​The 21st century has been referred to as “the Chinese century”, a reflection of Beijing’s increasing political, economic, and cultural influence.

China’s rising prominence is making waves in the antiquarian book world, as more people become interested in collecting works which can speak to China’s fascinating and complex history. Where once the rare book trade focused on a select group of famous antiquarian titles, dealers are now offering collectors access to an extraordinary range of materials.

The market has taken off in the past two decades both in China and worldwide with some astonishing results. In 2020, two surviving manuscript volumes of the famous 15th-century Yongle Encyclopaedia achieved 1,000 times their estimate at auction in France. Later the same year, the diaries of the renowned intellectual Hu Shih, written while he was studying abroad in America in the 1920s, fetched $20.9 million at auction in Beijing, the most expensive hammer price for a set of journals ever recorded.

A Golden Age of Travel

The possibilities for collectors divide into two overlapping fields: books published about China and books published in Chinese.

While traditional entry points into collecting Chinese rare books range from interest in long-established core works such as the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1687), the book which first introduced Europeans to Confucianism, and early encounter narratives and embassy accounts, dealers sourcing and creating a market for previously uncatalogued niche books have opened up fascinating opportunities for collectors of more unusual and nuanced subject-matter.

Of the many genres now being explored by collectors, China’s popularity today as a tourist destination is translating into increased interest in tourist guides from the Golden Age of travel.

The opening up of the treaty ports, combined with improved long-distance transportation, eventually put cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong within reach of the wealthy from the West. These cities were mysterious and enticing, even to the most experienced global wanderer.

Serving the Independent and Intellectual Adventurer

To cater to these adventurers, between 1870 and 1930 there appeared a plethora of guidebooks and other remarkable tourist literature. For foreign travellers, these were both indispensable sources of information, to be kept on one’s person at all times, and treasured souvenirs of their journeys. For today’s collectors interested in the history of travel and East Asia, they are highly prized for their detailed maps and plans, as well as photographs and distinctive period adverts.

The origins of these tourist guidebooks can be found in the narratives written by early travellers to China which enthralled curious European audiences and exoticized China in the Western imagination. The most famous example is Gonzales de Mendoza’s La Historia de las Cosas más Notables, Ritos y Costumbres del Gran Reyno de China, published in 1585 and translated into English in 1588, which galvanized others to travel eastwards for centuries to come. It also containing the first Chinese characters ever printed in a European book.

Later works such as George Staunton’s account of the first official British embassy to China, first published at the close of the 18th century, were frequently embellished with views, plans, and maps to create compelling reading experiences for Western audiences.

Early guidebooks from the second half of the 19th century – now some of the rarest on the market – were straightforward affairs, catering to an audience imagined to be sophisticated and intellectually astute.

For example, the second edition of Frank Warrington Eastlake’s A Guide to Hongkong with a Short Account of Canton & Macao, published around 1890, offers discussion of flora and fauna, geology, dialects, and slang. Discussing the wildlife of the colony, Eastlake thought it appropriate to offer information on migration patterns and an exhaustive list of observable butterfly species. Absent are the maps and illustrations which became a feature of travel guides – for Eastlake, the discerning visitor did not need such niceties because travel was a form of intellectual nourishment: “thus travel becomes a means of knowledge and an incontestably superior method of instruction and improvement” (p. i). Elite anxieties about ending up in a bad part of town abound, with visitors advised that “there are not many Chinese restaurants of any great respectability in Victoria, the ‘Hung Fa Low’ being the only one patronised by visitors of the better class” (p. 23).

Unlike the cheap pamphlets found in the typical lobby today, Golden Age hotels provided visitors with guidebooks to help them make the most of their time in bustling destinations such as Beijing and Shanghai. One of the earliest known guidebooks to Shanghai is that provided by guests at the city’s famous Hotel Metropole which demonstrates the emergence of the familiar Golden Age guidebook form: period adverts for shops and services of interest to visitors, a large folding map of the location, and a warm, courteous tone. The guide presents the Metropole as a safe haven for Europeans who might venture out into the unknown in the day but yearn for an escape “from the bustle and din of the City, and more particularly from the weirdly unpleasant noises and antique odours” (p. 17). It advertises the services of a resident barber, a bar stocked with champagne, beer, and cocktails, 75 bedrooms, and livery stables.

