105. An Attack on the Defence of the Revival of Printing

On Friday 19 July, after I delivered my paper on the reprints of T.J. Cobden-Sanderson's tract The Ideal Book at the SHARP conference in Philadelphia, I took an Amtrak train to New York for a meeting at The Grolier Club. 

The Grolier Club, conveniently located at the Plaza Hotel side of Central Park, at 47 East 60th Street, has its windows temporarily shielded against dust and debris, now that the next door building is being demolished, and a skyscraper is to be erected on the site. Nikolai Fedak wrote about the location - between Fifth and Madison Avenue – that this is 'an address that bests any competing development, and the skyscraper will possess some of the best Central Park views in the city. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern, 45 East 60th Street will rise 52 stories and 780 feet. The tower is expected to contain 40 units, and most floors will be split between duplex apartments, though the top unit will be an enormous triplex.'

The occupant of one of the lower floor apartments will possibly enjoy the proximity of his own books to those in The Grolier Club's library, as the bookcases to the wall in the picture will be adjacent to the new building.

Library, The Grolier Club, New York, 19 July 2013

The Grolier Club building, designed by Bertram G. Goodhue, was built in 1917. Before that, the Club was housed at other New York venues. After its foundation in 1884, the Club first had its headquarter in a few rented rooms at 64 Madison Avenue. In 1890, the Club moved to a Romanesque Revival building that was purpose-built for the society at 29 East 32nd Street; nowadays a designated landmark (I am freely quoting from the society's website). The present Clubhouse is a neo-Georgian six-story town-house.

Bookcase in the Second Floor Gallery, The Grolier Club, New York, 19 July 2013

During my visit, I noticed a Ricketts binding in one of the exhibition cases in the Second Floor Gallery. In the upper right-hand corner one sees a copy of Charles Ricketts's Beyond the Threshold, in the red leather binding that was gilded after a design by the author. The book was published in 1929 in an edition of 150 copies.

The librarian, Meghan Constantinou, pulled out some special Ricketts related items from the Club's vast collection of prints, auction catalogues, books on printing, and fine printing. It gives me pleasure to thank her for this illustration of the institute's kind hospitality.

The Grolier Club copy of Ricketts's A Defence of the Revival of Printing (published June 1899) has a tipped-in letter from Theodore Low De Vinne, one of the nine founders of the Club, to the engraver and art dealer Samuel Putnam Avery, dated 23 October 1899. The book also contains Avery's bookplate. De Vinne's letter reveals his hostility towards the claims of William Morris and other artists who had turned to book design. The letter reads:

Letter from Th. L. De Vinne, 23 October 1899 [The Grolier Club, New York]

300 West Seventy-Sixth Street
23 October 1899
Dear Mr. Avery,
With this I send the two volumes of Mackail's "Life of Morris", Rickett's [sic] "Defence of the Revival of Printing", "The Hymn of Bardaisan", and Morris's "Ash and Beauty of Enoch".

I say with Job - "Miserable comforters are ye all." The amount of sensible and practical instruction is small; the volume of conceit and dogmatism is great. After four hundred years of practice in printing it seems somewhat audacious in men who have never been taught the rudiments of the trade, to put themselves on a high perch and tell printers everywhere that they are the true evangelists in art!'
Yours cordially,
Theo. L. De Vinne

Verso of letter from Th. L. De Vinne, 23 October 1899 [The Grolier Club, New York]

Theodore Low De Vinne, who would publish the first volume of his influential Practice of Typography the next year, also wrote 'Some Comments on the Imitators of William Morris', which appeared in The New York Times Saturday Review of 27 October 1900. In that essay he mentioned Ricketts.

The revival of printing was defended by Charles Ricketts after critical essays about the Vale Press typography. But his tract did not change Theodore Low De Vinne's attitude towards the artists who, following the footsteps of William Morris, trained themselves as graphic designers avant le mot. From this letter it clearly emerges that De Vinne felt hurt by these outsider's comments on the printing trade. In his view, fine printing did not need artists, but well trained printers.

104. White Nights in Philadelphia

The SHARP conference on the history of authorship, reading and publishing, held in Philadelphia this year, was a memorable event, not only because of the high temperatures and the impressive university buildings, but mostly of course thanks to stimulating talks in a rapid succession of parallel sessions. 

There were tours to quite a few libraries. I was at a presentation at the Rare Book Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and before that I walked into the room of the Print and Picture Collection to ask for works by Ricketts and Shannon.

Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia, 18 July 2013

I did not have an appointment - I was an hour early for the tour - but the people of the Free Library immediately checked the catalogue for Ricketts and Shannon material in the fine art prints and in the book arts collection, and came up with one lithograph by Charles Shannon. It is signed in the lower right corner: 'Charles Shannon R16', referring to Ricketts's catalogue of the lithographs of Shannon, in which 'White Nights' (1893) is listed as number 16.

Charles Shannon's lithograph 'White Nights' on a table in the Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia, 18 July 2013

A few minutes later I had the lithograph in front of me on one of the large tables. It is printed in an edition of 50 on Van Gelder paper (the lithograph was also published in The Dial, number 3, 1893, and for these copies an unwatermarked cream laid paper was used). The overall condition of this subtle lithograph with a late preraphaelesque and almost surrealist scene was not brilliant, the paper was browned at the edges. However, the print had a surprise in store for me.

Charles Shannon, 'White Nights' (lithograph, 1893) [Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia]

Ricketts describes the image as follows: 'Two girls in long shifts stand to the left of the picture. The one who is washing her hands turns to kiss the other who holds a candlestick. Their companion is preparing a low narrow bed.'

Turning over the leaf I saw a sketch in pencil of a naked male figure wearing a helmet, perhaps a representation of Hermes. The helmet, or possibly, a hat, is reminiscent of other figures in Shannon's lithographs, such as the shepherd in 'The Shepherd in the Mist' (1892) and a group of nude children in 'The Ruffled Sea' (1893).

Sketch in pencil on the verso of Charles Shannon, 'White Nights' (lithograph, 1893) [Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia]

The young artist that Shannon was at the time would of course never waste a good piece of paper, and why not print a lithograph on the verso of an unfinished sketch? The signature, and certainly the reference to R16, will have been added later (Ricketts's bibliography was published in 1902). This might have been a proof of the lithograph.

Works by Charles Ricketts were found in other Philadelphia collections.

103. Transporting Ideals of Typography

On Thursday 18 July the annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) will be opened at the University of Philadelphia. 

Friday morning the actual conference starts with a great variety of papers. One of the early sessions is titled 'Typographic Travels'. There are three presentations by Michael Knies (University of Scranton), Nicholas Kendall Morris (The State University of New York-Buffalo) and me.

My talk is called 'Transporting Ideals of Typography: The Case of The Ideal Book'. After the first edition of T.J. Cobden-Sanderson's The Ideal Book had been published in 1901 (dated 1900), a long row of new editions was published, especially in the United States. There were in fact more reprints of this text than of William Morris's lecture with the same title. I will be looking at the way the intentions and design of the manifesto were changed after they crossed the Atlantic, and how this effected the status of the text.

Extracts from the Book Beautiful, with an initial by F.W. Goudy (Village Press, 1907)

102. A Vale Press errata slip

Although Vale Press books occasionally show editorial mistakes, spelling errors and misprints, only once was an errata leaf printed. Charles Ricketts and Lucien Pissarro cooperated on De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée. William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers (1898), and an errata slip was inserted on publication. Two mistakes were brought to the attention of the reader:

P. 12, line 4. For "sous" read "sans"
P. 26, line 13. For "Aux tons" read "Au lieu"

Some copies have lost their errata slips, such as the Bodleian Library copies (17006 e. 87 and Walpole e 602). In other copies the slip has been retained, but inserted in different places, such as after d4^v or after 2π^3.

Errata slip in a copy of Charles Ricketts and Lucien Pissarro, De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée. William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers (1898)

In some copies the owner has corrected the errors in the text. Such is the case with a copy that features the bookplate of James Curle of Priorwood, Melrose, Roxburghshire in Scotland. He settled in the family home on his marriage in 1904, and died there in 1944. The bookplate was designed for him by David Young Cameron in 1911. This copy was sold by Blackwell Books in Oxford in 1987.

Correction on page 12 in a copy of Charles Ricketts and Lucien Pissarro, De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée. William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers (1898)

On page 12 and page 26 the errors have neatly been corrected in pencil. No other pencil notes or marginalia occur in the pages of this private press book. It suggests that one of the owners wanted to be sure that, whenever he opened the book, he would read the correct text in French. Usually, collectors of private press books have been suspected of looking at rather than reading books, but this kind of user mark would be an argument for the opposite: the collector wanted a perfect text in a well produced edition, even if he had to scribble some of the words himself, which, obviously, was not considered a sacrilege.

Correction on page 26 in a copy of Charles Ricketts and Lucien Pissarro, De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée. William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers (1898)

101. The Wise and Foolish Virgins

Christie's upcoming sale no. 1128, 'Victorian & British Impressionist Art', is scheduled for Thursday 11 July 2013 at 8 King Street, London. Included in this sale is a painting by Charles Ricketts, 'The Wise and Foolish Virgins' (1914). 

