470. An Early Dutch Collector: Emilie van Kerckhoff (2)

[Continued from last week's blog about the artist and collector Emilie van Kerckhoff:]

In 1897 - aged 32 - Emilie van Kerckhoff was one of the major contributors to modern book art for an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. 

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (c. 1895)

This was a wide-ranging book exhibition, displaying works from all periods and countries. The (novel) attention for the modern book was mentioned by several newspapers. A trade journal of typographers, Ons Vakbelang (Our Trade Interest), published a report that mentioned her name in relation to the rooms that were devoted to modern books:

 

Contemporary books also were on display [in this room], especially a fine collection of Kelmscott Press editions, submitted by Mrs. Emilie van Kerckhoff, from The Hague.

(Ons Vakbelang, 15 August 1897)

 

The publishers Van Gogh (Amsterdam) and Edmond Deman (Brussels) had also submitted works for this section.

 

From this reference we know that she was one of the earliest collectors of the Kelmscott Press in the Netherlands, and certainly the first female collector.

 

That she had money to spend on books is also evident from another special copy in her collection, an example of Dutch art nouveau, one of ten copies printed on Japanese paper of La Jeunesse Inaltérable et la Vie Eternelle (1898) [dated 1897]. This modern deluxe book contained etchings by Marius Bauer and etched head and tail pieces by G.W. Dijsselhof. In February 2008, this particular copy was auctioned at Sotheby's with the Schiller-David collection in which it had ended up.

Emilie van Kerckhoff's copy of
La Jeuness Inaltérable et la Vie Eternelle (Sotheby's)
[details of cover and of bookplate on endpaper]

But Emilie van Kerckhoff also owned (at least) two books designed by Ricketts: she possessed a copy of The Sphinx (mentioned in , but she also owned a copy of Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander, with wood engravings by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon, bound in parchment (this copy was offered for sale in 1994, see catalogue 50, Die Schmiede). These books represent, it is thought, the tip of the iceberg of a collection that was both contemporary and rich, and, moreover, owned by a single-minded Dutch woman.

Oscar Wilde, The Sphinx (1894)
Cover design by Charles Ricketts
Emilie van Kerckhoff's copy

Perhaps, these books may be a key to her own book and bookplate designs. Recently, Leiden University Library acquired a unique portfolio designed by Van Kerckhoff, apparently for her own use. (See Kasper van Ommen, 'Friends of Leiden University Libraries generously support acquisitions for the Nieuwe Kunst collection', Leiden Special Collections Blog, June 25, 2020The binding is divided into several bays by double lines in gold and is decorated with floral motifs in light and dark blue. The initials on the front cover are further decorated by five small circles and two stars in gold and small brown dots. The back of the binding is less exuberant in decoration. The decoration is most likely to be influenced by the work of Nieuwenhuis, who designed several similar luxury objects.'

Portfolio designed by Emilie van Kerckhoff
(Leiden University Library)

The disappearance of her own book collection is a serious setback, not only because it could have put her own work in perspective, but primarily because of the exceptional character of this early modern, female collection of 1890s book art.

469. An Early Dutch Collector: Emilie van Kerckhoff (1)

Recently a copy of Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx was auctioned at Burgersdijk & Niermans in Leiden. It was an ordinary copy, in reasonable condition, with the parchment cover and illustrations designed by Charles Ricketts. Special was that it had been owned by a female Dutch book collector who probably bought it in the 1890s. Her small blue bookplate (41x35 mm), designed by the collector herself, probably around the same time, shows seed balls and flowers of the poppy. (For other books, she used a second bookplate that measures 61x60 mm.)

Bookplate of Emilie v[an] Kerckhoff (c.1890s)

The name of the collector is Emilie van Kerckhoff. She was born in 1867 in Zwolle - almost a contemporary of Ricketts. She came from a settled family, her father Henri van Kerckhoff, born in Rotterdam, became a lawyer, and later a judge at the district court in Zwolle. In 1876, he was appointed counsel at the Court of Appeal in Arnhem. Her mother, Emelia van Dooren, came from Tilburg and died in Arnhem in 1890. Her father died nine years later.

