Search Results for: bruce rogers

I’m just back from a great week in Charlottesville, VA at Rare Book School.  Founded in 1983 at Columbia University, it moved to UVA in 1992.  Not just for librarians, Rare Book School offers week long classes at UVA during the months of June and July to those interested in all aspects of “rare books”…classes which are taught by experts in their fields.  Initially dealing primarily with books and manuscripts, classes have expanded to include all areas of the history of written, printed, and digital materials.  Students include librarians, dealers in antiquarian books, book collectors, conservators, teachers, and students (professional or avocational).  Classes are small (usually about 12 students) so students really get to know each other and work closely together for the week.  Entry is competitive, so I was excited to be accepted this year to “The History of 19^th and 20^th Century Typography and Printing.”

The course was taught by Katherine Ruffin, Book Arts Program Director at Wellesley College, and John Kristensen, owner of the Firefly Press in Boston.  I was in class with students from Virginia, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Missouri, and Vancouver, BC, including librarians, students, professors, and a member of the RBS staff.  We talked about the evolution of “books,” and “printing,” from clay tablets through letterpress printing to the electronic book, but concentrated on 19^th and 20^th century letterpress printing with handset foundry type, to monotype and linotype machine set type.  We looked at examples of typefaces and printing styles of famous printers and presses from the collections of the Rare Book School and the Special Collections at UVA’s Small Library  We were also able to set type ourselves (harder than it looked!) and print a joint class effort broadside to take home.  On Friday, each class member made a presentation on a particular type face…one of personal interest.

First page of The Centaur

I chose Centaur type, designed by Bruce Rogers.  I have a particular interest in his design since we have a large collection of materials of Bruce Rogers (numbering around 200), given to Davidson by a friend of the typographer, Dr. Harold Marvin, Davidson class of 1914.

Rare Book School is a great professional opportunity for learning, meeting colleagues in the field, and having a great deal of fun!

Parlement of Foules first page

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote Parlement of Foules in around 1381, and it is one of the first references to Valentine’s Day being a special day for lovers.  The text of the poem has been passed down in manuscripts (since Chaucer didn’t have access to a printing press!) and is composed of 699 lines.  It tells of the narrator’s dream of going through a beautiful country where a large flock of birds are debating while three male eagles try to seduce a female bird.  None of the eagles triumphs, and the dream ends with a welcome to the coming spring.  Our copy of Parlement of Foules was printed at the Riverside Press for Houghton Mifflin & Company in 1904 and illustrated by the noted typographer, Bruce Rogers.  Our copy is number 130 of a limited run of 325 copies printed in letter batarde in red and black on handmade paper, and is one of over 20 volumes in our collection from the Riverside Press with type designs by Rogers.  The volume is bound in cream vellum with gilt spine lettering, and is illustrated with large floriated initial letters in blue and gold.

Use of floriated letters

It represents one of Bruce Rogers’ few experiments with a medieval style, and was one of his favorite books.

Our thanks go to Dr. H.M. Marvin, Davidson class of 1914, for giving us this beautiful work.

Last Page

Limited edition information with printer’s mark

One of the most beautiful volumes in our Rare Book Room is The Song of Roland, printed at the Riverside Press for Houghton Mifflin & Company in 1906. It was designed by the noted typographer, Bruce Rogers, and our copy is number 34 of the limited run of 220 copies. Accompanying our copy is the prospectus, sent out by the publisher in Sept. 1906, advertising the publication.

Riverside Press logo

The Song of Roland’ will be the third book in the Riverside Press Editions to be printed on hand presses from type. It is a folio 11 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches in size, and will contain about forty pages. The type is the beautiful French Gothic used in the ‘Parlement of Foules,’ and the present volume is set in double columns with marginal notes in brown and rubricated folios as page headings. The title page is printed in red and black in the early French manner, and bears a new printers’ mark in color. The paper is an American hand-made of pleasant antique tone. The illustrations are an unique feature of the book. They are seven in numbers, and are derived from the window of Charlemagne in the Cathedral at Chartres, noted for the beauty of its 13th century glass. Mr. Rogers visited Chartres especially to study this window, and the treatment of the illustrations is the result of his notes. The compartments of the window picturing events in the Legend of Roland have been carefully drawn and reproduced. The lead lines are printed with the type, and the colors are afterwards filled in by hand in conformity to the color scheme of the window itself. The effect is surprisingly rich and decorative. The arrangement of the illustrations in the page is also worthy of note as they are so disposed as to make them integral parts of the typography. The binding is of antique vellum with paper sides bearing a pattern taken from paintings in the crypt at Chartres. 200 copies will be printed, of which 200 are offered for sale at $25.00, net, each. Sept. 1, 1906.”

