91. Letters to Cecil French

The Houghton Library acquired a group of letters and postcards by Ricketts and Shannon to Cecil French. The library's blog posted this message on 5 April (my colleague Marja Smolenaars drew my attention to the Harvard blog):

Last month Houghton Library acquired a small group of letters and postcards from Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) & Charles Shannon (1863-1937) to the Irish artist and collector Cecil French (1879-1953). These letters were acquired with the Louis Appell Jr. Fund for British Civilization because they are full of current affairs, news and gossip in the world of British art. These letters are now Houghton Library MS Eng 1738.

Ricketts and Shannon were artists and designers and founders of the Vale Press, one of the English private presses inspired by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press; Shannon’s portrait of William Butler Yeats hangs in the Houghton Library Reading Room.

Charles Ricketts, letter to Cecil French, 1923 (MS Eng 1738, © Houghton Library, Harvard University)

Cecil French from Dublin was trained as an artist at the Royal Academy Schools in London, but after a few years he decided that as an artist he could not compete with his Renaissance examples, and he became an art collector. His collection of more than 150 paintings went to the British Museum, The William Morris Gallery, and other institutions.

Portrait of Cecil French by William Shackleton, 1923 (from  Beyond Burne-Jones, The Cecil French Bequest Gallery)

He wrote a few essays about Ricketts, Shannon and their circle. His article 'The wood-engravings of Charles Ricketts' was published in The Print Collector’s Quarterly in July 1927.

90. Twelve Woodcuts by Lucien Pissarro (again)

Last year Bassenge Buchauktionen in Berlin-Grunewald offered for sale a portfolio with eleven out of Twelve Woodcuts by Lucien Pissarro. This set remained unsold for the estimate of €5000; the aftersale price was reduced to €4000, but now it has a slightly higher estimate of €4500. The problem with this copy is its incompleteness; it lacks one of the more outstanding woodcuts by Pissarro, namely 'Le tennis'.

My blog 64 Twelve (no: eleven) woodcuts traced the provenance of this set to a Dutch collection.

Lucien Pissarro, 'Floréal', woodcut from Twelve Woodcuts (1893)

Although incomplete, it is still a rarity, as the publishers - Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon - issued only twelve sets of the engravings. This copy will be auctioned on 20 April  and has been described as lot number 3581 in the catalogue, Moderne Literatur & Kunstdokumentation (which includes lots 3001 to 3859).

Note (23 April 2013): the lot has been sold for €3.500.

89. A Costume Correspondence

In a recent issue of Theatre Design & Technology (volume 49, Number 1, winter 2013), Margaret Mitchell published an article on 'A costume correspondence. The theatrical war effort of Charles Ricketts'. The text is available online on the Willard F. Bellman Digital Archives of TD&T. 

Margaret Mitchell is a costume and scenic designer and a professor of theatre arts at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, and her article is based on documents in the collection of the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. The Robert L.B. Tobin Theatre Arts Collection of the museum contains a box of letters and drawings by Ricketts to Penelope Wheeler, an actress, who (with Lena Ashwell) co-organized a war-time tour for wounded British and French soldiers and their medical staff.

Ricketts designed costumes for three Shakespeare plays, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, although the last play was never produced. The shows were staged in Le Havre in 1918. Ricketts started working on the designs in September 1917, and he had to design no less than fifty dresses. For economic reasons he designed interchanging parts for about twenty of those.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek has a doublet embroidered with grapes, squirrels, and butterflies; the Prince jewelled gloves. Shylock is terrific, Portia has a dress covered with mermaids, Jessica wears the Oriental garb of the Jewesses in Bellini and Carpaccio, I have introduced the striped dress of the Mass of Bolsena and Titian's Paduan frescoes, some persons have arabesques on their tights and gold wings on their hats. (Self-Portrait, 1939, p. 302-303)

Shannon agreed that these designs were among his best, but neither Ricketts nor Shannon saw any of the performances.

Charles Ricketts, letter to Penelope Wheeleer (Mc Nay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas)

The article describes the London costume trade and the changes it underwent during the First World War, when certain fabrics were hard to come by, costs were higher than before, and concerns over wigs and beards added to the difficulties. Margaret Mitchell writes:

Ricketts had four months to design and supervise the creation of the costumes. In addition to fabric shortages, money problems, and general wartime concerns and stresses, an incomplete cast during the building of the costumes forced Ricketts to design costumes that could be fit to a range of sizes and physical shapes. His letters indicate that he did not understand who would be playing some of the male roles or supernumeraries.