Collectors prize travel guides for the light they shed on the concerns of visitors, and this guide suggests that, for early 20th-century visitors to Shanghai, obtaining clean water was a major preoccupation. Besides advertisements for such businesses as the Shanghai Horse Bazaar, Robinson Pianos, and the Italian goods importer F. Venturi, it devotes significant space to promoting assorted brands of bottled water – “Tansan natural tonic table water – you all want it!” – to help visitors survive the notoriously hot Shanghai summer.

Above all other forms of transport, railways opened up the world to Golden Age travelers, and attractive pamphlets and small booklets were on hand at stations and major hotels. This particular copy of Imperial Railways of North China: Peking-Mukden Line, a guide to the first Chinese railway enterprise, was used by a foreign tourist adventuring across China at the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. Its array of information on fares, baggage allowances, on board facilities, timetables, and connections allows us to piece together the complex infrastructure which facilitated elite travel. By now, illustrations and a map are almost an obligatory presence, with the large number of in-text visuals showcasing tourist hotspots such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and the summer resort at Shanhaiguan, all accessible along the railway route. Guides made great souvenirs for those back home and examples with inscriptions are especially desirable. This copy is pleasingly inscribed on the inside front cover, “10 June 1912. Here I am at Leichuang railway station – a very little place. Nothing doing but I have a roof over my head. Please forward to E. Love WSB”.

The now-fare first edition of Emil Sigmund Fischer’s Guide to Peking and its Environs (1909) is an outstanding example of the visual appeal of Golden Age tourist guides. In addition to its 31 plates, it contains no less than three detailed maps and plans of Beijing and its surroundings. Fischer took the idea of the fold-out map to a new level. The city is represented to a granular level, with dozens of places of interest – not just the most popular sights – identified in both English and Chinese. The fold-out plan of the city’s famous Legation Quarter is equally impressive, and also demonstrates the complex network of businesses that sprung up in major Chinese cities in the late 19th century to provide foreign visitors with every conceivable comfort. Like other examples in the genre, Guide to Peking and its Environs is full of the kind of pointed observation that still make for charming reading today: “it is hoped that when visiting tombs and places of interest in and about Peking, or in China generally, visitors will refrain from writing or in any way defacing the buildings and other places of interest” (p. 8).

Written by Dr Matthew Wills, Asia Specialist

In January 1788, after an eight-month voyage from Plymouth, England, a fleet of ships reached Botany Bay, on the east coast of New South Wales. The flotilla of two Royal Navy ships, six convict transports, and three store ships eventually found safe harbour at Port Jackson, some twelve miles to the north.

Their task was to conduct an unprecedented experiment in both penal and colonial history. They were there to establish a new community using convict labour, the first step in Britain’s colonization of Australia.

Since the seventeenth century, the Admiralty had been keen to publish accurate records of all important naval expeditions. The impressive quarto and atlas volumes recording Captain Cook’s three voyages round the world offered one model for publications that give us the first sights of Australia through European eyes. They combine the habits of accuracy cultivated by hydrographers and keepers of naval logbooks with more personal observations, as well as illustrations by artists taken along to record events.

The First Fleet generated six major accounts published within a decade. These mean that Australians, uniquely, have detailed written records of the history of their nation from the first day of settlement. Scholars regard these six books as the founding accounts of any collection of Australiana.

Captain Watkin Tench entered the marine corps in 1776 and fought in the American War of Independence. Hearing of the proposed settlement in New South Wales, he volunteered for a tour of service and sailed aboard the Charlotte. His first book, A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay (1789) is the earliest authentic account of the colony. An octavo volume without illustrations, it lacks the heft of the Cook model, but Tench captures the rush of events in an eminently readable style. It was an immediate success and went through three editions in the year. The first edition is the rarest of the First Fleet journals.

