SHARP News
Volume 22 | Number 2 Article 1
Spring 2013 Volume 22, Number 2
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This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in SHARP News by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact scholarworks@library.umass.edu. et al.: Volume 22, Number 2
SHARP News Volume 22, Number 2 Spring 2013
of the objects displayed). “Realizing” was ex- on a table, for fuller explanation. Cases Exhibition Reviews plicitly organized according to the four major enclosing various artifacts were grouped ac- areas of the Newberry’s “mission statement cording to five themes: Family; Politics and for the early twenty-first century” that the Commerce; Arts and Letters; Religion; and Realizing the Newberry Idea, library 1) acquire and preserve a broad array Travel. The Newberry 125 is divided into nine 1887–2012 of special collections research materials; 2) sections, corresponding to The Newberry’s sustain the highest standards of collection collection strengths: American History and & preservation, bibliographic access, and reader Culture; American Indians and Indigenous The Newberry at 125 services; 3) encourage life-long learning, as Peoples; Chicago and the Midwest; Geneal- The Newberry Library, Chicago well as civic engagement; and 4) foster re- ogy and Family History; History of the Book; 6 September – 31 December 2012 search, teaching, and publication. The struc- Maps, Travel, and Exploration; Medieval, ture of the exhibit itself and the order of the Renaissance, and Early Modern Culture; These two exhibitions marked the 125th cases, however, were more complex. Preced- Music and Dance; and Religion. Though anniversary of the Newberry Library, from ing the four named sections were three others cross-referenced, the numbered items were its inception a free public library dedicated – Librarians; Building; Employees – and the scattered throughout the exhibit’s quite dif- to education, research, and reference, and cases formed a complex interweaving that ferent groupings, which purposefully (as documented it as both institution and as made the “Recommended Route” necessary. The Newberry 125 stated) created “subject collection(s). Both are closely coordinated All materials were drawn from the Newberry’s categories meant to challenge standard ways with a volume of essays, The Newberry 125, archives, and documented the development of of thinking about the collection,” emphasiz- Stories of Our Collection, which presents an policy and practice from one librarian to the ing their use. Spadafora’s essay’s final section exemplary sampling of the Newberry’s hold- next over the Newberry’s history. discusses other possible arrangements of the ings. Given the impossibility of representing Spadafora’s social history of the Newberry 125 artifacts chosen, noting that many of the the Newberry’s collections comprehensively, is also a history of the intellectual life of Chi- objects fit in more than one category and “are as well as a tendency to eschew master nar- cago for which it has been an axis (with radi- difficult to pigeonhole – a fact worth relishing ratives, the Newberry’s staff collaborated in cal, bohemian Bughouse Square at its front rather than a problem in taxonomy.” selecting a symbolic 125 items, accompanied door). The Newberry’s trustees and librarians The exhibit was fascinating and sugges- by essays that “exemplify and illuminate have always considered the ecology of educa- tive, if somewhat difficult to parse due to what the Newberry has, how and why such tion, knowledge, and information in which the shifting organization, from section to materials have come to us, what we have been all the major Chicago schools and libraries section, case to case, and objects to catalog. doing about and with them since the library’s participate, shaping the Newberry’s activities The catalog, while not arranged chronologi- founding in 1887, and why they matter to us accordingly. Beyond the contributions of the cally, feels more coherent in the presentation and our community,” as David Spadafora, scholars who have served as librarians and cu- of each object with its accompanying brief present Newberry Librarian, notes in his rators, the Newberry’s impact on intellectual essay, and is a handsome volume, with lavish introduction to the volume. “Realizing the life has been both broad and deep, ranging illustrations and a generous index. While the Newberry Idea” is in many ways a version of from local education to international schol- bibliographical information might have been Spadafora’s introductory institutional history, arship, as documented in the exhibition and ... /2 while “The Newberry at 125” exhibits the in more comprehensive detail in Spadafora’s objects in the catalog portion of the book. essay. Scholars of modern intellectual and Contents Yet neither exhibit replicated the book, and, academic life will find much of interest both for better or worse, both exhibits seemed to in the essay and in the entries, the cross-refer- Exhibition Reviews 1 refuse to guide viewers explicitly. ences of which weave a complex profile. Clearly, discomfort must have prompted “The Newberry at 125” lacked either a Book Awards 5 the creation of the handout “Recommended pamphlet overview or a “Recommended Book Reviews 6 Route through the Exhibition,” provided for Route through the Exhibition,” and the viewer E-Resources Reviews 12 “Realizing” in addition to its pamphlet; only entered the space without clear orientation. As We Speak 14 a copy of The Newberry 125 was available as Signage categorized cases and identified the In Short 16 guidance beyond explanations on doors and objects within them by essay number, direct- Bibliography 16 walls (both exhibitions provided printed lists ing the viewer to The Newberry 125, available The SHARP End 16
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... /1 fuller, such details are available in the online (transmutation), and “The Great Work” of SHARP News catalog, while the information in the essays is Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton, fathers of not available elsewhere. For SHARPists, the modern science. All of the cases are similarly editor book will provide much fodder for consider- designed, with imagery from contemporary Sydney Shep, Wai-te-ata Press ing artifacts within their information universe, texts in the background of each case situating Victoria University of Wellington as well as their dissemination and reassembly the objects in a historical context. Succinct, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand 6140 at the Newberry. informative passages accompany the texts, [email protected] Linde M. Brocato all of which seem to have been selected for University of Memphis visual impact and variety as well as scientific Editorial Assistant - 22.2 importance. Sara Bryan The Newberry 125: Stories of Our Collections. Introduc- The case on transmutation contains vari- Publication Assistant, Wai-te-ata Press tion by David Spadafora. Chicago: The Newberry ous editions in multiple languages of Basil Library; dist. The University of Chicago Press, Valentine’s Keys, cleverly juxtaposing illustra- Review Editors 2012. 220 pp. ill., facsims., chiefly color; index. tions of a famous alchemical allegory: a roost- Fritz Levy, Books – Europe ISBN 9780911028270. US $45. er eating a fox, eating a rooster, representing University of Washington, WA, USA the volatization of gold into gold chloride. [email protected] c The final case features texts by Boyle and Millie Jackson, Books – Americas Newton, who corresponded about a recipe University of Alabama, AL, USA The Alchemical Quest for the famous Philosopher’s Stone. Newton’s [email protected] The Chemical Heritage Foundation, very manuscript containing two of three Susann Liebich, Books –Australasia/Pacific Philadelphia stages in the recipe is included here, along Victoria University of Wellington, NZ 2 July – 31 December 2012 with the third edition of his Opticks (1718) [email protected] and the first edition of Boyle’s masterpiece Abhijit Gupta, Books – South Asia The first exhibit mounted by James Voe- The Sceptical Chymist (1661), a foundational Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India lkel, Curator of Rare Books for the Othmer text for modern chemistry. A quotation from [email protected] Library of Chemical History, “The Alchemi- the thirty-first query in Newton’s Opticks Lisa Pon, Exhibitions cal Quest” explores the role of alchemy as the decorates the wall behind this final case, Southern Methodist University foundation of modern chemistry, making use philosophizing whence the “Phænomena of Dallas, TX, USA of new scholarship at odds with the occultist Nature,” and, appropriately, leading the visitor [email protected] school of thought on the science. Synony- back into the permanent exhibit beyond the Katherine Harris, E-Resources mous terms in the sixteenth and seventeenth glass wall: “Making Modernity.” San Jose State University, CA, USA centuries, alchemy and chemistry derive from A truly modern addition to “The Alchemi- [email protected] the Arabic al-kimiya, which, among other cal Quest,” and the first of its kind employed in a rare book exhibit, in the U.S. if not the bibliographer terms, greets visitors in bold script on the Meraud Ferguson Hand front wall of the exhibit space designed with world, is the MonkeyBook, an interactive virtual Oxfordshire, UK the assistance of artist Keith Ragone in the book that allows patrons to “flip pages” from [email protected] Clifford C. Hach Gallery. Along the same wall, two of the real books present in the exhibit the first of five cases introduces the visitor – Johann Conrad Barchusen’s Elementa chemiae to alchemy through the ages with books on (1718) and Epimetheus’s Pandora (1582) subscriptions medicine, metallurgy, distilling, and alchemical – which have been enhanced with animated The Johns Hopkins University Press theory. The cases are arranged like lab tables, imagery, including helpful translations into Journals Publishing Division and the room is decorated with an allegori- English, by Night Kitchen Interactive. Users PO Box 19966, Baltimore, cal image of two figures on a mountaintop will note, however, that the “digital book” is MD 21211–0966 rising fifteen feet on the rear ceiling, guiding not altogether true to the physical objects it [email protected] visitors on a visual quest as they approach, represents. Most notably foliation has been c with evocative quotations and captions on removed and imagery slyly (and seamlessly) the adjacent walls. reordered to adjust the reading experience. SHARP News [ISSN 1073-1725] is the quarterly Showcasing the highlights of the Othmer Patrons may also wish to explore the Chem- newsletter of the Society for the History of Author- Library – a collection that began with the per- ical Heritage Foundation website,
