This Week In Bookplates 12/9/2012

Earlier in the week I purchased a small English collection and have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the bookplate owners .

The bookplate for Ivor  Novello (1893-1951) was designed by Philip Armstrong Tilden  . It is illustrated on page 123 in  British Bookplates A  Pictorial  History Brian North Lee,
 Mr. Novello was a composer , actor and producer.He wrote Keep The Home Fires Burning.

Here is a link to a beautiful rendition of Keep The Home Fires Burning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=T80_laJ-B90

"Prince Frank Littler CBE (1901-1973) was an influential British theatre impresario. (Note that "Prince" was merely his name and not an honorific title.) He was also one of the major investors and a company director of Associated TeleVision, the second ITV network contractor to begin broadcasting in 1955."

Does anyone out there know who designed his bookplate ?

Within minutes after posting the Littler  bookplate, super collector Anthony Pincott  who is faster than a speeding bullet sent me the following information:

Not signed or dated, the Prince Littler pictorial was designed by Cecil Thomas OBE FRBS of Kensington and engraved by George Taylor Friend OBE (1881-1669). The two were good friends and cooperated on a great number of GTF’s very considerable output of copper-engraved bookplates. Philip Beddingham’s checklist of GTF’s exlibris work (the second edition, published 1972) remains the definitive printed guide.

Clement Attlee  (1883-1967)

"Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955." There is also an earlier version of his bookplate dated 1906

Randolph Churchill

"Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill, MBE (28 May 1911 – 6 June 1968) was the son of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Preston from 1940 to 1945."

While I am on the subject of Churchill bookplates let me mention that sooner or later someone may offer you Winston Churchill's bookplate.
.Winston Churchill never had and never used a bookplate in his library.
What you see below is a fanciful imaginary bookplate which was pasted on the cover of the 1939
Year Book of The American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers

Owen Rutter

"Edward Owen Rutter (1889–1944) was an English historian, novelist and travel writer.

After serving with the North Borneo Civil Service from 1910 to 1915, Rutter returned to Britain during World War I and was commissioned. Rutter served with the 7th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment in France and on the Salonika Front. He edited theBalkan News which included, under the pseudonym "Klip-Klip", his parody of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha in serial form. Entitled Song of Tiadatha it has been described as "one of the masterpieces of Great War verse". Later published as a book, Tiadatha ("Tired Arthur") was the story of a naive, privileged young man who matures through his war experiences, particularly on the Macedonian front fighting against the Bulgarians, and including the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917. This volume was followed byTravels of Tiadatha (1922).

Accompanied by his wife, who also took many of the photographs for his books, Rutter travelled around the globe, making extended stops in Borneo, Hong Kong, Taiwan (then known as Formosa), Japan, Canada and the United States among other places.

His many books included The Scales of Karma (1940), Pirate Wind (1930), Triumphant Pilgrimage: An English Muslim's Journey from Sarawak to Mecca (1937), Pagans of North Borneo (1929), and Through Formosa: An Account of Japan's Island Colony (1923). He was also the author of works on Captain William Bligh and the Mutiny on the Bounty. His novel Lucky Star was filmed as Once in a New Moon in 1935. Triumphant Pilgrimage was an account of "David Chale", a pseudonym for Gerard MacBryan.

From 1933, he was a partner in the Golden Cockerel Press. During World War II Major Rutter worked for the Ministry of Information writing a number of booklets covering the British war effort."

 I wonder who designed Mr. Rutter's bookplate?
 Perhaps it was one of the illustrators working with the
Golden Cockerel Press

Fellow collector Anthony Pincott has suggested that the Rutter plate may have been designed by
Robert Gibbings.

Fellow collector/dealer Richard Cady also thought the Rutter bookplate was by Gibbings
"Last bookplate probably a woodcut of Robert Gibbings. "


Note From lew Jaffe

If you have enjoyed this posting you ought to consider joining The Bookplate Society
Give yourself a Christmas present..You deserve it.

http://www.bookplatesociety.org/

See you Next Sunday