 

From 1885 to around 1891, Emilie studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and followed a painting course. She became a decorative artist, designing embroidery (for cushions and book bindings, among other things), publishers’ bindings, and her own bookplate. These were exhibited at the important National Exhibition for Women's Labour (Nationale Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid) in 1898.

 

Later, she gained fame through drawings and watercolours made during travels, especially in Indonesia. She wrote extensive articles about her journeys for various magazines. Her first trip to Java was the subject of a book, Java, Beelden van Volksleven en Bedrijf (Images of Folk Life and Commerce), published in November 1912 by Scheltema & Holkema's Boekhandel in Amsterdam. The book contained her own text that accompanied 48 colour lithographs. The binding was decorated with a title ornament designed by Van Kerckhoff.

Design for spine and binding of Java (1912)
by Emilie van Kerckhoff
[from: Catalogus van de Werken
Uitgegeven door Scheltema & Holkema's
Boekhandel te Amsterdam en
Verzorgd door K. Groesbeek,
1882-januari-1922 (1922-1923)]

In the meantime, two remarkable events had taken place. In 1898 she had moved in with her (openly lesbian) friend, the painter Sara de Swart. Until 1914 they lived together in Laren, in the centre of the Netherlands. There they received many guests from home and abroad. De Swart had lived in Paris for several years and knew many artists and authors, such as Rodin and Eleonore Duse. In 1914, however, her money ran out and the two of them split up. That is to say, from now on they lived separately, at a short distance from each other.

 

The next step brought her to Rome where Van Kerckhoff wrote about Pompei and the temple of Vesta. At the end of the First World War she moved to Capri where a house could be built for her at Anacapri: Casa Surya. Assisted by friends, De Swart settled in a studio apartment nearby. At that time they got acquainted with English, Irish and Americans who resided on the island: Axel Munthe, Alan and Eleanor Gregg, Paul Dudley White, James Cousins and Rose O'Neill. More trips and articles followed, as well as a book about Italian villas and gardens. During the Second World War they were forced to live in Rome; in 1951 her friend De Swart died, in 1954 she returned to the Netherlands, where she died in 1960.

Jan Veth, Portrait of Emilie van Kerckhoff
[Drawing. Collection Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
RP-T-1962-236]

The second extraordinary feature was her collection. Although nothing was left of the collection at the time of her death, as much was given away, or sold, Van Kerckhoff must have owned an interesting collection of modern books quite early on. This is evident from three books containing her bookplate and from her involvement in an exhibition of modern book art.

[To be continued.]

Oscar Wilde, The Sphinx (1894)
Copy from the collection of
Emilie van Kerckhoff

468. A Bit of History: Ricketts@egroups.com

Nine years ago, on 20 July 2011, I began this blog. Before that, I managed an 'eGroup' about Ricketts. To be honest, I had forgotten all about that. The other day, among a stash of miscellaneous papers, I found the printed-out email correspondence.

Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon (blog No 1, 20 July 2011)

The eGroup allowed users to create a mailing list, or sign up for membership. It was a simple means of group communication. The eGroup address was Ricketts@egroups.com, and, apparently, I had started the list somewhere early in 2000.

The services for this kind of 'email list management web site' were available since 1997, the name eGroups appeared in 1998, and had around 250.000 users at the time. The company behind it was sold and resold a couple of times, before it was bought by Yahoo in August 2000. 

Twenty years later, in January 2020, Yahoo deleted all content from the mailing groups.

The mails that were recovered - this concerned a large pile of irregular and unsorted papers waiting to be properly archived - were dated 21 November 2000 through 19 January 2001. 

William McKeown,
England's Giorgione (2005)

One of the subscribers was William McKeown, who introduced himself as an art student from the States, working on a doctoral dissertation on the paintings and lithographs of Charles Shannon. In 2005, his dissertation earned him a Ph.D from Florida State University. It is called: England's Giorgione: Charles H. Shannon and Venetianism in Late Victorian England. He is currently Associate Professor at the University of Memphis Department of Art.

His publications include an article about Shannon in The Burlington Magazine of May 2010: 'Shannon in the House of Delia: a Theme from Tibullus in a Painting by Charles Hazelwood Shannon'. He also presented conference papers on Shannon: in 2004, at Southeastern College Art Conference, Jacksonville, Florida, he talked about 'The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili as a Source for Ricketts and Shannon's Daphnis and Chloe illustrations', and in 2010 he presented a paper on Shannon at Southeastern College Art Conference, Richmond, Virginia: 'Charles H. Shannon and his Patrons in the Late Victorian and Edwardian Art World.' His other publications are about John Ruskin.