Tench’s account competed in the London bookshops with An Authentic Journal of the Expedition under Commodore Phillips to Botany Bay (1789), attributed to “an Officer”, a journalistic compilation of various materials, much of it originally printed in the London Chronicle newspaper. Another relatively inexpensive octavo, it lacks authority by comparison with Tench’s authentic, coherent, and detailed account, though it was probably published two days earlier, winning the race to be the first book on the settlement in New South Wales.

The surgeon general to the new colony was John White. His account was published as Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales (1790), a handsome quarto with an engraved title page and 65 fine engraved plates, most made in England from specimens sent back by White. The flora and fauna depicted in the plates are described on the engraved title as “nondescript”, meaning not that they were unremarkable, but that they had never been described.

The journal of Governor Phillip’s successor, Captain John Hunter, was published as An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1793), another large quarto, with an attractive engraved title page and sixteen plates and maps, including a frontispiece portrait of Hunter. The book is found in two forms: the standard issue on thick laid paper, the special issue on superfine wove paper of the same size.

Watkin Tench’s second book, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, was published in the same year as Hunter’s Journal. It is a grander production than his first, in quarto format, with a folding map giving details of the early expeditions of discovery to the south and to the west, some of which Tench himself had led.

The last of the six First Fleet journals is the most detailed. Like Tench, David Collins had seen action in the American War of Independence. He travelled with the First Fleet as deputy Judge Advocate of the marine detachment and of the colony. When the Second Fleet arrived with instructions that the marine detachment should return to England or join the New South Wales Corps, he stayed out of loyalty to Governor Phillip, not departing New South Wales until 1796. His first chronicle of events in the new colony was published as An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (1798), another quarto in the classic Admiralty manner, with two charts, eighteen plates, and four in-text engravings.

These six books are the foundation of Australiana, though there are many contemporary pamphlets, periodicals, and pirated accounts from the period that collectors also seek out. Anyone on that quest is well-advised to arm themselves with a copy of Jonathan Wantrup’s Australian Rare Books (2nd ed., 2 vols, Australian Book Auctions), the most thorough book on the subject and a delight to read.

Can you tell us a little about your journey into the rare book trade and how your responsibilities have evolved over time?

Around twenty years ago I had recently graduated, and took what I suppose would now be called a ‘zero hours contract’ at the (in)famous second-hand bookshop, Notting Hill Book & Comic Exchange (MVE).

There I found myself surrounded by the most incredible mix of artists, writers, intellectuals, scholars, dropouts and eccentrics, all of whom were deeply passionate in their varied interests and fields, and it was there I realised that the world of books was for me.

I wasn’t at MVE long, but it taught me the beginnings of what makes a book more interesting than just the words on the page and, perhaps more importantly, introduced me to a fascinating group of collectors, experts and the odd book dealer.

At the time I had a friend working at the rare book dealer consortium Biblion in Gray’s Antique Market. Biblion acting as a London ‘shop front’ for many book dealers throughout the UK, renting cabinet space and exhibiting a rotating stock in a central London location. I started working there doing, what I came to understand was the role of everyone entering the trade, everything that needed doing!

It was invaluable experience, I learnt the running of a small shop, was able to handle, and sell, rare books that I had only heard of at that point (and many I hadn’t!) and was exposed to huge swathes of the rare book trade, from some of the best dealers to some of the world’s largest collectors. When the longstanding manager Stephen Poole left to open his own shop, I took over as shop manager and spent the next few years immersing myself further in the complex and fascinating world of rare books.

When the time came to leave Biblion I packed up my bags and moved one street down to Simon Finch and Oliver Wood’s Brook Street shop. Simon was the first to show me what the rare book world looked like at the very top end, the books were exceptional, the clients were world renowned, and the lengths one had to go to to get both were enormous. At Simon’s I experienced the extraordinary ingenuity, bravery, passion and knowledge required to work with the rarest books and the best collectors.

