Association copies

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Association copies

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1DCBlack
Sept. 23, 2016, 4:05 pm

I occasionally pick up a used copy of a Cabell book on abebooks, and find that it has an interesting bookplate or owners signature on the paste-down. When I find such, I google the name to see if they are notable in some way.

For example, a few years ago I picked up a copy of "Domnei" on abe, and when it arrived I found that it contained the bookplate of Robey Macauley. I googled the name to find that he had an extensive literary career as an author, editor, and critic. For a time in the late 60's, he was the fiction editor for Playboy magazine, and later became a senior editor at Houghton Mifflin.

I'd be interested to hear about what associations others have found in the course of collecting JBC.

2elenchus
Sept. 23, 2016, 4:29 pm

I will make an effort to look through my copies this weekend.

3Crypto-Willobie
Sept. 23, 2016, 5:49 pm

I'll have to do a trawl through my LT catalogue but one such is a copy of the 1925 Frank C Pape-illustrated edition of Figures of Earth with the bookplate of Academy Award-winning Hollywood wardrobe designer Edith Head...

4paradoxosalpha
Bearbeitet: Sept. 23, 2016, 7:58 pm

I only have two Cabell books unboxed at the moment: The Music from Behind the Moon and Special Delivery. Neither seems to have any interesting provenance. But when I get to the box of Cabell, I'll check while I shelve it.

5elenchus
Sept. 23, 2016, 8:22 pm

>3 Crypto-Willobie:
Edith Head! Very appropriate, even if I can't argue precisely how.

Apart from the 3 Cabell titles from my Grandfather (he without a rivet in his neck but a bullet lodged near his spine), two books had plates and/or signatures. None appeared to be anyone of renown, as per a quick Google:

John Mark Lacey
Edward Benchlay (?)
J Brent Abells (?)

But it was fun looking.

7elenchus
Sept. 24, 2016, 8:25 am

>6 DCBlack:

I saw that one, and it could be him, but the "a" in Benchlay is pretty clear in the signature.

8Crypto-Willobie
Bearbeitet: Sept. 24, 2016, 10:04 am

I have too many Cabell volumes, so there's a lot to choose from. I've excluded ones I bought specifically for the association, such as James Blish's copy of Preface to the Past, or Paul Jordan-Smith's Cream of the Jest, and have listed only some of the 'accidentals'.

- Silver Stallion, Ballantine paperback, sticker on the front reading "Permanent Editorial Library Copy. DO NOT REMOVE" and laid in is a card reading "From the Library of Ian and Betty Ballantine"

- Jesting Moses by Arvin Wells (1962 book of Cabell criticism)
Inscribed: "For Paul and Siggy -- Arvin, Athens, 1963"
The name Kendall is printed in red pencil at top right of ffep. It seems highly likely that 'Paul' is Paul Murray Kendall, Distinguished Professor of English at Ohio U. in Athens where Wells was teaching at this time, and not unlikely that 'Siggy' is Kendall's wife Carol Seeger Kendall, author of The Gammage Cup.

- As I Remember It - Signature of Harold D Kaiser, the hard-boiled mystery writer.

- The King was in his Counting House - with what seems to be a signature reading "E. E. Stoll" -- probably the Shakespearean critic Elmer Edgar Stoll (1874-1959). Possibly the publicity comparing this book to Jacobean tragedy drew him to it.

- Smith - on ffep: James B Meriwether April 1959 Austin. Meriwether, 1928-2007, was a noted Faulkner scholar.

- The Way of Ecben - Signature of Julia E Rockefeller ob.1978, a female Marine Corps Major

- Gallantry - Owner stamp of Stanleigh Plomish, who may be the Canadian businessman who claimed to be from the planet Venus.

- Cream of the Jest - bookplate of Mildred Willis Harris, Alabaman author of the one-act play "Troupin' in the Sticks".

- Figures of Earth, illus ed. - signature of Jean Bullitt Lowry (ob.1943), Kentucky creosote heiress, formerly of the Arts Dept at U of Kentucky, wife of NY TImes war correspondent Harold Denny.(ob.1945) who was held in a German prison camp for 7 months during WWII; and who wrote the book Dollars for Bullets, an early examination of US interventionist policy in Latin America. They married in Moscow in 1936. Her sister Helen Bullitt Lowry was a New York journalist known for her racy article The Uninhibited Flapper.

- From the Hidden Way - signature of Henry James collector and scholar Donald G. Brien.