When he joined the list, I answered him that 'the list is not really active', and that, although I knew Ricketts and Shannon enthusiasts in the USA, Canada, and Great Britain, none of them had become subscribers: 'Right now, we are the only members of the list.' In fact, I had just re-subscribed myself because of his enquiry, as I had unsubscribed from the list during the previous year, as nothing was happening there.

Well, a few new members subscribed sometime later, including a collector, and a member who stated that Shannon was his great-uncle. And then, again, silence. 

Luckily, this blog's history is different.

467. Three Spine Designs by Charles Ricketts

Charles Ricketts made quite a few designs for his friends, Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper who wrote under the name Michael Field. Their books have special decorations, decorative papers, frontispieces, bindings, and more, all designed by the artist.

In the years 1912-1914, he designed a series of three volumes for collections of poetry: Poems of Adoration (1912), Mystic Trees (1913), and Dedicated (1914). Although it appears to be a uniform series in terms of execution, the volumes were issued by three different publishers: Sands & Co., Eveleigh Nash, and G. Bell & Sons Ltd.

Michael Field,
three spine designs
by Charles Ricketts

The spines of the linen bindings are more or less identically designed and show the names of the author and publisher, the title, as well as some horizontal lines printed in gold. The first two volumes display the circled dots - one of Ricketts's favourite design features.

The third binding lacks these circled dots, but has a more elaborate decoration of two laurel wreaths, and a thyrsus (a staff topped with a pine cone). 

The first two volumes contain the religious (catholic) poems from later years, the last volume contains 'early work' that is more hedonistic, or even pagan. 

The design is similar to that by Selwyn Image who combined symbols of paganism with those of fidelity; this was used for several books. He combine the staff with two interlocking rings symbolizing the love of the two women.

Selwyn Image, design for
Underneath the Bough.

The first poem of Dedicated is about Dionysus Zagreus, which explains the staff (a symbol of him). In this poem Dionysus escapes his 'hunters' (who will tear him apart according to mythology), and following his father's bird (Zeus's messenger), he makes his own laurel wreath:

I, the rejected, hunted, mad, unwelcome,

I weave these tragic bunches in a wreath,

Fit crown for ever, of my misery

Ricketts provided this volume with a visual and symbolic spine design - why the other two were much more sober, remains a (probably financial) mystery.

466. The "Outer Wrapper" of "The Pageant" for 1897

The dust wrapper for the second volume of The Pageant (for 1897, published in 1896) has been mentioned here earlier. It is an outstanding and early example of a multi-colour dust wrapper. I recently found a description of it written shortly after The Pageant was published - no other review discusses this feature.

Dust wrapper for The Pageant (for 1897),
designed by J.W. Gleeson White

The Morning Post of 15 December 1896 had the honour:

"The Pageant" […] that is now paraded for the second time before the public is evidently intended […] to be an annual display […] [it] is at least not devoid of humorous incidents rivalling those usually to be found in the civic procession. Three separate pages of varied appearance are devoted to the names and functions of the editors; but while on the first it is stated that Mr. C. Hazelwood Shannon is the art editor, and that Mr. Gleeson White is the literary editor, the reader learns from the third that their positions are to a certain extend reversible, inasmuch as the art editor has planned the printing of the book, while the outer wrapper is the conception of the literary editor. Mr. Gleeson White has amusingly demonstrated that his idea of illustrating a pageant is to hide all but a few pantomime flags and lances by a hideous red-brick wall; but he has imparted an original aspect to his design by dividing it into eight equal spaces with vertical green poles, from which sprout leaves treated "decoratively."

It's a witty observation of a truly unusual design. The dust wrapper of this book gives no idea of its contents; the pageant is hidden. However, there are pigeons to be seen that give hope of life on the other side of the wall; the flowers also symbolizing spring. 

