wooded green will be left alone I can only wonder. The original Wentworth golf course was much larger and was a part of the Canadian Pacific Railroad Recreational Club for its employees. With time, however, the railyards expanded and expanded taking up more and more land. Much of the land that used to be part of the original Wentworth golf course is now a vast space for parking new cars, a sparkling reflective field of glass and steel.

“A fluttered hope his accents shook / A fluttered joy was in his look.” -Sir Walter Scott, Rokeby iv, xxix.

The story concerning the name Blue Bonnets seems to be that a Scottish soldier named Alexander “Sandy” McRae from one of the Scotch Regiments in Montreal, opened a tavern named Blue Bonnets in the Cote St. Pierre area in the early 1840s, with a large signboard featuring a Scot in full regalia and blue bonnet. The name became a byword for the area as well.

When the Grand Trunk Railway was laid from downtown Montreal to the docks at Lachine, the railway replaced the horse as the major means of transport, and so the stage coaches fell into disuse as did the watering holes. When a racetrack opened in the year 1872 just to the north of this area, now part of Montreal West, it was named Blue Bonnets, so the name of Sandy McRae's establishment was reborn and lived on.

The land at that time was divided into long stips of farm land and much of it was owned by the Decarie family (often written 'Decary' as on the Hopkins' Atlas of Montreal for 1879). The strip of land on which the Blue Bonnets race track lay, belonged to Joseph Decarie. If you stood at the juncture of Sherbrooke Street West and Westminister North, near the CPR railway tracts, you could look north west and envisage where the race track used to be.

When the Canadian Pacific Railroad laid their line down westwards in 1886, it passed just south of the Blue Bonnets raceway, and once again the advancement of technology, transportation and urban development seemed to keep pushing the origins and spirit of the Blue Bonnets further afield. The race course moved to its present location near Decarie Boulevard and Paré in 1907, and was inaugurated on June 14, 1907 and once again the name Blue Bonnets lived on, at least until 1991 when it was renamed the Hippodrome. The race track went into bankruptcy and has been in disuse since the autumn of 2009.

Image of Blue Bonnets c. 1910 from the McCord Museum Notman Archives. Mount Royal can be seen in the distance.

When the U2 360 Tour has come and gone, and their beautiful and energizing music lingers on in the atmosphere and in the souls of those who attended, the ultimate fate of the large tract of land upon which their concert took place remains in question. It appears a mix of residential and commercial development has been suggested. It would be a fine municipal gesture to honour the old spirit of Blue Bonnets and keep the name alive in a street name or a park. I think it warrants at least some civic consideration. Perhaps a nod to U2 would also be considered. Place U2. U2 Boulevard. Rue U2. But perhaps a round park would be more appropriate, with a fountain in the middle, Parc U2. That would have a nice feel.

Part 2

"They do not beat at all, like imperfect consonances, but only flutter, at a slower or quicker rate according to the pitch of the sounds." -Robert Smith, Harmonics, 1759.

This brings me full circle to what I originally had meant to write about: the assumptions of the reading eye.

For years I have had a book I picked up at the old Fraser-Hickson Library in Montreal. A book that has travelled with me but I have never read: A Little Flutter (London: Cassell, 1932, orig. 1930) by Ernest Bramah. It doesn't have a description on the dustwrapper and no blurbs are to be found, only lists of their 2/6 reprints, romance and adventure novels for the most part by many a forgotten name. The only clue to its subject matter would be the title, and the illustration on the front panel of the dustwrapper. For years I looked at the spine title of the book on the shelf while I practised my guitar and I always assumed it to be a novel that involved horse racing and the exciting venture of a bet or two. Occasionally it reminded me of Montreal's Blue Bonnets race track where on a few occasions, I enjoyed the spectacle of a horse race or two, breathed the cigarette and cigar smoke and heard the stirring sounds while watching with fascination not just the horses but the people around me. The book title also later reminded me of the Black Books episode of that name, where Bernard catches the betting bug.

This book title became part of the inspiration for a piece of music I composed. I had been greatly impressed by the musical piece Last Train to Dusseldorf by the extraordinary guitarist Tommy Emmanuel, where he captures the sense of train travel. One day practicing guitar, I was staring at Bramah's A Little Flutter on the bookshelf, and thought that I could come up with a piece of music which could mimic a horse race and I could call it A Little Flutter. So, inspired by Tommy Emmanuel and a book title, and my memories of Blue Bonnets, I created the music piece.

The odd thing is that the book has nothing to do with horse racing and is merely a play on words. The book's subject matter, comically absurd, is about birds, and the rare Patagonian Groo Groo plays a major part. I only recently read the book, skimmingly, for it is written in an idiom which reminded me of From London Far by Michael Innes, a style which seems exceedingly verbose and dated.

Perhaps I should try to compose a piece of music to mimic a bird's flight. I could name it after the rare Patagonian Groo Groo. The Groo Groo Groove. Hmm, might be something there. It would be a dream to write the song with the Edge and Bono, but I think that would be dreaming indeed.

Anyway, here is my music which I recorded direct to an inexpensive MP3 player and ran through a reverb on a music software program to add depth. State of the art it is not. Cheers. Music copyright Ralph Mackay aka Chumley.

Addendum: I have not been back to my hometown Montreal since I left in September of 2002, so if I ever get back there, the old Blue Bonnets may draw me in. Perhaps I could bring my cheap acoustic guitar and play the song as I gaze out over the remnant race track oval and think of the cyclical nature of this strange world we live in.

Addendum2: Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses metaphorical, but a Equus ferus caballus reference nevertheless.

Addendum3: The source for the reference to Sandy McRae and the original Blue Bonnets is a book I've had for years: Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches by John Fraser (Montreal: Gazette Printing Company, 1890). It is a book of essays, often repetitive in detail, dealing with Montreal history, and specifically the area of Lachine, his birthplace, and the site of the great French explorer La Salle's homestead. John's brother, Hugh Fraser (1818-1870), a wealthy Montreal wine merchant, died unmarried and left $200,000 of his estate for the founding of a library. This will was contested by his brother John, a rather prominent case at the time. John lost his case however, and the will was upheld. It is perhaps strangely ironic that the book by Ernest Bramah entitled A Little Flutter, the book that originally got me thinking on this subject of horse races, was purchased by me at the Fraser-Hickson Institute free Library, the very library that Hugh Fraser's money brought into being. I think there is a full circle in there somewhere.

fugitive dreams

2011-03-23T12:52:00.004-04:00

The Lyric Pieces of Edvard Grieg appeal to me greatly, and his No. 5, Drommensyn (Phantom) from his Book 7, Opus 62 expresses an ethereal quality which consoles. It moved me to create this video using older illustrations from journals and books. The narrative is, I hope, a good compliment to the beautiful music, though, naturally, one facet from one mind.

Robert Louis Stevenson's Nights: Part Three: A Simple Ramble

2010-11-13T09:37:00.010-05:00

Robert Louis Stevenson (b. November 13, 1850-d. December 3, 1894)

Had Robert Louis Stevenson been born in 1950 rather than 1850, I can't help but think, what with his preference for long hair, velvet coats, bohemian ways and youthful pranks, that he would have found his way into the popular music scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s buying his velvet jackets in Carnaby Street and bumping into Freddie Mercury perhaps. With his bon vivant cousin Bob, they could have created a music group, The Jekyll and Hydes, or Louis and the Lighthouses, or maybe even The Skerryvores. Or perhaps Louis would have been a folk singer/songwriter along the lines of Nick Drake. Well, Louis might have been a hundred years ahead of his time, but he was still inescapably in it, and though he dabbled in music, creating small pieces for his flageolet, it was the written word that flowed through him, the written word that continues to be read.

Being the 160th anniversary of Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday, I thought I would post this simple piece of music I wrote, inspired by RLS.

Septimus and the Magician, A Fable: Part 2

2010-10-19T16:10:00.013-04:00

fter the show, Signor Mortiz, followed by Septimus and the monkey, found the dressing room of his impostor. There was a bowl of fruit, a bottle of spirits, and the man's street clothes and overcoat. He noticed a banana in the bowl and handed it to the monkey who climbed into the one good chair and deftly peeled the fruit and consumed it with a swiftness that made Mortiz momentarily think of how expensive a monkey would be as a pet. Septimus looked at the monkey and then at Signor Mortiz with a tinge of sadness in his expression, so Mortiz located the food his impostor had been feeding Septimus and he was soon crouched over his bowl, his attention slightly agitated by the strange antics of this long-armed creature sitting where the impostor used to sit.

Mortiz lit a cheroot and began to inspect the clothes, threadbare and worn at the edges, but tailored of very high quality materials. He discovered a number of folded papers, letters and cards in a pocket, and squinting at one of the calling cards through the smoke trailing up to his eyes, he coughed as he read the name: William McGlaughlin Esq. Turning to the monkey who was by now showing his teeth and grabbing his big toe with much glee, Signor Mortiz bent down and looked into the face of the monkey and a depressing weight of recognition washed over him, for he could see his father's eyes. He had not recognized his father on stage what with the fake beard, heavy make-up, wig and top hat worn to resemble the real Signor Mortiz, his son. The question as to whether his father had recognized him as he mounted the stage was the question that began to dominate his thoughts.

Signor Mortiz sat heavily upon a three-legged footstool and looked at the folded papers, letters and cards. The papers were mostly unpaid bills and letters demanding payments for various amenities. The calling cards were of two varieties, one in his father's name and one in the name of Signor Mortiz. His eyes read "Senior" Mortiz, and he let them drop to the dusty floor. . . .

Robert Louis Stevenson's Nights: Part Two, Parenthetical and Digressional

2010-10-14T14:38:00.008-04:00

When Robert Louis Stevenson lived in Bournemouth during the years 1884-1887 he would often stay with Sidney Colvin when visiting or passing through London. Colvin, being the Keeper of the Prints at the British Museum, had the great fortune of living in a house provided for this position, a living quarter which flanked the Museum itself. It was no doubt where Louis was staying when he dropped by Walter T. Spencer's bookshop in 1885--but a short walk away from the British Museum--dripping with rain and suffering from a leaky shoe. Many years later, when established in the South Seas, he wrote a poem for Colvin called To S.C. It became part of the posthumous collection Songs of Travel and Other Verses arranged by Colvin and published in 1895 by Chatto & Windus. In the poem he shifts his thoughts from his tropical surroundings of his island home and recalls the fond memories of being a guest at Sidney Colvin's home at the British Museum, a home which Louis would refer to in letters and conversation as "the Monument" and here as "the many-pillared and the well-beloved":

To other lands and nights my fancy turned -
To London first, and chiefly to your house,
The many-pillared and the well-beloved.
There yearning fancy lighted; there again
In the upper room I lay, and heard far off
The unsleeping city murmur like a shell;
The muffled tramp of the Museum guard
Once more went by me; I beheld again
Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street;
Again I longed for the returning morn,
The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds,
The consentaneous trill of tiny song
That weaves round monumental cornices
A passing charm of beauty. Most of all,
For your light foot I wearied, and your knock
That was the glad réveillé of my day.

One of Colvin's colleagues at the British Museum was Richard Garnett (1835-1906) a scholar whose life was wholly bound up with the British Museum from the year 1851, when he entered the Museum as an assistant in the Library, to his later years as the Keeper of the Printed Book. Colvin in his Memories and Notes of Persons and Places, 1852-1912, recalled Garnett with this description:

The most genially quaint of erudite men, the most helpful, the most smiling and queerly attractive to look at in spite of his stained teeth and bristling russet stubble of a beard, he was not, I suppose, a trained bibliographer in the full modern sense, but had a vast and varied practical knowledge of books and the most indefatigably obliging courtesy in helping all those who sought his help in their studies. Sedulous as he was in every museum duty, Garnett found time for a vast amount of reading and much miscellaneous critical and biographical writing outside his official work, and has left with all his colleagues a memory at which we cannot forbear to smile, but which we affectionately esteem and honour none the less. (pp. 208-209)

An interesting description which seems to suggest he was mildly eccentric. In Garnett's Times obituary the term vita umbratilis is referred to describe his career and it is doubly apt when considering he laboured beneath the umbrella-like protective dome of the Reading Room. Someone who was connected with the Museum from time to time was T. E. Lawrence--who could possibly be seen as eccentric in some ways as well. In an introduction to a reissue of one of Garnett's books, Lawrence wrote of him and the Reading Room of the British Museum:

The Reading Room, his province, is wise, rich, sober, warm, decent (even dingy), industrious; but it lacks humour, it lacks polish, and all that crackling display of surface virtue which comprehends smartness, and is much more. Consequently, because the Museum was hushed, Dr. Garnett would be--on paper--lively. Because the great ceiling coved so solemnly overhead, he would be flippant. Because his readers were so deadly serious, he would be sprightly. . . His dealings throughout the open hours were with living people, inquirers all, whether they were great scholars with minds so deep in the well of learning that never could they be raised to the life of day, or simple souls who had perhaps not heard of Sanchoniathon or Vopiscus. People would sidle up to him at his desk to ask for the best book upon caterpillars, for a Keats manuscript, to know how many protons might be in a cubic foot of Bessemer steel. The Library is the ultimate reference book of the world, and its presiding genius the Index.

Lawrence interestingly mentions in an aside, that the British Museum was an ideal place for umbrellas to find a home: "Incidentally this is the best place in London to lose an acquired or embarrassing umbrella. It costs no more than the pain of carrying off a brass disc; and that's not all loss, for there is one special pattern of slot machine in which these discs perform miracles." This little piece of advice from 1924 has left me with the image of T. E. Lawrence handing over an unwanted umbrella to the man at the door in red cuffs and lapels, and being handed a numbered brass disc, and has equally left me with the question of just what slot machine he was referring to.

The reference to an 'acquired' umbrella brings to mind poor Leonard Bast in E. M. Forster's Howards End, while the reference to an 'embarrassing' umbrella brings to mind the well-known and humorous undergraduate essay by Robert Louis Stevenson on The Philosophy of Umbrellas:

The falsity and the folly of the human race have degraded that graceful symbol to the ends of dishonesty; and while some umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are not strikingly characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves that he displays his real nature), others, from certain prudential motives, are chosen directly opposite to the person’s disposition. A mendacious umbrella is a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself below a silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his religious friends armed with the decent and reputable gingham. May it not be said of the bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas that they go about the streets ‘with a lie in their right hand’?

A passage near the end of that funny essay is perhaps too good to pass up:

‘Not the least important, and by far the most curious property of the umbrella, is the energy which it displays in affecting the atmospheric strata. There is no fact in meteorology better established—indeed, it is almost the only one on which meteorologists are agreed—than that the carriage of an umbrella produces desiccation of the air; while if it be left at home, aqueous vapour is largely produced, and is soon deposited in the form of rain. No theory,’ my friend continues, ‘competent to explain this hygrometric law has been given (as far as I am aware) by Herschel, Dove, Glaisher, Tait, Buchan, or any other writer; nor do I pretend to supply the defect. I venture, however, to throw out the conjecture that it will be ultimately found to belong to the same class of natural laws as that agreeable to which a slice of toast always descends with the buttered surface downwards.’

Light verse addendum:

I came across this saying in Putnam's Complete Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words by W. Gurney Benham:

Rainy days will surely come,

Take your friend's umbrella home.

-Anon

And this from a book of comic verse:

The Rain

The rain it raineth every day,

Upon the just and unjust fellow,

But more upon the just, because

The unjust hath the just's umbrella.

-Anon

This last verse could be a companion to Robert Louis Stevenson's in his A Child's Garden of Verses:

The Rain

The Rain is raining all around,

It falls on field and tree,

It rains on the umbrellas here,

And on the ships at sea.

And on a personal note, my wife recently referred to umbrellas in a blogpost and quoted a verse of mine written in the early 1980s. I had been reading quite a bit of nonsense verse and cautionary tales, the work of Lear, Belloc, Carroll et al., and I wrote a flurry of light verse--or nonsense-- in that vein. Since I have digressed upon umbrellas, I shall leave with two verses of mine:

Umbrellas

Umbrellas were once made of feathers you know,

With two you could almost fly.

Like that girl from Trieste, in that strong north-west,

Who was swept up into the sky.

And when she looked down, she saw with a frown,

Her parents were waving goodbye, goodbye,

Her parents were waving goodbye.

Umbrellas are good in all sorts of weathers,

They can even be used as a boat.

Like that boy from Madras,

To impress a fine lass,

Crossed a stream like a knight o'er a moat.

And together they travelled, the stream that unravelled,

And off in the sunset did float, did float,

And off in the sunset did float.

-ralph patrick mackay

Alexander McCall Smith Interview

2010-09-16T18:47:00.003-04:00

This past week we had the great pleasure of listening to an audio interview of Alexander McCall Smith--one of my wife's favourite novelists--on CBC radio. He was attending the Writers at Woody Point Festival in Gros Morne, Newfoundland. It was such a fun interview that I wanted to make a link to it here. Enjoy: Interview with Alexander McCall Smith at CBC radio with Shelagh Rogers, host of The Next Chapter.

Robert Louis Stevenson's Nights: Part One

2010-08-25T23:27:00.006-04:00

Colvinian Preamble
In an essay found in his collection: Memories and Notes of Persons and Places 1852-1912 (London: Edward Arnold, 1921), Sir Sidney Colvin (1845-1927), who had been Slade Professor of Art at Cambridge, director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and later, the Keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum, reflected upon the nature of the latter position which he held for many years:

For one thing, it is a chief part of his duty to win regard and confidence of private collectors, to help and stimulate them in their pursuits, putting his knowledge at their disposal but making them feel the while that their prime, their binding, duty is to acknowledge such help by destining their collections in the long run to enrich the institution which he serves. It is open to a collector to do one of three things with his treasures after his death: leave them intact to his heirs: leave them to be dispersed by auction, or leave them to enrich some public gallery or museum. . . .The third offers the reward of the permanent recognition which will await his name as that of an enlightened amateur and national or civic benefactor. It is the value and excellence of this last reward which those public guardians of such things whom he may count among his friends are bound with all their power to impress upon him. (p.205).

Colvin was referring to prints, etchings, paintings and other works of art, but it made me think about rare book librarians, books and their collectors. The three choices Colvin mentions are equally applicable to them, and this made me think of the rather interesting dynamic between the specialist—Museum Keeper, or Rare Books Librarian—the seller—Bookseller or Auction house—and the passionate collector. The specialist and the seller seem to have a symbiotic relationship for they benefit from each other in the moment, but they are also competing for the endgame, as they both may be hoping that the collector will think of them when the legal will is made and the decisions of what to do with a collection—whether books or art, or both—are ultimately made. I imagine auction houses win out a great deal of the time—cash flow, it seems, is always in demand, even for the wealthy—therefore keeping collectors and sellers—new and old—taking part in that particular cycle of life. Once a collection, or specific work of art or book, goes to a museum or special library collection, however, collectors and sellers must think that the stock of possibilities has decreased. This must be more truly felt in the world of art when a certain work is donated to a museum thereby diminishing the prospects for private hands.

