Bookmark of the Week: No. 7

It was about five years ago that the venerable Scottish bookstore chain, James Thin, Booksellers was sold to Blackwells. James Thin (1824-1915) began in the book business as an apprentice (1836-1841) before taking over another bookstore's lease and stock in 1848, and developing it into one of the most important bookshops in Scotland. James Thin was interested in hymnology and his collection of 2,500 hymn books went to the University of Edinburgh at his death.

Terence Hearsay; or, the Benefits of a Friend's Discerning Eye

When at St. John's College, Oxford, in the 1870s, A. E. Housman became friends with Alfred W. Pollard and eventually, in their fourth year, shared five rooms with another student in an old house near the College. Their friendship continued though they both went their separate and successful ways. Pollard went on to become a well-known bibliographer and scholar, employee of the British Museum, and editor of the journal The Library for many years. While Housman eventually found his place with a slim volume of verse and a position as a scholar. That slim volume of verse that A. E. Housman had prepared for publication was initially entitled The Poems of Terence Hearsay. Alfred W. Pollard modestly recalled the event for a publication of reminiscences of Housman published in 1937:

Housman knew that books of mine had been published by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., who had gained rather a special reputation for bringing out prettily printed volumes of verse, and asked me to arrange with them for its publication at his expense. Of course there was no difficulty as to this (I think Housman put down 30 pounds and got it back with a small profit), but my being entrusted with the manuscript led me to suggest that Terence was not an attractive title, and that in the phrase "A Shropshire Lad," which he had used in the poem, he had much a better one. He agreed at once, and I think the change helped.

Pollard was correct in seeing Terence as a tentative title, a pretense on the part of the poet, and thankfully provided that necessary discerning viewpoint for for his friend when it was most needed. The Shropshire Lad was indeed published in 1896, the same year as the photograph of Housman (above) was taken in London. The print run was 500 copies, of which 150 were shipped to the United States. Only 381 copies were sold by the end of the first year. A. E. Housman's brother, Laurence, author and playwright, recalled how he purchased the remaining 6 copies of the first edition two and a half years after publication, and then thirty years later, when he started Housmans Bookshop, he began to sell them at 12, 20, 30 and then 70 pounds for a signed copy. Checking values in today's market, it seems a signed copy of A Shropshire Lad is somewhere in the $25,000.00 + range.

The Housman brothers were on occasion mistaken for each other; The Dean of Westminister mistook A. E. for Laurence, and once the Headmaster of Westminister mistook Laurence for A. E. In the year before A. E. Housman's death, his brother told him of another occasion:

I had been giving a lecture--not on poetry; at the end a man came up to me and asked if I was the author of A Shropshire Lad. I said, "No." "Any relation?" "Yes, I am his brother." "Ah, well," was the kind reply, "that's something to be proud of. I, too, have a brother who is the better man."

A. E. Housman was born on this date, March 26, 1859.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

Bookmark of the Week: No. 6

Since my wife has a bad cold, I thought this would cheer her up, and anyone else who needs a smile.

This bookmark was issued in 1918 by Houghton Mifflin to advertise and promote their recent titles.

Just what the doctor ordered. Read a novel and call me in the morning.

Postman's Horn, or, Foreword into the Past.

Having recently finished rereading Arthur Machen's autobiographical work, Far Off Things (1922), I was once again left with that evocative image with which he begins, and rounds off his narrative, an image that rather lingers in the shadows of my day beckoning me to slow down and think upon a period when the perception of time and space was different, and the very accessibility of the written word was dramatically so. He was recalling a time when he was a young man of 21 living in his native Gwent, translating The Heptameron of Marguerite of Navarre into English, and he would walk a mile each day to a place where the postman would pass:

Here a footpath over the fields crossed the road, and by the stile I would wait for the postman. I would hear him coming from far away, for he blew a horn as he walked, so that people in the scattered farms might come out with their letters if they had any. I lounged on the stile and waited, and when the postman came I would give him my packet-the day's portion of "copy" of that Heptarmeron translation that I was then making and sending to the publisher in York Street, Covent Garden. The postman would put the parcel in his bag, cross the road, and go striding off into the dim country beyond, finding his way on a track that no townsman could see...

It was also his habit, three or four times a week, to walk four miles to the Pontypool Road Station in order to purchase the London newspapers:

Here, then, of a "celestial" agent of W. H. Smith I bought my papers; usually the "Standard" and the "Daily Telegraph" . . . I would make my way out of the station and along the high road till I came to the stile and the lonely path across the fields, and alone under a tree or in the shelter of a friendly hedge I would open my paper, cut their pages, and plunge into their garden of delights.

The accessibility to the printed word in the 1880s in the fairly remote prospect of Gwent, contrasts so greatly even with the 1920s, when he finally published his memoir, but today, the contrast is indeed great. I can start my day reading newspapers and magazines without ever having glimpsed the day outside. The internet has brought the world to that window of darkness, my computer screen. The short walk from the kitchen to the study with a cup of tea is less exhausting than a four mile hike, but certainly not as memorable. In gaining something, we lose something else. It is as if there is a balance sheet with a celestial accountant.

