Pretty Sinister Books

Pandemic boredom led me to amassing about three boxes of books (most of them still not read) and I noticed in reorganizing them and cataloging them that many had some intriguing bookplates.  And here they are for your viewing pleasure...

This woman was married to an optometrist in Ohio. There are various Scudder family trees found on various genealogy sites. But when I stumbled across a medical association book I found online I found out the entire family history of this particular Scudder family. She was born in Iowa in 1870, lived in Chicago and settled in Ohio. Her first husband died in 1900 and apparently she married the guy's younger brother, also a doctor, in 1909 when she was 39.

Over ten years ago I bought several books from this man's library when they were initally offered on eBay.  Apparently many of them are still floating out there among the many used booksellers because I bought this one only a few months ago.

 

One of the many popular bookplates from the famed Antioch Bookplate Company in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  I've seen multiple copies of this bookplate in dozens of books (from obviously various owners) I've either owned or perused over the past twenty years. 

Over the years I've owned several books form Oscar's library also. Quite a reader of mystery and adventure fiction.  This is also a popular bookplate design as I've seen it many time in various books.

I wish I knew who this artist was.  I see the initials LCD at the edge of the book.

This is a mystery to me.  George M.R. Holmes' name appears in a small banner beneath this ornate heraldry symbol, but I'm completely at a loss to understand what was granted by the Queen.


 Another coat of arms, but rather simple compared to the Holmes one.

 

Another unusual handmade bookplate.  Can't remember the name of the book I found it in.  It's hand drawn in ink.  I see initials in the lower corners: H.G.  Haven't a clue what they stand for. For some reason this reminds me of Pennsylvania Dutch or Amish artwork.

I don't have many author signed books as I tend to sell them as quickly as I acquire them, but this one I will be keeping for a very long time. I still remember how I came across it, too. Joe and I were book hunting one weekend, making our way through the western suburbs, and stopped in at a Frugal Muse store in Darien, IL. Next door to the main store they were having a $1 book sale. We found a few old mysteries but also this astounding book signed by the author.

On the back wall stuffed in among a bunch of modern books, there was this copy of The Lost Weekend (1944) by Charles Jackson. It turned out to be a first edition. On the inside there was a bookplate with the author's name and an inscription from the author. All that for $1! How could anyone resist such a find?

The Lost Weekend as many of movie fans know is the basis for a groundbreaking film about the horrors of alcoholism. It starred Ray Milland as the tortured drinker and was nominated for a seven Academy Awards winning Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Director.

It was also Charles Jackson's first novel. The book catapulted him into the forefront of the literati. In his relatively brief writing career from 1944 to 1967 he wrote numerous short stories collected in three volumes and three other novels, one of them the story of a man who falls in love with a young Marine -- The Fall of Valor -- another groundbreaking book about a touchy, if not completely taboo, topic for his era. Jackson never topped the success of his debut novel though.


Dogged research proved the above signature to be authentic. But my scouring of biographies and articles about Jackson's life failed to turn up any clues about exactly who Harry and Elvie were or where they lived. At the time the book was inscribed Jackson was living in New Hampshire after a brief stay in Hollywood while the movie was being made. Books travel as much as people do. Harry and Elvie could have been living anywhere. Interesting that the book appeared to be his own as it also has his bookplate which is starting to lift off of the front endpaper.


Side by side comparison of the author and his bookplate shows a strange similarity.  Was it intentional to make Jackson appear to be Shakespeare? Or am I reading too much into that?

A fairly accurate brief biography of Jackson's life appears on this Wikipedia page.  He had a life just as unhappy and tortured as his fictional protagonists.

First, a little serendipitous trivia. This article -- my 300th post! -- is a review of not only a little known detective novel by an obscure author, but a bibliomystery. Apparently it is the only bibliomystery in the entire genre to deal with bookplates. As you may know from reading my frequent posts as part of the monthly "Left Inside" feature bookplates are something of a fascination with me. To have come across a book this unique that encompasses everything that this blog was meant to be about when I first created it (book collecting, detective fiction, obscure and forgotten books) and to have it serve as a milestone post makes me near ecstatic. And this wasn't even orchestrated by me. It was sheer chance.