In December 1917, Ricketts wrote to Penelope Wheeler:

I have stencilled about 100 yards of stuff and I am in advanced state of senile decay.

Although Ricketts probably worked for no fee, seeing his effort as a way of supporting wartime charity, he insisted that the seamstresses were paid. In the first week of January 1918 the costumes were ready, and after Wheeler had inspected them at her home, they were packed and shipped to France. Ricketts wrote long notes for alterations, and instructions for the actors.

Among instructions for bow tying and jewelry wearing, Ricketts explains problems with the construction. He gives advice for makeup and hairdressing, and he also tries to troubleshoot fitting problems. He indicates a few surprises; he sent extra tights and extra green satin fabric for sashes, as well as a costume for a supernumerary not yet cast: "I have included a costume for a black page for Portia. I imagine you can steal or borrow a French child for the purpose."

After the war, the costumes were reused for other plays and performances. A summary of the importance of these wartime letters about costumes is given at the end of Margaret Mitchell's article:

The letters from Charles Ricketts to Penelope Wheeler provide a vivid window into the past. His handwriting gives us the pictures: the middle-ages designer is bent over the 100 yards of stenciling late at night; the designed furniture satin is not to be had; the manager/star does not provide enough money; the situation requires complicated touring logistics; the designer encounters the obstacles of inflation; stressed collaborators slam the door in the designer's face; the designer depends on the underpaid, overworked miracle worker who has it in her hands and mind to achieve the impossible; the designer is overcommitted, and swirling around him are lost friends, financial troubles, and a violent world in conflict facing an unknown future. Even so, Ricketts insists on the perfect hem, the precise height of the feather, the exacting spangle pattern, and the emotional and physical communion of actor and costume.

88. The Great Worm revisited

John Gray's story 'The Great Worm' was published in the first number of The Dial, issued by Shannon and Ricketts from their house in The Vale. The short story describes the worm (in the last paragraph he is also called a dragon) as 'an unaffected beast', with 'four short crooked legs and two little wings', coloured 'white and gold', and having 'an exceedingly long tongue'.

This description is followed by a long scene in which the worm enters a city, and while he is examined in turn by a doorkeeper, a horseman, an officer, a surgeon-major, a philosopher, and a medical officer, the worm announces that he has come to enlist in the royal armies of the prince who rules the city. He is appointed a general. The next scene is shorter and describes how the worm, followed by the army, re-establishes the prince as the ruler in all his dominions. A longer scene follows, in which they reach a city that looks green, but turns blue. This city seems to be uninhabited, until a 'figure of silent whiteness' comes towards the worm and gives him a lily. He wears it to his heart, and during the night he is in agony, asking himself: 'Why am I a worm?'

Ah! it was too horrible; he remembered that he had been human.

The lily has taken root on his breast, and a few days later - they have resumed their journey - the worm dies. The story is followed by a short 'epilogue':

A poet lay in a white garden of lilies, shaping the images of his fancy, as the river ran through his trailing hair.
But in his garden a long worm shook himself after sleep; forgotten his face like a pearl, his beautiful eyes like a snake's, his breathing hair - all. He had complete reminiscences of a worm, and sought the deserts and ravines the dragon loves.

Illustration to 'The Great Worm', etched by Charles Ricketts (plate AE, in: The Dial, No. 1, 1889)

In blog number 84, 'A new interpretation of The Great Worm', I quoted earlier comments, and mentioned that Petra Clark of the University of Delaware published an article about this story in English Literature in Transition, 1880-1930 (volume 56, number 1, 2013). 

Gray's story was profusely illustrated by Charles Ricketts, with a vignette/initial at the beginning, a tailpiece at the end, an original colour lithograph, and an etching (reproduced in photography). However, it should be noted that there is a second contribution in this issue of The Dial in which a worm is one of the characters. This is a parody of a Wagner opera, called 'The Cup of Happiness'. For this Ricketts did a woodcut of a lady with a wormlike dragon, comprising an initial 'T'.