There is no gate that gives access to the grounds behind the wall, and so the dust wrapper represents its own task in the book as an object. The reader will have to get past this wrapper, past the linen binding and the title page to enter the area that contains the literary and artistic contents. This symbolism is quite uncommon for this period, but then, the maker, J.W. Gleeson White, was an extraordinary editor and designer.

465. A Number of Books: 50 Years of Quaerendo

Last week, the jubilee issue of the magazine Quaerendo, founded fifty years ago, was published, and it is a double issue (volume 50, no 1-2) that was supposed to appear during the congress of SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, in Amsterdam, but because of Covid-19 the conference has been postponed to next year. Luckily, the issue is available, and not only on paper - all texts in this volume are in open access at Brill publishers.

Quaerendo (volume 50, no. 1-2)

The issue contains my article A Number of Copies. The Flexible Function of Limitation Statements, which deals with the numbering of copies within an edition, exploring the peculiar development from not numbering to numbering over the course of two centuries, and, of course, Charles Ricketts and Oscar Wilde are mentioned. 

The abstract gives a gist: 

During the twentieth century, a limited edition is usually numbered, in contrast to limited editions of around 1800. This article examines a number of turning points in the history of limitation statements and copy numbering: the disappearance of copyright related numbering versus unnumbered editions of private presses (around 1800), the advent of numbered prints (1850-1900), and numbering of luxury editions and private press editions (1880-1910). The stabilization of a new tradition of numbering occurs around 1930. The development of private press publications is examined in a broad context of copyright and the production of prints, while practices in the English-speaking world are shown to differ from those in other cultures, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany.

Nowadays it goes without saying that a limited edition consists of numbered copies, but at the beginning of this bibliophile trend, such editions were not numbered, see for example, the books of the Kelmscott and Vale Presses. Morris nor Ricketts issued numbered copies. 

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): deluxe copy
[The Morgan Library & Museum, New York]

Parallel to this development and starting in the same year as Morris, a modernisation of the literary book took place, among others at The Bodley Head (from 1889). Artists such as Charles Ricketts and Aubrey Beardsley changed the look of the contemporary book. An example is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). In addition to an ordinary edition, a deluxe edition of 250 copies appeared in a larger format, numbered and signed. The regular edition did not mention that there was also a deluxe edition; that was only stated in the latter, which reveals something of the publisher's intentions. Only the owner of a deluxe copy would read the colophon stating that there were 250 signed copies. This brings exclusivity and scarcity to another level. Scarcity here is closely linked to a practice of intimacy, secrecy, elitism, where a certain degree of familiarity and knowledge is shared by an in-crowd of lovers of decadent poetry and prose. Owners of a deluxe copy could almost consider themselves intimate friends of the author. 

See here for the full text of the article in open access.

464. Othello: Fainting or Dying

New Shakespeare editions are always controversial. Because of the complicated text history of the plays, an editor has to make decisions about countless details. 

William Shakespeare, Othello (1900)

Academic editions are, of course, scrupulously examined, but for private press editions aesthetic views play a significant role. The graphic design of plays is a profession in its own right, and by no means simple, due to the presence of several layers of text: the spoken texts themselves, which can be of a poetic or prosaic nature; but it must also be clear who is speaking and what the stage directions are.

In some university libraries, private press editions may be accessed in open stacks, surrounded by popular, cheaper editions. That's the place to look for private press books with handwritten notes by readers, which I found, for example, in copies of Michael Field's plays in the University Library of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (a nice topic for a future blog.) 

Although the 39 volumes of the Vale Press edition of Shakespeare's poems and plays (1900-1903) will have been purchased mainly for decorative purposes, other Vale Press editions were bought for their texts as well, and Ricketts intended these editions to fill gaps in collections. Some buyers actually did read the whole series, or at least parts of it.

And there were readers who also considered the edition with an eye for textual accuracy.

The academic magazine Notes and Queries of August 1900 contains a note by Maurice Jonas, called 'An Error in the Vale Press Shakespeare'.

In the beautiful edition of Shakespeare’s works in the Vale Press, now in course of publication, occurs a peculiar mistake. In Act.II.sc. iii of “Othello,” after Montano has been wounded by Cassio the proper stage direction is, “He faints,” but in the Vale Press edition “He dies” is substituted.

