Shelving Books the old-fashioned way

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Book Collecting, chained library, ezra the scribe, fore-edge painting, franceso righetti, libraries, odorico pillone, shelving, spines, thomas brooke, william cartwright

These days we tend to shelf books ‘spine out’ and publishers, conveniently, usually reproduce the title, author and other helpful details on the spine so that we can easily run our eyes along a shelf to find a particular book.  But it wasn’t always thus!

This 17th century painting by Guercino shows the Italian lawyer and one time governor of Cento in northern Italy, Francesco Righetti, at home in his library.  Righetti is surrounded by his law books, speaking to his learning and erudition.  But his books are shelved ‘tail end’ out, with the titles written on the base of the text block.

Portrait of Franceso Righetti by Guercino, 1626-8

Look too at this engraving of the poet William Cartwright (printed in 1651 as a frontispiece to his ‘Poems and Plays’).  Again, he’s in his library and his books can be seen – this time with the fore-edges facing out from the shelves and the spines neatly tucked in against the rear walls and hidden.  This was a common practice in the 16th and 17th centuries. Imagine shelving books with gilded page edges in this way – they would have gleamed and glistened, catching the candlelight, in quite a glorious way.  Some medieval manuscripts and early printed books now in rare book collections have the title and other details written on in several different places, reflecting changes in shelving the preferences of owners and book collectors over time.

William Cartwright and his books, frontispiece from his Poems and Plays (1651)

Christmas Gift Books #XmasGiftBook

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christmas, christmas books, gift books, italian boy, lucy worsley, murder, sarah wise, true crime, xmas books

Christmas day is quiet in the BookAddict’s house this year.  For the most wonderful of reasons – the arrival of a healthy, hearty and much loved little boy yesterday, on Christmas Eve, into our circle, our festivities will start tomorrow with Boxing Day, and then our ‘Christmas Day’ on Monday.

That leaves a little time for reading, and blogging, today on Christmas Day and I thought it would be fun to share the books that lovely friends and family have given as presents for Christmas this year.

The Ingoldsby Legends – Mirth and Marvels, 1864, designed by John Leighton. Image credit: British Library

The tradition of giving books and other keepsakes at Christmas has ancient origins but had been largely the preserve of the affluent elite.  Spring used to be the prime time for book production but with technological advances in the early 19th century, printing and books became cheaper and more plentiful and by the 1840s peak time had shifted to October, with publishers and printers rushing out enough gift books, special editions and Christmas reading to assuage the growing demands of the aspiring middle-classes to celebrate Christmas in style.  Authors, too, developed an acute understanding of the potential of the Christmas market.  Charles Dickens wrote Christmas-themed stories for special editions of magazines such as Household Works and All Year Round and in 1843 he published the  perennial Xmas favourite, a Christmas Carol.  Fables, ghost stories and fairy tales were prominent among Victorian Christmas gift books, with new fantasy stories from the likes of Charles Kingsley, Christina Rosetti and Lewis Carroll mixing with retellings of traditional stories and cheap reprints of classic works.

Book hunting! Looking for an old cook book

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cookbooks

okSomeone has asked Books and Bygones, one of my fellow ibooknet booksellers, for help in locating a replacement copy of an old cookbook.  Not such an unusual request, you might think, but there’s a twist with this one.  The book has been so well used – obviously a constant kitchen companion- that it has lost its covers and title page is missing, so the book hunter doesn’t know its title or publisher, or publication date, or any of the other useful information that would usually appear on the covers, title page and copyright page.  So we’re a bit stumped as to what the book actually is, which makes it hard to find a replacement.  All we know about the book is that it’s an old cookbook, probably first bought about 50 years ago, very likely from Woolworths.

The book hunter has sent this picture – it shows an owl surrounded by the words “In Knowledge Lies Wisdom” with the letters L and P either side.   This at least is recognisable – it is the logo of The Literary Press, so at least we now know the publisher, but can you help with any further details?  Perhaps you recognise the logo from one of your own cook books?  Or you know of cookery books published by the Literary Press – or may even have some images you of them you can share to help us narrow the search.

The Literary Press’s owl logo – In Knowledge Lies Wisdom

I know the Literary Press published some of Elizabeth Craig’s cook books, such as ‘Elizabeth Craig’s Simple  Cooking’ but this particular version of the Literary Press’s logo doesn’t seem to match the editions of Craig’s book that I have to hand.  Any thoughts, tips or knowledge very gratefully received.  If we get further details of the book from the book hunter, I’ll post them here.

Louis Wain’s Cats

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anthropomorphic cats, brian reade, cats, Illustration, louis wain, victoria and albert museum

While busy cataloguing mostly interesting rather than beautiful books this morning, I was delighted to come across a wee gem – an extended, illustrated essay on the life and work of the late Victorian illustrator, Louis Wain.

Afternoon at Home by Louis Wain, Design for a picture postcard published by Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd in London, 1922. India ink, water and body colour.

To many these days Louis Wain may not be a familiar name but anyone lucky enough to remember the first few decades of the 20th century may recall being amused by his cat pictures, or have a vague recollection of the public appeals on Wain’s behalf as he ended his life in mental illness.

Stacking the Shelves with Signed Modern Firsts

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Ali Smith, association copy, book buying, Book Collecting, david mitchell, edna o'brien, hyper-modern first editions, modern firsts, public library and other stories, rachel joyce, signed books, slade house, The litter red chairs, the snow garden, wimbledon books and music

Collecting may be a bit of grand term of what is really no more than a wee shelf-full of almost randomly accumulated signed modern first editions. But for reasons I find hard to define I do like to have books signed by the author or someone else associated with the book (the latter more properly called ‘association copies’ than ‘signed firsts’, which implies the author’s signature is present).

I don’t have the funds – or the discipline – to collect actively or pay the hyper-inflated prices of some modern firsts, especially those in fine condition in fine dust jackets. (The recently launched Stanley Gibbons index of rare book prices suggested one might have to pay as much as £24,000 for a nice first edition of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, and that’s without a signature!)  And anyway, I buy books because I want to read them, not to file them away and preserve them, untouched and unspoilt.  But when browsing bookshops, finding a signed first on offer may just be what tempts me to buy that book over another, or to purchase right then and there rather than wait, and think, and probably move on to something else.

This week’s book buying, then, might be defined as one of success for both the crafty booksellers promoting signed modern firsts and for me as I have managed to find four that I wanted to read anyway.

My first find was Slade House by the masterful David Mitchell, spotted as I was taking a shortcut from the London Library to Piccadilly Circus tube through Waterstone’s Piccadilly.  I’ll read just about anything by Mitchell but this one is such a beautiful book so it’s a bit special. I love the way the book has been made to glisten by the tiny cut-outs in the dust jacket.  Those little flashes of red you can see are not printed but the binding cloth glowing through.  So clever and so effective – and just about perfect for a  ghostly-themed novel which must have been specifically timed for Hallowe’en.