Illustration to 'The Cup of  Happiness', by Charles Ricketts (The Dial, No. 1, 1889, p. 27)

This is relevant, because it follows that Ricketts and Gray were working on a story about a worm simultaneously. We must question whether the illustrations for Gray's story were done before, during, or after Gray had submitted his story to Shannon and Ricketts. In the magazine this story and its illustrations are presented as a coherent cooperation. Surely, Ricketts must have read Gray's story before he could design the initial V and the tailpiece. But for the larger illustrations - the etching and the lithograph - we cannot be absolutely certain. It is, however, unlikely but not impossible, that Gray and Ricketts discussed the story and illustrations, while they were at work on them. In order to interpret the story, one has to find clues that may or may not be affirmed by the illustrations. Petra Clark avoids the pitfalls of interpreting an illustrated story:

Here, Ricketts's illustrations do not merely 'illustrate' Gray's story; instead, the aspects of "The Great Worm" that Ricketts chooses to portray tell us much about the ideas he wishes to comment upon, as does his exercise of editorial control in deciding where to place those images. Appearing as they do, in unexpected locations throughout the first number, his illustrations therefore "color" the reading of the content as a whole. These illustrations also force readers to see the Worm as Ricketts does - many pages before they encounter the story itself - since the first representation of this figure serves as the color frontispiece. (p. 35)

The colour lithograph depicts the lady with the lily opposite the white and golden worm in a green mountainous landscape (see blog 84).

Yet it is hard to [...] ignore the overtly phallic shape of the Worm's body or his cheeky grin (p. 36)

The story and the illustrations complement and contradict one another, says Clark, and they

engage in the discourses of gender, sexuality and aestheticism that characterize the Dial in general. (p. 37)

Clark points out that the epilogue is a small but important segment:

Here the poet and the story he crafts about the Worm become conflated: the poet imagines the Great Worm in particular and has the memories of a worm in general, insinuating that he is somehow implicitly tied to his artistic imaginings. (p. 39)

In both illustrations [the initial and the lithograph] the Worm rears its head as though in a state of arousal produced by the voluptuous nude woman before him. When this imagery of arousal is translated into the Epilogue, the poet's sexual excitement would instead be seen to stem from the "images of his fancy" that he has shaped, as though artistic creation is stimulating to the artist's "masculinity" in more ways than one. By linking the story's Worm and the Epilogue's poet in these ways, Gray simultaneously emphasizes the quixotic effeteness and the virile productive power of the Worm/poet as an artist, while Ricketts's illustrations of the Great Worm further poke fun at these contradictory attributes of the male artist. (p. 39-40)

Clark points out that during the Aesthetic Movement, Britain's imperial strength was at its summit, glorifying virility, and bringing about a 'cult of masculinity'. The Worm's volunteering for service may be seen as an act of manliness. Clark also points out that Ricketts omits certain aspects from his images, thus isolating the lady with the lily and the worm:

In both images, the Worm and the woman therefore come face each other in a much more dramatic and erotic fashion than the equivalent scene in Gray's story might suggest. (p. 46)

Clark links the lily to a symbolism of homosexuality.

One might once again refer to the fact that, after the Worm's death, the tale turns to the suspiciously languid figure of the poet of the Epilogue. The emphasis, then, is less on death than on "orgasmic ecstasy" (p. 48)

The conclusion is that

one of the extra-artistic aims of the Dial is to reimagine aesthetic or even homosexual masculinity as an alternative to the "heteronormative, masculine image of the artist," but not to take itself too seriously in the process. (p. 48)

A few loose ends in Petra Clarks interpretation should be pointed out. Firstly, Clark mentions that Ricketts did three illustrations for the story, and she ignores the tailpiece that illustrates the important Epilogue.

Tailpiece for 'The Great Worm', by Charles Ricketts (The Dial, No. 1, 1889, p. 18)

The reclining female figure once again contradicts the masculinity of the poet in the epilogue.

Another point is the appearance of the poet laureate in the story. After the worm has accepted the post of general, and after he has been examined by the medical officer, there is a short scene in which the poet comes to the fore:

This would have ended the formalities, had not the court poet found an opportunity to commence reciting the worm's military antecedents.
- Is that that man again? asked the prince; I abolish the office. The laureate ceased.

The poet laureate at the time was, of course, Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose poems had glorified the Victorian ideals, famously in 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. Tennyson was at the end of his life when Gray wrote his story; he would die in 1892. It is not completely clear why Gray inserted this passage about the poet laureate in a story that equaled the worm to a poet. However, the poet laureate glorifies militarism, and is immediately sacked. He is the kind of poet that Gray did not want to be.

87. Nothing

Indicators of influenza activity across the Netherlands show that influenza is circulating, and as I am now one of its victims, this week's blog comes to nothing but a quote:

April 8 [1915]
Like Louis XVI, who records 'rien' in his diary on the tragic days of the Revolution and his trial, I have nothing to say.
(Self-Portrait taken from the Letters & Journals of Charles Ricketts, R.A., 1939, p. 237)

Dust-jacket for Self-Portrait taken from the Letters & Journals of Charles Ricketts, R.A. (1939)

86. The Man with a Yellow Glove

Bonhams in New Bond Street, London, issued a catalogue for their auction of 8 May, when the third part of The Roy Davids Collection of poetical manuscripts and portraits of poets will be on sale.

