In Warwick Street (later Craven Street), at Hacon & Ricketts’s shop, ‘At the Sign of the Dial’, visitors could view small exhibitions, examine prints by The Dial group and browse the books published under the name the Vale Press. Charles Ricketts had made his typeface, The Vale, available to Lucien Pissarro, and originally the books published by the Eragny Press were partly distributed through the shop. From 1899 onwards, Hacon & Ricketts bought the complete edition of Eragny Press books, becoming Pissarro's publishers. On a single copy of the print run – the copy shown to visitors as an example – the words ‘File copy Not to be taken away’ were written, as we saw two weeks ago (see blog 772 Not To Be Taken Away).
The catalogues of the exhibitions were no exception, such as that of the Boyd Houghton show held from 25 June to 2 July 1896.
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Catalogue: An Exhibition of Forty Designs by A. Boyd Houghton
including original drawings and proofs retouched by the artist
(The Sign of the Dial, 1896)
File copy 'Not to be taken away'. |
Sophie Schneideman offered two file copies from the Eragny Press, both titles by Gustave Flaubert, published in 1900 and 1901. On closer inspection, there is something peculiar about one of them, Un Coeur simple.
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Gustave Flaubert, Un Coeur simple
(Eragny Press, 1901) |
Most copies have a label that gives the author's full name: Gustave Flaubert. This is separated from the title by two acorn leaf ornaments, which came with the Vale Type and were designed by Ricketts for the Vale Press.
However, the label on the upper board of the file copy gives the name as G. Flaubert. There is one acorn leaf ornament that now precedes the title. Name and title have been separated by a row of seven triangles of asterisks placed alternately upright and upside down. Ricketts had used this ornament for The Sonnets of Sir Philips Sidney (1898), and he used them to make longer rows, but placed them upright only. Pissarro had used them in that way as a separating line in La Légende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier (1900), pages 27, 58, 85 and 93.
Marcella D. Genz's A History of the Eragny Press 1894-1914 does not mention this alternative label, nor does the bibliography contain any information about the ornaments used.
Since the entire print run was sold to Hacon & Ricketts in one go, no unbound copies remained in stock and no additional labels were subsequently printed. It seems that Leighton, Son, and Hodge needed a week to bind all copies (Genz, p. 56). The same procedure was not followed for Vale Press books, were unbound copies were shelved at the printing firm (Ballantyne) and these copies were bound when the demand for more copies had grown. Several Vale Press books show a (small) variety of labels.
It seems that some Eragny Press books were bound before they were delivered at the Vale shop, while others were bound after the quires had been delivered at the shop (Genz, p. 56).
Had there been several binding issues, we must assume that the file copies were among the earlier copies.
There are two possible explanations for this non-standard label:
1.
There were indeed at least two occasions on which loose quires were sent to the bindery. This does not explain why the label was designed differently, nor does it explain why copies bearing this different label have not turned up more frequently.
2.
A second explanation may lie in the slow production of copies. Perhaps Hacon & Ricketts grew impatient and sent the first sets of loose quires ahead to the binder. In that case, the label may have been printed by Ballantyne rather than by Pissarro himself. That would explain the rarity of this label and the different layout.
There is no certainty.
On 10 June 1901, 210 copies were sent to Hacon and Ricketts (Genz, p. 167), but the bibliography does not mention whether the copies had already been bound or not. As the edition size was 226, it is possible that 16 copies were sent earlier, and bound with a similar label as the file copy. On the other hand, these may have been Pissarro's own copies that he presented to friends. Yet, why would 210 copies be sent to Hacon and Ricketts when only 200 copies were for sale (as the colophon and the prospectus both mention)?
Bibliography and reality: ships passing in the night....
