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Rare Books a Mother Could Love

This Sunday the United States celebrates Mothers Day, and many of us are still searching for the perfect gift ideas. If your mother has a predilection for rare books, choose the perfect volume for her personal library.

Evoke Childhood Memories

Classic children’s books give Mom an opportunity to reminisce about her youth–and to share a piece of her childhood with future generations. Choose a title from a beloved series.

The Poppy Ott series by Leo Edwards (pseudonym for Edward Edson Lee) was published in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Though these books were primarily marketed for boys, plenty of girls fell in love with Poppy Ott and his penchant for stumbling into adventure.

Palmer Cox’s Brownies series recounts the adventures of mischievous, fairy-like sprites in humorous verse. These books were already beloved classics by the turn of the 20th century and maintained their popularity long after.

Mildred A Wirt wrote the perennially popular Nancy Drew series under the pen name Carolyn Keene. Nancy Drew and her friends always managed to find a mystery, and the series remains in print today.

The Japanese Fairy Tales series, published in Tokyo in the 1890’s, offer a beautiful glimpse into the mores and stories of Japan. Bound in the “yamoto toji” style, the books are in french-fold format and printed on crepe paper.

Bring Art to the Shelves

The right rare art book is both visually stunning and intellectually engaging. If your mother loves art–or beautiful objects–one of these rare items may be the ideal gift.

Lewis Lott produced his Collection of Beautiful Miniatures in the 1860’s. It includes faithful reproductions of 70 original miniature paintings, mostly from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Chang Dai-chien was one of the most renowned and prolific Chinese artists of the 20th century. This collection, published by the East Society, includes 130 reproductions of his paintings since 1944.

Frances Hebert’s original watercolor of Santa Catalina Island’s Avalon Bay in California depicts an elevated view of the bay, from the hills to the South-Southeast. It’s matted and mounted in a gilded wooden frame.

Share a New Perspective on a Favorite Author

Some legendary authors, like Walt Whitman, are famous for leaving behind copiously annotated manuscripts. These documents provide a more dynamic view of the author’s work, but they’re not the only way to offer a fresh perspective on a beloved writer.

Louisa May Alcott is famous for Little Women, but fewer people know that she served in a hospital. Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories includes six sketches about Alcott’s time working in the hospital.

Anais Nin’s first book was DH Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study. The work gives us insight on both Lawrence and Nin, an unusual combination and an interesting item for collectors of either author.

Poet, artist, and dancer Sven Berlin was a member of the St. Ives art colony–until a falling out with other writers over his novel The Dark Monarch. This original draft of Berlin’s Amergin the White Stag contains magnificent pen and ink drawings to be used as illustrations, along with Berlin’s notes to the typist, chapter notes, etc. It’s truly an intriguing manuscript.

Even if none of the above suits your mother, all of us here at Tavistock Books wish all mothers the very best of days! We thank you for visiting our blog, and hope you enjoy your day!

The Millerites and the Great Disappointment

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William Miller

The Seventh-day Adventist Church rose from what most would consider an epic failure. William Miller predicted the return of Christ–inaccurately, and his followers broke into multiple sects, of which the Seventh-day Adventist Church was one. The literature and ephemera of the Millerite community offers a fascinating look at religion and spirituality in the mid-1800’s.

A Brief History of Millerism

The early 1800’s saw a resurgence in millenarianism, the belief that a major event or movement would cause a drastic transformation in society. Specifically, millenarianists believed in the prophecy of Revelation, which predicts that God’s kingdom on Earth will last 1,000 years after Jesus’ return. Thus, the ground was fertile for the theology of William Miller, for whom Millerism is named.

Miller started out as a farmer in upstate New York. He was also a lay preacher in the Baptist church. He embarked on an exhaustive study of the prophecies of Daniel. A subscriber to the year-day method of prophetic interpretation, Miller believed that a “day” in the Scripture represented a year of real time–meaning that we could predict the exact date of Jesus’ return. By September of 1822, Miller had published his conclusions in a twenty-point document, though he shared the document with very few people.

Miller began sharing his ideas more openly among his inner circle. Initially, he met with disinterest. He said, “To my astonishment, I found very few who listened with any interest. Occasionally one would see the force of the evidence, but the great majority passed it it by as an idle tale. But when Miller began lecturing publicly in 1831, he began to gain a following. The following year, he submitted 16 articles to the Baptist paper Vermont Telegraph. Soon he was unable to personally address all the correspondence and speaking requests he received as a result of the articles.