The rarefied atmosphere at the top-end of art and book collecting is not one familiar to me at all, but it is interesting to read about on occasion. In looking into Robert Louis Stevenson's life, I returned to a memoir of a bookseller who did inhabit that rarefied air somewhat, Walter T. Spencer. His memoir, Forty Years in my Bookshop, edited with an introduction by Thomas Moult (London: Constable & Company, 1923), is an attractively printed and bound issue (Robert Maclehouse and Co., University Press, Glasgow) and somewhat resembles the issues from the publisher T. N. Foulis in its typography, paper and binding, the edges untrimmed and the top edge gilt. Walter T. Spencer's father ran a picture shop that sold prints, drawings and paintings and the son grew up working in the shop, which was a good grounding for opening his own business in the month of June 1883 at 27 New Oxford Street, London. Unlike many booksellers who had to move from location to location , he was fortunate or wise in his choice of location, for he writes: "But through all these changes and chances in this great city I am, I think, one of the few, among booksellers, at any rate, that have pitched an unmoved tent." He describes New Oxford Street as: "a sort of Mecca for the pilgrimage of bibliophiles and picture-hunters, autograph collectors and antiquaries. Here, for long absorbing hours, time has no meaning and the clock ticks in neglect."

I imagine New Oxford Street has changed a great deal over the years, and is not quite what it was, but there is the rather extraordinary James Smith & Sons, a firm which began in 1830 and has been at 53 New Oxford Street since 1857, a visual touchstone for the Victorian Age. One can imagine Sherlock Holmes and Watson rubbing shoulders with Prince Florizel and Col. Geraldine surrounded by sword sticks, dagger canes, Malacca canes, Irish Blackthorns, riding crops, umbrellas and walking sticks of all types. It is quite likely that Spencer being fairly close, purchased an item or two from the firm. Sidney Colvin, Robert Louis Stevenson were also likely customers, although I have to wonder if Louis ever did use an umbrella; certainly not a tightly rolled version so common with bowler hats. I rather imagine he just used a large brimmed bohemian hat and got wet.

Spencer dealt not only in books--mostly of contemporary writers, but of the upper-shelf variety--but also in letters, manuscripts, and personal items connected with authors, as well as prints, drawings and pictures, specifically of the artists who illustrated Charles Dickens. He comes across as keen as Col. Mustard in the library with a paper knife, for he was certainly one to seek out such items for sale. His memoir is no doubt a book well-known to English booksellers and is interesting for the bibliographic gleanings and period values and prices of various books, and it is enjoyable for its many anecdotes and stories of unusual customers and authors. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) dropped by his shop on one occasion in 1885, stereotypically dripping from the rain. His shoe, he told Spencer, had suffered a leak. The bookseller settled the author in a chair to dry out and provided brandy and water. Spencer relates this story of his visit:

I thought it would interest Mr. Stevenson to see a catalogue I had just issued, in which the first edition of his "New Arabian Nights" (two volumes, published in 1882) was listed at 8s 6d. in the original cloth. A moment earlier he had been depressed by the sight on my shelves of some sixty copies of the book, a library surplus which I had purchased from Mudies for a shilling a volume. I can see now the change on his face as he looked up from the catalogue.
"But, Mr. Spencer," he said wistfully, "no-one asks about first editions of my books, do they?"
Poor Stevenson's lack of self-confidence was never justified, for the book gradually increased in price, moving to four guineas, to six, to eight. At the sale of Colonel Prideaux's library I gave 47 pounds for a copy. But neither R. L. S. nor I, as we sat there talking on that rainy day, ever thought I should live to see the day when, knowing how limited is the edition, I had to bid 101 pounds, as I did in 1921, for a book which, thirty-seven years earlier, I had priced at 8s6d. A record experience, surely, in a bookseller's own lifetime.

I imagine that Spencer's 'record experience' has no doubt been broken many times by modern booksellers. The present value of the two volume first edition does not seem to be too high considering a supposedly small print run. In reviewing the online sites, there was a recent listing for the Chatto & Windus first issue, first state for $2500. The New Arabian Nights was Robert Louis Stevenson's first collection of fiction, but not his first attempts in that area. Some of his stories from the early 1870s were destroyed, but a few survived such as the story, When the Devil Was Well which eventually found its way to a typographer in 1921 when The Bibliophile Society of Boston issued a limited edition with an introduction by William P. Trent. It seems to run in the $100 to $150 range. If possession is not a requirement, you can read it here.

Colvinian Serendipity
During the 1870s, Robert Louis Stevenson was still emotionally, psychologically, and financially tethered to his parents, and when his father heard of his son's confessed atheism, RLS was sent to stay with relatives in Suffolk. This minor rift led to the wonderful and important meeting with Sidney Colvin.

Mrs. Frances Sitwell--married, 34 years of age--was staying with the said relatives in Suffolk and was very impressed with RLS and so invited her good friend Sidney Colvin, then at Cambridge, to come and meet him. Colvin wrote of this first meeting, he was twenty-eight, and Louis was twenty-three:

I had landed from a Great-Eastern train at a little country station in Suffolk, and was met on the platform by a stripling in a velvet jacket and straw hat, who walked up with me to the country rectory where he was staying and where I had come to stay. I had lately been appointed Slade Professor at Cambridge; the rectory was that at Cockfield, near Bury St. Edmunds; the host was my much older colleague Professor Churchill Babington, of amiable and learned memory; the hostess was his wife, a grand-daughter of the Rev. Lewis Balfour of Colinton, Midlothian; the youth was her young first cousin by the mother's side, Louis Stevenson from Edinburgh. The first shyness over I realized in the course of that short walk how well I had done to follow the advice of a fellow-guest who had preceded me in the house--to wit Mrs. Sitwell, my wife as she came later to be. She had written to me about this youth, declaring that I should find him a real young genius and urging me to come if I could before he went away. I could not wonder at what I presently learnt--how within an hour of his first appearance at the rectory, knapsack on back, a few days earlier, he had captivated the whole house-hold. To his cousin the hostess, a woman of a fine sympathetic nature and quick, humorous intelligence, he was of course well know beforehand, though she had never seen him in so charming a light as now. With her husband the Professor, a clergyman of solid antiquarian and ecclesiastical knowledge and an almost Pickwickian simplicity of character corresponding to his lovable rotund visage and innocently beaming spectacles--with the Professor, "Stivvy," as he called his wife's young cousin, was already something of a favourite. (Memories and Notes, pp. 102-03).

There was a rapport between the two young men, so much so that a year later Colvin was backing Louis's membership in the Savile Club. Started in 1868 by Auberon Herbert, The Savile Club's initial principles were "(1) A thorough simplicity in all arrangements and (2) The mixture of men of different professions and opinions." (The Gentlemen's Clubs of London by Anthony LeJeune and Malcolm Lewis, Dorset Press: 1984; p. 260.) It was ideally suited to Louis's talent of conversation, storytelling, and conviviality for the long communal dining table provided an environment for robust and creative interaction while the members and guests lunched or dined on what was considered rather casual or simple fair, roast beef. Their cold apple tart might have interested Mycroft Holmes, but not the garrulous nature of the club. It was first known as the 'New Club" but upon moving to a house on Savile Row, they adopted the street name. It moved again in 1882 to a house in Piccadilly and then again in 1927 to Brook St. where the club resides today. Robert Louis Stevenson was familiar with the Savile Row and Piccadilly locations. Edmund Gosse who was introduced to RLS by Sidney Colvin recalled in an essay in his book Sihouettes (1925): "Sir Sidney Colvin, ever since 1871 an officer of the club, of which he is still a trustee, is undoubtedly its present father. Young members are sometimes persuaded to believe that he was its founder as well, the initials S. C. being confidently pointed to." (p. 378). The initials for 'social club' and 'soldalitas convivium' as Gosse pointed out at the beginning of his essay would have backed up that fanciful claim. Gosse recalls fond memories of his experiences at the club:

The conversations in the 'eighties in which the two Stevensons--R. L. S. and his wonderful cousin R. A. M. S.--took the predominant part, were not so vociferous nor so purely anecdotal. Day after day, these met at the luncheon-table with, to name only the dead, Andrew Lang, W. E. Henley, William Minto, H. J. Hood, sometimes Coventry Patmore and Austin Dobson. . . .The talk was not noisy when these men met in the absolute liberty of 15 Savile Row, but it was worthy of the finest traditions of eager, cultivated communication. (p. 380).

His dashing cousin Robert Allan, 'Bob', Stevenson, was a handsome, adventurous figure, an artist, a talented musician, attractive to women, and full of fantastic stories and concepts. He was instrumental in introducing RLS to the bohemian aspects of Paris and the south of France, and it was his idea which inspired the initial stories in RLS's New Arabian Nights. . . .

Anecdotage: Arthur Machen, Ernest Benn, A. L. Greening and the Stage

2010-08-17T20:20:00.003-04:00

In discussing the two publishers Greening & Co. and Ernest Benn in recent posts, memories of Arthur Machen were aroused. Arthur Machen was a "reader" for Ernest Benn in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and upon being let go of this position at age 70, Benn commissioned a short novel from him for 50 pounds. Machen was not a young man, and yet he managed to finish the novel called The Green Round for this rather lukewarm-hearted commission and it was eventually published in 1933. Benn wanted it for his Ninepenny Novelist series. In a letter to his friend Colin Summerford, Machen wrote:

"Poor Uncle Ernest. What he will say to The Green Round, I do not know. Gollancz told me that Sir Ernest was a man absolutely without religion; but I trust that this is not the case. He will want consolation." (quoted on page 149 of Arthur Machen: a Biography by Aidan Reynolds and William Charlton).

The book did not sell well. This was not unusual for Machen. For another commission for The Faith Press, he wrote The Great Return which was published in 1915. This too did not sell at all well. A few years later, Machen was browsing in a bookshop and came across a large dusty stack of the title. Reynolds and Charlton in their biography relate that: "The bookseller had not sold one for a long time, but when Machen told him who he was, he had not the heart to charge him for a copy." (ibid., p. 116).

The trial of Oscar Wilde created a backlash among publishers towards any type of literature which could possibly be considered decadent, and though Machen's works were not, he suffered from this reluctance, making the last half-decade of the 1890s a rather challenging period. Machen eventually tried his hand as an actor. He made his debut in 1901 and became a strolling player with Sir Frank Benson's company. An interesting crossover, writing to acting. Arthur Greening, the publisher, had been involved with light theatre, variety, musicals, and he switched over to publishing. I have yet to find if Machen ever met Greening but I rather doubt they would have gotten along. Different fish altogether. The only connection I have found so far, is the journalist and hack writer, T. W. H. Crossland who was involved with Greening and edited an edition of Hudibras for the publisher. Crossland reviewed books for various periodicals, and was a rather malicious enemy of Machen. He always referred to him as "MacHen".

Like anyone involved with the theatre, there are stories and anecdotes galore. Arthur Machen had his store as well. Reynolds and Charlton quote from O. B. Clarence's autobiography No Complaints, where he describes Machen's initial steps as a strolling player: "It pleased him [Machen] later on to make one of the crowd in several of the productions. I remember him among the rioters in Coriolanus. We were all brandishing clubs and shouting ourselves hoarse--'Down with him. Traitor', etc., and there at the back stood Machen muttering softly in mild disapproval of Coriolanus--'Down with him. Traitor. Oh, yes, distinctly traitor, oh impossible fellow.' Before long, however, he was shouting with the best." (ibid., p. 84).

Machen seems to have found his footing--and possessed natural talent--for in 1907 playing Sir Daniel Ridgeley in Pinero's His House in Order, in such small venues as Market Driffield, Hexham, and Ledbury, he was quite a comic turn. Reynolds and Charlton write: "Whenever Machen appeared, there were howls of mirth--'by the end of the show there was an old fellow in the front row who was reduced to nothing but a rattle and a wheeze and an agony in the region of the ribs'. There must have lived about Ledbury then a dreary long-winded, long-bearded bore ejecting moral sentiments in a pompous voice. Years later members of the company were still calling Machen 'The Ledbury Pet.' " (ibid., p.93).

Septimus and the Magician: a Fable

2010-08-17T08:10:00.019-04:00

uring the mid-nineteenth century, the talented magician and ventriloquist, Signor Mortiz, travelled the North American continent charming audiences--to the chagrin of most clerics--and made a great name for himself. The Great Signor Mortiz became a name that any householder in any city would be familiar with. The great magician and ventriloquist, however, began to discover that impostors were living off his reputation, travelling in advance of him on his own circuit, calling themselves by his name and even using his advertising handbills. Some purported to be his son, others to be his nephew, but the majority of these impostors pretended to be the very man himself. It became commonplace, upon arriving in a city for a show, to be served with unpaid bills for food, lodging, clothing and other amenities, bills left unpaid by his impostors. The vexatious nature of these demands and the damage to his reputation were becoming much more than a nuisance, they were threatening his very means of existence.

One day, after leaving the constabulary office in a mid-western town after having explained he was not responsible for the unpaid bills there, he stopped to light a cheroot, and looking down to toss away the spent match, he noticed a rather tame old tom cat, a handsome thing he had to admit, and upon closer inspection, sporting seven toes on each front paw. It was at this moment that Signor Mortiz--his real name was really Walter McLaughlin--thought of employing this unusual feline as an accomplice. What is a necromancer without a cat he thought? And how could his impostors manage to duplicate his very unusual assistant. Looking down, he asked the cat if he would like to join Signor Mortiz on his travels and see a bit of the world, meals included. The Tom cat tilted his head and scratched his side with his hind leg in response, so Signor Mortiz threw his voice and replied on behalf of the cat that indeed that was an appealing offer and he would very much enjoy a bit of travel.

And so it was that Signor Mortiz made up new handbills advertising "Signor Mortiz and Septimus, the seven-toed cat."

But a year later, Septimus disappeared. Mortiz had been extremely careful in the security of his feline companion, but somehow he was outwitted. A month later, he found himself in a city jail, with numerous unpaid bills. The jailer was chuckling at his newspaper and wandered over to poor Signor Mortiz to show him that the real Signor Mortiz had entertained John Jacob Astor at a special event for the rich man at his home, and that it said Septimus the seven-toed cat dined on filet mignon. Signor Mortiz responded by saying he was the real Signor Mortiz. The jailer asked, "But where is your cat, Sir, where is your cat?"

After entertaining the police constables with his ability to throw his voice, Signor Mortiz was finally released and following up the newspaper article, he arrived at his imposter's advertised show the following week at The Egyptian Theatre. He found himself a seat at the extreme right of the stage and was appalled by the lack of talent of this impostor, and the degradation of his good name. Rising to his feet, Signor Mortiz made his way to the small staircase at the side of the stage and made his way up. He called out the name of his cat, and Septemus immediately sprang over to his true companion and wrapped himself around his pant leg. Addressing the audience, he told them that this man was not who he pretended to be, and throwing his voice into Septemus, the cat announced the other man an impostor. At this the audience roared with laughter. Signor Mortiz swept his large cape dramatically from his shoulders and approaching the impostor who was trying to get the house management to do something about his unwanted intruder, threw his cape over the impostor and with a puff of smoke, Signor Mortiz transformed this impostor into a monkey. Giving the monkey a large sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal, the monkey scrawled, to the astonishment of the audience, the words "Applause for the Magnificent Signor Mortiz," which Signor Mortiz held up for the audience to see. The crowd responded inspiring the monkey to a flurry of awkward imitation, and Signor Mortiz took his bow, deeper, longer and with more relish than he had ever experienced before, so much so, that he wondered if he were dreaming.

{inspired by the life of Signor Blitz, the real Signor Mortiz}

Publisher's Devices: Houghton, Mifflin and Company: Tout Bien ou Rien

2010-08-11T13:09:00.001-04:00

Like James and John Harper of Harper & Brothers, Henry Oscar Houghton , born in Sutton, Vermont in 1823, had his beginnings in the printing trade. Coming from a family that struggled financially, he began his printers apprenticeship at the age of 13. Later, when he wished to attend University, he used his trade skills to finance his studies by working for a printer in Burlington, Vermont. Even though he had worked while attending courses, he still had a debt of $300 owed to the University upon his graduation in 1846. Working for a Boston printing firm, Freeman & Bolles, he worked off his debt and began to establish himself in the world. In 1848 he was given the opportunity to enter into partnership with the firm, but the required investment money was difficult to raise. Just as the deadline for his investment was coming due, and it looked like he would have to pass on the opportunity, good fortune stepped in by way of a family connection and upon telling him the story, the friend provided the needed shortfall, and the printing firm was established in 1849 as Bolles & Houghton. One of their important clients was the publisher Little, Brown and Company who were well known at the time for their publishing of law text books, and books of essays, and speeches. The proprietor, James Brown, owned a building on the Charles River in Cambridge, and offered it as a new location for Bolles & Houghton's expanding printing business, which they accepted, and moved their business from Boston to this newly renovated building. Upon the retirement of Bolles, the printing firm became H. O. Houghton & Company at the "Riverside Press" in 1852. The press was kept running not only by Little, Brown and Company, but also by the important client of Ticknor & Fields who published many of the best American writers of the day.

So, Henry Oscar Houghton, born of humble origins, had established himself as an emerging businessman by the age of 30. One would think that a printing firm would be enough of a challenge, but upon meeting the interestingly named Melancthon M. Hurd, a printer with common interests and ideas to those of Houghton, they decided to embark on another venture, a publishing firm which would use the Riverside Press as their printer; in 1864, Hurd & Houghton was formed. Houghton made a trip to England in 1864 to seek out master printers and binders to employ in his expanding business, and while there, had a publisher's device, or monogram (two "h's" interlocked) designed by Miss Charlotte Whittingham, the daughter of the Chiswick Press proprietor, Charles Whittingham II (1795-1876). It shows that Houghton was seeking out connections with the very best printers. Whittingham had five children who in various capacities, worked for their father's Chiswick Press. The daughters Charlotte and Elizabeth were artists who designed monograms, embellishments, borders, head and tail pieces for the press. It was Charlotte who married Benjamin Franklin Stevens who also became a partner in the Press for a number of years; Stevens, an American born in 1833 in Barnet, Vermont but a few counties south of Houghton's birthplace, had followed his brother to England to work in his bookselling business. Benjamin and his brother Henry Stevens went on to become well-known bibliographers. According to B. F. Stevens's obituary in the New York Times, March 7, 1902, he married Charlotte Whittingham in 1865. Looking at G. Manville Fenn's Memoir of Benjamin Franklin Stevens (London: Printed at the Chiswick Press, 1903 for private distribution), B. F. Stevens first met Charlotte in 1862 when he was invited to visit at their country home by Charles Whittingham whom he had befriended through his brother. I cannot find a reference to Houghton ever crossing paths with Stevens while he visited the Chiswick Press, but it would have made an interesting meeting. The proverbial small world as they discovered that they both came from the same area back in Vermont and had both attended University in Burlington.

