All posts by mstrombe@illinois.edu

Poem in Sir John Franklin’s Narrative Identified

Martyn Beardsley, author of Deadly Winter: The Life of Sir John Franklin, has brought to my attention that the poem written in the University of Illinois’s copy of Franklin’s Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea is in fact by Franklin’s first wife, Eleanor Porden.  In his research, Beardsley examined unpublished letters from Porden and Franklin in the Derbyshire Public Record Office.  This poem, originally appearing in a December 1822 letter to Franklin, was written by Porden in response to Franklin’s letters to her about the difficulty of writing his Narrative (Beardsley 101).  Beardsley includes this poem and several others by Eleanor Porden in an appendix to his Franklin biography.

Eleanor Porden (1795-1825) was a published poet.  Her collection of poetry, The Veil; or the Triumph of Constancy, was published to some praise in 1815.  Coeur de Lion, or, The Third Crusade followed in 1822.  She and Franklin were married on 6 August 1823.  Eleanor tragically died of tuberculosis in 1825 while Franklin was away on his second overland expedition to the Canadian Arctic.

Franklin’s second wife, Lady Jane Franklin (1792-1875), is well known for her exhaustive efforts in the search for Sir John Franklin’s expedition and is certainly the most famous wife of an Arctic explorer.  Because of Eleanor’s early death and Lady Jane Franklin’s fame, Eleanor Porden is relatively forgotten today.  A single biography by a family member, Edith Mary Gell, was published in 1930.  Eleanor was an interesting and complex woman whose life and achievements deserve to be explored in greater depth today.

As mentioned in the previous post, the University of Illinois copy is inscribed by John Franklin to John Richardson’s first wife, Mary Stiven (1795-1831).  This may provide some clue as to why Eleanor’s poem is written in the book.  Perhaps Eleanor Porden had some hand in John Franklin’s presentation of the book to Mary Richardson.  A presentation copy involving the wives of two of the most renowned nineteenth-century Arctic explorers is certainly something of interest to Arctic historians.  Although the poem does not provide direct autobiographical insight into John Franklin’s character, it certainly does tell us more about his mindset upon his return to England, his attitude toward writing, and his relationship with his first wife.

Thanks again to Martyn Beardsley for his help in identifying this poem. AD

Further Reading on Eleanor Porden and Sir John Franklin:

Beardsley, Martin. Deadly Winter: The Life of Sir John Franklin. London: Chatham Publishing, 2002.

Gell, E.M. John Franklin’s Wife, Eleanor Anne Porden. London: John Murray, 1930.

Sutherland, Kathryn. ‘Porden , Eleanor Anne (1795–1825)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10088, accessed 18 May 2012]

Parfumeries & Robert de Montesquiou

Musee retrospectif de la classe 90. Parfumeries (matieres premieres, materiel, procedes et produits) a l’exposition universelle internationale, a Paris. Rapport de M. le comte Robert de Montesquiou

[Retrospective Museum of Class 90. Perfumeries (raw materials, equipment, processes and products) at the universal, international exhibition, in Paris. Report by Count Robert de Montesquiou.]

The bureaucratic-looking title is barred by a bold inscription in purple ink, in the unusual, flourishing handwriting of Robert de Montesquiou, a well-known, if misunderstood figure of the Belle Epoque.

Born in one of the oldest families of the French nobility, Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921) was a prolific poet, novelist, art critic, chronicler, memoirist, as well as a designer, book collector and patron of the arts. He had ties with countless authors, artists, composers and craftsmen of the time. He was portrayed by numerous artists, including Laszlo, La Gandara, Whistler, and inspired characters in books by J. K. Huysmans, Jean Lorrain, and, most notably, Marcel Proust. His origins, lavish lifestyle and colorful personality contributed to his reputation as a ‘dilettante’, which prevented him from being recognized as the original and talented creator that he was. Montesquiou was a lifelong friend of Proust and served as a mentor before he was surpassed by his pupil, who borrowed some of his traits for his character, Charlus. Their correspondence, held in part in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s Proust collection, is peppered with references to Montesquious many publications, most of which can be found at Illinois either in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library or the Kolb-Proust Archive for Research. While they were primarily acquired to support the Professor Philip Kolb research on Proust’s correspondence, they constitute a rare collection of works by an author who was also a bibliophile and an important patron of binders and other book artists of his time.

