526. CR or CR

Occasionally, book covers are incorrectly attributed to Charles Ricketts based solely on the initials CR. Recently I saw an online description of an anthology of children's poems whose cover design was 'possibly' designed by Charles Ricketts.

Poetry for Children. One Hundred of the Best Poems for the Young (reprint, 1912)

It is a part of a Pocket Anthologies series titled: Poetry for Children. One Hundred of the Best Poems for the Young, published by Gowans & Gray Ltd in London and Glasgow.

The antiquarian bookshop that offers it describes the cover as 'Glasgow-Style', and that might be a reason to interpret the initials 'CR' not as Charles Ricketts, but as, say, Charles Robinson. 

There are both arguments against and in favour of Robinson as the illustrator of this cover. Apparently, Robinson rarely used the initials 'CR' as a monogram for his drawings. He did work for the publishing house Cowans & Gray in Glasgow where his edition of The New Testament was published in 1903.

Such a misattribution indicates, in any case, that in some circles the name Ricketts is better known than Robinson's and that the name Ricketts is associated with books that fetch more than Robinson's. 

525. Immortal Masterpieces and Calculated Stupidity

In a letter to Antonio Cippico on 10 December 1929, Charles Ricketts wrote that he was part of the hanging committee of the Italian exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.

'The Hanging Committee at Work'
(The Sphere, 4 January 1930)

Almost four weeks later, the newspaper The Sphere published a photograph of the hanging committee of the Exhibition of Italian Art, 1200-1900. Pictured are, from left to right: Charles Ricketts, Ettore Modigliani (the Italian delegate), Lady Chamberlaine (member of the hanging committee, the selection committee and the finance committee), W.G. Constable (of the National Gallery), Archibald Russell (selection committee) and Major A.A. Longden (the Secretary General of the exhibition). Ricketts and Modigliani were members of the selection committee and of the hanging committee. The photo was taken 'just after Christmas'.

Almost everyone pictured was described by Ricketts weeks earlier in the letter to Cippico, and with only one exception it was downright negative:

I find to my regret that I have to be active in hanging the Italian show; this at some other time would have been one of the events of my life, but the other members of the hanging committee are lacking in experience, vitality, and conviction, Modigliani excepted, whose vitality is too great, and who I fear may resent the slowness of perception and negative energies of his English confrères, and the calculated stupidity of the workman staff of the R.A.

(Self-Portrait Taken from the Letters & Journals of Charles Ricketts, R.A. (1939, pages 418-419).

It is not entirely certain whether the workmen holding the painting at the right height while the others pose for the picture are from the Royal Academy, or whether they were additional forces called in by Constable from the National Gallery. The painting is recognizable as Giorgione's 'The Tempest', then the private property of Prince Giovanelli, now in the collection of The Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.

Giorgione, 'The Tempest' (c. 1505)
[Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice]

To view this painting, one walked from the vestibule to the Central Hall (where sculpture and tapestries were on display) and then to the left, to Gallery III where the late 15th and 16th century paintings hung (as in the smaller Gallery IV)

The arrangement of the exhibition was a nightmare, partly because of the interference of officials, but also because works were taken off the wall again to be photographed for the catalogue, or glazed. Paintings came from all over the world and those from Italy and Germany arrived at the very last moment. Indeed, Modigliani gave up after two days. (Paul Delaney wrote a vivid account of the whole operation in his biography of Ricketts).

Ricketts continued:

Possibly I am wrong, and may find the contact with these immortal masterpieces a tonic and a stimulus; it should count as something, after all, to help to lift and hang the "Birth of Venus" in its place, and to see that Fra Angelico and Mantegna are comfortable.

524. Unpublished: the Vale Press edition of Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia

In a letter to the American publisher F. Holland Day (dated October 1894), Charles Ricketts disclosed his intention to publish an edition of Charles Lamb's The Essays of Elia. It would be a quarto volume, with decorations and initials, issued in 300 copies.

Portrait of Charles Lamb
[National Portrait Gallery]

Lamb (1775-1834), is now best known for his Tales from Shakespeare (written with his sister Mary Lamb). However, his essays - including The Essays of Elia - were quite influential, and remained popular within certain circles because of their authentic style. Although Lamb was opposed to atheism, Ricketts liked his essays.

Which passages would have attracted him and which lines fascinated him? What made Ricketts think they were interesting enough to include in the Vale Press series of editions? Why a Lamb edition was not published in the end is a question we cannot answer.

Here are two suggestions for a posthumous Vale Press edition of the works of Charles Lamb.

Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. [...] His intellect was of the shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was in its original state of white paper. A suckling babe might have posed him. 

Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art everything! When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!