Davids owned one or two manuscripts of almost all important English poets, and he also collected portraits, photographs, drawings, engravings, and a few paintings. One of the items in the sale is a large portrait of the poet and artist Thomas Sturge Moore (75x67 cm) by Charles Shannon.

Charles Shannon, 'The Man with a Yellow Glove'

This portrait is known as 'The Man with the Yellow Glove' and it was awarded a gold medal at the International Exhibition at the 'Glaspalaste', the Royal Chrystal Palace, in Munich, in 1897. This was one in a series of exhibitions of the Munich 'Secession' for which Franz von Stuck had designed the poster.

Franz von Stuck, Poster of the 7th International Art Exhibition, Munich

Shannon had sent one other painting to Munich, 'A Wounded Amazon'. When the portrait of Moore was returned, Shannon wrote in his diary that it was 'rather too black', and that it seemed to be 'more dark than when it went'.

Around the same time, Shannon finished a self-portrait and a portrait of Ricketts, having similar titles: 'The Man in a Black Shirt' and 'The Man in the Inverness Cape', now both at the National Portrait Gallery.

The portrait of Thomas Sturge Moore in its original matt gold frame formerly belonged to Colin Franklin (1923), a writer, bibliographer, book-collector and antiquarian bookseller, before it passed into the collection of Roy Davids. Davids was a writer of biographies of members of parliament, before he came to work for Sotheby's as a cataloguer of manuscripts. He worked for the auction house from 1970 until twenty years later, when he started his own business as a manuscript dealer (the Roy Davids Ltd. website has not been updated since 2007). Since 2005, Davids has been selling his collection in parts, not because 'he has shrugged off the collecting bug, nor is he close to death' (as was written on Paul Fraser Collectibles), but 'partly because I have to do something with it', as Davids says in a video presentation. He believes that the manuscripts should return to the market. 

The first part of the Davids collection was sold in 2005, the second part in March 2011, the third part will be on sale on 8 May 2013.

Note: The painting was sold for £4,550 inc. premium and tax.

85. March 18, 1937

Seventy-six years ago, on 18 March, 1937, Charles Shannon died. A year later, P. & D. Colnaghi & Co in London devoted an exhibition to his lithographs. In the catalogue, Thomas Sturge Moore wrote about his sitting for a portrait in 1896. He recalled Shannon's eye for quality and their frequent cycle-riding adventures. He especially remembered Shannon's 'energetic sturdiness'.

Images of a number of lithographs by Charles Shannon are available online. His first experiment in lithography, dated 1889, depicts 'The Vale in Snow'. The image is provided by the British Library. We barely see the house of Ricketts and Shannon on this lithograph of which only eight copies seem to have been made.

Charles Shannon, 'The Vale in Snow', lithograph, 1889 (British Library)

Shannon's self-portrait, and his portrait of Ricketts, are now in the Portrait Gallery in London. More paintings by Shannon can be seen on the website of the BBC. 

Charles Shannon, 'Girl Bathers in a Boat', painting, c. 1905-1910 (Hammersmith Archives and Local History Centre)

84. A new interpretation of The Great Worm

Until recently, John Gray's story 'The Great Worm', which was published in the first issue of The Dial in 1889, was not taken seriously. Gray's biographer wrote:

It is a story of a dragon who dies from unrequited love; its silliness is so precisely balanced with pathos, its parody by bemused self-parody (the worm turns out to be the dreamer of the tale), that one must suspend judgment about its success. The risks alone are worth reading of it, as if a rococo artist had painted (say, in gold and white) one of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales. (Jerusha Hull McCormack, John Gray. Poet, Dandy, and Priest, 1991, p. 25).

Charles Ricketts, vignette and initial for John Gray's story 'The Great Worm', in The Dial, 1889, p. 14.