In 1878, Melancthon Hurd retired, and Houghton went into partnership with the publisher James Osgood & Co., which was the successor to the well-known Ticknor & Fields, and later, Fields, Osgood & Co. The new firm was named Houghton, Osgood & Co. This business move brought Houghton the wonderful back list of fine American writers which had been published by Ticknor & Fields and their successors, all good to keep his prized Riverside Press running. It was only two years later, in 1880, that Osgood retired. It was at this moment that Houghton brought in George Harrison Mifflin as full partner in the business calling the firm, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Unlike Houghton, Mifflin had come from a wealthy background and began his relationship with Houghton by working in the counting room of the Riverside Press, and later, in charge of the Bindery. He became a partner in Hurd & Houghton in 1872 and worked his way up in various capacities.

Henry Oscar Houghton's Riverside Press was, in our modern terminology, Houghton's important and cherished "brand" which he protected by making sure everything was of the highest quality. They issued the "Riverside Classics" and the name came to be known for quality and substance. Horace Elisha Scudder recounts in his excellent memoir of Houghton, entitled Henry Oscar Houghton: a Biographical Outline (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1897)--from which a great deal of the information here is derived--that Houghton told him once that "'Riverside'. . . is like a diamond which I can hold up before my eyes, and turn it this way and that, and let the light fall on it, and see it sparkle." Scudder realises that in Houghton's publishing and printing business he "was building an institution; he was creating something which should have an organic life of its own." (p. 92).

Publisher's Device
Having recently looked over McKerrow's book and other items on printers marks, I can see the possible influence of certain Parisian printers devices from around the 1490s upon the design used for the Riverside Press of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The border structure with lettering and the detailed cut for the image can possibly find their inspiration in the printer's devices of Antoine Caillaut or André Bocard among others. The motto "Tout Bien Ou Rien" was a one that appealed to Houghton for it fit nicely with his strong feelings of the importance of perfection and hard work, and if one was going to do something, it should be the best possible. He had used the motto for his personal bookplate and it started to be used in his publisher's device in the 1880s.

Sources cite that the original inspiration for the design of the publisher's device was one of the illustrations by Elihu Vedder for the fine edition of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in 1894. Sidney L. Smith--who seems to be known now for his bookplate designs--was given the design job, and though perhaps inspired by the Vedder illustration, it certainly feels informed by the historical precedence of Parisian printer's marks. The first example (from a late 1890s edition of Out of the East by Lafcadio Hearn) with the text border, the heavy cut, the classical figure with the double-piped instrument or aulos, the oil-lamp or lucerne of classical antiquity, the image of a printing press, the meandering stream or river, the shield with the initials of the publishing firm, the tree of knowledge, and the rising sun combine to create an image of a certain density and heaviness which harkens back to a much earlier age and would not be too out of place with printer's devices from Paris in the 1490s.

The second example, (from a 1920 issue of Charles Eliot Norton's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy) is the work of Bruce Rogers who worked for firm between 1895-1912; it retains the essential elements, but there is a much more open feel, with a cleaner aesthetic appeal, the old border design and the sun having been dropped. The lucerne in the foreground becomes more of a focal point, and the shield with the firm's initials is also much more prominent, while the motto is placed on a banner draped in the tree and the choice of typography, although not modern, is slightly updated.
The third example (from Editorials by Lafcadio Hearn edited by C. W. Hutson, 1926), breaks free from the original design, shifting the tree to the side and having the figure sitting on a classical plinth. The shield is now the bearer of the motto and the lucerne is even more prominent. Though more overtly classical in its allusions, it has a much more contemporary feel within its compact, clean circular design. This device is also blind-stamped on the upper board of this particular edition, but upon looking closely, it is a slightly different, and later cut, the figure poorly executed. (There are many other variations of the device such as can be found here, here, and here.)

In 2007, Houghton Mifflin acquired Harcourt publishers and is now known as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Their device retains a semblance of the piper, Arion-like, riding a dolphin.

A Chumley's Update

2010-07-30T09:51:00.002-04:00

Chumley's, the historic bar and eatery in New York City, suffered a collapse in 2007 and is in the process--long process--of being redeveloped. I wrote about a visit to Chumley's with my wife and brother-in-law in 2004 on this blog--you can find the posts by clicking on the label at the bottom of this post. Recently, I was wondering how much progress has been made, and I found a couple of interesting blogs: Jeremiah's Vanishing NewYork blog has some updates and photos dealing with Chumley's; and this quite new blog post over at Daytonian in Manhattan . The work on the roof looks promising, but there seems to be a long way to go.

Photo to the left: sitting at the bar of Chumley's raising a glass to Fitzgerald & Co. during our impromptu, and fortunate, afternoon visit. Photo Right: a portion of Chumley's door at 86 Bedford.

The Swan and the Cat: Variation on the WillowWay

2010-07-24T16:04:00.005-04:00

I have used my wife's photographs of one of the exquisite swans taken on the Avon River in Stratford, Ontario and created a variation of the music piece I came up with for my previous video, the WillowWay. The cat, also quite beautiful, was fearless, curious and obviously well-kept--though apparently out and about that day. Whether it was the same day as my wife captured the pictures of the swan I shall leave to your imagination.

Lafcadio Hearn and the Milky Way: The Tanabata Festival

2010-07-07T16:47:00.000-04:00

June 27th was the 160th anniversary of Lafcadio Hearn's birth, and I have been thinking about his life and work over the last days. He was born on the then British-ruled Ionian Island of Lefkcada in 1850 of a Greek mother and an Anglo-Irish father, and abandoned essentially by both at the age of seven and overseen by a paternal Great Aunt, a Mrs. Brenane, in Wales. He never did see his younger brother or his parents ever again. He was sent to a Jesuit school in Northern France, and also to a Catholic school in Durham where he lost the sight of an eye in a school-yard game gone awry. At the age of 16, he left this school and made his way to London where for a number of obscure years he managed to survive poverty and isolation, years so painful to memory that he never did elaborate on them. At age 19 he made his way to New York, one of many penniless emigrants, and though a wanderer in the United States and in the Caribbean, he did finally discover a place where he felt at home, Japan. [I have written briefly about how he first came to visit the country here.]

He died there in September 1904 with a fine reputation as a teacher and writer. The first book published posthumously was his The Milky Way and Other Studies and Stories (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905). It was published in October of 1905, and is made up of essays and stories, many of them having been published in the Atlantic Monthly over the last year. The title story first saw print in that periodical in August 1905 (vol. 96, p. 238) and concerned the subject of the Japanese festival of Tanabata.

The seventh day of the seventh month is the Tanabata Festival, and although in Japan it is now the wee hours of the following day, and many Japanese are perhaps dreaming of the previous day and evening festivities, I thought I would make a link to the essay by Lafcadio Hearn. It is an excellent essay with a good selection of poetry and he ends it with his characteristic style of writing and a mild example of his idiosyncratic use of punctuation which was so often a challenge to his editors--and their typesetters.

The Romance of the Milky Way by Lafcadio Hearn.

Tipped In, or, The Capart Conjecture

2010-06-21T18:12:00.004-04:00

I enjoy coming across older volumes with paper spine labels, rare though these occasions are, for it offers the possibility of finding a spare label pasted in at the back of the book. This anticipation is, I realize, a small bibliographic pleasure, one that to a non-bookish type would likely be incomprehensible, but there is something satisfying in finding a stand-in label tipped in between the endpapers, crisp, complete and unblemished by age, biding its time like some treasure stored in a tomb.

Looking over my books, I realize how few in my possession have paper labels, and of those, less than half have spare labels at the back. Jean Capart's The Tomb of Tutankhamen translated by Warren R. Dawson and published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1923, is a book I have had since the late 1970s and though the dust-wrapper is brittle, darkened, chipped and suffers some loss at the head and foot of the spine, it has kept the paper spine label in decent shape. The books I have that could use a fresh label, lack them. It seems an axiom--at least a Chumley one--that if you have a copy with a spare tipped in at the back, it probably doesn't need replacing.

It would be an interesting cabinet type of book collection if a collector sought out only books with paper spine labels. A collection of books made up of only books with paper spine labels and spares tipped in, would be a very unusual and curious cabinet collection.

A note on the book: The cover image is a photograph of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon pasted down on the upper panel of the dustwrapper. The photograph, also reproduced within, was taken by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of Belgium whom Jean Capart had accompanied to the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen. Jean Capart named the Foundation Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth after this most interesting Queen.

Looking at pictures of Jean Capart, one could conjecture that he could have been a possible influence on Agatha Christie in her characterization of Mr. Hercule Poirot. It seems unlikely though. I imagine many Belgium men of the period were well-dressed, had interesting mustaches, bow ties and spectacles. The fictional detective first appeared in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in late 1920, many years before Agatha Christie became involved with the younger archaeologist Max Mallowan. The latter must have come in contact with Capart at some time in his career but that is probably where this fanciful notion can be played out. But then again, Capart was fairly well-known, having published a number of books on Egyptian Art in the first decade of the new century. I guess it is just my own Capart Conjecture.

The picture to the right of Jean Capart is of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of Belgium.

The Willow Way

2010-06-09T11:50:00.006-04:00

Using some of my original--and quite amateur--photographs of swans on the Avon River in Stratford, Ontario, I strung them together to create a narrative of sorts. The acoustic guitar piece, The Willow Way, my modest tune, was influenced by the recent death of one of the Stratford swans.

I had never used video software before but I was moved to combine the photographs and the music and I came up with this simple short multi-media piece. I recorded the music direct to the computer on my acoustic guitar--much in need of new frets--hence the rather thin sound quality. I am sure I can come up with a few more excuses to cover my production failings. Anyway, I hope it has some redeeming features. Enjoy.

Clement Yung: Bookman

2010-05-22T12:45:00.004-04:00

An old Montreal book scout, Clement Yung, had been much on my mind recently. Why does someone from one's past enter into the conscious mind and preoccupy one's thoughts with memories of distant days? I can't say. Perhaps it was because I was rereading some of the Arthur Machen books he had sold me a long time ago. But, then again, he had been in my thoughts prior to my reaching for the books, being perhaps the stimulus towards that revisitation.

Having left Montreal over 7 years ago, I had lost touch with him, and since he was in my thoughts, I decided to look him up on the Internet in the hope of perhaps reconnecting and reliving the past. It was sad news to discover he had died on May 9th.

We were mildly competitive book scouts in the 1980s; I rarely scooped him. His superior knowledge made for a quicker eye-hand coordination. If I did come away the better at a sale, it was because I was lucky, turning left instead of right upon entering a sale room for instance. In the 1990s when I sought out the refuge of a regular paycheck in library work, we kept in touch and he was often a great help. Originally from England, he was well-known in Montreal as a knowledgeable book scout, unusual for his English accent, his colourful clothes and his independent competitive spirit--and in his early years for his astounding ability to carry boxes of books on a bicycle. I regret having lost touch. My thoughts are with you Clement.

Clement Yung (1946-2010)

Publisher's Devices: Harper & Brothers: Passing the Torch

2010-05-17T20:45:00.005-04:00

Harper & Brothers can trace its roots to 1817 when, James and John Harper--true "partners" in the printing trade--having completed their apprenticeships, opened their own business called J. & J. Harper. They were initially job printers, John being know as the better compositor and James the better pressman. The first book to have their name on the title page was a book they printed for the publisher/bookseller, Evert Duychinck, Seneca's Morals by Way of Abstract. To Which is Added, a Discourse Under the Title of, an After-Thought by Sir Robert L'Estrange. Their first book as a publisher was an issue of Locke's Essay Upon the Human Understanding, an edition of 500 copies. The names Evert Duychkinck, Richard Scott, J. & B. Seaman and a few others were included on the title page as subscribers for agreeing to each take 100 copies for sale. A smart way of covering their production costs. The title pages of their early published works are quite elegant, clean and classical, the lines of type in upper case, alternating in larger and smaller sizes. There is no use of publisher's devices at this time. They changed their name in 1833 to Harper & Brothers, and the rest is quite a history. One source says that the firm came across the motto for their publisher's device as early as the 1830s, but I cannot find examples of it being used in their early imprints. It seems to become fairly common from the 1870s, and may have been a result of the improvement in printing presses. It seems cylinder presses which began in 1875 greatly aided the use of engraved cuts in the printing process.

Looking at a few older Harper & Brothers books, I found a number of variations on their device, and no doubt there are many others. Having no Greek, I always casually interpreted their motto according to the image, which seemed fairly straightforward, the handing on of the flame of knowledge. But with light research into various sources on Harper & Brothers, the quote is traced back to Plato's Republic, Book 1, and refers to a torch race at a Festival in honour of a Thracian Goddess: "Running in the race they pass the torch one to another." Harper & Brother's private office fitted out in the 1870s, had the words of George William Curtis inscribed over the chimney, a hearth motto for the office which is apparently a paraphrase of the house motto: "My flame expires, but let true hands pass on / An unextinquished torch from sire to son."

The device in the upper left corner is from an 1876 edition of Wilkie Collins. The torch, or "fax" in classical literarture, is described in the Harper Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities by T. H. Peck (New York, 1898) as: "The torch. The description of poets and mythologists, and the works of ancient art, represent the torch carried by Diana, Ceres, Bellona, Hymen, Phosphorus, by women in bacchanalian processions, and, in an inverted position, by Sleep and Death." (p. 664) The switch to a vertical device with a modified shield comes from a book published in 1906. The third image with what is likely laurel leaves with a more rustic torch is from a Harper & Brothers imprint from 1924. The fourth is from 1942 and the crown of leaves surrounds a torch that hearkens back to the original of 1876.

In 1962 the firm merged with Row, Peterson & Company to form Harper & Row. They kept the image of the torch alive in their modified publisher's device seen on the right. Even today, as HarperCollins, they have retained the torch in their device. A lengthy history of torch bearing there.

In The House of Harper: A Century of Publishing in Franklin Square by Joseph Henry Harper (1912)--from which I gleaned much of the information here--there are two anecdotes--out of many--that come to mind. The first is rather a sad story about the horse the brothers employed to run the presses when they were in their start-up years before they had advanced to steam. This horse for many years went around in circles to run the presses, with a midday break for its lunch. When they retired the horse to their father's farm, it would go in circles around a tree in the pasture, and at midday return to the barn for feeding, then return to the tree to continue its circular endeavors. The second story has the hallmark of the apocryphal but could possibly be true. John Kendrick Bangs, an author much connected with Harper, told the story of how his father and a good friend having left their club after a late dinner, came across a rather forlorn looking man leaning on a lamp post, his hat in the gutter. His father retrieved the hat and upon receipt, the man thanked him with magnanimous and eloquent courtesies. When his father inquired of the man's name, the man said with dignity, "Mr. Edgar Allan Poe." His father responded by saying that was very interesting as his name was "Tay" and his friend's name was "Toe", to which the afflicted author responded in kind, before walking off into the night, that they were well met, for together they made Potato. Poor old Poe. Speaking of Poe, in 1838, Harper & Brothers published one of his works, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It must be one of the contenders for the longest subtitles on record. On first look, the layout of the typography detracts from the visual appeal of the title page, but on second look, it does seem to mimic a nautical vessel, and was likely a creative intention, the compositor doing the best they could with a seemingly intractable book title. The original imprint can be read here.

Publisher's Devices: Greening & Co. Ltd.: One Crowded Hour

2010-05-11T13:26:00.001-04:00

Greening & Co., Ltd. Books by this British publisher are probably a bit thin on the ground here in Canada, though most libraries and book dealers have probably handled them from time to time. I only have one copy, an imprint in their Lotus Library Series, The Kreutzer Sonata by Count Tolstoy, a revised translation by Ivan Lepinski, and published in 1911, a late issue from this publisher whose first issue was published in 1897. It is pleasantly bound in purple cloth with blindstamp designs of stylised lotus flowers. The title page sports a decorative border including their device, a stylised lotus blossom pictured here. The initials at the bottom right hand corner of the decorative border are W. G. M. which belong to W. G. Mein who I have to presume was the artist of the device itself. I came across Mein's name listed as the illustrator of a volume I mention below from a Greening & Co. catalogue from 1908. The Lotus Library consisted of works by de Musset, Louys, Gaboriau, Gautier, de Maupassant, Daudet, and Zola among others. Not knowing the history of this publisher, I began some light research and I started to form an idea of their place in the London publishing industry of the turn of the last century. Their advertisements at the back of many of their volumes reveal quite a bit: Popular Shilling Editions of L. T. Meade, Marie Corelli and Baroness Orczy among others; series such as Popular Fiction, Half-Crown Novels, Cheaper Fiction, and Popular Sixpennies. They also issued a series called the Masterpiece Library with books by the likes of Dumas, Beckford and Prosper Merimeé. Then there was their English Writers of To-day series with books on Algernon Charles Swinburne, Brett Harte, George Meredith, Hall Caine, Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Wing Pinero, and the above mentioned Lotus Library series. There was a book by Dan Leno and a book about Harry Lauder with advertisements for Lipton's Teas and Bovril. A few titles in their Court Series of French Memoirs including Recollections of Léonard: Hairdresser to Queen Marie Antoinette which sounds like a work of fiction but is evidently a true memoir.

Popular fiction titles by truly forgotten popular authors of the day included some interesting ones: The Pottle Papers; A Modern Christmas Carol (A "Dickensy" Story); Seven Nights with Satin; The Dupe; An Act of Impulse; A Doctor in Corduroy; A Suburban Scandal; The Loafer; The Cigarette Smoker; A Romance in Radium; The Weaver's Shuttle; The Woman in Black; Mad? (An Exciting Story of Predestination); The Tragedy of the Lady Palmist; The Puppets' Dallying; In the World of Mimes. Also these novels by anonymous authors: Shams!; The Magnetism of Sin, and the at first anonymously published The Hypocrite: a Realistic Novel of life in Oxford and London of which the Daily Telegraph wrote: "A work by an anonymous author always arouses a certain inquiry and when the book is clever and original the interest becomes keen, and conjecture becomes rife, endowing the most unlikely people with authorship." The author was C. Ranger Gull. Greening & Co. published quite a few novels by this well-known popular author. Well, well-known during his day.

