The Book Block :: Fine and Rare Books
NY Antiquarian Book Fair :: April 20 - 23, 2006

Six ll. (10 x 7 inches), printed in color lithography on one side and in black and white on the verso. Each page has two punched holes for stringing; the holes are perfect. March/April has a bit of staining in the top left corner, otherwise the set is very fine. Each page serves two months with a different illustration.This calendar is one of five, beginning in 1897 and ending in 1901, with entirely different illustrations for each year by Dr. Louis Crusius, who died in 1898 but left watercolors for calendars through 1901 (although the last was a reduced version consisting of just four leaves). The calendars were provided by the Antikamnia Co. as a Christmas promotional gift to doctors, and were revolutionary in medical advertising. Antikamnia Calendars (when they are found at all!), are usually offered incomplete or in poor condition, with considerable fading and almost always with the punched holes at the top torn. They were, after all, ephemeral and most of them were simply used up. This is an excellent specimen, rarely seen thus.

8vo. (9 x 6 inches), bound in woven silk in an all over pattern of flower heads and leaves of alternating colors: red-pink and gold-yellow. Original wrappers bound in. Absolutely fine.One of only 250 copies signed by the author and the publisher, it was issued in 46 separate fascicles in decorative wrappers. Each specimen was meticulously printed in a wide range of papers, in a variety of type faces with and even larger variety of ink colors, with ornamental borders and elaborate decoration, occasionally heightened with gold and silver. Tipped into many of the fascicles are engravings, silhouettes, programs, menus, paper specimens from Europe and the Far East, and other reproductions.The bound fascicles make for a most unusual and attractive book, divided by subject: Paper, Ink, Color, as they apply to the books of tomorrow. At the back is a Table Par Ordre de Matieres pour servir au classement des fascicules, which indicates the various designs in the text and identifies the paper on which each has been printed. For a detailed collation, see: VicaireIV, p. 1154. We located just two copies in OCLC First Search. A scarce and important item for any collection of the history of printing, paper and graphic design.

Two hand colored engravings (image size 3 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches), each cut into 15 narrow horizontal strips and reassembled within an outer frame (covered in marbled paper) with a tab at the bottom, which when pulled/pushed reveals one of two of the images. The first is that of Molly Brown, dressed in simple working class urban clothes, including a white bonnet with a blue ribbon. She is shown in profile, mouth agape, eyes wide open, hands expressing astonishment. The other image is that of Giles Scroggins, a grinning (comical?) skeleton holding up a pair of shears in his right hand, the left hand is also held out but is empty. The transformation is achieved by operating the tab at the bottom, which moves the individual slats in unison covering (or revealing) one or the other image.We have been unable to discover any information about this transformation after having contacted many of the leading institutional libraries in England and the United States.

8vo. (8 ¼ x 5 ¾ inches). Tan linen over blue paper covered boards with title in black lettering on top board. Printed in red and black with floral initial letters in the Arts & Crafts style helped made popular by William Morris via his Kelmscott Press and his many other artistic endeavors. The “spread” consisting of the title page and facing frontis that was viewed by Morris as an extremely important design element of the book also is in an elaborate Arts & Crafts style featuring floral decoration and a black and white woodcut. Bookplate of Parke E. Simmons, noted bibliophile whose books were dispersed in 1937 at a sale called “The Splendid Library of the Late Parke E. Simmons.” Bookplate on front pastedown of Harry Buxton Forman who was an acclaimed authority on Browning, Shelley and Keats. Unfortunately, Forman later teamed with Thomas J. Wise to create and sell forgeries that rocked the antiquarian book world when unmasked through the use of modern technologies in the early 1930’s. A wonderful association copy in near fine condition.

8vo. (8 ¼ x 5 ¾ inches). Tan linen over blue paper covered boards with title in black lettering on top board. Printed in red and black with occasional elaborate initial letters in the Arts & Crafts style helped made popular by William Morris via his Kelmscott Press and his many other artistic endeavors. The “spread” consisting of the title page and facing frontis that was viewed by Morris as an extremely important design element of the book also is in an elaborate Arts & Crafts style featuring floral decoration and a Morris engraving of a Burne-Jones drawing. Front pastedown with bookplate, engraved by Emery Walker, the fine printer who worked with Morris at the Kelmscott Press before co-founding the Doves Press with Cobden-Sanderson, of John A. Spoor, famous Chicago industrialist whose collection was sold by Parke-Bernet in 1939 in the acclaimed sale of “The Renowned Library of the Late John A. Spoor.” A wonderful association copy in near fine condition.

First edition of this landmark book, famous for its art nouveau front board whose pattern is repeated on the ". . .title page that is generally regarded as the first manifestation of Art Nouveau." Rheims, Flowering of art nouveau, no. 519. Tall 8vo., publisher's decorated boards over parchment spine with the title lettered in black. De-accessioned by an unappreciative library where it acquired the following symbols of prior ownership: a giant rubber stamp on the otherwise blank front free end leaf, a few small blind embossings, one on the frontispiece and one on the title, which also has the word "discard" discretely stamped in the margin, dampstain on back flyleaf and facing end paper, and inked number partially removed from spine. Scarce.