Earlier, Richard Harold Quinn wrote a thesis on The Dial in which the story was relevated:

'The great Worm' is best described as a dream vision, but it is clearly one of the most curious of its type. Asleep in a garden of lilies, a poet sees a gold and white worm, an 'unaffected beast', who lived 'somewhere in the belly of one of those mountain ranges in Central Asia, with a name as ragged as its silhouette.' Having offered his services to the prince of the region, the worm is sent out at the head of an army to establish order among wavering subjects. The expedition goes well until an unnamed 'figure of silent whiteness,' the inhabitant of a glorious city, offers the worm a lily, which he then wears on his breast. That night he is heard to moan 'Why am I a worm?' And within days, the lily having taking root, he is dead. 
Faced with the task of interpreting 'The Great Worm,' one is tempted by allegorical possibilities (the dragon of evil defeated by purity; sin destroyed by Holy Church) and even by Symbolist possibilities (the mysteriousness of the worm's identity and motives; the metaphysical suggestiveness of the lily and the 'figure of silent whiteness'). On the other hand, to quote Alexandra Zaina, 'it seems unlikely that this story was meant to be taken seriously.' (Richard Harold Quinn, Charles Ricketts and The Dial, 1977, p. 112-113)

But why not take the story seriously? The Dial was a serious attempt to ventilate new ideas about art, and one of its editors - Ricketts - considered it worthwhile to devote no less than four illustrations to this story: a vignette/initial at the beginning, a tailpiece at the end, a colour lithograph and an etching.

Charles Ricketts, illustration to 'The Great Worm', lithograph, in The Dial, 1889, plate AA.

Another later commentator, C.N. Pondrom, wrote: 

Much of the original literary contents of the  periodical show an affinity with the pseudo-medieval, fantastic, misty literature associated with the pre-Raphaelite movement, and in this sense, as well as in the frequency and excellence of illustration, the Dial is a clear successor to the Germ. Examples of this affinity may be seen in the Charles Ricketts' short story 'The cup of Happiness' and John Gray's parable 'The Great Worm'. (Cyrena Norman Pondrom, English Literary Periodicals 1885-1918, 1966, p. 74). 

A new interpretation was published earlier this year in English Literature in Transition, 1880-1930, volume 56 (2013) 1, p. 33-50: Petra Clark's essay 'Bitextuality, Sexuality, and the Male Aesthete in The Dial: "Not through an orthodox channel"'. Petra Clark is a Lasner Research Assistant at the University of Delaware, where I met her during my visit in February.

Her essay is firmly rooted in modern research theories, inspired by such scholars as Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Elaine Showalter, and Dennis Denisoff. Clark's sometimes witty interpretation focuses on the sexual imagery in the story, and likens the worm's physique to the male sexual organ.

the varied representations of masculinity and the blatant sexual (and arguably homoerotic) imagery it contains have been largely overlooked, as well as how these factors contribute to the notion of the artist that the Dial seems to be constructing.

More about this study in blog no. 88: 'The Great Worm revisited'.

83. The Mark Samuels Lasner Collection

The Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, on loan to the University of Delaware Library, occupies a large reading room and two offices in a quiet corner of the Morris Library. (No, not William Morris.) The collection is associated with the Special Collections Department, and focuses on British literature and art of the period 1850 to 1900, with an emphasis on the Pre-Raphaelites and on the writers and illustrators of the 1890s. Its holdings comprise 9,000 first and other editions, including signed and association copies, manuscripts, letters, works on paper and ephemera. The collection is particularly strong in Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm material.

Part of the Michael Field books in the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, on loan to the University of Delaware Library, 2013

Ricketts and Shannon are well represented, for example by a series of lithographs, and a few dedication copies of Vale Press books. The Michael Field works include, of course, copies of the four plays that Ricketts published at his private press, but the collection can also boast of rarer books, such as the plays that Michael Field published anonymously, and partly posthumously, between 1905 and 1918, and for which Ricketts provided a vignette: Borgia, Queen Mariamne, Deirdre, and others.

The Life of Benvenuto Cellini (two volumes, Vale Press, 1900) [Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, on loan to the University of Delaware Library]

The two-volume edition of The Life of Benvenuto Cellini was published by the Vale Press in 1900. Ricketts dedicated a copy to his friend Cecil Lewis in July 1922: 'To C. Lewis from his Friend C Ricketts'. 

Charles Ricketts, 'The Moon-Horned Io', drawing for Oscar Wilde, The Sphinx (Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, on loan to the University of Delaware Library)

One of the treasures that I had the opportunity to study during my visit to Delaware was a drawing for Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx (1894), 'The Moon-Horned Io'. On the same table I had a copy of the book, along with a copy of de deluxe edition, of which only 25 copies have been printed. It shows how rich this collection is. 

Mark Samuels Lasner stimulates the use of his collection - at the time of my visit many Pre-Raphaelite items were on loan to the exhibition in the National Gallery of Art in Washington - and he, and his assistent Ashley Rye, are welcoming, hospitable, and helpful. Access to the collection is available by appointment. Recommended.

