612. Michael Field in a Collection of Books by New Women

The New Woman. With some fellow travellers and a few antagonists is the title of the second part of Phil Cohen's collection that Maggs Bros in London has issued (Catalogue 1517). The number of names unknown to me in this catalogue compiled by Alice Rowell - 490 pages - is large - it is a real treasure trove. Alice Rowell characterises the research into this collection as 'a highpoint' of her 'Maggs career thus far'.
 

The New Woman (Maggs Bros, catalogue 1517)

The majority of the collection was sold en bloc 'to an institution' (email from Alice Rowell, accompanying the e-catalogue, 19 April 2023). 

About sixty books are for sale, however, and these include a number of books by 'Michael Field': Edith Cooper and Katharine Bradley.

More than twenty pages in the catalogue are devoted to Michael Field's work, covering numbers 249 to 303, and including Bradley's first book The New Minnesinger and Other Poems (1875). There is (among the autographs) an early letter giving permission to publish one of the poems, a translation from Heine's 'The Fisher Maiden', 'with music'.

Multiple copies and multiple editions of many works are present, including deluxe and presentation copies, the whole forming a complete Michael Field collection.

The New Woman (Maggs Bros, catalogue 1517, nos. 270-280)

The four plays published by the Vale Press are all present. There is a copy of Fair Rosamund in the so-called 'flame binding' (survivor of a fire in 1899). The prospectus for this edition is also present - the prospectuses of the other three Vale Press books are absent.

The series of plays for which Ricketts designed some 'devices' is - exceptionally - complete, from Borgia (1905) to In the Name of Time (1919). 

The late poetry collections for which Ricketts designed the bookbindings are present as well: from Wild Honey (1908) to Dedicated (1914). 

The New Woman (Maggs Bros, catalogue 1517, no. 295)

There is a copy of Dedicated in the extremely rare (plain) dust jacket.

Read the whole catalogue.

611. Silverpoints on an American Shelf

Only a minority of book collectors write about their collection, but some collectors actually enjoy writing about the books they surround themselves with.

One such collector and author was Lawrence Clark Powell (1906-2001), a bookseller turned University Librarian on the Los Angeles campus of the University of California and Director of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

Lawrence Clark Powell, Books in My Baggage (1960) [cover]

In May 1949, he published an essay titled "Nine by Nine" in Hoja Volante, the magazine of the Zamorano Club. (He was a member of all the significant bibliophile societies in the USA.) The essay was later published in Books in My Baggage (1960). [I am indebted to antiquarian Nick ter Wal (Artistiek Bureau) who drew my attention to this essay.]

In this essay, Powell describes the books in his study, which housed half of his collection: 1,000 books. The room measured nine by nine feet.

This compels me to discipline my tastes and to choose for roommates only those volumes which I feel I must see every day.

Note that I said "see" every day, not necessarily read. For next best to reading books is to sit at slippered ease and look at their backs.

For example, there are childhood books, little books, a collection of Greek lyric and pastoral poetry, Chinese poetry in translation and the works of Peter Lum Quince (Ward Ritchie).

Close by is my favorite book of the 1890s - John Gray's Silverpoints, exquisitely designed by Charles Ricketts as a tall, narrow octavo.

Lawrence Clark Powell, Books in My Baggage (1960) [page 21]

This copy is now at Occidental College Library, Los Angles, California, Mary Norton Clapp Library: Special Collections & College Archives: Fine Printing 821.89 G779s 1893, as 'Gift of Lawrence Clark Powell'.

He eventually relinquished it, after years of watching its back from his easy chair. Incidentally: an unremarkable back: green and slender, but undecorated!

You have to know the book well to think of the fantastically vivid design of the covers when looking at its spine.

John Gray,
Silverpoints
(1893)
[spine]

610. Ricketts and Shannon in a Limerick

As they gradually became famous personalities in the art world - exhibitions, articles and opinions on museums and art purchases made them more familiar - Ricketts's and Shannon's names popped up in unexpected quarters.

R.D. [Randall Davies], A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense (1912, cover)

John Aplin found a reference to a limerick in a letter from Charles Ricketts to Sydney Cockerell, dated 10 May 1912. Ricketts quoted the limerick, which he found 'charming' (BL Add MS 52746, f 66).