There was an emphasis on the theatrical arts--even with much of the fiction--and a hint of the Yellow Book in their offerings, an afterglow of the aesthetic and decadent movements, which made me think the owner may have had an interest, or a past, in the theatre. One example being their book, Oscar Wilde, the Story of an Unhappy Friendship by Robert H. Sherard, (1905) a reprint of a book that was originally privately printed in 1902 and well-known for being the first biography of Wilde after his death in 1900. Another book on the theatrical side is Some Notable Hamlets of the Present Time by Clement Scott, with an appreciation of Mr. Clement Scott by L. Arthur Greening, and The Art of Elocution and Public Speaking by Ross Ferguson, with an introduction by George Alexander, and dedicated by permission to Miss Ellen Terry.

They also published various choices of literature such as Hudibras by Samuel Butler. This edition, with an introductory note by T. W. H. Crossland was issued with 12 illustrations after Hogarth and available in either Foolscap 8vo cloth, top-edge gilt, with bookmark, 2s. net, or in Leather, top-edge gilt, with bookmark at 3s. net. The Bookseller had this to say about it: "a most interesting reprint of Butler's celebrated poem in a form which strikes us as being entirely appropriate. The size of page, type and margin are both delightful to the eye of a booklover, and pleasantly reminiscent of the little volumes of the 17th century. While the fine paper, and the dozen excellent reproductions of Hogarth's well-known plays, the portrait of Butler himself, and the neat, artistic binding, make it, in its way, a miniature Edition de Luxe." Their range in production went from very cheap popular editions which probably disintegrated with use in the library systems, to the finer quality productions such as this Hudibras or another book by that C. Ranger Gull, The Adventures of Ulyssess, the Wanderer: an Old Story, Retold. Illustrated by W. G.Mein and issued in an edition de luxe, demy 8vo, printed on antique handmade paper, and bound in Half Japanese vellum, cloth sides, gilt lettered, gilt top; limited to 110 copies signed by the author, 5s. net.

The Scarlet Pimpernel, the novel that Baroness Orczy had been trying to publish for a few years, was first issued by Greening & Co., Ltd. in 1905 after the play based on the novel had become popular with the theatre going public. Although Greening & Co. published a number of Orczy titles, Hodder & Stoughton later bought the rights to the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel from them.

I was delighted to finally come across an interesting account of L. Arthur Greening written by Cecily Close. Greening's rather peculiar history and the story behind his name makes for interesting reading. Though he had a fairly long and varied career--ending up in Australia--I imagine that it was those early years of the 1890s and the first decade of the next century that "Greening" truly felt he was in the very beating heart of life. I can imagine him in his old age, a pipe in hand, warm embers on the way to a cold dottle, quoting lines of verse from Sir Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality--lines quoted as anonymous but written by Thomas Osbert Mordaunt:

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

Wells's William Clissold, or the dusty penumbra of pen wielders (not to mention Benn's T'ang Horse)

2010-05-08T14:34:00.001-04:00

I found this publisher's advertising ephemera resting between the leaves of a 1923 Doubleday Page & Company book of one of Wells's contemporary writers. I've had the book for thirty years but have never read the edition, having read Penguin and Pan paperback copies of the title. This advert which mimics the leaf of a book in size and paper type, and possibly made to be tipped into other books, had been sitting there undisturbed for perhaps over 70 years. When I was younger I actively sought out books by Wells but I never got as far as his later works. The World of William Clissold seems a world away. When this three decker novel--an anachronism by the 1920s surely--came out in 1926 on three successive months, September through November, it was the book of the season, much discussed and commented on. (Makes me wonder how the British Lending Libraries dealt with this three-decker; could a patron take all three at the same time, all 885 pages of it, or only one volume?) The critical views by the likes of J. M. Keynes and Conrad Aiken among others were not good, though H. L. Mencken's critical opinion was not unfavourable. Considering the supposed autobiographical nature of much of the book, it didn't keep this protean force from later writing his autobiography proper, Experiment in Autobiography: Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain (Since 1866) in two volumes (414 pages) and published by Victor Gollancz and The Cresset Press in 1934.

Time, it seems, has swept much of Mr. Wells's work into the dusty penumbra of pen wielders, for it is unlikely that many people read this or most of his later works these days. I can't say I have. (Although I have to admit the advert does create a small frisson of interest--who could resist that puff of "Great" by the Daily Chronicle.) Not a novel that immediately comes to mind when asked to name a few of his works. It is his early books, the scientific romances and short stories and some of the novels like Kipps, Tono-Bungay, Ann Veronica and The History of Mr. Polly and perhaps through Colin Wilson's influence, that late work The Mind at the End of Its Tether, which still hold some interest.

The publisher of this work, Ernest Benn Ltd., had its roots in trade journal publishing. Ernest Benn's father's J. W. Benn and Brothers publishing company was later registered in 1897 as Benn Brothers Limited, and in the 1920s, they decided to develop a separate book department which eventually became Ernest Benn Limited. Their publisher's device, was a stylised T'ang Horse, supposedly influenced by their publishing of The Catalogue of the George Eumorfopoulos Collection (there is the limited edition 11 volume set presently listed on ABE at more than $27,000 US) which had many illustrations of art from the Far East. Ernest Benn Ltd, with managing director Victor Gollancz, purchased T. Fisher Unwin in 1926 which brought a wonderful assortment of authors and their backlists, including H. G. Wells. His new novel, The World of William Clissold was the first original Wells they issued. A hefty debut that was heavily promoted. If they lost money on Clissold, they no doubt recovered it from the sales of their edition of his short stories and their small 24 volume edition of his works.

Victor Gollancz left the company in 1927 to start his own publishing business. Sir Ernest Benn was an individualist capitalist of the right, while Gollancz was decidedly more to the left. With H. G. Wells and his views on world society and the future, an after dinner conversation between the three of them would have been an occasion to eavesdrop. Might make a good play by the likes of Tom Stoppard. Then again, it does seem like so much water under the bridge what with our modern world a swirl with a superabundance of fresh-minted words.

The World of William Clissold having been published in 1926, seems to be on the cusp of copyright freedom so it may not be too long before we can peruse it digitally--all 885 pages of it.

Ernest Benn Ltd. was acquired by the old British firm, A. & C. Black Publishers in 1984, which was in turn acquired by the Bloomsbury group in 2000. But another big fish little fish story of the modern publishing world.

Publisher's Devices: Among the Leaves

2010-05-05T10:30:00.003-04:00

I have always found publisher's devices to be of interest. Their origins are of course derived from the early printer's devices, the best known being the anchor and dolphin of Aldus Manutius, much adapted through the ages. Others such as those of the Antwerp printer, Christopher Plantin, and the Estienne family of printers originally out of Paris, used latin phrases along with their images much like those in heraldry. Plantin used labore et constantia, while the Estienne family used noli altum sapere, sed time. Most of the major University presses have their own phrases and devices which are fairly recognizable and common to the eye, but it is the lesser known nineteenth and twentieth century publisher's devices that I find more interesting.

Having recently looked at two books at random sitting on the same shelf, I couldn't help notice the similar Latin phrase used. The folia inter folia of the MacMillan Company of Canada comes from a book published in 1934 (J. B. Priestley's English Journey) while the inter folia fructus comes from a book published in 1935 by D. Appleton-Century Company (Stephen Leacock's Mark Twain.) The image of the tree, an iconographic deep-rooted mainstay, along with the open book, another stalwart image, are also used in these devices. The MacMillan woodcut is much more rustic and reflects the Thoreau MacDonald Ryerson Press style which was perhaps the self-conceived and projected image of Canada at the time. The choice of maple leaves was a simple one.

It is unlikely that one would see the phrases, Leaves among the leaves, and Fruit among the Leaves used by publishers today, but they still hold a charm and reflect their period. The date 1933 listed on the book in the D. Appleton-Century device is the year when D. Appleton merged with The Century Publishing Company.

Both books, as stated on the copyright page, were printed in the United States of America. It seems the actual printing for MacMillan of Canada was handled by American printing companies--at least during this period. Although some publishers, mainly British, listed the name of the printer either on the reverse of the title page, or along the bottom of one of the rear free endpapers, many printers are anonymously listed in the basic phrase, Printed in the United States of America, or Printed in Canada. To see the changes in publishing from when printers were the acme of the creative process of publishing, to the present time when they are but anonymous jobbers, makes me wonder what changes are coming to publishing in the next hundred years. For someone who won't be around at that time, such anticipations may be fruitless; or perhaps I should say, non inter folia fructus(?)

addendum: Looking at another MacMillan of Canada book published in 1928 with the same woodcut publisher's device, I notice that at the bottom of the copyright page the printer is listed as The Hunter-Rose Company, Limited. A little info can be found here on this old Canadian printer/publisher.

Knights of the Umbrella and the Bundle: Thoreau's A Yankee in Canada

2010-04-26T19:02:00.004-04:00

When I worked at the Atwater Library and Computer Centre, Maynard Gertler had his office for Harvest House (1960-1995) on the upper floor. I remember his interesting trestle tables and a large bookshelf between holding copies of his printed books. The tables had the feel of being hand-made, by him. I sort of envisaged him hewing the wood on his farm across the border in Ontario. An interesting robust man with a wealth of life experience. My casual conversations with him always left me wanting to know more. The questions I now have about the artists who did cover work for him would have been more timely when I had only to knock on his door, or stop him in the hallway, but I was too busy then with jobs and university for extra bibliographical pursuits of that nature. Timing in life can sometimes be everything. When Maynard closed his office in the mid-nineties, he sold his business to the University of Ottawa Press and his archives were sold to Queen's University in 2008. A general overview of his publishing house can be found at The Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing.

The volume pictured above, A Yankee in Canada by Henry David Thoreau, sports cover art by Allan Harrison. It is an early Harvest House issue from 1961 with an introduction by Maynard Gertler who edited the volume. The edition I have is in wrappers, fairly heavy paper stock, the cover title printed in alternating blue and orange which gives it a period feel. It is listed on the title page and on the back cover as "An Emulation Book". The source edition is cited as coming from the Montreal Public Library's Gagnon Collection and thanks are given to the curator Mr. Jules Bazin.

Allan Harrison was directly inspired by the text in his choice of image for the cover. Thoreau writes of his predilection for travelling light, no valises and carpet-bags for him:

The perfection of travelling is to travel without baggage. After considerable reflection and experience, I have concluded that the best bag for the foot-traveller is made with a handkerchief, or, if he studied appearances, a piece of stiff brown paper, well tied up, with a fresh piece within to put outside when the first is torn. That is good for both town and country, and none will know but you are carrying home the silk for a new gown for your wife, when it may be a dirty shirt. A bundle which you can carry literally under your arm, and which will shrink and swell with its contents. I never found the carpet-bag of equal capacity, which was not a bundle of itself. We styled ourselves the Knights of the Umbrella and the Bundle; for wherever we went, whether to Notre Dame or Mount Royal, or the Champs-de-Mars, to the Town Major's or the Bishop's Palace, to the Citadel, with a bare-legged Highlander for our escort, or to the Plains of Abraham, to dinner or to bed, the umbrella and the bundle went with us; for we wished to be ready to digress at any moment. We made it our home nowhere in particular, but everywhere where our umbrella and bundle were. (pp. 47-48)

Seems very modern. Paul Theroux and Henry Thoreau would probably see eye to eye on this travelling light business. Although, upon reflection, Paul Theroux certainly has more in common with the far-flung over-seas adventures of Thoreau's contemporaries, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving than with the almost centripetal adventures of Thoreau who never ventured too far from home.

This brief foray into Canada East in 1850 at the age of 33 with his friend, the poet Ellery Channing, is still interesting to read. His knowledge of nature is evident in his observations of the countryside along the St. Lawrence river from Montreal to Québec. His contrary views on religion, government and the military can be seen in his reflections that in Canada East there was a great emphasis on military and religious display. Troops were parading on the Champs de Mars in Montreal and on the Plains of Abraham in Québec to what he felt to be an overt display of Government power. (If Thoreau had visited Montreal in the early 1860s during the American Civil War he would have witnessed a great deal more with the influx of Grenadier Guards and Scots Fusilier Guards.) Thoreau writes perhaps presciently:

In the streets of Montreal and Quebec you met not only with soldiers in red, and shuffling priests in unmistakable black and white, with Sisters of Charity gone into mourning for their deceased relative,--not to mention the nuns of various orders depending on the fashion of a tear, of whom you heard,--but youths belonging to some seminary or other, wearing coats edged with white, who looked as if their expanding hearts were already repressed with a piece of tape. In short, the inhabitants of Canada appeared to be suffering between two fires,--the soldiery and the priesthood. (pp. 106-107)

When, upon returning to Montreal, he ascended Mount Royal to take the view of the surrounding landscape and remarked the 46 year old tomb of Simon McTavish . From Thoreau's description, it seems the mausoleum was still visible although it had been vandalised as early as 1816. The classical column which was erected behind the mausoleum by his nephews, the MacGillvray brothers, is not specifically mentioned by Thoreau but it was still standing till 1940. I read recently that Montreal planned to renovate the area, where for the last fifty years or more, the burial site has been lost to sight and generally forgotten. Hopefully there is now a history plaque placed at the area north of Peel Street and Pine Avenue, where the monument resided. (It is unfortunate that his tomb is not part of the Mount Royal Cemetery where so many of Montreal's historic figures reside, but this wonderful cemetery was only developed in the late 1840s and the first burial in 1852.) It is perhaps a cautionary tale. One of the wealthiest men in Canada at the time and his monument forgotten, while an obscure nature writer with his umbrella and his bundle, has world renown.

addendum: I found this biking blog which has pictures of some of the redevelopment of the Peel Entrance to Mount Royal which looks very nice.

Allan Harrison and the Classic Bookshop Bookmark

2010-04-23T08:00:00.001-04:00

Having recently written about the origins of the Classic Bookshops in Montreal, I mentioned that a series of their bookmarks had the name of Allan Harrison printed along the left edge near the top in small print. I assumed it was the artist responsible for the design and left it at that. Recently, however, I was looking at Miriam Waddington's third book of poetry, The Season's Lovers (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1958), and slipping off the dustwrapper I found the design replicated on the binding. It was only then that I noticed the name of Allan Harrison printed in the same manner as the Classic Bookmarks, along the left edge near the top. Somehow I didn't notice it on the dustwrapper. This led me to a casual search for information concerning Allan Harrison and concluded he was the Montreal artist whose interview in 1973 can be found here. (Interestingly enough, in the interview he mentions Classic Bookshop as a store where one could find a certain art book of a certain artist.) It seems my impression that the artist/designer of the Classic Bookshop bookmark--photos below--was a youthful 1960s hippie has to be re-evaluated. Allan Harrison (1911-1988) was a lesser known Montreal artist and designer who also did work for publishing houses such as Ryerson and Maynard Gertler's Harvest House among others.

Montreal Bookshop Bookmarks: T. Westcott Books

2010-04-22T13:20:00.002-04:00

T. Westcott Books: Having lived near this bookshop during the 1990s, I would drop by almost daily for a browse. Often I would warm up on the way back from evening university courses and have a chat with Terry's stalwart evening stand-in, the ever affable Andrew. Terry had two cats, Eliot and Emma who brought additional character to the store, Eliot often spread out on a top shelf in dream state, and Emma forever hiding. The shop was always well-stocked, and one sensed that there were always more books than shelf space. I bought a fair number of books there. Terry's prices were good and the stock was constantly changing. No doubt still is.

He opened a second location for awhile at 1917 St. Catherine Street West, a shop right beside the well-known Montreal institution, Argo Bookshop where he had worked for many years. It was a small space, neater for it, and had some very nice books. He also had another cat I remember, a rare breed he saved from an Upper Westmount home where he was buying books. I believe he called it Jaguar for its unusual colouring.

Terry Westcott has had the great privilege of working for two well-respected bookmen in Montreal, Reg Russell of Russell Books, and Mr. George of Argo. He has never issued much in the way of bookmarks, but he certainly has the books. T. Westcott Books is another great stalwart bookseller in Montreal who has managed to stay the course.

A write up can be found here.

Addendum: My wife reminded me that during the ice storm of 1998 in which we were personally in shivering darkness for 3 days--days I have tried to forget--Terry's nearby bookshop and a wonderful noodle resto next to him were fortunate to have electric power. A pocket of light on an otherwise cold and dark street. Big bowls of hot and sour soup went down very well with a long browse in a warm bookshop.

Montreal Bookshop Bookmarks: S. W. Welch Bookseller

2010-04-19T18:41:00.025-04:00

Unlike The Word Bookstore who have had the very good fortune of never having to move their location, S. W. Welch Bookseller have experienced a few moves over the years. Their first shop at 5285 Decarie Boulevard at the corner of Isabella, looked out to the Head Office of Zellers across the Decarie Expressway. It was a shop that was a series of small rooms having originally been an apartment. On entering the shop, it had the feel of Sam Spade's office in a way. The book selection was very good and the bookseller a larger than life character. The bookmark to the left is one from that period and I have always liked the design. A certain hard-boiled noir feel to the image.

They then moved to 5673 Sherbrooke Street West in N. D. G., a large, deep retail location with a good display window. They issued a couple of bookmark designs during the years spent there, the television sets being one of them. I sort of like it too. It has a postmodern ironic retro look.

A third move brought them to 3878 St. Laurent Boulevard and it must have been a hell of a move for they had a lot of books. The bookmark design for this third location shown here looks like the work of the graphic novelist/cartoonist Marc Bell and reflects the newer layer of trendy hip graffiti culture which moved into the area.

They made a fourth move in 2007 to 225 St.-Viateur West, just a stroll away from St.-Viateur Bagel. Nice. Having not been in Montreal since 2002, I will have to drop by for a browse and a bagel and see if they have a new bookmark. Stephen Welch is one of the stalwart booksellers of Montreal and he may very well share the record of bookshop moves with the wonderful Joe Block of Bibliomania Bookshoppe, and the great Reg Russell of Russell Books each having moved shop four times as far as I know. Pretty good company.

addendum: thanks to the comment of SWW the artist of this bookmark is Billy Mavreas

Montreal Bookshop Bookmarks: The Word Bookstore

2010-04-19T16:47:00.024-04:00

Three survivors of the post-analog world in the Montreal secondhand bookselling trade share the letter W: The Word Bookstore, S. W. Welch Bookseller, and T. Wescott Books. One could almost surmise that the letter is lucky. If only it were that simple. They just happen to be three booksellers in for the long-haul, who, with a lot of hard work, determination, persistence and knowledge, have managed to stay the course. They each have unique stories of development, and one hopes they will write about them one day.