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)

81. John Gray in Holland

The first time that the name of Charles Shannon was mentioned in Holland coincided with the first appearance of the name of John Gray in a Dutch newspaper. See my earlier blogs on an article from the Dagblad that was later published in the Java-Bode (7 May 1891). The report of the performance of Ibsen's Ghosts in London on 13 March 1891 not only mentioned Shannon as a member of the Independent Theatre Society, but also noted that Oscar Wilde had come to see the play, and his name was followed immediately by that of John Gray, who was called 'the new poet'. 

John Gray, c. 1892

To call him a poet was rather premature. By March 1891 John Gray had published a critical piece, 'Les Goncourt', and a fairy tale, 'The great worm', both in the first issue of Ricketts's and Shannon's magazine The Dial (August 1889). An obituary of Albert Dubois-Pillet was published in The Academy of September 1890, and The Artist and Journal of Home Culture of August 1890 had published a 'Sonnet', a translation from Paul Verlaine. One of Gray's own poems had been published with a drawing by Ricketts in Black and White, 28 February 1891, and some more were to follow in the second issue of The Dial in February 1892. A 'new' poet, indeed.

Meanwhile Gray had sent Wilde a handwritten poem for what was to become his famous book of poems Silverpoints (1893), and he had been reciting his poetry to the Rhymers' Club in January 1891. He befriended the poets Lionel Johnson and Ernest Dowson, and by the autumn of 1891 he also knew Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. 'Tex', as his friends called him, was probably the writer of the article about the first performance of Ghosts. Gray lived at the Temple, and since April 1891 he rented rooms at No 3, Plowden Buildings, where George Moore - also mentioned in the article! - Arthur Symons and Tex lived on the same floor.

Binding by Phoenix Bindery for Paul van Capelleveen, Dutch silverpoints (2007)

Why would the author of an article for a Dutch newspaper mention Gray's name, apart from friendship? It is very likely that Teixeira de Mattos had inspired Gray to write to the editor of a Dutch magazine, De Nieuwe Gids ('The New Guide') in January 1891, in an attempt to get his poems accepted for publication. Nothing came of it. I published Gray's letters to the Dutch writer Frederik van Eeden in Dutch Silverpoints. John Gray's Struggle for Fame in Holland. This book was beautifully produced by Hans van Eijk on his private Bonnefant Press in 2007. As some copies are still for sale, I will not quote these letters here, but refer you to the Bonnefant Press website for your order, which will be patiently awaited.

80. On the Dutch reception of Pre-Raphaelitism

On 24 January, Anne van Buul (1983) got her PhD on a study about the Dutch reception of Pre-Raphaelitism, In vreemde grond geworteld. Prerafaëlitisme in de Nederlandse literatuur en beeldende kunst (1855-1910). A short summary is given on the website of the Groningen University:

In 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded by a group of young English artists and writers. Together, they aimed to renew the arts. At the end of the nineteenth century, Pre-Raphaelitism grew into a broad cultural movement. The term 'Pre-Raphaelite' no longer only referred to works of the members of the Brotherhood, but also to other modern English literature, visual and decorative art from the period between 1848 and 1900. This amalgam of English literature and art has had a great impact in The Netherlands.

Cover for Anne van Buul, In vreemde grond geworteld (2013)

The first part of Van Buul's study describes four phases in the Dutch reception of Pre-Raphaelitism. First, from 1855 onwards, Pre-Raphaelitism became a topic of conversation in the art world. Then, in the 1880s, Pre-Raphaelite literature began to play a role in the works and poetics of the poets of the Eighties Movement. In the 1890s, Pre-Raphaelite decorative art came to be a shining example for Dutch community artists. After 1900 the reception finally became less positive and the interest in Pre-Raphaelitism slowly decreased.

The reception-historical overview is followed by five chapters that zoom in on five important Dutch recipients: the writers Frederik van Eeden, Edward B. Koster and P.C. Boutens, and the artists Antoon Derkinderen and Jan Toorop. These chapters extensively describe their dealing with Pre-Raphaelitism in the form of critical reception, creative reception and translation. Together, the chronological overview and the case studies show how Pre-Raphaelitism was transferred to and integrated in Dutch culture during the fin de siècle.

Although the book is not about Ricketts and Shannon, Ricketts is mentioned on 32 pages, while Shannon's name appears on 20.

79. Oscar Wilde between Paris and Brighton

The Java-Bode reported the one-time performance of Ibsen's Ghosts in London on 13 March 1891. It not only mentioned Shannon as a member of the Independent Theatre Society, but also noted that Oscar Wilde had come to see the play. This is interesting, as his chronology mentions that he was in Paris on 11 March and in Brighton on 16 March and what he did in between is unrecorded. 