To remedy that problem, Miller published a 64-page tract that summarized his predictions. At this point, he still had not specified a date for Jesus’ return; instead, he suggested that the Advent would occur in 1843 or 1844. As the years passed, Miller gained more and more attention–in large part due to Millerite publications. Miller’s campaign got a significant bump when Joshua Vaughan Himes, a preacher and publisher, began printing the fortnightly paper Signs of the Times. The first issue was published on February 28, 1840, and the periodical is still published by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“The Battle of the Great Day”

As Miller’s ideas gained ground, numerous items in the Millerite tradition were published. One such item was a broadside called “The Battle of the Great Day.” Based on Revelation 16: 12-21, the broadside was published by prolific preacher Thomas Williams around 1838. Though several works by Williams are recorded in UMI’s “Millerites and Early Adventists,” this item is not. The OCLC lists only one other institutional holding, at Brown University.

By 1843, there were at least 48 Millerite publications. Meanwhile, Miller had narrowed down his dates at the urging of his followers. Now he offered a year-long window: March 21, 1843 to March 21, 1844. When March 21, 1844 came and went without incident, most Millerites maintained their faith. They briefly adopted a new end date of April 18, 1844, based on the Karaite calendar rather than the Rabbinic one. When that date also passed, they believed they’d entered “tarrying time,” a period of waiting mentioned in both the books of Daniel and Habakkuk. This idea sustained them through July of 1844.

In August of that year, Samuel S. Snow presented a new theory at a meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire. Known as the “seventh-month message,” Snow’s prediction was still based on the 2300 prophecy of Daniel, which stated that Jesus’ return would occur on the tenth day of the seventh month. Again using the Karaite calendar, Snow calculated that October 22, 1844 as the date of the Advent. When Snow, too, proved incorrect and nothing happened on October 22, the Millerites experienced what has since been called the Great Disappointment. The movement soon fell apart as the Millerites struggled to reconcile their beliefs with reality. Multiple sects emerged, one of which was the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The Cartography of Faith

Many Millerites turned to Scripture, hoping to find an error in Miller and Snow’s calculations. One of these was Jonathan Cummings, a farmer who’d become a preacher in 1830. Cummings wrote a lengthy letter to Himes, which was published in the Advent Herald on November 2, 1852. He offered new insight on the chronology. Cummings also produced a fascinating banner-size chart (pictured below and recently sold) that identifies 1854 as the year for the Second Coming. He also printed An Explanation of the Prophetic Chart and Application of the Truth to accompany the banner.

While Cummings was not the only Millerite to recalculate the date of the Second Coming, his unusual chart is featured and discussed in both Cartographies of Time and the Encyclopedia of American Folk Art. The OCLC records only five institutional holdings of the banner, making it an exceptionally rare publication to be found on today’s market.

The Millerite movement certainly fueled the publication of many fascinating rare books and ephemera. Tavistock Books is always interested in acquiring items like Cummings’ chart and Williams’ broadside. Please contact us if you would like more information about what we’re looking for, or if you have an item of interest.

Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!

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Today we celebrate the birthday of the world’s most famous playwright and poet, William Shakespeare. While he’s best known for works like Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Macbeth, Shakespeare produced an incredibly diverse body of work that includes many overlooked pieces. Scholars have approached Shakespeare from countless angles. Both Shakespeare’s works and Shakespearean scholarship have fascinated rare book collectors for centuries, and the items below offer an interesting glimpse into Shakespeare’s genius.

Cymbeline

Cymbeline: A Tragedy is based on part of the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, which details the life of British monarch Cunobelinus. Shakespeare, of course, weaves in multiple sub-plots and adapts the story to make it more dramatic and engaging. The date of Cymbeline’s authorship isn’t certain, though it was certainly performed as early as 1611. It used to be one of Shakespeare’s most highly regarded plays but has fallen out of favor in the past few centuries. Multiple scholars have asserted that Shakespeare worked with a collaborator to write Cymbeline; several passages sound patently “un-Shakespearean.” Our 1734 edition of Cymbeline, printed for J. Tonson, includes a frontis by Guernier and a title page printer’s ornament of a bust of Shakespeare.

The History of Sir John Oldcastle

Originally published anonymously in 1600, The History of Sir John Oldcastle, the Good Lord Cobham is an extremely rare Shakespearean work. The second edition (1619) attributed the work to Shakespeare. Sir John Oldcastle was a real person who was hanged and burned for heresy and treason in 1417. Oldcastle is incorporated as a minor character in Famous Victories of Henry V, which was undoubtedly a source for Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V. Earlier versions of Henry IV use “Oldcastle,” rather than “Falstaff,” and it’s thought that Shakespeare changed the name to avoid offending the Cobham family. According to Jaggard, who cites Henslowe’s diary, authorship of this history was a joint effort of Drayton, Munday, Wilson, and Hathway. Other scholars even assert that these four actually wrote The History of Sir John Oldham as a response to Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Regardless of its authorship, the piece is exceptionally scarce on the commercial market.

