752. A New Year's Letter about Books

At the beginning of 1928, Charles Ricketts wrote a note to Sydney Cockerell to thank him for bringing home a quotation. He then began to list the books he was reading or had read from a series published by Kegan Paul:

Do you keep in touch with the To-day and To-morrow series Kegan Paul. I find them most cheering & entertaining, some of them. Daedalus, Icarus, Tantalus Cassandra are remarkable. Platos American Republic & Narcissus most amusing. Even cranks like old Vernon Lee and Sylvia Pankhurst come out well. I have been greatly entertained by Haldane’s End of the World in his last book Possible Worlds.
[Letter to Sydney Cockerell, 3 January 1928: BL Add MS 52746, f 152]

J.B.S. Haldane, Daedalus or Science and the Future. 
A Paper Read to the Heretics, Cambridge on February 4th, 1923.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1923

The To-Day and To-Morrow Series was a popular series of books that speculated on various topics about what the future would look like. Scientific research and social developments were extrapolated, suggesting, for example, that the world and humanity would be transformed by radio or space travel.

Ricketts referred to several volumes:

J.B.S. Haldane, Daedalus or Science and the Future. A Paper Read to the Heretics, Cambridge on February 4th, 1923. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1923;

Bertrand Russell, Icarus or The Future of Science. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1924;

F.C.S. Schiller, Tantalus or the Future of Man. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1924;

F.C.S. Schiller, Cassandra or The Future of the British Empire. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1926;

Douglas Woodruff, Plato’s American Republic. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1927;

Gerald Heard, Narcissus. An Anatomy of Clothes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1924;

Vernon Lee, Proteus or The Future of Intelligence. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1925;

E. Sylvia Pankhurst, Delphos. The Future of International Language. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., [1927];

J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, and Other Essays. London: Chatto and Windus, 1927.

Ricketts was not the only enthusiastic reader; James Joyce also read the volumes. He borrowed them from Sylvia Beach's bookshop/lending library, Shakespeare & Co, and used them to find words for Finnegans Wake (see the article by Robbert-Jan Henkes and Mikio Fuse on Genetic Joyce Studies).

751. A Post-War Christmas

Towards the end of the year, it seems, Charles Ricketts often looked back on the months behind him with disappointment and disapproval. When he wrote down his thoughts, which he did not always do (like many diary writers, of course), they tended to be negative rather than positive. When you are dissatisfied or depressed, you really have something to write about. 

On the first Christmas Day after the end of the First World War, he wrote a letter to his long-standing Dutch friend, Richard Roland Holst, in which he recalled wartime habits and discussed remaining restrictions.

Your letter dated 13th arrived many days later; it has been on my table unanswered for countless good and bad reasons. Yes, the end came suddenly as a Japanese told me it would early in the war, yet the surprise was not what I should have imagined, nor even the sense of relief, the latter sensation has grown daily till, to-day Xmas, I am aware that something has been lifted from my life, yet, even now, old war habits continue – I pull down blinds, save bread; feel astonished at the return of old luxuries, – these by the way are few since the shortage of certain things is still a fact; paper for instance is rare, frames impossible, and probably for a long while artificial reasons will stop a return to normal things, let alone the danger of the Russian threat.

The signal of the Armistice found us without flags and, for several hours, our balcony was decorated with a banner I had painted for Jeanne d’Arc, in a stupid propaganda play, which happened to be in the cellars.

There was a prospect of change, thanks to Edmund Davis, who had offered them a second home outside London as a token of appreciation for their art advice. In the end, they would not be decorating a cottage, but a centuries-old tower, The Keep at Chilham Castle.

Chilham Castle Keep in 2021
[Photo © Phillip Halling, from: Geography.org.uk
Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0]

A friend has promised us a small cottage in a lovely English village, Chilham near Canterbury. The spring may see us there, but it may take longer and, I fear the next year will see changes and troubles. Evil will not pass so readily. I hope next Xmas all this will seem like a pre-existence.

This war has proved the power of unknown forces of endurance and renewal, and these, for the moment, have prevailed. The sense of security is not as yet a habit, even now I sometimes think I hear the sound of guns, of possible distant raids, as I did a few months ago.

(Letter dated 25 December 1918. Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61718, ff 200–2).

In these times, we hear those sounds, not yet in Western European regions, but close enough to be alarming. Where some wars come to an end and others persist, there is no prospect of a world in which atrocities and border violations are not committed – although a young perspective on the world may offer the necessary, more encouraging outlook. Tyrants are never truly young, neither in their hearts nor in reality. Tyrants never represent the future.

750. After Wilde

Merlin Holland's new book about his grandfather's legacy, After Oscar. The Legacy of a Scandal (Europa Editions) does contain one reference to Charles Ricketts (and none to Charles Shannon). His name features on page 211 and is not related to his designs for Wilde's works. It is mentioned in passing, introducing a letter from Robert Ross to Ricketts.