Maurice Jonas was right, but still he was too kind. Not only, has the act of fainting been substituted by the death, the stage direction has become part of the spoken text, so it is not Montano who faints (or dies), but Montano who tells us that his opponent dies or must die. This is followed by another stage direction that I did not find in the editions which I consulted. Something went wrong here in terms of design. 'He dies' is wrong, but, moreover, this text should have been placed in the line below Montano's speech.

It's quite rare to find a textual commentary on a private press book, but here's one.

463. Charles Ricketts & John Gray?

John Gray was one of the close associates of Charles Ricketts who, after Gray became a Catholic, even a priest, and began to write religious poems, held a soft spot for him. They continued to correspond throughout their lives.

Charles Ricketts, opening pages for John Gray, Spiritual Poems (1896)

Gray edited several publications of Ricketts's Vale Press. One of the early editions was a collection of translations - 'chiefly done out of several languages' - by Gray: Spiritual Poems (1896). The book contains eleven poems by Gray, the others are translations and include religious poems by Jacopone da Todi, Saint Ambrose, and Saint John of the Cross.

Initially, Gray compiled the book for The Bodley Head and a letter to John Lane shows that Ricketts was going to 'build the book', just like he did for the famous Silverpoints. In fact, 'there has been some talk of his doing an "emblem" for a frontispiece but I think this may possibly not come to much'. (Letter in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library).

Charles Ricketts, opening page for John Gray, Spiritual Poems (1896)

However, Ricketts designed two wood-engravings for the opening pages. The left-hand page depicts a figure surrounded by amorphous swirls that have been compared to the graining of wood. The central figure is a nun (to quote from Brocard Sewell's 1983 description:) 'standing by an altar, holding a taper with which she is taking a light from a sanctuary lamp hanging from a bracket on the wall'. The facing page contains the first stanza of Gray's poem 'The Tree of Knowledge', surrounded by symbols of the Passion: the cross at the top, the crown of thorns and other objects at the foot of the page.

Not all, but many of Ricketts's wood-engravings for Vale Press books are signed. The two facing pages of Spiritual Poems show the monogram on the left-hand page, outside the border, in the lower right-hand corner. After the rediscovery of the 1890s in the 1970s, the monogram was read as a double signature.

Charles Ricketts, detail of opening page for John Gray, Spiritual Poems (1896)

In 1972, the Houghton Library catalogue The Turn of a Century 1885-1910. Art Nouveau, Jugendstil Books stated: 'Frontispiece and border designed and cut by Ricketts; frontispiece signed with initials CR and JG', and explained: 'Since John Gray's initials were added to Ricketts', he must have played a role in the formation of this design.'

Seven years later, the exhibition catalogue Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. An Aesthetic Partnership (Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham) asserted: 'The full page frontispiece, signed CR and JG[ray]'.

This attribution of the wood-engraving to artist and author has continued to circulate ever since. See for example, Susan Ashbrook's dissertation The Private Press Movement in Britain 1890-1914 (1991): 'John Gray’s initials join those of Ricketts on the lower right, which, it has been suggested, indicates that Gray was a participant in formulating the design.' I repeated this dual authorship 'CR & JG' in my 1996 checklist, as did Maureen Watry in The Vale Press (2004).

For my review of the latter book, I took another good look at the (minuscule) monogram and saw that the intertwined letters did not represent the ampersand (&), but the letters T and O: 'CR TO JG'. In other words, the artist dedicated the wood-engraving to his friend the author.

Ricketts's monogram in John Gray, Spiritual Poems (1896)

Actually, it couldn't be otherwise, because, as Gray himself later wrote to Gordon Bottomley, he only saw Ricketts's designs after the book had been printed. During the production Ricketts was rather secretive about his decorative plans and kept his designs out of the authors' sight.

462. The 1898 Exhibition of Wood-Engraving

A few weeks ago I was approached by an Italian scholar, Francesco Parisi, who enquired about the 'First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving', held at the Dutch Gallery in London in 1898. 

The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (1898)

Parisi (born 1972) teaches at the Academy of Macerata, the Accademia di Belle Art di Macerata in the Marche region, and prepares a course on Ricketts and wood-engraving at the end of the nineteenth century. His publications include an essay on Austin Osman Spare and a monograph about Japonism, Giapponismo.