The Word has resided in the same little shop now for over 35 years and, but for a few upgrades, the shop has changed very little. It remains my favourite bookshop for browsing even though I have not been back to Montreal since 2002. I am long overdue for a browse. Their bookmark design remained consistent--like their quality and selection of books--through the years, the variation being the pleasant variety of coloured cardstock.

Being close to McGill University and having good relationships with local small press publishers are some of the reasons for its longevity, and they often held--and probably still do--book launches and poetry readings in the shop. The announcements to the left are from the early 1980s. They did come out with a new larger bookmark around their 25th anniversary in March 2000 as seen below.

Free of the Chumley Nook: John Galt's poem on Spring

2010-04-14T22:04:00.010-04:00

I am invariably impressed by the prolific John Galt for he was not just a writer of many novels, plays, biographies, travel, and occasional verse, but he was a business man to boot. It brings to mind the prolific career of Alexander McCall Smith, an accomplished academic in medical law and ethics with many academic texts and papers to his name, and the author of a great many truly wonderful works of fiction. I am humbled by his output, which quite outstrips Galt's in quantity and quality. And I don't think Galt ever picked up a sousaphone or a countrabassoon either. Anyway, I couldn't resist posting this poem by John Galt because he uses the word, chumley in such a cheery context. I am not sure if Spring has arrived in Scotland as yet this year, having heard of heavy snow only recently, but it is certainly spring in Southern Ontario. I even hear that Thunder Bay has finally experienced this rare season.

This poem would do well to be read aloud. There are many good Scottish actors whose voices would be fine for this poem, David Tennant, Robert Carlyle, or Ewan McGregor perhaps, but I think the older actor, Bill Paterson would be ideal. I try to hear his voice as I read this poem to Spring. Come to think of it, he would be the perfect actor to portray John Galt himself.

Spring
suggested by the fourth ode of the first book of Horace

Wha's yon braw lass, wi' gowan snood,
That's walking o''er the broomy knowe;
She dings the cranreuch fae the wood,
And plaits a garland round the bough?
Her e'en, twa dew-drops, sparkling clear,
Shed love and daffin' as they glance;
The birds wi' canty liltings cheer,
And a' the flow'rs rise frae their trance?
It's bride-maid Spring, whose leilsome art
Gars lightly loup the youthful heart.

II

Thrang frae the misty highland isles,
Whar ghaists in flocks glowr as they flee,
And Brownie for the Lathron toils,
Wi' barkened sails the kowters see--
By heaps o' timber caps, and plates,
The wark that wile't the winter's drear,
Right snod the kintra carlin waits,
And wearies wha the price will speer.
For a' the lads are on the rig,
And she maun thole the snash and prig.

III

The clachan lucky spreads fu' proud
Her webs and spyniels on the green;
And signs and window cheeks renew'd,
Like the young leaves shine fresh and clean.
But lo! best proof that winter's done,
Auld grannie frae the chumley nook
Late toddling in the afternoon
To kirk, wi' napkin round her book.
In love, or life, or growth, or sense,
All feel the genial influence.

IV

Come then, dear Jamie, while we may
The vernal hours of youth enjoy:
The hope that blooms so fair and gay,
A worm may gnaw, a blast destroy.
But o'er the past, as Horace sings,
Not e'en almignty Jove has power,
And mem'ry still delighted brings
The vision of the happy hour;
That man in joyless age may bear
The wumbling pain, and snuling care.

-Poems by John Galt (London: Cochrane & M'Crone, 1833) p. 41-42.

Rescued For The Few: Francis Sherman on Parting

2010-04-12T17:21:00.001-04:00

I am not at all knowledgeable concerning chapbooks issued by, or for, Canadian poets, but coming across the works of Francis Sherman (1871-1926), I have to wonder if his Two Songs at Parting issued in Fredericton, New Brunswick in the winter of 1899, and consisting of two poems, one by Sherman and the other by his good friend John Bodkin--poems facing each other, recto/verso with the sewing between--might possibly be considered the smallest or briefest of chapbooks ever issued by a recognized, though lesser-known Canadian poet.

Having recently posted a poem by L. A. MacKay who was rather critical of certain established older poets such as Bliss Carman, I thought it might be an interesting balance to post this poem by Francis Sherman that also touches on the month of April, and whose friends included Bliss Carman and Charles G. D. Roberts. In fact it was Carman's Boston publisher, Copeland and Day, who issued Francis Sherman's first volume of poetry in 1896 entitled Matins. It consisted of 30 poems on 58 pages, and was bound in boards. The edition consisted of 500 copies, plus 35 additional copies on English hand-made paper and printed on the Rockwell and Churchill Press, Boston, in November of 1896.

This was followed up by the poet's second book, a chapbook in wrappers of 11 pages entitled In Memorabilia Mortis, and was printed by John Wilson and Son of the University Press of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in December of 1896, and consisted of 6 sonnets with decorative initial capitals and a decorative first page à la William Morris, the poet's great influence.

Another chapbook, A Prelude was privately printed for him and Herbert Copeland and F. H. Day and their friends at Christmas 1897 and consisted of 10 pages.

His fourth, another chapbook in wrappers, was The Deserted City: Stray Sonnets written by F. S. and rescued for the few who love them by H. D., privately printed by F. H. Day in 1899, and consisted of 19 poems on 12 pages.

His fifth I already mentioned as possibly being the briefest chapbook, Two Songs at Parting, and his sixth and final issue to the best of my knowledge was A Canadian Calendar: XII Lyrics privately printed for him at Christmas in Havana, Cuba in 1899. and dedicated to his friend F. H. Day. Unpaginated, it runs around 15 pages.

His poetry reflects its period through the choice of words and treatment, but this short poem on parting that references the month of April seems at least presentable to modern eyes.

And after many days (for I shall keep
These old things long forgotten, nevertheless!)
My lids at last, feeling thy faint caress,
Shall open, April, to the wooded sweep
Of Northern hills; and my slow blood shall leap
And surge, for joy and very wantoness--
Like Northern waters when thy feet possess
The valleys, and the green year wakes from sleep.

That morn the drowsy South, as we go forth
(Unseen thine hand in mine; I, seen of all)
Will marvel that I seek the outmost quay,--
The while, grey leagues away, a new-born North
Harkens with wonder to thy rapturous call
For some old lover down across the sea.

For a good overview of the author's life, a memoir by Lorne Pierce who edited the collected poems of Francis Sherman issued by the Ryerson Press in 1935, can be found here.

Anansi Reader of the Month

2010-04-11T23:12:00.005-04:00

The Indextrious Reader, a gentle soul, is the Anansi Reader of the Month for April. This does not surprise me since she has been reading since the age of three and reads more books in a year than I can ever hope to manage. Congratulations Melwyk. Keep up the good reading.

Montreal English Language Bookshop Bookmarks: a Small Selection

2010-04-09T21:47:00.003-04:00

It is almost as if bookmarks are little memory devices for bookshops that have long since closed their doors. Holding one, the subtleties of paper texture, weight, colour and design can bring about assorted memories of the shops, their owners, employees, and customers. It seems most of the bookshops represented in this small selection have ceased operation.

The Double Hook (1974-2005) briefly took hold on St. Catherine Street before swinging round to the Greene Avenue location where they established themselves as the source for Canadian authors. Named after the Sheila Watson novel, the bookhop's logo or device still hangs over the entrance to the old shop (now occupied by the Babar bookshop, Babar en ville), an architectural detail that has become a possibly unnoticed memento mori. The Double Hook provided not only hard-to-find Canadian books for customers, but an abundance of memories of pleasant book browsing and interesting author signings.

Elliot-Duncan Ltd. Booksellers, 1381 St. Catherine Street West. Librairie Ficciones Literary Bookstore, 111 Duluth West. (Excellent selection of world literature in translation.) Avenue Bookshop, 1368 Greene (location now an art gallery beside the newer and still thriving Nicholas Hoare Bookshop.) Footnotes Fine Used Books, 1454 Mackay St.(A very small shop near Concordia University that had a decent selection of literature and academic titles.) Librairie Déjà-lu, 5624 Monkland Avenue. Livres Métamorphoses Books, 3418a Avenue du Parc. Circum, 1946 St. Catherine Street West. Lexis, 2055 Peel Street. (New books with a couple of retail stores while in existence.) Vortex, 1855 Ste. Catherine Street West. (Fine selection of secondhand books in what was probably the cleanest and most orderly shop in town, not a book out of line.)

Huis Clos/No Exit, 3636 St. Laurent. (Previously discussed here.) Magnus Bookshop, 4932-B Sherbrooke Street West. (A below street level shop in Westmount that dealt in remaindered books and publishers' overstock. It was a good place to come across some interesting titles. The owner was helpful and provided special orders and was always busy with his photocopy service which helped keep the business viable.) Tally-Ho Book Store, 764 St. Pierre. Nebula, 1452 St. Mathieu. (Discussed briefly here.) Everyman's Bookshop, 1475 St. Catherine Street West (with the classic v-shaped die-cut design.) Prospero, 1455 Peel. (Retail chain selling new books with a number of outlets in Ottawa.) Librairie Russell Books, 275 St. Antoine West. (The wonderful large bookshop with used books and publishers' overstock; the owner, a well-loved and respected bookman who helped mentor many young booksellers.)

Bibliophile, 5519 Queen Mary Road. Livres Anthologies Boooks Inc., 1420 Stanley. Terre des Livres, 1612 Sherbrooke Street West. Danger!, 3968 St.-Laurent. (Owned by the same young man who opened and operated Nebula, Claude Lalumière. A knowledgeable collection of comics, graphic novels, science fiction and fantasy.) Le Mélange Magic, 1928 St. Catherine West. (Wide variety of books, mainly non-fiction, dealing with esoteric subjects, in addition to Tarot cards, incense, candles, and much else. Store cats were always a draw.) Librairie Beaconsfield Bookstore, 50 Boul. St.-Charles. (A serviceable West Island bookshop selling new books.) Librairie de théatre Stage Theatre Bookshop, 3575 Avenue du Parc.

It seems out of this small selection of bookmarkers, only Bibliophile and Mélange Magic are still in operation.

Spring Poem for April Poetry Month

2010-04-07T10:06:00.016-04:00

Having passed by an expansive and sloping front yard covered in purple grape hyacinths, a veritable country hillock in bloom within the city, I thought of this well-anthologised poem of the past by L. A. MacKay (1901-1982).

Admonition For Spring

Look away now from the high lonesome hills

So hard on the hard sky since the swift shower;

See where among the restless daffodils

The hyacinth sets his melancholy tower.

Draw in your heart from vain adventurings;

Float, slowly, swimmer, slowly drawing breath.

See, in this wild green foam of growing things

The heavy hyacinth remembering death.

L. A. Mackay was born in 1901 in the small hamlet of Hensall, Ontario and went on to be a much beloved professor of Classics at the University of California, Berkeley after having taught at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. When teaching in Toronto he was involved with The Canadian Forum, and, using the pseudonym, "John Smalacombe" he had a chapbook published by the Ryerson Press entitled Viper's Bugloss (1938). In 1948 some of these poems appeared in his second poetry collection, The Ill-Tempered Lover and Other Poems issued under his real name by Macmillan of Canada.

John Banville's Opening Lines

2010-03-27T16:19:00.015-04:00

The opening lines of the most recent novels by John Banville enchant me with their soft poetic nuanced consonants and vowels, openings which prepare the reader for a journey as much for the ear, as for the eye.

In The Sea, it is the letter D which binds the sentence with its wave-like interplay of vowel sounds:
They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide.

In The Infinities, it is soft F's that are brought up to the diminished K in the last word, while the sounds of the letter A and O create a soothing counterpoint:
Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works.

And yet, the list of opening lines below reveals that the author has not always started his novels with such poetic rhythms and cadence. In fact, most readers like myself are probably used to his initial sentences of but a few words, such short-breathed musings as:

I am, therefore I think. -Birchwood
At first it had no name. -Dr. Copernicus
Words fail me, Clio. -The Newton Letter
Chance was in the beginning. -Mefisto
Here they are. -Ghosts
My love. -Athena
First day of the new life. -Untouchable
At first it was a form. -Eclipse
Who speaks? -Shroud

They are quiet, moody, reflective utterances, tentative thoughts of the first person narrators--excluding Dr. Copernicus--setting the tone of the narratives to follow.

The openings of Kepler and The Book of Evidence are perhaps more conventional:

-Johannes Kepler, asleep in his ruff, has dreamed the solution to the cosmic mystery.
-My Lord, when you ask me to tell the court in my own words, this is what I shall say.

Short crisp openings are not unusual. Melville's Moby Dick and Ellison's Invisible Man being two rather prominent American ones. They certainly contrast with the openings of Kleist, Sebald or Marias. Every book and author have their own rhythms. What they mean, I will leave to scholars, this is merely an observation of a reader who enjoys entering the fictional worlds created by John Banville. A reader, I might add, who is not a Compleat Banviller for I have yet to read Long Lankin, Nightspawn, and The Ark.

The gate is still open. (That might make a good opening sentence.)

Swimming in the Twitter Stream: John Banville's Infinities and other Gleanings

2010-03-26T11:03:00.013-04:00

Over on Twitter, I like to post or retweet links to interesting articles, reviews or short videos. These links, however, eventually become subsumed in the depths of the twitter stream, and are more or less forgotten. Twitter is a fast medium with something new being tweeted every moment, so I thought I would try to capture a few of the more interesting links and put them in the blog.

John Banville is promoting his new book, The Infinities and was in Toronto at the beginnng of March--which incidentally came in like a lamb. Here is a short video of him reading from the book on a very pleasant day on the Toronto waterfront. A recent review of the new book in the Dublin Review of Books can be found here.

A recent auction brought in a hefty price for George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London: the BBC has a short piece on this sale here.

A selection of Otto Penzler's collection of British spy novels by John LeCarré, Ian Fleming, Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and others will be auctioned off and the Guardian has this item covered here.

And perhaps to finish, a link to a 1/2 hour film available free by Spike Jonze called I'm Here, a quirky tale of a meek library clerk--a robot, or android--whose life is forever changed. The link is here.

Pseudobookmarkiana, or, Money doesn't fall out of Books

2010-03-23T12:55:00.003-04:00

When it comes to bookmarks, I enjoy the serendipitous encounter. Not for me the Bookmark Conventions, archive sleeves, binders and must haves. Whatever I come across is fine with me. Oddly enough, I don't always use bookmarkers when reading books. Most often it is a piece of paper to jot down notes as I go along. I used to occasionally mark books with light pencil marginalia, or page numbers on the flyleaves, and occasionally still do, but, unlike David Foster Wallace, I never marked a book in ink. (Or at least I believe I never did.) The problem with my method is that pieces of paper can become lost, while his annotations and jottings safely reside in perpetuity as can be seen at the University of Texas special collection of his work. Other than pieces of writing paper, I often use such things as ticket stubs, bills, coupons, Canadian Tire money, and occasionally my wife's favourite choice for a bookmarker, those sample cards procured from the perfume sections of department stores. They can provide an added olfactory quality to any reading experience.

Anything thin and paper-like could be used for a bookmarker which makes them good for advertising purposes. Businesses that have no connection with books often produce bookmark-like advertising ephemera. The Bar B Barn which opened in 1967 is still thriving. One of my uncles was a long-lunched regular, no doubt from its inception. I picked this one up in the 1980s. I remember a macho sport/businessman type crowd. Probably hasn't changed. The best ribs in town as is so often the boast. By propping this piece of ephemera on a plate or a cup, it would alert a waiter or waitress accordingly. There was often a line-up to get in, so a seat was much in demand. The die-cut flap mimics those in classic bookmarks hence the dual usage. It is, however, made of extremely thin paper. A fragile museum piece no doubt.

Amelio's pizza resto in the McGill ghetto is perhaps more appropriately linked to books being so close to my favourite secondhand bookshop The Word Bookshop and McGill University. A student reading a book there would not be uncommon, but more likely they would be enjoying one of Amelio's tasty rustic pizzas with a nice BYOB Chianti. This is an earlier business card for Amelio's when they were on Lorne. They are presently situated at 201 Milton in the old location of the, dare I say it, hippyish Café Commune.

Finding bookmarkers or pseudobookmarkers in books is the most enjoyable encounter. Letters, postcards, bus transfers, publisher's promotions, theatre tickets, racetrack betting stubs all make interesting page markers. But, for all my years of handling books, I have yet to find money. I remember a library patron who, when returning books, would open them and gently give them a shake, dryly stating he was checking for 1000 dollar bills. As likely as a Unicorn grazing on one's front lawn I imagine. Perhaps it would make a good saying: "money doesn't fall out of books you know."

Brief Encounter: Ryszard Kapuscinski (or his Doppelganger)

2010-03-09T15:12:00.005-05:00

There is nothing unusual about an author in a bookshop--a veritable cliché. As likely as a hand in a glove. Thinking about it now, I wonder if it was but a daydream.

When operating a brick and mortar bookshop, I did have a variety of writers and illustrators visit on occasion. Some well known, some less so. It seems I had to open my own shop in a small Ontario city to have the experience of seeing an author browsing bookshelves in public. Having lived in Montreal most of my life, and a frequent visitor of most Montreal bookshops, French and English, I can't recall ever seeing a well-known author casually browsing. This lack of observational success would seem almost an example of carelessness. Then again, in my defense, my eyes were usually preoccupied with the lettering on book spines, my neck twisted to the side in a classic book browsing position. Also, it was long before book festivals like Blue Metropolis brought world renowned authors to the streets of that fair city.

So, there I was, sitting at my desk in the corner, when a professorial looking older man entered my very small bookshop. (I always greeted customers with eye contact and a hello. By dipping my toe into the waters of conversation I never knew where the small talk might lead. On many occasions it brought interesting discussions--people often sitting down in the chair in front of my desk, easing their physical and mental burdens and making themselves at home--while others lead but to the shallow depths of meteorological concerns. Some never made it past the greeting stage.) The man who had entered the shop reminded me of a neighbour on the street where I grew up, my best friend's father, an Edinburgh educated professor of Philosophy at McGill University specializing in Kierkegaard, now long retired and an Emeritus Professor. He quietly moved about the shop with a sense of shadowless energy. This was a man who was in no need of assistance. Someone who was at home amongst books. Looking intently at a bookcase only a few feet from me, he reached out and pulled a hardcover book from the shelf. He turned to me and said with a slight European accent, "This is a very good book, you know." The intensity of his eyes and the force of his confidence startled me. Slightly taken aback by the assertion, I agreed that it was indeed a very good book . (I now wonder why it had not moved for three years. Perhaps I had priced it too high. Perhaps I really wanted to keep the book for myself.) Having read the book many years ago, I felt less than confident in broaching the subject matter with the customer who looked so intellectually spry. Betting on my memory, I waited for a response, hoping he might elaborate and open up the possibilities for discourse. In a way it was rather like a game of chess. He had surprised me with an unusual opening move and I had responded with an awkward conventional response. He put the book back in place and looked about for a few more minutes, and then he turned and thanked me kindly with a nod, and made his way out the door. The game aborted, our respective pawns left at the border. I felt rather mystified.

