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<TITLE>Publishers' Bindings Subscribers' Newsletter 2-5-08</TITLE></head>
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<p align="center"><font size="2"><b>THIS IS A SAMPLE OF THE NEWSLETTER SENT TO</b></font><font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="2"><b>
SUBSCRIBERS AND ADVISORS OF<br>
<font color="#800000">
The Second Exhibition of</font><br>
<a href="orderform-subscription2.htm">
<font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="2" color="#800000">
American Decorated Publishers' Bindings, 1872-1929</font></a></b></font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="2">As of March 4,
2008, twelve newsletters have been issued for subscribers to the catalog.<br>
Catalog publication is projected for the fall of 2008.<br>
Pre-publication <a href="orderform-subscription2.htm"><b>discount subscriptions</b></a>
are available.<br>
The catalog of the first exhibition may be in <a href="orderform-subscription1.htm#collections">a
library near you</a>.</font></p>
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      <td width="100%" valign="top"><font size="2">February 5, 2008</font>
        <p><font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="2">Dear Subscribers and
        Advisors,</font>
        </p>
      </center>
    </font>
    <font face="verdana, arial, helvetica">
      <p align="left"><font size="2" face="verdana, arial, helvetica"> There are
      now 100 designs in the database and checklist. The original
      plan for this exhibition called for that to be the total, but now we are
      just one-third of the way through the cataloging, with 200 designs still
      to go.&nbsp;</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><font size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/over-cigar-300.jpg" align="right" hspace="10" width="300" height="427">Today
      I had an exciting moment while cataloging the 1907 Fenno edition of IK
      Marvel's <i>Over His Cigar</i>. You may recall a companion volume from
      this series of excerpts from <i>Reveries of a Bachelor,</i> titled <i>Over
      a Wood Fire</i>, that was in the previous catalog. That was signed W.S.
      and attributed to Will Schrank or Schank, with a ?. The attribution was
      based on Gullans' monogram list.</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/over-cigar-logo.jpg" hspace="10" align="left" width="189" height="99"></font><font size="2">I
      am revising that attribution now, based on this design, also by W.S., whom
      I now believe is W.E.B. Starkweather. Something seemed very familiar about
      this design and it struck me that it was similar to the unsigned 1902
      Starkweather design on <i>March of the White Guard</i>, which also was in
      the last catalog. It's copied here so you don't have to look it up.&nbsp;</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><img border="1" src="catalog/march-white-guard.jpg" align="left" hspace="10" width="174" height="250"><font size="2"><i>Over
      His Cigar</i> is illustrated, but the artist is not identified on the
      title page or elsewhere in the text. The marginal decorations are not
      signed, but the color plates that reproduce paintings are signed on the
      original art, WEB Starkweather 1906.&nbsp;</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/impressions-250.jpg" width="160" height="250" align="right" hspace="10"></font><font size="2">Here
      is something of a mystery: The wonderful design on Lilla Perry's <i>
      Impressions</i> is signed, but what is the signature? Stylistically I am
      inclined to give it to Bernard Grosvenor Goodhue, but the monogram is not
      one I've seen on others of his books, or elsewhere identified. The cloth
      is vertically ribbed and is fairly hard and deep-grained, so all the black
      stamping has green lines running through it vertically, where the cloth
      was not compressed to its lowest level.&nbsp; Was this an intentional
      technique?&nbsp; It's a beautiful effect. But the monogram is broken up to
      be almost unreadable.&nbsp; Here are two enlargements of it--it occurs
      twice, as the design is repeated on the back cover. If you know this
      monogram or otherwise have a clue about this design, please let me know!
      Next to the two instances of the monogram is a notion I had about what it
      actually might be, if it is Goodhue.</font>
        </p>
      <p align="center"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/impressions-sig3.jpg" width="64" height="121"><img border="1" src="catalog2/impressions-sig2.jpg" hspace="10" width="57" height="120"><img border="0" src="catalog2/impressions-sig-notion-120.jpg" width="90" height="120"></font>
        </p>
    </font><p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/his-little-world-300.jpg" hspace="10" align="left" width="300" height="382">Thanks
    to subscriber Robert Beasecker at Grand Valley State U. for suggesting
    several designs, including this 1903 one on <i>His Little World</i>. Robert
    inquired whether I knew who the designer was.&nbsp; It is signed with a
    conjoined AH.&nbsp;<br>
    <img border="1" src="catalog2/his-little-world-logo-100.jpg" align="right" hspace="10" width="100" height="114"><br>
    Gullans
    list had Anna Hasselman, 1903 for the conjoined AH, so I sent that
    information off.&nbsp; Then it struck me that the corner ornaments looked an
    awful lot like Alberta Hall's geometric-Art Nouveau work, as in these from
    the last catalog:</font>
        </p>
    <p align="left"><img border="1" src="catalog/arkansas-planter-2.jpg" align="left" hspace="10" width="204" height="250">
        </p>
    <p align="left"><img border="1" src="catalog/the-boss-1903-asbarnes.jpg" vspace="5" width="172" height="250"><br clear="all">
  <img border="1" src="catalog/the-boss-1903-asbarnes-logo.jpg" align="left" hspace="10" width="60" height="100"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"> 
    Alberta Hall's
    monogram generally has a long descender between the A and H. <i>The Boss</i>
    is also 1903, to confuse matters further. I asked John Lehner if he had any
    Hall monograms with conjoined AH and no descender, and he found one on the
    title page of the Henneberry edition of Ruskin's <i>Ethics of the Dust</i>.