Merlin Holland, After Oscar (2025)

The letter was an answer to Ricketts's letter of 6 June about the libel case brought by Jack Grein and Maud Allan against Pemberton Billing which they lost. Ross wrote that his letter had 'touched & soothed' him:

I foresaw the result of the Billing case, & warned Grein not to bring the action. When the trial began everyone thought I was mad because I said Billing would be acquitted [….] Officials in the Treasury told me kindly but firmly that the subject was on my brain. Now they are absurdly astonished at the obvious. Billing & Douglas are the centre of a powerful & richly backed caucus of all the disgruntled people in England.

(Ross to Ricketts, 13 June 1918: BL Add MS 58091, f 152).

Ricketts's letter will be published next year in The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts, edited by John Aplin and myself, and published in three volumes by Brill (see the Brill website).

749. A Fan by Charles Shannon

The Canadian auction house Waddington's in Toronto will soon be selling an item by Charles Shannon that is described in the catalogue as a red chalk drawing on buff paper: 'Classical study', 18,5 x 40 cm, with initials 'C.H.S.' in the lower right hand corner. [See Waddington's website.]

Charles Shannon, 'The Toilet' (lithograph, 1906)

The initials appear in the lower right hand corner of the fan-shaped image.

Initials in Charles Shannon, 'The Toilet' (lithograph, 1906)

However, this is not an original chalk drawing, but a lithograph, signed in the stone. Its title is 'The Toilet' and the edition is very small: only nine proofs were made in sanguine or black. For his 1978 catalogue of lithographs Paul Delaney traced three copies: in the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Boston Public Library. It was one of three fan-shaped lithographs that Shannon designed in 1906.

In 1920, George Derry (alias of R.A. Walker) gave a description of the image:

On the left of the fan a woman crouches combing her hair with her left hand, while the line of her right is also raised and follows the outside curve of the fan. A small child is kneeling on the floor and on the extreme right is a pitcher of water. 

The auction date is 11 December 2025, the estimate is $400-600 CAD.

[The lithograph sold at 200 CAD.]

748. Salome's Bookshelf Published

On 31 October I received my copies of Salome's Bookshelf. Artists and Writers of the 1890s, edited by Simon Alexander Reynolds, a Shakespeare scholar. The book contains nine essays on Fernand Khnopff, Arthur Symons, Max Beerbohm, John Davidson, Charles Conder, Charles Ricketts, Walt Ruding, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Dowson, and is published by Greenwich Exchange (copies may be ordered at the publisher's website). 

Salome's Bookshelf, cover (2025)

The articles establish connections between literature, music and visual art. My article on Ricketts ('Charles Ricketts  and Harmony Between Image and Text') discusses the way in which Ricketts combined (sometimes his own) texts and images at the beginning and end of his career, for example in the magazine The Dial, in Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx and in his later works, such as Beyond the Threshold.

Of the other essays, which introduce new perspectives, I was particularly struck by the article on Charles Conder by Samuel Shaw, who previously wrote about William Rothenstein and Edwardian culture in general.

The photographs for my essay were taken by Jos Uljee (The Hague). Below is a photograph of In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays, a different version of which is included in the book.

John Addington Symonds, In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays,
cover design by Charles Ricketts (1893) [Photo: Jos Uljee]

747. Dedication copies of An Ideal Husband (1899): Addenda

Blog 743 (29 October) contained a list of presentation copies of An Ideal Husband. It was incomplete, as could be expected: Oscar Wilde had written his publisher that he wanted around thirty presentation copies to be sent out in July 1899 (see Complete Letters, 2000, p. 1158-9). As follows: 

[large paper (100 copies):]
Robert Ross, Reginald Turner, Lord Alfred Douglas, More Adey, Charles Shannon

[regular edition (1000 copies):]

Louis Wilkinson, Kyle Bellew, H.H. Morell (Henry Harvey Morell Mackenzie), Lewis Waller, Herbert Edward Osman Edwards, Vincent O'Sullivan, Ernest Dowson, Félix Fénéon, Ernest La Jeunesse, Langrel Harris, Henri Bauër, Digby Lamotte, Frances Forbes-Robertson, Arthur L. Humphreys, Stuart Merrill, André Gide, Ferdinand Hérold, Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Major J.O. Nelson, Henry-David Davray.

Oscar Wilde, dedication to André Gide in An Ideal Husband (1899)

Wilde wrote to Frank Harris (not listed above) that he would receive a large paper copy and a deluxe copy (one of 12 on Japanese paper), but, as they were not ready yet, he asked the publisher to send him an ordinary copy as well.

Mark Samuels Lasner wrote to me that he had also once started a list of this play's dedication copies and sent me some additions, some of which I have not yet been able to ascertain in the catalogues of libraries and museums. However, these two can be added to the list:

More dedication copies of An Ideal Husband (1899)

A. More Adey (1858-1942), British art critic and editor.  

'To | my dear and | good friend | More Adey : cor cordium : | speculum amicitiae : | Oscar Wilde.' 

[British Library, London: Eccles 109:  No. 100/100 copies].

B. Robert Ross (1869-1918), Canadian author, art dealer and editor, Wilde's literary executor.

'To Robert Ross: | the perfect friend : | in deep | affection | from the | author. | Oscar Wilde'

[British Library, London: Eccles 108: No. 92/100 copies]. 

746. The Provenance of Silverpoints, Copy No. 216 (2)

Copy no. 216 of Silverpoints from the collection of Barry Humphries had previously been sold by James Cummins in 1999 and owned by William E. Fredeman. Before them, the book had been offered for sale by Warrack & Perkins in 1989 and the Winter of 1990-1991. I have no other evidence of earlier collectors apart from the second bookplate that is pasted on the inside of the front cover. This one mentions the owner and a book number: Thomas Hutchinson and 'No. 2437'. 

Bookplate of Thomas Hutchison in John Gray, Silverpoints (1893): no. 216

Thomas Hutchinson (1856–1938) was an English writer and educator, teaching at Northumbria University and a school in Pegswood, a small mining town. He published a book of verse, Ballades and other Rhymes of a Country Bookworm (1888). He was also a collector of first editions and letters by notable writers, such as Walt Whitman, and his collection was donated by Hutchinson's descendants to Preston Park Museum and Grounds. A letter to Whitman is recorded in the Whitman Archive (see the Whitman Archive).

On two occasions, parts of his collection were sold off. The first time this happened was on 23-25 February 1905, when more than 450 books went to the auction house of Sotheby's. The sale helped finance his son's tuition. (See 'Booklives'). Silverpoints was part of this sale, and was probably acquired by an American dealer of British descent, Walter Martin Hill (1868-1925) whose shop was located in Chicago, but who went on regular buying trips to Great Britain. (For Hill, see blog no. 742). Hill first offered this copy in December 1906 in his Catalogue of Choice and Rare Books…,  Number 19, p. 4, no. 18: 'First edition, narrow 8vo, fancy cloth gilt, uncut', 'With autograph inscription to Mr. Mathews respecting the book: inserted.'), $2.50. 

That this brief and somewhat cryptic description refers to copy no. 216 can be deduced from a later catalogue: Catalogue of Miscellaneous Books…, Number 31 (June 1910), p. 31: 'Limited to 250 copies, of which this is No. 216. Autograph of Gray is in half pp. to Pub., telling how pp. should be arranged'), $1.75. After four years, the price had been reduced. 

The question remains: when could Hutchinson have obtained this particular copy? There are a few indications. First, the book number is 2437. This is a significantly lower number than that in a purchase he made in July 1903: James Russell Lowes' My Study Window which had number 3976. Other books have clippings from bookseller's catalogues pasted in, indicating his interest in the value or rarity of his books.

His copy of Silverpoints has the bookplate in the middle of the inside of the front cover, and around it, carefully pasted in, are newspaper clippings and one clipping from a catalogue. Price of the book in that catalogue was 15s, while the book was published at 7s.6d. Because he was in the habit of doing this, and because all of the newspaper reviews are surrounding his bookplate, we may presume that Hutchinson pasted these in himself. 

Review by T.P. O'Connor on the inside of the front cover of
John Gray, Silverpoints (copy No. 216)

Counter evidence is that a name is written on two reviews and the handwriting differs greatly from his letter to Whitman – but the calligraphy on that admiring letter is deliberately decorative. 

The reviews are early, including one by T.P. O'Connor and one by Richard Le Gallienne, both undated and untraced. These were probably published anonymously, but someone wrote their names at the foot of the clippings, and because Hutchinson had his copy auctioned in 1905, we must assume that he pasted in these early reviews – they were no longer available later on. Two small clippings are quotes from The Athenaeum and The Daily Chronicle published in other newspapers or weekly magazines.

Review by Richard Le Gallienne on the inside of the back cover of
John Gray, Silverpoints (copy No. 216)

This may indicate that Hutchinson acquired his copy on publication in March 1893 or shortly afterwards. 

From this, we have to conclude that, subsequently, he approached the publisher, and got him to send the proof of the title-page with the letter by John Gray, which he decided to paste in as well. (The John Lane Company archive at the Harry Ransom Center does not contain any letters from Hutchinson, nor does the Charles Elkin Mathews Collection at the University of Reading.)

Despite the digitisation of many newspapers, I have been unable to find the two reviews. O'Conner may have written his review in The Daily Telegraph or The New York Herald, and Le Gallienne in The Star. If you can locate them, I would be very grateful to hear from you!

[Thanks are due to Philip R. Bishop, for providing some details about the Sotheby's auction in 1905.]

745. The Provenance of Silverpoints, Copy No. 216 (1)

Once a book has been published, most copies lead a hidden life. Every now and then, they resurface when a collector manages to acquire a better copy, or when the nature of the collection changes, or when family members auction off a copy after the buyer's death. In this way, each copy has its own rhythm of temporary publicity, like a mole occasionally emerging above ground out of necessity. 

