Prize-winning Undergraduate Research at the Clark

We have recently learned that two students from Professor Joseph Bristow’s Winter 2013 Ahmanson Undergraduate Seminar at the Clark, “The Wilde Archive,” have won UCLA Library Prizes for Undergraduate Research because of their fantastic scholarly work with material in the Clark’s collections!  Elizabeth Pieslor and her paper “A Study of Oscar Wilde’s Published and Unpublished Epigrams and Aphorisms” has won in the category of Best Short Paper in the Arts and Humanities category, while Andra Lim and her paper “The Isis, the Spirit Lamp, and Male Sexuality: Oscar Wilde and Student Journalism at the University of Oxford 1892-1893″ won in the “Best Use of Clark Library Collections” category.

We are proud of Elizabeth and Andra and of the role the Clark’s collections have played in their excellent work!

Happy Birthday, Shakespeare!

 

 

 

From Library Assistant Becky Ruud

Today marks the celebration of the 449th birthday of William Shakespeare. The church registry lists William Shakespeare’s baptism on April 26, 1564, and it can be assumed that Shakespeare was born a few days before that. This date is also the same day that he died in 1616, making a very convenient day to celebrate both  his birth and death. Our Shakespeare collection here at the Clark includes many folios, quartos, and illustrated editions by Eric Gill and others, including my favorite edition illustrated by John Austen (see illustrations from the 1922 edition of Hamlet below), and much more.

We are also proud to have the Chrzanowski collection, a well-rounded donation of works likely read by William Shakespeare, used as his sources, and/or those important to the development of the English language. For a detailed summary of the Chrzanowski collection please visit our website.

 

 

Clark Chamber Music @ LA Times

The Clark’s chamber music series was featured in this past Sunday’s Los Angeles Times!  If you missed the article, it is available online.

It’s too late to get tickets for a concert in this year’s series, but sign up for the Clark/Center email list and learn about the 2013-2014 series when it is made public!

“Wilde in San Francisco”

From Gerald W. Cloud, Clark Librarian

At the 46th California International Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco last month I asked Ed Maggs the question I ask as many booksellers as will listen, “Do you have any Wilde material?”  Ed replied that he did indeed and produced from his glass-fronted cabinet the photograph shown here:

William Morton Fullerton (1865-1952)

Portrayed here is William Morton Fullerton (1865-1952), in an original cabinet portrait, inscribed “To André Raffalovich from William Fullerton. 1887.”  A quick check of the Clark’s catalog revealed that the library already owned correspondence between Wilde and Fullerton (in particular, a four page letter which Mr. Clark acquired in the Dulau sale, described thus: “Addressed from Paris, 1899. Commencing ‘Monsieur Melmoth’. A pathetic letter, refusing with extreme politeness and reluctance a request for a loan” [Dulau, 96]).

Hoping for a good story I asked, “But who was William Fullerton?” Mr. Maggs did not disappoint, and he kindly provided the follow account:

“William Morton Fullerton was one of the most interesting non-entities of the fin-de-siècle. His early literary talent never really developed throughout a career of jobbing journalism that peaked early with his coverage for The Times of the Dreyfus trial, and he is remembered now for the astonishing variety and vigor of his love life.

Leon Edel, in his one volume life of Henry James, on Fullerton: “Singularly attaching… a dashing well-tailored man with large Victorian moustaches and languid eyes, a bright flower in his button hole, and the style of a ‘masher’. He had considerable sexual versatility.” [see photo]

After Harvard, where he was intimate with George Santayana and close to Bernard Berenson, he moved to London where he befriended the writer and socialite Hamilton Aidé and became the lover of the notorious Lord Ronald Gower, sculptor and model for Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. There was a long affair with the Ranee of Sarawak, Margaret Brooke, a short marriage to a Parisian woman who later blackmailed him (she was covertly paid off by Henry James and Edith Wharton), and a short but very intense love affair with Wharton. He was one of the “younger ardent men” (Edel) who gathered round James in the early 1890s, when he “made himself agreeable in a tender romantic way”, and is widely supposed to have been a large part of the inspiration for the character of the journalist Densher in The Wings of a Dove. The fling with Edith Wharton was a remarkable episode, in which one suspects the 46 year old novelist had her first fully realized sexual relations, the intensity of which led to the writing of the pornographic short story Beatrice Palmato, published in Lewis’s biography. Her letters to Fullerton, now at the University of Texas and partially published in the UT Library Chronicle, show a woman aware of Fullerton’s impossibility, but unable, on grounds of emotional intoxication, to let him go.