Beatrix Potter: tales and reflect her creativity and knowledge alike. More than a century has passed since The Picture Letters of her reading public. A single case contains Potter first composed her picture letters and The Morgan Library & Museum, her later, less famous works. Yet another case published her charming tales that still delight contains several samples of early illustrations of readers of all ages. New York City of other authors’ works along with French Miriam Kahn 2 November 2012 – 27 January 2013 and German translations. Kent State University, Ohio Potter’s creativity reflects her passion for Enter the world of Beatrix Potter (1866– nature, animals, and the world of flowers. 1943), the creative artist of your favorite c In these images, the visitor experiences the childhood friends and books. Until late Janu- evolution of Potter from student of nature ary, Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Jemima to passionate illustrator and author. The il- Marcel Proust and Swann’s Way: Puddle-Duck and many others inhabited lustrations which began as nature studies are the exhibit cases on the second floor of the 100th Anniversary carefully paired with pages from her finished Morgan Library & Museum. John Bidwell, The Morgan Museum and Library, books of animal and fairy tales. Original pen Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings New York City and ink drawings of animals later seen in Pot- at The Morgan, organized this interesting 15 February – 28 April 2013 ter’s tales grace the walls of the gallery. Some exhibition of materials from the Morgan’s are studies of animals, particularly rabbits collections, various private holdings, the Vic- In the early years of the twentieth cen- and mice, other drawings are of plants and toria and Albert Museum in London, and the tury, Marcel Proust set out to translate into gardens that find their way into backgrounds Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton. For French the works of John Ruskin. Because of to her books. A rare pen and ink illustration a scant three months, Beatrix Potter’s letters, Proust’s imperfect English, he had help from of Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage or more precisely, her picture letters were on his former lover, the composer Reynaldo drawn by rabbits, rats, mice and moles is display for scholars, readers, and the young Hahn, and his mother. His work on Ruskin displayed. This illustrated fairy tale was a gift at heart. Charming missives, carefully written brought him to Giotto’s glorious 14 frescoes to her fiancé, Norman Warne, just before his to nephews and other children, represent of the Virtues and Vices in the Scrovegni untimely death. Aside from these letters and the initial drafts of Beatrix Potter’s famous Chapel in Padua. In 1905, Proust’s mother drawings, the walls are stenciled with images books, fairy tales, and short stories. The most gave him a New Year’s gift of Ruskin’s from Potter’s books. Peter Rabbit hops with famous is the “Peter Rabbit Picture Letter” work, which had representations of Giotto’s his furry friends, Jemima Puddle-Duck wad- sent to Noel Moore in 1893, which contains frescoes. Proust, who had earlier published a dles through puddles, and mice, lots of mice, the original rendition of the timeless tale. poorly received volume of articles and essays, scamper and cavort along the walls. Readers Each letter is paired with color drawings, Les plaisirs and les jours, began his famous six- of all ages will smile at their antics. manuscript copy, lithographs, color prints, volume novel (in seven parts), À la recherche While there is no exhibit catalog, the Mor- or finished books. du temps perdu, with the idea of structuring the gan gift shop contains copies of anthologized, Nearby cases contain picture letters by novel around Giotto’s frescoes. separate, and animated stories for visitors literary greats Thackeray, Richard Doyle, The Morgan Museum and Library has along with stuffed animals, toys, and note and Edward Lear along with their associ- mounted an exhibition of manuscripts, pho- cards. There are several biographies and mon- th ated books and illustrations, examples of tos, and first editions for the 100 anniversary ographic studies by members of the Beatrix this charming Victorian literary genre. While of the first volume, the over-3,000-page Potter Society for visitors who want to learn Thackeray, Doyle, and Lear’s picture letters work, Du côté de chez Swann [Swann’s Way]. more about this creative author, nature lover, are of adult subjects and contemporary This compact exhibition of approximately and early conservationist. Furthermore, the on- politics, Potter’s tell charming stories of her 50 items, most coming from the Bibliothèque line exhibit, at
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... / 3 illustrate the way in which Proust edited and Rooms of Wonder: From toward the development of museums. What changed his work. One of the most famous Wunderkammer to Museum we now view as motley assortments of odd first lines in literature, the opening ofSwann’s specimens were transformed into modern in- Way: “Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne 1599–1899 stitutions constructed for purposes of public heure” (For a long time I went to bed early), The Grolier Club, New York education, intended to establish a shared cul- was inserted by Proust in the 1909 first set 5 December 2012 – 2 February 2013 tural heritage and social history. The second of corrected proofs, replacing a longer, less half of the exhibition moves from objects compact and resonant sentence, one that In recent months the Grolier Club’s first to their repositories and contexts, showing wrote of his illness, how he would stay up floor public gallery was filled with truly how the collections appeared when they were all night, went to bed only during the day. wonderful books and prints. This immensely framed by nineteenth-century museum and Similarly, in the third set of corrected proofs, popular exhibition was perhaps The Grolier’s gallery architecture, enhanced by botanical in which the publisher Grasset made Proust first blockbluster show. Its banner image of conservatories and garden settings. cut almost one third of the text, he added a fanciful crocodile with a curly tail drew The genesis and context of this exhibition another famous, but not originally intended, viewers in from the icy New York streets. is bibliophilic; it presents some remarkable last line: “To think that I’ve wasted years of Drawn principally from Grolier member Flor- past collectors, including Horace Walpole my life for a woman who didn’t appeal to me, ence Fearrington’s collection, the exhibition and Captain Bligh’s wife Elizabeth by means who wasn’t even my type” (written in Cahier tells the story of the history of collecting in of their collections’ sale catalogs. At the 19 as part of a dream episode). Europe by means of the books which collec- Grolier Club, the cases were divided into ten In Les plaisirs and les jours, Proust did not tors published to promote and sometimes to sections: Beginnings; Increasing Popularity; treat his family as sympathetically as in À la sell their collections. The display cases were Tourism; Specialization; Institutionalization; recherche. But in Swann’s Way, the mother be- punctuated by a few well-chosen specimens; Economic Aspects; America; British Isles; comes an overwhelming presence for young most notable among them was the petrified Peter the Great; and Compartmentalization. Marcel. As early as 1895, a when Proust was inflated blowfish who looks back at viewers The exhibition concludes with a Japanese staying with Reynaldo Hahn, his mother with appropriate surprise. collector’s 1785 album of corals, minerals, wrote and emphatically ordered him to report Such strange objects arrived in Europe fossils, and oddly shaped stones. Although the exact hours of his going to bed and his with returning explorers, missionaries, and cabinets of curiosities could seem to witness rising in the morning. This memory of her traders; these early voyages paved the path a particularly European activity in which become central to this first volume. for tourism. Artists traveled with the fleets, acquisitive passions are intertwined with We don’t need these notebooks, manu- depicting the sources of the wonders. Back desire for social prestige, the elegance of the scripts, and so on to greatly enjoy the novel, home, artists were commissioned to depict natural specimens and strange stones in the but they do illuminate the creative process and specific examples or the entire assembled Japanese example imply that collecting is a how important rewriting and editing are to the collections to publicize them. The collec- basic impulse. final product. Proust found his voice in writ- tors tended to be doctors and pharmacists, The exhibition has an attractive, illustrated ing down his thoughts and ideas and struc- but they were also scholars, botanists, and 124-page checklist with brief bibliographic turing a masterpiece. To take one instance armchair travelers. There was a taste for descriptions. Now in its second printing, the among many, in Cahier 28 he writes, “A work the extraordinary and even monstrous; the checklist is available from The Grolier Club. of a art begins to exist from the moment that Wunderkammer’s most sought-for objects A full catalog is planned. The exhibition was style appears.” We should all heed his words. included crocodiles, mummies, and freaks shown in an abbreviated version in 2011 in (Earlier, Schopenhauer similarly said: “Style of nature. A two-headed version of anything the Houghton Library at Harvard University; is what gives value to thoughts.”) was always appreciated. The signature image it will be shown at Grinnell College in Iowa It is unfortunate that with the ubiquity of of the Wunderkammer is a large preserved from 5 October to mid-December in 2013. edited works on computer files that disap- crocodile, often depicted hanging from the pear after the publication, such literary his- ceiling: the image is taken from the apothecary Marcia Reed tory will rarely be possible in the future. For Albert Seba’s collection which was later sold Getty Research Institute example, most of us remember how Marcel to Russian emperor Peter the Great. dips the madeleine into a cup of tea. But we The exhibition features shells, an impor- c see from the many changes in the typescripts tant foundational area of collecting which is and proofs, that it was first a piece of toast, the particular passion of the curator, who spe- Very Like a Whale: then biscottes, and finally the madeleine that cializes in malacology. Early collections fre- An Exhibition of Books and quently included fossils, and as the narrative unleashed thousands of pages of memory. Objects, with Photographs by Would we have that type of material that illus- of history itself was elaborated, collections trates Proust’s progress available to scholars in increasingly included antiquities, blurring the Rosamond Purcell today’s writings? Anyone interested not only lines between nature, art, and archaeological Folger Shakespeare Library, in Proust, but in the creative process, should specimens. The exhibition highlights the mi- Washington, D.C. run to the Morgan and savor this little gem lieu of collecting with portraits of the collec- 16 October 2012 – 6 January 2013 of an exhibit. tors, and the libraries and halls where objects Larry E. Sullivan were organized and displayed. These early This breathtakingly polymorphic and City University of New York cabinets of curiosities were a significant step carefully arrayed exhibition of books, prints, https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol22/iss2/1 4 et al.: Volume 22, Number 2 SHARP News Vol. 22, no. 2 Spring 2013 d