For where I moved next, I am forever grateful to the esteemed rare book dealer, and wonderful human, Paul Foster who, 14 years ago, advised me to approach Pom Harrington to work for him at Peter Harrington. We were 12 people when I joined in 2010 and I feel extremely privileged to have witnessed the company grow over that time and to have handled some jaw-droppingly exceptional books along the way!

After being at Peter Harrington for over a decade you must have some memorable moments to share. Can you recall any that are particularly fond? 

Too many to mention! But the opening of our Dover Street shop will always be a very fond memory. The opening party saw many friends, dealers, collectors and colleagues all celebrating together in the freshly painted, decorated and stocked shop. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the air, we felt welcomed by the trade around us, several of whom had sent flowers and plants to welcome us, and there was the feeling of not only a new exciting venture for Peter Harrington but also an important signal of the vitality of a psychical shop in the face of what many saw as the threat of the online market place.

This year marks 10 years since the opening of our Dover Street bookshop. After experiencing its fledgling beginnings, do you look back and think that a lot has been achieved over the years?

The promise of that opening night was wonderfully realised in the years that followed. Of course, opening a rare book shop in Mayfair at a time when the high street was reportedly on death’s door was a risk, but Dover Street quickly become a stop on the central London rare book shop circuit and a convenient location for our overseas clients to visit us when in London. The friendly, family atmosphere so familiar to all our regulars at the Fulham Road shop was vividly apparent in Dover Street from the very beginning and, as our ‘Dover Street regulars’ grew, that feeling of family went grew with them. As the manager in those early years and now as a regular feature on our cosy back table I’m immensely proud to have been a part of that.

If you can narrow it down, is there a book on our shelves at the moment that you’d most like to keep for yourself? 

I insist to anyone who will listen that ‘I am not a collector’, although my groaning bookshelves may suggest otherwise! But, if a caretaker were required, I would loving care for our complete collection of View magazine. A stunning primary record of the vast avant-garde art and literary world in those vital years between 1940 and 1947, recording the art world as it relocated from its traditional home in Paris to the bubbling new world of New York. Each issue contains stunning revelations of those epoch changing explorations as they happened and, despite its modest production techniques, each issue is a glorious artwork.

Being Sales Director, you must speak to so many different customers about a plethora of subjects. Whether it be counterculture or travel & exploration, is there a subject that particularly absorbs you? 

I’m a proud generalist and passionate about a diverse range of subjects and I’m very fortunate that my job allows me to engage with collectors across a wide range of fields, it means I’m always learning and always finding something new to be excited about. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time in regions of the Arab world which has led to a passionate interest in Arab history and culture, I’m fortunate to work closely with our travel, science and literature specialists, as well as important collectors in the field, to expand my knowledge through their expertise. This hands-on, immersive, approach has been vital to understanding the books we handle within their ‘real world’ context, and I have found it enormously beneficial in bridging the gap between the academic understanding of a rare book and its more elusive properties as an object of cultural heft.

One particular interest of mine over the past year or so has been researching the historical effect of new technology on how culture (in its many forms) has been disseminated.  It’s a fascinating area and has led to some superb acquisitions across a number of subject areas. I’ll say no more and leave that to a catalogue we will be launching at the end of the year!

Interview by Winifred Hewitt-Wright

Classical literature has been reinterpreted for millennia. Different generations have made these works their own by translating the original Greek or Latin into their vernacular, and every translation brings fresh perspectives. While the earliest appearances of these texts are unattainable, the history of printing is peppered with remarkable Classical firsts from a wide array of translators. Each new version, vying to distinguish itself from its predecessors, re-introduced ancient authors to contemporary readers and influenced English literature.

In recent years, a landmark moment occurred when Emily Wilson published the first female translation of the Odyssey into English in 2017. Her word choices were scrutinized and compared, marking her entry into the illustrious tradition of Homeric translation. However, the first translation of Homer by a woman appeared three centuries earlier with Anne Lefèvre Dacier’s French prose Iliad (1711) and L’Odyséé (1716). Dacier emphasized accurate translation over artistic license. When Alexander Pope produced his own verse versions of the epics (1715-1726), he referred to Dacier’s, though his more liberal approach was decried by Dacier as being unfaithful to the original. This difference in style highlighted a long-standing academic debate, the querelle des anciens et des modernes, about the merits of classical versus contemporary literary tastes. Dacier argued that the ancients’ work need not be adapted in translation to suit the modern era.