Constance Fuller is the narrator and remarkably outspoken protagonist of The Colfax Book-plate (1926), the sole adult mystery novel by Agnes Miller who previously was known for a brief series of unusually literate juvenile mysteries called The Linger-Nots featuring a group of girls from a Dramatics Society who stumble upon puzzling adventures all having to do with historical eras. The third book in that series, The Linger-Nots and Their Golden Quest (1923), interestingly shares a key plot point with The Colfax Book-plate.


Constance has worked her way out of the confines of the stenographers' pool at the busy downtown Manhattan book shop Darrow's to a place that better suits her intelligence and sophistication. She works in the rare book room - specifically a section devoted to prints and engravings. Bookplates make up a sizable portion of this collection. As the story opens Constance is in charge of cataloging a large group of books recently purchased from a judge who lived in Richmond, Virginia. Among those books is a limited edition printing of a book entitled Notes on Medical Statutes in the Virgina Code by W. Clarihew. This particular copy, number 239 of 300, has an unusual pictorial bookplate thought to be the work of Hugh Colfax, a Revolutionary War era engraver whose work primarily has only been seen in England. If the bookplate should prove to be genuine and for it to appear on a copy of an American published book would cause a sensation in the bookplate collecting world and probably the world of bibliophilia at large. The US 1st (and only) edition, by the way, sports a replica of the bookplate exactly as described in the story as a paste-down on the front board.

Click to enlarge. The amazing fine details in this bookplate are integral to the intricacies of the plot.

Peter Burton, who had been sent to the book auction to purchase as many of the judge's books as possible paid $501 for the Clarihew volume only because he fell for a young girl who pleaded that he not let another man get a hold of the book. Constance soon learns no less than six people seem to be after the book and will stop at nothing to get it. It is the bookplate inside that will turn out to be the cause of all the covetous plotting. When a man collapses in the law section of Darrow's from a mysterious hemorrhaging wound just after handling the book and then later dies in hospital the death is deemed a possible murder. All the bookstore employees fall under suspicion. A criminal investigation is launched to uncover the weapon which apparently vanished from the store, the identity of the man who died, the identity of the young girl who fainted and pleaded with Peter to "Keep it for me," and whether or not the death was in fact a deliberate murder. All the while Constance has her catalog she needs to finish before an impending printers' strike explodes and the store is left without any publicity prior to the mad Christmas holiday shopping days. Yet even with the deadline looming over her head she cannot stop herself from doing a bit of independent detective work. She is compelled to solve the mystery of the bookplate and why it seems to be so prized among the many people who have been pursuing it and the Clarihew law book.

Constance makes for a sharp witted and sharper tongued narrator with little tolerance for flighty shop girls, her former harridan of a supervisor Miss Wilkes, or the manipulations of damsels in apparent distress. She's also a bit of a snob. There is a very funny scene in which she disparages the "fad" of crossword puzzles which has so hypnotized two of the other women characters. As an employee she is a mental match for her Scottish boss, Mr. Roberts the manager of the store who alternately applauds and insults her for being too intelligent. It is mainly due to her presence that The Colfax Book-plate is such a fast moving, absorbing read.

Miller has more than a few surprises in store. Like the maze-like aisles of Darrow's Constance finds herself travelling deeper into a circuitous world of deception, thievery and betrayal. The Clarihew volume and the bookplate itself will reveal multiple layers of secrets. And that's a literal image not a figurative one. The climax of the book provides for several eyebrow raising surprises, and a few that made me laugh, in a book already brimming with twists and sudden reveals.