Norman Page's An Oscar Wilde Chronology (1991) shows that on 3 March Wilde was to visit the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, that he was very ill a few days later, that he called on Zola on the 11th of March, and the next date is 16 March, when Wilde wrote that he was staying at the Hotel Metropole in Brighton, still (or again) very ill. These dates are based on Wilde's correspondence, as are those in the online Wilde Chronology of the Oscholars.

The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (2000) show that Wilde had been in Paris since 25 February 1891 (and possibly earlier) when he wrote to Mallarmé that he would be honoured to meet the author of L'Après-Midi d'un Faune. Apparently, Wilde suffered from the flu, as he had lost his voice, but a few days later he wrote to his son Cyril that he went out every morning for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne and that every evening he would sit outside at 'little tables' looking at the passing carriages. On 7 March he wrote to Coulson Kernahan, his editor at Ward, Lock and Co, that he had not corrected the proofs for The Picture of Dorian Gray earlier, because he had been 'very ill'. All these letters were written from the Hôtel de l'Athénée, 15 rue Scribe, in Paris.

15, rue Scribe, Paris

Wilde's next dated letter is of 16 March 1891, again to Kernahan: 'I am still very ill, but Brighton is doing me good', and he announced that he would return 'to town' (London) the next day. There was no word about the first performance of Ibsen's Ghosts that he had witnessed in between.

From the Dutch review we now know that he had been in the audience on 13 March 1891. The English papers (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, etc.) mentioned no names other than those of the actors and that of Jack T. Grein, as it would have been risky to connect any respectable individual in the audience with a performance that was considered a scandal. The papers condemned the play and asked the Lord Chamberlain to ban it. In the Dutch review Wilde's name was followed immediately by that of John Gray, see next week's blog.

Among other names that were mentioned by the Dutch eye-witness of the event are the owner of The Times, John Walter, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Londesborough, Clement Scott (of The Daily Telegraph), and at least ten other critics. From the Republic of Letters he mentioned George Moore, Oscar Wilde, and John Gray. The House of Lords was represented by Justin Huntly McCarthy and C.P. Colnaghi, from the art world the names of Charles Shannon and the engraver Carl Henschel, the actors Madeleine Shirley, Emily Duncan, Adrienne Dairolles and members of the Playgoers Club were mentioned. The orchestra that mainly consisted of Dutch musicians, was led by the Dutch conductor  and composer Jan Mulder, and played a few pieces by Edvard Grieg. Mulder also performed at a concert at the Dutch Club and at the Savage Club. He would also be present at the October 1891 performance of The Independent Theatre Society, when Zola's Thérèse Raquin in a translation of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos was staged. George Moore had revised this translation.

78. Shannon spotted in the theatre

A new resource hosted by the National Library of the Netherlands, 'Historical newspapers', gives free access to Dutch newspapers from 1618 to 1995. Not all newspapers are available yet, but the great thing is that word searches are possible, and a search for 'C.H. Shannon', for example, yields seven results, including a very early one that was previously unknown. This article, 'Een vrije schouwburg', about the Independent Theatre, was published on 6 May 1891 in the Java-bode, a newspaper for the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). It was not written by one of their correspondents, but taken from another newspaper, Het dagblad ('The daily') of which no copies have been preserved.

Jack T. Grein

The Théâtre Libre was directed by André Antoine, but the 1891 event that mentioned this name on the programme was staged by Jack T. Grein (1862-1935), and although the article still calls his theatre production by the old name, the performance was in fact the first of a series of the Independent Theatre, a private society that could stage controversial plays using a subscription system. Grein staged Henrik Ibsen's play Ghosts on syphilis and adultary at the Royalty Theatre, at 73 Dean Street, Soho, London, on 13 March 1891. The play was considered to be 'repulsive', 'coarse', 'vulgar', 'absurd', 'revolting', you name it.

It took a few months for the event to be covered by a newspaper in the Dutch East Indies, and it probably only did so, because Grein was born a Dutchman who had emigrated to London in 1885 and was naturalized in 1895.

Another Dutchman, Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1865-1921), lived in London and translated a few plays for the Independent Theatre, and his association with the theatre society was noticed as early as 18 April 1891, when it was reported that he would translate Emile Zola's Thérèse Raquin for Grein. Teixeira de Mattos also worked for several Dutch newspapers, and it may have been 'Tex' who wrote the review that was published in the Java-bode. Its author called himself 'The Man-about-Town'.