Prior to her Homeric efforts, Dacier was also the first female translator of Sappho: her 1681 edition paired Sappho’s poetry with that of Anacreon. Translating Sappho has always been complicated by the homoerotic nature of her work. While the 18th and 19th centuries saw the pronouns of the beloved figure in the “Hymn to Aphrodite” switched from feminine to masculine, in 1885 Henry Thornton Wharton restored them in line with the original Greek, though his portrayal of Sappho remained asexual, presenting her as a schoolmistress for female pupils.

It was not until 1903 that the first overtly lesbian translation of Sappho’s poetry appeared, by the British-born, Paris-based Renée Vivien. Vivien and her partner Natalie Clifford Barney were both Greek scholars who emulated Sappho by founding a female school of poetry on Lesbos. Vivien’s edition included both the Aeolic lyrics, a literal translation into French, and a versification – bridging the conflict between faithfulness to the original and artistic licence.

Presenting the original text alongside the new translation is nicely handled in Edmund Hill Stanley’s Metrical Version of the Odes of Horace (1889). Here, only the first line of each ode is in Latin before the English version begins, an inspired choice for poems with striking openings; that of Ode I. 37, nunc est bibendum, has entered English common usage. The thoughtfully produced edition, privately printed by Caxton scholar William Blades, features attractive presswork. The attention to typography is particularly apparent in the private press editions, such as the Nonesuch translations of Homer and Herodotus. The 1935 edition of Herodotus was produced with the express intention of being “handsome but not unwieldy, readable for those who are concerned only with the text, convenient for those who wish to use the notes in conjunction with the text” (Nonesuch Press). Using a revised version of George Rawlinson’s acclaimed 19th-century translation, it was supplemented by annotations surrounding the text in the manner of early printed books.

Updating an existing translation with notes for the modern reader and presenting it in a self-consciously archaic way testifies to how each edition must position itself in the long history of Classical publication. In this crowded sphere spanning centuries, a translation must make its mark. Regardless of a translator’s intentions, a sense of rivalry is inherent in their work, as each composes in the context of others’ efforts. This remains very much in the spirit of ancient literature, which thrived on writers creating clever variations on a theme. Each new take on a myth or a genre developed upon that of its predecessors. Ovid arguably perfected this appropriation of familiar material for surprising ends in his œuvre. Appropriately, when the first translations of Ovid emerged in the Elizabethan period, his work was adopted and adapted by English authors. The latter half of the 16th century saw complete translations into English of much of Ovid’s verse, such as George Tubervile’s Heroides (The Heroycall Epistles, 1567). The most famous was Arthur Golding’s 1567 edition of the monumental epic Metamorphoses, influencing works such as Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Shakespearean drama. Clear echoes of Golding’s verse are detectable in Shakespeare’s most enduringly popular plays, including The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This influence led to its reissue in 1904 under the title Shakespeare’s Ovid.

Such a distinguished afterlife for a translation of the Metamorphoses is only fair for a work which triumphantly prophesies its own immortality at its close (in Golding’s words):

And all the world shall never

Be able for too quench my name. For looke how farre so ever

The Romane Empyre by the ryght of conquest shall extend,

So farre shall all folke reade this woork. And tyme without all end

(If Poets as by prophesie about the truth may ame)

My lyfe shall everlastingly bee lengthened still by fame.

The work of Ovid and his peers continues to be read all worldwide long after the fall of Rome. Our enjoyment of this rich legacy is thanks in no small part to the efforts of their translators past and present.