While Miller's writing style suffers from a heavy Victorian syntax overloaded with descriptive clauses and asides set off by commas, the story is still engaging and uncommonly modern for a book published in the late 1920s. She endows Constance with a very modern sensibility that foreshadows the feminist heroines who populate the mysteries and Gothic Romances of the 1970s. In fact, all of her female characters seem to be stronger than the men. Though Miller has a policeman detective, Benjamin Almy (his rank is never mentioned), among her cast he does most of his detective work offstage. It is Constance, Nancy Burton (Peter's sassy garrulous sister) and a seemingly dumb blond shop girl named Daisy Abbott who all do clever girl sleuthing on their own offering up sections of the complex solution at key points in the tale.

The UK edition (Benn, 1927) No bookplate, though

One person who cannot be overlooked in the supporting cast is the under-appreciated Ulysses S. G. Jackson, Darrow's superstitious janitor. He may speak with one of those phonetic drawls so often found among black characters in books of this era, but he will prove to be one of the most knowledgeable and honorable offstage detectives in the entire book. Like Peter who withholds a bit of information in order to protect Julia, the fainting woman, Ulysses too has some personal knowledge he keeps to himself for the entire length of the story only divulging it at the 11th hour when he is sure the person he is protecting is in the clear.

And now the bad news. (Oh yes, you knew it was coming.) Agnes Miller's finely constructed novel is yet another of those scarce detective books. My catalog notes tell me I bought mine back in 2005 from a well known, reputable mystery novel dealer for $30. Now the mere dozen copies offered for sale range from $18 for an ex-library copy to $135 for a book that sounds from its description to be in comparable condition to my own copy with its discolored and spotty boards. Perhaps if you're lucky you may stumble across a cheap copy or one in your local library. It was published originally in the US by Century Company and one year later in the UK by Ernest Benn so there is equal opportunity of finding one on both sides of the Atlantic.

Two custom bookplates I found in two books I was preparing to sell.


Found inside a copy of Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth. The text reads: "Black is the raven/Black is the rook/But Blacker the child/Who steals this book."  Now there's a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.  I think I'd substitute child for person to make it an all-encompassing warning for book thieves.



Found inside a copy of My Own Murderer (Julian Messner, 1940) by Richard Hull.  A genie bookplate!  I don't see many of those.

Here's a collection of custom bookplates.

The only person I was successful in discovering anything about was the man at left. Mr. Ryan attended University of Illinois at Chicago during the 1930s where he studied business and accounting. I know nothing about anyone else whose names appear on these bookplates.

Neil McKnight seems to have a vague ring about it.  It's possible he may be either a collector of note or someone in the book trade - a critic or bibliographer perhaps.  A Google search, however, turned up zippo on him.

I've seen the Neil McKnight bookplate several times and they tend to turn up in science fiction and supernatural books.  I can't remember which book this fell out of.

I bought a book at the Printer's Book Fair earlier this year solely for the book plate firmly glued to the front endpaper.  It announces that the book comes from the library of George Johnstone, an American magician who died in 2004.


Apart from some amusing anecdotes from fellow magicians on several on-line magician forums I could only discover that Johnstone was an avid book collector, appeared on Ed Sullivan, was the opening act for the 1956 Elvis tour, and he started out as an assistant for Blackstone back in the 1930s.


Click on the image to enlarge and you will be able to read all of the book titles.  Each one is a real book considered a classic in the magic world.  I assume that the GJ on the right hand side above the bookend are George Johnstone's initials and that he himself designed the bookplate.


The book came from the huge collection of magic books, magic tricks, stage illusionist posters and ephemera belonging to Chicago magician, ventriloquist and puppeteer Jay Marshall who died in 2005.  I knew Jay for exactly one year and visited his house once when I was a puppeteer with a company called Hystopolis Productions back in the late 1990s.  He was approaching his seventies at the time, but was still a good spirited, very funny man with a devilish sense of humor.  He still did a few tricks at summer parties and enjoyed doing his very adult puppet show for friends only.  I only wish I got to know him better than the few hours I spent in his backyard for that one summer party.