523. Owen Pritchard, an Elusive Vale Press Collector

A number of libraries contain complete collections of the Vale Press books, but they are fewer in number than one might think. Many university collections, for example, consist of a dozen or so Vale Press books, and even nearly complete collections are fairly rare. One such nearly complete collection is at Bangor University on the northern west coast of Wales. Founded in 1884, and originally known as the University College of North Wales, the university received an extensive collection of porcelain, pottery, and glass (558 items), as well as books from London-based physician Owen Pritchard. A year after the presentation in 1920, a catalogue was published, with illustrations of porcelain, pottery and glass, but unfortunately not of the books.

University College of North Wales, Bangor.
The Owen Pritchard Collection of Pottery, Glass and Books (1921):
illustration of Bristol earthenware

Dedication written by Owen Pritchard in a copy of University College of North Wales, Bangor.
The Owen Pritchard Collection of Pottery, Glass and Books (1921)

Owen Pritchard (1854-1928) was one of those rare collectors who make donations during their lifetime. In 1920, the collection was valued at £2,000-£3,000, and a newspaper said that it would be housed 'in separate cases in the vestibule entrance to the great library at the college, over which a tablet suitably inscribed' would be placed.

Dr. Owen Pritchard
[Collection: Archives and Special Collections
Bangor University]

Pritchard's personal life is almost entirely hidden behind that collection - the catalogue does not reveal his origins or career. He was an Anglesey man (son of a local labourer) who had been a student at Bangor before he moved to London where he lived as a bachelor for the rest of his life. He was a prominent London Welshman, who, for instance, acted as host for the meetings of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. He became Doctor in Legibus on the ground of his generous support of higher education, especially in North Wales. At one time, he was a surgeon at St Saviour's Hospital for Cancer and Diseases of Women. He had his own medical practice at 37, Southwick Street, Hyde Park. 

When he died in a nursing home (after an operation), two addresses were mentioned: 41, Gloucester Square and 37, Southwick Street. He was cremated at Golder's Green and the funeral was attended by Sir Vincent Evans (who had catalogued his books), Lady Watson (wife of one of his favourite poets), and Mr. Allen Lane (nephew of the publisher John Lane). He left £36,387, of which £600 went to his 'old friend and chauffeur' Walter Whittle, £600 to his housekeeper Edna Graven, and another £600 to his 'old friend' and 'our greatest poet' Sir William Watson (1858-1935). £4,000 was destined to scholarships in the science department of North Wales University College (now Bangor), and the residue could be used for any purpose the college would determine.

Although he remained virtually unknown as a book collector, he had at least one friend who was at the centre of the publishing world in the 1990s: John Lane. 

John Lane

James Lewis May recorded:

Young Pritchard, having taken his M.D., came up to London—came, like John Lane, to try his luck. He brought with him some sound medical knowledge and the skill to use it, with a fund of indomitable courage, invincible tenacity, but with mighty little money. Looking about for a likely place to put up his plate, chance led him to a certain house in Southwick Street. It was already inhabited by a doctor, but it was in a deplorably dilapidated condition, and the practice was virtually non-existent. 

According to the British Medical Journal, this was the address of William Stewart, M.D.

Pritchard saw possibilities in the place. He took over the house, bought the goodwill of the 'practice' for a song, and then, with the few pounds remaining to him, started to face the future. He worked like a lion. [...] Little by little at first, afterwards by leaps and bounds, he went ahead, till at length he became one of the most successful and most popular practitioners in the district.

(J. Lewis May, John Lane and the Nineties. London 1936, page 29).

John Lane came to visit him in his practice, to advertise the home for the treatment of nervous and mental cases that his parents had started in Bristol. Pritchard heard that Lane was on the look-out for lodgings, and offered him a room. The food-bill was divided equally between them. Lane paid ten shillings a week for his room, and the rent was never raised. Frequently, Lane's letters were written on the back of Pritchard's bills.

[...] the two men became devoted friends. They had tastes in common, for the doctor, too, was a bibliophile and a great collector.

(J. Lewis May, John Lane and the Nineties. London 1936, page 30).

John Lane and Elkin Mathews established The Bodley Head in 1887, and became publishers to Oscar Wilde and many other decadent writers. After their break-up Lane continued the firm, publishing The Yellow Book with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. Occasionally, he gave books to Pritchard. Recently, a copy of W. Carlton Dawe's Yellow and White, 1895, was offered for sale, bearing the dedication: 'Dr. Pritchard | from | J.L.' From this we may deduce that in 1920 not his entire collection of books moved to Bangor. John Lane even published a book written by Pritchard: On the Brink. A Play in One Act by a London Doctor. It was privately printed for the author in 1910. The 1921 catalogue was also published by John Lane, The Bodley Head, but probably distributed by the university.

What was his book collection like? 