- Cream of the Jest - inscribed "Charles J. Connick, Sept. 27th 1923, On condition that he let me read it, Orin" Charles Connick (1875-1945) was a leading American stained-glass designer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Connick . Orin E. Skinner (1892-1989) was Stained Glass Artist and Master Craftsman of the Connick Studio.

- Jurgen and the Law - From the library of bibliographer (of hymns) and collector (of 'Uranian' poetry) Herbert Boyce Satcher, with his signature on the ffep and his small ex libris sticker at the bottom of the front pastedown. His copy of The Silver Stallion, with many review clippings pasted in, is also in my library. See also http://www.librarything.com/topic/184147#4951162

- Figures of Earth - signature of Stephen Michaluk, co-author of the Jules Verne Encyclopedia

- The Line of Love - signature: "Alexander Campbell, Avons Old Farms, 1929" Alexander Sloan Campbell, born in 1902, Harvard 1927, taught English at Avon Old Farms Preparatory School, and elsewhere. He was the husband of Ishbel (MacLeish) Campbell, sister of the American poet and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish.

- Jurgen - bookplate of William H Sahud (1899-1991) who published the early Modernist journal "The Wave: a journal of arts and letters" from 1922 to 1924.

9DCBlack
Sept. 24, 2016, 11:54 am

A couple more from looking through my collection:

The Devil's Own Dear Son - Bookplate "From the library of Charles Willard Stage Jr.". Charles was the son of a prominent Cleveland lawyer. He was also apparently a collector of JBC, as I have seen several abe listings for other books by Cabell that mention his bookplate.

Domnei illustrated edition - ownership signature of Linn L. Phelan dated Detroit 1936. Linn was a ceramic artist and teacher in New York.

10Crypto-Willobie
Bearbeitet: Sept. 24, 2016, 4:20 pm

>9 DCBlack:

Hey DCB, we should start the Charles Willard Stage Society -- I have three of his Cabell books -- Hamlet Had an Uncle, King was in his Counting House, and the 1909 first British edition of Cords of Vanity...

ETA -- I just looked at the other Stage Cabells listed on ABE. The Hamlet is the actual copy I have but I didn't pay that price for it. I negotiated a good discount with the dealer, andI guess she hasn't updated her listings yet. And the very expensive King Was In that's still for sale is a different edition than mine of the same title from Stage's library. But that dealer has it listed for about twice what its worth...

11elenchus
Sept. 24, 2016, 2:20 pm

CW Stage Legacy Library, right here on LT.

12DCBlack
Sept. 24, 2016, 11:20 pm

>10 Crypto-Willobie:

Ha...that is an interesting collection within a collection, Books written by JBC from the library of CWS.

13absurdeist
Sept. 26, 2016, 2:42 pm

Love this thread! Unfortunately, I could not find a single bookplate or owner's signature. But I can offer something, albeit not strictly on topic . . . There are two tiny stickers on the end papers of my 1919 Modern Library ed. of Beyond Life:

CORY BOOK & CARD SHOP
Olive 9264
Arcade Bldg. St. Louis

~~~

KRAFT
Book & Card Shop
529 Arcade Bldg.
St. Louis, Mo.

14rainlights
Bearbeitet: Sept. 26, 2016, 5:48 pm

My illustrated Silver Stallion once was a present "to Jon from Mary -- August 1929". She quotes: "But if life should become an endless clear May afternoon we could not endure it (p. 87)".

I wonder if Jon was happy about that message.

Another of my illustrated editions came with a torn snippet that said "Christmas Greetings, Bill and Gladys (?)".

Seems Cabell's books were popular gifts back in the day.

15paradoxosalpha
Bearbeitet: Sept. 26, 2016, 8:29 pm

Just recalled: I did once give my Other Reader a copy of Something about Eve which was from the library of Tevis Clyde Smith, a high school pal, literary collaborator, and later biographer of Robert E. Howard.

16vaniamk13
Bearbeitet: Sept. 28, 2016, 8:03 pm

Because of this thread I checked my few Cabell books and found that my 1921 Bodley Head, Pape illustrated, copy of Jurgen has C.W.C (Charles William Case) Deering's "Egyptian hieroglyphs-1001 nights fantasy-Ancient Greek ship?" themed bookplate.

A quick internet and Wikipedia search identifies Deering as the son of American business magnate and art collector/patron Charles Deering, and as the maternal grandson of Mexican-American and Civil War hero Augustus Ludlow Case. Deering died aged 48 when the aircraft he was piloting crashed near San Francisco in 1924.

My copy of Figures of Earth simply has "Allison August 1927" inscribed.