R.D. [Randall Davies], A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense (1912, title page)

The poem was published in an edition whose author hid behind the initials R.D., but Ricketts knew they stood for Randall Davies and presumably he received A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense as a gift from the author. Randall Robert Henry Davies (1866-1946) was a major collector of old masters, drawings and English watercolours, who as a young man befriended Herbert Horne, became his executor, and edited the catalogue of Horne's art collection. He wrote several books about artists, Chelsea architecture, caricatures, and watercolours. Portraits of Davies were painted by James Kerr-Lawson and Glyn Philpot (who had also portrayed the artist Gladys Miles, who later married Davies) and, additionally, there is a bronze buste by Romano Romanelli. In 1930, Davies was selected by the Trustees of the Melbourne National Gallery to buy paintings in London. 

James Kerr-Lawson, portrait of Randall Davies

[Chelsea Library, London]

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (CC BY-NC-SA)]

The manager of the Vale Press, Charles Holmes, knew Davies, and Ricketts may have known Davies as well.

R.D. [Randall Davies], A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense (1912, page 139)

A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense was published in 1912 by Macmillan & Co. Ltd. The old-fashioned spelling of the title was chosen to match the woodcuts collected by the author, which were about four hundred years old at the time.

R.D. [Randall Davies], A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense (1912, poem on page 138)

Most limericks are about 'an old fellow called Cox', 'a young housemaid at Ashdown' and 'a young lady called Mabel'. Only three actual persons appear in it. The third (page 138) is a sportsman mentioned in a limerick about an amateur golfer who fears he shall 'never beat Vardon'. Henry Vardon (1870-1937) was a famous golfer from Jersey. 

Two persons more familiar to us are mentioned on page 126:

There was a young Lady of Annan,
Whose father-in-law was a Canon;
        But she gave up the Church
        For artistic research,
And consorted with Ricketts and Shannon.

R.D. [Randall Davies], A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense (1912, poem on page 126)

The woodcut that inspired these lines explains why it made Davies think of Ricketts and Shannon. The centaur on the left does resemble Ricketts - who, by 1912, had exhibited some bronzes of a centaur. 

R.D. [Randall Davies], A Lyttel Booke of Nonsense (1912, page 127)

The centaur on the right bears little resemblance to Shannon, but then: where one saw Ricketts one expected to see Shannon.

609. "The Property of J.G. Paul Delaney"

On 30 March 2023, Forum Auctions' Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper included a 'Private Press & Limited Editions' section, the first part of which was presented as 'The Property of J.[G.] Paul Delaney, author of a biography and other books on Charles Ricketts'. These lots, numbered 471 to 479, do not comprise the complete collection of Delaney, who returned to his native Canada years ago after a long stint in London - previously he sold exceptional items from his collection, such as letters from Ricketts and Shannon.

The books did remarkably well at this auction and easily reached the highest estimates, with the exception of the last lot that contained a single book: The Parables from the Gospels (1903); hammer price was £300 - against an estimate of £400-£600. Recent hammer prices for this book were £350 (2020), £460 (2021), €650 (2022), £320 (2022), and prices ranged between US$2,400 (2020), £1,475 (2021), £2,000 (2022). Delaney's copy went for a low price.

Marlowe, Hero and Leander
(wood engravings by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon)
1894

The only other lot containing one work was lot 474: Marlowe's Hero and Leander with wood-engravings by Ricketts and Shannon (1894). Hammer price was the highest estimate: £1,000.

The remaining seven lots in this auction were composed around particular authors, such as Gordon Bottomley and Oscar Wilde, while other lots included small collections of editions by Ricketts or the Vale Press.

An interesting stowaway aboard lot 473 was a book from Ricketts's own library - Ricketts, by the way, was not a neat librarian; many of his books show that his books were there for his daily use, not for his aesthetic pleasure. In this case, it was a monograph on furniture: Wilhelm Bode's Die Italienischen Hausmöbel der Renaissance (Leipzig, 1907). The lot contained thirty-four other works and the hammer price was £1,000.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

Most lots fetched around £1,000, but there was an upward exception. The second lot in this section of the auction consisted of four books by Oscar Wilde: a first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a copy of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime & Other Stories, a second edition of Intentions and a copy of the play A Woman of No Importance. None of these books was in ideal condition. Terms such as 'rubbed', 'foxed', 'soiled', 'rather rubbed and soiled' applied to all four, but for Wilde's novel it applied in extenso: the spine was damaged at the top, had a transverse tear halfway down the spine and the spine was almost detached from the covers. 

The upside was that no restoration attempts had been made and all parts were original. Perhaps this was appreciated. Anyway, initial bids immediately exceeded estimates of £1,000 to £1,500 and the hammer price was £3,800.

608. The Binder of Ricketts's Beyond the Threshold (1929)

Regularly I receive questions from collectors, and the most straightforward questions are often the hardest to answer. Last week, a bookbinder asked me about the binding of Charles Ricketts's 1929 Beyond the Threshold: 'In this case I wonder if you know which bindery made the 150 copies - I have an idea it could be Riviere & Son.' My initial response was that I considered that unlikely, but would attempt to find out. Promptly came a second suggestion: 'Perhaps the binder was Leighton - they did a lot of large gilt block-work'.

At the time of the Vale Press (1896-1904), Ricketts did indeed have special copies and even entire runs bound by Riviere and Son, Zaehnsdorf and J. & J. Leighton, but with a late work such as Beyond the Threshold, it is questionable whether he commented on possible binderies or left the choice to others.

Charles Ricketts, Beyond the Threshold (1929)
"CR" monogram

Beyond the Threshold is a difficult case because it was not a commercial edition, but an obscure combination of a private edition by Ricketts and an edition coordinated by A.J.A. Symons on behalf of the First Edition Club. Copies were traded only by Symons; Ricketts gave at least a dozen copies, if not more, as gifts to friends. Financially, the business was handled by the First Edition Club who also paid Ricketts for the brass plate made for the execution of the cover he designed.

The book itself gives no clues about the binder. The binding does mention the designer's monogram ("CR"), but not that of the bookbinder, nor does the turn-in - where the bookbinder's name is sometimes stamped - mention a name.

Charles Ricketts, Beyond the Threshold (1929)
turn-in at the back of the book

The colophon is equally sparse with details, and information about the edition and paper are absent. However, the printer is mentioned: 'PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE CURWEN PRESS PLAISTOW MCMXXIX'.

Charles Ricketts, Beyond the Threshold (1929)
colophon

This could point us in a certain direction. During the interwar period, the Curwen Press was one of the leading modern printing houses in Britain, where the teams of typographer Oliver Simon and printer Harold Curwen worked together to produce books that could stand any test of criticism. The First Edition Club had several books printed there, such as A Bibliographical Catalogue of the First Loan Exhibition of Books and Manuscripts Held by The First Edition Club 1922 (1922) and Book Clubs & Printing Societies of Great Britain and Ireland (1929).

One of the major financial successes of the Curwen Press in those years was The Legion Book, which was reprinted many times. This is where it gets interesting, because the deluxe first edition of this book - which I wrote about earlier - featured a binding designed by Ricketts that was executed by Henry T. Wood Limited in London. The book included a statement to that effect.

The Legion Book (1929)
turn-in with the name of Wood, London

Can we find a connection between the First Edition Club, Charles Ricketts and Henry T. Wood Limited? Yes, that is entirely possible. 

An exhibition of 132 examples of English bookbindings at the First Edition Club in January 1934 included 'transparent vellum bindings, designed by Mr. Kenneth Hobson and executed by Messrs. Henry T. Wood, Limited' (The Times, 4 January 1934).

The Book-Collector's Quarterly, April-June 1935

The bookbinder placed an ad in The Book-Collector’s Quarterly (April-June 1935), which was issued by The First Edition Club:

All the special bindings for The First Edition Club Binding Group have been entrusted to the old-established firm of Henry T. Wood Limited.

A later binding, for the Letters from Aubrey Beardsley to Leonard Smithers (The First Edition Club, 1937), was, however, executed by Leighton-Straker-Bookbinding Co.

However, in the first volume of The Book-Collector’s Quarterly (1930-1931), Wood was the only bookbinder among the advertisers.

The Book-Collector's Quarterly,
October-December 1931

Perhaps - because of the short interval between Beyond the Threshold and The Legion Book - we may assume that the binding of Beyond the Threshold was executed by Henry T. Wood.

607. Ricketts's Drawings for Oscar Wilde's Prose Poems (1924)

In 1924, Charles Ricketts made a series of drawings for (a never realised) edition of Oscar Wilde's prose poems. The set was sold (along with a set of new drawings for Wilde's The Sphinx) in America. None of this set of eight drawings were known in the 1970s.

There was a set of preparatory sketches though (and there were earlier ones, probably executed around 1894, and found again in 1918). The preparatory sketches ended up in the Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery in Carlisle. (For these, see blog 97: Pen and Ink Drawings in My Earliest Manner).

