Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Rodmoor

My own edition of this work is quite unremarkable, apart from its fine condition as a first edition, published in New York in 1916 by Powys’s agent, G. Arnold Shaw.

Dante Thomas does not make any reference to a dust jacket, though presumably there was one originally.

Facing the title page, within a black border, is a list of other books by John Cowper Powys and by his younger brother T. F. Powys, published by Powys’s agent G. Arnold Shaw.

Under the copyright notice is the imprint “Vail-Ballou Company Binghampton and New York”.

The dedication opposite on the next page is “to the spirit of Emily Bronte”.

The book was issued on 11th October, 1916 at $1.50

On the back endpaper is a sales label in the form of a perforated stamp. It reads Paul Elder & Co. San Francisco.  At the time of publication Paul Elder & Co. were based at 239 Grant Avenue in San Francisco.

The stamps were affixed to many of the books sold in the shop - and not just Elder’s own publications, but all the other books too.

Various stamp designs were used over the years.



The date of the stamp in my edition (type E) suggests that the book was sold at least four years after the publication date. It bears an image which is a Japanese mitsudomoe design.

The Japanese word tomoe (巴) refers to a comma-shaped symbol. There are hundreds of traditional Japanese tomoe designs. The most common variant is the three-tomoe design called mitsudomoe (三つ巴), which, according to Japanese tradition, creates the harmony of a perfect circle.

Elder first used the mitsudomoe design in 1900, which he anglicised as the word “tomoyé”, and it became a logo of sorts for him. He used it in many books and magazines over the next two decades.

(Information from the paulelder.org website cited 26.10.18)

The book.

John Cowper Powys, Rodmoor, G. Arnold Shaw, New York, 1916.











© John Dunn.

Saturday, May 05, 2018

One Hundred Best Books

This is the first edition from my library, published in New York in 1916 by Powys’s agent, G. Arnold Shaw.

The book was not published in England.

The large bookplate is that of Lloyd Emerson Siberell (1905-1968), collector and first bibliographer of John Cowper Powys.

The small bookplate on the front endpaper is that of F. R. Furber, city lawyer, bibliophile and author of two books on golf, A Course for Heroes A History of The Royal St. George's Golf Club, 1996 and The Moles 1911 - 2011 a Byroad in Golfing History, 2011.

(Obituary, Daily Telegraph, 9th September, 2016.)

About Powys’s approach to this book, Dante Thomas notes that ‘the game of listing the “best” books was a popular one earlier in the century, following Sir John Lubbock’s lead’. Thomas felt no compulsion to add to his comment on Lubbock, who is all but forgotten today. However, Lubbock was an important man, the MP responsible for introducing the Bank Holidays Act (1871), and as principal of the Working Men’s College in London, he gave a speech in 1886 in which he listed 100 books.

It is worth noting that, whilst safe in America from the war that was destroying others of his generation in the trenches of France, Powys spent a lot of time writing away for his friend Shaw’s publishing venture. Apart from One Hundred Best Books, 1916 also saw the publication of Wolf’s Bane Rhymes, Rodmoor, Suspended Judgments and Confessions of Two Brothers (co-authored with Llewellyn Powys).

The advertisements at the back of the book are of interest for listing the non-JCP authors published by Shaw. These were Theodore Francis Powys, Ian Campbell Hannah, I. B. Stoughton Holborn.

The book.

John Cowper Powys, One Hundred Best Books, G. Arnold Shaw, New York, 1916.

















In 1923 One Hundred Best Books was reprinted by E. H. Haldeman-Julius of Girard, Kansas as number 435 of the Little Blue Books. 

Given that Phyllis Playter was a reader for Haldeman-Julius, publishers of the Little Blue Books, and had met JCP only two years before the publication date, it is highly likely that she recommended One Hundred Best Books to Haldeman-Julius for publication.

As a Little Blue Book