For this new course, he needs images of the catalogue of the 1898 exhibition. A digital version is not yet available, which is why I am happy to comply with his request. In return, he promises to keep us informed about his research on Ricketts - there are not that many Italian Ricketts scholars!

'Original' wood-engraving refers to works that were executed by the artist himself (and not by a studio or professional wood-cutter). The show was opened on 3 December 1898. For a review, see my blog no. 426. Exhibition Catalogue Design 1898.

The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (1898) [page ii]

The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (1898) [page iii]

The short introduction in the catalogue (page ii-iii) refers to predecessors such as William Blake, but the exhibition concentrates on wood-engravings from the last ten years, with works by T.S. Moore, Ricketts, Shannon, Alphonse Legros, Lucien Pissarro, J.F. Millet, William Nicholson and Reginald Savage.

In opening the first exhibition of original engraving it may not be out of place to point out that early in the nineteenth century the used of the graver superseded that of the engraving knife, and that this change happened in the hands of an Englishman. Ever since it has been in England that we find the greatest number of original wood engravers, and, on the whole, the keenest sense of the resources of the medium. The names of Blake, his pupil Calvert, and Bewick have become household words. The woodcuts collected here have been done during the last ten years - a period given up almost wholly to processes - and have for the most part been already shown in the art centres of Holland and Germany. The popular impression that the noble wood-cuts of Germany were engraved by their designers is now a belief of the past, and during almost two centuries of activity two admirable artists only can be certainly associated with a series of original wood-cuts, namely Altdorfer the German and Livens the Dutchman. This is the more strange since Dürer recommended all artists to engrave their own work. In recent times, Jean François Millet made some experiments with his brother. The set of Vale Publications here exhibited illustrate the use of wood engraving in the decoration of books. In England only has this subject been given serious attention; and in this case the engravings are without exception original.

We may assume that Ricketts himself is the author of these introductory words - his arbitrary spelling of names such as the one of Lievens can betray him, and the leaps in time and geography also characterise his style.

The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (1898) [page iv]

The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (1898) [page v]

The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (1898) [page vi]

The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (1898) [page vii]

The last page was blank and served as a back cover. The catalogue was published at a time that wood-engraving was considered too laborious for a commercial practice. Ricketts's claims are critically reviewed by Joanna Selbourne in her book British Wood-Engraved Book Illustration 1904-1940 (1998). She prefers the work of Pissarro and Moore and asserts that Ricketts understood nothing of the medium: 'neither he nor Morris understood the true nature of wood or its creative potential'.

461. Hazelwood or Haslewood?

What was Charles Shannon's name? It seems an odd and nonsensical question, but there's grounds for asking it, since reference works contain different spellings of his middle name.

The Library of Congress name authority file prefers Charles Haslewood Shannon, listing the alternative names C.H. Shannon and Charles Hazelwood Shannon. 

Shannon's father called him Charles Haslewood, and he must have been right...

The name is thus written in the Quarrington Parish Records - Baptisms (1862-1863). We can assume the Church official made no mistake at the time. After all, it's much more unusual than Hazelwood. 

Quarrinton Parish Records (on Lincs to the Past)

There shouldn't be any confusion. 

Shannon himself signed his work with the names C.H. Shannon or Charles Shannon. However, when his middle name was added, it is 'Hazelwood'. Did he prefer that spelling?

This middle name appears, for example, on an invitation to an exhibition of drawings and lithographs at The Dutch Gallery in London in May 1894. The card states that 'Mr. Will Rothenstein' and 'Mr. Charles Hazelwood Shannon' have the pleasure of inviting the reader to the private view.

Invitation, The Dutch Gallery (1894)

Another instance is the title page of the first volume of The Pageant which appeared at the end of 1895.

The Pageant for 1896 (published 1895): title page

In the newspapers Shannon's name was spelled as Hazelwood, except at the time of his death, when the will was publicised. Then, uniquely, the name Haslewood re-appeared.

In short, Charles Shannon was officially called Charles Haslewood Shannon, but as an artist he used the name Charles Hazelwood Shannon. 