Charles Ricketts, 'The Teacher of Wisdom'
(preparatory sketch, c. 1924)
[Location: Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle]
[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and Charmain O'Neil]

The American drawings differ from the sketches: they are signed with Ricketts's monogram 'CR'. Moreover, the original sketches were made on paper prepared with a variety of colours, while the American sketches were drawn on white paper. 

After completing them, Ricketts wrote to Gordon Bottomley that he had 'executed eight drawings in my old manner illustrating Wilde's Poems in Prose' (Charles Ricketts to Gordon Bottomley, 13 June 1924: BL Add MS 61719).

How many can we trace today?

Two of these drawings are in the Arts Institute of Chicago and are described and illustrated on the museum's website: 'The Hermet' and 'Narcissus by the Pool'. In 1925, both were given to the museum by philanthropist Robert Allerton (1873-1964).

A third one, exhibited in 1979, but not known to me until recently, is in the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island. This is the drawing for 'The Teacher of Wisdom'.

Charles Ricketts, 'The Teacher of Wisdom' (1924)
[Location: RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island]
[©With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and Charmain O'Neil]

This drawing has been catalogued as: pen and ink off-white, medium weight wove paper, 229x152 cm, signed l.r.: “CR”, Gift of the estate of Mrs. Gustav Radeke. Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke (1854-1931) was another patron of the arts, and seventh President of the Rhode Island School of Design (in office 1913–1931). Her alma mater was Vassar College, Brown University. She was a client of the art dealer Martin Birnbaum who sold the Ricketts drawings in America. The drawing was exhibited in 1979, 1991, and 2006, and illustrated in the 1979 catalogue by Diana L. Johnson, Fantastic Illustration and Design in Britain, 1850-1930.

The final drawing for 'The Teacher of Wisdom' is neater than the sketch. Whereas the sketch shows improvements in Chinese white and newly drawn lines, the later drawing comes without improvements. Lines have been drawn together, messy details tightened. The rock outline along the right side of the drawing, for example, is simpler, lacking subdivisions, making the landscape look more harsh and monolithic. Overall, however, the drawing is faithful to the sketch.

606. A Caricature of Charles Ricketts by Walford Graham Robertson

From about 1910, Ricketts and Shannon became public figures who were therefore regularly photographed, appeared in news reports or became the subject of satire and caricatures.

An unknown cartoon, actually an affectionate portrait of Ricketts, remained unpublished until recently Daniel Mailford Cottam devoted a blog on the site of the V&A in London to a series of drawings in the collection. [Read the full text of his blog with all the illustrations here.] The artist is Walford Graham Robertson (1866-1948).

Walford Graham Robertson, The Saga of Letitia and Rachel, No.20.
[V&A London, bequeathed by Guy Tristram Little: E.2731-1953]

A handwritten explanation accompanying this image reads:

The revel is at its height. All is innocent gaiety and intellectual relaxation. The Archbishop of Canterbury is approaching Mr Epstein on the subject of a heroic and symbolic statue of himself for presentation to the Luxembourg by Mr Edmund Davis. In the cloakroom (where the crush is terrific) Mr Ricketts is kindly running up a little costume for M Nijinski who, from force of habit, has come without one.

The dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (1888-1950), who was greatly admired by Ricketts and whom he met several times, is at the front of the cloakroom, but is completely naked (as suggested by his costumes in one ballet). Ricketts sits on the counter like a tailor, busy sewing a colourful costume especially for him - these were the years when Ricketts was known for his stage costumes and the dancer for his performances in London.

Daniel Mailford Cotton's blog is a wonderful read.

See V&A website: The Saga of Letitia and Rachel.

605. A Vale Press Collector: Constance Astley (5)

At the end of the year 1941, Chas J. Sawyer in Grafton Street, London, sold Constance Astley's collection - without mentioning her name - via catalogue No. 166. Some Vale Press items were listed on pages 8, 9 and 10, but most were described in a separate section 'Vale Press' on pages 55 to 59. The catalogue does not contain all special copies from the collection and it describes books that were apparently not yet part of her collection in 1928. 

The Book Beautiful.
Chas J. Sawyer Ltd., 1941,
catalogue No. 166
[The Grolier Club, New York]

Books not listed in the sales catalogue

Duplicate copies on paper are not mentioned. This is easily explained: the description of one copy was sufficient and if several customers came for it, several copies happened to be available. This is not exceptional.