artifacts, and natural objects – accompanied The themes of the show are myriad: the by artist Rosamond Purcell’s photographs and image of an inconstant yet inevitable early Book Awards Shakespeare text selected by Folger Director modern Fortuna; Renaissance textual, archi- and early modern scholar Michael Witmore tectural, and mechanical apparatus for the – transforms the Folger Shakespeare Library production of visual illusion and the conduct Congratulations to longstanding SHARP- into a contemporary Wunderkammer. Staging of war; the porous and metamorphic borders iste Dr. Linda E. Connors (C ’64), Senior what co-curators Purcell and Witmore de- separating mineral, animal, and human (Atha- Librarian for Collections Emerita, for win- scribe as “the form-engendering power of nasius Kircher’s project to decode the syntax ning the Bela Kornitzer Award for the best the Renaissance mind,” the exhibit argues for of birdsong, connected to Gasper Schott’s non-fiction book published in 2011-12 by the richness of the early modern analogical imagined piano of tortured, yowling cats); a Drew University Alumnus. Her work, co- inclination, shifting among text, image, and the forms of early modern life born from the authored with Canadian SHARP-iste Dr. thing. allure and duplicity of objects (mountebanks, Mary Lu MacDonald, is National Identity in Purcell’s photographs were first published counterfeiters, and rag-picking foragers); and Great Britain and British North America, 1815- in their earlier collaboration, Landscapes of so on. The exhibition closes with the twin 1851: The Role of Nineteenth-Century Periodicals the Passing Strange: Reflections from Shakespeare figures of knowledge derived from the book (Ashgate, 2011). The Bela Kornitzer Award (W.W. Norton, 2010). Her remarkable images of nature and bookish knowing that recodes was established in 1992 by Alicia Karpati capture reflections transformed by the shim- natural reason into fantasy, connected by the and her late husband, George Karpati, in mering, age-pitted surfaces of double-layered burnt pages of a Second Folio. Here, natural recognition of the achievements in Hun- mercury glass bottles. Beginning with pictures historian Caliban knows and lives his book gary and the United States of Hungarian- of determinate things – a tree limb, a body, of secrets by reading the alphabet of barna- born journalist and author Bela Kornitzer a meadow, a bolt of cloth – Purcell dissolves cles, calculating the equations embedded in (1910-1964), Mrs. Karpati’s brother. Past intentional representations into evocative the patterns of a leopard tortoise shell, and winners include SHARP-ist Jonathan Rose image-fields textured by the vicissitudes of a joining nature and art in an astonishing terra for The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes bottle’s curvature and the dendritic crystalliza- cotta amphora entirely encrusted in tube- (Yale University Press, 2001). The awards tion in its silvered tain. Strictly speaking, she worm shells. In contrast, Prospero radically were announced at the January 19, 2013 bien- photographs neither landscapes nor objects annotates diagrammatic texts at the edge of nial Library Gala by Noémi K. Neidorff, who but anamorphic distortion itself. The forms abstraction: a sixteenth-century grimoire with paid tribute to her uncle and to her parents within this distortion, in turn, emerge through images and incantatory formulae for sum- who established the award in his name, and the mirror of Witmore’s visual and rhetorical moning angels and demons, a 1569 Venetian presented by Vivian Bull, President and An- imagination, attuned to similitude, analogy, De oratore in which Cicero reveals the art of drew Scrimgeour, Dean of Libraries. synecdoche, and prosopopoeia. Together, endowing words with the power to move Purcell’s images and Witmore’s fragments souls, and the Folger’s lavishly illuminated of plays and sonnets allusively express the and extensively annotated copy of Erhard c power of Shakespeare’s own anamorphic Ratdolt’s 1482 Euclid, the first book to include language: fantastic evocations of imaginary printed diagrams. And belated congratulations to another spaces, delicate metaphors for existential The thread through this labyrinth is the longstanding SHARP-iste, Christine Pawley, affect, immanent and inescapable memories, paradoxical logic of Renaissance verisimili- for winning the 2012 triennial E. Jennifer and impossible assemblages of words and tude: truth that is also illusion, likeness that de- Monaghan Award, for an outstanding book things. pends on difference, natural objects revealed in the history of literacy from the History These connections are developed in more as products of inhuman artifice, and human of Literacy Special Interest Group of the than a dozen exhibition cases, each consisting artifacts recapitulating the variability of nature. International Reading Association. Her book, of books, prints, objects, photographs, and This logic joins the naturally imprinted world Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Shakespeare passages. One, for example, with the printed page and photographs of Library in Cold War America (Amherst, Mass.: brings together performance, whale imagery, anamorphic distortion with the Shakespearean University of Massachusetts Press, 2010) tells and natural artifacts with a saucy passage corpus. Purcell and Witmore have produced a the story of an controversial experiment in from Merry Wives of Windsor comparing a complex and magnificent exhibition very like library service to two Wisconsin counties troublesome man to a whale thrown ashore the library it inhabits. during the early 1950s. Using interviews, by a tempest. Fossilized whale vertebrae and Digital images of several books, objects, archival records, and library records, she inner ears resonate with a narwhal horn, Pur- and Purcell photographs from the show can reveals the choices of ordinary individual cell’s “Leviathan,” and her “An Empty Set,” be seen in the Folger’s “Very Like a Whale” readers, showing how local cultures of read- keyed by Witmore to further passages from A flickr photoset,
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Edwin Duyckinck. In the second section of wake of a literary business world increasingly Book Reviews the book, Dowling draws our attention to shaped by global capital and textual mobility less strictly professionalized relationships, is one that must be given serious and careful asking us to consider whether “spousal consideration by book historians and literary David Dowling. Literary Partnerships and partners (or surrogate spouses) offer their scholars alike. Dowling is subtle and nuanced the Marketplace: Writers and Mentors in Nine- counterparts who are professional authors, in his understanding of the intricacies of teenth-Century America. Baton Rouge: Loui- especially women, better types of support, the financial, literary, and social worlds that siana University Press, 2012. 248p. ISBN inspiration and guidance than traditional shaped the nineteenth-century American 9780807138472. US $47.95. author-publisher relationships” (63). Dowl- literary marketplace. ing uses a variety of intimate relationships as Jennifer Scott In this compelling study, David Dowl- examples of the complicated nature of the Simon Fraser University, Canada ing provides a much-needed glimpse into American literary marketplace in the long unconventional models of author-publisher nineteenth century. Beginning by considering c relations in the United States from the early the parent-like relationships between Ralph nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Liter- Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry Colin Franklin. Obsessions and Confessions of a ary Partnerships, which “examines authorship’s David Thoreau, moving to an examination Book Life. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Books, nonmonetary economies of exchange” (6), of Rebecca Harding and L. Clarke Davis’s 2012. viii, 262p. ISBN 9781584563044. Cloth, uses case studies of six literary figures to offer marriage and professional life, and then US $49.95. a new perspective on the changing American turning to the loving friendships between literary marketplace over the course of the E.D.E.N. Southworth and Robert Bonner, Colin Franklin will turn ninety in October nineteenth century. Dowling opens with the and between Fanny Fern and her publishers, this year. He has had a long and distinguished claim that “an entire industry cropped up to Oliver Dyer and later Robert Bonner, Dowl- career as an antiquarian bookseller, and he has support authorship’s professionalization” (2), ing concludes his book with a consideration published many books on fine printing and re- and it is the ongoing evolution of profes- of the friendship between Ernest Hemingway lated subjects. Before becoming a bookseller, sional authorship that acts as the foundation and Gertrude Stein. Franklin worked in the publishing trade at for Dowling’s text. The trope of American For Dowling, using familial and friendship Routledge, where he learned about the basics professionalization has been under critical models to understand professional relation- of type, book design, and the retail side of scrutiny as of late. Leon Jackson’s remarkable ships facilitates a more holistic understanding the new book trade. (Perhaps his funniest The Business of Letters (Stanford UP, 2008), of how in the nineteenth century “the real story concerns a book about Bertrand Rus- troubles William Charvat’s foundational commercial entity of the author … took sell which Routledge published because two posthumous work, The Profession of Author- shape in relation to those literary partners” experts who were sent the manuscript both ship in America (1968) and provides a more (182). Dowling’s text highlights the need for gave it a thumbs up. It turned out, however, complex hermeneutic of professionalization less-conventional models of professionalism, that neither bothered to read it because each for authors working in nineteenth-century because, according to Dowling, “business eth- thought the other had read it and counseled America. Dowling’s model, based on ex- ics were in flux, as the patron system gave way publication.) Franklin had discovered William changes between “partners” (2), is less con- to a literary market in which writers worked as Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites as a college cerned with authorial professionalization and entrepreneurs with no loyal ties” (70). How- student, so when he decided after twenty years instead reads authorship as a “component of ever, literary patronage is a complex and trou- as a publisher to become a rare bookseller, it publishing history” (5), examining how close bled concept in post-Civil War America, and was not surprising that he should specialize personal relationships blur the lines between Dowling’s text could benefit from a longer in what Morris called “the book beautiful.” social, familial, and professional worlds. How- discussion of the American patron system if Franklin is rather vague about the issue in his ever, throughout Literary Partners, the idea of this is the model Dowling’s sample authors are “confessions,” but it is no secret that he came authorial professionalization is one that crops moving away from. Where Literary Partnerships from a distinguished and wealthy family, so up again and again, and a clearer definition shines is in Dowling’s ability to demonstrate money was not a problem when he changed of how Dowling defines and understands how personal and professional context can careers in mid-life. He was able to handle professionalism would strengthen the overall fruitfully inform our understanding of the some extraordinary material (the Nijinsky argument of this study. texts borne from these personal-professional diaries, for example, which he bought at auc- Opening with a consideration of what he alliances. For example, in his reading of Fanny tion almost accidentally), and he clearly had a calls the “genteel capitalism” of John Mur- Fern’s relationship with her publisher, Dowl- good eye for books and manuscripts. ray’s relationship with Washington Irving, ing deftly navigates between a close reading This new book of Franklin’s is something Dowling uses extensive archival research to of Fern’s Ruth Hall and its reflections of her of an omnium gatherum. Fewer than a hundred uncover the complexities of personal and personal life and the circumstances under pages are in fact autobiographical, and in professional author-publisher relationships which Fern eventually fosters an emotionally no conventional sense does that part of the at the turn of the nineteenth century. He supportive and economically fruitful relation- book constitute a confessional work in the then looks to Herman Melville’s foray into ship with her literary partners, first Oliver tradition of Augustine or Rousseau or even professional authorship, first through his Dyer and later Robert Bonner. The world William Henry Ireland. Franklin tells stories relationship with his brother, Gansevoort, of nineteenth-century American publishing about his career, and once in a while they and later with long-time associate and friend and the changing role of authorship in the https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol22/iss2/1 6 et al.: Volume 22, Number 2 SHARP News Vol. 22, no. 2 Spring 2013 d
