Gazette of the Grolier Club

Numbers 11-12 June, 1929 GAZETTE OF THE GROLIER CLUB CONTENTS The Gazette.—A Grolier Binding. —Other Recent Gifts.— Requests for Information.—Catalogues under Consideration. —S. P. Avery, Engraver on Wood.—Auction of Club Publications.—Leonard L. Mackall’s Gift to the Library. The Gazette. ■With this number the first volume of the Gazette ends. This is a volume, not because of any time during which the numbers were issued, but because of the numbers included; and some may say that a volume eight years in the making is rather long drawn out. But such it is, and at this time it is appropriate, in justification of the hitherto size limita- tion, to recall the debt we owe to the first Editorial Committee, Messrs. William A. White, William M. Ivins, Jr., George S. Eddy, Henry W. Kent and the Librarian, and to repeat the following lines from their 226 initial note: “The Committee hopes that the members will like its choice of format, —thin enough to promise brevity, small enough to promise portability, and neat enough to warrant its being found on any bookman’s table. There is no end of models that could have been followed in making such a volume, generally of broad, rather clumsy, Caslonized effects, but the Committee preferred to follow the form of the Gazette Anecdotique, the first volume of which was issued in 1876 by Georges d’Heyli, as looking like, and indeed savoring of, the kind of periodical they had in mind.” Under the guidance of this Committee there ap- peared from time to time seven numbers, after which the Editorship was assumed by Mr. Earnest Elmo Calkins, under whose direction three other numbers have been issued, and now to close the series a double number is issued under the direction of the Librarian. This number, designated as Numbers 11-12, to- gether with the previous numbers designated as i-g and an Extra Number [lo,] make a full dozen, or a complete set, for which a title-page and index have been prepared and are sent herewith. There is now discussion as to the future form of the Gazette, and those who have thought it too small, or too large, or otherwise unsatisfactory, are urged to make suggestions for its future. As heretofore, it is hoped that members will contribute freely to its columns, on matters of interest, “bibliophilic, biblio- maniac and bibliopegic.” 227 A Grolier Binding at Last. -The Council an- nounces the acquisition of a volume most important in the Club’s history, the gift of Mrs. Meredith Hare, daughter of the late member of the Club, Dean Sage. It is no less than a superb volume from the library of Jean Grolier, beautiful in design and in a remarkably fine state of preservation. It may well be designated as the Club’s most significant possession. Other Recent Gifts to the Library. -Specially interesting gifts received since the Annual Meeting include two which describe collections owned by members of the Club. Colonel Ralph H. Isham has presented the three volumes already published of the “Private Papers of James Boswell,” the originals of which are in his possession. The books are distin- guished both because they celebrate an important literary acquisition and because, designed by Bruce Rogers and printed by W. E. Rudge, they are notable examples of fine bookmaking. Mr. William M. Elkins has given to the Club a copy of the exhaustive work of Temple Scott on Oliver Goldsmith, which, beginning as a description of Mr. Elkins’s unique Goldsmith collection, has developed into a comprehensive history of the man and his work. A gift of much literary value has been received from Mr. Charles W. Clark, who has presented to the Library the entire Shelley reference library of Pro- fessor Walter E. Peck, the latest biographer of the 228 poet, consisting of over one hundred works on Shelley, rare portraits, and lines in his autograph. Requests for Information. —Three requests for information from scholars who are preparing important books in the field of English literature have been received lately, and it has seemed wise in the interests of scholarship to lay them before the members, who may send information directly to the en- quirers or to the Librarian of the Club. Mr. M. Buxton Forman, noo Pretorius Street, Pretoria, South Africa, whose bibliographical work is well known, is anxious to ascertain the location, and if possible, to receive photostats, of autograph letters of John Keats. Mr. John DeLancey Ferguson, 545 West 148th Street, New York, wishes information concerning autograph letters and any manuscript materials of Robert Burns which may be in the possession of members of the Grolier Club. Mr. Ferguson is work- ing under the auspices of the Guggenheim Founda- tion. Mr. Michael Sadleir, Woodlands, Addlestone, Sur- rey, England, wishes