82. A visit to Delaware

Two weeks ago I travelled to New York for a meeting in preparation of an exhibition. Before my journey would bring me to San Francisco, I undertook a one-day trip to the University of Delaware in Newark (DE), where a collection of literature from 1850 to 1900 has its own rooms. The Mark Samuels Lasner Collection is well known through catalogues and exhibitions, and is particularly strong in Beardsley and Beerbohm material, however, Mark Samuels Lasner also procured exceptional items by Charles Ricketts and the Vale Press.

Mark Samuels Lasner, holding a dedication copy of The Parables from the Gospels, and the author of this blog, at the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware, 8 February 2013

Among his many treasures is a copy of the Vale Press edition of The Parables from the Gospels (1903) with two handwritten dedications by Ricketts to Thomas Sturge Moore. There is also the printed dedication (p. [ii]): 'Affectionately dedicated to T.S.M. by his old friend C.S.R.'. The first handwritten dedication is a long one: 'To T.S. Moore from C. Ricketts after ten years, since the publication of Daphnis & Chloe, I know of no one else to whom I would have the same pleasure in dedicating my work. CR'. 

Charles Ricketts, dedication to T.S. Moore, in The Parables from the Gospels (The Mark Samuels Lasner Collection Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, on loan to the University of Delaware Library)

When he had finished this dedication Ricketts must have seen that he held the book upside down and that the dedication had ended up on the inner side of the back cover. He decided to write a second dedication on the fly-leaf in the front of the book.

Charles Ricketts, dedication to T.S. Moore, in The Parables from the Gospels (The Mark Samuels Lasner Collection,  on loan to the University of Delaware Library)