Bookplates From The Hollywood Compost Pile Chapter 3

George Cuckor's bookplate was designed by Paul Landacre. His library was quite large and his books are still readily available. The other legendary director Cecil B. De Mille also had a large library and his bookplate is still offered for sale by several dealers.

Bette Davis (1908-1989) .Her bookplate is more difficult to come by.
Oops- I must have downloaded Cukor image twice.

Bing Crosby, for whatever reason used scotch tape instead of glue to attach his bookplates.If you ever get one do not try to remove the tape it does not peel off without doing damage and can not be soaked off unless you want to deal with some very toxic solvents.

Some of Hume Cronin's (1911-2003) books wound up at the Strand Bookstore in New York City

about ten years ago and I still have a few loose plates for possible exchange (bookplatemaven at hotmail dot com)

Joan Crawford had another bookplate which she used in the 1920's. I have only seen one copy at the Hartford Athanaeum in the Hattie Baker collection.

I try to get old movie cards to use in conjunction with the bookplates and the best source I have found is http://www.moviecard.com/

See you next week.

Bookplate Odds And Ends

Click On Image To Enlarge -I have listed this etched bookplate for Margaret W. Atwater on Ebay (item # 310020184774) . My seller name is bookplatemaven .The plate was done by Mildred Bryant Brooks. Later this evening additional items will be put on Ebay.

UPDATE it's Monday evening http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZbookplatemaven
I have listed 17 items on Ebay. Here is a link that I hope will get you to my listings
Biographic Information:
Mildred Bryant Brooks (1901-1995)Born: Indiana 1901 Died: 1995
Moved with family to Long Beach, California in 1907. Her mother was a painter, her father was a scientist. She graduated “cum laude” in art from University of Southern California, under F. Tolles Chamberlin. She began etching in 1929 studying under Arthur Millier. She taught and lectured on etching and art at Stickney Art School in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Art Institute, Pomona College and University of Southern California. She worked as a Christmas card designer for Chryson’s Incorporated in the 1920s, from whom she acquired an etching press. In the later decades, she also worked as an interior designer and decorator. She was a member of the Pasadena Society of Artists. Her honors, both national and international awards include the California Society of Etchers, San Francisco 1932; Bookplate International Exhibit, Los Angeles 1933; John Taylor Arms Award, Society of American Etchers, New York 1934; Chicago Society of Etchers 1934. She has had many exhibitions including the National Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.,.

Marianne Wurlitzer, the grand-daughter of Rudolph H. Wurlitzer has several books for sale with his engraved bookplate. Her Email is Music@wurlitzer-bruck.com

http://inet.uni2.dk/home/skovenborg/Exlibris_MedicalExlibris.html

I will pick up on my series about the Hollywood Compost Pile next week. In the meantime I want to mention a few odds and ends. Dr. Erik Skovenborg collects bookplates relating to medicine , wine, and chess. The link above takes you to his most interesting web site.

Http://antiquariat-rieger.de/neueexlibris.htm

Wofgang Rieger is an active bookplate dealer in Germany whose on-line catalog link is shown above.

http://www.charlesdelanghe.com/index.html

Charles De Langhe is a engraver in France who does bookplates. I am delighted to introduce you to a young talented engraver.

See You Next Week.

Bookplates From The Hollywood Compost Pile,Chapter2

Geraldine Farrar was a well known opera singer who started a second career in silent films.Her bookplate was commissioned by Brentano's Paris and engraved by G.M.McCall in 1911

Douglas Fairbanks Sr.(1883-1939) and Mary Pickford (1892-1979) used a bookplate reflecting their Hollywood roles.

I wrote to Douglas Fairbanks Jr.(1909-2000) when he was still alive and he sent me an autographed bookplate.The plate was engraved by A.W. Turpin

Clark Gable (1901-1960) is certainly well known and will not be soon forgotten. I have included him in the compost pile because he was an interesting case study. He was an avid reader and read a book a day. The subject matter was quite eclectic , from fishing to Thoreau. He married six times and changed bookplates at least once. Kathleen was his fifth wife.

Click On Images to Enlarge The firm of J.E. Caldwell & Co. in Philadelphia contacted Rockwell Kent to design a bookplate for Nelson Eddy(1901-1967) but Mr. Eddy balked at the price of $250.00 so they hired a Rockwell Kent wannabee to design his plate. As I mentioned last week , film clips of the celebrities you never heard of can be seen on http://www.youtube.com/

Bookplate News Of the Week: Andy English has self- published a remarkable hand- made book about 25 of his bookplates. It includes many tip-ins and the limited edition will be sold out quickly.

Http://www.andyenglish.com/store/item/2bvjl/Books/25_Bookplates.html

See you next week with chapter three of Tales from the Hollywood compost pile.