The oil painting is signed with Ricketts's monogram in the lower left, and it is offered in its original frame (87.7 x 118 cm). The painting was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1914, and on 25 April Ricketts wrote in his diary that he had received news of its sale: 'I feel quite elated'. The painting was bought by Lady Cowdray. Apparently, she was discussing its acquisition when representatives of the Chantrey Bequest arrived, 'and fearing the picture might be purchased by them she bought it on the spot'. Had she not bought the picture, it would perhaps have ended up in Tate Britain. Ricketts was enchanted by Lady Cowdray's  impulsivity. Lady Cowdray was born Annie Cass. In 1881 she married the first Viscount Cowdray, and as a result she was styled as Baroness Cowdray in 1910. Lord Cowdray died in 1927; Annie Lady Cowdray's death was announced in April 1932. Further provenance of the painting is given as: 'Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 20 March 1968, lot 105.' 

Charles Ricketts, 'The Wise and Foolish Virgins' (1914)

The painting (lot 50) is sold on behalf of the Eric Holder Will Trust. Holder, who died in 2007 (the introduction to the catalogue includes some personal recollections of him) was one of the founders of Abbott and Holder, picture and print dealers in London. However, the paintings that are now sold by Christie's are not from the firm's stock, but were part of his personal collection. The selection also contains works by Edward Burne-Jones and Simeon Solomon. 

The estimate for 'The Wise and Foolish Virgins', a subject that was treated often by both Ricketts and Shannon, is £30,000 – £50,000 (or $47,010 - $78,350).

Note (14 July 2013): the painting remained unsold at auction.
Second note (27 October 2013): Christie's website mentions a sale price of £25,000.

100. Francis Ernest Jackson and the Ricketts Legacy

To celebrate the hundredth contribution for 'Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon', J.G. Paul Delaney wrote a guest blog about their friend Francis Ernest Jackson:

Francis Ernest Jackson

Among Ricketts’s closest friends in his later years was the artist F. Ernest Jackson (1872-1945). It was in some ways the attraction of opposites. As opposed to the aesthetic Ricketts, with his passionate collecting and his extravagant purchases of flowers to decorate his house, Jackson was a down-to-earth Yorkshireman, who was very sensible and could be a bit gruff. However, they shared important values. Ricketts had been partly brought up in France and had an attitude to art that was more European than British, while Jackson had trained in Paris, could speak excellent French and remained a strong Francophile all his life. In France, he had come to see lithography as more than a reproductive medium, and, as both artist and teacher, he had become a founder of the revival of artistic lithography in England. Indeed, it was through lithography that he met Shannon, who was also involved in reviving this medium, and thus came into the Ricketts and Shannon circle.

Charles Shannon teaching at the Byam Shaw. Students left to right: Richard Finny, winner of the Prix de Rome, Stephanie Cooper, Nancy Brockman, CHS, Unidentified, Francis Cooper

More importantly, Jackson, who was professor of drawing at the Royal Academy Schools, was considered by many to be the finest draughtsman, and the best teacher of drawing of the human form, of his generation. He was a strong supporter of the Classical Tradition in art. Despite his years in France, he had not been ‘tainted’ by modern movements in Art, like Post-Impressionism, that Ricketts so detested. What’s more, Jackson was a competent administrator, and in 1926 became Director of the Byam Shaw School of Art, which under his leadership became one of the leading art schools of its time in Britain, producing between 1926 and 1945 two winners of the Prix de Rome and two runners-up for this prestigious scholarship as well as a winner of the Abbey Scholarship. 

Jackson teaching at the Byam Shaw

No doubt it was this competence as an administrator that led Ricketts to name Jackson one of his executors. This role had always unofficially belonged to Thomas Sturge Moore, one of Ricketts’s oldest friends and disciples. However, with the years Sturge Moore had become rather vague and muddled, and with Shannon having suffered brain damage in his fall from a ladder in 1929, the estate needed someone who was efficient and strong-minded. His choice proved to be right, as in administering Ricketts’s estate, Jackson did his best to do what Ricketts would have wanted, in both preserving his and Shannon’s collection as much as possible, while at the same time selling some things to make sure that Shannon received the best care possible. In doing this, he had to put up a great deal of interference both from Sturge Moore and from the Master in Lunacy, who had legally become involved in Shannon’s care, but who knew nothing of Ricketts and Shannon and their values.