Portrait of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, from  Stephen McKenna, Tex. A chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1922)

The newspaper story, full of banter, related how, after the performance, Grein had spoken from the stage, and it described the audience in some detail. The author tells us that the world of literature was represented by the novelist George Moore, by Oscar Wilde, by John Gray, 'the new poet', while artistic circles included 'the painters C.H. Shannon and Richard Savage', among others. Richard Savage was in fact Reginald Savage, an artist and a collaborator of Ricketts's and Shannon's magazine The Dial.

Charles Shannon, Self-Portrait (1897)

Shannon's attendance of the first performance of Ibsen's Ghosts in 1891 places him in the vicinity of 'an apostel of the beautiful' (as the Morning post mockingly called Grein in a review of Ghosts, 14 March 1891), and thus in the forefront of the battle against Victorianism and censorship, but also in an artistic circle which included Wilde and Gray, who were recognized and singled out for his report of the event by the correspondent. English newspapers noted that 'the large audience' included 'more females than might have been expected' for an unlicensed play, but Shannon's name was not mentioned. The 1891 Java-bode was the first to mention Shannon's name in the Dutch language area.

77. A Paper Wrapper for A Pageant

Book-jackets, Thomas G. Tanselle's (partly new) study on paper wrappers for books, mentions a dustwrapper for volume 2 of The Pageant, 1897, that is unusual because the book mentions the name of the designer.

Wrapper for The pageant, 1897

Usually the designers of these jackets were not identified, but then, most wrappers were only sparsely illustrated, while this one is printed in colour after a design by Gleeson White. The drawing is not signed, but his name is mentioned in a footnote to the foreword, which is also quoted by Tanselle as it calls the jacket an 'outer wrapper', showing that the nomenclature for this phenomenon had not yet chrystallized.

Gleeson White, who was the literary editor of the magazine, must have designed it in consultation with the art editor, Charles Shannon, who could have commissioned another artist, for example Charles Ricketts, who designed the binding, or Lucien Pissarro, who designed the end-papers. Apparently it was not deemed important for this magazine to follow the new rules of book design, whereby the book was seen as a unity. The designs by Ricketts, Pissarro, and Gleeson White are quite different in character, and the whole now expresses not so much the unity of the book as the intimacy of a small coterie of artists.

Wrapper for The pageant, 1897

Gleeson White's design is printed in green, red and white on thin brown wrapping paper. It illustrates a brick wall, behind which one can see a pageant, with people who are out of sight, carrying spears and banners. In the front is a row of trees, with doves and flowers. The title, the publisher's name, and the price are mentioned on the front. The spine is almost never shown. It also mentions the title and the imprint.

Spine of wrapper for The pageant, 1897

The first volume of The Pageant (for 1896) did not have a paper wrapper, and one may assume that the reason for Gleeson White's wrapper must have been the lack of sales. The second volume, in spite of its attractive colour wrapper, was to be the last of this short-lived annual for art and literature.

76. Patterned papers (h: bird and rose)

In June 1898 the Vale Press published a two-volume edition of The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton. For this book Ricketts designed two patterned papers, one for the boards and one for the spine. They were used on both volumes.

Charles Ricketts, patterned paper for The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton (1898) (vol. 2)

The paper on the boards is a pattern of 'rose and bird', according to Ricketts in his bibliography (1904). Colin Franklin, in his book The private press (second edition, 1991), identified the bird as a swallow and this may well be the case, although Ricketts's designs usually are too stylized for an exact determination.

Charles Ricketts, patterned paper for The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton (1898) (vol. 1) [detail]

Ricketts apparently did not really care for exactness in naming the bird, or the flower, for that matter. He said it was a rose, which is obviously true, but he does not tell us what kind of rose. The same goes for the patterned paper for Michael Field's Fair Rosamund, for which another rose and another bird (a dove this time) were drawn. 

Charles Ricketts, patterned paper for The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton (1898) (vol. 1) [detail]

The second paper is nameless. It has an abstract pattern of acorns and dotted triangles, that may be vine leaves, and were called 'vine-and-diamond domino' by Alice H.R.H. Beckwith (in Dictionary of literary biography, volume 112, 1991). There seem to be no repetitions, Ricketts must have engraved an entire block for it.

Earlier parts of this series about the Vale Press patterned papers:

a: Mouse and nut (Michael Drayton's Nymphidia or the Muses Elizium)
b: The Suckling rose (The poems of Sir John Suckling)

c: The ship (Fifty songs by Thomas Campion)

d: Bird, arrow and rose (Michael Field, Fair Rosamund)

e: A flowered paper (Henry Constable's Poems and sonnets)

f: Pine-cone and leaf (The sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney)

g: Wilde rose (De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée. William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers)