HALCYON THE NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF THE THOMAS FISHER RARE BOOK LIBRARY ISSUE No. 59, June 2017 ISSN 0840–5565 Another Exceptional Year Loryl MacDonald Interim Associate Chief Librarian for Special Collections and Director, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library he June issue of The Halcyon is tra- nineteenth-century Canadian Pacific Railway would give you a brief summary of some key ditionally an overview of the purchases photo album, we added many rare and impor- purchases made during the year. made during the previous fiscal year, tant items to our research collections. In this One of the highlights was the acquisition Tnoting some of the highlights newly acquired issue, Graham Bradshaw, P. J. Carefoote, David of a 1507 printing of The Golden Legend, now for the collections. Acquisitions that were Fernández, Ksenya Kiebuzinski, Natalya the oldest English-language book at the library, diverse, encompassing many different subject Rattan, Elizabeth Ridolfo, John Shoesmith, and among the oldest English books in Canada. areas, time periods, languages, and formats and Lauren Williams contribute articles on Widely read during the Middle Ages — some made 2016–2017 exceptional and exhilarating. recent purchases in their areas of expertise consider it even more popular than the From a fourteenth-century Italian missal to a and interest. In the meantime, I thought I Bible — The Golden Legendrecounts fantastic IN THIS ISSUE Another Exceptional Year | Not Lost in Translation: Orwell’s Animal Farm Among Refugees and Beyond the Iron Curtain | “Wonderful Transformations”: The Acquisition of Maria Sibylla Merian’sErucarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis | Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg | Collection of Phrenology Materials | A Medieval Festival in Bologna, or, When Pigs Fly | Three Anonymous Bookbinding Samples | The Birth of Political Cartooning: Luther’s Abbildung des Bapstum of 1545 | Ezra Pound Letters | Fisher Library Summer Seminar on the History of Book Illustration | Members of the Friends of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library 2016–2017 | Events and Exhibitions 2 OPENING PAGE: Detail from the Roman de la Rose. BELOW: Page from The Golden Legend with the giant ‘X’ that defaces the section on St Thomas Becket. stories of the lives of the saints. The Fisher copy example, omitted prayers against the ‘tyranny’ Fisher now has all three of the most significant includes woodcuts by England’s first printer, and ‘detestable enormities’ of the Bishop of versions of the Book of Common Prayer — 1549, William Caxton, who had left the original Rome, as well as the so-called ‘black rubric’ 1559, and 1662. carved blocks in his will to his apprentice, which, in the 1552 Prayer Book, had been I wish to acknowledge the tremendous Wynkyn de Worde, who in turn printed this included to explain that kneeling to receive financial support that has enabled us to add edition. Early in its history, the Fisher copy was the Sacrament did not express any idolatrous to our research collections. In 2016–2017, we owned by an English reformer, evident from veneration of the elements of bread and wine. were fortunate to draw on funds from a variety the fact that a giant ‘X’ defaces the section on Another major revision was printed in 1662, two of sources to buy important items. In addition St Thomas Becket, the murdered to the Rare Book and Special twelfth-century Archbishop of Collections’ regular acquisitions Canterbury. Another interesting fund, we received support for feature is the prefatory material: one time only special purchases a translation of parts of the Bible from the Friends of the Fisher into English which was still an fund and the Central Library’s illegal practice at the time. Collection Development budget. We also acquired an exquisite Endowments and other special illustrated copy of the Roman de funds have been vital to our work la Rose, one of the most widely to build outstanding collections read vernacular works from the as well. For example, we have later Middle Ages, and arguably benefitted from endowments for the most influential secular work particular subject areas, such as of literature created in medieval the Collard Canadiana fund, the France. About 250 manuscripts Kenny Social History fund, and of this epic poem of chivalry and the Walsh Philosophy Collection courtly love are known to have Fund. Further, a number of scarce, survived from medieval times. The important, and beautiful library Fisher copy was made in northern and auction catalogues were France, probably Paris, circa 1375, acquired with funds from the and is now the oldest complete Richard Landon / Marie Korey vernacular manuscript in the Fisher fund. Significant acquisitions in collection. It is written in brown the history of medicine were sup- ink on vellum in a regular bâtarde ported by a grant from Associated hand. A single artist contributed Medical Services. four charming column-width We are extremely grateful to miniatures in