A recent letter to the editor of the Times Literary Supplement in response to an article (James Fergusson, "Collected Editions", Febuary 23, 2007)about the second-hand book trade, also made me think of the changing times. The revolution in bookselling has been swift. The author of the letter stated that "What has emerged is soulless but wonderfully efficient, a golden age for book buyers", and concludes: "One hopes Fergusson's world of musty shops, personal relationships, catalogues and bookfairs will manage to hang on in a few civilized outposts, but personally I wouldn't bet on it." The balance sheet of time once again. I found it interesting that the author of this letter lives in Llandrindod Wells, Wales, seemingly more remote than Usk and Pontypool, but really just a hop over the Brecon Beacons National Park with my Google Maps tool, and if there was data, I could perhaps zero in on a visual using Google's Satellite images, and then fire off an e-mail to the bookseller there to see if he had a copy of Far Off Things by Arthur Machen.

I think I shall leave off with Arthur Machen's meditations on his past, an image that will stay with me as if it were a memory of mine own:

And I, with time to spare, walk slowly, meditatively down the hill, holding my manuscript, hoping that the day's portion has been well done. As I come to the stile there sounds faint through the rising of the melancholy night wind the note of the postman's horn. He has climbed the steep road that leads from Llandegveth village and is now two or three fields away.

Bookmark of the Week: No. 5

Edna O'Brien was born in Tuamgraney, County Clare, Ireland in 1930. This bookmarker was issued for the release of her book, Casualties of Peace (1965) published as a Penguin paperback in 1968. Her previous books were The Country Girls, Girl with Green Eyes, Girls in Their Married Bliss, and August is a Wicked Month. These books were often banned in Ireland during the 1960s for they dealt openly with the sexuality of the characters.

Her most recent book was published in 2006, The Light of Evening. For an interesting interview with the author originally published in the Spectator, May, 2002, look here.

For more on Irish Literature see the following Luminarium site.

Bookmarker: Special: International Women's Day

Today being International Women's Day, these websites are great sources of information: at IWD's website, and at PEN.

Bookmark of the Week: No. 4

When in New York a few years back, we popped into the Coliseum Bookstore after exploring the nearby New York Public Library, and I picked up this very large bookmark. The scanned image above is but a section. Although we could fit the bookmark in our bag, we couldn't fit the international literary evening into our schedule. We had missed it. It took place on Monday, March 22nd, 2004, at 7 p.m. at the Alliance Francaise, Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, (tickets were $10, free for students), the same evening our train, behind schedule, sallied into Penn Station with many a tired and rumply passenger. To listen to and see Walter Mosley, Alfre Woodard, Salman Rushdie and Chris Albani would have been a delight for us. Now, it is but a remnant memory of what might have been attached to this very large bookmarker.

However, there is another memory attached to this bookmark. One evening as we walked towards Lincoln Centre, we made way for a group of people coming our way on the sidewalk, and I looked up to see a very attractive woman with beautiful eyes and visage, and we shared eye contact as we passed. The beautiful woman was Alfre Woodard. It remains one of those special memories of New York. It was only later that I saw she was starring in Drowning Crow, a play by Regina Taylor which ran at the Biltmore Theatre from February to April of that year.

Salman Rushdie had recently been elected to the position of President of the PEN American Center, March 9, 2004, and over the years he has brought much to the table. Check out the PEN American Center and their audio archive.

Bookmarker: Special: Henri Troyat

A life force in French Literature died in Paris on Friday March 2nd, 2007. Elected to the Academie Francaise in 1959, Henri Troyat (1911-2007), Russian born author of Armenian descent (born Levon Aslan Torossian), saw his first books in print in 1935, with Le Vivier and Faux Jour, and wrote to the end, his last publications in 2006 being a novel, La Traque, and a monograph on Boris Pasternak.

This book mark was issued in 1971 to promote his biography of Gogol published by Flammarion.

Such energy, tenacity of life and productivity is always impressive. He was the author of over 100 books.

Bookmark of the Week: No. 3

This is the reverse side of a bookmarker promoting a book by French author Daniel Pennac, Comme un Roman, originally published by Gallimard in 1992. It is a book about books and reading. When I showed this bookmarker to my wife, she went to her bookshelves and handed me her copy of the english translation by David Homel published in 1994 by Coach House. Figures. As her Indextrious Reader blog shows, she is a certified book lover.

The english translation was entitled, Better Than Life. We both used to see the translator, David Homel when we worked together at a Montreal Library, for he taught evening writing courses in the office of the Quebec Writer's Federation which rented space at our old library. My wife said he was the most polite and interesting of all the teachers there. She also said that he is married to the Quebecois children's author Marie-Louise Gay . The bookish connections continue.

The editor of Coach House at the time of this translation was Alberto Manguel. That figured too. He is also a certified book lover. He probably read the book in french and sought out David Homel to do a translation for Coach House. All conjecture on my part, but it all seems to weave together.