A book from 1893 may well turn up ten times in a century in antiquarian catalogues, shop windows or at auctions, while in between it may sometimes be featured in an exhibition. When it is eventually purchased by a library or museum, its hidden life comes to an end, even though it may be taken off the shelf less often than when it was in private ownership.

Limitation statement in John Gray, Silverpoints (1893): no. 216.

John Gray's book of poetry Silverpoints (1893) was officially printed in 25 deluxe copies, bound in vellum, and 250 copies bound in green cloth, after a design by Charles Ricketts. In reality, at least three additional unnumbered deluxe copies are known to exist, while there are more than twenty unnumbered copies in green cloth on a variety of paper.

Copy 216 last surfaced in March of this year, in one of the auctions of the collection of Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna) (1934-2023), see The Library of Barry Humphries. London: Forum Auction, 26 March 2025, p. 35, lot 64. It was acquired for a private library and may reappear again in twenty years' time. [See blog no 709 about the Humphries sale.] Humphries bookplate is based on a drawing by Harry Clarke.

Bookplate of Barry Humphries in John Gray, Silverpoints (1893), no. 216

Before Barry Humphries acquired this copy, it was offered for sale in 1999 by James Cummins Booksellers in New York. The description on Bibliocity, the internet site for 'Rare and Collectible Books Etc. from Leading International Antiquarian Booksellers' was seen by me on 18 February 1999 (and again on 17 November 1999): 'Number 216 of 250 copies', 'Some minor shelf wear, extremities slightly rubbed, spine darkened, with catalogue and newspaper clippings mounted on endpapers. Former owners tickets.' The price was: $4,500. Between the 1999 catalogue entry by Cummins and Humphries' purchase, it may of course have been offered for sale in other places and bought by other collectors, but I have found no evidence of this.

In 1989, the same copy had been catalogued by Claire Warrack and Geoffrey Perkins, who had a London office, but asked orders and correspondence to be send to their French address in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. The volume was listed in their catalogue The Turn of a Century, 1885-1910 of March/April 1989, and priced at £3,000. The catalogue did not mention that this copy was number 216, but it can be identified by a second pasted-in title page (or a proof of it) with a handwritten letter from John Gray to one of the two publishers, Elkin Mathews: 

Tipped in a the front of this copy is a proof of the title-page with a holograph inscription, "Dear Mr. Matthews (sic). This is the way these pages should be arranged - as I have numbered them, according to Mr. Ricketts. So now Mr. Leighton can proceed with the binding. Yours most sincerely, John Gray".

The copy did not sell immediately and was described again in their catalogue New Series No. 5, which was issued for the Winter of 1990-1991 ('Tipped in a the front of this copy is a proof of the title-page with a holograph inscription').

Leather bookplate of William Evan Fredeman
in John Gray, Silverpoints (1893), no. 216

Nor Warrack & Perkins, nor James Cummins, mentioned the names of previous owners, although they observed the presence of a bookplate (Warrack & Perkins) or two bookplates (Cummins). However, in the Barry Humphries sale the names were disclosed, one of them being that of William Evan (Dick) Fredeman (1928-1999). Fredeman was Emeritus Professor of English at the University of British Columbia and was seen as the most-eminent Pre-Raphaelite scholar of his time. His bookplate includes his initials and the name of the collection: 'Pre-Raphaelite Collection'.

After he had died, a large part of his collection was handled by the Seattle-based antiquarian firm of Nudelman Rare Books, sending many works off to major auction houses. However, Copy 216 of Silverpoints was not among the books. Fredeman had passed away on 15 July 1999, months after James Cummins had offered it for sale, and we may assume that the collector himself decided to part with it.

Perhaps, Fredeman had acquired this copy from Warrack & Perkins in or around 1991.

I have no other evidence of earlier collectors apart from the second bookplate that is pasted on the inside of the front cover. This one mentions the owner and a book number: Thomas Hutchison and 'No. 2437'. 

[To be continued...]

(Thanks are due to Martin Steenson, Marja Smolenaars and Ed Nudelman.)

744. Dedicated to Charles Ricketts

In her dissertation, Mariko Hirabayashi shed light on the friendship between Noguchi Yonejiro and Charles Ricketts - see also her Ricketts blog 706. Hokusai in the Ricketts and Shannon Collection. In English editions of his work, he was known as Yone Noguchi, see for example, his book about the Japanese artist Korin that was published by Elkin Mathews in 1922.

Yone Noguchi, Korin (London: Elkin Mathews, 1922)
[Copy from the collection of the KB, national library, The Hague]

The book is bound in Japanese style, containing several illustrations and twelve plates, and a short text about the work and life of Ogata Kōrin (1658-1716). Noguchi Yonejiro quoted Ricketts's review of an exhibition of Japanese painting and sculpture at Shepherd's Bush in 1910, which was published in The Morning Post and reprinted in Pages on Art (1913). Ricketts was a great admirer of this artist, especially as a landscape painter, calling one of his works 'brilliant and almost gay'. However, Ricketts asserted, 'his gaiety is that of buds upon huge trees'.