Written by Lily Bayntun-Coward, bookseller and cataloguer

“When I worked in a second-hand bookshop — so easily pictured, if you don’t work in one, as a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally among calf-bound folios — the thing that chiefly struck me was the rarity of really bookish people.” So opens George Orwell’s essay, Bookshop Memories, reminiscing on his time working as an assistant at Booklover’s Corner in Hampstead from October 1934. One of Orwell’s many careers, this role offered him the opportunity to job share with the journalist Jon Kimchee, allowing him the mornings free to write: at the time he was working on Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

The essay first appeared in the November 1936 issue of The Fortnightly Review, and since publication has been voraciously read by both booksellers (recognising perennial experiences such as the customer who “doesn’t remember the title or the author’s name or what the book was about, but she does remember that it had a red cover”), as well as those who love to browse in such shops, who hope as they read that they fit none of Orwell’s gently condescending stereotypes.

Orwell’s own books have undoubtedly become part and parcel of life in a second-hand or rare book shop, and this is no different at Peter Harrington. First editions of Orwell’s books continue to be amongst the most desirable in a modern library, both due to their literary influence and their place in the history of book publishing. Here, we look over some of the key titles one might find while haunting such a shop and inhaling the “sweet smell of decaying paper”.

Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) was Orwell’s first full-length work, a two part memoir of his life among the poor and destitute in and around the two cities. It was published by Victor Gollancz in an initial printing of 1,500 copies. The first US edition was published just six months later in a print run of 1,750. Despite good reviews, the US edition sold poorly, and 383 copies were remaindered, making copies of the book hard to obtain even in Orwell’s own lifetime. Indeed, he was unable to furnish Henry Miller with a copy, writing to him in 1936: “I haven’t one left and it is out of print” (Life in Letters, p. 64).

Gollancz was one of the most important left-wing publishers of the 20th century and would become a key player in Orwell’s career as his first publisher. Peter Harrington is lucky to have handled Gollancz’s publishing archive, including Orwell’s often fraught correspondence with Gollancz regarding A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and Inside the Whale (1940).

Down and Out in Paris and London was followed by Burmese Days (1934), Orwell’s first novel. This was an examination of the effect of empire on both the occupied and the occupier and drew on Orwell’s own time as an imperial policeman in 1920s Burma. It was first published in the US by Harper & Brothers in a run of 2,000, having been initially rejected by Gollancz amid concerns that the caustic critique of colonialism might be considered libellous to those portrayed. In 1935, Gollancz went on to publish 2,500 copies of the work, with names changed, and it was well received. Copies of both the US and the UK first editions, especially in their scarce dust jackets, are highly prized amongst collectors.

A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935) was Orwell’s second novel and one with, in his own words, “some experiments in it that were useful to me” (Fenwick, p. 31). It was published in 1935 in a run of 2,000 copies, again by Victor Gollancz. It is now considered one of the hardest of Orwell’s books to find in the dust jacket, with Orwell’s bibliographer, Gillian Fenwick, tracing only one institutional example. A US issue followed in 1936, consisting of sheets bought by Harper from Gollancz.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), one of Orwell’s most recognizable titles, was published by Gollancz in 1936. It was published in a run of 3,000 copies, with 2,500 of those bound. Of these, Fenwick reports that 219 copies were destroyed in a bombing during the Second World War.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) was published for Gollancz’s Left Book Club as a choice for the March 1937 list. The work was consequently bound in the Left Book Club’s familiar limp orange cloth and was ensured a large edition of 44,150 copies. Its selection, however, was precarious, as the latter half of the book – in which Orwell condemns British socialist intellectuals and their adherence to the Soviet Union – dismayed Gollancz and the Left Book Club committee. Gollancz consequently published the book with the insertion of his own preface, essentially repudiating the author (although a reported 200 copies got through the net without the inserted preface, including the copy held at the British Library). A case-bound trade issue of 2,150 copies, bound in blue cloth and preferred by collectors, was also released. Additionally, an elusive bowlderised reissue, consisting of just the first half of the text, was printed in 890 copies in May of the same year.

Homage to Catalonia (1938) was not published by Gollancz. Instead, Orwell’s account of his activities during the Spanish Civil War was printed in a run of 1,500 copies in 1938 by Secker and Warburg. Gollancz had turned down the book due to Orwell’s continued criticism of Soviet communism, which had only grown stronger during his time in Spain fighting for the POUM, an anti-Stalinist communist party from late 1936. Frederick Warburg, “was known as the Trotskyite publisher simply because he took left-wing books that were critical of Stalin” (ODNB).