Shakespeare Head Press Booklets

In 1904, Elizabethan scholar AH Bullen established the Shakespeare Head Press in Stratford-upon-Avon. His goal: to produce an exceptional version of Shakespeare’s works. Bullen administered the private press until his death in 1927; it was then acquired by a partnership that included Oxford bookseller Basil Blackwell. The press has become quite famous in its own right. This collection of Shakespeare Head Press booklets represents early works from the press and includes “Ancient Carols” (2nd ed); “Festive Songs for Christmas” (2nd ed); “Shakespeare’s Songs”; “The Nutbrown Maid”; “A Lover’s Complaint”; and “The Phoenix and Turtle.”

The Great Cryptogram

The full title of this work is The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon’s Cipherin the So-Called Shakespeare Plays (1888). Its author, Ignatius Donnelly, began his career as a Minnesota farmer and went on to be a Congressman for the state. He was active in the formation of the Populist Party. Later, Donnelly turned his efforts to authorship, and here he argues that philosopher Francis Bacon is the real author of Shakespeare’s works. Donnelly’s argument was a popular one in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Donnelly traveled to England to arrange an English publication of the work. He spoke at Oxford Union, and his thesis “Resolved, that the works of William Shakespeare were composed by Francis Bacon,” was defeated by vote. Donnelly found himself publicly discredited, and the book was a failure.

Assorted Scholarship

The breadth, depth, and impact of Shakespeare’s works have resulted in an immense body of Shakespearean scholarship. You’ll find works that explore Shakespeare’s connection to Charles Dickens or Shakespeare and Milton, along with more obscure items like Christopher Morley’s lectures on Shakespeare and Hawaii. These items are often relatively affordable, making them both interesting and accessible for rare book collectors. They also add context and texture to a Shakespeare collection.

Charles Dickens’ Debt to Henry Fielding

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Henry Fielding

Charles Dickens

When Charles Dickens’ sixth son was born on January 16, 1849, the boy was named for one of Dickens’ favorite authors. Supposedly Dickens had first thought to name the boy after Oliver Goldsmith, but he feared the child would be ridiculed as “Oliver always asking for more.” Instead he named his son Henry Fielding Dickens, after legendary 18th-century author Henry Fielding. Though Dickens was born too late to meet Fielding, his predecessor had a profound impact on Dickens’ work.

A Father of the Novel

Henry Fielding (April 22, 1707-Oct 8, 1754) began his literary career due to financial distress. At the time writing plays could be quite lucrative, so Fielding turned his attention to drama. His first play, Love in Several Masques (1728), was an immediate success, and over the next several years Fielding would write at least 25 more plays. Most of these had little literary merit. In 1736, Fielding wrote Pasquin, a Dramatic Satire of the Times, which was performed 60 times in only three months. The play attacked the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, portraying the government as rife with corruption.

Fielding followed with The Historical Register for the Year 1736 (1737), which was even more critical of Sir Walpole’s administration. The play was so overtly critical that it caused worry among government officials. Sir Walpole seized the opportunity to pass the License Act of 1737, turning over control of the theatre to Lord Chamberlain. After that, it was virtually impossible to produce a satirical play, and Fielding found his career as a dramatist at an abrupt end. Though Fielding turned back to the law to make his money, he soon found himself facing financial trouble. He began editing the anti-Walpole The Champion, or British Mercury (1739-1741), writing under the pseudonym Captain Hercules Vinegar.

Then Samuel Richardson published the first two volumes of Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded in 1740. Fielding found Richardson’s tone so self-serving and moralistic, he was moved to pen a scathing satire of Richardson’s novel. An Apology for the LIfe of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741) was published anonymously, but is accepted as Fielding’s work. He followed up with the comic romance of Pamela’s brother in The History and Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1742). Both novels were quite successful.

Fielding, as many know, also had a very successful career as magistrate, being, for example, co-founder of London’s first police force, the Bow Street Runners. But he never stopped writing. He was a prolific writer of political pamphlets. Vehemently anti-Stuart, Fielding wrote for the burlesque Jacobite Journal (1747-1748) as a response to the Jacobite uprising of 1745. That event would later serve as the backdrop for The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). It was with this novel that Fielding made his greatest contribution to literature: this picaresque tale blends elements of the mock epic and comic romance, but it also introduces the omniscient narrator.

Meanwhile the novel’s protagonist, Tom Jones, is an ordinary person, a sort of modern-day everyman. With the figure of Tom Jones, Fielding made the novel accessible and interesting to a whole new middle-class reading public. It’s no surprise, then, that a copy of Tom Jones found its way to the bookshelf of the poor Dickens household when Charles was a boy.