In the catalogue, Vincent Evans characterises Pritchard as a collector without specialisation, but with 'a great admiration for beautiful craftmanship'. The library developed through subscription, purchase or presentation, and Pritchard maintained 'close friendships with many authors, and some publishers'. (However, he does not appear in their biographies, with the exception of Lane). The collection donated to Bangor consists of three parts: private presses, literature and miscellaneous publications.

The last section contains historical works, travelogues, dictionaries. The literature contains many works from the 1890s (Aubrey Beardsley, the Rhymer's Club, Oscar Wilde, but also Rossetti and Morris) and special sections with works by Lord Latymer, Richard Le Gallienne, Stephen Phillips and William Watson.

'Ballantyne Press' list in University College of North Wales, Bangor.
The Owen Pritchard Collection of Pottery, Glass and Books (1921)

The private press section is representative of the times. Pritchard owned sixteen volumes issued by the Ashendene Press, of which two printed on vellum. The Doves Press is represented with seventeen books (including the five-volume Bible), the Eragny Press with six works, the Daniel Press with three books, and the Kelmscott Press with three books (although many more were incorrectly listed as Kelmscott Press books).

The Vale Press books are divided into two parts: one under the heading 'Ballantyne Press' (where they were printed) and one under the heading 'Vale Press' (the official name that is hardly ever mentioned in the books). (One book is listed under 'Various Authors'). There are forty-one works (in eighty-three volumes), including the thirty-nine-volume Shakespeare and, for example, the three-volume Shelley edition. (One of the works listed, Tennyson's Lyric Poems can not be traced in the online catalogue of Bangor University.) He also owned three (out of five) issues of The Dial.

Only six books (in seven volumes) are lacking:  The Passionate Pilgrim. Songs in Shakespeare's Plays (1896), E.B. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese (1897), Lyrical Poems of Shelley (1899), The Poems of John Keats (1898), D.G. Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel (1898), and A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts (1904).

'Vale Press' list (detail)  in University College of North Wales, Bangor.
The Owen Pritchard Collection of Pottery, Glass and Books (1921)

The collection does not include dedication copies, copies printed on parchment, or bound in a leather binding specially designed by Ricketts.

Nevertheless, it is an impressive collection, which must have occupied a special place in Pritchard's heart: why else would he have collected so many works from this press and comparatively so few from the other presses? 

Moreover, Pritchard also bought a number of books designed by Ricketts, such as Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx, Lord De Tabley's Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical, John Addington Symonds's In the Key of Blue, and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis. 

Intriguing is the copy of Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance (1894). It has a handwritten dedication: 'Owen Pritchard, M.D., from a grateful patient'. But who was this patient? 

Not Oscar Wilde, but his publisher, John Lane.

[Thanks are due to Shan Robinson, Senior Special Collections Assistant, Archives and Special Collections, Bangor University.]

522. A Small Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery

From 18 May to 30 September, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool will be showing a small selection from its holdings under the title 'Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts'. On display are a lithograph, a painting and a drawing by Shannon and a watercolour by Ricketts. Curator Jessie Petheram wrote a short article about Ricketts and Shannon for the museum's website (read her contribution 'Shannon and Ricketts - A Creative Partnership').

Charles Shannon, 'The Modeller', lithograph (1891)
[Walker Art Gallery]

The oldest of the four works is a lithograph by Shannon with a portrait of Thomas Sturge Moore, dated 1891. Shannon made a small number of prints himself which were distributed in 1893 in the portfolio Early Lithographs. A few years later, Thomas Way printed twenty-five 'more forcible and less delicate' impressions (as Ricketts wrote).

Sturge Moore is caught 'in the act of modelling a figure which stands on a table to the right' (Ricketts again): 'A bucket occupies the foreground.' From 1887 to 1892 Sturge Moore attended the Lambeth School of Art. At first he worked in clay. I don't think any statues have been preserved, sculpture was not his forte.

The second object in the exhibition is the painting 'Lady with a Cyclamen (Mary Frances Dowdall)', painted in 1899. (For an image, see my earlier blog 'Rediscovered Interviews (2)' from 2020.)

Jessie Petheram, Assistant Curator of Fine Art, believes that Shannon undermines the classical symbolism of the cyclamen - true love and religious devotion - by painting Dowdall in clothing that is 'not clearly masculine or feminine'. The sitter criticised the institution of marriage and 'argued for women to be treated as complex individuals rather than "soap-spirited fools".'