Only one of the two paper copies of Apuleius' Latin edition is therefore listed, and the same applies, for example, to the three-volume Shelley edition.

What may be surprising is that thirteen copies on vellum are not included in this catalogue. Surely inclusion could have made the Christmas catalogue much more attractive. A reason for the omission is anyone's guess. It is most likely that Sawyer already had buyers in mind, or, that collectors had already scooped up a few prizes. 

However, because of this, both vellum copies of Blake's Poetical Sketches are missing, and exactly the same goes for Ricketts's Defence of the Revival of Printing and Michael Field's The Race of Leaves. The impression of Astley's collection is thus a lot poorer, simpler, less complete than it actually was.

The Book Beautiful. Chas J. Sawyer Ltd., 1941,
catalogue No. 166, page 55
[The Grolier Club, New York]

Books not listed in Astley's library catalogue

Conversely, Sawyer's catalogue includes some Vale Press books not catalogued in 1928; Constance Astley probably acquired these between 1928 and her death in 1940.

The Book Beautiful. Chas J. Sawyer Ltd., 1941,
catalogue No. 166, page 9
[The Grolier Club, New York]

Maurice Guérin's The Centaur. The Bacchante is described in Astley's catalogue as an ordinary copy, and it is described in Sawyer's catalogue on page 57 (no. 163): 'With woodcuts, 8vo, buckram'. But on page 9 - in a section for 'Superb Modern Bindings' - a second copy is listed:

Niger morocco extra, broad gilt line borders enclosing blind tooling on sides, title of book stamped in blind on upper cover, gilt edges by Florence Paget with her initials and date 1902 on inside lower cover.

This - see previous blogs - is another book binding designed and executed by a female binder.

Although I noted earlier that, in 1928, Astley did not own any book bindings specially designed by Ricketts, she apparently acquired one later. Sawyer describes a special copy of Constable's Poems and Sonnets (not in the special section for bookbindings, but in the Vale Press section):

white pigskin, gilt and blind tooled to a design by C. Ricketts

The Book Beautiful. Chas J. Sawyer Ltd., 1941, catalogue No. 166, page 56
[The Grolier Club, New York]

One copy of this book in such a binding is known to exist, and it is now part of Houghton Library, Harvard Library, Cambridge.

Present locations of books from Astley's collection

The above copy of Constable's Poems and Sonnets in Harvard may once have been Constance Astley's - unless several copies (unknown to me) feature this Ricketts-designed pigskin binding.

The two volumes of Tennyson's poems, bound by Sarah T. Prideaux, either ended up in the British Library or in Duke University Library (where, incidentally, only one of the two volumes is found).

The Book Beautiful. Chas J. Sawyer Ltd., 1941, catalogue No. 166, page 10
[The Grolier Club, New York]

Beyond these two items, it cannot be determined at all in which libraries her Vale Press books ended up. (Some other private presses numbered all copies and, with a lot of patience,  these can be traced back to her collection.) 

This lavish private collection, which led a semi-secret existence during the collector's lifetime, ended up in an untraceable collection after her death. A journey from invisibility to obscurity.

Note

Thanks are due to Scott Elwood, The Grolier Club, New York, for providing scans of the Sawyer catalogue.

604. A Vale Press Collector: Constance Astley (4)

In the catalogue of Astley's collection, The Ashendene Press takes up five pages; The Daniel Press just over one, The Doves Press six; The Eragny Press five-and-a-half, The Essex House Press eight and The Kelmscott Press three-and-a-half. Ricketts's Vale Press also covers the maximum of almost eight pages (pp. 30-37).

Her general collection included other Ricketts-designed books, such as Thomas Hardy's Tess (1891), Wilde's De Profundis (1905) and Shaw's Saint Joan (1924), but his two main commercial designs from the 1890s were missing: Wilde's The Sphinx and John Gray's Silverpoints. 

On the other hand, she did own copies of the two celebrated predecessors of the Vale Press, the editions of Daphnis and Chloe (1893) and Hero and Leander (1894), and the five issues of The Dial (1899-1897).

The Vale Press

Astley's Vale Press collection was described in forty-seven entries. In this section, too, multi-volume works are included as one item. Thus, the thirty-eight-volume Vale Shakespeare is documented in one brief catalogue description.

The Vale Press, like the Doves Press, must have been among her favourites - the collection was entirely complete. Not one edition was missing. All ninety volumes were present.

Moreover, multiple copies were acquired in many cases, adding another thirty-four books to her Vale Press collection that comprised 124 volumes, five or six shelves at least.