I then went over and pulled the book out. Even though the man's physical appearance made me think it could possibly be the very author of the book, I was also thinking it couldn't have been; the likelihood of the author dropping by my little shop in a rural city in southern Ontario seemed so unlikely. I had read a number of his pieces in Granta Magazine over the years, and some of his works, but I was not familiar with his changing physical appearance. The book he had pulled off the shelf was Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski, the 1994 Canadian first edition, over ten years old at the time. The rear flap of the dustwrapper had what seemed to be an even earlier photograph of the author. I could see the resemblance. A younger version with those intense eyes. I walked quickly to the windows and looked out, but I did not see him. Out on the stoop, I looked up and down the street but he had quite vanished. I contemplated closing the shop and running out to find him, Imperium in hand like some madly obsessive Ryszard Kapuscinski collector.

But no, I remained where I was--trapped by new customers having entered the shop--wondering if indeed it had been the author. The remainder of the day was spent in creating imaginary conversations with him. I imagined us walking about the city streets, feeding the swans on the Avon, discussing great topics and great writers. Then I saw us repairing to a fine restaurant for a good meal and a pint of Guinness. Cigars and cognac were probably conceived, the author regaling me with stories from his travels and extraordinary experiences. Such was the imagination of a bookseller who spent his days behind a desk surrounded by books and dust, daylight framed by a shop window.

I remember carrying the book in my book bag as I traversed the city over the next few days in case I happened across the him sitting in an outdoor café or buying toothpaste at a drugstore, but I was not fortunate in this serendipitous concern. I did not, however, stop people on the sidewalk asking if they had seen Ryszard Kapuscinski by any chance. Trying to sell books was crazy enough.

This unusual brief encounter with the author, or his doppelganger, I took as a form of admonishment and put the book back in my personal collection for future reference and re-reading. One day, perhaps, he would be in Toronto for a literary festival and I could try to approach him for a signature and ask him if had ever visited my small shop in a small southern Ontario city and, coming across this very volume, had asserted how very good it was. The meeting, however, was not to be. Ryszard Kapuscinksi died in January of 2007.

It it wasn't the author who visited my shop, then his doppelganger makes it doubly interesting. I think I would rather have the question to this one, than the answer.

Henning Mankell: The Man From Beijing

2010-02-19T14:44:00.008-05:00

The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell (New York: Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010) translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson. 368pp.

Mankell's new book has been sitting on a wooden chair in a corner for a couple of weeks. The bold white type on red background of the cover quietly reminding me of its prescence each time I pass. I knew if I started to read the book, I would have to put other books aside for awhile. Well, the time has come. Here is the book trailer.

Morbid Callaghan and Earle Turvey

2010-02-12T16:00:00.003-05:00

A recent post at the interesting blog The Dusty Bookcase concerning the New Canadian Library series reminded me of an incident only last week. My wife was telling me she wanted to reread the novel Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham and wondered if we had a copy. I believed I had two hardcover copies somewhere, but I knew I had a paperback copy in the New Canadian Library series and knew precisely where it was. A little while later she called me and asked me to look at the cover of this paperback issue. I duly looked at the cover but couldn't see anything unusual other than the drab brown abstract image. Look at her name, she prompted. Again, I didn't see anything unusual. Look at the spelling, she added. Then I understood. The author's first name was spelled "Gwenthalyn."

My wife has a keen eye when it comes to misspellings, typos and such. She constantly finds them in newspapers, magazines, and perhaps most often in restaurant menus. Some of them can be fairly amusing. To get an author's name wrong on the cover of a book, however, doesn't seem amusing. You have to wonder how many copies were printed with that error. This printing is the 4th, dated 1970. Perhaps this error is well-known to collectors of the series.

Who knows, there may be a plethora of misspellings out there. Maybe I should be looking for The Nymph and the Lamb by Thomas H. Raddall, Birney by Earle Turvey, As For Me and My Mouse by Sinclair Ross, or Such is My Beloved by Morbid Callaghan. I sort of like that last one.

Montreal Book Shops No. 3: Nebula (and William Gibson and Sting)

2010-02-08T11:25:00.008-05:00

My memory seems a bit nebulous at times, but I definitely remember lining up on St. Mathieu Street in Montreal in front of the specialty bookshop, Nebula to buy William Gibson's new book, Virtual Light (released September 1993) and to have the pleasure of having it signed by him. Befitting the name of the bookshop, it was a grey overcast, cool--possibly cold--misty day of showers. At the time, I was busy working two jobs and attending university courses most nights, so I can't quite remember the exact date, but I think it was sometime in October of 1993.

The bookshop was in one of the older attractive stone row houses on St. Mathieu, west side, just down from de Maisonneuve Boulevard, huddled in the shadow of a high rise block of no memorable feature. I seem to recall that these old houses, though commercialized, still retained a fair amount of their gingerbread architectural detail in 1993. Using Google Street View today, the section of the street appears slightly different, the buildings have been modernized and the architectural details removed for the most part. There is an interesting restaurant, Pho Nguyen, in the address of the of old bookstore. Also interesting, the police station across the street, a building whose walls must have absorbed much stress, distress and anxiety, is now a commercial building with a company called BattleNet.24, an Internet café. An all night cyber café in an old police station. There must be some form of Gibsonian irony there.

The Book Signing:

Joining the line on the sidewalk outside in the rain, bumping umbrellas and trying not to poke some passing pedestrian's eye out--pedestrians bereft of comprehension of what could possibly draw people to line up in the rain--I found myself moving step by step as the line made its way slowly into the warmth of the upstairs shop. The bookstore was quaint, but cramped for space. William Gibson was seated at a table of modest dimension. He had a pen in his left hand. It looked promising. Thank god no beverages were involved. The line shifted forward like an assembly line for quality control. Murmur of small talk wafted backwards, voiced pleasantries with charming undertones. Perhaps a trill of light nervous laughter. The pressure to come up with something witty or urbane mounted within me. All of a sudden it felt quite warm. With the wet furled umbrella hanging over my left forearm, I advanced like some minion approaching his lordship with the latest telegram on a small silver tray, or a waiter with the soup of the day. I humbly mumbled a greeting and handed him the book. I recall he had a most discerning eye as we exchanged eye contact. I doubt mine was as discerning. He signed the half-title with panache, and finished by placing an audible period, or dot, in the middle of the "O" of his last name, closed the book and handed it to me. I duly thanked him and moved on allowing those behind their opportunity. I believe he said thanks for waiting in the rain, but whether it was to me or a friend who accompanied me, I can't recall.

I think it was one of the few specific book signings I had attended up to that date. I generally hesitate when it comes to asking authors for a signature. I remember a Martin Amis reading at the Centaur Theatre in old Montreal a few years later but I hesitated at approaching him in the lobby after his droll one-man performance. It takes a certain moxy to approach authors cold. I believe I would feel more at ease with a serendipitous meeting. Like spilling a drink on their suede shoes or something.

Looking at William Gibson's signature now, I realise I had forgotten that he had also underlined the "O" with three lines, creating an ideograph or logogram of some interest. A casual search of the Internet for his signature reveals examples of variation. Some are just plain W.M.Gibson. Some have a little circle within the "O" of his last name. I did come across a youtube video of him signing a book and I could see him underline the defining letter three times. There may be other variations. For the number of books he must have signed over the span of his writing career, variations must breath life into his well worn letters, and allow for a wider expression of his personality and character.

The bookshop Nebula, later moved to 1832 St. Catherine Street, the south side, (now an interesting Korean Restaurant called Towa) a larger space, but of infinitely less charm and interest, and here they continued to offer an excellent choice of science fiction, fantasy, crime, graphic novels, and magazines. Hard times must have hit them, for I then remember that it moved into the back of Mélange Magic bookstore for awhile. Then in the summer of 2000 it closed shop. Their letter of goodbye can be found here.

It is not quite a defunct bookshop as it continues in, dare I say with no disrespect, a nebulous form on-line.

Thinking about the year 1993, it certainly helps to jog the memory with music. The stream of popular hits that played in the shops and on the radio were probably dominated by Duran Duran, The Cranberries, Pet Shop Boys, U2 and perhaps overwhelmingly by certain songs by Sting off his Ten Summoner's Tales, especially Fields of Gold. For me, Sting's Fields of Gold dominates the year. The song and William Gibson's Virtual Light are connected in a an unusual juxtaposition, the pastoral romantic and a world of subtopian redeemers, their very substance seemingly at opposite poles, but spun together in a dance of time and place.

Montreal Bookshops No. 2: Defunct Part 1: Huis Clos / No Exit

2010-02-03T21:21:00.002-05:00

Defunct is an odd word. Not a word that one would hear bandied about in the press these days. A bit old-fashioned, a bit dusty, unlikely to come up in everyday conversation. A word edging its way towards a glossary of archaic words perhaps. It is a strong, ham-fisted type of word with that stiff ended "ct". Looking it up in the OED, I have to say I like Coleridge's usage: "This ghost of a defunct absurdity." This figurative use is quite appealing and breathes life into the word--no irony intended--and is perhaps the future for such words for it seems to retain a usefulness for poetry and the pulpit. Perhaps a rock band could incorporate the word into their name, The Defunct Wallabees, or the Defunctives. In a song, it could be rhymed with adjunct, something a defunct Noel Coward could pull off. Then again, it would work well in a rap song.

As an owner of a defunct bookshop myself--well, at least in the brick and mortar type, for I still sell on-line, check out the sidebar for the links--I feel a certain affiliation with bookshops that have called it a day. Some lasted many, many years, while others had a brief existence. It seems appropriate that the first defunct bookshop I will discuss was called Huis Clos / No Exit.

Huis Clos / No Exit

This secondhand bookshop I remember being at 3636 St. Laurent, the west side, just up from Prince Arthur. It was in operation in the mid-1980s (83-86?). A fairly open space that had previously been Salamander Shoe Shop for many years. If I remember correctly, there was a set of stairs to bring you up to an open area literature section overlooking the shop below and I still have a sharp visual memory of passing on half a dozen hardcover copies of the collected works of Arthur Hugh Clough in what I think was a modern Oxford edition. I hesitated at the price, and when I went back to buy a copy, the shop had closed. One of many regrets of a book collector with limited means and wavering resolve.

Near by was the Androgyny Alternatives Bookstore at 3642 St. Laurent, which actually moved into the Huis Clos / No Exit address once they closed down. The bookmark pictured above, complete with stylised drama masks and barbed wire, lists the shop at 4318 St. Laurent, but I have no memory of ever visiting that location, and strangely enough, I cannot locate a listing for the shop at that address in the street directories.

Of course the name of the shop comes from the play by Jean Paul Sartre. No doubt someone uttered the phrase, "L'enfer, c'est les autres" but I never heard the words spoken, although I may have thought them if scooped by another buyer. I do recall, however, that one of the owner's siblings used to be in the shop from time to time, and they were heavily into the Boy George Culture Club look of the day. (As I type these words, I can hear that Karma Chameleon song.) There was a quirky vibe to the shop. I guess it was the mix of Culture Club fashion, existentialist homage, the proximity to the alternative bookstore and being on a street which was trending nicely upwards. The book selection was quite good as well.

note: As to the Coleridge quote, it comes from his 1809 essay On the Errors of Party Spirit: or Extremes Meet in his periodical The Friend. The subscribers of the day were apparently irked by the obscurity of some of these essays, though as Richard Holmes writes in his biography Coleridge: Darker Reflections, "Within its Amazonian jungle of tangled, unparagraphed, discursive prose, lay limpid pools of story-telling, criticism, memoir-writing and philosophic reflection." And perhaps a defunct word or two.

Penguin Books Ephemera Addendum: the Penguin Donkey

2010-02-01T19:25:00.006-05:00

This specially designed penguin bookshelf unit called the Penguin Donkey MK 2, certainly seems a retro piece today. Probably collectible if one survived from the early 1960s. As the advertising insert states, "this helpful creature" was designed by Ernest Race, and was 16" high by 21" long. The size seems rather small. Could one possibly place a table lamp, a decanter, coffee cups or drinks on the "Donkeytop"? So it says. Also holds 90 Penguin paperbacks and your Guardian Newspaper. I can see it sitting on white high pile carpet beside an orange molded chair and an interesting floor lamp designed by Achille Castiglioni.

The Isokon Design Company began in the 1930s and re-emerged in the 1990s. If you can't find a 1963 Penguin Donkey at the local thrift shop, you can always purchase a new version of the Penguin Donkey. Not quite my style, but I can appreciate the design even if I can't appreciate the new price.

Montreal Bookshops No. 1: Classic Book Shop

2010-01-26T15:11:00.017-05:00

Having recently posted about Penguin Books, I began thinking of my own interest in this publisher's offerings and I began to recall my visits in the 1970s and early 1980s to a Montreal retail bookshop on St. Catherine Street West called Classic Book Shop, or Classics as it was referred to by many people including myself. Little did I know, as I browsed the shelves for, among others, the small green Penguin Modern Classics, and the small black Penguin Classics, that this store had such a long history. I still have vivid memories of moving about in that shop and certain faces of the employees are discernible. I can still see the various subject sections and the modern staircase in my mind, and the shelves with the majority of the books with their front covers facing the customer, an innovation developed by the store and followed by others.

Of course there are many who knew the history of the bookshop while it was still in operation, and knew of the owner Louis Melzack (1914-2002) and no doubt many people have pleasant memories of browsing the shop during the earlier decades, but I was just a young customer who experienced what I now see was but the tail-end of the book shop's fairly long existence. Only now, looking back , and using Street directories (complete with occasional mispellings of information) and other reference sources, can I appreciate the background and developement of this bookshop.

The roots of the book shop can be traced back to The Universal Book Store which first opened its doors in 1928 at 1055 Bleury with the proprietor listed as one Jack Melzac, the father of Louis Melzack. Bleury was of course a completely different street from today, with many small shops and businesses including quite a few book shops; certain buildings that survive such as the Southam Building (now gentrified into condos) reflect a long forgotten era. In 1930, the book shop moved to 1122 Bleury (between Dowd and Carmichael streets) and was renamed Classic Book Shop, proprietor J. Melzack. The book shop remained at this address until 1938 when it was relocated to 1380 St. Catherine Street West, the south side between Mountain and Crescent.

So, Louis Melzack, born in 1914, the son of the owner, presumably started helping out in his father's book and magazine shop in 1928 when he was 14 years old. By 1938, Louis Melzack was in his early twenties and listed in the directories as "emp" or employee of Classic Book Shop. By looking at the home addresses of the family, I can surmise (conjecture on my part of course) that it was Louis who was interested in moving westwards. His father's residential addresses were close to the original bookshop location, such streets as de Bullion, Pine Avenue, Waverley, Querbes, Bernard and St. Joseph Boulevard, while the younger Louis first moved to 1811 Dorchester West, and then much further west to Ponsard Avenue. This westward movement was quite typical as the areas of Cote-des-Neiges and Notre Dame-de-Grace were freshly developing residential districts from the 1920s to the 1940s and I think of my own grandfather who first lived in the Plateau Mount Royal area back in the 1920s before moving to Notre Dame-de-Grace in the mid-1930s.

Moving the shop in 1938 to St. Catherine Street West was a bold commercial step. There were already many well-established book businesses in the area:

Brown Foster Ltd. at 1240 St. Catherine Street West.
Burton's Ltd. at 1004 St. Catherine Street West.
Lyon's Book Shop at 1480 St. Catherine Street West.
Montreal Book Room at 1458 McGill College Avenue.
Poole Book Store at 2055 McGill College Avenue.
Toronto Book Store at 1344 St. Catherine Street West.
VanGuard Book Company at 1170 St. Catherine Street West.

In addition to these establishments, there were the book departments of the various Department Stores.

In the year 1941, the directory lists the proprietors of Classic Book Shop as "J. & L. Melsack", the first listing for Louis as a partner in the business. In the year 1956, Louis Melzack, though still listed as partner in the original shop, is also listed as running Classic's Little Books Inc. at 1373 St. Catherine Street West (he opened it in 1955 and it was the first paperback shop in the country) and it is from this point that the expansion of this business develops, with stores on Rockland Road and one at the Dorval airport, and eventually to shopping malls such as Alexis Nihon Plaza, Place Ville Marie and others until approximately 60 stores nationwide by the year 1980.

In January of 1981 Louis Melzack sold the business to his son and essentially retired. But he was back at it again and opened an antiquarian book business in Toronto in 1981 revealing his life long interest in collecting books and manuscripts.

In 1985 the Classic Bookstore chain, now 110 stores, was sold to the Canadian branch of the British book chain W. H. Smith. This then was later purchased by Chapters Bookstores, and as we know, Chapters was then taken over by Indigo.

In browsing these new mega stores today, I can appreciate the influence and importance of the innovation that Louis Melzack and his family brought to the business of book selling in Canada. There is a hidden legacy there.

The bookmarkers pictured here are samples from the 1960s to early 1980s. The name Allan Harrison is printed sideways on the bookmarks, left to right, 2nd, 3rd & 4th in the top row, and I gather he was responsible for the design. The lettering captures the 60s early 70s "groovy" zeitgeist, and triggers vague memories of similar lettering for movies, music and advertising of the period.

A Small Selection of Penguin Books Ephemera

2010-01-20T21:06:00.015-05:00

This year marks the 75th anniversary of Penguin Books. They have come up with a "decade-def ining" lis t of books and a new logo which you may have read about. Five books for each decade from the 1950s to the 1980s will be published with new introductions, the Penguin Decades.

With Penguins on the mind, I thought I would post a selection of ephemera from the publisher.

1. The Penguin Books fold-out catalogue (for the Canadian market) for April 1959 along with an earlier order form insert which states "more than 250 titles now available." For a collector of Penguins, it was a period when it was still possible and conceivable to collect a complete run, including those that had fallen out of print. For a Canadian, I must say some of the titles listed in this catalogue would prove a challenge to locate today, such as Penguin Specials, Crossword Puzzle books, Periodicals for New Biology and Science News, various Reference Books and Handbooks and the Puffin Cut-Out Books.

2. The Canadian advertising inserts must be from the early to mid-1950s or perhaps even earlier as they list basic issues at 30 cents, compared to the 1959 catalogue which lists them at 70 cents. The Penguin logo by Jan Tschichold is also an earlier design, the Penguin on the move so to speak.