Charles Shannon, 'Study for The Wise and Foolish Virgins',
chalk and gouache on paper (c.1917-1919)
[Walker Art Gallery]

Chronologically, the third work is a drawing by Shannon, a study for his painting 'The Wise and Foolish Virgins', illustrating the parable from the Bible's New Testament. The painting is also on display in a nearby room in the Walker Art Gallery. The curator supposes that Shannon's and Ricketts's fascination for some of the parables reflected 'their own concerns about whether, as two men in a loving relationship, they were prepared to be judged by God'. I am not sure about Shannon's faith, after all, he was the son of a reverend; but I am pretty sure that Ricketts would have laughed at the idea to be admitted to a place called Heaven.

Ricketts's work is represented by a watercolour and chalk on paper, a stage setting for Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan, drawn about 1924.

These four works were acquired by the museum over a long period of time: the lithograph in 1909, the painting in 1967 (a gift from Mrs R.B.Tollinton), the drawing in 1971 and Ricketts's sketch in 1933 (with support from the Art Fund).

It is wonderful to know that after acquisition they were not stored unseen in the depot but, as now, were brought out and displayed. Hopefully, they will soon be added to the museum's online collection in the near future.

The exhibition can be seen at the Walker Art Gallery until the end of September.

[Thanks are due to Jessie Petheram and Felicity Robinson.]

521. Ricketts's Design for Dedicated (1914)

After Edith Cooper died, her partner, Katharine Bradley, collected Edith's poems (written from 1899 onwards). They were published in August 1914 under their joint pseudonym Michael Field as Dedicated. Charles Ricketts designed the linen binding, of which the front cover and spine are decorated. The original design drawings have been preserved in The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow.

Charles Ricketts, two drawings for the binding of
Michael Field, Dedicated (1914)
Location: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

While some critics recognise a baptismal font on the cover and on the back two connected rings, I think we see a fountain (on the cover) and a thyrsus - a staff topped with a pine cone - and  two laurel wreaths (on the spine). See my earlier blog about Three Spine Designs by Charles Ricketts.

The drawings are (as usual) larger than the book: 28.8 by 22.7 cm - the book measures 19,8 by 13 cm. They were copied and photographed (the image then reduced in size) for the making of a brass block to stamp the design on the binding.

The drawings have inscriptions such as: 'cut same size as drawing. Photograph this | onto the brass. Do not copy scratchy workmanship', and 'cut this quite clean | do not imitate scratches | of pen in letters etc'.

The blockmakers kept to the brief, sometimes making small necessary improvements and sometimes not.

In his drawing, Ricketts placed small acorns in the far corners, but he forgot the acorn in the top left corner. This has been corrected.

Charles Ricketts (designer), binding of Michael Field, Dedicated (1914)

For the coffered ceiling above the fountain (which is in a niche or a chapel) Ricketts drew a pattern of five rows with different ornaments in each row. In Ricketts's design the ornaments in each row appear to be identical, but they are all individually drawn and slightly different from oen another. During the processing for the block, the ornaments per row were standardised. Whether this was the intention or not is impossible to say, but in the Vale Press ornamental papers that Ricketts designed, such minor variations were maintained.

The support for the ceiling is represented by vertical lines. The lines in the middle do not connect at the same height at the top (lower on the right). 

Charles Ricketts (designer), binding of Michael Field, Dedicated (1914)

 

Also, they seem to protrude through the floor. This has been retained in the block for the binding.

Charles Ricketts (designer), binding of Michael Field, Dedicated (1914) 

The handle of the thyrsus on the back of the book is a little too neatly copied. Ricketts's pen faltered twice and the lines are now interrupted in two places. This was clearly not Ricketts's intention.

Thanks to the digitisation of objects in museums, libraries and archives researchers can study Ricketts's book designs with new interest and scrutiny.

520. An Early Caricature by Charles Ricketts

As an artist, Charles Ricketts was not easily satisfied, and on one of his moves, he threw a lot of his youthful work into the bin. Shannon did the same - it was the result that mattered, not the sketches or the way to get there. (Friends sometimes kept those drawings.) In an album in the British Museum one finds a photograph of a very early sketch, said to be by Ricketts. (The museum number is 1962,0809.2.55). The drawing is dated 27/2/1882. Ricketts was not yet sixteen then.

Charles Ricketts, photograph of a caricature dated 27 February 1882

[Image: British Museum, London: 1962,0809.2.55.

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

(with permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,

Leonie Sturge-Moore and Charmain O'Neil)

The drawing measures 75 by 65 mm, and it depicts 'a man in silhouette, whole-length profile to left' (quote from the catalogue). It seems to be a young man. There is a caption written in a speech bubble and the words are hard to decipher, but I think it says: 'I never wish anything but I demand'.

It may be a student joke, a sketch made out of boredom or discontent. The image has not been published before.

The original will probably have been thrown away. The photo was saved, and came via Robert Steele to Riette Sturge Moore, who donated the album to the BM in 1962.

Even when he was older, Ricketts continued to make caricatures. There is, for instance, a self-portrait of him slumped in a chair, asleep after a dinner where he obviously overate.