The earliest editions of the press and the later Vale Shakespeare were only printed on paper, there were no vellum editions of those books. However, there were thirty-six volumes printed on vellum, and Astley's bookshelves carried no less than seventeen copies printed on vellum. Three of those were accompanied by a second copy on vellum: twenty in all. Not bad for a collector without a system, she owned almost half of all existing vellum Vale Press editions. By now we can establish that her system of collecting private press editions was simple: don't miss an opportunity, buy all the copies you come across.

Catalogue of the Library of Constance Astley
at Brinsop Court Herefordshire (1928)

Astley mostly left the books in their original condition. The vellum copy of Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, for example, was 'One of 10 copies printed on vellum. Unbound.' We can hope that later owners left it that way, but I dread the worst: unbound copies of vellum editions are now extremely scarce.

Remarkably, Astley did not own a single copy in a unique book binding specially designed by Ricketts for a Vale Press book. However, there were a few Vale Press books in bindings by leading contemporary bookbinders, and, although few in number, all by women bookbinders.

Of Robert Browning's Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, Astley owned a copy on vellum bound in blue morocco - probably not after a design by Ricketts, and also a paper copy in a binding by 'Miss T.C. Yeatman', as well as another copy on paper, probably in the original white cloth binding. The Yeatman binding was probably commissioned by Astley, as it contains an autograph letter from the binder (according to the Sawyer 1941 sale catalogue).

Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam (Vale Press, 1900)
Binding (detail) by Sarah T. Prideaux
[Collection: British Library, London]

At the time the Vale Press was publishing a two-volume Tennyson edition, bookbinder Sarah Prideaux bought two copies which she bound. One set is now in the British Library, the In Memoriam volume of the other set ended up in Lisa Unger Baskin's collection and has since been transferred to Duke University Libraries in Durham, North Carolina. One of these must have been Astley's copies.

Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam (Vale Press, 1900)
Binding by Sarah T. Prideaux
[Collection: Duke University, Durham:
from the collection of Lisa Unger Baskin]

Exceptional vellum copies

The books of which she managed to obtain two copies on vellum are:

William Blake, Poetical Sketches (1899): 'Two copies of 8 on vellum'.

Charles Ricketts, A Defence of the Revival of Printing (1899): 'Two copies of ten printed on vellum, one unbound';

Michael Field, The Race of Leaves (1901): 'Two copies of ten printed on vellum. One unbound'.

Catalogue of the Library of Constance Astley
at Brinsop Court Herefordshire (1928)

Exceptionally, Astley managed to secure a vellum copy of Michael Field's The World at Auction (1898) - there were only two printed like this. One was left by Charles Shannon and sold in 1937. This cannot have been Astley's copy, as her catalogue was printed in 1928. Copies were sold in 1946 and 1994, these may have been either Shannon's or Astley's copies. The location of one vellum copy is known (to me): Clark Library, UCLA, Los Angeles, California. This copy is bound in green morocco. My guess is that this once was Shannon's copy (and, earlier, Ricketts's copy).

Constance Astley ranks among the absolute top Vale Press collectors of the twentieth century.

603. A Vale Press Collector: Constance Astley (3)

Constance and Hubert Astley made long voyages to Tenerife, Egypt and America. A family house was located on Lake Como in Italy where they sometimes stayed for months; there were yacht parties, dinners and guests at Benham Valence. But when did she buy her books? How much time did she spend on collecting them? From whom did she acquire the luxury editions of private presses?

About her activities as a collector, we know nothing at all - we only know the 1928 interim result thanks to the catalogue of her collection and the state of her complete collection thanks to the sale catalogue issued after her death by Sawyer in 1941. Perhaps a comparison between the two could provide additional information?

Visitors Book The Cotswold Gallery
[Private collection]

Thanks to the guest book of a London art gallery, the Cotswold Gallery (private collection), we know that her husband Hubert D. Astley visited that gallery on 23 March 1922 (Ricketts signed the guestbook for the first time in April of that year). Was Constance Astley visiting antiquarian booksellers elsewhere in London while he devoted himself to art?

Visitors Book The Cotswold Gallery
[Private collection]

The Ashendene Press

The Ashendene Press, founded by St John Hornby (1867-1946), was still active when Astley published her catalogue in 1928. By then, thirty-six (out of a total of forty) books had already been published. Astley did not have them all. 