3. In 1960, Penguin's 25th Anniversary, this little fold-out insert, "A Feast of Penguins" was issued. I shall quote the front cover text in full:

Penguins Progress

Since their first appearance twenty-five years ago, Penguins have grown from a shelf of ten books to a library, from a library to what has been aptly called, for its quality and range, the Penguin University. Today there are more than 1,200 Penguins, Pelicans, and Puffins in print: among them representative works of almost every living author of note.

Some of the books on their list of 25 books for the anniversary reflect the era, such as William Whyte's The Organization Man, and J. Bronowski's The Common Sense of Science.

Various Bookmarks from the 1960s to 1980s.

The University of Bristol is home to a Penguin Archive, more information can be found here.

The New Year's Resolutions of a Secondhand Book Dealer

2010-01-01T12:24:00.017-05:00

The New Year's Resolutions of a Secondhand Book Dealer:

1. Sell complete book stock to a wealthy accomplished soul to help fill out their country house library.

2. Use funds from no. 1 to finance a new perspective on life--or pay old bills.

3. Attain gainful employment. (Decent writer, half-decent after 5. Have worked many lowly jobs in life, so will likely do windows if asked.)

4. Write script for [the star of your choice] that will make kabillions, retire and raise Arabian sea horses.

5. If no. 4 does't pan out, write a book entitled: "How to write a script for [the star of your choice] that will make kabillions, retire and raise Arabian sea horses."

6. Answer that ringing in my ears.

7. Gain weight and ease up on the exercising.

8. See if Paul Shaffer can get me a job as a writer on Letterman, using the fact that I could fill in on guitar if someone calls in sick.

9. Find out who this Walter Mitty is that my wife keeps making reference to.

10. Make a pilgrimage to Pat Sajak re: the meaning of life, for he has been in a state of near Vanna for so many years.

11. Refrain from inadvertently annoying my dear wife with my overuse of the phrase: "My God, is that the time?" (Apt words for my epitaph, and a good choice of words for anyone's Less-than-famous-last-words.)

12. Find the feather duster.

The Night After Christmas: A Visit from Stephen Fry and Co.

2009-12-25T08:48:00.020-05:00

The Night After Christmas:

A Visit From

Stephen Fry

Co.

Twas the night after Christmas at Hugh Laurie's house,
His dear wife was screaming, "a Mouse! it's a Mouse!"
And Hugh in his stockings jumped up on a chair,
Thinking if only his friend, Stephen Fry had been there,
But he was probably in Norfolk all snug in his bed,
With visions of ipods and downloads in his head.
So the Lauries sipped eggnog on their chair in nightcaps,
And were soon fast asleep, snoring in their laps.
When out by the pool, they heard such a splatter,
They sprang from their chair with the force of dark matter.
Away to the window they flew in a trice--
Followed by a family of adorable mice.
The garden gnomes glistened in the moon's afterglow,
While the swimming pool rippled with hints of white snow.
When what to their wondering eyes should appear,
But Stephen Fry in trunks and red snorkle gear.
With his ipod roistered, lively and quick, he managed an inpromtu twitpic--
With his Santa hat, he looked a veritable St. Nick.
More merry than beagles his dear friends they came,
And with a Baaahhh! and a trimble, he called them by name,
"Bill Bailey! Alan Davies! Jo Brand! and Phil Jupitus!
Sean Lock! Jimmy Carr! Rob Brydon! and Trefusis!
To the springboard climb up, climb up one and all,
Together we'll create one massive cannonball!"
Like dry leaves they did shed their clothes and did fly
Over to the springboard, hands raised to the sky,
And up they did mount, like coursers they flew
And with ipod and vodie, St. Stephen Fry too.
And then in a twinkling, they heard a great creak,
The board was too slender, the board was too weak.
The eyeballs of the Lauries--and the mice--rolled around
As their friends fell forward with a flubbering bound!
A bundle of bodies, some tight, some slack,
A veritable Moby spewing water from the wrack.
Their eyes--how they twinkled! their dimples how merry!
Their cheeks were all rosy (for the water was dam icey!)
Then Hugh and his wife brought them cotton terry towels,
As their friends bibble-bobbled and shivered their vowels.
Stephen, with magic, procured bottles of fine Port,
And they all raised a glass to Peter Kingdom and his Court.
Bill Bailey tickled ivories, and Bryden talked behind his teeth,
While Hugh got his head stuck in the old advent wreath.
Jimmy Carr told a joke bout garden gnomes and lubricant jelly
While Jo Brand watched David Tennant's Doctor on the telly.
Dear Jupitus sang a song bout a princess and an elf
While Trefusis and his dongle laughed in spite of himself.
Alan Davies and Sean Lock mimicked and told stories,
And had everyone laughing, including mice and the Lauries.
Then Stephen recited a moving stanzaic work
About a lingerie shop owner, Pumbleby Quirk.
Oh, the tears they did fall, they fell from each eye,
(Including the writer of this ditty, Ralph Patrick Mackay.)
They embibed some more port, and each blew their nose,
Arranging for photos in a jumbled group pose.
And then with a whistle, Hugh did show them their beds,
And told them breakfast was at seven for any sleepy heads!
Stephen visited each guest, and as he turned out each light,
Said, "Happy Dreams to all, and to all a good good night."

-by Ralph Patrick Mackay aka Chumley

Love and Summer by William Trevor

2009-10-19T17:21:00.003-04:00

Love and Summer by William Trevor (Knopf Canada)

A Reader's Preamble
Unknowingly, memories began to stir when the new book arrived. As his hands felt the shape and texture of the dustjacketed hardcover, his eyes were absorbing information from the cover image and the four blurbs on the back. Gazing at the author's photograph taken by Lord Snowdon, the idea of senescence was roused, those aged creases and wrinkles holding shadows of experience. After having read the front flap with its succinct storyline overview, the memories began to surface, his mind initiating a recall of sensory data, emotional responses, textual and visual memories. 'When was it that I first came across the author?' 'Where was that sale?' An image of his hand holding a penguin paperback of The Old Boys, kneeling he was, a box of books under a table, a church sale, 1981, or 1982. He saw a younger self sitting back in a comfy chair, legs up, reading the penguin copy. Then, a fleeting image of himself reading the paperback on the Metro, hunched in dim light. Opening this new book, he scanned down the impressive list of titles by the author. Where was his copy of The Love Department he wondered? Oh, yes, Mrs. Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel, two copies he had, somewhere. The American and the British editions. What an odd place to have found that second copy he thought, remembering the fly-by-night remaindered shop that appeared around the holiday season one year. He really must find those books, it would be interesting to revisit them. However, a sigh of frustration waffled out of him as he realised how much effort, energy and time, priceless time, would be required to search through shelves and boxes. His eyes turned to the title page, Love and Summer by William Trevor. Best to rest lightly on those memories of past reads, he mused, and he turned to the first page and began to read.

Halfway through the novel he found himself searching for a piece of music. It was only after having listened to the music did it occur to him that his post-prandial rummaging amongst older cds was unconsciously driven. He didn't know the meaning of the words, for the rich voice of Heather Rankin was singing in Gaelic, a song entitled Walk With Me, but it didn't seem to matter. He felt the tone of the music fit the mood of the novel he was half-way through. How and why his inner mind could reach back to a cd he had been passing over not only for months, but for years, left him feeling greater respect for such inner processes, and wondering if his conscious mind was but a feeble and poor assistant.

After having finished the novel, he placed it aside. He was a slow reader. Returning to the novel after a few days of unconscious gestation, his musings began to flow with the alacrity of honey. He began to make notes on the characters, the setting, the situation. What could he possibly say that had not already been said? He had yet to read another review for he tended to avoid them until he had set his thoughts on paper. His responses were not always robust, but at least they were his own. In the curiosity of discovering insights and nuances he had missed, providing colour and shadow to his understanding--or at least, a not unwarranted respect for another's style or turn of phrase--he would finally seek out professional reviews.

Love and Summer
Although firmly set in rural Ireland of the late 1950s, he found such a shared human story that he could easily imagine it to be set in rural Japan, Canada, Botswana or any other country on the planet. A sad, poignant tale told with clear yet subtle poetic lines that possess a rich silence between the words.

The story opens in the month of June. It begins with a leave taking and is rounded off with one as well. Florian Kilderry, a young man from a neighbouring house in the country, bicycles into the nearby town of Rathmoye to take photographs of architectural decay, his new found passion. Unfortunately, it is the day of a funeral for Eileen Connulty, the once domineering matriarch of the Connultys of Rathmoye, owners of the coal works, the cinema, and a well-respected boarding house establishment. She was predeceased by her husband who died in the fire that consumed their cinema, The Coliseum, the remnant of which Florian Kilderry finds ideal for his photographic desires.

We are introduced to the small cast of characters, all seemingly marred by the circumstances of life, single or alone in their relationships with others, the memories of the past, and the irredeemable present. There is the daughter, Miss Connulty, unloved by her mother, betrayed when young by a man who was a "traveller in veterinary requisites" and now a dour older woman, and new mistress of the boarding house. Her brother, a twin, Joseph Paul Connulty, is unmarried, a sober, honest member of the "Pioneer Movement" and the operator of the coal works. His early hope of a religious vocation "lost beneath the weight of his mother's doubt." The twins are adult children locked into inherited roles, trapped by the vestiges of the their parentage. There is the farmer, Dillahan, burdened with the guilt of having accidentally killed his wife and child in a farming mishap, a man gripped by the past and yet forced by the demands of tending to land and animal, to live in the present. There is Ellie, an orphan, brought up by nuns and now married to Dillahan, a younger sensitive woman who manages to live with a man who treats her well, but, whose grief has withered his passions. Their is Florian Kilderry, the young carefree spirit, a late child--possibly a mistake--of older parents who were both artists, his mother coming from a well-to-do Italian family, and his father from a penniless Irish background. There is Bernadette O'Keefe, the secretary for Joseph Paul at the coal works, a woman of a certain age with an eye for her boss, but one that is unrequited. And finally, the cast is rounded off by the Protestant librarian, Orpen Wren, wandering about the town and country, confusing figures of the present with those of the past, his mind reliving the experiences of his youthful prime. He was once the librarian to the St. John of Lisquin family and lived at the big house cataloging their library and personal papers. The house is long gone, now but an outcrop of stone amongst weeds and overgrowth.

The figures of Florian and Orpen are rather symbolic of the future and the past. Florian cycles into the town of Rathmoye, a symbol of positive movement and creative imagination. His parents have recently died, the inherited homestead is in decay and up for sale and he dreams of immigrating, possibly to Scandinavia. He discards his past, his laissez-faire upbringing, his parent's artistic heritage. What household furniture and belongings that are not sold or given away, he burns. He even burns his early attempts at writing fiction. He has spent his remnant summer preparing his departure, reading F. Scott Fitzgerald and exploring the world of photography having found an old Leica camera amongst his father's belongings. Orpen Wren is the opposite, a relic, emblematic of the past no one wants to remember, an old man whose thoughts have found comfort in the retreat and attachment to memories, memories reenacted in the present. He confuses Florian for a member of the St. John family and insists he take the family papers that Orpen carries with him.

This dance of the past and future is accompanied with the dance of present love between Florian and Ellie. Ellie first saw him while she was in town on the day of Mrs. Connulty's funeral. Ellie is a gentle creature who delivers eggs to the Connulty family for their boarding house, an overt yet natural symbol of birth and the feminine. She has a habit of using double negatives in her speech such as "you'd never not want to go," phrases which anchor her to the countryside and yet also seem to point to the psychological weight of her upbringing in the foundling hospital, raised by nuns. Their gentle love is one of bicycles, country lanes and lavender meadows, and glimpses of the past like the long shadows of trees in the rays of a setting sun. Their dance of emotion and memory is very poignant and moving and brings us full circle to another leave taking as the dog days of summer dwindle to the cooler September and their love of a summer becomes a memory in this beautifully told novel.

Yacht Sybarite or, a Minor Bibliographic Digression

2009-09-12T00:22:00.005-04:00

Caught by the Nose:
Each day in the twitter world, there are hundreds of links to articles concerning the rise of ebooks, the pleasures of ebooks, the challenges of the Google Book Settlement and other topical items relating to the rapid changes in the world of publishing. It is all of interest. And yet, I am still very much in the old world of the physical volume. My content containers are either hard with dustwrappers or soft without. But I do read books online, mainly from The Internet Archive where difficult to find books are easily available to read in a presentable scan of the original pages. (Examples: Isabella Bird's Among the Tibetans , Ford Madox Ford's The Brown Owl , Abydos by W. M. Flinders Petrie, or The Ipane by R. B. Bontine Cunninghame Graham, for four random choices.) I think how fortunate for the youth of today to have access to such an astounding collection of printed materials, and to be able to read them on portable devices when and wherever they desire. Such freedom. I think of my youth in Montreal and how difficult it was to access books. It was a world of closed stacks and memberships. Much time and effort was required to look at a book and many of the books, due to age, scarcity, and crumbling condition, were for in-library use only. The second-hand bookshops were vital sources of reading material, as well as the major and minor booksales throughout the city. I have many memories of attending sales, and one in particular comes to mind.

In the fall of 1978, I arrived early one Saturday morning for the annual booksale at The Fraser-Hickson Institute, but a few minutes' walk from where I lived. One hour and a half later, 9 a.m., the doors opened and the few of us early bookscouts, pickers and book dealers led the now long line of book fanciers on up to the auditorium. My purchases were always modest. A small box or two depending on the combination of my financial situation, the selection of books for sale, how quick my eye to hand coordination was that morning, and how willing I was to jostle and scrape in the mild scrum that was to ensue. Luck sometimes helped. The book that holds this sale in memory is one which I picked up for a lowly 10 cents, a copy of Virgil's Aeneid translated by John Dryden. It was an edition issued by George Routledge & Sons, full red pebbled leather, raised bands, gilt titles and ruling, marbled endpapers and gilt all round. The half-title and title page were headed "Sir John Lubbock's Hundred Books." A short introduction was initialed "H.M." and dated March 1884. At the time I knew nothing of Lubbock and his list of books. Hadn't a clue who "H. M." was and why they were hiding behind their initials in so old fashioned a way. Since the title page and its verso lacked a publication date, I had to judge the 1884 as an unreliable witness. Finding information in 1978 entailed a bit more time and legwork than today. Reference books had to be sought out. Wooden library catalogue drawers had to be consulted, the stiff cards perused, their corners yellowed by many a thumb and finger. Requesting closed stacks materials was often greeted with heavy sighs, raised eyebrows, head scratching and the occasional "hmm, yes........". "The Pleasures of Reading by Sir John Lubbock, hmm, yes......". "The Life of Sir John Lubbock by Horace G. Hutchinson.......hmm, yes...". Dust had to be disturbed.

It was fairly easy to find out about Sir John Lubbock, one of those extraordinary polymaths of the Victorian period, but to discover bibliographic information about this particular edition of Virgil's Aeneid, was however, a bit more of a challenge. More dust to be disturbed. Consulting those large brown cloth volumes of Bookman's Price Index was painfully tedious and slow, but occasionally they offered up some useful information. Auction records, bibliographies, and periodicals were not as easily available. I seem to remember spending a few moments of time on trying to pin a date on this relatively unimportant volume, a finely bound issue of a standard text in a series initiated by Lubbock's then, influential list. As it was, Lubbock didn't publicly conceive his list of hundred best books until the autumn of 1885, so the 1884 introduction by "H.M." was no doubt from a previous Routledge edition, and brought out to get a piece of the action swirling around the controversy of Sir John Lubbock's One Hundred Books. [An essay on the subject can be found here.] I figured it was published around the 1890s to the turn of the century and left it at that.

The introduction was in fact written by Henry Morley, a prolific editor and writer perhaps best remembered, if at all, for editing the "English Authors" series. He also edited a series of texts called "Morley's Universal Library" which were issued by George Routledge and Sons. What Henry Morley thought of having his introduction used for Sir John Lubbock's Hundred Books is unknown to me. Morley must have known Lubbock, or at least, known of him. The London literary milieu must have been fairly tight at that time. However, since Morley died in 1894, it is likely he wasn't alive when the publishers availed themselves of one series introduction for another. Posthumous recompense was unlikely at the time. Publishers had to be versatile, innovative and thrifty; they had to know how to cut their coat according to their cloth to use an old phrase.

John Dryden's publisher, Jacob Tonson, was fairly innovative. Dryden's translations of the works of Virgil were published by Jacob Tonson in July 1697 when Dryden was 66 years of age. The first edition sold out in a few months. Henry Morley's short introduction is very good and he provides a brief bibliographic backcloth:

In modern form there was only John Ogilby's very poor translation of the works of Virgil, which had been first published in 1649, and reproduced in 1654 as a handsome folio, adorned with plates by Hollar, Faithorne, and Lambert. Jacob Tonson, Dryden's publisher used for his edition Ogilby's plates touched up, and published Dryden's Virgil by subscription, engraving under successive plates the arms of one hundred and one subscribers of five guineas, who contributed towards the adornment of the work with engravings; besides these, there were heraldic honours in part payment. The profit from the work to Dryden himself seems to have been about twelve hundred pounds. A generation later Pope earned very much more by translating Homer. As Dryden would not make friendly advance to King William, by dedicating the translation to him, Jacob Tonson, as publisher, did his loyal best by directing that, in retouching the plates, the Roman nose of the pious "Aeneas" should be made to conform to that of William III. And so Tonson hoped that His Majesty might be caught by the nose.

Whether William III was "caught by the nose" is a question for scholars, but I was certainly caught by the nose in that the smell of this volume still infuses me with the initial pleasures of reading Dryden's translation, and makes me remember how his anastrophic sentences and heightened style, were, and still perhaps are, subtle influences upon the way I write a sentence. For quite awhile I carried this volume around with me. Not the most practical edition for such reading. How much more practical are the portable devices to read ebooks today. Not just the Aeneid, but a complete library could be had in one slim device. (I can imagine that the batsmen responsible for Napoleon's travelling library might have eased their weary bones with dreams of such magic.) Being more of a sedentary person, I don't have the overwhelming need for such a handy device, but such innovation I am certainly all for. One day, perhaps, I may find myself reading Dryden's translation of Virgil's Aeneid on a ebook reader of some kind. Perhaps, aptly enough, off the coast of Italy.

Diversional Voyage:
There is one peculiarity to this 10 cent volume. In the red leather of the upper board are the words "Yacht Sybarite" blind-stamped in gilt. I didn't know what the words signified. Strangely, in my ignorance, it struck me at the time as some kind of Latin phrase. The thought that the book might have been from a collection that once found a home on a yacht called Sybarite occurred to me but to pursue such a tangent seemed as darkly unpromising as Childe Roland's seeking out the Dark Tower. While the gilt letters of 'Yacht Sybarite' figuratively faded from my conscious mind, I went on to enjoy Virgil's narrative and Dryden's vigorous and influential style.