This book is one of many Musées rétrospectifs published in the wake of the 1900 Paris World Fair, whose mission was to present all domains of knowledge, science and technology in one location. A detailed classification arranged disciplines into twenty groups, which were further subdivided into numbered classes. “Parfumerie”, belonged to class 90 of the chemical sciences group. The planning committee for that class was composed of influential members of the French perfume industry, including Victor Klotz, owner of the Edouard Pinaud perfumery, whose collection of perfume bottles and beauty-objects made up the bulk of the retrospective exhibition at the World Fair.

This Musée rétrospectif is closely related to another book by Montesquiou housed in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Pays des Aromates, of which only 150 copies were printed. Pays des Aromates was commissioned by Mme Victor Klotz on the occasion of the World Fair exhibition, according to biographies. The Musée rétrospectif incorporates a tamer version of Pays des aromates, from which biting anecdotes about thinly veiled contemporaries have been excised.

Pays des aromates (Land of Scents) provide an overview of perfume usage from Antiquity onward, followed by a detailed commentary of the show, and a detailed catalog of all objects and books from the Victor Klotz collection. The Musée rétrospectif follows the same template, with added descriptions of a few objects and books contributed by other collectors. (Proust reviewed “Pays des aromates” in Chronique des Arts et de la curiositéon 5 January 1901)

Because the Musée rétrospectif is undated, biographers have assumed that it was published at the time of the Fair, which opened on April 15, 1900, and that it therefore preceded Pays des Aromates, which is dated July 10, 1900. The Musée, however, contains a nod to the poem Le coeur innombrable by comtesse Anna de Noailles, whose book first appeared in May 1901. Bibliographie de la France – Journal général de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, which records all books received under French legal deposit laws in biweekly installments, lists Pays des Aromates in its August 18, 1900 issue, while the Musée rétrospectif doesn’t appear until the November 14, 1903 issue, along with a dozen other Musées rétrospectifs of the 1900 World Fair.

Abel Hermant (1862-1950), the recipient of this particular copy of the Musée rétrospectif, was a novelist, playwright and satirical observer of fin-de-siècle Parisian society. He was the brother of Jacques Hermant, the architect in charge of the various “musées centenaux” at the Paris World Fair. Montesquiou, who was famous for his wit, once wrote about Hermant: “L’écrivain le plus charmant, c’est Abel au bois d’Hermant” (“The most charming writer, is Abel Hermant”), which plays on Hermant’s name and “La Belle au Bois Dormant” (“Sleeping Beauty”). The dedication features another play on “pois de senteur” (“sweet peas” or, more literally, “scented peas”). This alludes to the flower of the sweet pea plant and also suggests that each item in the catalog is its own “pea” of “scent”:

     à Monsieur Abel Hermant, ces pois de senteur. Comte Robert de Montesquiou

*****************************************************************

Bibliography

Willa Z. Silverman. « Unpacking His Library : Robert de Montesquiou and the Esthetics of the Book in Fin-de-siècle France ». Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 32, issue3&4, Spring-Summer 2004, pp. 316-331

Antoine Bertrand. Les Curiosités esthétiques de Robert de Montesquiou. Genève : Droz, 1996 (2 vols.)

Julia Miller: Scaleboard Bindings and a Visit to RBML

On Wednesday, June 1, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library welcomed book-binding historian Julia Miller to the library.  Ms. Miller is the author of “Books Will Speak Plain: A Handbook For Identifying and Describing Historical Bindings” (The Legacy Press).  In the morning, we invited Ms. Miller to join catalogers, binders, and others interested in the book arts in a stump the expert session at the library.  We were unable to stump Ms. Miller, however,  with any of the many and varied types of bindings we pulled from the vault. She taught us much about binding types and techniques and she was impressed with some of the examples we were able to show her.  From sealskin to pastepaper and from bullet clasps to home-spun coverings on scabbard bindings, we studied and talked as two and a half hours flew by.