In fact, she owned twenty-three editions and of half of them she owned multiple copies. Of Tutte le opera di Dante Alighieri Fiorentino, for example, she owned three copies; one of six on vellum and two of 106 on paper.

The oldest edition she owned of this press was published in 1899 - she apparently did not find the previous nine editions interesting.

Of the thirty-five copies in her collection, nineteen were on vellum.

The Daniel Press

The Daniel Press founded by Charles Henry Olive Daniel (1836–1919) and members of his family issued fifty-eight books of which Constance Astley owned thirteen books in 1928, including the very rare edition of The Garland of Rachel (1881) of which thirty-six copies were printed.

The Doves Press

T.J. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker's Doves Press issued forty books between 1900 and 1916. Astley owned forty-one books, including one ephemeral publication (Ecce Mundus). 

Astley's complete Doves Press collection totalled ninety-one copies; she often owned three copies of a book, sometimes two of which were on vellum. In her bookcase were copies of thirty-four Doves Press editions printed on vellum, with a second copy on vellum of nine of these. That brings the number of vellum copies, astoundingly, to forty-three. Many of these were bound by The Doves Bindery. One copy was bound by Edith J. Gedye (Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson [as in the 1928 catalogue the name was often misspelt Gedge]). Gedye sometimes identified herself as a 'successor to Cobden Sanderson'. As a bookbinder, she started at Sangorski & Sutcliffe, and later settled in Bristol.

Gustave Flaubert, La légende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier
(Eragny Press, 1900). Copy bound by Sarah T. Prideaux (detail)
[Collection British Library, London]

The Eragny Press

Lucien and Esther Pissarro's Eragny Press published thirty-two books. Astley owned twenty-nine of them. The two Eragny books commissioned by French bibliophile societies were missing: the Nerval edition for the Société des Cent Bibliophiles and the Moselly book ordered by Le Livre Contemporain - obviously these were difficult to obtain in Great Britain. Also missing was the last book issued by Pissarro: Michael Field's Whym Chow (1914) of which a mere twenty-seven copies were printed. 

Many of these books were present in multiple copies. The entire collection consisted of sixty-one copies.

For example, the three-volume Flaubert series (1900-01) was present in triplicate, with one set bound by Sarah T. Prideaux. At publication, Prideaux bound two such sets whose patrons are unknown. One of these sets is in the British Library (illustrated in Marianne Tidcombe's Women Bookbinders 1880-1920, 1996, p. 108; for colour illustrations see the BL Database of Bookbindings).

Astley acquired ten books of the press that were printed on vellum - of two of these books she owned two vellum copies.

Essex House Press

The Essex House Press was founded by C.R. Ashbee in 1898. The presses were sold in 1910 when ninety books had been published. Constance Astley owned fifty-two books of this private press. 

Again, Astley collected multiple copies. Her Essex House row of books numbered sixty-three copies. Among them were eighteen books printed on vellum, but that is not exceptional in this case - twelve of these were part of editions of which the press only issued copies on vellum.

The Kelmscott Press

William Morris published fifty-three books at The Kelmscott Press, if we include the few that were finally issued after he died. Astley owned only twenty-four of them, but her collection included a copy of the Chaucer edition, the largest undertaking of the press.

Duplicates included, there were twenty-six Kelmscott Press editions, of which there were four copies printed on vellum. Astley owned both a vellum and a paper copy of the Chaucer edition and of Rossetti's Hand and Soul, a vellum copy of Morris's Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile, and a vellum copy of The Tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane. 

The Vale Press collection of Constance Astley will be the subject of next week's blog.

602. A Vale Press Collector: Constance Astley (2)

Following Constance Astley's death in 1940 - with her personal property valued at £58,151 - several auctions of household goods and books took place, including a two-day auction organised in 1944 by Russell, Baldwin and Bright held at Brinsop Court.

'Brinsop Court Sale'
(Kingston Times, 25 November 1944)

English and Italian furniture and Chinese pottery changed hands, but so did 'books', according to the Kingston Times (25 November 1944):

Two hundred lots of books on offer made considerably more than current list prices, top price being £40 for a history of Oriental carpets.

In 1947, her son, Colonel P.R. Astley, sold more antiques, including silver, glass, pictures and prints. (Kingston Times, 8 February 1947).