do not reflect well on him, as for example concludes that children’s literature may have limiting children’s conversation with servants when his wife is reported to have remarked been one of the most important agents of (in thorough agreement with John Locke’s that he and fellow bookseller Hans Kraus consensus-building, spreading and solidify- advice to isolate children from servants’ ig- presented “an image of decadence” when she ing the moral and ideological positions that norant superstitions). Children’s own views, watched them examining a copy of Goya’s would characterize nineteenth-century culture. usually expressed in memoirs, record their joy “Caprichos” during a brown-out in London Using the holdings of four extensive collec- in book ownership, with an accompanying caused by a miners’ strike. (It is hard not to tions of children’s books in Britain and the awareness of the adult approval that their think that she was right.) But in general the United States (Cotsen, Hockliffe, Osborne, reading generated. stories constitute a well-known genre within and UCLA), and augmenting them with dia- In his concluding remarks, Grenby notes the book trade and its circle of admirers: sto- ries, correspondence, and subscription lists, that his findings confirm J. H, Plumb’s ries of success in acquiring and selling stuff. Grenby analyzes book ownership by class, observations about an increasing cultural They are fun stories, as such stories always neatly graphing known socio-economic identi- and economic importance of childhood in are to the initiated, but they hardly comprise ties of owners of books in the collections of the eighteenth century and Linda Pollock’s a spiritual odyssey. children’s books (81) and concluding that the conclusions about increasing levels of pa- The remainder of the book, more than “median inscriber was rural, based typically rental “interference” and “intervention” in half in fact, is taken up with a series of mostly in the southern counties ... from the 1770s ... eighteenth-century children’s lives. Gren- short essays mainly on bookish topics. Fran- predominantly female” and that documenta- by’s child-centered approach collapses the klin writes knowledgeably about the Daniel ble cross-reading by religion, gender, class, and instruction vs. delight binary that has long Press, about William Morris (“I am conscious age must have contributed to an “increasing occupied authors and critics of children’s of almost unqualified admiration”), and about coherence of national identity” (92). literature, accommodates children’s material the printers Giambattista Bodoni and William For scholars of childhood and children’s pleasure in books and their contents, and Fowler, the first known to all book historians, literature, conduct books have long mapped unites recent decades’ interest in the history the second a relatively obscure English color out the injunctions laid down by past childrear- of childhood with an awareness of the func- printer whose main subjects were architecture ers, but Grenby is cautious about the extent to tion and contents of early children’s books. and art. He writes in defense of Bowdler’s which conduct book contents reflected actual As a whole, Grenby’s study marks a turning Family Shakespeare, seeing a similarity rather social practice. Grenby’s understanding of point in children’s literature scholarship. than a difference in the bowdlerization of authors’ need to “strike the proper posture” a literary text and a supposed postmodern (111) forms part of his pragmatic Chapter 3 Ruth B. Bottigheimer emphasis on its inclination to vulgarity and investigation of where, when, and by whom State University of New York, Stony Brook obscenity. The final essay comprises a re- specific book genres (fiction and instructional membrance of Franklin’s sister Rosalind, a texts) were read. Chapter 4 examines patterns scientist whose contribution to the discovery of children’s book acquisition (buying, bor- c of DNA is well recognized now, but who died rowing, or receiving as a gift, reward, or prize), at thirty-seven of ovarian cancer and could finding that “the rise of children’s literature Margaret P. Hannay. Mary Sidney, Lady Wroth. not be considered for the Nobel Prize that depended heavily on the gift economy” (192). Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010. xxxvii, 363p., went to three of her colleagues. In the end, In Chapter 5, devoted to the use of children’s ill. ISBN 9780754660538. US $99.95. then, Franklin does return to autobiography, books, Grenby alchemically transforms enor- if indirectly. He gives one pause when he mous quantities of discrete information into Literary scholars regularly interpret Lady refers somewhat snobbishly to “office lives comprehensible behavioral patterns, con- Mary Sidney Wroth’s works through the we never aspired to,” but this final memorial cluding that in the early nineteenth century, prism of her biography, because Wroth’s essay is mostly warm and attractive. children carried on the practice of intensive texts contain seemingly transparent refer- reading long after most adults had given it up, ences to her own life. This trend makes Bruce Whiteman they read actively in a broad range of activities, Margaret Hannay’s biography of Wroth such as creating indexes or rewriting books as – the first full-length one – crucial in many c plays to be performed, and they were often respects. However, Hannay’s biography is supervised by an adult. Grenby replaces com- useful not only to Wroth scholars, but also M. O. Grenby. The Child Reader, 1700–1840. fortable assumptions about children’s reading to those interested in how early modern daily Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. habits in the past with previously unimagined life affected authorial processes and produc- xv, 320p., ill. ISBN 9780521196444. £58. possibilities. tion. Hannay has unearthed archival evidence Chapter 6, devoted to attitudes towards that provides a far more complete picture Grenby’s socio-historical exploration of children’s reading, ranges from certainties of Wroth’s life than we have previously had, marginalia supersedes previous studies of that reading diverts a young person from rectifies several mistaken assumptions, and the place of books in British childhoods in assigned work to convictions that certain offers some corrective interpretations. the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. reading (devotional books) will ease entry into For instance, Wroth’s marriage to Sir Against general expectations, Grenby finds heaven. Other kinds of reading were held to Robert Wroth and her affair with her cousin that “inscriptions indicated that children’s “advance the didactic program” (263), reform William Herbert have been the primary foci literature in the long eighteenth century was children’s behavior, and raise their chances of of scholars trying to understand Wroth’s a predominantly rural phenomenon” (65) and material success, with the collateral benefit of polyglot romance, The Countess of Montgomery’s ... / 8
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... / 7 Urania. While others have argued that Wroth to Wales. If so, and if she took more than Cabin as a drama centered around the child despised her husband, not-so-secretly yearned just the manuscripts of Urania, Pamphilia as well as marketed toward child readers. In a for her cousin, and suffered dramatically as to Amphilanthus, and Love’s Victory, then the particularly compelling example, she unearths a result of Herbert’s consistent infidelities, possibility remains that more works by Lady the rarely studied 1853 storybook Pictures and Hannay offers a far more nuanced picture Mary Wroth may surface. Stories from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to show how of these relationships based on her ground- Kathryn DeZur fiction can ask “readers to experiment with breaking research. Although Wroth indeed State University of New York disparate subject positions,” resulting in the experienced betrayal and pain at the hands College of Technology at Delhi possibility for “white children to see them- of her womanizing cousin, Hannay finds selves as threatened slaves” (109). In contrast, evidence that Wroth may have appreciated c by the turn of the century, sympathy for the her husband more than has been previously slave, Hochman demonstrates, was replaced acknowledged, a finding that encourages Barbara Hochman. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and by crude racial stereotyping, leaving little to alternative interpretations of the characters the Reading Revolution: Race, Literacy, Childhood, no room for white children’s identification or who “shadow” Sir Robert within Wroth’s and Fiction, 1851–1911. Amherst and Boston: moral engagement with the African-American Urania. Moreover, Hannay argues that Wroth’s University of Massachusetts Press, 2011. xv, subject. The shift in tone in children’s editions affair with Herbert, and the illegitimate chil- 377p., ill. ISBN 9781558498945. US $28.95. of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, then, provides Hochman dren born from that union, did not result in with a compelling example of what she calls Wroth’s banishment from court; rather, it was In Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Reading Revo- a “series of cultural shifts” in the era of Jim likely that financial difficulties had far more lution, Barbara Hochman turns her attention Crow, in which “the emphasis on childhood to do with Wroth’s increasing absence from to one of the most iconic American fictions, as a separate sphere – inscribed with increas- court after her husband’s death. This infor- and uses it to organize a study of the multiple ingly rigid divisions of both race and gender mation, in turn, may lead scholars to consider meanings of texts and variety of reading prac- – subverted the autonomy and moral agency the themes of political exile and monarchical tices that shaped men, women, and children’s of young people” (209). prerogative found within Urania quite differ- understandings of their world in the era of For scholars invested in the growing field ently than they have in the past. slavery and