The translation of number 6 does not have the weight of the french original, but the term 'bovarysme' has such psychological and philosophical resonance in the French language that there really is no equivalent.

The Reader's Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read.

2. The right to skip pages.

3. The right not to finish a book.

4. The right to reread.

5. The right to read anything.

6. The right to escapism.

7. The right to read anywhere.

8. The right to browse.

9. The right to read out loud.

10. The right to not defend your tastes.

Bookmark of the Week: No. 2

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912-1943)
This important modernist poet of Quebec was the great grandson of the historian Francois-Xavier Garneau, the grandson of the poet Alfred Garneau, and the cousin of Anne Hebert. Literature was very much a familial affair.

These images seem to capture two facets of his character. The pensive and sensitive visionary poet, and the handsome, urbane artiste.

During his short life time he published but one collection: Regards et jeux dans l'espace, 1937. Interestingly enough, 1937 was the year the publishing house, Editions Fides, started. This bookmarker advertising the poet's complete poems (277pp., $2.50) was probably issued around 1957. On the reverse of the bookmarker is a list of their suggested titles, including the complete poetry of Emile Nelligan, complete poetry of Robert Choquette, and the wonderful memoir, Testament of my Childhood by Robert de Roquebrune. The bookmarker on the extreme left was issued by Villeray Musique to promote a recording of 18 of the poet's poems set to music by 12 invited musicians.
Posthumously there came his journal, additional poems and prose.
The following poem comes from the collection Les solitudes, first issued in 1949. It is unusual for him, for it does make use of rhyme.

Leur coeur est ailleurs

Leur coeur est ailleurs

au ciel peut-etre

Elles errent ici en attendant

Mon coeur est parmi d'autres astres parti

Loin d'ici

Et sillonne la nuit d'un cri que je n'entends pas

Quel drame peut-etre se joue au loin d'ici?

Je n'en veux rien savoir

Je prefere etre un jeune mort etendu

Je prefere avoir tout perdu.

Pour chapeau le firmament

Pour monture la terre

Il s'agit maintenant

De savoir quel voyage nous allons faire.

Bookmarker: Special Number: Happy Chinese New Year

This delicate bookmarker depicts the extraordinary landscape of the Lijiang River with its unusual mountains rising up to the sky. The pagoda in the foreground seems to organically emerge from the rock in this aesthetic blend of man-made architecture and the wonders of nature. The Tang Dynasty author Han Yu, is often quoted when referring to this river:

The river is a beauteous winding ribbon,
The mountains are as emerald hairpins.

This image may very well be an early depiction of the city Guilin, which translates as "the forest of sweet osmanthus." Certainly makes me want to reacquaint myself with Chinese history and description.

Bookmark of the Week: No. 1

Between the years 1910 and 1914 was the period that Insurance Companies began to advertise using bookmarkers. The Scottish Widows' Fund was originally conceived in an Edinburgh coffee house in 1812, and its object was to secure the financial stability of female relatives who lost loved ones in the Napoleonic wars. It was officially founded in 1815 and has continued to this day with marketing much removed from this rather classic and conservative bookmarker. Today, using a woman in a black cloak as the marketing image, the Scottish Widows' Fund is the most recognized brand of all the financial services in the UK. This seems to work most effectively as can be seen by the rather romantic, if not gothic photographs of the most recent advertising campaign with Hayley Hunt as the woman in black, and David Boni, photographer.

It is well known that Sir Walter Scott was one of the first investors, but what is less known, perhaps, is that a friend of his, a member of that extraordinary Clerk Maxwell family, also had a fairly important connection with the Scottish Widows' Fund. John Clerk, later Lord Eldin, was the son of James Clerk Maxwell's great uncle. He became a a well known and successful advocate and was instrumental in helping the SWF by serving on a committee which saw that the first bonus distribution of 1825 was made proportional and fair. The Scottish Widows' Fund and Life Assurance Society presented John Clerk with a gold snuff box in appreciation for his advice. Upon John Clerk's death, the snuff box came back to the Society and is now part of their much treasured, no doubt, archival history.
An unfortunate occurence, however, also connects John Clerk with the Scottish Widows' Fund. John Clerk was a connoisseur and collector of art and rare books, and upon his death his collection was sold. In fact it was sold in his very own house where close to 150 avid buyers crowded together for the chance at acquiring art work from his collection. So many people, in fact, that the floor collapsed killing a banker by the name of Mr. Alexander Smith. John Clerk's old friend, Mr. McKean, the Manager of the Scottish Widows' Fund, was also in attendance, but wisely chose to stand on the hearth stone. As it was left standing, so was he.
This bookmarker was designed by Walter Crane for the Society. These issues are fairly common and the amount of the funds provides a clue as to the year it may have been printed. This one is probably from the 1920s. Walter Crane designed a more collectible set of bookmarkers for the Society when he was commissioned to create one for each month of the year. These were issued between the years 1910 and 1912 I believe.