519. Milton's Early Poems in a Pigskin Binding (2)

A fortnight ago I reported on a Sybil Pye binding for a copy of the first Vale Press publication, John Milton's Early Poems (April 1896). [Read more about this special binding.] The new owner has sent me some images to prove that the binding was made by Sybil Pye.

Marianne Tidcombe wrote: 'Her bindings are signed with a monogram stamp' ['SP'], 'and the date, inside the lower cover, nearly always towards the top of the fore-edge turn-in.'(*) That is indeed the case, only the date is missing here.

John Milton, Early Poems (1896). Binding signed by Sybil Pye

The inscription linking this book to the collector who commissioned the binding is as follows: 'from the books of Arthur & Margaret Gillett | 21.4. 1962'.

John Milton, Early Poems (1896). Inscription

The titles of quite a few Vale Press books are uncertain. The title on the binding often differs from the title on the opening pages (there are rarely any actual title pages), which in turn differs from the title in the colophon.

The Milton edition shows the same diversity.

Title on spine: MIL- | TON | EARLY | POEMS

Opening pages: MILTON | EARLY POEMS

Colophon: HERE end the Early Poems of John Milton.

Prospectus: THE EARLY POEMS OF JOHN MILTON

Bibliography (1904): THE EARLY POEMS OF JOHN MILTON

Pye's binding shows different variants again:

Title on spine: EARLY | POEMS OF | MILTON

Title on front and back cover: THE EARLY POEMS OF MILTON

(*) Marianne Tidcombe, Women Bookbinders 1880-1920 (Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 1996), page 149.

518. Sea-Folk, A Lithograph by Charles Shannon

Charles Shannon produced lithographs from 1889 onwards, but there were years when he did not work in this medium. The first period of 54 lithographs ran until 1897 (one was published only a year later), after which he did not devote himself to lithography again until 1904. The second period lasted much shorter, from 1904 to 1909, and resulted in 29 lithographs.

The last period began during the First World War, in 1917, and ended in 1920. After twelve more lithographs, Shannon abandoned this medium. (Other lithographs were designed, by the way, but they never got beyond the trial stage. There is a lithograph from 1888, predating the first one, from which four proofs were pulled; no Shannon lithographs dated after 1920 are known to exist.)

In his catalogue, The Lithographs of Charles Shannon 1863-1937 (published 1978), Paul Delaney  only reproduced lithographs from the first period.

Charles Shannon, 'Sea-Folk' (1897)
[Image: British Museum, London: 1899,0913.1.
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

The last lithograph from the first period is 'Sea-Folk' (1897). It is not the largest lithograph Shannon ever made, but it is the one with the most figures - I think I can count twenty-five people. In the 1902 catalogue of Shannon's lithographs (with an introduction by Ricketts) the scene is described as follows:

Groups of girls and children are playing in the wash of the sea. The background is filled with a breaking wave. Fifty-six proofs exist printed in green, in black, and in blue.

(Charles Ricketts, A Catalogue of Mr Shannon's Lithographs, no. 54, p. 31).

The British Museum owns a copy in green (illustrated here). Copies in black ink look very dark indeed, as if the scene is a nocturnal one. The British Museum has an impression in black after the cancellation of the plate.

Charles Shannon, 'Sea-Folk' (1897)
[Image: British Museum, London: 1938,0804.30.
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

The variety of actions and postures is maximised within a horizontal strip in the centre of the image. Above this, the foam heads of the surf are depicted. In the foreground, the low water on the coast can be seen. Some figures are sitting on the sand in the shallow water and are drawn almost entirely in white line.

Charles Shannon, 'Sea-Folk' (1897)
[Image: British Museum, London: 1899,0913.1.
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

Children play with a fish that they have apparently caught, raising it triumphantly to the sky. Another group of children try to catch another fish in the shallow water.

Charles Shannon, 'Sea-Folk' (1897)
[Image: British Museum, London: 1899,0913.1.
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

One wonders, of course, if the fish would not have fled long ago in the face of this crowd of children amusing themselves so loudly; Shannon probably combined several observations at the beach.

517. Milton's Early Poems in a Pigskin Binding

On 17 June, at Dominic Winter Auctions three lots of Vale Press books were sold, the last one being a copy of John Milton's Early Poems (1896), the first book of the Vale Press. The catalogue description states its condition: 'light toning to a couple of leaves, light spotting to endpapers, ink inscription to front endpaper, original cream blindstamped cloth gilt, gilding to spine rubbed in places'. The second part of the description incorrectly asserts that the copy was still in the original publisher's binding. I previously wrote about the variants of the publisher's binding for this book in blog 244, [more information including illustrations can be found in Binding Variants of the First Vale Press Book].