The recipient, André Raffalovich (1864-1934), wealthy aesthete and quintessential Uranian poet, established a literary salon in Mayfair, somewhat in the shade of Wilde’s salon in Chelsea. He was the life partner of John Gray (1866-1934), poet and nominal inspiration for the eponymous Dorian G. Gray fled the Wilde scandal into the arms of the Catholic church, and removed himself to Edinburgh, the predominantly Protestant of Scotland’s two great cities. Raffalovich followed him and, in the sort of gesture reserved unto the wealthy, built him a church. Raffalovich established his literary artistic circles in Edinburgh, and the two continued to see each other, once a week, after Mass. A small footnote is that the acquisition of Gray and Raffalovich’s library (from the church) marked the beginning of the career of Anthony d’Offay, initially a bookseller and later to become one of the giants of the modern art trade.” [courtesy of Ed Maggs]

Who could resist such a colorful character as Fullerton?  In any case, I could not and the photograph has been added to the Clark’s growing collection of Oscar Wilde and his Circle.

Printing, A Desirable Career

Printing, A Desirable Career published by the Los Angeles Trade-Tech Junior College in the mid-1950’s is this week’s focus in the Cataloging Department. The Clark Library holds an extensive (yet little used) collection of mid-20th century printing and graphic arts manuals, reference works, type and paper specimens, promotional literature, yearbooks, and archives of Los Angeles based printers, designers, and typographers. The Library received a couple of significant bequests that added to these holdings, those of Ward Ritchie just after he died in 1996, and the 2004 gift from Marian Harvey in memory of Joel Harvey. These materials are an invaluable source of printing history, especially since so much was ephemeral. From items in these collections we can trace the highs and lows of the commercial industry, print culture and capitalism, the beauty of commercial graphic designs, and advances in information technology.

This promotional booklet with a description of the skills and career potential for printers and bookbinders is a nostalgic look back at an industry that was changing at the moment this publication hit press. Numerous photographs of printers, compositors, binders, and graphic artists at work are included to tempt those looking for an educational opportunity that would promise a secure future. Statistics of industry growth prove the stability of the field and if the thought of inky fingers from the printing press wasn’t appealing, “the course in printing management at Trade-Tech is an invitation to Executive positions.”

After explicating the many exciting options of the ancient arts, the booklet features one-page profiles of successful printers that could call LATTC their alma mater. Kenneth H. Jann, Robert P. Crossley, Ward Ritchie, and Dale S. Chambers are the four fellows that found fame and fortune after graduation. This copy comes to us through the Ward Ritchie bequest. At Ward’s page is a simple inscription from his friend, Joe: “You made it.”

This booklet was published the same year as that of the founding of NASA and DARPA. It was only a matter of time before space age technology reached the printing industry. Letterpress was already becoming commercially unviable, a phototypeset and offset printed book was published the year before, Xerox debuted in 1959 and by the mid-1960s most newspapers had adopted digital production processes. Letterpress printing collapsed almost overnight. How Los Angeles Trade-Tech College reorganized their departments and shifted their curriculum to focus on new methods of information distribution would be an interesting topic of further research. Suffice it to say, we hope our friend with the Pendleton plaid shirt and pompadour was able to enjoy a successful career as a printer!

Printing, A Desirable Career. Los Angeles Trade-Tech Jr. College [Los Angeles: Los Angeles Trade Technical College, ca. 1958] [40] p.; ill., ports.; 23 x 30 cm.
Call no.: f Z243 .L87

From Head Cataloger Nina Schneider

Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens!

In honor of Charles Dickens’ 201st birthday, we thought we would share one of the many Dickens items that Mr Clark collected.  Though Dickens is not really in the Clark’s usual scope, he was one of our founder’s favorites and we have a nice collection of Dickens in parts as a result.

“What is Dickens in parts?” you might ask.

Dickens’ novels were originally published serially — either on a monthly or weekly basis –and issued in paper-bound booklets (each almost the size of a National Geographic, if you are looking for a visual).  When the novel was done, readers had the option of having their novel bound together in a nice leather binding — but not everyone did.