emancipation. Hochman, whose of African-American book study, Hochman’s In addition to offering correctives to Getting at the Author: Reimagining Books and biggest contribution is to trace the postbellum the historical record, Hannay provides new Reading in the Age of American Realism (Univer- afterlife of a book whose history is often cited biographical information about Mary Wroth. sity of Massachusetts Press, 2011) gave us a as ending with the Civil War. “Many of Stowe’s For example, Hannay traces Wroth’s child- deft study of the interrelatedness of authors characters became household words within a hood journeys between England and the and readers, is less concerned here with the year or two of the novel’s appearance,” Hoch- Netherlands, her early polylingual contexts, “authoress” Harriet Beecher Stowe than with man writes, “but in the last quarter of the her voracious reading at a young age of texts Stowe’s readership – both real and imagined. century Stowe’s characters were wrenched out such as her uncle’s The Countess of Pembroke’s From tracing Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s early roots as of their initial context and put to new uses” Arcadia and Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, serialized fiction in theNational Era through (152). These new uses, including repackaged and her witnessing of contested courtships its display at the World’s Columbian Exposi- editions with new illustrations on view in the within her family and at court, all of which tion and revisions as children’s literature in “White City” of Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair, likely influenced the narrative of her massive both the antebellum era and the age of Jim show a stunning erasure of images of black romance. Crow, Hochman has brought together an literacy and what Hochman calls “moments Hannay also considers the material cir- extensive group of primary and secondary of interracial contact.” By following Uncle cumstances and processes of Wroth’s literary sources, book illustrations from public and Tom’s Cabin into the 1890s, Hochman argues production. She mentions, for instance, that private collections, and rarely-studied print- new images and revised wordings worked to Wroth had her own separate study within ings of Stowe’s original text to re-read the “marginalize the idea of African American her house at Loughton. Hannay suggests familiar story with an emphasis on images of initiative, ambition, or internality” (190). In that Wroth likely composed Urania within a books and reading. doing so, Hochman has convinced her reader collaborative context that involved reading Subscribers to SHARP News will no doubt to see Uncle Tom’s Cabin as an important text portions aloud to her coterie and to members be familiar with many of the topics addressed for studies of the 1890s. of her household. According to evidence in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Reading Revolu- Early in the book, Hochman argues gleaned from Hannay’s careful examination tion, parts of which have appeared as essays “Stowe’s novel altered the horizon of ex- of Wroth’s manuscripts, Wroth wrote in in Book History, Libraries and Culture, and Pal- pectations for sentimental tales” (31). With short bursts rather than in large chunks, and grave’s The History of Reading series, among a keen eye for analyzing visual culture and composed the lyric poems included in Urania others. The book’s subtitle alerts Hochman’s paratexts, Hochman has altered expectations separately. readers to her four main concerns: race, for new histories of reading, demonstrating Perhaps the most tantalizing specula- literacy, childhood, and fiction, and these the possibilities for deep study of the range tion Hannay offers is that Wroth’s daughter themes are inarguably interwoven in both of cultural meanings ascribed to one book Katherine, who was either with her mother Stowe’s original work as well as Hochman’s and its change over time. In recognition of at Wroth’s death or arrived soon after, took analysis. But Hochman is perhaps most its scholarly contribution to the history of some of Wroth’s most important possessions interested in the intersection of race and reading, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Reading – including Wroth’s manuscripts – back home childhood, and in understanding Uncle Tom’s Revolution was the recipient of SHARP’s 2012 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol22/iss2/1 8 et al.: Volume 22, Number 2 SHARP News Vol. 22, no. 2 Spring 2013 d
DeLong Book History Book Prize, and deserv- jects, categorizing these into at least ten types of the association copy, beloved of many edly so. Hochman’s study will be of interest ranging from congratulatory to unpublished book collectors, and reflects on why it is not to scholars of nineteenth-century U.S. history and privately circulated. Chapter 4, ‘Case Stud- universally approved by bibliographers and and literature, and should have a long life in ies of Text versus Image,’ provides numerous book historians: “That many people regard the classroom, where Uncle Tom’s Cabin is still comparisons of such prints, which were often an interest in association copies of any sort as required reading for countless undergraduate produced in different states with subtle or a manifestation of ludicrous sentimentality is students. drastic changes to images and/or their texts. a fact that must be confronted” (14). Never- Monica L. Mercado Needless to say, Johnson’s point is that these theless, he argues persuasively that old books, The University of Chicago provide both conceptual and technical revela- like other artefacts, deserve respect simply for tions concerning print typologies: “caricature having survived to shed light on history: “we c or satire, popular or savant imagery, gravure en can see and touch what people in the past saw grand or en petit, demi-fine and grand gravure…” and touched” (15). On one level, as Tanselle W. McAllister Johnson. Versified Prints: A Liter- And yet he hedges about conclusions: “The comments – and book historians will surely ary and Cultural Phenomenon in Eighteenth-Cen- question remains whether the accumulation agree – all books are association copies, hav- tury France. Toronto: University of Toronto, of case studies of given prints can ever lead ing been associated with someone. Sensibly, 2012. xi, 131p., ill. ISBN 9781442642850. to a grand synthesis as opposed to a repertory the term is usually applied only to copies of CAD $55. of instances” (55). books which have been owned by people of Appropriately for a volume that focuses on some importance historically. The concept is In five succinct chapters, Johnson defines graphic media, the book is heavily illustrated not new: in 1896, just 15 months into its exist- a remarkable but little-studied genre which with 110 figures that are referenced in the ence, the Caxton Club of Chicago organised spans literature and art. Single works on pa- chapters. Amplified by 23 pages of footnotes an exhibition of “Books interesting through per, these engravings and/or etchings were and a seven-page Bibliography, the 73-page their associations.” accompanied by “letters,” that is, short poems text is supplemented by two Appendices: Whether mere ownership is sufficient to which described, commented, or critiqued ‘Some Print Versifiers,’ with names, dates, and merit ‘association’ status is debatable. Presen- the images. They were most often conceived professional affiliations of the writers, and tation copies, for example, are not necessarily collaboratively by visual artists and poets. Al- ‘Moraine as Versifier for Painters, Draughts- to be treated as association copies – but most though this book focuses on examples from men, and Engravers,’ on the premier versifier of the books in this selection were read by the eighteenth century, the genre of versified in mid-eighteenth-century France. their owners (as witnessed sometimes by prints could be seen as the high end of a long This is a sophisticated report on Johnson’s marginalia or other annotations), in many tradition of text-elucidated images. Com- longtime engagement with the subject, outlin- cases proving to be particularly influential mencing with the late-medieval broadsides ing genres and proposing methodologies for or significant in some way in their owner’s depicting saints, trades (cries), commedia dell’arte further research. Packed with myriad specifics career. The books described (by their present characters and actors, costumes and fashion and striking examples, this slim volume dem- owners or librarians) come from both public together with texts that were frequently onstrates the importance of words to com- and private collections and range in date from rhymed, such popular prints have long been prehending the images, or as Johnson writes, 1470 to 1986. Each of the 200-plus entries favored modes of communication at the low to “reading between the lines.” The book is is complemented by excellent colour illustra- ends of the social spectrum. What is notable recommended for advanced students in the tions of features of note, such as binding, in this latter phase is their popularity with disciplines of art history, French, and cultural title page, jacket, frontispiece, annotation, highly regarded artists and poets, including history, particularly those with an interest in or inscription. members of the Académie Française, as well close encounters of text and image. A few examples will give the flavour of as amateurs and collectors who even penned this eclectic mix. Jane Austen was particularly their comments on the prints more informally Marcia Reed fond of the poetry of William Cowper and in unique versions. In the Preface Johnson Getty Research Institute the copy (now in the Morgan Library, New outlines two basic types of versified prints: York) of his poems that she gave to her reproductive prints where “letters” orient and niece is incribed “Fanny Cath: Austen/June channel viewers’ reception; and prints where c 29. 1808/The Gift of her Aunt Jane”. The text and image were created in tandem. inscription is illustrated, as is the title page, Noting that poetry had such signal im- Susan F. Rossen, ed. Other People’s Books: As- and there are almost two pages of descrip- portance in eighteenth-century France that it sociation Copies and the Stories They Tell. Chicago: tion. Abraham Lincoln’s well-travelled could be called the Golden Age of the Epi- The Caxton Club, 2011. viii, 214p., ill. ISBN copy of Pope’s Poetical Works (now in the gram, Johnson demonstrates convincingly the 9780940550100. US $75. Houghton Library at Harvard) is illustrated importance of versified prints. In chapter 3 he and discussed at rather greater length. Ted spotlights how prints themselves were instru- This lavishly produced book was my very Hughes, Poet Laureate from 1984 to 1998, ments [his italics] of culture (24), and shows enjoyable initiation into the mysteries of ‘as- signed and dated his copy of the complete how the poetry on the prints was an accessory sociation copies’ – volumes deemed to be works of Shakespeare in 1949, the year he of cultural expression. He assigns versified of importance because of who previously began his national service in the Royal Air prints to three classes: poetry on prints, poetry owned them. The informative Introduction Force; the copy has been subjected to heavy about prints, and poetry inspired by print sub- by G. Thomas Tanselle explores the idea use, with much annotation, underlining and ... / 10
