Maurice B. Prendergast

 

Maurice B. Prendergast

Friendship & Folly 

by Maria Pool

L. C. Page, 1898
 

Maurice B. Prendergast

Muriella or Le Selve

by Ouida (Louise de la Ramée)

L. C. Page, 1901

White cloth was glued to the cover before stamping the pictorial cover of Muriella. This solved the problem caused by the whites that were available for stamping at that time, which flaked off easily. 
 

Olive Lothrop Grover and an unusual stamping effect

Olive Lothrop Grover

[signed with OLG monogram]

The Spirit Guest 

by Josephine Rand

Revell,1899

with the dust jacket (missing some pieces), featauring the same design:

Unusual cover material and appearance.  An embossed pattern high-finish paper with random-grain pattern. It looks like the ink, which is a split fountain, is stamped into the paper about halfway the depth of the emboss, which seems to have squished the ink to fill the embossment like little micro-cups, making it darker in those spots, and creating a halftone effect. The ink would need to have exactly the right viscosity to achieve this. Revell used this technique on other titles, and also on pebble-grain cloth. An example is the M. A. Lathbury design on Mary Dickenson, From Girlhood to Motherhood, [n.d., c.1899], and Revell used it on a Hazenplug design they recycled for various titles over the years, sometimes using this technique and sometimes printed flat.  Detail of the above design is below. Click any image to see it larger.

Mary A. Lathbury

[signed MAL]

From Girlhood to Motherhood

by Mary Lowe Dickinson

Fleming H. Revell Company, n.d.  ©1899

Ethel Belle Appel

Ethel Belle Appel

Some Women's Ways

by Mary Angela Dickens

R. F. Fenno, 1896

Ethel Belle Appel

The Descendant

by Ellen Glasgow

Harper & Brothers, 1897

Herman Scheffauer

One of the stranger American literary figures was Herman Scheffauer (1878-1927), the San Francisco poet and protégé of Ambrose Bierce who moved to Germany and became a propagandist during WWI, was indicted in abstentia for treason by a Federal Grand Jury in 1919, and committed suicide eight years later, jumping out the window after murdering a woman in his apartment.

He is of interest to us because, according to a query response from  Thomas A Goldwasser Rare Books, Scheffauer is the HS of the monogram on the Shapes of Clay cover. That information led me to acquire a copy of Scheffauer's The Masque of the Elements (London: Dent; NY: Dutton, 1912). Although unsigned, it has so many elements in common with the Shapes of Clay cover art that it appears to be the same hand, refined by a decade.

John Ship, Mariner

Cover art by George Wharton Edwards, with GWE monogram.

John Ship, Mariner
by Knarf Elivas [pseud. Frank (Mackenzie) Savile]
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company,  ©1898

Filling the Empty Shelves

Now that the Third Exhibition has been delivered to its permanent home at the Boston Athenaeum, I have cabinets and shelf space for 350 books that have been piling up and stored in boxes. I still have to finish binding the Deluxe Edition of the Catalog of the Third Exhibition, and then will start documenting the next group.

There are many fabulous designs that have been waiting their turn.  Without any details, here are some snapshots to preview what will be coming. This cabinet includes cover art by Brennan, Bradley, Appel, Kimbrough and Parrish.

Click on the images to see them larger.

Below: Detail of the monogram on Shapes of Clay.

 

The reflections are from the flash on the Mylar dust jackets

Below: variants--title in cream on left, gold on right, slightly different cloth

Boston Athenaeum is New Home for Third Exhibition

The entire collection of books in the Third Exhibition of American Decorated Publishers' Bindings, 1872-1929 has been acquired by the Boston Athenaeum. Once it has been integrated into their catalog the books will be available for researchers in the Special Collections Reading Room.

http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/node/45