Fielding’s Impact on the Victorian Novel

While Richardson is credited with originating the psychological realism so prevalent today, Fielding was the inventor of a new narrative voice that vastly influenced Victorian writers from William Makepeace Thackeray to Charles Dickens. Indeed, Dickens owes quite a debt to Fielding. Dickens’ first several novels were picaresques (novels of short episodes), a style he’d picked up from the books of his childhood–namely Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, and Tom Jones. Dickens would also incorporate elements of the mock epic and the comic romance in his stories.

Dickens also followed in Fielding’s footsteps by using fiction to openly address political and social issues. Fielding made literature more egalitarian; while the novel had previously focused on members of the upper classes and their lives, Fielding opened up the genre. Dickens furthered that work with tales like Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.

Fielding’s novels surely left a lasting impression, influencing Dickens for a lifetime. It’s no wonder that Dickens chose to name a child after Fielding. Where else do you see Fielding’s influence on Dickens’ writing? And which writer would you choose for a child’s namesake?

Congratulations to Travis Low, Winner of the Tavistock Books RBS Scholarship!

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Photo: Ashley Thalman, Fine Books & Collections

We’re extremely pleased to announce that Travis Low of Ken Sanders Rare Books has won this year’s Tavistock Books Scholarship to Rare Book School (RBS). Travis will take Joel Silver’s course, Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books, at RBS in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Rare Books through the Back Door

As many of us in this field do, Travis wears many hats at Ken Sanders Rare Books. He came in, almost literally, through the back door, starting out as a shipping clerk. Travis, who is also a documentary filmmaker, was shooting a documentary about writer and performance poet Alex Caldiero. Ken Sanders, a friend of Caldiero’s, appeared in the documentary, so Travis got to meet him. He’d been a customer of Ken Sanders Rare Books and asked if there were any employment opportunities.

He found the bookstore an incredibly collegial environment and has gotten involved in other aspects of the trade as opportunities arose. “Ken has been extremely supportive, and I’m gradually getting more involved in acquisition and description, so this RBS course seems like an excellent place to further my understanding,” says Travis.

As he delves further into the rare book world, research becomes increasingly important. “My favorite aspect of the book trade is when new books come into the store and we get to start digging through them. I find that pretty engaging and have a real affinity for the research required to learn something new about the publishers, the authors, and the books’ subject areas as well.”

The Start of an Ongoing Education

Last summer Travis attended the Colorado Antiquarian Books Seminar (CABS). The program gave him an excellent introduction to the world of rare books, and RBS will allow him to take a more specific, focused course in an area where he needs to grow. Travis noted that he’s been encouraged to further his education through RBS by many respected professionals: Ken Sanders, Melissa Sanders, and Terry Belanger had all stressed the value of the experience.

Travis says that he hopes this will be the first of many courses he takes at RBS. “I’ve spoken several times with Tavistock Books’ proprietor, Vic Zoschak, and he always talks about RBS as his way of continuing his education, and about how he feels an obligation to do that as a professional. That really resonated with me, and I feel compelled to constantly better myself.” After taking Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books, Travis would like to take the Introduction to the Principles of Bibliographical Description.

Travis Low grew up near Logan, UT. He studied Philosophy, Humanities, and Film at Utah Valley University. In January 2010, Travis began working at Ken Sanders Rare Books where he has found an encouraging and instructive working environment. In addition to being a full-time bookseller, he is also an active documentary filmmaker and a hibernating musician. He currently lives in Salt Lake City, UT.

Kate Greenaway: Legendary Illustrator of Children’s Books

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“May Day”

One of the few artists to gain true celebrity from illustrating children’s books, Kate Greenaway was one of the most influential illustrators of her age. Greenaway, along with Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane, revolutionized illustration. Popular in both Europe and the United States, Greenaway has remained highly sought after, even among contemporary children’s book collectors.

Greenaway’s Early Rise to Fame

Born on March 17, 1846, Greenaway was an only child. Her father was a draughtsman, while her mother was a seamstress who owned a tailoring shop. Both parents encouraged their daughter’s artwork, and in 1867 Greenaway completed her first accompanying illustrations for Infant Amusements, or How to Make a Nursery Happy by William Kingston. The following year, Greenaway began exhibiting watercolors in London’s Dudley Gallery.

Christmas card by Greenaway

Over the next twelve years, Greenaway would illustrate over 30 children’s picture books. She also created Christmas cards and bookplates, which were both incredibly popular. Greenaway’s singular style differed considerably from other illustrators of the day; her pictures were simple and elegant, and they captured a quiet innocence. Greenaway always depicted happy, well loved children in natural scenes, which resonated with people of all ages.

A New Venture

“Beneath the Lilies” from ‘Under the Window’

Though Greenaway gained considerable notoriety doing illustrations for other authors’ works, she also longed to write her own book. In 1879, Greenaway made her debut as an author with Under the Window. Like her illustrations, Greenaway’s verses were simple, elegant, and charming. The book was an instant success, selling approximately 150,000 copies. Both French and German editions of the book were published. Subsequent titles were equally successful, and Greenaway received a tidy sum for her works. She also published yearly almanacs from 1888 to 1897 (excepting 1896).