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... / 9 the odd doodle. Sylvia Plath destroyed Hugh- significantly, in serialized parts) at various brief Foreword by J. Paul Hunter and a useful es’s other copy of Shakespeare during their price levels, making the novel newly accessi- Introduction by Laura L. Runge. The essays honeymoon: rather than striking her husband, ble to a very much wider audience. Parisian’s in this collection provide informative and “Plath struck instead the next best thing, the detailed study of the printing of the first edi- readable insights into the many components book that more than any other he had made tion of Cecilia uses as evidence not only the of the complex process of book production. his own” (161). This informal, anecdotal kind text itself (complete with its “press marks” In particular, they highlight three key features of book history will not be to everyone’s taste, and illustrations) but also Burney’s letters. of the English book trade in the long eight- but the story of books owned and used by This inclusive approach reveals valuable new eenth century: its capacity for innovation, its famous people is not without interest – or information on printing-house procedures, connectedness in complex networks, and its significance – and the Caxton Club volume is publishers’ costs and payments to authors; surprising diversity of activity. an elegant introduction to the field. it also enhances our understanding of the John Hinks complex nature of the audience(s) for eight- University of Leicester John Hinks eenth-century fiction. Parisian demonstrates University of Leicester convincingly exactly how book history can c – and should – be enriched by working with, c not against, the grain of more traditional Gillian Silverman. Bodies and Books: Reading and bibliographical practice. the Fantasy of Communion in Nineteenth-Century Margaret J. M. Ezell’s essay on “Invisible America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl- Laura L. Runge and Pat Rogers, eds. Producing Books” discusses some very intriguing ideas, vania, 2012. xiii, 226p. ISBN 978812244151. the Eighteenth-Century Book: Writers and Publish- such as Genette’s “paratext as vestibule.” She US $55. ers in England, 1650–1800. Newark: University discusses our expectations of how books “be- of Delaware Press, 2009. 298p., ill. ISBN have” and explains with admirable clarity why Nineteenth-century readers were warned 9780874130690. US $65. printed books “work” differently from manu- against giving into the escapism of reading script books. Ezell presents a convincing case because a text could transport a willing reader The highlight for me of this stimulating for a new way of thinking historically about into a perilous fantasy. In Gillian Silverman’s collection is Betty A. Schellenberg’s percep- books as “dynamic systems rather than static brief but complex book, she argues that one tive essay, “The Second Coming of the Book, objects” (54). Network analysis, an essential of the pleasures of reading in the nineteenth 1740–1770,” which argues persuasively that part of the methodology of book history, fea- century was its ability to simulate intimate this period of book-trade history, often re- tures in several essays, notably Eleanor Shev- contact between a reader and an otherwise garded as fallow, was in fact a time in which a lin’s study of the Warwick Lane network and inaccessible object of desire through a book’s new spirit of experimentation and risk-taking Phyllis Thompson’s reconstruction, based on materiality. According to Silverman, “Readers created new markets and increased profits, manuscript recipe books, of a community of have a voluptuous relation to books, and in reminding us that the book trade has always middle-class readers. Several of these essays handling these texts, they initiate the fantasy been a trade, an angle sometimes underplayed mention the publisher/bookseller Edmund of touching and being touched by those peo- by historians. Schellenberg provides convinc- Curll who, despite his many brushes with the ple affiliated with a book’s narrative world” ing evidence of book-trade innovation in her law, was a key player in the book trade; his use (7). Through their physical interaction with case studies of Samuel Johnson, “theorist of advertising was particularly innovative. Pat books (i.e. reading, touching, holding, feeling of the book,” Samuel Richardson, “print in- Rogers offers a sound reassessment of Curll the weight, etc.) readers can experience an novator,” Robert Dodsley, “experimental in- and his networks, proving that he was less of imagined, ecstatic intimacy with the author, novator,” and John Newbery, “marketing in- an outsider than is often assumed. It is inter- characters, or other readers. Thus, books novator.” The materiality of the book is a key esting to note the geographical spread of the facilitate psychophysiological communion factor here, as it is in Barbara M. Benedict’s London book trade at this period: Curll and with objects of desire otherwise forbidden, essay, “Writing on Writing: Representations some of those with whom he co-published such as “same-sex individuals…the racially of the Book in Eighteenth-Century Litera- were located around the church of St Dun- other, the geographically distant, and even ture” – a refreshingly original exploration of stan in the West, at the opposite end of Fleet the dead” (3). the “thingness” of books in its multiplicity Street to St Paul’s Churchyard and Paternoster To demonstrate her claim that reading of sometimes conflicting meanings. Row. The themes of book-trade location and books was seen as a way to access the body Equally original is Catherine M. Parisian’s networks come together in Allison Muri’s or psyche of another, Silverman draws upon study of the publishing history of Frances description of the pioneering “Grub Street nineteenth-century guides to reading such as Burney’s second novel, Cecilia, or the Memoirs Project,” which provides complex online Noah Porter’s Books and Reading. She illustrates of an Heiress (1782), which makes some im- digital mapping of the London trade and its these ideas through analysis of canonical portant and timely points about the method- connections. nineteenth-century literary works that make ologies of book history. Following Tanselle, Other essays discuss law books (Simon reading and books central to their narratives, Parisian examines the “text of the work” (the Stern), the General Stud Book (Richard Nash), including Herman Melville’s Pierre, Frederick author’s creation) and the “text of the docu- Pope and plagiarism (Evan R. Davis) and the Douglass’s Narrative, and Susan Warner’s ment” (the book as artefact) in combination. fascinating analogy between the organization The Wide, Wide World, “assuaging feelings As soon as Cecilia was out of copyright, sev- of knowledge and the atomistic structure of of isolation and in forging new vistas of eral publishers produced new editions (some, the natural world (Roger D. Lund). There is a relationality” (5). https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol22/iss2/1 10 et al.: Volume 22, Number 2 SHARP News Vol. 22, no. 2 Spring 2013 d 11
Silverman builds on the influential his- naturally; but also the late David C. Smith Invaluable to the modern student of toriography of William J. Gilmore’s Reading (biographer of Wells and editor of his let- Wells, this Annotated Bibliography also contains Becomes a Necessity in Life (University of Ten- ters), whose research spanning four decades a wealth of material that students (more nessee Press, 1989) to reveal that the material informs this helpfully descriptive bibliogra- broadly) of publishing history should ap- circulation of books is not only a matter of phy of the British author’s newspaper and preciate highly. Of particular interest will economics, community, and literacy, but the periodical work. Other bibliographers have be the Descriptive Index of Newspapers imagined strokes and embraces of bodies. compiled relevant information about Wells’s and Periodicals – a full 35 pages in length Bodies and Books also seems to be in indirect huge outpouring of books and pamphlets, – that gives concise summaries of relevant conversation with epistolary scholars like Eve but until now no one has assembled a reli- publishing information (dates of publication, Tabor Bannet, Elizabeth Heckendom Cook, able compilation of the writer’s journalistic masthead leaders, target audience, political William Merrill Decker, Konstantin Dierks, contributions. With more than 2000 entries slant, etc.) for hundreds of titles, running the Elizabeth Hewitt, and others who discuss the (and supplementary sections detailing press alphabetical gamut from The Academy to the “bodily traces” (tearstains, fingermarks, shaky coverage of the author’s public speeches as Yorkshire Telegraph and Star. penmanship) left on intimate letters allowing well as a listing of articles based on interviews This book is a resource not just for re- a reader/recipient to feel connected to an with Wells), it seems unlikely that this volume searchers of Wells ephemera but for anyone absent loved one. Silverman suggests that will be superseded. needing to know more about the contours printed books themselves bear what episto- The instances where it might be sup- of print culture in the Edwardian and post- lary scholars calls “bodily traces”; sometimes plemented have an added touch of pathos, World War I eras. they are direct signifiers, like an inscription of since Smith died before the work was com- Michael Anesko inclusion, or less concrete signifiers provided pleted. Entry #2448, for example, reports The Pennsylvania State University through the books’ written content. an interview of Wells that appeared in the Central to her thinking about identity and New York Herald on 15 April 1906. Smith’s c intimacy is the discourse of psychoanalysis modest notation reads as follows: “The date (particularly that of Leo Bersani and Adam may be incorrect as I am working from notes. Walter E. Smith. Charles Dickens: A Bibliography Phillips). The incorporation of psychoanalysis However, there is an interview at about this of His First American Editions, 1836–1870. into a book history project is both revolution- time in the paper” (329). The almost personal Calabasas, CA: David Brass Rare Books, ary and daring, but Silverman’s clear prose will reminder of a need to double-check for ac- 2012. xxxvi, 420p., ill. ISBN 9780615649030. prevent unacquainted readers from getting curacy should touch a sympathetic nerve in US $95. lost in what could be jargon-laden writing. anyone who understands the selfless labor that Nonetheless, there is a tension between Sil- serious scholarship often entails. Charles Dickens’s bibliography is large verman’s investment in the historical moment The vast majority of entries, on the other and complex. His great productivity, 35- of the nineteenth century as a period that en- hand, are richly detailed and appropriately year writing career, and the nature of his courages the fantasy of communion through cross-referenced when called for. Organized publications have all created challenges for reading and her investment in psychoanalytic by year, each annual compilation is then sub- his several bibliographers. The parts issues theory that suggests this intimacy is less his- divided by source periodical, rather than by of his novels exist in multiple states due to torically fixed. Additionally, one wonders how a strictly chronological order of appearance. changes in illustration and advertisements, the materiality of book production