Later in the day, Ms. Miller did a presentation  on “American Scaleboard Binding” at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, our co-sponsor for the day’s events.

Scaleboard, also known as scabbard, is thin wood that was used for bindings in Europe and Britain until around 1600 and much less so thereafter. Scaleboard was used in America for bindings in the 1680s and earlier, and the thin wood covers continued to be used until at least the 1840s. Scaleboard was used in place of paste or pulpboard long after those materials were widely available in America. Ms. Miller’s talk explored this humble, yet fascinating binding technique, while showing plenty of examples of this uniquely American binding technique.

Ms. Miller holds a MA in archival administration and was previously a senior conservator at the University of Michigan Conservation and Book Repair Lab; she was also a co-founder of the Midwest chapter of the Guild of Book Workers. She continues to work in private practice and regularly teaches bench bookbinding workshops around the country, primarily focusing on early book structures.

    

William Paul Schenk Papers: A New Acquisition Related to Carl Sandburg

The Rare Book Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of the William Paul Schenk Papers from his estate early in 2011.

In addition to many of his own manuscripts, the William Schenk papers contain a treasure trove of articles, correspondence, and photographs concerning Carl Sandburg and his family. Schenk greatly admired the famous poet and worked for him briefly as his secretary and research assistant. Many of Schenk’s photographs were taken during the time he lived with the Sandburg family on their goat farm in North Carolina. They capture Sandburgs day-to-day activities including writing in his office, spending time with his family, and sitting in his chair playing his guitar.

 

William Schenk

Born in Chicago in 1913, William Schenk was a writer, editor, and photographer.  Schenk pursued a degree in English at the University of Chicago and later founded Hull House Magazine with fellow writers Willard Motley and Alexander Saxon. Financial troubles during the Great Depression forced Schenk to drop out of the University before completing his degree. Fortunately, his good friend, Carl Sandburg, found work for him as a ghostwriter. Shortly thereafter, the University of Chicago hired Schenk as a writer, and later as an editor, for their alumni publications in the Department of Public Relations. He continued his work with a variety of other publications; writing on a wide range of topics. These included: biographies of famous artists, science articles in encyclopedias, and history pieces for travel magazines.

This collection provides a unique look at a writer who was passionate about many topics and disciplines. It also serves to further expand the University’s extensive resources regarding Carl Sandburg. PG

The Thirty-seconde of March

Just came upon something interesting in the vault: A 1752 sermon entitled:

The Thirty-seconde of March / On the dangers of calendar reform / and touching upon the false method of rectifying the seate of Easter. With godly warnings to the Parliament that seekes to deprive good Christians of eleven dayes of life.  A sermon. By P. Lloyd, A. M. Curate of Roxwell, in Essex  (London : printed for C. Bathurst, at the Cross-Keys, over-against St. Dunstans Church, Fleetstreet, M.DCC.LIII. [1752])

The brief sermon was in response to the 1752 act of Parliament that altered the calendar in England and its colonies, so as to bring it into line with most other countries of Western Europe. England’s Julian Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar and the formula for calculating leap years and Easter was changed.  The beginning of the legal new year was moved from March 25 to January 1.  In addition,  11 days were dropped from the month of September 1752.

Apparently many people, including the Rev. P. Lloyd who wrote our sermon, thought that their lives were being shortened thereby.

He also argues that by changing the date of Easter and other holy days, the prayers of Christians would be rendered ineffective since they would be delivered up to God on the wrong day!

After this sermon was delivered, a large group of workers rioted and marched on Parliament because they believed that they were going to lose eleven days’ pay. People also feared losing 11 days of their lives.  They went through the streets of London, crying  “Give us back our eleven days!” Rioting spread to Bristol, in those days the second largest city in England, where several people were killed in stampedes. VH

German Christmas Songs (IUA15239)

A collection of German Christmas songs (call number IUA15239) from the library of Richard Aron passed through Quick and Clean Cataloging a few months ago. This Sammelband contains 38 pamphlets published between 1774 and 1828. Most of the pamphlets are only two to four leaves in length and contain the lyrics to German Christmas and New Year songs. The pamphlets are all printed in a simple manner and were produced in Berlin. These pamphlets may have been collected by a single individual at Christmas masses over the years and later bound together in paper-covered cardstock boards.  An illegible ownership inscription appears on the title page of the first work and is dated Berlin, 1835. This pamphlet collection would provide a wealth of information to anyone studying the history of popular culture, music, or religion in Germany in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century.

In 1913, the University of Illinois library purchased approximately 20,000 volumes from the library of the Berlin elementary school teacher Richard Aron. Richard Aron (1854-1912) collected books pertaining to education in Europe and especially in Germany. Aron is one of many German collectors whose collections the University purchased from the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century.  The acquisition of the collections of these German and German-American collectors and scholars such as Karl Dziatzko, Johannes Vahlen, and Heinrich Armin Rattermann greatly strengthened our holdings of German-language materials. AD

Manzanar Free Press (IUZ00262)

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 “Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas.” During World War II, over 120,000 persons of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry were then removed from these military areas and relocated to internment camps in the Western United States–most for the duration of the war.

One of these camps was placed in the abandoned town of Manzanar in California’s isolated Inyo County, where a population of 7,600 was spread out over 10,000 square miles. This camp would grow to over 800 buildings and process over 11,000 detainees during the war. Two-thirds of the detainees held behind Manzanar’s barbed wire were American citizens.

On April 11, 1942, the first issue of the camp’s Manzanar Free Press was published. The first newspaper to be published in a U.S. internment camp, this independent record of the internees’ lives at Manzanar was distributed in the camp until shortly before Manzanar closed on November 21, 1945.

In May, 2010, the “Quick & Clean” cataloging unit of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library processed and cataloged a collection of over 300 issues of the Manzanar Free Press from the RBML cataloging “backlog.” Though this same collection was microfilmed sometime in the late 1970s, the original issues were never fully-cataloged or inventoried.

Interestingly, the Manzanar Free Press combined a national outlook with a newsletter feel. One can find articles on such topics as mess hall rules, school graduations, and results of games in the camp’s eight-team baseball league alongside articles touting the contributions of Japanese-Americans citizens and soldiers to the national war effort.

Editorially, the Manzanar Free Press was both unalloyed in its devotion to the highest expressions of American patriotism and mindful of the synthetic distinction of ethnicity made to limit Japanese-American participation in the war.  In a January 1, 1944 editorial addressed to the “People of America,” the paper eloquently captured the resolve of these loyal, yet nonetheless demonized internees:

In three months, we will have spent two years in these centers. We have had time to rationalize our own predicament. The tragic experience of evacuation, the untold volume of business losses of the evacuees, the unwarranted hatreds engendered toward us by some people because of our hereditary kinships with the Asiatic foe—these we write off our ledger.

Unfortunately, the provenance of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s copies of this important record could not be determined. Issues of the Manzanar Free Press are available under call number IUZ00262. A moving photographic tribute to the people of Manzanar, “Born Free and Equal” was published by the photographer Ansel Adams in 1944 and is available from the Main book stacks, at 940.947273 Ad1bDS

Dobell Catalogs (017.4 D65c and 017.4 D65ca)

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library recently discovered that we hold a complete set of the Dobell catalogs, which appear to have been owned by the Dobell family.  On 16 July 1956, Gordon N. Ray purchased 22 volumes of the catalogs from Days Bookshop in England.  These volumes are uniformly bound in three-quarters brown goat and have four raised bands and four gilt-stamped fleurons on the spine, in addition to the gilt titles.  Bertram Dobells signature appears on the front free endpaper verso and below it, inscribed in pencil in a similar hand, is the note: Not for sale.  The catalogs may have been sold to Days Bookshop following the death of Percy J. Dobell on 23 January 1956.  A printed remembrance of Percy J. Dobell is tipped-in at the beginning of the 8 Bruton Street catalogs for 1921-22.  The catalogs are largely unmarked, but a few have information regarding their exact date of publication and the number of copies issued inscribed in both pencil and ink at the top of the first page.  The library also owns four further volumes of Dobell catalogs bound in library buckram, catalogs which may have been purchased by Gordon Ray at the same time, but in an unbound state.

 
Dobell Catalogs

Bertram Dobell (1842-1914) was a London bookseller and scholar who issued his first catalog in 1876 and had issued 237 more before his death in 1914.  At his death, his sons Percy and Arthur carried on the business under the name of P.J. & A.E. Dobell until their partnership was dissolved in 1946.  At that point, Percy took full ownership of the Tunbridge Wells shop and Arthur the London shop.

The Dobell family ran their bookselling business from several locations in London and then Tunbridge Wells throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.  Bertram Dobell’s first shop was located at 62 Queen’s Crescent.  In 1887, the business moved to 54 Charing Cross, and in 1894, a second London shop was opened at 77 Charing Cross.   In 1921, a location at 8 Bruton Street replaced the shop at 54 Charing Cross, and in 1934, a location at Tunbridge Wells replaced the Bruton Street branch.

Several series of catalogs were issued by the Dobell family under various names and from various different locations, and as are follows:

Bertram Dobell: no.1 (Apr. 1876)-no.27 (Dec. 1884) (nos. 6-11 issued as nos. I-VI of Dobell & Watson’s)
Bertram Dobell:  (New Series) no.1 (July 1885)-no.238 (1914)
P.J. & A.E. Dobell at Charing Cross: no.239 (1915)-no.461 (1946)
P.J. & A.E. Dobell at 8 Bruton Street: no.1 (Mar. 1921)-no.139 (Dec. 1934)
Dobell’s Antiquarian Bookstore at Tunbridge Wells: no.1 (Nov. 1933)-no.87 (1945)
Percy J. Dobell at Tunbridge Wells: no.88 (1946)-?

Bertram Dobell’s archive is located at the Bodleian Library and the discovery of the location of these catalogs adds significantly to the amount of material available for the study of the Dobell family and the London book trade.  Gordon N. Ray (1915-1986) was a professor of English at the University of Illinois beginning in 1946 and was a major influence on special collections at the University.  In the summers of 1950-57, Ray went on book-buying trips to England for the University.  He was responsible for purchasing the H.G. Wells collection, the archives of the British publishers Grant Richards and Richard Bentley, and also the Tom Turner Collection of Victorian literature.  These rediscovered catalogs further support Ray’s stature as an important and forward-thinking collector of English literature. AD

017.4 D65c
017.4 D65ca

Congratulations to our Poet Laureate W. S. Merwin!

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Illinois now has even more reason to be proud of being the home of William S. Merwin’s papers: on Thursday, July 1, it was announced that William S. Merwin would be named the next poet laureate of the United States. The duties of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress are to foster an appreciation for the reading and  writing of poetry in America, to give an annual lecture along with a reading of their poetry and, typically, to introduce poets during  the annual poetry series held at the Library of Congress. Merwin has said that he plans to do several readings and to visit schools as part of the fulfillment of this role.

Merwin has written numerous volumes of poetry, translated works from several languages and, in his increasing notability as an  environmentalist, dedicated himself to the preservation of native Hawaiian plant species. His archives at Illinois are rich in material that document his activities in these three realms. The collection includes manuscripts of his plays, prose, translations and poems,  as well as correspondence and other miscellaneous papers.

A finding aid for parts of the W.S. Merwin collection can be found here,  you can search the W.S. Merwin correspondence database here, and you can view the press release announcing the decision here.

We hope that Merwin’s new honor–after having received nearly every other honor possible for a poet–will inspire students and  scholars to explore his archive, and enter the mind of an astounding poet, scholar and activist. VH

Cyprian Norwid’s copy of Dante’s Divina Commedia

It is with great excitement that we announce the discovery of an Italian copy of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia (Firenze: Felice le Monnier, 1844) bearing Cyprian Norwid’s ownership inscription and his presentation inscription to a Polish emigre in the United States.

Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883) was a Polish poet, dramatist, painter, and sculptor. He belonged to the second generation of Polish Romantic poets. After the rediscovery of his work by the Young Poland (Mloda Polska) movement of the early twentieth century, he became known as the “fourth bard” of Polish literature, to denote his status as an equal to the traditional “three bards” or “trzej wieszcze” of Polish literature: Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), Juliusz Slowacki (1809-1849), and Zygmunt Krasinski (1812-1859). Another indication of his great stature in Polish literature and culture is the fact that on the 180th anniversary of Norwid’s birth, Pope John Paul II delivered an address praising Norwid’s work to the representatives of the Institute of Polish National Patrimony.

English-language audiences are only now becoming familiar with the work of this forward-looking nineteenth-century poet. It was only in the last decade that two collections of his writings were issued in an English translation: Selected Poems (London: Anvil Press, 2004) and Poems, Letters, Drawings (Manchester: Carcanet, 2000). His work has also been praised by the literary critics Roman Jakobson and Czeslaw Milosz.

Norwid’s early years were marked by his study of the visual arts, the pursuit of which cut his formal education short. Throughout the decade of the 1830s and until his departure for Germany in September 1842, Norwid studied art in Warsaw. The years 1843-44 found Norwid in Florence studying sculpture and art history. In 1845 he studied archaeology in Rome and then moved on to Berlin, where he was arrested in 1846 for giving his passport to a Russian deserter. In the following years he lived in Brussels, Rome, and Paris. In 1853, Norwid traveled further afield to the United States to take a job as an artist. He returned to England in July 1854 and then proceeded on to Paris, where he lived for years in poverty and ill health until he died in the Saint Casimir Asylum, a Polish-run nursing home, in 1883 (Gömöri 11-12).

During these trying years of exile, poverty, and health problems, Norwid was busy creating an impressive body of literary work. An 11-volume edition of his collected writings and artwork entitled Pisma Wszyztkie (Writings of All) was issued in 1971-76. Among his epic poems, “Promethidion”, “Quidam”, and “Rzecz o wolnosci slowa” (On the freedom of speech) are the best known. His cycle of poems, Vade-mecum, is recognized as a great work of literature today but was not published until 1947. In addition to his poetry, Norwid also wrote novellas and plays.

Cyprian Norwid’s copy of the Divine Comedy was acquired by the University Library in 1916 but its significance has only come to light recently when it was re-cataloged. Norwid’s initials appear on the front board near the clasp and his ownership inscription on the title page bears the date and location of Florence, 1846. A rubbing of his signet ring also appears on the title page. He most likely purchased the volume secondhand, based on an Italian count’s ownership inscription on the front endpapers and the lavish leather binding that includes a brass clasp at the fore-edge, a luxury that seems incongruous with Norwid’s chronic poverty. It is also likely that he used this volume to translate two songs from the Inferno and one song from the Purgatorio. These translations were made while Norwid was imprisoned in Berlin in June and July of 1846. Light pencil markings in these areas of the text further support this claim. Through Norwid’s letters, we know that Dante occupied a special place in Norwid’s literary influences. Selections from Norwid’s translation were published in Chimera (v.9, no.27) in 1905 and are available online in a digital facsimile (link to http://www.bilp.uw.edu.pl/chi/t9/foto/n415.htm)

In addition to the ownership inscription, there is also a presentation inscription from Cyprian Norwid to Numa Lepkowski on the title page: “N. Lepkowskienice na pamiatke 1854 w Ameryce.” Lepkowski is listed in The New York City Directory for 1842 and 1843 as a guitar teacher and is thought to have later moved to Philadelphia. Lepkowski’s name is mentioned in studies of Polish life and culture at that time in the eastern United States, but any connections he had with Cyprian Norwid remain unknown and he is not mentioned in Norwid’s surviving letters. LB, AD

For more information on Cyprian Norwid and his works in English see Gömöri, George. Cyprian Norwid. New York: Twayne, 1974.