F. Ernest Jackson

In the years after Ricketts’s death, the Byam Shaw School under Jackson’s direction, remained one of the few places in London where the names of Ricketts and Shannon were still revered. Shannon had taught there for a time, and Ricketts had made a practice of having a weekly lunch with Jackson. Jackson often spoke of them to the students, some of whom like Brian Thomas, winner of the Prix de Rome, and George Warner Allen, became devoted to Ricketts and Shannon and to the artistic values that they represented. Jackson gave each of them a postcard that he had received from Ricketts. Warner Allen, who knew whole sections of Ricketts’s books on the Prado and on Titian by heart, continued to paint in the manner of Titian, while Thomas, who realized that there was no money in such painting, became a leading decorative artist for churches and older buildings, one area where the classical tradition still survived. Thus it was partly through Jackson that Ricketts and Shannon were able to pass on their artistic values, however unpopular and old-fashioned they seemed to the artists of the modern movement, to the new generation.

      J.G. Paul Delaney

99. Charles Shannon on Wikipedia

Charles Shannon's entry on Wikipedia was created in 2005, a year later than that for Ricketts. It contains one image, his self-portrait from the National Portrait Gallery.

Shannon's biography is captured in a single paragraph that mentions his education, the meeting with Ricketts, his paintings, and lithographs, as well as museum collections that hold works by Shannon. His book designs for Oscar Wilde (A House of Pomegranates), his binding designs for Wilde's plays, nor his collaboration on pre-Vale Press books with Ricketts are mentioned. The entry lists references, bibliographies, and external links.

Charles Shannon's self-portrait from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery (souce: Wikicommons)

There are no links to entries in other languages.

The world according to Wikipedia... This lemma indicates that the Wikipedians who worked on it, have an interest in his lithographs, and paintings, but not in other aspects of his art and life, and that all are from the English-speaking countries.

98. Charles Ricketts on Wikipedia

Charles Ricketts has had a lemma on the English version of Wikipedia since 14 October 2004. It was started by wikipedian Charles Matthews, and the lemma underwent modifications by others in the following years. The opening line of the entry in the online encyclopedia now reads:

Charles de Sousy Ricketts (2 October 1866 - 7 October 1931) was a versatile English artist, illustrator, author and printer, and is best known for his work as book designer and typographer from 1896 to 1904 with the Vale Press, and his work in the theatre as a set and costume designer.

The section 'Life and career' has three sentences on his birth and education, then quotes William Rothenstein's memoirs on his looks and mind, and mentions his initial meeting with Charles Shannon.

Charles Ricketts, design for Mikado: one of the illustrations on Wikipedia Commons

The next paragraph is about the Vale Press and Ricketts's artistic career, starting with The Dial and his illustrations for a book by Wilde (The Sphinx, although the title is not given). About the Vale Press Wikipedia writes: 

It was in the work of the Vale Press that Ricketts would find his talents were best employed. The enterprise also involved Thomas Sturge Moore, and later William Llewellyn Hacon (1860-1910), a barrister.

I do not see how the word 'later' in this paragraph can be correct.

The entry mentions facts about the printer of the books and the number of editions that were issued by the Vale Press, and it states that Ricketts was 'involved' in Pissarro's Eragny Press, which is rather vague. 

The paragraph briefly summarizes his career as a painter, and as an art critic. The last paragraph lists a number of his designs for the theatre, and mentions a play about Ricketts and Shannon by Michael MacLennan (2003).

Then follows an incomplete list of 'works', followed by footnotes, references and external links (this blog is not included).

The entry has four images, and links to entries in other languages: French, Italian, Polish and Spanish. Three of these seem to be copies of the English original, and all are shorter. The Spanish entry originates from 2011. It contains one image, and has paragraphs on his life, artistic career, and theatre designs. The Polish entry is extremely short and dates from 2008. The Italian version (with two of the images) is slightly longer, dates from the same year, and ignores his career as a book designer. The French version is not a copy of the others, and digests his career as an artist and art collector. It also mentions Shannon's accident in 1928, and Ricketts's death.

There is no lemma about the Vale Press on Wikipedia in English. However, an entry in French exists, as well as one in German, both without pictures. There is no German entry for Ricketts. A link from the English Ricketts entry to the German Vale Press lemma was removed.

The amazing world of Wikipedia...

97. "Pen and ink drawings in my earliest manner"

I received an inquiry about Charles Ricketts's illustrations for Oscar Wilde's poems in prose. The question came down to: were these illustrations ever published, and where are they located?

Wilde's Poems in Prose include 'The House of Judgment', 'The Disciple', 'The Artist', 'The Doer of Good', 'The Master', and 'The Teacher of Wisdom'. As a group, they were published by the author in The Fortnightly Review, July 1894.