However, her collection of special editions of English private presses had left Brinsop Court earlier, shortly after her death. The entire collection was sold, without a preface about the collector, anonymously, in London by the antiquarian firm of Chas. J. Sawyer Ltd. in Grafton Street. The catalogue, dated 1941 and numbered 166, was entitled "The Book Beautiful" and the subtitle described the collection roughly as:

PRIVATE PRESS BOOKS

(Many Printed on Vellum)

Richly Decorated Bindings

Modern Illuminated Manuscripts

forming a part of a 

CHOICE LIBRARY JUST PURCHASED

interspersed with

Books of General Interest

eminently suitable for

Christmas and New Year Gifts

Constance Astley apparently never had a bookplate made - I have not found one example - not for her private press books or her ornithological books, nor for the general library at Brinsop Court. (An earlier occupant, Dearman Edwards, did paste one in his books.) Curiously, her young son from her first marriage apparently did have a bookplate. When he was ten years old, in 1901, they lived at Benham Valence Manor, and from his boarding school he wrote to her: 'Mr. Hansel the master in this form has got a collection of book plates, and wants me to give him one of mine, so please send me one for him when you get back to Benham' (Richard Vincent Sutton, A Record of his Life together with Extracts from his Private Papers, 1922, p. 11). This son later shared her habit or reading. During the Great War she sent him books; on 6 September 1918, he received The Mikado's Empire and a novel, and read the former 'which is interesting'. (p. 181, 184).

The absence of a bookplate makes it almost impossible to find out where her books went after her death and Sawyer's sale, with a few exceptions. (More on that in a following blog).

Catalogue of the Library
of Constance Astley
at Brinsop Court,
Herefordshire (1928)

Her own catalogue of the collection, Catalogue of the Library of Constance Astley at Brinsop Court, Herefordshire (1928) contains a preface in which Constance Astley says something but disappointingly little about her passion. For instance, we do not know when she started her collection of modern private press books.

The correct function of a preface of this sort is, I believe, by hints and suggestions to act as a guide to beginners in the fascinating pursuit of book collecting; but alas! I am incapable of this, as I have followed no system and had no arrière pensée as to future values - but merely followed my own personal likings. Many of the book bought in my youth, and even at a later date, are worthless from a monetary point of view. I well remember my excitement when for the first time in my life a present of money (£1, to be exact) was given to me, and how it was promptly spent on books! and ever since that day any available cash has always gone the same way.

Catalogue of the Library of Constance Astley
at Brinsop Court, Herefordshire (1928)

She describes how collecting books for their content slowly turned into collecting books for their outward form.

From my childhood onwards I have been an omnivorous reader (I remember on one occasion getting through three books - not novels - on a journey to Italy), and I began by buying just the  books I wanted to read, with complete indifference as to print and format. Then I began to think of nice bindings to make my book-shelves decorative - after which I developed a taste for books well produced and pleasant to read and handle, and last of all came the love of fine printing, a passion which still holds me in its grip. 

Catalogue of the Library of Constance Astley
at Brinsop Court, Herefordshire (1928)

That section of private press editions dominates the 1928 catalogue and occupies the first thirty-seven pages. With her catalogue, she also, in a way, commemorates her (second) husband's hobby:

The ornithological section of my library owes its inception to my husband, Hubert Astley, whose knowledge and love of birds was well-known.

He probably never collected books, although he was said to be 'a finished linguist, artist, and connoisseur of many forms of art' (Richard Vincent Sutton, A Record of his Life together with Extracts from his Private Papers, 1922, p. 16). Constance Astley merely took her second husband's hobby as the starting point for a new nucleus in a growing book collection. While he was busy outside with his bird collection, she was studying inside the library.

At the end of her preface, she explains that she loved dogs and hunting immensely, but that her age now made such outdoor hobbies more difficult to pursue and that she was therefore all the more grateful to be able to read about these subjects in her library. She also hoped her legacy would inspire her son (from her second marriage):

... when he has out-grown his taste for the works of Edgar Wallace!

Apparently not. After her death, the shelves were soon emptied and the books left for London to be dispersed to all corners of the world.

Catalogue of the Library of Constance Astley
at Brinsop Court, Herefordshire (1928)

Sawyer knew that there was plenty of interest among passionate collectors of private press books. However modestly she spoke of the collection, she had collected almost all books from the important private presses. She denied it, but surely she had a 'system'! Her collection stood lonely at the top, containing almost all deluxe editions of the Ashendene Press, Daniel Press, Doves Press, Eragny Press, Essex House Press, Kelmscott Press, and Vale Press.

Note

Thanks are due to Scott Ellwood of the Grolier Club in New York who kindly provided scans of the 1941 Sawyer catalogue.