Bookplates From The Hollywood Compost Pile

Click On Images To Enlarge-
Paulette Goddard (1910-1990) used a bookplate designed by her second husband ,Charlie Chaplin. The 1930 Yearbook Of The American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers contained an article about motion picture bookplates by Hettie Gray Baker. Some of the celebrity bookplates illustrated were : Charlie Chaplin , Joel Swensen, Louise Fazenda, and Colleen Moore. If you recognize more than one name out of those four you are either a film buff or over eighty years old. Fame, especially in Hollywood is such a fleeting thing. I suppose cable stations like Turner Classic Movies have helped to keep the early twentieth century stars shining but even with that a good many of the celebrity names I will mention over the next few weeks are not very well known today.This project is a departure from what I normally do each Sunday since it will take several weeks to complete all the scanning and include some links and biographical information.
If you go to http://www.youtube.com/ you can search by almost any name I refer to and see old film clips for each celebrity mentioned. So there you have it , more to come.


Dorothy Gish (1898-1968) worked extensively with D.W. Griffith.

Greta Garbo (1905-1990) is atypical .Her recognition is global and long lasting. Her bookplate was designed in 1939 by A. Herry

In the mid 1920 's John Gilbert (1895-1936) was as well known as Rudolph Valentino. You can see him in a film clip by following the link below

MOT 1939\: MOMA\: Film can ""The Big Parade"" (1925) Soldiers marching John Gilb

Bookplate Treasures , The San Francisco Paper Show

I bought a small print (3 3/4 in. by 4 3/4 in.) engraved by Sister Mary Carmelyn out of curiosity. Does anyone out there know anything about her?

Ellen McCarter Doubleday was the wife of the American publisher Nelson Doubleday(1889-1949) After her husband's death she served on the board of Doubleday until 1965.The bookplate was designed by B. Peltz

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE I had intended to write about bookplates from the Hollywood compost pile but that has been put off for a week because I want to write about San Francisco . Much to my surprise the bookplate hunt at the paper show was most successful. Waiting in line outside the Hall of Flowers was quite pleasant because I was able to observe green Humming Birds within jumping distance of where I stood. What a delight.

The first bookplate I purchased was on a detached cover from the library of John Lewis Childs.

The Closed Gentian is hand painted.
The most exciting find was a group of twelve plates by Dugald Stewart Walker. I have searched the Internet and my own reference library to get more information about Mr. Walker. He may have been a very private person because very little information was found. He lived in Richmond , Virginia (1883-1937) and studied at the New York School of Design.He was best known as a children's book illustrator but did do about forty bookplates.Most were drawn in pen and ink on folio size Bristol boards and reduced for reproduction as bookplates.My observation is that his larger bookplates are more powerful than his smaller ones.
Ref. American Bookplates by William E. Butler p.131-132
The Bookplate Annual For 1925 by Alfred Fowler P 11-13
See you next week.

From Hartford to San Francisco/Optical Illusions

Click On Image To Enlarge. The image shown above is a 1908 pencil signed proof by Frederick Spenceley. I plan to put it on Ebay before the day is over. I actually put ten items on Ebay. If you go there my seller name is bookplatemaven. WWW.ebay.com

The American Bookbinders museum has a website with many images of bookbinders labels.The one shown above is my favorite.

http://www.bookbindersmuseum.com/

Mary was reading Tales From The Time Loop last week and she showed me the floral illustration shown above. Can you see the subliminal message in the image ?

Apparently only 5% of people see it immediately. I could not find it until it was shown to me.

I got back from Papermania late Saturday night and was really dragging my butt on Sunday. I am a day late and definitely a dollar short. The show was very productive. I purchased the plate shown above because it also has an optical illusion. Sometimes you see the owner's name and sometimes you don't.

By the end of the week I plan to be in San Francisco.If you know of any great bookstores in the bay area please contact me . Bookplatemaven@hotmail.com

Next week I plan to write about bookplates from the Hollywood compost pile.

Bookplates Commemorating A Special Event

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE From time to time I get bookplates specifically prepared to announce or commemorate an event. The "I am pissed off" bookplate shown above always brings a smile to my face.

The Last Political Prisoner plate shown below has always been a puzzlement. It is in several major collections and this is what has been unearthed so far: "This Music Crept" is from The Tempest and was incorporated word for word by T.S. Eliot in his chapter 3 "The Fire Sermon" in The Waste Land.

240 years ago Teiley Blaksslee purchased a book and had a special book plate prepared.It is a large label measuring 80x 178 mm border to border.It must have been placed in a large quarto or folio volume. It is speculated* that he lived in Connecticut and was somehow affiliated with a printer. *REF. P. 304 Bookplates In The News by Audrey Spencer Arellanes

On New Years Day 1849 Oren and Sally Sheldon of Mount Morris , New York invited their three sons and four daughters along with their Pastor , Rev. C.H.A. Bulkley to their father's home for a very special celebration. Each sibling was presented with a six volume set of Henry's Commentary. The bookplate shown below was inserted in each of the forty two volumes.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

One of the functions of this blog is to act as a clearing house for bookplate news and events from around the world. In this instance the event was a bookplate exhibit at a coffee house in Serbia.

I can't be more specific as the You Tube video is not in English.

Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUeSghx92w

That's all for this year. HAPPY NEW YEAR

Seasons Greetings From Bookplate Land

I want to wish all of you good luck and good health in the coming year . Merry Christmas!
Top Row left to right , My Son Steven, My Grandson Harrison , Santa, Me,My Daughter Moira
Bottom Row left to right My Daughter In Law Lisa, My Son in Law to Be Steven Don't remember where I got the letter by Howard B. Cunningham but it gives me pause for thought. Among the current crop of presidential candidates I can think of only who can lead , and inspire this kind of confidence but I am not going to vote for him because he wants to continue the war that Bush got us into.

Bookplate designers have always sent collectors and clients beautiful Christmas cards and I would like to share some of my favorites with you. Dr. Bennett's card was designed by Rudolph Ruzicka (1883-1978)

Thomas Ewing French (1871-1944) often worked with A.N. Macdonald

William Hammatt Simmons (1884-1949)

Bernhardt Wall sent this card to the American ephemera collector Bella Landauer

The card shown above was done by Allen Lewis (1873-1957)

Timothy Cole (1852-1931) did the card below for Bella Landauer

Stanley E. Scantlin (1949- ) engraved the card below

See you next week.

Two New Bookplate Artists,D.H.Lawrence Update

Ana Flávia Dias sent me this image of her bookplate.

Ivan Locke is an amateur fine art print maker whose current mediums are lino cut and woodcut relief prints and wood pyrography printed in either relief or intaglio.
His blog is
http://ilocke.blogspot.com/


The December 2nd posting included images of " D.H. Lawrence bookplates" I want to thank everyone who responded and mention two experts who took the time to respond in great detail.
Professor Keith Cushman of the University of North Carolina, a noted Lawrence scholar and John Martin , who assembled the greatest collection of Lawrence first editions in America and probably the world.
D. H. Lawrence never had and never used a bookplate.
It is so easy to get hooked on an item presented and misrepresented on Ebay without doing research .Fortunately, in this instance I was not the high bidder.

If you are in Oklahoma you should look into a new organization for bookplate and antiquarian book collectors Www.freewebs.com/bibliophilesofoklahoma

Papermania (my favorite ephemera show) is coming up in January. It will be in Hartford Connecticut on January 5th and 6th
http://www.papermaniaplus.com/

One final note : On the way to the 70th birthday party of an old friend in California I plan to spend at least one day in San Francisco looking for bookplates.If you are in the area and have bookplates for sale or trade please let me hear from you.
My email is bookplatemaven@hotmail.com

eBay Seller: bookplatemaven: Prints, Art items on eBay.com

eBay Seller: bookplatemaven: Prints, Art items on eBay.com

After I came to the conclusion that retirement is stifling , I enrolled in a real estate course at Temple University . On Tuesday I take my final exam , for which I am not fully prepared so this is an abridged posting .

If you click on the link above you can see how my Ebay sales are progressing.You may even find a bookplate which appeals to you.

The little device pictured is a new identity theft protector that Ebay and PayPal sell for $ 5.00(that right $5.00).It's about two inches long and well worth looking into. . This nifty device gives you added protection if someone inserts a key stroke recorder into your computer or somehow gains access to your PayPal password.The device creates a random number which needs to be logged in to gain access to your account.It adds a few seconds to the process but I feel it is well worth having .

I recently purchased a bookplate by the late Al Hirshfield .It is the only one I have ever seen. Leighton K. Brill was Oscar Hammerstein's assistant for over twenty years and also wrote several movie scripts.

Here is another site for unusual collections and collectors:

www.norelevance.com/interesting_links.html

And The Winner Is/ D.H. Lawrence Bookplate

I keep a file of bookplates from the libraries of famous people not in my collection. Several months ago I was not the high bidder for a D.H. Lawrence bookplate in a book which the Ebay seller described as a gift from Frieda Lawrence. As I examine it once again, it does not appear to be a bookplate.It is cut unevenly as if it it came from a a dust jacket or note paper from Lawrence's Phoenix Press.What got me reviewing the item was a second Phoenix bookplate recently offered to me as having been used in Lawrence's own books.I have learned that Lawrence sometimes used a Phoenix bookplate on association and presentation copies but it is still not certain whether he used either or both of these in his own library. Several knowledgeable dealers and the D H Lawrence Society of North America have been contacted but if any of you out there have specific information to assist me I would like to hear from you.

First let me thank everyone who participated in the bizarre bookplate contest.We had a difficult time selecting a winner but here it is : The winner is Nina Allen and her submission is shown above.

Here is the URL for a book related website you might enjoy.

I especially like their monthly newsletter http://www.americanaexchange.com/

Here is the URL for a fascinating glimpse into the wacky world of collecting http://www.collectorsweekly.com/

I will try to add a few more tidbits at the end of the day. Right now I am going to put a few more items on Ebay. See you later.

Sunday Evening-6:30 P.M. Here is another interesting site for those of you who want to learn about bookselling: Http://bookhuntersholiday.wordpress.com