Oscar Wilde, 'The Disciple', in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Prose Pieces (London, Methuen and Co., 1908, p. 206-207)

It seems that Ricketts planned a series of drawings for an illustrated edition shortly afterwards. They were stored away and found, in 1918, in 'a batch of old Vale scraps, tracings and drawings, published and unpublished', as Ricketts wrote to his friend Gordon Bottomley (27 July 1918). The drawings were among those for the first issue of The Dial (1889), for Daphnis and Chloe and The Sphinx.

In 1924 Ricketts produced a new series of drawings (letter to Bottomley, 13 June 1924): 'Recently I executed eight drawings in my old manner illustrating Wilde's Poems in Prose'. This was suggested to him by his American dealer Martin Birnbaum. He also produced a new set of drawings for The Sphinx. As Paul Delaney wrote: 'Both sets were sold by Birnbaum in America, but when one of the Poems in Prose was eventually returned Bottomley snapped it up, as well as some of the first sketches for The Sphinx designs.'

The 1924 illustrations were sold by Birnbaum to American collectors and, to my knowledge, they have not been recorded since. (See note.)

Thomas Sturge Moore argued that 'only the preparations remain with us. In them, lyrical felicity is replaced by grander conceptions and a line richer in suggestion: the artist had matured.' This series of sketches is now in the Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle. They are collected in an album that was purchased by Bottomley at Sotheby's in 1938. He bequeathed it to Professor Claude Colleer Abbott, his literary executor, who in turn left it to Tullie House in 1971. A catalogue of the Ricketts items in the Bottomley collection was published by Michael Barclay in 1985.

Oscar Wilde, 'The Teacher of Wisdom', in: Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde (London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1914, p. 128-129)

Jeremiah Romano Mercurio, in his recent essay about two of the remaining sketches, wrote that Ricketts did 'nine pen-and-ink illustrations - one for each of the six prose poems Wilde published, with two designs and three drawings for 'The Doer of Good' and an additional sketch of three dancing figures, which might have been intended to serve as a frontispiece'. He noted that the illustrations have not yet been published as a set.

The sketches for Poems in Prose (c. 1924):
1. 'The House of Judgment'.
Reproductions: Moore, 1933, plate XXXVII; Calloway, 1979, p. 90; Barclay, 1985, p. [46]; Mercurio, 2011, p. 14 (in colour). 
Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 15 in Album.
2. 'The Disciple'.
Reproductions: Barclay, 1985, p. [44]; Mercurio, 2011, p. 10 (in colour). 

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 14 in Album.

3a. 'The Artist'.

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 9 in Album.

3b. 'The Artist'. (Another version, framed). 

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: cf. Barclay, 1985, p. 43, No. 2: 'one framed': Acc. No. 125-1949-341 (not in Album).  

4a. 'The Doer of Good' (a standing figure, two figures on a couch).

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 18 in Album.

4b. 'The Doer of Good'. Preparatory sketch.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 17 in Album. 

4c. 'The Doer of Good'. Second design (a standing figure of Christ, a kneeling figure in front, two angels in the top corner)

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 12 in Album.

5. 'The Master'.

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 13 in Album.

6. 'The Teacher of Wisdom'. 
Reproductions: Peppin, 1975, p. 51; Darracott, 1980, p. 30; Barclay, 1985, p. [42].
Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 16 in Album.7. Sketch of three dancing figures.

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 10 in Album.

References

Michael Richard Barclay: Catalogue of the Works of Charles Ricketts, R.A. from the Collection of Gordon Bottomley. Stroud, Glos, Catalpa Press Ltd., 1985; Stephen Calloway: Charles Ricketts. Subtle and fantastic decorator. London, Thames and Hudson, 1979; Joseph Darracott: The World of Charles Ricketts. London, Eyre Methuen, 1980; Jeremiah Mercurio, 'Charles Ricketts' illustrations for Oscar Wilde's Poems in prose: an unrealized project', in: Victorian Network, vol. 3 (2011) No. 1 (Summer), p. 3-21; Charles Ricketts, R.A. Sixty-Five Illustrations. Introduced by T. Sturge Moore. London, Toronto, Melbourne & Sidney, Cassell & Company Limited, 1933.

Note, 2023

Three drawings from the 1924 set have been traced since this blog was written. 

96. The Laurence Hodson sale

Bloomsbury in London offered in auction the collection of books of Laurence W. Hodson (1863-1933), a wealthy West Midlands brewery owner, collector and philanthropist. He was a friend, patron and admirer of William Morris, and commissioned many works to refurbish his family home, Compton Hall, in 1895. A founder of Birmingham University, he also was chairman of the Wolverhampton Art and Industrial Exhibition (1902), where works of Ricketts and Shannon were on view alongside other works of art. 