Ogata Kōrin, 'Red and White Plum Blossoms' [MOA Museum of Art, Atami, Japan]

The author of Korin dedicated his book to Charles Ricketts.

Dedication in Yone Noguchi, Korin (London: Elkin Mathews, 1922)

743. Dedication copies of An Ideal Husband (1899)

Presentation copies of the plays, poems and stories of Oscar Wilde now command prices that may surprise those who are not book lovers or diehard Wilde fans. Lately, Peter Harrington in London has presented catalogues with a range of inscribed Wilde books, and the firm's website currently offers several opportunities to empty your pockets.

When I searched for such items on the website last Sunday, photographs and descriptions were displayed of A Woman of No Importance dedicated by Wilde to his mother (£60,000.00), The Importance of Being Earnest with a dedication to William Rothenstein (£75,000.00), The Ballad of Reading Gaol with a handwritten dedication to his long-standing friend Carlos Blacker (£50,000.00), An Ideal Husband inscribed to his French translator Henry-David Davray (£30,000.00), and The Happy Prince and Other Tales dedicated to the American writer Edith Coues (who married Nelson O'Shaughnessy) (£37,500.00).

Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (1899),
with dedication from Wilde to Henry-David Davray
[photo: Peter Harrington]

The binding of An Ideal Husband (1899), designed by Charles Shannon, has not survived in the best of states: 'Cloth faded and rubbed, faint stain affecting front cover and foot of spine and rear joint' - this is reflected in the price, which is the lowest in the list above.

Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (1899),
binding designed by Charles Shannon
[photo: Peter Harrington]

The description of An Ideal Husband asserts: 'Few inscribed copies have survived: just five are listed in auction records'. I do not know which system has been searched for this, but in my (limited) files I find more than three times as many dedication copies of this book (one of which was mentioned in last week's blog on Walter M. Hill's catalogues).

Dedication copies of An Ideal Husband (1899)

1. Kyrle Bellew (1850-1911), British actor.

‘To Kyrle Bellew: | from his friend | the author . | a recognition. | Oscar Wilde.’ 

2. André Gide (1869-1951), French author. 

‘To | my friend | André Gide : | memory | of friendship : | Oscar | Wilde’. 

3. Henry-David Davray (1873-1944), French journalist and translator.

‘Henry D. Davray, | from the author: | in recognition | and esteem: | Oscar Wilde’.

4. Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945), British author, Wilde's lover. 

‘To Bosie: the beautiful poet. From the author. Oscar Wilde’. 

5. Eileen Falking. 

‘To Eileen Falking: in remembrance of pleasant days in France: from the author. Oscar Wilde, Nov. ‘99’. 

6. Ernest Flower (1865-1926), British politician. 

7. Christian Frederick Gauss (1878-1951), American critic, professor of literature. 

‘from his friend the author in esteem in recognition’.

8. Frank Harris (1856-1931), British writer and editor.

‘To Frank Harris who has unlocked Shakespeare’s heart for us. A recognition, from the Author’. 

9. Frank Harris (1856-1931), British writer and editor. 

‘To Frank Harris, whose name I have written on the portal of my play’. 

10. Ernest La Jeunesse (1874-1917), French writer and critic. 

‘Ernest La Jeunesse: in admiration and friendship: from the author, Oscar Wilde’. 

11. Gabriel de Lautrec (1867-1938), French author.

12. Robert Ross (1869-1918), Canadian author, art dealer and editor, Wilde's literary executor.

‘to Robert Ross, “the perfect friend”’ 

13. Charles Shannon (1863-1937), British artist. 

‘To Charles Shannon: In sincere admiration: in affection: from the author. Oscar Wilde.’

14. Frits Thaulow (1847-1906), Norwegian painter.

15. Reginald Turner (1869-1938), British author and journalist. 

‘To Reginald Turner, from his friend the author: in affection and esteem. Oscar Wilde.’ 

16. Lewis Waller (1860-1950), English actor and theatre manager. 

‘To Lewis Waller in recognition of his beautiful acting and art in my play. Oscar Wilde’. 

17. John Strange Winter (is Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Palmer) (1856-1911), American novelist.

742. Walter M. Hill and The Vale Press around 1900

Walter Martin Hill from Chicago regularly issued catalogues of books for sale. In his eleventh catalogue from December 1903, he assured the readers that he made yearly journeys to Great Britain and France to buy new stock, and that he attended in person 'the important auction sales of books in New York, Philadelphia and Boston' [see for a digitised series of catalogues the copy in the University of Michigan Libraries]. Hill (1868-1952) was born in Bristol and moved to the United States when he was seventeen, working for antiquarian firms in New York, Boston and Chicago before starting his own business in 1899.

Catalogue of Miscellaneous Books (No. 3, April 1900)

He bought and sold all kinds of works, including erotica, and offered whatever was in demand on the market. The third catalogue from April 1900, for example, was entitled: Catalogue of Miscellaneous Books. Including Kelmscott and Vale Press Publications, First Editions of Standard Authors, Books Illustrated by George Cruikshank, Etc.

Wallace Rice (1859-1939) wrote an introduction for the eleventh catalogue - Rice was a prolific writer and journalist in Chicago. Among other things, in the Catalogue of Rare Books (December 1903) he wrote:

Growing wealth in America has its finest manifestations in the increasing demands for books especially for the best books. Americans are not only in love with education and the cultivation and culture which are its flower, not only is the national existence staked upon the value and worth of these things, but books as containing all that is best and finest in human knowledge and wisdom have been their devoted care from the beginning. Such a love implanted in the heart of the people of the United States at the moment of their birth needs nothing but opportunity to burst into bloom and this is afforded by the wealth of its population. Already Europe is complaining that the American is carrying away the finest specimens of its literature and the charge is wholly just. 

He asserted:

Last of these modern and modified Argonauts is my friend, Walter M Hill, whose summer in England has enabled him to consign to Chicago the most precious merchandise that has ever entered its prosperous port. 

Nevertheless, it appears that not every book in this catalogue was new stock. J.A. Symonds's In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays, had appeared with exactly the same description and price in two earlier catalogues. The same goes for a large-paper copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). On the other hand a selection of nine Vale Press books, listed in catalogue 3 from April 1900 had apparently been sold, as the eleventh catalogue did not mention any Vale Press items (there were however newly acquired Doves Press and Kelmscott Press titles, including vellum copies).

One of the more unusual items he sold around that time was a book from Charles Shannon's collection. It was listed in Catalogue of Choice and Rare Books… (Number 16, December 1905): a dedication copy of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1899):  'Only 100 copies printed on large paper, each with the author’s full autograph signature. This copy derives a much greater interest from having on reverse of the half-title the following inscription, in Mr. Wilde’s autograph: "To Charles Shannon: In sincere admiration: in affection: from the author. Oscar Wilde". The price was $50.00. This copy was later owned by John B. Stetson (sold in 1920) and re-emerged on the market in June 1996 when it was sold by Phillips in London. The copy therefore remained in Shannon's possession for less than six years, and one might wonder why he sold this book. Perhaps it was in connection with the move of Ricketts and Shannon to Lansdowne House in 1902?

741. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Ricketts and Shannon Collection

In 1936, a fascicule in the ongoing series Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum appeared: Great Britain, Fascicule 11, Cambridge, Fascicule 2. Winifred Lamb was the author of this section that contained descriptions and illustrations of objects from the collection of Ricketts and Shannon. At the time the collection was deposited on loan in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Although Shannon was still alive, he could no longer answer questions about the objects, and it must be assumed that the notes on the purchases (which had been passed on to the author through J.D. Beazley) came from Shannon's immediate circle, or perhaps were notes made by Ricketts himself.

The detailed descriptions are much more extensive than those in the catalogue All of Art from 1979 (which contains mostly small black-and-white photographs of the objects) or those in Greek and Roman Art from 1998 (which contains colour illustrations). That latest edition (written by Eleni Vassilika and with photographs by Andrew Morris and Andrew Norman) includes, for example, a description entitled 'A Labour of Theseus' which discusses a red-figure neck amphora (34 by 22.4 cm) from the period 480 to 470 BC.

Neck-Amphora

[Photograph copyright ©Fitzwilliam Museum:

Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND]

The collection website of the museum contains more similar images, which can freely be downloaded (see the website: 'Neck-Amphora'). Vassilika mentions the possible painter of the vase, the so-called Pig Painter. This name is not used in the online description, but corresponds to that in Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, plate X, 2 (p. 58). The description on the website is factual and brief and does not discuss the images on the vase.

Vassilika's description on the other hand is not overly detailed, but highly informative and composed as an exciting narrative about the events depicted on the vase. As we would expect from an academic publication, the description in the CVA is extremely detailed, with an extensive description of the image, but without any context or explanation.

The beginning reads as follows:

Theseus advances  to kill Prokrustus with an axe. His sword is slung  in a scabbard from his shoulder. Prokrustus, wounded in head and arm-pit, tries to defend himself with a stone and  supports himself with his left hand as he sinks  down onto a rock. Above hangs Theseus' cloak.

CVA is online, and the black and white images of this vase and others from the Ricketts and Shannon collection can be consulted online: the item has the rather long title: 206466, ATHENIAN, LONDON, RICKETTS-SHANNON, CAMBRIDGE, FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE, FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, GR22.1937. The online CVA gives 35 results for 'Ricketts', while the original 1936 fascicule contains descriptions of over fifty objects; they are probably all there but not all included in the search.