demi-grisaille. This donors and colleagues both past remarkable manuscript will be and present whose support has the centrepiece of an academic enabled us to build research collec- symposium in the winter of 2018. tions of national and international A significant 1559 edition of significance. We also owe gratitude the Book of Common Prayer was to the rare book dealers who find also added to our collections. The these unique items for us and offer original Book of Common Prayer them for sale. Finally, I thank was published in 1549 during the my colleagues, the wonderful reign of Edward VI following England’s break years after the restoration of the monarchy. The librarians in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book with Rome. The 1549 book was suppressed 1662 edition remained the official prayer book Library. Through their expertise, resolve, with the succession of the Roman Catholic of the Church of England until the twentieth patience, sharp eyes, and passion, they have Queen Mary I. In 1559, her sister Elizabeth I century. The Fisher 1559 copy is the third edition made extraordinary additions to the collections reintroduced the book with a few modifications of the first Elizabethan Prayer Book, and the in 2016–2017. It was a most remarkable year to make it more acceptable to her Catholic and first to include all of the revisions required by indeed. Protestant subjects. The 1559 Prayer Book, for Act of Uniformity. With this acquisition, the 3 Not Lost in Translation: Orwell’s Animal Farm Among Refugees and Beyond the Iron Curtain Ksenya Kiebuzinski Petro Jacyk Resource Centre mong the many significant specifically intended for an Eastern European Jones, the pigs, and the other animals, stand in anniver saries being commemorated readership. for the historical figures and events associated in 2017, the centennial of the Russian In early 1944, Eric Arthur Blair (1903–1950), with Russian history since 1917. ARevolution is among the most important, known better by his pen name George Orwell, Animal Farm’s path to publication was not offering an opportunity to reflect on one of completed the manuscript of Animal Farm in straightforward. Although under contract the defining political events of the twentieth which he sought to condemn tyranny univer- with Victor Gollancz, Orwell’s publisher century. The political allegory Animal Farm, sally, and particularly to destroy the myth that rejected the manuscript because it was too its publication history, and reception by the the Soviet Union was a truly socialist society. obviously critical of the Soviet Union, which peoples most affected by the Revolution’s He began writing the novel immediately after was a crucial ally in the war against Hitler’s long-term consequences, present unique the Tehran conference in late November 1943. Germany. The firm of Nicholson & Watson perspectives from which to look at dissenting At this strategy meeting between Joseph Stalin, considered it in ‘bad taste to attack the head of voices to the rise of the Soviet Union and its Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill, an allied government in that manner.’ André role in the aftermath of the Second World the Soviet Union gained tentative concessions Deutsch feared risking capital he did not War. With the recent purchases of this modern on Eastern Europe from the United States and have. T. S. Eliot, a director at Faber & Faber, classic in a rare Serbian translation, and just Britain. Later, leaders of the ‘Big Three’ — the praised Orwell’s style and compared the novel this past March, of a unique Russian copy United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the to Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, yet rejected the revised in the hand of its translator Gleb United States — confirmed these terms at the manuscript because ‘we have no conviction Struve, this year also offers us an opportunity wartime conferences of Yalta and Potsdam. that this is the right point of view from which to review the several noteworthy editions and Orwell leveled his criticism at the two western to criticize the political situation at the present translations of the satirical novel held by the leaders’ compromise with Stalin using animals time.’ Jonathan Cape said yes, but reversed Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library that were to represent human vice and folly. The farm, Mr. his decision following a visit to Peter Smollett 4 OPENING PAGE: Dust jacket from the first Canadian edition of Animal Farm, 1946; Myroslav Hryhoriïv’s cover illustration for the 1947 Ukrainian translation, Колгосп тварин (Collective Farm of Animals); title page of the advance copy of the first American edition of Animal Farm, 1946. FACING PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: 1981 Polish translation, Folwark zwierzęcy with cover illustration by Andrzej Krauze; 1984 reprint of 1974 Odnowa edition, originally published in London; two coloured plates from lithographs by Jan Libenstein, printed in the 1985 large format, hardcover edition of Folwark zwierzęcy.