His collection of interior designs was auctioned in February. The April sale included works of the Kelmscott and Vale Presses.

Binding by Charles Ricketts for Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese (Vale Press, 1897)

Now that the sale is over, it is time to summarize the results, and the contents of the collection. There were early works by Ricketts and Shannon (The Dial, A House of Pomegranates, and the early Vale Press related Daphnis and Chloe and Hero and Leander), autograph letters by Ricketts and Shannon, and a series of fifteen lithographs by the latter.

The Vale Press books were described in lot 88 to 157, including both a vellum and a paper copy of many titles. There were 29 volumes printed on vellum, of which twenty-one copies were bound in leather after a special design by Ricketts. Eleven of these were bound in red leather, and ten in green. Seven volumes were bound, as issued, in white vellum. There were 86 volumes printed on paper. Of these, only two were specially bound after a design by Ricketts, both in white pigskin: a copy of John Suckling's Poems (1896) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets (1907). 

Opening the Vale Press book case, Hodson's first impression was more colourful (red, green, white) than that of most Vale Press collectors.

For the bindings of the vellum copies Ricketts started with red leather, but between 1899 and 1902 Hodson received copies in green leather. From that time on he settled for the original vellum bindings that were provided by the Vale Press for all vellum copies. The specially designed copies have the HR monogram (for Hacon and Ricketts) on the inside upper or lower cover. Most of these also feature the LH monogram of the collector on the upper cover. 

Monogram LH for Laurence Hodson (on a binding designed by Charles Ricketts)

A later binding, in green, has another monogram, with large, intertwined initials, designed by Ricketts.

Monogram LHO for Laurence Hodson (on a binding designed by Charles Ricketts)

Most specially commissioned bindings show the rectangular designs that we know of Ricketts, but included in the sale were two exceptional designs. One, for Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel, had a pattern of barley, cornflower, and leaves.

Charles Ricketts, binding (detail) for a vellum copy of The Blessed Damozel (Vale Press, 1898)

Another binding had a pattern of the LH monogram and an image of a bird and a leaf. This was executed in gold on a green leather binding for a vellum copy of Cellini's autobiography in two volumes.

Charles Ricketts, binding (detail) for a vellum copy of The Life of Benvenuto Cellini (Vale Press, 1900)

The results for the vellum copies and for the special bindings were, as could probably be expected, with prices between £2000 and £11,000. The highest price was paid for the two volume set of Keats's poems. The Rossetti went for £8,500, as did the Cellini edition. Remarkably, the Tennyson set of two volumes - In Memoriam and Lyric Poems, both issued in 1900 - were separated over two lots (128 and 130), and while the first one was sold for £2,000, the second one remained unsold at auction. However, both volumes have now been offered for sale by Blackwell Rare Books (for £9,500).

A vellum copy, in a special green binding, of The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam (1901) contained a preparatory ink drawing for the binding design, and some rubbings of the tools: the monogram and bird/leaf image. This book, and many others, were shown by Hodson in the Wolverhampton Exhibition of 1902.

The ordinary paper copies, were sold for lower prices, between £140 and £500. Fourteen lots remained unsold. 

An exceptional collection was thus dispersed - one hundred years after the collector had amassed it. The Vale Press books alone fetched the amount of £93,680.

95. The bookplate for Gleeson White

The letters of John Gray to Félix Fénéon, which I reviewed last week (blog 94: A French correspondence), contain an interesting revelation about the bookplate that Ricketts designed for Gleeson White.

Gleeson White was born as Joseph William White in 1851, but he dropped his first names (they were identical to his father's) and added his mother's maiden name Gleeson. He moved from England to New York, where he edited the Art Amateur (1891-1892), then returned to London where he founded the journal The Studio (1893), which he also edited for about a year. He edited other journals as well (The Pageant, for example, for which Charles Shannon was the art editor). He died, after contracting typhoid fever, in 1898, at the age of 47.

In 1893 he published Practical Designing. A Handbook on the Preparation of Working Drawings. In it he reproduced a drawing by Ricketts, reproduced twice from the same process block. 

Charles Ricketts, 'Two blocks from the same original', in:  Practical Designing (1893, p. [180])

The drawing was reproduced in photo-lithography, and Gleeson White used the difference in the technical execution as an example of reduction in size of illustrations: 'The two blocks [...] show that the drawing must not always be held responsible for failure; as the first was reproduced by the same makers as the second'. The second one was 'a fairly accurate reduction keeping the correct colour and effect', while in the first one the whole image had become greyer.

The complicated design of 'Igdrasil', the tree of life, was used by Gleeson White as a bookplate, and he had two different sizes of it. Both sizes seem to have been printed, not from the original block, but from a process-block. But the version that was used by White differed from the one that he illustrated in Practical Designing.