The picture in the catalogue Children’s & Illustrated Books, Private Press & Fine Bindings, Modern First Editions clearly shows a completely different binding.

John Milton, Early Poems (1896)

The provenance was based on an ink inscription: 'From the books of Arthur & Margaret Gillett, 21.4. 1962'. And, the catalogue continued: 'Probably Margaret Clark Gillett (1878-1962) botanist and social reformer, noted for advocating for women and children held in concentration camps after the Boer War.’ (Information taken from Wikipedia.)

Although her name does not appear in the index of Marianne Tidcombe's Women Bookbinders 1880-1920, it is nevertheless this essential reference work that can provide information on the name of the bookbinder.

Appendix 3 lists all Sybil Pye's bindings and the Vale Press Milton appears twice. Number 27 describes a bookbinding from 1918, made for G.E. Chatfield, and in style it is exactly what one imagines a Sybil Pye binding to be: 'White pigskin, inlaid with red and black pigskin, and gold-tooled'.

The Gillett binding has no inlays and is described as number 12. It is one of Pye's earliest commissions: 'White pigskin, blind- and gold-tooled. Bound 1909. A.B. Gillett.'

A.B. Gillett was Arthur Bevington Gillett (1875-1954), who married in 1909, the year he commissioned Pye to bind his copy of Early Poems. He married Margaret Clark (1878-1962), and they moved to North Oxford. His portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery.

Had the auction house known that this binding was by Sybil Pye, even if it was an early one, the estimate of £200-£300 would probably have been higher. However, during the auction, the price quickly rose due to a battle between two bidders and when that seemed to have ended, a third bidder stepped forward and paid the final price of £1,700 (amount without premium).

Apparently, the Pye binding had caught the eye of several interested parties.

The binding is stamped in blind and in gold with ovals, squares and leaves. The shapes in the centre suggest a portal, with a semi-circle above containing the title. The inner circle has the year of publication (1896), and the initials C (left) and R (right), referring (probably) to Charles Ricketts.

516. Keep Following Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon...

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Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon (blog 513)

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515. Thomas Stainton, a Vale Press Collector (2)

Thomas Stainton's collection consisted of two sections. The oldest section comprised manuscripts and printed books in remarkable bindings. The second part contained publications from the 1890s: some Oscar Wilde books and an incomplete set of The Yellow Book, but mostly private press editions. 

Barham House, Kent
(the library was located on the ground floor,
behind the two windows on the right)

Subsequent additions by the family that inherited the collection (and relocated the library to Barham House near Canterbury) are rather miscellaneous: a Cuala Press edition of Yeats's poetry; a monograph about the architect E.L. Lutyens (who remodelled Barham House); British Flowery Plants by Perrin and Boulger (1914), A History of English Furniture (1904-1908), and some facsimiles of manuscripts that fit well with the old nucleus of the collection. There was also a notable section of works by Joseph Conrad, including a dedication copy with an autograph letter from the author who lived near the Stainton family (and was buried in Canterbury in 1924).

Private presses

Evidently, in later life, Thomas Stainton became interested in the ideas of William Morris and, at the end of the nineteenth century, began collecting publications of the private presses. Only one work from the Doves Press was listed (Tacitus, 1900), the same goes for the Essex House Press (Bunyan, 1899). 

However, the Eragny Press was represented with fifteen books (lots 100-107), and the Kelmscott Press with seven books (lots 147-153).

Kelmscott Press lots 147-152
(Catalogue of a Library of Printed Books, Manuscripts and Fine Bindings.
The Property of Mrs. Evelyn Stainton, Barham House, Canterbury
London: Sotheby & Co., 26-27 February 1951)

Stainton must have taken this new branch of his collection seriously, as evidenced by the presence of a copy of the most famous private press edition from the 1890s, a paper copy of Chaucer's Works. (In 1951, this copy was purchased by Maggs for £105.) Stainton's ownership and the 1951 auction are not mentioned in The Kelmscott Chaucer. A Census by William S. Peterson and Sylvia Holton Peterson (2011). The copy may have changed hands a few times since. 

Apparently, Stainton did not mark these new books with an inscription, and he did not have a bookplate made. In the manuscripts and printed books from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, he wrote his name and the date of purchase, but the new books remained without any trace of the owner.

Vale Press

By far the largest part of his private press collection was formed by 95 volumes issued by the Vale Press. This was a nearly complete collection with only two omissions and a few duplicates. It took up lots 247 through 276 in the 1951 auction catalogue. 

Among the pre-Vale publications are copies of Daphnis and Chloe, Hero and Leander and The Sphinx. Thomas Stainton must have taken a subscription to all the works of the Vale Press; the only two volumes missing are E.B. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese (1897) and A Catalogue of Mr. Shannon's Lithographs (1902). 