It was sheer luck that I found the book pictured below at the book fair this year.  The dealer was the one who told me she thinks it came from Marshall.  The finest and rarest objects, posters and books from his staggering collection were auctioned off over a three year period between 2007 and 2009 in Illinois and Kentucky at three magic collector annual conventions and a private auction house. You can still view the "Part 3" auction catalog here. (Remember the auction ended over two years ago. Don't get too excited looking.)  It's stunningly impressive, if you are a magic geek like me, filled with rare posters, rarer autographs, vintage magic tricks, and very scarce magic books.

Apparently some of the lesser quality books were still in Jay Marshall's world renowned store Magic Inc, a few years after Jay's death in 2005.  This was one of them.  Strangely, the book has nothing to do with magic.  Ladies of the Underworld, as the title suggests, is a non-fiction account of women criminals.  The subtitle is "The Beautiful, the Damned, and Those Who Get Away With It."  There are twenty-six chapters each devoted to a specific woman or a type of female criminal.  Included are such intriguing chapters as "Vera, the High Flyer and the Shooting of Prince Fahmy," "The Cobra Woman, The Parisian Queen of Crime," "Aysah, The Malayan Hell Woman," and other chapters on female spies, forgers, mafia women and one about women living as men.  I haven't read any of the book yet, but just typing all that has made me want to read at least a few select chapters.

A variety of bookplates today.  The one with Tim Waters' name came from a Sax Rohmer book I got in a large lot of Rohmer books at a Missouri book auction many years ago.  Each book had his name written inside.  This plate was loosely affixed inside a Fu Manchu book and fell out over time.

As for the one in the middle:  I wonder why anyone would bother putting a bookplate in a book without bothering to fill in the blank where a name goes. Defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

Here's a small bookplate that fell out of a book.  Don't remember which one.  Surprise.

Here's another unusual bookplate that was lightly glued inside one of my books.  I removed it and placed it in my ephemera collection several years ago.  My pencilled note (barely visible in the upper left corner) says it came from an R. Austin Freeman book about Dr. Thorndyke.  Can't remember the exact title. Strangely, though, I do remember that I bought that book in an Evanston (northern suburb of Chicago) used bookstore.


The author/owner was a local man here, apparently a noted collector of mystery and crime fiction.  He was also involved in the mystery book convention scene back in the 1970s.  Through the miracle of Internet search engines I  discovered he was one of the organizers for Bouchercon when it was twice held Chicago.  Have no idea if still lives in Chicago or Evanston or indeed if he is still alive.

I recognize all the characters mentioned in the verse, but shamefully had to Google the name Schlessinger.  I don't know my Holmes as well as I should.

One of the interesting sideline hobbies that arose from my obsessive and never ending book collecting is my interest in bookplates.  I started researching the artists, the companies that produced them and sometimes the name on the bookplate itself. In addition to bookplates I have started an odd ephemera collection that consists of items used as unusual bookmarks or were just left in a book and forgotten.  That collection so far includes receipts, bus transfers, postcards, theater tickets, photos, a 1954 car registration, a cruise ship menu, and even a photostat of someone's Social Security card.

This is the beginning of a monthly look at those items.  I'm starting with perhaps the most "famous" item - the bookplate of prominent detective fiction collector E. T. (Ned) Guymon.  For more about Mr. Guymon's collection And his place in the world of detective fiction bibliomania you can visit Bowling Green State University's Browne Library of Popular Culture by clicking here.


Several years ago when I was reshelving this bookplate fell out of one of my many mystery novels. Only recently have I started making notes on what book the various objects came in.  Unfortunately, this one comes from a time when I wasn't making those notes. I pride myself on an excellent memory, but try as I might I just don't know what book this was in.

I did a Google search on "Ned Guymon bookplate" to see just who he was and, strangely, the first hit I got was a photo of a Ph.D. candidate with a tattoo based on this bookplate. I don't understand why someone would want this permanently inked into their skin. But hell I don't understand the fascination with tattoos these days anyway.