Postscript, August 2020

Steven Halliwell informed me that Shannon's father had an elder sister, called Elizabeth, who married Charles Baker Haslewood. Her husband died in 1863, two years after they married, shortly before Charles Shannon was born. Halliwell suggests that he was given the middle name after his father's brother in law. 

460. Not Designed by Charles H. Shannon: J.O. Hobbes's Novel

Every now and then antiquarian books are offered whose design is wrongly attributed to Ricketts or Shannon, more often to the former than to the latter, by the way. Recently I saw an antiquarian bookseller ascribe the design of a novel by John Oliver Hobbes to Shannon: The Gods, Some Mortals, & Lord Wickenham (1895).

John Oliver Hobbes,
The Gods, Some Mortals, & Lord Wickenham (1895)

What pointed towards Shannon? First, the publisher and the year - Henry & Co and 1895: exactly the publisher and the year of publication of The Pageant, for which Shannon was appointed art editor.

Secondly, there is a monogram on the title page that might mean 'C.H.S'.

John Oliver Hobbes,
The Gods, Some Mortals, & Lord Wickenham (1895): second title page

A Canadian dealer decided that this must be Shannon's monogram; his description of the book on his website (see Vialibri.com) stated: 'Binding design, orange half-title, and title page by Charles Shannon, I believe.'

John Oliver Hobbes,
The Gods, Some Mortals, & Lord Wickenham (1895): second title page (detail)

However, a close-up shows that this is not the case. Probably the monogram reads 'C.H. Sc.', in other words, it is the engraver. (The book was printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd.) [See postscript below.]

Another bookseller found a handwritten note in a copy of this book stating that it was designed by Walter Spindler: 'A pencil note on the leading endpaper identifies the designer of the book and of the titlepage as the pre-Raphaelite artist Walter Spindler.'

That is correct, and, incidentally, the artist himself left his mark on the drawn title page that precedes the illustrated title page. It bears his monogram 'W.S.'

John Oliver Hobbes,
The Gods, Some Mortals, & Lord Wickenham (1895): first title page

John Oliver Hobbes,
The Gods, Some Mortals, & Lord Wickenham (1895): first title page (detail)

And then there are the publishers of the book themselves who, at the end of Hobbes novel, included a section with advertisements for their publications. This list, A Selection from Messrs. Henry & Co's Announcements, is dated "April 1895" and also mentions this novel. Alas, it does not give any details about the design. We have to look elsewhere. If we turn to the advertisements that are bound in at the back of the first issue of The Pageant (for 1896), we will find a statement about the designer:

With a title-page and binding designed by Walter Spindler.

The Pageant for 1896 (published 1895)

Not that everything is solved with this, because no mention is made of the second illustrated title page - a rather clumsy drawing actually - and we don't know who designed that page.

Walter E. Spindler (1878-1940) was not a pre-Raphaelite artist (as the second antiquarian bookseller claimed); he was born far too late for that. The French-born artist is known for his portraits of Sarah Bernhardt and Alfred Lord Douglas, among others.

John Oliver Hobbes was the pen-name of Pearl Mary Teresa Richards (1867-1906). She was born in Boston (1867), moved to London when young, was raised in London and Paris, wrote novels and drama. She died quite suddenly in London in 1906.

The artist and the author knew each other well, from childhood on, and although it was rumoured that Spindler and Richards were to be engaged, this actually never happened. She dedicated one of her novels to him, and he provided a portrait of her for her book Tales of John Oliver Hobbes (1894).

Postscript
Simon Wilson reminds me that C.H.sc. refers to Carl Hentschel.

459. Rediscovered Interviews (3)

On the eve of the appearance of the first issue of the magazine The Pageant, the art editor gave an interview. Charles Shannon was interviewed by an editor of The Sketch, and his commentary was published in The Sketch of 30 October 1895.

The Sketch, 30 October 1895

The magazine was well acquainted with the members of the Vale coterie and had published articles on Charles Shannon (who was seen as the leader), Charles Ricketts, Reginald Savage and Lucien Pissarro. Those articles, with pictures of their art, appeared between January and April 1895 as an early recognition of their talents, and were signed by "Theocritus". Now the artist had an interview with "a Sketch representative".

Apparently artists and magazine had kept in touch and so that same year the first interview we know of with Charles Shannon appeared.

Heralding "The Pageant."