Greenaway’s publisher, George Routledge & Co, had earned prominence for publishing yellowbacks, that is, colorful, eye-catching and less costly, glazed-paper volumes, which, to a very large degree, helped make literature more accessible to people of more modest income levels. Famous engraver Edmund Evans, known for his significant artistic contribution to the genesis of the yellowback phenomena, used chromoxylography to reproduce the images for Greenaway’s books.

Trendsetting in Illustration–and Fashion

Likely because her mother was a seamstress, Greenaway paid particular attention to the clothing of her characters. Rather than stick to the fashion of the time, she chose instead to depict characters in clothing from the early 19th century. Though unconventional, the choice proved instrumental in influencing Victorian fashion.

As Greenaway’s books gained international renown, they also attracted the attention not only of book lovers, but also the fashionable set in London. Parents began to dress their children in outfits that could have come straight out of Greenaway’s illustrations. Liberty of London, a well known department store in Britain, even adapted her “looks” for a line of children’s clothing.

A Sterling Reputation among Artists and Collectors

“The Rainstorm”

While Greenaway stayed quite busy illustrating and publishing children’s books, she still found time to contribute to the art world. In 1890, she was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-colour. Greenaway’s work captured the attention of legendary figures like John Ruskin and Arsne Alexandre, and she was compared with Stothard, Reynolds, and even Botticelli.

The variety and beauty of Kate Greenaway’s work have made her a perennial favorite among collectors of children’s books. Her books, greeting cards, book plates, and other art offer limitless potential for building an interesting and dynamic collection.

George Steevens: Bibliophile, Scholar, and Prankster

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George Steevens (1800)

Perhaps best remembered for his exceptional contributions to the study of Shakespeare, George Steevens was also an incredible collector of books. His enthusiasm for Elizabethan literature led him to build an amazing collection, which also included a number of William Hogarth prints. After Steevens’ death in 1800, his library was sold. A significant portion went to the British Museum. But among his contemporaries, George was equally well known for his literary pranks–which did little to endear him to his colleagues.

Shakespeare Scholarship

Steevens’ first published works on Shakespeare were 49 notes to Samuel Johnson’s 1765 edition of Shakespeare’s works. He strongly believed in preserving the quarto editions of Shakespeare, and soon published Twenty of the plays of Shakespeare, being the whole number printed in quarto during his life-time, or before the restoration, collated where there were different copies, and published from the originals. Johnson was so impressed with Steevens’ work, he suggested that Steevens undertake the entirety of Shakespeare’s works.

Samuel Johnson

That edition, The plays of Will Shakespeare (1773), was ten volumes long and took six years to publish. Though Johnson had contributed to the book only minimally, Steevens lionized his involvement to bolster sales. The edition was received quite well, though later it was discovered that Steevens had borrowed generously from Edward Capelli’s 1768 edition. Steevens and Isaac Reed published an updated edition in 1778. Reed undertook a third edition in 1785, but Steevens, who considered himself a “dowager” editor by this time, had little to do with the project. He resumed involvement only because of his resentment for rival editor Edmond Malone.

Steevens’ Hoaxes and Exploits

For all Steevens’ scholarship, he earned the nickname “Puck of Commentators” for his mischievous pranks. This was certainly a gentle assessment; Steevens executed some exceptional pranks. For his first (mis)deed, Steevens forged a letter from George Peele, recounting his meeting with Shakespeare and other dramatists at the Globe Theatre. Everyone accepted the letter as genuine, and it even appeared in Dr. John Berkenhout’s Biographia litteraria (1777).

Later Steevens decided to exact revenge on Richard Gough, a well known antiquarian against whom Steevens held a grudge. Gough refused to trade his Hogarth plates for some of Steevens’ rare books. Steevens had a large marble block engraved with an Anglo-Saxon inscription and the name “Hardecanute.” The tombstone was displayed in a Southwark shop, and Steevens circulated the story that the headstone had been discovered in Kennington. The faux artifact gleaned a write-up in Gentlemen’s Magazine (1790), and it was Steevens himself who revealed the forgery.

Even accomplished biologist and botanist Erasmus Darwin was taken in by Steevens’ ploys. In the December 1783 issue of London Magazine, Steevens published a description of the invented upas tree of Java, which could kill all other life within 15 to 18 miles. He based his account on the reports of an invented Dutch traveler. Darwin accepted the account and included it in his 1789 Loves of the Plants.

The Other Side of the Coin

Though Steevens obviously loved a good prank, he also helped to expose some of the most notorious forgers of his era. When Samuel Ireland announced that his son William Ireland had discovered a treasure trove of Shakespeare manuscripts. Steevens was quick to criticize the “discovery” and declare the Ireland editions to be forgeries. He also played an important part in exposing the Chatterton-Rowley forgeries.