I had quite forgotten about the gilt inscription on the upper board, until this past week, when, doing some casual research related to George Jay Gould, I came across a reference to a yacht named Sybarite. I remembered the book and wondered if there could be a possible connection.

George Jay Gould was the son of Jay Gould, and he inherited much from his father, including the steam yacht, Atalanta, originally built for his father and launched in Philadelphia in 1883. The New York Times reported in July 1900 that George Jay Gould was selling The Atalanta to the Government of Columbia where it would be converted into a gunboat. It was later revealed that the South American country was in fact, Venezuela. So, George Jay Gould, an active member of The Atlantic Yachting Club during a period that was a golden age of yachting--he was their Commodore in the 1890s--was in the market for a new steam yacht.

Almost one year later, June 1901, the New York Times reported the he had purchased a 924 ton steam yacht with a water-line measurement of 220 feet. It was originally built for Lord Ashburton in 1893 and named Venetia. Lord Ashburton sold it but a few years later in 1897 to Whitaker Wright. The New York Times mentioned that Wright had renamed it the Sybarite. It was in London, in December 1900, that Whitaker Wright's financial empire collapsed and he was first accused of misuse of investment money. (Reminiscent of a certain Canadian Lord. A good overview of the scandal can be found here.) His sale of the Sybarite to Gould six months later is telling. Wright must have been in need of cash.

[A few odd facts: George Gould's daughter, Edith Gould, was born on the Sybarite in 1901. George Gould's wife, the former Edith M. Kingdon, died in 1921 of a heart attack on the golf course of their estate in Lakewood, New Jersey. Doctors discovered she had used a rubber body suit from neck to ankle to maintain her figure. No wonder she died of a heart attack. Since George married his mistress not long after and acknowledged his illegitmate children, one wonders at the pressures Mrs. Gould suffered. And George Jay Gould died of pnemonia on May 16, 1923 on the Riviera after having visited the tomb of Tutankhamun and contracted a fever. This no doubt helped to fuel the concept of the Mummy's curse since Lord Carnarvon had died on April 5, 1923 in Cairo. For all I know, George Gould could have been reading this very copy while visiting Egypt in 1923. It would make for good dinner conversation at least.]

So, from these few scraps of information from very casual research, I could possibly conclude that this volume of Virgil's Aeneid, was part of the library aboard the yacht Sybarite, a collection that probably contained the complete Hundred Best Books as listed by Sir John Lubbock, all bound in uniform red leather with gilt edges all round, and all with the blind-stamped gilt words on the upper board, "Yacht Sybarite." It seems likely, considering Wright's proclivity to excess that it was he who ordered such a collection for his yacht, though I can't rule out the possibility that the books came with the ship and Wright had them blind-stamped in gilt to show ownership. Then again, it might have been Gould.

The answer to the question of how the volume ended up in a library sale in Montreal in 1978 seems to live in the realm of speculation. Books have lives of their own. Most outlive us. They can pass through many hands and reside on many shelves in their lifetime. This Aeneid is an orphan in a way, a stray from a larger collection. More the rule than the exception since so many book collections are sold off at some time and dispersed among various owners. Most likely, when the Sybarite was sold or broken up, the library too was broken up and auctioned off. Or perhaps the collection was passed down through the family. Perhaps there is a descendant of George J. Gould who this very day is sitting in their library wondering where that hundredth volume in that collection had gone and how. Perhaps it was a guest who availed themselves of the library for some bedtime reading and their servant inadvertently packed the volume in the luggage upon leaving. Perhaps it was with George J. Gould as he passed away in the Riviera, and was misplaced in the aftermath of his death. Any manner of stories could be conjured up. Any one of them as likely as the next.

An ebook reading device will never enjoy a long and diverse provenance like that of old bound volumes, but these devices allow us to connect with books that do have interesting backgrounds. To be able to peruse old library volumes from the comfort of our homes is an extraordinary accomplishment. Library stamps, librarian's pencil annotations and call numbers, creases, foxing, markings in the text and marginalia are revelations of the books character. I can see how many will find ebook devices perfect for reading the latest publications, but I tend to see them as devices to explore the closed stacks of so many great libraries.

Considering the death of George J. Gould, perhaps a little archaeology concerning Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon.

Making an Elephant: Writing From Within by Graham Swift

2009-08-20T13:29:00.004-04:00

Making an Elephant: Writing From Within by Graham Swift (Random House of Canada, 2009) 401pp.: ill.

I clearly remember first coming across Graham Swift: it was a Montreal Bookshop, early 1984, a damp winter day. A stack of books at my feet as if brought in by the tide and I were at the seaside, and on top, Waterland (Heinemann, 1983). The dustwrapper cover image was very striking and certainly made me pick it up, while the back panel of the dustwrapper was an expanse of black water-beaded mystery. The picture on the rear flap revealed a young author seemingly with an expression of having seen someone in the distance and wondering whether to proceed or change direction. I read, with a slight feeling of frustration of not having heard of him, that it was not his first book, but his fourth.

The confidence of the plain back panel was impressive.

After reading the flap cover, the first lines, and glancing here and there, I bought the book--without a blurb in sight. As I hurried to the metro station where no doubt Bowie's Let's Dance or The Police's Every Breath You Take penned by Sting, emanated from the little shops trying to catch commuters as they passed, I was fueled with that sense of excitement of having come across a new author, a new voice; and each time a new book by Graham Swift was issued, that initial sense of excitement was recalled like the scent of sand and salt water. And so it did when I heard that Graham Swift had a new book out, Making an Elephant: Writing from Within, a collection of non-fiction pieces.

There is an alternating flow, or tidal rhythm within the structure of this collection. The tide is out, and the book opens with childhood memories, then moves on to the story of his becoming a writer while in Greece ostensibly working on his graduate degree. Then the tide rolls in and we are provided with memories of good literary friends and occasions in the public domain: there is the Booker Prize evening; an interview by Patrick McGrath concerning Waterland; Swift's interview with Kazuo Ishiguro, and with Caryl Phillips; an interesting long piece about seeking out Jiri Wolf in Prague; and then his experiences of the filming of Waterland where a good writer friend of his who had experience in the film business told him he liked movie people, "They stab you in the front." The tide shifts out and we are back in the very personal with a memoir of his father which gives the title to the collection; then a selection of his poetry and an interesting insight before we find the tide coming in and we have his short piece about Salman Rushdie coming to visit, followed by a short piece of journalism about reading aloud, and a longer lecture on the spirit of place in fiction, specifically the Fens (Waterland), the West Country (Ever After) and the Garden of England, Kent (Last Orders). There is a poignant memoir of fly fishing with Ted Hughes, his piscatorial acquaintance on the Torridge River in Devon, and then another piece about film, this time Fred Schepisi and his take on Last Orders. The tide shifts out again and we have an unusual essay concerning the local history of Wandsworth and an interview with himself concerning his methods of writing. It is rounded off by his introduction to a collection of essays of Montaigne, a favourite of Swift and appropriate, for after finishing Making an Elephant: Writing from Within, I have a greater sense of the man, the writer, and his world.

All things Graham Swift at the Guardian.

The Geography of Discipline: Murakami on Running, Writing, Living

2009-08-08T16:42:00.002-04:00

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami (Vintage Canada, 2009) viii, 180pp.

The geography of discipline found in these reminiscences is perhaps both complex and simple. In talking about running, Murakami talks about writing. In talking about writing, he talks about running. In talking about living Murakami naturally talks about running and writing. This book is a very revealing glimpse of an individual, an introvert in many ways, who, with a strongly developed direction in life, has exercised his talents with composure, self-assurance and a confidence in hard work.

His style is casual, matter of fact. Everyday phrases, idioms and occasional clichés make reading this memoir feel like you are having an easy going dinner with the author, and he has started to answer your question of how he got into running after all. The reference to Raymond Carver in the title is a telling homage.

The memoir provides a peek into his past, his having run a jazz club for many years, and the day, while watching a baseball game, the thought of writing books took hold of him and never let him go. We also have his day to day existence: travel, business meetings, lectures abroad, apartment problems, which is the colourful backcloth to his more central routines and foci of this book, running and writing. He travels a fair deal, often for marathons or triathlons. Japan, Greece, Hawaii, New York and Boston all important locations for these tests of physical endurance, and also, for everyday life, for he lives in many of these locations. His description of how he developed as a runner is accompanied by his description of how he became an efficient swimmer and bicyclist, skills required for his new interest in taking part in triathlons. We learn of his training for big races and here we can find some good practical techniques from an experienced runner. He discusses the qualities necessary for a good writer and these qualities apply to running as well. In fact, they probably apply to most things. We discover why he runs, the fond memories involved and what he finds in the actual pain of such physical expression.

And of course there are references to music.

An enjoyable read and one that any reader of Murakami's novels will want to have nestled up against his works of fiction on their Murakami shelf.

The Discipline of Geography, or, A Little Fry and Parker

2009-07-31T23:45:00.005-04:00

Stephen Fry in America by Stephen Fry (HarperCollins, 2008) 313pp.: ill., maps; 25cm.

Map Addict: A Tale of Obsession, Fudge & the Ordnance Survey by Mike Parker (Collins, 2009) 330pp.: ill., maps; 19.5cm.

Here are two books whose narratives spring from an internal compass rose; narratives that follow their own cardinal points in an organic way in that each comes from a life-long fascination, one with America, and one with maps. Both books are well-written, funny and informative, and both are by residents of the UK who have had their hand in comedy at one time or another. Both authors have also been involved in writing and hosting documentaries on various subjects. Hmm, the plot thickens. Who knows, they may even have shared an elevator. Breathed the same air.

1. Stephen Fry in America:

It might be difficult to find someone who has not heard of Stephen Fry. He's even on the cover of the Video Collectibles catalog where you can order an alarm clock with his mellifluous voice proffering choice phrases to bring you to consciousness. Or you could order the latest DVD of Kingdom in which he portrays the warm and sympathetic solicitor Peter Kingdom ever calming the waters of chaos around him. Yes, from Blackadder to A Little Fry and Laurie, to Jeeves and Wooster and much before and much after, Fry is quite simply a household name. Well, almost.

I realise that Stephen Fry's book is perhaps overshadowed by his BBC film documentary of the same name, and I realise that perhaps more people have viewed the television series than have read the book, and I realise that, unfortunately, I cannot offer comparative insights for I have yet to see the BBC television documentary and therefore I may seem ironically unqualified to mention this book. Well, sod that, I'll give it a go.

If his father had accepted a teaching job at Princeton, Stephen Fry says he could have ended up a Steve instead, hence his early fascination with the United States and his phantom American doppelganger.

Among the many photographs in the book, there is a two page spread of Stephen Fry driving with seemingly unbridled spirit--to borrow a phrase--his iconic London Taxi Cab across the South Dakota Badlands; I can't tell if both hands are on the wheel or whether he was ogling his iPhone for a compass reading, but a London taxi cab in the American wilderness is a lovely juxtaposition.

From the eastern-most point of Eastport Maine to the northern-most point of Barrow, Alaska, all the way to the southern and western-most point of the cooling lava fields of Kilauea in Hawaii, his sympathetic and understandably selective rambling across the vast continent is a delight. It includes the mystery of 'hoosier', the loquacity of Ted Turner, a castle in Kansas and a great deal more. It is a fun book which made me realise how very different and diverse the States truly are. A book which had me dreaming of a road trip myself, albeit one at the helm of one of those luxurious motor homes. (My relatives in California need not worry, the likelihood of such a trip is imminently unforeseeable.) Fry's eloquent wit and writing style is present and there is a genuine interest and fascination with Americans and the American way of life. On a number of occasions, he finds himself in a location where he imagines he could live and be content. This coffee-table sized book is well illustrated and includes additional gazetteer-like facts. A very good companion to the television series. I think.

2. Map Addict: a Tale of Obsession, Fudge & the Ordnance Survey by Mike Parker:

Like most youngsters, I spent a fair amount of time ensconced in an atlas, fascinated by exotic place names, geographical landmarks, and colourful land formations. As for maps, it would have been those taken from my father's collection of National Geographics, large scale maps for specific countries. But maps for directional use were never of interest to me for they were associated with being lost on family holidays with all the stress and angst that went with that scenario. Mike Parker, however, has been a devotee of maps from an early age and his persistent interest has made him somewhat of a specialist in this area.

Map Addict is a well-written and funny book. Parker incorporates memoir, travel narrative, and a basic historical overview of maps in the United Kingdom--specifically the Ordnance Survey Maps. From his early love of the children's books by Malcolm Saville which had maps more realistic than those found in Arthur Ransome, to his ever expanding collection of Ordnance Survey maps, we journey with Mike Parker and share his fascination with all things cartographic.

It is not a dry subject. There is much humour to be found. A requisite chapter all about odd place names and locales that have erotic references is both amusing and informative--chalk landscape figures are involved. There is a wonderfully amusing chapter about maps and religion and specifically interesting is the planned city of Milton Keynes, where Parker has a rather startling interview with a security guard. There is an interesting chapter concerning the power politics of positioning the Prime Meridian. A chapter devoted to the fascination of borders and boundaries such as Baarle in Belgium, and other places in Europe as well as the border problem of certain counties in England, like ones that led to the fate of Rutland. There is of course an excellent chapter on the Ordnance Survey maps, and a great deal more including the portions of travel narrative dealing with his European excursions, mainly his visit to Yugoslavia and Albania. I learned a great deal from this book and an enjoyable time was had.

Now, there is that reference to "Fudge" in his subtitle, and I remember happening across the word only once in the book, and yet, though I could have sworn I made a note of it, it is not to be found. When I checked the index, it was not listed as it might have been between "Fucking, Austria 243--44" and "Fylingdales radar station, Yorkshire 170" but I am pretty sure it was not in reference to an edible sweet.

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

2009-06-25T16:00:00.006-04:00

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón translated by Lucia Graves (Doubleday Canada) 531pp.

In the last pages of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind, Daniel Sempere, the hero of the story, receives a parcel from Paris enclosing a book entitled The Angel of Mist: he "leafed through the pages, inhaling the enchanted scent of promise that comes with all new books." It was with just such an 'enchanted scent of promise' that I, and undoubtedly millions of other readers, experienced upon opening Zafón's latest novel, The Angel's Game.

We are back in Barcelona, and our hero, David Martín, born in 1900, is recalling his life as a young man making his way in the world of the scribbler's trade. The first two words of the novel, "A writer," provide us with the touchstone for this work, for, told from David's point of view, these 531 pages are his autobiographical revelations.

A single child of poverty, his mother having abandoned him to his illiterate, troubled, and at times abusive father, David manages to improve his life by being good at school, by finding solace in the written word, and by finding refuge in the Sempere and Sons Bookshop where he is allowed to read what he pleases. At one point he is given by old Sempere, a special copy of Great Expectations which becomes a key text to his life--his sympathetic imagination identifying with Pip.

His father was the night watchman at the newspaper The Voice of Industry, and David would accompany him to work and squirrel himself away there to read. But after his father was brutally murdered before his eyes, David, in shock, hides in the Newspaper printing department only to be found incoherent and lost. The wealthy and influential Pedro Vidal, a writer of true crime stories for the paper, becomes his benefactor by insisting David be given a job as a runner and allowed to sleep in the basement of the building. Weaned on lurid newspaper stories, he graduates from carrying cigarettes and coffee around the offices to being Vidal's assistant after showing promise of being a writer himself.

Like Dickens' Great Expectations, the story begins at Christmas as David recalls his being given the chance to write a story for the back page of the Sunday paper. It leads to more fiction being accepted and he creates a serial called The Mysteries of Barcelona, stories of Barcelona low-life told with exuberant Gothic excess, stories which ultimately establish his fertile career as a writer. His main character, a femme fatale called Chloé Permanyer, is much like Rodolphe, the character in The Mysteries of Paris by Eugène Sue, a character who prowls the dark dangerous streets, meting out justice to evil doers and helping the virtuous. One of many precursors to a character-type that continues to show up in various forms over the ages, perhaps most popularly in Batman and in graphic novels--"V" for instance in V is for Vendetta.

The supernatural thread, a spiral of Luciferian artifice, begins early on when his stories bring him to the attention of an obscure Parisian publisher by the name of Andreas Corelli. Corelli eventually offers David a commission to write a new religion for him, a fable for the times. (This Faustian pact reminded me of Balzac's Lost Illusions where the young writer, Lucien de Rubempré is saved from death by Vautrin, a Mephistophelian character who promises Lucien wealth, power, and fame if he follows his directions. It is a book that also deals with writers, journalism and publishing. Vautrin but another precursor to Corelli.) Though David is already busy churning out penny dreadful Gothic monthlies infused with Grand Guignol, The City of the Damned, using the pseudonym Ignatius B. Samson, for a publisher whose practices reveal a shady side to the business to say the least, he accepts this Faustian pact, and we follow David down this spiral into the dark wet shadows of Barcelona, a spiral that leads him, in the end, to discover he has not been alone in his endeavour.

Our initial sympathy with David is challenged by the decisions he makes and we witness his life crumbling before him while others prosper. The thread of romance is a major one and his first love, Christina has abandoned him for his mentor, Pedro Vidal. Alongside the literary, the supernatural and the romance, a new narrative thread develops as David begins to investigate the history of his newly acquired Tower House, a crumbling pile with a past and a previous owner with his own initials. We follow David into a realm of violence and death, the book taking on a semblance of a noir detective novel as a body count rises and a possibly corrupt police investigator and his two thuggish assistants shadow his every move.

This is a richly mirrored narrative, full of stories within stories and interesting characters such as Isabella, a bright resilient young Jane Eyre-like character who becomes David's writing assistant. There are amusing minor characters such as an all knowing librarian, a recalcitrant archivist, a stiff-lipped lawyer, and avaricious publishers among many others. The character of Isaac, the keeper of the Cemetery of Forgotten books returns and his usually laconic manner gives way to a bit of storytelling himself. The setting of Barcelona is a wonderful character in itself, from the cemeteries to the parks, from the libraries and archives to the bookshops, from the mansions to the slum dwellings, from the baroque old quarter to the recently abandoned buildings of the Great Exhibition and its cable car over the city.

The Angel's Game is a good read and it is a novel that can be enjoyed at different contextual levels. The narrative threads of suspense, crime, romance and the supernatural are intertwined with skill, but they are all bound by the subject of storytelling and writing which surround and permeate them. This literary thread is perhaps the most important thread we as readers should follow though this land of shadows.

A link to music the author composed around the novel can be found here

A link to a video interview with the author can be found here.