However, the long text in the fascicule has not been included in the online description. For that one has to find the 'Index of Fascicules by City' elsewhere on the website (follow this link), and click on the 'Browse Text' button behind the title of the fascicule. The Ricketts and Shannon fascicule can be consulted here: Cambridge Fascicule 2. The entire website is aimed at scholars and students with considerable stamina, not at casual visitors looking for items from the Ricketts and Shannon collections.

That's fine, of course, but in the meantime, the descriptions on the museum's own website remain somewhat sparse – and I know that projects like this require an insane amount of time and money, but one can always keep dreaming.

740. The Vale Press through the Eyes of Alfred W. Pollard

The bibliographer Alfred William Pollard (1859-1944) criticised the work of the Vale Press on several occasions between 1899 and 1912. Since 1883 he had been an assistant in the department of printed books at the British Museum (he would be promoted to assistant keeper in 1909, and keeper in 1919).

Frank Brooks, 'Portrait of Alfred William Pollard'
[© British Library]

In December 1899, he mentioned Ricketts's A Defence of the Revival of Printing (published June 1899) in The Library, the magazine of the Bibliographical Society:

The revival of printing is hardly in need of a defender, and Mr. Ricketts' "defence" is indeed chiefly directed against certain criticisms on his own share in it. Incidentally, however, he makes some excellent observations on the lines on which all sound printing and type-cutting must proceed, and his pamphlet is one of the pleasantest of the "Vale" books.

('Notes on Books and Work: Bibliography, Literary History, and Collecting', The Library, 1 December 1899, p. 111).

He had apparently received the book soon after its publication, because in July he gave it to the bibliographer Robert G.C. Proctor (1868-1903) to read. Proctor had become an assistant to the same department at the British Museum in 1893. He was an expert on incunabula. In his diary, Proctor wrote (without enthusiasm):

Got Ricketts on printing from Pollard – badly written, & not well printed – he breaks his own rules.
(diary entry for 31 July 1899).
[For Proctor, see also blog 220].

Three years later, Pollard wrote about 'Recent English Experiments in Artistic Printing' for an American magazine, The Literary Collector (March, 1902):

[The Vale Press books] have many excellencies, but they cannot stand the test of comparison with those of Morris. Their highest success seems to me to lie in some of their borders, which are quite original and have a lighter and gayer touch well in keeping with the lyrics they surround. [...] It could not help working on the same lines [as The Kelmscott Press], and yet it strove to be different; and in the effort to be different fell back at times on mere eccentricity, as in the ugly intermixture of large and small letters in one or two of its colophons, and the staring form adopted for &. Nevertheless the fount is a fine one, and with tolerable initials and the occasional excellence of its borders the books are pleasant possessions.

Five months later, he welcomed the new edition of the works of Thomas Browne:

The only new publication of any interest which I have to record is a really fine edition of the chief works of Sir Thomas Browne, in the Vale Press series, uniform with the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. Of all the amateur of semi-amateur experiments in printing now being made those of the Vale Press seem to me the most worthy of encouragement from the literary point of view, for its managers show both enterprise and originality in the books they select to print, and appeal not merely to collectors , or the rather speculative individuals who will buy any book from a private press if the issue is small enough, but to such lovers of literature as care to have their book well printed at a reasonable price. Good printing is an admirable thing, and specimens of good printing are well worth buying for their own sake. But one does not want to multiply them indefinitely, while there is hardly any limit to the number of good books which it would be a pleasure to welcome if the charm of good printing were added to them. The distinction is an important one and the Vale Press seems more alive to it than most of its rivals.

(Alfred W. Pollard, 'Recent English Experiments in Artistic Printing', The Literary Collector (August, 1902), p. 125-126.

The King's Fount in The Kingis Quair (vale Press, 1903)

In 1912, Pollard published Fine Books (Methuen & Co.) in which he criticised the Vale Type and King's Fount:

Foremost among these [the followers of Morris] must be placed Mr. Charles Ricketts, whose Vale type, despite a few blemishes, is not very far behind the Golden type of the Kelmscott Press, and whose ornament at its best is graceful, and that with a lighter and gayer grace than Morris's, though it cannot compare with his for dignity or richness of effect. In a later type, called the Kinge's Fount from its use in an edition of The Kingis Quair (1903), Mr. Ricketts’s good genius deserted him, for the mixture of majuscule and minuscule forms is most unpleasing.

(Fine Books, p. 307-308).

Pollard wavered somewhat in his opinion of The Vale Press, showing more appreciation for the borders and choice of text than for the typefaces and typesetting.

739. Ricketts at the Amsterdam International Antiquarian Book & Map Fair

Last weekend saw the International Antiquarian Book & Map Fair in Amsterdam (which, for personal reasons, I could not attend). Considering the online catalogues of some exhibitors, it must have been a delight to explore the range on offer. 

There were at least two Vale Press books on offer. 