might While one can understand why this method and the first book editions were often made complicate Silverman’s argument – whether was preferred (since it eliminates much re- up of unsold parts. Dickens’s popularity was or not traces of a printer, bookbinder, or dundant printing of periodical names), the as great in America as it was in Britain, so it bookseller might facilitate or interrupt the sheer volume of material included necessarily is surprising that scholarly work on Dickens intimacy found through reading. will frustrate a reader who would like to get a has not, until now, included a serious bib- Silverman’s Bodies and Books consists of clearer sense of what Wells was working on liographical study of his American editions. multilayered and provocative ideas that stay day-by-day. The entries for 1916, for example Because of the absence of international in a reader’s thoughts like a lingering feeling (#1025-1109), require eight pages of print to copyright laws, they were published with of being touched. list and describe them. That Wells was expe- a considerably greater variety and have an Sarah Schuetze riencing renewed interest in religion might be even more complex history than their British University of Kentucky evidenced by entry #1031, “Is Christianity counterparts. A bibliography of Dickens’s a Growing Force in the World?”, an article lifetime editions in America is a welcome c published in Christian Commonwealth on 6 – and long overdue – addition to nineteenth- December (166). A two-part article on “Reli- century Anglo-American literary studies. David C. Smith. The Journalism of H. G. Wells: gious Revival” appeared soon thereafter in the Walter E. Smith, the author of Charles An Annotated Bibliography, ed. Patrick Par- New Republic (20 and 23 December [possibly Dickens in the Original Cloth: A Bibliographical rinder, with a Descriptive Index of Journals, misdated?]), but entries for it are recorded Catalogue of the First Appearance of His Writ- comp. Mike Ashley. Haren, NL: Equilibris, only after an interval of several pages (170). ings in Book Form in England and several other 2012. 431pp. ISBN 9789059760158. €119. A strictly consecutive listing would make the bibliographies of nineteenth-century British possible significance of the topic more con- authors, has given us just that: a large, heavily- This volume is a monumental tribute to spicuous; the adopted method of listing by illustrated volume that documents and begins two men of incomparable energy: H. G.Wells, periodical source tends to obscure it. to unravel the complexity of Dickens’s Amer- ... / 12
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... / 11 ican editions. Until the middle of his career, Toni Weller, ed. Information History in the Mod- the different rhetorical techniques used by Dickens had no formal arrangement with ern World: Histories of the Information Age. Bas- these genres of written information between an American publisher to bring out ‘author- ingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. xvi, 211p. 1800 and 1925. She raises an important point ized’ editions of his works, so these editions ISBN 9780230237377. £20.99, £62.50. in her discussion of broadside ballads, that are a tangle of multiple unauthorized copies these publications were more than infor- (not piracies, per se) brought out by multiple Information history is a field striving for mational (96–97), appealing mainly to the publishers, in several American cities, as soon recognition, inviting us to stand back from emotions. Yet the reception of information as British editions reached American ports. the historical sources we use and reconsider is generally neglected in favour of its pro- Smith contends that editions of the same them as information. The UK’s most prolific duction and circulation, telling us little about work were brought out by different publishers proselytiser for information history is Toni the thoughts or feelings of users, nor indeed within days or even hours of each other. And Weller, the editor of this diverse collection, how these various kinds of information were to complicate matters further, works such as which eschews definitions in favour of seven used. Another limitation is the book’s focus Martin Chuzzlewit and Our Mutual Friend were examples showing how an information per- on information produced within formal, brought out in complete editions by their spective can enhance familiar topics, from the organisational structures. publishers before their own serializations of eighteenth century to the present day, focus- Alistair Black’s chapter on the staff maga- these novels had even concluded. ing mainly on the UK and Europe. zine in the early twentieth century would have In part because of the multiplicity of Of particular interest, Boyd Rayward’s es- benefited from more description to enliven near-simultaneous American editions and the say examines how four citizens of the ‘Repub- the subject, but brings out the power relations difficulty in establishing their place in his pub- lic of Letters’ in sixteenth- and seventeenth- involved in the flow of information around lishing history – not to mention the extreme century France and England led changes in large organisations, contrasting top-down scarcity of surviving American parts issues scientific communication, experimenting with and peer-to-peer approaches. More generally, – Smith quite rightly does not attempt to “new institutional arrangements and social treating information as a category assists the aim for comprehensiveness in this work. His practices for managing information” (32). analysis of information flows within Darn- primary focus is on first American editions Librarian Gabriel Naudé (1600–53), author ton’s communication circuit. and other editions published within a year of one of the first librarianship manuals,Avis It is not faint praise to note each chapter’s or two of their first appearance in America. pour Dresser une Bibliotheque (1627), developed comprehensive bibliography, drawn from Collected editions and other, later, sets are a new vision of the research library, opening many disciplines. Parts of this book have necessarily excluded. The result is a work that it to all members of the scholarly community much to offer the history of reading in their offers great utility as a means for identifying (45). He sounds like the ideal librarian, sharing focus on the taming and herding of informa- first and early editions and reconstructs their information, books, copies of manuscripts, tion, sometimes into texts, and sometimes publication history. Multiple copies of works gossip, research services, and bibliographical into other forms. have been examined and extensively described information with scholars and other libraries Andrew Hobbs to make an authoritative work. In addition to across Europe (42–3). Naudé felt that the University of Central Lancashire bibliographical details, Smith has provided number of books had reached crisis levels, extensive notes for each of Dickens’s major and saw reference works, more systematic works, its publication history, and citations indexing and “new systems of summaris- E-Resources Reviews for many of its newspaper excerpts, serializa- ing and annotating” (50) as solutions to the tions and reprintings, and particularly notable information overload. reviews (Edgar Allan Poe reviewing the first The chapter by Paul Stiff, Paul Dobraszc- Edward Whitley, ed. The Vault at Pfaff’s: An part of Sketches by Boz in the Southern Literary zyk and Mike Esbester emanates from their Archive of Art and Literature by New York City’s Messenger in 1836, for example). Smith has excellent Reading University project, ‘Design- Nineteenth-Century Bohemians. Lehigh Univer- also included over 70 full-page illustrations ing information for everyday life, 1815–1914,’ sity.
library activities. Stephanie Blalock serves as are allowed at the same time. (As a warning, provided support at later stages. associate editor of the site; Abigail Aldrich not all of the papers are completely readable; The Orlando Project was designed to ad- and Elizabeth Wiggins, both PhD students time has damaged parts of a few pages.) dress literary scholarship’s failure to provide in Lehigh’s English Department, are research The search parameters are helpful, but to a comprehensive history of British women’s assistants; and, Kurt Hoberg, a Lehigh under- choose a few names and see where they ap- writing. Fueled by feminist discourses critical graduate, indexed The New York Saturday Press. pear is worthwhile. An open search on Edgar of univocal narratives, the Project is proud of Megan A. Norcia, now an assistant professor Allan Poe (who died in 1849, well before the its integration of technology and content, in the English Department at SUNY Brock- first Saturday Press went to print) shows 2877 meshing Java and an Apache Tomcat servlet port, was instrumental in getting The Vault at hits, quite understandable considering Poe’s server, to store and extract information, with Pfaff’s off the ground, collecting biographi- admiration within the Pfaffian crowd. One the lives of the women on which it is focused. cal data, and assisting in the initial stages of of these Poe entries is a writer who jokes More specifically, theProject utilizes tagsets to conceptualization. that Poe’s signature on an I.O.U. that the encode the various cultural contexts that have Charles Pfaff was a connoisseur – of writer now owns is worth half the price of shaped women’s writing. These tagsets are at food, of drink, and of the artistic community, the original debt – $40. Clapp himself is in the core of Orlando’s contribution to literary cultivating friendships with poets, artists, the database; an open search turns up, among scholarship. Content and structure tags work and writers; it is these friendships that have other entries, his listing in a book of poems together to connect specific kinds of writing yielded the database The Vault at Pfaff’s. Pfaff’s titled Voices from Prison. or chronological information to the writers. most enduring connection would have to The Vault at Pfaff’s went live in September The “Life” tagset organizes tags according be Henry Clapp, Jr., a newspaper editor and 2006 and at present contains over 4,000 texts to various elements such as “Leisure” or Walt Whitman fan, who compiled The New from the Pfaffian community. It is continu- “Politics,” while the “Writing” tagset consid- York Saturday Press sporadically, 1858–66. ally updated and always looking for additions, ers the elements of “Production,” “Textual Clapp left a collection of who’s who that is requesting anyone who comes across Pfaffian Features,” and “Reception.” now meticulously preserved (all 157 issues) connections to submit. This form of organization translates through Lehigh University’s Digital Library. Elizabeth S. Leik directly to the textbase’s configuration. On The website refers to the Saturday Review as Loyola University the left, a menu of searching strategies of- the “literary organ” of this group. In addition fers: “People,” “Chronology,” “Tag Search,” to the Saturday Press collection, the database c “Word Search,” and “Links,” each with ap- links to sources on the web that also relate to propriate related subcategories and tutorials. Pfaffian activity and people. Susan Brown, Patricia Clements, and Isobel For example, searching for Mary Astell under Easily viewed in PDF through the CON- Grundy. The Orlando Project. Cambridge Uni- the People category brings up an “Overview” TENTdm viewer, the Vault works well with versity Press.