Vale Press, lots 259-276
(Catalogue of a Library of Printed Books, Manuscripts and Fine Bindings.
The Property of Mrs. Evelyn Stainton, Barham House, Canterbury
London: Sotheby & Co., 26-27 February 1951)

Two duplicate copies of three books were present: Maurice de Guérin's The Centaur. The Bacchante (1899), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1901) and Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1902). 

Among the star items in his Vale Press collection are two books printed on vellum (and bound to a special design by Ricketts) and another five books that, while simply printed on paper, have a goat- or pigskin leather binding to a unique design by Ricketts. It is no comparison to the extremely rich legacy of his contemporary Laurence Hodson, but it is a considerable collection on its own.

Vale Press, lot 254-256
(Catalogue of a Library of Printed Books, Manuscripts and Fine Bindings.
The Property of Mrs. Evelyn Stainton, Barham House, Canterbury
London: Sotheby & Co., 26-27 February 1951)

The early Vale Press editions were printed exclusively on paper and not bound in leather. From October 1897, copies were also printed on vellum and from a year later copies could be bound in leather to a design by Ricketts.

Thomas Stainton commissioned special bindings for some of the early editions: The Poems of Sir John Suckling (1896) was bound in (probably creme) pigskin and decorated with a blind-stamped design. A similar binding was commissioned for Vaughan's Sacred Poems (1897). These bindings are extremely rare, in most cases only one copy has survived, in some cases three copies exist.

For other editions, the collector commissioned bindings in goatskin leather to a design by Ricketts: the two volumes of Tennyson's In Memoriam and Lyric Poems (1900), for example, have been bound in green morocco, the Poems of John Keats (two volumes, 1898) were bound in red morocco tooled to a design by Ricketts - (a similar set was the subject of blog 356: Vale Press Keats Edition in a Deluxe Binding) - and a copy of Shelley's Lyrical Poems (1898) was bound in red morocco to a design by Ricketts, executed by Zaehnsdorf. 

Stainton owned a vellum copy of William Blake's Poetical Sketches (1899), bound in a vellum binding with gilt spine; Ricketts, by now, had decided to have the vellum copies bound to a standard design with front and back covers left blank. Stainton also owned a vellum copy of The Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney (1897), bound in (quoting the catalogue) 'red morocco tooled to a design by C. Ricketts, a series of line panels, one within the other, leaves at corners and on back, g.e., bound by Riviere under the supervision of C. Ricketts and signed "H R" [Hacon and Ricketts]'. 

Michael Field, Fair Rosamund (1897)
[British Library, Davis274]

The two books printed on vellum did not fetch the highest prices: £28 (Sidney, in a special binding) and £10 (Blake, in a standard binding), indicating that the buyers were mainly interested in bookbindings. The highest bid, £36, was for the two volumes of Keats (printed on paper, but in special bindings), immediately followed by the one-volume edition of Michael Field's Fair Rosamund (1897) that was sold for £32. This was the true highlight of Staintons's Vale Press collection. It was acquired by the book- and printseller Heinrich Eisemann (1890-1972). The next owner was Max Reich, whose collection was sold in 1960. Henry Davis owned this book until 1968, when he donated his collection of bookbindings to the British Library.

Mirjam Foot described the binding in her book The Henry Davis Gift. A Collection of Bookbindings (1983) as: 'Red goatskin tooled in gold to a design of concentric panels with small solid tools, leaf tools, crowns, and R tools. The spine has five gold-tooled bands and six compartments tooled in gold; title lettered on spine. Bound by Riviere & Son (stamp).'

Michael Field, Fair Rosamund (1897) [detail]
[British Library, Davis274]

Obviously, the 'R's refer to the name of the heroine, Rosamund, and the crowns to her position as mistress of King Henry II. Some tools are not mentioned by Foot. These are the small solid heart shape and an open heart shape (love). In the four corners the two shapes are connected by double lines to form an arrow of love (Amor). The central panel contains eight stylised roses (Rosamund). Ricketts's original design drawing for this copy is in the V&A collection.

Thomas Stainton's collection had a secret existence for more than half a century, and even after that, the provenance of the books was often unclear and his nephew's widow was indicated as the (last) owner. There is no known correspondence between Ricketts and Stainton, or between the publisher or shop of Hacon & Ricketts and the collector. Why he was particularly interested in the Vale Press we may never know.

514. Thomas Stainton, a Vale Press Collector (1)

In February 1951, Sotheby & Co in London issued a catalogue of the collection of books from the property of Mrs. Evelyn Stainton, Barham House, Canterbury: Catalogue of a Library of Printed Books, Manuscripts and Fine Bindings. Advertisements highlighted the collection of book bindings, "including a binding for Frederick, Prince of Wales, and an unpublished binding for Thomas Mahieu (Maiolus)". 