Iris van Daalen (Antiquarian Bookshop Acanthus, Utrecht) showed a copy of William Blake's The Book of Thel. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (1897) in an 'Exhibition' binding by Zaehnsdorf. Her description ran: 'Full brown crushed morocco, front cover elaborately decorated in gilt a design of swirling branches with leaves and dots. The spine with raised bands and gilt decorated in four compartments with the same leaves and dots, which also come back at the turn-ins. Signed by Zaehnsdorf on front turn-in and with their gilt oval exhibition stamp showing a binder using a backing hammer on rear pastedown. Top edge gilt. With a small dedication in ink on the first blank leaf, dated "Dec. 1899" and a small "R" in ink on the last blank leaf.'

The Book of Thel. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (1897)
Binding by Zaehnsdorf (from a snapshot)

The other Vale Press book was shown by Sophie Schneideman Rare Books (London). A copy of Mathew Arnold's Empedocles on Etna (1896). This was the copy owned previously by the Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, Campbell Dodgson - Ricketts, Shannon and Dodgson knew each other quite well. In 1905, for example, Ricketts and Dodgson both became members of the Executive Committee of the recently founded Vasari Society.

Bookplate of Campbell Dodgson
in Mathew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna (1896)

Sophie Schneideman also brought a vellum copy of Lord de Tabley's Poems Dramatic and Lyrical with the enigmatic cover designed by Ricketts.

These books may or may not have been sold by now.

738. The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts in Proof

Every publication reaches an exciting moment when the first proofs arrive. The publication date draws nearer, the book slowly takes shape, and so it is with The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts, for which editors John Aplin and I received the proofs last week. For the first time, we saw the extensive project virtually in print: 2147 letters in three volumes with a total of 2267 pages. The letters are addressed to more than 180 recipients.

Correcting the proof is obviously a time-consuming task. Here is a preview of one of the indices of the work to be published by Brill (Leiden, Boston).

Proof for The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts

737. Robert Ross as Author

This year, The Rivendale Press published another volume in the Questing Collector Series, the tenth volume to date: Robert Ross as Author by Michael Seeney, consisting of an introduction, a checklist and three appendices.

Michael Seeney, Robert Ross as Author
(The Rivendale Press, 2025)

Many aspects of his life have been covered in the three biographies published to date: Robert Ross, Friend of Friends by Margery Ross (1952), Wilde's Devoted Friend: a Life of Robert Ross 1869-1918 by Maureen Borland (1990), and Robbie Ross. Oscar Wilde's True Love by Jonathan Fryer (2000). They portray him as a friend and lover, and it is abundantly clear that Ross, as Wilde's friend, played a decisive role in his life, but as a result, he remains underexposed as an n independent personality. One of the ephemeral aspects of his life is an incessant stream of publications, so many of which were published anonymously that they remained invisible for a long time and could not be attributed to him.

The checklist records no fewer than 420 publications, 42 of which appeared between 1892 and 1905. Most articles were published between 1905 and 1918 (the year of his death). On average, he published around thirty articles per year. More than half of these were published in The Morning Post between 1908 and 1914.

The introduction covers his various publication channels, starting with The Gadfly and The Granta, and follows Ross's career as an author chronologically from The Saturday Review and The Academy to The Morning Post, The Bystander and The Burlington Magazine. Ross published reviews, satire and articles in other periodicals as well, such as Cornhill Magazine, The Times and La Revue politique et littéraire. 

While the introduction is arranged chronologically, the bibliography is not. It is based on the classification used in literary bibliographies, such as Donald Gallup's bibliography of the work of T.S. Eliot: first the publications in book form, followed by contributions to books, and then articles in periodicals. These are arranged alphabetically by journal title, except at the end, where there is a section for miscellaneous items: 'Contributions to other periodicals'. 

This does not really do justice to the journalist and critic Ross; he is treated as an author of books, which he was not. He was primarily a kind of columnist who could afford to take enormous liberties in his articles. A chronological list (with a good index) would be more obvious for making the work easy to navigate.

As a reader of bibliographies, I would also have liked to see each entry accompanied by a brief summary of the subject and Ross's opinion – now there are only very brief additions such as 'review' or 'story'. Of course, that would have doubled the size, but that space would have been made available by omitting the three examples of his writing (the three appendices): perhaps it is time for a more extensive selection of his pieces in a separate publication?

Nevertheless, this is an indispensable book for anyone who has at least one of the biographical studies on their bookshelf, and I hope that it will find its way into university libraries. Despite the current state of digitisation of periodicals, compiling such an overview is still a hellish task.

Michael Seeney, Robert Ross as Author 

Published by The Rivendale Press
Paperback with marbled paper wrappers: 40 numbered copies only
14.8 x 21.0 cm., 68 pp., 3 black and white illustrations.
ISBN 978 1 904201 458
£20.00 / $25.00

Contact: Steven Halliwell at The Rivendale Press.