Window image

Window image

Window image

Limited edition note

Cover and spine detail

The French epic poem tells the story of Roland and Oliver, Charlemagne and his war with the Saracens, and the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778. Dated between 1040 and 1115, the text has about 4,000 lines of poetry, and is the first example of the chanson de geste, a genre celebrating ledgendary deeds.
Our thanks go to Dr. H.M. Marvin, Davidson class of 1914, for giving us the beautiful work.

The Conjure Woman

The Conjure Woman, by Charles W. Chesnutt. Cambridge: Printed at the Riverside Press, 1899. First edition, large paper edition, limited to 150 numbered copies. Designed by Bruce Rogers. Our copy is number 149. The colophon is inscribed to Dr. H.M. Marvin by Bruce Rogers and reads “This is one of the earliest books I made at Riverside.”

Inscription from Bruce Rogers to Mr. Marvin

Charles Chesnutt was born on June 20, 1858 in Cleveland, Ohio to free African Americans, and moved with his family to Fayetteville, NC in 1866. He worked as a schoolteacher in both Fayetteville and in Charlotte, NC, but moved back to Cleveland in the early 1880s. In August 1887, Chesnutt published “The Goophered Grapevine” in the Atlantic Monthly, the first work by an Afro-American to be published in that important literary magazine. This story was to become the first story in his celebrated work The Conjure Woman, published by Houghton-Mifflin in 1899. The seven short stories of The Conjure Woman were set in “Patesville” NC. Chesnutt drew on his time in Fayetteville using local traditions and dialect, but also creating tales dealing with conjuring, a kind of African hoodoo magic. Framed much like Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus” stories, Chesnutt’s tales use two adults, rather than Harris’ children, as those to whom the tales are told. “Uncle Julius McAdoo” is the story-teller weaving tales including “Po’Sandy, “Mars Jeem’s Nightmare,” and “The Conjurer’s Revenge.” Chesnutt published additional short stories and also three novels until 1905, after which he wrote primarily articles and essays. Known for his work for black political rights, in 1928 he was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP “for his pioneer work as a literary artist, depicting the life and struggle of Americans of Negro descent.”

Conjure Woman title page

Bookseller’s note

The Conjurer’s Revenge

Title page

Most of us heard, and some memorized, the famous Christmas poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, often called ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, when we were children.  First published anonymously on December 23, 1823 in the Troy, NY Sentinel, it was first attributed to its author, Clement Clarke Moore, in 1837, and Moore acknowledged himself as the poet in an 1844 anthology of his poems.  Moore, a professor of Oriental & Greek Literature, and of Bible Learning at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in NYC, had originally written the poem for his children, but had not wanted to be associated with what he considered “unscholarly” verse.  Years after his death, however, he is much better known for being the author of one of our best loved Christmas verses, than for his scholarship.  In fact, much of the general public’s conception of Santa Claus comes from Moore’s poem, including Santa’s little round belly, his red suit, his named reindeer pulling a sleigh, and his delivery of toys to children.

The Rare Book Room is lucky to have a copy of A Visit from St. Nicholas in its Bruce Rogers collection.  The 1921 copy from the Atlantic Monthly Press was designed by Bruce Rogers, with the text from the original 1837 edition, and with colored woodcuts by Florence Wyman Ivins.  Ivins, an American artist, whose works include water color drawings, black and white drawings, and woodcuts, illustrated the experience of childhood.  She was the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (July 15, 1921 – Nov. 19, 1921).

In the words of Santa Claus (through Moore) “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America’s most well-known writers, was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts.  He attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine from 1821-1825, becoming life-long friends with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who would himself become a writer, and with Franklin Pierce, who would become the 14^th president of the United States.    Rejecting the three professions of most graduates (the ministry, medicine, and law), Hawthorne decided that he wanted to be a writer.  He read through hundreds of volumes in the Salem Athenaeum, including many volumes on New England’s Puritan history, and kept journals which provided source material for his later writings, including his best known work, The Scarlet Letter.  He wrote numerous un-acknowledged short stories, but it wasn’t until 1837, when Twice-Told Tales was published, that he became known as a writer.

In 1842, he married Sophia Peabody and moved into the “Old Manse” in Concord, Massachusetts, a house built by one of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ancestors.  The Old Manse became an essay which he published in 1846.

The Old Manse
Signed to the donor, H.M. Marvin, by Bruce Rogers.

The Old Manse.
RBR’s Riverside Press edition. From the Bruce Rogers Collection.

In September 1849, Hawthorne began writing The Scarlet Letter.

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter.
RBR’s 1st edition from the Fugate Collection.

It was published in March of 1850 to brisk sales, and was hailed as a work of genius.  Hawthorne left Salem and moved to Lenox, Massachusetts in the spring of 1850, and soon wrote his second novel, The House of the Seven Gables,  followed by The Snow Image, a collection of short fiction.

Hawthorne’s last completed novel, The Marble Faun, written while he was in England, was published in 1860 and was well received both in Europe and in the United States.   He died on May 19, 1864, and has remained an important figure in the American literary canon.