"Take up and read" is the motto of Messrs. H. Henry and Co., which legend, in the case of their forthcoming annual, "The Pageant," might well run, "Take up and admire," for even if the book contained no literature, it would still be very precious. The other day (writes a Sketch representative) I was privileged to take a private view of the illustrations, which will make “The Pageant” one of the most noteworthy books of the year. Under the kind direction of Mr. C. Hazlewood Shannon, the art editor, I examined the art contributions and learned something of the design of the volume, which will be enriched by reproductions of the works of Masters, old and young, and middle-aged.

"First," said the art editor, "I may show you a peculiarly exquisite reproduction of Mr. Charles Ricketts'[s] 'Œdipus,' which will appear only in the édition de luxe. To secure this perfection the Swan Electric Engraving Company have spent themselves making, on their own initiative, copy after copy until they attained this wonderful result."

Charles Ricketts, 'Œdipus and the Sphinx',
drawing, 1891
(Tullie House Museum & Gallery, Carlisle)

From that we went through the illustrations seriatim, and Mr. Shannon, at the same time, gave some account of the literature that is to accompany the pictures. There will be two examples from Rossetti, one a most elaborate pen-and-ink drawing, entitled "Mary Magdalene at the House of Simon the Pharisee," which gains interest from the fact that George Meredith sat for the head of Christ. The other Rossetti is the "Monna Rosa," for which M. Paul Verlaine has written a poem. Mr. Swinburne will also contribute a poem, "A Roundel of Rabelais," which will be accompanied by the poet’s portrait, printed in red, after the original of Mr. Will Rothenstein. Mr. Swinburne sat specially for this drawing, the first time he has given anyone a sitting for twenty years. "Perseus and Medusa" is from an unpublished picture in tempera by Sir E. Burne-Jones, whose "Sea Nymph" will also be reproduced. Sir John Millais' "Love" and his "Sir Isumbras of the Ford," Mr. G.F. Watts's "Ariadne," his "Paolo and Francesca," Mr. Whistler's "Symphony in White," No. III, and "The Doctor," an original lithograph of the artist's brother, make up the tale of works by older living artists. These are followed by a reproduction of the recently discovered Botticelli, "Pallas and the Centaur," for which Mr. T. Sturge Moore has written a poem. Mr. Reginald Savage contributes "The Albatross" and an illustration to "Sidonia the Sorceress," which will have, for literary partner, an essay by Professor York Powell on Wilhelm Meinhold. Mr. Charles Conder gives "L'Oiseau Bleu" (a composition with some flavour of Rowlandson), from a water-colour drawing executed on silk. "Death and the Bather" is from a powerful and weird pen-and-ink drawing by Lawrence [=Laurence] Housman. Mr. Shannon's own characteristic work is shown in the "White Watch," a composition quite as mystically poetical as his "Romantic Landscape," which was figured in The Sketch some time ago, when the pre-Raphaelites and their works were discussed. The latter picture has also a place in "The Pageant."

Charles Ricketts, decorative design for the binding of The Pageant (1896)

Besides the literary contributions incidentally mentioned, are a story by W.B. Yeats, a poem and story by John Gray, a play and poem by Maeterlinck, a poem by Theodore Watts, and a play by Michael Field. Dr. Garnett contributes an essay, and there is an interesting translation from the Low Dutch, "The Story of a Nun," which is claimed to be a more beautiful version of the Byzantine theme treated by Mr. John Davidson. Mr. Gleeson White is literary editor, and writes on the "Work of Charles Ricketts." Nor are these all, but enough have been mentioned to prove that "The Pageant" is no "vain show."

To descend to drier details. The book will contain twenty full-page illustrations, and seventeen in the text. The arrangement of the type will be unique. The cover is after a design by Mr. Ricketts. The ordinary edition will cost six shillings. The large-paper edition (limited to one hundred and fifty impressions) will be sold at one guinea.

"I have been allowed a free hand," said Mr. Shannon, "and I have used it. You notice the predominant pre-Raphaelite spirit – I was resolved not to bate one jot of my ideal, and I have not done so."
"I am sure, Mr. Shannon, there must be a public ready to acknowledge your labours?"
"At any rate," he answered cheerily, "I am very hopeful."