    It's more squared off than the one on the Merwin, but reinforces the
    likelihood it's correct. Although I haven't seen other
    Halls with ships or trees, the stylistic similarity of the design is too
    great. The semi-circle that the ship is in is like the inverted one that
    holds the skyline on <i>The Boss</i>. <i>His Little World</i> is a peculiar
    hodge-podge of elements that seem unrelated&mdash;free floating trees
    penetrating a ship vignette with corners floating in the middle of the
    cover. Far from the crisp designs we usually associate with Alberta Hall.</font><p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/abandoned-farmer-d.jpg" width="299" height="396" align="right" hspace="10"><img border="1" src="catalog2/abandoned-farmer-250.jpg" width="223" height="250" align="left" hspace="10">Last
    year Stuart Walker sent me a list of Evelyn W. Clark designs, and several of
    them will be in this catalog. One of my favorites is this charming 1901
    cottage scene, with its pink sky and foreground blossoms popping out of the
    picture plane.</font>
        </p>
    <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2">The flowers
    in the foreground with white and pink mirror the clouds in the distance,
    both in color and form, creating an unusual visual tension</font>
        </p>
    <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2">In the
    December Newsletter we looked at the 1881 &quot;Lives of American
    Worthies&quot; series binding design, by the artist who was responsible for
    the proto-futurist cover on <i>Aboard the Mavis</i>. Another group from that
    unidentified artist were the Bodley books by Horace Scudder, issued by The
    Riverside Press. What makes this series particularly interesting is that we
    see the evolution of this style as the books were issued.</font>
        </p>
    <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2">Compare <i> The
    Bodleys on Wheels</i> (1879) to <i> Mr. Bodley Abroad</i> (1881).</font>
        </p>
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          <td><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/bodley-wheels-250.jpg" align="center" hspace="10" width="410" height="250"> </font>
            <p>&nbsp;<img border="1" src="catalog/mavis400.jpg" align="center" hspace="10" width="400" height="237">
            </p>
            <p><img border="1" src="catalog2/bodley-abroad2-250.jpg" align="center" hspace="10" width="413" height="250"></td>
          <td valign="top">
    <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2">The
    earlier book already has the proto-constructivist elements in play&mdash;the
    geometric breakup of space, lines and circles, the use of red and black. And
    the free floating elements move through the space, alternately sitting on
    the picture plane as illustration or drawing and floating in it, as the fish
    in the sea.</font>
        </p>
    <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2">By 1881 the use of deep space,
    landscape, and pictorial elements has become
    more sophisticated, building on the <i> Mavis</i> design of 1880. <i>Mr.
    Bodley Abroad</i> goes beyond the others in anticipating future art
    movements, with line work that hovers between what one might regard as
    abstract expressionist and graffiti. Its controlled use in creating
    illusionistic depth is remarkable, such as the way the jagged blue line
    moves around the yellow triangle on the back cover, passing in front of and
    behind it.</font>
        </p>
    <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"> I found another
    little gem, an anonymous undated (&copy;1881) book in Cassell's &quot;Little Folks
    Series&quot; titled <i>Brother, Sister and I</i>.&nbsp;Here the Orientalist
    roots of the style are more apparent, and we have almost the same moonlit
    seascape in the corner, this time resurrecting the sailing ship that is
    floating off the bottom of the back cover on <i>Aboard the Mavis</i>.</font>
        </p>
            <p align="center"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><img border="1" src="catalog2/brother-sister-250.jpg" align="center" width="175" height="250"></font>
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      <p align="left"><font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2">&nbsp;</font>
    <font face="verdana, arial, helvetica">
      <font face="arial, verdana, helvetica" size="2"><br>
      <img border="1" src="catalog2/veil-250.jpg" align="right" hspace="10" width="349" height="250"></font><font size="2">Today's
      extra credit mystery challenge: Who created the wraparound design for
      Holt's 1922 issue of Walter de la Mare's <i>The Veil</i>?</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><font size="2">Not shown in today's Newsletter but now in
      the checklist are about 20 others that have been added since the last
      newsletter, including a 1906 design by Amy M. Sacker on Louisa May
      Alcott's <i>Jo's Boys</i>, a 1905 Rome K. Richardson cover on F. Marion
      Crawford's <i>Fair Margaret</i>, and an undated, unsigned design I
      attribute to Edwin A. Abbey on Oliver Goldsmith's <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>.
      That's a nice multi-textured gold theater mask, and a detail is in the
      checklist. Also look at Will Jordan's design on Viel�'s <i>Myra of the
      Pines</i>.</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><font size="2" face="verdana, arial, helvetica">I expect
      to see many of our subscribers </font><font size="2">at The Grolier Club
      for the Guild of Book Workers 19th Century Publishers'
      Bindings Symposium on the 22nd of this month.&nbsp;</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><font size="2" face="verdana, arial, helvetica">The bibliographic
      information on the above books is in the <b><a href="samplecklst.htm">checklist</a></b>. As always, go to the <b><a href="http://minsky.com/binding-catalog2.htm">Subscriber's
      Log-in page</a> </b>and enter your passcode. The updated database file is
      in there too.</font>
        </p>
      <p align="left"><font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="2">If you have lost your
        code or have trouble logging on, let me know and I'll get you back in.</font>
        </p>
        <p align="left"><font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="2">Best
        regards,</font>
        </p> 
        <p align="left"><font size="2"><img border="0" src="1-sig-blue-small-3.jpg" width="130" height="44"></font>
        </p> 
        <p align="center"><font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="2">Pre-publication
        <a href="orderform-subscription2.htm"><b>discount subscriptions</b></a>
        are available.<br>
        </font>
        </p> 
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