All of the parts of David Copperfield stacked together are over 4 inches high

To our modern eyes, these parts don’t really look like what we expect from Charles Dickens.  They don’t look very grand or important and the fact that they are bound in paper may seem a little anachronistic, if you are used to thinking of old books solely as leather-bound tomes.  However, though we might think of the paperback as a modern invention, in reality, most books issued before the mid-1800s were  issued in paper wrappers.  Just as a reader might have their copy of a serial like Bleak House bound in leather when it was all published, readers had the choice whether to have their non-serialized novels bound in leather or cloth, too.

David Copperfield, 1849.

Dickens in parts aren’t just interesting to see because they differ in physical appearance from what we might expect.  They also differ considerably from our modern expectations in terms of their content — there is of course the text of the novel, but each volume contains almost as many pages of advertising as it does pages of Dickens.

Because Dickens’ was such a successful and popular writer, the various issues of his novels were a great space for advertisers to show off their products.  Some of these products were other books or writers, which aren’t entirely unfamiliar to us — contemporary children’s series books, for example, contain those.

non-book advertising

Where our David Copperfield (pictured here) in parts really diverges from our present-day conception of “the book” (not to mention “the book by a canonical author”) is in the ads that have absolutely nothing to do with books.

Locock’s Female Pills advertised in David Copperfield

David Copperfield was originally issued in 20 separate parts, which means it contains a rich repository of similar advertising and contextual information about the Victorian world.   If you are interested in learning more about Dickens and the original format of his works, the Clark owns several other Dickens novels in parts, all of which were purchased by our founder in the 1910s and 1920s.

Thomas Jefferson’s Account Book

By Kathleen McSweeney, Reading Room Assistant

Although Thomas Jefferson is well known for his roles in early United States government, he was also a business man, producing products using slaves at his mansion and plantation, Monticello. Among our Thomas Jefferson manuscripts is an account book of Jefferson’s nail business.  The book contains tables with information about the productivity of slaves producing nails at Monticello from 1796 to 1800.

Nail Book cover

Jefferson started his nail business in 1794 in order to provide additional income for Monticello.  At the nailery he used slaves that he felt were not useful elsewhere on the plantation as well as children from the ages of 10 to 16.  The nailery successfully generated profit.  Two months of earnings covered the annual bill for groceries for the Jefferson household.   Slaves were encouraged to be productive with rewards of meat, molasses, and fish.  Younger nail workers were whipped if they refused to show up for work.

page 1

The most productive slave working at the nailery according to this account book was Isaac, later known as Isaac Jefferson when he took the Jefferson name sometime after earning his freedom.  On the first page of the account book, Isaac is used as a standard of measuring an efficient worker.  Isaac was twenty years old in 1796 when he was recorded by Jefferson as the most profitable worker at the nailery.  Before working as a nailer, Isaac worked as a tinsmith and blacksmith at Monticello.

 

page 6

Thomas Jefferson, “Nail Book”, MS Box J, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA.

 

Sources:

Stanton, Lucia. Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello. Charlottesville, Va.: Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2000.

Wiencek, Henry. “Master of Monticello.” Smithsonian 43.6 (2012): 40-97. America: History & Life.

 

 

 

Our 1613 King James Bible on exhibit

From January 24 through February 22, the William H. Hannon Library at Loyola Marymount University is delighted to host a traveling exhibition that explores the social, cultural, literary, and religious influence of the King James Bible over the four centuries since it was published. We were one of forty sites across the country to be selected to display this exhibition, which is partially funded by a small grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Manifold Greatness: The Creation & Afterlife of the King James Bible will be on display in the library’s level 3 atrium, just adjacent to the department of Archives & Special Collections, which is hosting a companion rare book exhibition called Singular Wisdom: The King James Bible and Early Printed Bibles, which includes a second edition of the King James Bible (1613) on loan from the William Andrews Clark Library at UCLA.

All events are free and open to the public; Manifold Greatness is accessible from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. M-F, and 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and Singular Wisdom is open 8 – 5, M-F. You can find information about visiting LMU and parking here.