Charles Ricketts, 'Ex Libris Gleeson White' 

Interestingly, the bookplate has a line to that effect with the typical lettering of Ricketts, see for example the dot on the 'i' in White's name, which resembles an eye. The flower between 'Ex Libris' and the name is reminiscent of Ricketts's design for Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). The 'Ex Libris' line is lacking in the reproduction in Gleeson White's book of 1893.

There are two other remarkable differences. Firstly, the bookplate has no date, while the process-block illustration has a date in roman numerals: 1890. Secondly, the name 'Igdrasil' in the bookplate has been written in Ricketts's script, with a reversed 'd' and 'r', a typical mistake for a woodcutter. The same mistake was made in Ricketts's monogram, which is also in reverse.  For the reproduction in Practical Designing the monogram was still mirrored, but the title 'Igdrasil' had been rewritten, probably by the engraver of the process block. 

Gleeson White did not write that it was a bookplate, and some have argued that the image had originally been designed for the cover of the magazine Igdrasil, that was announced by the Magazine of Art, in June 1890, as the new magazine of the Ruskin Reading Guild. Had Ricketts been invited to design a cover for this? Perhaps, but the suggestion that he adapted the design for White's bookplate a few years later is now contradicted by a letter of John Gray. 

At the time, there was some confusion, and, indeed, the notion of a magazine was apparently diffused by Ricketts himself: 'Mr. Ricketts has chosen to lend me, as representative of his work, this design of his for the cover of Igdrasil', wrote Charles Harper in English Pen Artists of To-Day (1892). Harper's version of the image has no 'Ex Libris' line, but has the original Ricketts title of Igdrasil with the reversed 'd' and 'r'. It also lacks the date.

Charles Ricketts, 'Book-plate of Gleeson White', in: Egerton Castle, English Book-Plates (1892, p. 170)

Harper's book was published in February 1892. There is one other reproduction of the bookplate in the same year, in a book that Egerton Castle published in December 1892:  English Book-Plates. Castle quoted Ricketts's explanation of the bookplate's symbols, and also printed White's own comment. Castle introduced the image as 'the extraordinary-looking design made by Mr. Charles Ricketts for Mr. Gleeson White'. This reproduction has both the 'Ex Libris' line and the roman date. And it has the rewritten title 'Igdrasil' (not in Ricketts's hand). This version was also reproduced in Walter Hamilton's Dated Book-Plates of 1895. Curiously, the books about bookplates did not use the original block of the actual bookplate by Ricketts, but a later version. Several questions remain unanswered: who rewrote the title, who added the date? Perhaps, White used the original drawing for the reproduction, and not the printed specimen. The drawing may have been dated. However, it does not explain why the title was tampered with. 

Harper and, later, Walter von Zur Westen (in his book Exlibris (Bucheignerzeichen), published in 1901) faithfully reproduced Ricketts's bookplate as it was done for White, including the 'Ex Libris' line, omitting the year, and having the title in Ricketts's characteristic script.

Apart from the confusion over the reproductions, the changed title and the omission of the year, there is the question of dating the design. It was first published in 1892, as we have seen, by Castle and Harper. The Castle reproduction has the date 'mdcccxc' and this suggests that the design was done in 1890. The Harper reproduction has no date. This dating problem is related to the question of the original purpose of the design: was it a bookplate or a cover design. Maureen Watry (The Vale Press, 2004, p. 57) supposed that 'at some point during 1892 Ricketts's design, with the addition of his hand-drawn lettering, was adopted by White for use as a bookplate'.

But, perhaps, Ricketts was simply mistaken, when he told Harper that the design was done for the magazine Igdrasil. Two years had passed since he designed it, and these were very busy years filled with successful assignments, but also with abandoned projects. On the other hand, it could have been Harper who was mistaken, and simply assumed that Ricketts had designed it for this magazine.

From the correspondence of Gray and Fénéon we now know that, originally, in 1890, the design was done as a bookplate for Gleeson White. Gray wrote a first letter on 22 October 1890, enclosing a lithograph by Shannon and 'Deux bois de Ricketts le plus grand une enseigne (?) de livre le petit pour le papier lettre': a bookplate and a letterhead. The smaller one was also a bookplate. That Gray was talking about 'Igdrasil' became clear in a second letter of 20 November 1890. He wrote that the mystifying subject of the image originated from Nordic sagas, and that it was designed to ornate the books of Gleeson White: 'Il est destiné à orner les livres dans la collection d'un nommé Gleeson White, je suppose qu'on a cet habitude en France aussi'. 