Meanwhile Steevens was also known for his generosity–sometimes helping the family members of his own rivals. He assisted the family of author Oliver Goldsmith and many others. Ultimately these acts mitigated Steevens’ peers’ evaluation of him. Now he’s remembered not for these hoaxes, but for his scholarship and bibliography.

Happy Birthday, Washington Irving!

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April 3 marks the birthday of Washington Irving, American author, historian, and diplomat. Though best known for his short stories “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving was a prolific writer who also penned several historical fiction books and biographies.

Childhood and Education

Irving was born the same week that Britain’s ceasefire ended the American Revolution, and his joyful parents decided to name their new son after George Washington. Young Irving got to meet his namesake when Washington was inaugurated president in 1789, an event that Irving would later commemorate with a watercolor painting. Irving was an unenthusiastic student; by age fourteen, he was already skipping evening classes to attend the theater. Luckily for him, his older brothers were successful merchants who would later support his budding career as a writer.

Irving began submitting pieces to the New York Morning Chronicle in 1802, when he was nineteen years old. Published under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle, the articles focused on New York’s theater and social scenes. They were quite an impressive debut: Aaron Burr, then the magazine’s co-publisher, snipped several of the articles to send to his daughter Theodosia. And Charles Brockden Brown journeyed from Philadelphia to New York to convince Oldstyle to write for Brown’s literary magazine.

Shortly thereafter his brothers sent him to Europe–only to be disappointed that Irving skipped all the “high spots.” He concentrated instead on accumulating an impressive social circle. The charismatic young man soon earned a reputation for congeniality and was a much sought after dinner guest. Irving also forged a close friendship with Washington Allston, who almost convinced him to give up writing for a career as a painter.

Authorial Success

Irving returned to New York, where he founded “The Lads of Kilkenny,” a group of young literati from the city. In 1807, he founded the literary magazine Salmagundi with his brother William and fellow Lad James Kirke Paulding. Even though Irving again wrote under pseudonyms, the magazine helped spread his name outside of New York. And it was in the November 11, 1807 issue of Salmagundi that Irving referred to New York as “Gotham.” Anglo-Saxon for “Goat’s Town,” the nickname wasn’t intended to be flattering. But for some reason it stuck, and Gotham has been used to refer to New York ever since.

Two years later, Irving perpetrated what was one of the greatest literary hoaxes of his time. He placed a series of missing person advertisements in the local papers, asking for information about the whereabouts of historian Diedrich Knickerbocker. Irving also fabricated a notice from a hotel proprietor, threatening to publish the manuscript that Knickerbocker left behind in the hotel room, if the historian failed to surface and pay his bill. The ploy was so effective that New York officials actually considered offering a reward for Knickerbocker’s safe return.

Irving published A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty by Diedrich Knickerbocker on December 6, 1809. The book was an instant success. “It took with the public and gave me celebrity, as an original work was something remarkable uncommon in America,” Irving commented. Over time the name “Knickerbocker” became a name for New Yorkers in general; it has since been shortened to “Knicks,” for which the city’s basketball franchise is named.

Financial Struggles and International Copyright Battles

Despite Irving’s fame, he still struggled financially. For a time Irving was editor of Analectic Magazine, where he wrote biographies of naval war heroes. He was among the first to reprint Francis Scott Key’s “Defense of Fort McHenry,” now famous as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Then the War of 1812 destroyed his family’s finances, and he went to England to keep the family trade business afloat. Irving would remain in Europe for the next seventeen years.

Irving declared bankruptcy and had trouble finding a job. In the meantime, he kept writing at a furious pace. In summer of 1817, he penned “Rip Van Winkle” during an overnight stay with his sister and her husband in Birmingham. By spring of 1819, Irving had sent a set of short stories to his brother Ebenezer. These would become the first installment of The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. It met with instant success, and Irving published seven more installments in New York. The stories were reprinted in two volumes in London.

Irving’s bi-continental reputation introduced a significant challenge: literary bootleggers, who would republish his works without permission, particularly in England. Like Charles Dickens, Irving spoke out about the need for international copyright law, but made little progress. Dickens and Irving corresponded on the topic, and Dickens would stay with Irving during his 1842 American tour. But they still grappled with international copyright issues on both sides of the pond. Irving’s stopgap solution: he hired London publisher John Murray to distribute his books in England and made sure to release all his works concurrently in both the US and Britain.

