615. Charles Ricketts's Illustrations of Cupid and Psyche

This week I received a Canadian query about Charles Ricketts's woodcuts for two editions of Apuleius. The Vale Press published an English translation of this classic love story in 1897, followed in 1901 by a Latin edition, both with woodcuts by Ricketts: six roundel wood-engravings for the first edition and five square wood-engravings for the later one.

Copies of the small editions have ended up in libraries, but of course not every university library has both editions.

For the convenience of academics and others, complete sets of these illustrations are shown in this blog.

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupide & Psyches (1896)

Text: the translation by William Adlington (1566).

The illustrations are not positioned adjacent to particular scenes but, for printing convenience, in the top right-hand corner on the first page of each sheet.

1.

SYMBOLS │ OF PSYCHES' | PASSION 

Signed upper right: CR (Charles Ricketts)

81 x 80 mm (p. 9)

Text on this page: Apuleius, Metamorphoses. IV, 34

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupide & Psyches
(1896, wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page 9)

2. 

THE LEAP │ FROM THE │ ROCK. 

80 x 80 mm (p. 17)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses. V, 8-9

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupide & Psyches
(1896, wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page 17)

3. 

PSYCHES' IN- │ VISIBLE │ MINIS- │ TRANTS. 

80 x 80 mm (p. 25)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses. V, 17-18

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupide & Psyches
(1896, wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page 25)

4. 

VENVS' BIRD │ MESENGER. 

81 x 81 mm (p. 33)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses. V, 27-28

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupide & Psyches
(1896, wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page 33)

5.

THE DESCENT │ INTO │ HELL. 

Signed upper right (initials mirrored): CR (Charles Ricketts)

81 x 80 mm (p. 41)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses. VI, 4-5 

[See also: initial P from The Dial 4 (1896): read blogpost 334]

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupide & Psyches
(1896, wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page 41)

6.

LOVE'S PACT │ WITH │ JOVE. 

78 x 78 mm (p. 49)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses. VI, 14-15 

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupide & Psyches
(1896, wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page 49)

De Cupidinis et Psyches amoribus fabula anilis (1901)

Latin text: edited by Charles Holmes. 

The illustrations are not positioned adjacent to particular scenes but, for printing convenience, in the top right-hand corner on the first page of the second, third, fourth and fifth sheet (with one illustration on the fifth page of the second sheet).

Text:

Page [iii]: Apuleius, Metamorphoses. IV, 28-30; page iv: IV, 30-32; page v: IV, 32-34; page vi: IV, 34-35, V 1; page vii: V 1-4; page viii: V 4-6; ; page ix: V 6-8; page x: V 8-10; page xi: V 10-12; page xii: V 12-15; page xiii: V 15-16; page xiv: V 17-19; page xv: V 19-22; page xvi: V 22-24; page xvii: V 24-26; page xviii: V 26-28; page xix: V 28-30; page xx: V 30-31; VI 1-2; page xxi: VI 2-3; page xxii: VI 3-6; page xxiii: VI 6-9; page xxiv: VI 9-11; page xxv: VI 11-14; page xxvi: VI 14-17; page xxvii: VI 17-19; page xxviii: VI 19-22; page xxix: VI 22-23; page xxx: VI 23-24. 

1.

[Psyche in the House]

9,3 x 8,6 cm (p. v)

Text on this page: Apuleius, Metamorphoses, IV, 32-34

[See also an earlier version of this image in The Pageant, 1896: read blogpost 401]

De Cupidinis et Psyches amoribus fabula anilis
(1901: wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page v)

2.

[The Toilet]

9,4 x 8,7 cm (p. ix)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses, V, 6-8

De Cupidinis et Psyches amoribus fabula anilis
(1901: wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page v)

3

[The Flight of Cupid]

9,8 x 8,6 cm (p. xiii)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses, V, 15-16

De Cupidinis et Psyches amoribus fabula anilis
(1901: wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page xiii)

 4.

[Pan and Psyche]

9,3 x 8,7 cm (p. xxi)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses, VI, 2-3

De Cupidinis et Psyches amoribus fabula anilis
(1901: wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page xxi)

5.

[Cupid Embracing Psyche]

9,7 x 8,8 cm (p. xxix)

Text on this page: Metamorphoses, VI, 22-23

De Cupidinis et Psyches amoribus fabula anilis
(1901: wood-engraving by Charles Ricketts, page xxix)

614. Several Pairs of Ricketts's Gloves

Charles Ricketts designed several pairs of gloves. 

The May Morris Gloves

The best-known is the pair of ecclesiastical gloves that was embroidered by May Morris, and bequeathed to the V&A in 1939.

Pair of ecclesiastical gloves, linen embroidered in coloured silks,
designed by Charles Ricketts, made by May Morris, Britain, c. 1899
[V&A, London, accession number T.71&A-1939]

They are sometimes called the 'Easter' or the 'Bishop's' gloves (or 'Episcopal gloves'), and executed in linen, with yellow silk braid and seed pearls, and with silk embroidery in shades of yellow, green, red and pink. There are three ears of corn rising from a leaf which twines round the stalks (see the exhibition catalogue Victorian Church Art, 1971, page 158). 

At the time they were dated c. 1907 (perhaps because they were first illustrated in The Art Journal in that year); the V&A database now has: c. 1899. They were exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in November 1899.

The V&A mentions that the gloves are worked 'in chain stitch, satin stitch, stem stitch, speckling, herringbone stitch, back stitch and couching', and they measure (when flat): 36 cm by 16,7 cm by 0,7 cm. (accession number T.71&A-1939).

Two Other Pairs of Gloves

During the commemorative exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art, two years after Ricketts had died, three different pairs of gloves were on display. One was May Morris's, the other two were lent by his friends, Thomas Sturge Moore and Thomas Lowinsky.

A pair of Christening gloves, also embroidered by May Morris, came from Thomas and Marie Sturge Moore, and must have been designed by Ricketts in 1905 when Daniel was born (Ricketts became godfather to the first-born). 

Such a pair of Christening gloves is illustrated in William Morris. Art and Kelmscott, edited by Linda Parry (1996, page 63): said to be in the V&A collection, these depict butterflies and blossom sprigs. Datewise (c. '1905-6') they fit the Sturge Moore connection.

Christening gloves, designed by Charles Ricketts
and executed by May Morris, c.1905-6
[V&A]

A third pair of gloves, also Christening gloves, came from Thomas and Ruth Lowinsky's collection. If these gloves were designed by Ricketts for the christening of one of their (four) children, they may have been made in 1920 (first daughter), 1923 (first son), 1925 (second daughter) or 1929 (second son).

The whereabouts of the last set of gloves is unknown to me.

613. A Yeats Design in Green, Red-Purple or Blue

Charles Ricketts designed the binding for the works of W.B. Yeats, published in six volumes, 1922-1926. For the American editions an altered drawing was used in which various details were executed differently. [See my blog No. 174 (26 November 2014).]

W.B. Yeats, Autobiographies (London, 1926)

Two years after Ricketts had died, an edition of The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats was published in New York (1933), followed a year later by the London edition, and the differences in execution now became substantial.

The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (London, 1933)

The spine design was identical, but in colour the bindings were different and both deviated from the original design - Ricketts had chosen a gentle green. However, the London edition was issued in red-purple cloth, the New York edition in dark blue cloth. 

The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (London, 1933): dustjacket

The London edition retained from Ricketts's design only the spine section. Front and back cover were left blank. (Evidently, this was cheaper to produce.) The dust jacket, displaying the Macmillan monogram, mentioned the title.

The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York, 1933)

However, the New York edition also reproduced the front cover design, blind-stamped on blue cloth. Ricketts himself would never have chosen this dark blue background (nor the dark green used for the American Yeats editions in the 1920s).

A light shade was needed to keep the blind-stamped design subtle but visible. The dark blue made it almost undetectable.

But the design had by then become the property of the publisher - and even if Ricketts had still been alive, he probably would not have protested against the later (lesser) versions of his design - if he had come across them in the first place.

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.