Robots in the Clark Library

Nina Schneider, Head Cataloger

While cataloging my way through the Sette of Odd Volumes, I ran across number 29 of the Sette’s privately printed opuscula, entitled Automata Old and New by Conrad William Cooke, Mechanick to the Sette. Delivered at a meeting of the Sette held at Limmer’s Hotel on November 6, 1891, this essay made me wonder about additional robotic treasures at the Clark.

The word “robot” is derived from the Czech word robota, or labor, and first used by Karel Capek (or perhaps his brother, Josef, depending on whom you ask) in a play published in 1920. When we think about robots today, we think about mechanical and programmable laborers helping us complete mundane, repetitive, or precise tasks. Sometimes we think of emotional therapy, the Mars landscape, or evil killing machines when we think of robots, but robots are as ancient as ancient Greece.

According to Mr. Cooke, automata was described in Homer’s Iliad, by contemporaries of Plato, and by Hero in his Spiritalia. These early inventions and experiments were designed to be useful and entertaining. Movement was made possible with water and air pressure. Athanasius Kircher began using magnets in the mid-17th century (see his Magnes, sive, De arte magnetic in UCLA’s Special Collections [call no. QC751.K63m 1654]) and a century later, wheels, gears, and tracks prompted elaborate and curious mechanical works that proved profitable.

Image of automaton from v. 4, no. 4 of Jay’s Journal of Anomalies”

Ricky Jay, a modern scholar, collector, actor, and sleight-of-hand artist, published a number of essays on the history of some of these automata in a quarterly periodical Jay’s Journal of Anomalies that started in 1994 (Press coll. Reagh). This is how I first became aware of these wonders.

For those of you who worry about modern robots taking over and enslaving the human population, rest assured Isaac Asimov figured out how to prevent such a thing from happening. The three laws of robotics, explicated in his 20th century novel, I, Robot, are written to prevent such a scenario. At least we hope so.

Image of closed book

Image of closed book

Cooke, Conrad William (1843-1926)
Automata Old and New by Conrad William Cooke, M.Inst.E.E.
London: Imprinted at the Chiswick Press, 1893
Privately printed opuscula issued to members of the Sette of Odd Volumes; no. XXIX
Call no. SOV Opuscula 29

Jay’s Journal of Anomalies
Los Angeles: W. & V. Dailey Rare Books
Vol. 4, no. 4 (2000)
Call no. Press coll. Reagh

I, Robot: Three Laws of Robotics
Loket, Czech Republic : Jan & Jarmila Sobota, 2007
30 numbered and signed copies.
Call no. Press coll. Sobota

Wilde in the Market Place

Please join us on Thursday, January 31st at 4pm for 2013′s Clark Lecture on Oscar Wilde, which will feature Rick Gekoski speaking on “Oscar Wilde in the Marketplace.”

From the very start of his career, Oscar Wilde wanted to be noticed. He was the leading literary celebrity of his day, honed his epigrams, and ensured that his books were issued in beautiful limited editions, which would be attractive to collectors. Following his death an enormous market in Wilde books, manuscripts, letters and memorabilia developed, and a number of unscrupulous forgers took advantage of the burgeoning market for Wilde items. In the 1920s and 1930s a number of major collections were formed, of which William A. Clark, Jr’s holdings were the most significant. Oscar is still avidly sought after, and, as a rare book dealer, Dr. Gekoski has been able to help several collectors put together noteworthy collections.

Dr. Rick Gekoski is one of the world’s leading bookmen: a writer, rare-book dealer, broadcaster and teacher. He is the author of three books which trace his major enthusiasms, Staying Up: A Fan’s View of a Season in the Premiership, Tolkien’s Gown and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books and Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir, as well as a critical study of Joseph Conrad and a bibliography of William Golding. An American who left for England in 1966, he was for some years a member of the English Department at the University of Warwick, and chair of their Faculty of Arts. He has established two private presses, The Sixth Chamber Press and The Bridgewater Press, which issue finely printed editions of leading writers, novelists and poets. As a broadcaster, he has written and delivered two series for BBC Radio 4: Rare Books, Rare People and Lost, Stolen, or Shredded: The History of Some Missing Works of Art.

This biennial lecture on Oscar Wilde is made possible by a generous endowment founded by Mr. William Zachs.

Please register for this free event at the website for the Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies.

Oscar Wilde by Frank Miles