Travel to Spain

Thanks to an invitation from Alexander Hill Everett, the American Minister to Spain, Irving found himself in Spain in 1826. Many manuscripts regarding the Spanish conquests in America had recently gone public, and soon Irving was working on multiple books simultaneously. He wrote The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828; his first work not published using a pseudonym); Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada (1829); and Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus (1831). These books were historical fiction, rather than biography or history. Irving made one mistake; he helped to perpetuate the myth that scholars of the Middle Ages thought the world was flat. But he wasn’t alone; other authors who promoted this misconception were John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White.

Irving soon moved into the Alhambra, where he expected to finish several writing projects. Instead he was appointed to the American Legation in London. He returned to England to serve as an aide-de-campe to American Minister Louis McLane. Irving helped to negotiate a trade agreement between the US and the British West Indies. He resigned from the post in 1832, returning to the States to publish Tales of the Alhambra.

Western Exploration

That same year, Irving accompanied US Commissioners for Indian Affairs Henry Leavitt Ellsworth and Charles la Trobe, along with his friend Count Albert-Alexandre de Pourtales to survey Indian Territory. The expedition inspired A Tour of the Prairies. Irving also met fur magnate John Jacob Astor during the trip, and Astor convinced Irving to write his biography. Astoria was published in February 1836. Meanwhile Irving encountered Benjamin Bonneville and, fascinated with his tales, convinced Bonneville to sell his maps and notes for $1,000. Irving used these as the basis for The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837).

Irving undertook these works, often called his Western series, for a few reasons. First, he was broke. Second, he’d been criticized for becoming a more European writer. Both James Fenimore Cooper and Philip Freneau thought he’d turned his back on America. Fortunately for Irving, the books were received well in the States, though predictably less so in Britain.

After a stint as the American Minister to Spain, Irving returned to his Tarrytown, NY property, called Sunnyside, in 1846. He worked on the “Author’s Revised Edition” of his works for publisher George Palmer Putnam. Irving also turned his attention to biographies, writing about Oliver Goldsmith, the Islamic prophet Muhammed, and George Washington. His biography of Washington was released in five volumes, and Irving died within months of its completion.

The Rare Books of Baseball

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This weekend kicks of the beginning of the 2013 Major League Baseball season. While the precise origins of the game remain dubious, the sport has gained a sure place as the most popular sport of focus among rare book collectors.

A Legendary Rivalry

Henry Chadwick (1824-1908) was a British-born journalist. A true baseball enthusiast, Chadwick launched one of the first newspaper columns devoted to baseball. He was also among the first to record baseball statistics as a means to evaluate individual players’ performance. In 1903, Chadwick wrote an article suggesting that baseball was a form of an English game called rounders. The game had similar rules and equipment, so the guess seemed plausible enough.

Enter Albert Spalding (1850-1915). A great pitcher from the 1870’s, Spalding was one of baseball’s greatest advocates. He owned the Chicago White Stockings and the National League of Professional Ball Clubs. In 1911, Spalding launched a massive campaign to make baseball the national pastime. He believed that baseball was a quintessentially American game–and was invented by Americans. Thus he vociferously disagreed with Chadwick’s assertion that baseball had British origins.

To settle the disagreement, Spalding appointed a committee whose mission was to uncover the origins of baseball. He selected Abraham Mills as the chairman. Mills was the National League’s president from 1882 to 1884. The task force, nicknamed the “Mills Commission,” ruled on December 30, 1907 that Abner Doubleday had invented baseball. Immediately a myth was born.

The Doubleday Myth

The Mills Commission based their ruling almost entirely on the testimony of one man: 71-year-old Abner Graves, a mining engineer who lived in Denver, Colorado. Graves responded to a “call for people who had knowledge of the game,” placed in Akron, Ohio’s Beacon Journal by Spalding. Graves claimed that he’d seen Doubleday draw a diagram of a baseball field back in 1839, during a schoolboy’s game. Graves sent his account to the Beacon Journal, which printed it with the headline “Abner Doubleday Invented Baseball.”

US Army general and Civil War hero Abner Doubleday was spuriously credited with creating baseball thanks to the Mills Commission.

Meanwhile Doubleday himself never claimed that he invented the sport. A US Army general and Civil War hero, Doubleday never once mentioned baseball in his extensive diaries. By the time the Mills Commission declared Doubleday the inventor of baseball, he’d already passed away. But that didn’t stop the myth from taking on a life of its own. Soon, Doubleday was even credited with introducing baseball to Mexico during the Mexican-American War.

Flaws in the Doubleday Myth

Unfortunately the Mills committee overlooked some critical information. First, Graves wasn’t the most reliable witness. He’d been only five years old in 1839 when he supposedly saw Doubleday diagram the baseball field. But the greatest flaw in Graves’ account was that Doubleday was not even in Cooperstown, New York in 1839.