Then follows a long and detailed description of the image, done by heart:

A la partie inferieure le Chaos, tournant et s'agitant, ou l'on voit des cristaux, et des pierres durs dans ces volutes, à droite et à gauche le nuit et le jour, deux frères sous la même couverture. Du Chaos se leve l'arbre de vie avec ses branches fructifiants de toutes les formes de la vie animale et végétale des corails, des cactés, des porcs-épics etc; - je ne garde pas très justement le souvenir. Du coeur de chaos toute la longue de l'arbre monte une flamme dans lequel on trouve l'homme né dans cette flamme le suprême animal, végétable si vous voulez je n'en sais pas trop quelque part au milieu du dessin un arc-en-ciel. Voilà que je vous fatique de ce pénible inventaire.'

Ricketts's own description (quoted by Castle) reads as follows:

The tree of Creation (Igdrasil) [...] springs from a swirl of water and flame which breaks into little gems; the flame, continuing, flows through the trunk of the tree, which branches on each side into composite boughs suggesting the different plant kingdoms. This central flame envelopes the figure of man, placed in the mids of the tree in the action of awakening. The fruit on the eastern end of each bough represent in embryo the fish and water fowl, the reptile and creeping insects, the larger animals, and finally the creatures with wings. The rainbow shooting through the centre composition signifies the atmosphere; the two figures under one cloak in the lower part of the design represent night and day, i.e. the planets.

Castle doubted the relevance of the symbolism in a bookplate, but he also quoted Gleeson White, who reassured him that Igdrasil 'has always been a favourite symbol for Literature'.

Comparing the two descriptions, of Gray in 1890, and of Ricketts in 1892, we have to conclude that Gray had had a thorough look at the bookplate that he send on to his new friend in France. More importantly, his letter decides the debate about a possible other purpose for the design. From the start, it had been intended as a bookplate for Gleeson White.

[Revised, 30 January 2022.]

94. A French correspondence

The French publisher Du Lérot, éditeur, in Tusson, Charante, has published the letters of Félix Fénéon and John Gray in a small edition of 200 copies. The book, edited by Maurice Imbert and printed in 2010, reproduces on the cover a sketch by Gray of two students of the Scots College in Rome.

Cover of Félix Fénéon & John Gray, Correspondance (2010)

Félix Fénéon (1861-1941) was one of the early French contacts of John Gray, who approached him in the summer of 1890. Fénéon was 29 at the time, Gray only 24. However, Gray had already published an essay and a story in Ricketts and Shannon's journal The Dial in 1889, and he was about to publish a poem and an obituary during the following two months. Fénéon wrote about Gray to Francis Viélé-Griffin (1864-1937), editor of Les Entretiens Politiqies et Littéraires, and Gray was invited to contribute articles for the magazine. However, illness prevented his writing any pieces for it. 

Ricketts was also asked to contribute some of the woodcuts he had published in the first issue of The Dial, and he promised to do special drawings for Les Entretiens, but nothing came of this. Gray and Fénéon stayed in contact until 1913 (at least). Their letters have been kept in the John Rylands Library in Manchester (Fénéon's part of the correspondence) and in the Jean Paulhan foundation at IMEC (the letters by Gray), and are here published in full for the first time. Included are two pieces that Gray wrote for Fénéon's Revue Blanche, published in June 1897 and May 1898: a story and an obituary of Aubrey Beardsley (an English translation of the latter was edited by the Tragara Press in 1980).

Ricketts and Shannon were a lot on the mind of Gray in these years, who considered himself part of the 'Valistes', a name they invented to imitate the feeling of a school of artists that could rival with the modern movements in France. Gray suggested (16 April 1891) that the name was some sort of a joke, but he was dead serious about his future prospects as a writer, as we have seen. He tried to get published in France and in Holland, and he used his French contacts for a better knowledge of modern French poetry. He would become one of the earliest translators of Verlaine and Rimbaud in England.

Félix Fénéon

We know nothing about the young John Gray and the way he met the artists Ricketts and Shannon, and although these early letters do not reveal that much about their collaboration, their publication is a welcome addition to the Gray library. It still is an enigma how Ricketts and Shannon met John Gray, who quickly teamed up with them and Reginald Savage to write the texts for the first issue of The Dial. They must have been very fond of him. When the editor of the correspondence maintains that John Gray was 'le co-fondateur' of The Dial, we have to say that this is highly unlikely, and, certainly, there is no proof for it. The only named publisher of that first issue was Charles Shannon, while the editors were Shannon and Ricketts. It is a slip of the pen that I, perhaps, should not have mentioned, as I am pleased to see these letters of Fénéon and Gray in print. Price: €25.