The second book was a psalter printed in Basle in 1547, and probably bound for Thomas Mahieu around 1555. This is lot 216 in the catalogue, sold to Konniche - or Konninck? (in the list of prices and buyers' names both forms of the name are listed) - for £500. 

The first book was Robert Tailfer's True and Correct Tables of Time of 1736 in a binding with the arms of Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III. This lot, number 241, was sold to Michelmore for £60. G. Michelmore's collection was sold on 14 October 1953, when Queen Elizabeth II acquired the book for the Royal Collection Trust (for £200).

Nathaniel Evelyn William Stainton (1863-1940)

The widow Harriet Wilhelmina Stainton, born Grimshaw would dispose of the contents of Barham House later that year through Phillips, Son & Neale in London: 'old-English and decorative furniture, eastern carpets, porcelain, pictures, silver and plated ware'. She moved to Sevenoaks.

From her marriage in 1912, she had lived in Canterbury in the house her husband had moved into a few years earlier. His name was Nathaniel Evelyn William Stainton. He had been born in London on 20 June 1863 and would die on 1 November 1940 in Bridge, Kent. At his death in 1940, he left a fortune of £101,863 (net personalty £45,445), which was divided between his two sons. (The couple also had two daughters.) His wife received an annuity of £4,000. He must have had a considerable amount of money at his disposal before he inherited another £50,000 or so from an uncle in 1909.

Catalogue (Sotheby & Co., auction of 26-27 February 1951)

The obituaries remain silent about the book collection. However, his social functions are mentioned. He was Justice of the Peace of the County, president of the Village Hall (he had contributed 'the bulk of the money which enabled it to be built'), president of the local District Nursing Association and of the Barham Conservative Association. He was remembered as a 'keen churchman' and 'a real sportsman'. 

Evelyn Stainton was not a book collector, he had probably inherited the collection from Thomas Stainton, who collected books 'in the last forty years of the nineteenth century' (according to The Burlington Magazine, February 1951).

Thomas Stainton (1825-1910)

It is not clear how Thomas Stainton's books came to his nephew Evelyn Stainton. In his will, Thomas (who died unmarried) left an annual sum to the butler and his wife, and the 'residue' went to 'four nieces'. The latter must have been a mistake for two nieces and two nephews, the others having died. 

Stainton was born on 27 July 1825 in London, went to college in Oxford (BA 1851); he lived in London for the rest of his life. After his death, his collection of paintings and old Italian bronzes was sold at auction at Foster's, Pall Mall. The London Daily News (1 July 1910) reported that the bronzes were 'picked up for "half nothing", it is said by the late Mr. Thomas Stainton, 37, Welbeck Street', and now they realised 'striking prices'.

Emblemas morales de Don Ivan de Horozco y Couarruuias
Arcediano de Cuellaren en la fanta Yglesia de Segouia (1589)

Books with owner inscriptions from Stainton may have been sold elsewhere [see note]. Maggs bought one of his books from Hodgson & Co in 1946, Juan Ochoa de la Salde's Primera parte de la carolea inchiridion... (1555), with the annotation 'Thomas Stainton, Jan. 28 1871'. This book did not appear in the 1951 Sotheby catalogue. A treatise now in the collection of the Folklore Society Library does not appear in that catalogue either, nor does a work now in the collection of emblemata at the University of Illinois, Emblemas morales de Don Ivan de Horozco y Couarruuias Arcediano de Cuellaren en la fanta Yglesia de Segouia (1589). It has the ownership inscription of Thomas Stainton on the title page (below the main title). It is likely, therefore, that some parts of the collection were sold on other dates and at other auction houses.

J. Calvin, La Concordance qu'on appelle harmonie (1558)
[Allard Pierson, Amsterdam]

The collection included diverse types of books: there was a large number of bindings containing manuscripts (such as books of hours), incunabula and other early printed works, often from France or Italy. An example is Calvin's La Concordance qu'on appelle harmonie (1558), no. 56 in the catalogue. It was bought by Maggs, came to the collection of John Roland Abbey, and currently is in the collection of Allard Pierson, Amsterdam. 

There was English literature (Dickens, Conrad), and books on birds, art or history, and several shelves with private press books. 

See Thomas Stainton, a Vale Press Collector (2)

Note, July 2022

Prof Margaret Connolly (University of St Andrews) was kind enough to point out an auction catalogue from 1920: Catalogue of Valuable Printed Books, Illuminated & Other Manuscripts and Books in Fine Bindings, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 26-27 July 1920. On the second auction day, manuscripts and early printed books were auctioned (lot 509-552), 'The Property of E. Stainton, Esq., Parham Court, Canterbury'.