Clearly Doubleday hadn’t invented baseball, but who had? America longed for an answer. In 1953, Congress named Andrew Cartwright the inventor of baseball, definitively debunking the Doubleday myth. Cartwright, a volunteer firefighter, had been a founding member of the New York Knickerbockers (est September 23, 1845). He’d been instrumental in making baseball more of a gentlemen’s sport. But modern scholars of baseball have also dismissed Cartwright as baseball’s inventor.

The New York Knickerbockers were the first organized baseball team. In 1953, Congress declared founding member Andrew Cartwright the inventor of baseball.

Historian and antiquarian David Block is the leading scholar on the history of baseball. His 2005 book, Baseball before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game, outlines the earliest mentions and illustrations of baseball in literature. The first known appearance of “base-ball” in print occurred in the 1744 edition of A Little Pretty Pocket-Book. And the first-known rules of baseball were printed in Spiele zur Erholung (1796). The German book that summarizes the rules of a game called “Ball mit Freystaten (oder das englische Base-ball),” which translates as “ball with free station (or English base-ball). Block illustrates the similarities between baseball and trapper ball He also notes that the first written account of rounders in England was in The Boy’s Own Book (1828).

Thus, neither Chadwick nor Spalding (nor the 1953 American Congress) was correct about baseball’s origins. The game had already existed for nearly a century before Doubleday, Cartwright, or any of their relative contemporaries could have “invented” it.

Collecting Rare Baseball Books

Baseball is by far the most popular game among collectors who specialize in a sport. This is due, in large part, to the mysterious origins of the sport. But there are also plenty of niches for collectors to focus on, from baseball’s early history, to regional leagues or specific teams, to baseball fiction.

Henry Chadwick, the sports writer who had questioned baseball’s origins, played a significant role in nationalizing the rules of baseball. He wrote Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player most years, from 1860 to 1881. The guide included not only rules for the game itself, but also guidelines for establishing baseball clubs and game statistics from the previous year. These guides were ubiquitous at the time, helping to spread interest in the game and normalize rules. But Chadwick’s guides have become exceptionally scarce, and they’re prized among collectors who specialize in baseball.

One of the earlier references to “base-ball” as a children’s game comes from Juvenile Pastimes; Or Girls’ and Boys’ Book of Sports (1849). References to the sport at this time are particularly uncommon. One of the 17 woodcuts in this book depicts two boys playing “base-ball,” making it a relatively early pictorial depiction of the game.

Baseball fiction has long been favored among collectors. Earlier baseball fiction was often published in serial form, though novels soon gained steam. One especially collectible title is Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars (1955) by Walter R Brooks. The Freddy series itself is beloved among many collectors of modern first editions, as well.

Ephemera also remains attractive, especially to collectors who focus on individual teams. One particularly interesting piece of ephemera comes in the form of a poem by Barry Gifford. An avid Cubs fan, Gifford published “The Giants Are Going to Win the Pennant” on a Madrugada broadside. He compares the poet Jack Spicer to Ted Williams, one of the greatest baseball players of all time, whose “hits are in/the record books/waiting to be broken.”

As Americans’ love of baseball remains strong and the game continues to evolve, collectors of rare baseball books will undoubtedly have plenty of opportunities to expand their collections.

Don’t Miss the Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair

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Sacramento-Antiquarian-Book-Fair

This Saturday we’ll be taking Tavistock Books on the road for the Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair. One of the best regional book fairs, the show features booths from 60 vendors. This Sacramento book fair has gained an excellent reputation in the community, and visitors will find an incredibly variety of items, including many that cannot be found anywhere online.

Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair

March 23rd, 2013: 9:45 AM to 5 PM

September 14, 2013: 9:45 AM to 5 PM

Scottish Rite Temple, 651 H Street, Sacramento 95819

This fair is unique because it draws such a strong crowd year after year. Fair manager Jim Kay has worked hard to make the event accessible–and memorable–for visitors. For about 20 years now, the fair has been at the Scottish Rites Temple, an ideal location because it’s spacious and offers plenty of free parking. Meanwhile, visitors find a wide variety of unique items. “Our dealers bring items that are unique, and most of them bring items that you simply can’t find on the internet,” says Kay.

Visitors will also be able to get free appraisals on their own antiquarian books, which is always a popular service. Kay, who’s been a book dealer himself for many years, conducts the appraisals. If you’ve always wondered what your books are worth, now’s the time to find out!

The Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair draws crowds from all backgrounds, from beginners to serious rare book collectors. “Fair offerings run the general gamut, from $5 to $20,000 books. You’ll find collectibles and relatively modern authors, but someone looking for a very rare John Steinbeck would also likely find it if it’s available. There are postcards, original art pieces, diaries of people from the Gold Rush, and more,” says Kay. He also noted that collectors would find plenty of graphic items and ephemera, such as movie posters from the 1920’s and even original paintings.

You’ll find us at the fair with a spectacular collection of items from our inventory. If you’d like to see a particular item, please let us know and we’ll do our best to bring it for you.