information concerning ma- terial for a new edition of the Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Catalogues Under Consideration. —ln view of the great interest in the four exhibitions which have 229 been held during the present season, and in response to a very general demand for catalogues, a volume based on the De Vinne Memorial exhibition has been prepared, and a descriptive catalogue of the Kip- ling exhibition is in process of compilation. Before the exhibition of Children’s Books was dispersed, comprehensive notes were taken and it is hoped that they may be a basis for work in this subject. The Bremer Presse is printing a catalogue of the exhibition of books issued by German presses, to which Dr. Willy Wiegand’s address will be added as an intro- duction. S. P. AVERY, ENGRAVER ON WOOD Samuel Putnam Avery, art connoisseur, biblio- phile, donor of libraries; founder, patron and trustee of museums and learned societies; fourth President and constant benefactor of the Grolier Club; discov- erer and friend of artists; public-spirited and philan- thropic citizen—the name is known in one or another of these phases even to a generation which is too young to have felt the genial personality of the man. But S. P. Avery, wood-engraver, means little, even to his surviving contemporaries. It was as a wood- engraver, however, that he began the career which brought him success, distinction and affection far be- yond the average. Among the articles and resolutions brought to- 230 gether in 1905 in a memorial volume on Mr. Avery, not more than two or three of the eighty pages are given to his work as an engraver, the only mention at any length being that of Theodore Low De Vinne, who, naturally interested in the subject, noted the engraving period with such a characteristic grasp of cause and effect that it seems well to quote a few sentences: “At a very early age he found employment in the office of a bank-note engraver, where he had oppor- tunities to cultivate his inclination for the art of design. While yet a boy he began to fill in his spare time with engraving on wood, at which he soon became proficient. Abandoning engraving on copper and steel—an art then most difficult to enter as a master to one who was young in years and of slender purse—- he undertook to make woodcuts for publishers and printers.... Printing was then in a state of transition. The hand press was still used for the printing of woodcuts, but the pressmen who could properlyprint woodcuts were few in number. .. New York printers had to be economical to the verge of penuriousness. .. The period between 1840 and 1850 was that of the comic almanac and the Dave Crockett picture book . and the outlook for a better appreciation of good prints was not encouraging. During these dreary years of hard work and mean pay Mr. Avery was qualifying himself for better things. He studied with zeal and thoroughness the rules and principles 231 that govern all kinds of good art and good work- manship.”* Russell Sturgis writes of a visit to Mr. Avery’s office in Ann Street, about 1864, at which time he was a wood-engraver, but adds that Samuel P. Avery, Jr., told him of prints from an engraving on metal, by John Durant, bearing the further inscrip- tion: “This lettering put on by Sami. Avery, Oct. 1842.” This work of his father, done at the age of nineteen, was the earliest that the son was able to identify, although there had been, of course, the work on metal for the American Bank-Note Company. The entry, “Samuel P. Avery, Engraver, 459 4th St.” appears in Doggett’s City Directory for 1842 and 1843, the address being changed, in the succeeding volume, to 269 Elizabeth Street. Mr. Sturgis goes on to state that it was in 1864 that S. P. Avery resolved to under- take dealing in works of art as an occupation, handing over “his business, his tools, and his plant generally as an engraver, to his assistant, Mr. Pesoa, who con- tinued the business; and it appears that this transfer W'as gratuitous on Avery’s part—an instance of the liberality . which was to be his peculiar characteristic.” In connection with this Mr. Pesoa, Dr. Frank Weitenkampf tells of attending an elaborate little *See also Samuel Putnam Avery—an appreciation (in The American Printer, January, 1906.) 232 dinner given by Mr. Avery, many years afterwards, for his aged one-time assistant. “You know that wood- engraving is rather down,” said the host, in inviting Dr. Weitenkampf. It was on the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street that he opened his “Art Rooms,” and it is pre- sumable that his really active career as a wood- engraver ended with this move, although a woodcut of his studio inserted in Beverly Chew’s copy of “Punch’s Pocket-Book of Fun .

Load more