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The Orlando Project differs from other da- of reading and readers, however Reading does further. Collection Highlights are akin to the tabases that offer access to static previously provide a massive amount of material that is serendipity that researchers often speak of written texts. Instead, its tagging process digitized and searchable. with some wistfulness as libraries are forced functions as a unique form of scholarship, Reading showcases views of reading as to use off-site storage: Highlights builds that reflecting a new kind of writing about lit- an acquired skill, as a social activity, and as a serendipity into the interface. As part of the erature. The textbase does not offer, for valued and highly engaging act. Correspond- open access initiative at Harvard, the Readers example, encoded access to Astell’s Reflections ingly, the material on the site is organized into site is free of charge. Upon Marriage, but, instead the critical and three main sub-headings for user browsing: Robin Henry interpretive commentary of Orlando’s team. Learning to Read, Reading Collectively, and University of Texas at Dallas As such, The Orlando Project is a valuable model Reading on One’s Own. Printed materials for consideration by those engaged in other are searchable via full-text, as the site uses digital humanities projects. It is a testament to Optical Character Recognition. However, the ability of scholars and designers to work manuscript materials, which may not be ac- As We Speak together, and it practices the literary theory cess through OCR, are best searched through upon which it was founded with every tag finding aides which are available on the Open and link, providing insight and demonstrat- Collections web site, or through individual Tendances émergentes en his- ing expertise with every interface. While, contributing institutions. These materials are toire du livre et de l’imprimé unfortunately, it remains a subscription-only also findable by browsing or through subject Journées d’études 2013 database, the Project’s careful design will re- or creator searches, which do not rely on full Les 21 et 22 mars – Sherbrooke main an inspiration to scholars working to text key words. Navigational help is located Les 5 et 6 avril – Toronto further develop the potential of more open across the top of the site, and a browsing access scholarly communities. menu is located down the left hand side of Le Groupe de recherches et d’études sur Robin Runia the page. The images are quite good, having le livre au Québec (GRÉLQ) de l’Université Xavier University of Louisiana been digitized to a high standard to be fully de Sherbrooke et le Collaborative Program in legible, navigable and portable. Metadata has Book History and Print Culture (BHPC) de c been included to facilitate discovery by most l’Université de Toronto invitent les étudiant- major search engines. One slight inconven- e-s des cycles supérieurs dont les recherches Harvard University Open Collections Pro- ience is the use of frames in the viewing portent sur l’histoire du livre et de l’imprimé à gram. Reading: Harvard Views of Readers, Reader- of digital images, which makes printing and soumettre leur proposition de communication ship, and Reading History. Harvard University, downloading a multistep process. One may afin de participer à des journées d’études. Ces Cambridge, Massachusetts.
autres agents impliqués dans les circuits du graduate researchers from universities across Interpersonal Print livre et de l’imprimé; les travaux proposant de Canada. A Two-Day Conference nouvelles approches de l’histoire du livre et Over two instalments, one to be held McGill University, Montreal de l’imprimé qui s’attachent aux liens entre le predominantly in French at the Université March 21-22, 2013 livre et la société, l’environnement ou les mé- de Sherbrooke and one to be held mainly in dias, en déployant notamment les méthodes English at the University of Toronto, gradu- How did people in Europe between 1700 issues de disciplines telles que les statistiques, ate researchers will explore what it means to and 1900 use printed matter to mediate l’économie, la psychologie et autres sciences; study book history in Canada and attempt and structure their social and interpersonal les travaux considérant le livre sous ses formes to identify emerging trends in the field. The interactions? On one hand, silently reading présentes et futures, de même que la relation organizing committee is interested in innova- a printed book is usually understood as a entre le livre et les autres médias; les travaux tive book history research currently underway solitary activity, even an alienating one. On portant sur la théorie de l’histoire du livre et in Canadian institutions and pertaining to all the other, engaging with printed matter in de l’imprimé ou considérant l’histoire du livre subjects, periods, regions and stemming from particular ways helps to shape large-scale dans une perspective interdisciplinaire (dans all disciplines. groups such as religious denominations and ses liens avec la sociologie de la littérature, Topics of interest include but are not lim- nation-states. Between these two extremes, avec les études culturelles, et cetera); et les ited to: research pertaining to previously unex- however, lies a world of interpersonal print travaux s’intéressant à des sujets qui pourrai- plored corpora or that defies traditional ways that is more seldom discussed. This two-day ent avoir une incidence sur l’enseignement et of looking at well-known corpora; research conference brings together specialists in a sur la recherche en histoire du livre au Canada looking at the authors and other agents related number of disciplines from across North (par exemple les changements apportés à la to book history and print culture; research that America and Great Britain to address the loi sur le droit d’auteur avec le projet de loi considers new ways to approach book history interpersonal dimensions of print culture C-11). and considers the relationships between the from several angles. Pour plus d’informations, veuillez consult- book and society, the environment, and media, Print entered interpersonal relationships er le site web:
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Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2013 15 SHARP News, Vol. 22, No. 2 [2013], Art. 1 16 c Spring 2013 SHARP News Vol. 22, no. 2
Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012. ISBN In Short Bibliography 2503518044. Gilbert Ouy, Christine Reno, Ines Villela- Petit, Olivier Delsaux and Tania Van Hemel- ryck. Album Christine De Pizan (Texte, Codex & Stan Knight. Historical Types from Gutenberg General Contexte). Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012. to Ashendene. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Virginia Brown. Beneventan Discoveries: Col- ISBN 2503543154. Press, 2012. 104p. ISBN 9781584562986. lected Manuscript Catalogues, 1978–2008. Edited Chiara Ruzzier, Xavier Hermand, and Ezio US $39.95. by Roger E. Reynolds. Turnhout, Belgium: Ornato. Bibliologia 33: Les stratégies éditoriales à Brepols, 2012. ISBN 9780888441799. l’époque de l’incunable: le cas des anciens Pays-Bas. Stan Knight and the Oak Knoll Press Amanda Claridge and Ingo Herklotz. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012. ISBN together have produced a splendid collection Classical Manuscript Illustrations. Turnhout, Bel- 978250354390. of specially commissioned photographs illu- gium: Harvey Miller / Brepols, 2012. ISBN minating much of the history of typefound- 190537576X. United Kingdom ing. Each of the typefaces represented is Mary Fairclough. The Romantic Crowd: Sym- Sally Dugan. Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet illustrated with a full-page photograph and a pathy, Controversy and Print Culture. Cambridge: Pimpernel: A Publishing History. Farnham, UK detailed enlargement; Knight then provides a Cambridge University Press, 2013. ISBN and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. ISBN brief description of the press and the printer 9781107031692. 140942717X. (or the typecutter), spelling out just what E. Fournié. L’iconographie de la Bible Histori- Lukas Erne. Shakespeare and the Book Trade. differentiates that typeface from its predeces- ale. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012. ISBN Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, sors. While Knight insists this is not a detailed, 978250353532. 2013. ISBN 9780521765664. scholarly examination of type history, he nev- Anne D Hedeman and Karen Fresco, P. Lendinara. Rethinking and Recontextual- ertheless provides a useful bibliography and eds. Collections in Context: The Organization of izing Glosses: New Perspectives in the Study of Late his text is careful to reference the latest work Knowledge and Community in Europe. Columbus: Anglo-Saxon Glossography. Turnhout, Belgium: on his subject. For anyone interested in type Ohio State University Press, 2012. ISBN Brepols, 2012. ISBN 2503542530. as design, this book is a real bargain. 0814211712. Samu Niskanen. The Letter Collections of Julia Miller, ed. Suave Mechanicals: Essays Anselm of Canterbury. Turnhout, Belgium: c on the History of Bookbinding. Ann Arbor, MI: Brepols, 2012. ISBN 2503540759. Legacy Press, 2013. ISBN 9780979797453. Anna Nyburg. From Leipzig to London: The Life Sean E. Roberts. Printing a Mediterranean United States and Work of the Émigré Artist Hellmuth Weis- World: Florence, Constantinople, and the Renaissance Matthew Hedstrom. The Rise of Liberal senborn. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, of Geography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality 2012. vii, 184p., ill. ISBN 9781584563143. versity Press, 2013. ISBN 9780674066489. in the Twentieth Century. New York and Ox- US $29.95. J. Wilcox, Scraped, Stroked, and Bound: Mate- ford: Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN rially Engaged Readings of Medieval Manuscripts. 9780195374490. One of a number of German artists Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2013. ISBN Jason D. Martinek. Socialism and Print Cul- forced to leave Nazi Germany, Hellmuth 2503545491. ture in America, 1897–1920. London: Pickering Weissenborn (1898–1982) was first interned & Chatto Ltd., 2012. ISBN 1848933347. on the Isle of Man, then settled in London France where he made a career as a freelance painter R. M. Ferré. René d’Anjou et les Arts. Le The SHARP End and cutter of wood-blocks along with running Jeu des Mots et des Images. Turnhout, Belgium: the Acorn Press. Readers of SHARP News are Brepols, 2012. ISBN 978250354468. Our faithful and fearless Book Reviews most likely to have run into him through his Francoise Fery-Hue. Cent Cinq Rondeaux Editor (Europe) Fritz Levy is laying down collaboration with John Randle at the Whit- D’Amour: Un Roman Dialogué pour L’Edification his blue pencil after many productive years tington Press. Anna Nyburg, who holds a du Futur François Ier. Turnhout, Belgium: in the role. Fritz joined SHARP News in doctorate in Exile Studies from the University Brepols, 2012. ISBN 9782503542454. 2006 when your President-elect, Ian Gadd, of London, traces Weissenborn’s biography Christian Heck. Le Ci Nous Dit: L’image moved onto the SHARP Executive. Fritz not and lists many of his publications; in the proc- Médiévale Et La Culture Des Laïcs Au Xive only gathered together an amazing team of ess, she has much to tell us about the impact Siecle: Les Enluminures Du Manuscrit Cond‚ De reviewers, but always managed to fit the right of German and Austrian exiles on English Chantilly. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012. book to the right person. And, being Fritz, if publishing in the years after World War II. ISBN 2503542204. he couldn’t find a reviewer, he wrote himself, Her book is solidly based on the Weissenborn Delphine Jeannot. Le Mécénat Bibliophilique often contributing his pithy insights to our oc- family papers and on interviews held at the de Jean sans Peur et de Marguerite de Bavière casional ‘In Short’ column. Fritz will be dearly Imperial War Museum. Despite its virtues, the (1404–1424). Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, missed, but he remains on the SHARP Board book lacks sufficient illustrations (and some 2012. ISBN 978250354422. of Directors and will continue to advise on of those included are rather muddy) and the Elizabeth J. Moodey. Illuminated Cru- the present and future of our organisation. style is best described as wooden. sader Histories for Philip the Good of Burgundy. Thanks for many happy and engaging years. Good wishes from us all!. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol22/iss2/1 16