Coming Up for Air (1939), written in 1938 and published in 1939, was considered by Orwell to be his best novel and by collectors to be distinctly tricky to find in the original jacket. The work signalled a return to Gollancz, despite Gollancz’s disapproval at some of the politics within. It was consequently printed in a run of 2,000 copies, without, to Orwell’s surprise, any major changes.

Inside the Whale (1940) was Orwell’s first collection of essays and includes the title essay on Henry Miller, alongside Orwell’s studies of Charles Dickens and boys’ weeklies. It was printed by Gollancz in a run of 1,000 copies. Both the smaller print run and the reported destruction of several copies during an air raid have made this one of the most desirable works for a collector to have in the original jacket in sharp condition.

The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) followed as a second collection of essays. It was the first of the Searchlight Books, a series co-edited by Orwell that was produced to war-time standards and attempted to deal with war-time problems. It was published by Secker and Warburg in an initial run of 5,000 copies. The type, kept in Plymouth, was destroyed in an air raid on the city.

Animal Farm (1945) was written between 1943 and 1944 and faced a series of publisher’s rejections, with Gollancz, T. S. Eliot for Faber, Jonathan Cape, and Collins turning it down due to the inopportune timing of its criticism of Russia. It was Secker & Warburg who stepped up to publish it, printing a first impression of 4,500 copies. The imprint of this first impression reads “May 1945”; however, they were not issued until August due to wartime paper shortages. The work has never been out of print since; indeed, the second impression was printed in the same month as the first to keep up with demand. A first edition, first impression, in a bright copy of the jacket (crucially with the verso printed in red with advertisements for Orwell’s Searchlight Books) is one of the most desirable books for a modern British literature collection.

The first Russian edition was printed just 5 years later in 1950, within Stalin’s lifetime. Orwell was always clear that Animal Farm was an allegorical representation of Russia’s transformation between the Revolution and the Stalinist era, making the Russian translation, done into Russian by the married couple Mary Kriger and Gleb Struve with the author’s backing, a particularly fascinating and collectable item.

The English People (1947) was commissioned by Collins’s general editor W. J. Turner in September 1943 for its Britain in Pictures series. The brainchild of the Ministry of Information’s Hilda Matheson (1888-1940), the propaganda series presented “the most eloquent case for Britain as a free society” during, and in the aftermath of, the Second World War (Windeatt). Orwell, however, refused to amend the negative aspects of his radical text, almost preventing its publication. The work was eventually published in an initial run of 26,000 copies. It has become highly collectable both for those who favour the works of Orwell and those piecing together a complete run of the Britain in Pictures series.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is undoubtedly one of the most impactful books of the 20th century. It was published by Secker & Warburg in June 1949 in a run of 25,575 copies and released with both a green and a red dust jacket variant simultaneously. Bookseller lore states that the red variant is scarcer, with surviving examples suggesting they were printed in proportions of about two green to one red. The work was immediately popular, and by the end of October 1949 22,700 copies had sold.

In 1984 several reissues were published to mark the date. These include a facsimile manuscript edition of the work released by Secker & Warburg in collaboration with the M&S Press of Weston, Massachusetts. The press printed a photographic facsimile of all that survives of the preliminary draft versions of Nineteen Eight-Four, alongside a full transcript of the manuscript. In addition to the trade issue, a deluxe printing of 330 copies was divided into two issues: 275 copies with morocco-backed marbled boards and 55 “special copies” bound in full morocco with party slogans incorporated into the binding.

The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters was published in 1968 by Secker and Warbug and included Orwell’s non-fictional writings, containing much material that had never previously been published. The text was edited by Orwell’s widow Sonia, and by Ian Angus, who helped set up the Orwell Archive at University College, London. Scholars marked the edition as a watershed moment for the author’s reputation.

Written by Suzanna Beaupré, Rare Book Specialist

Bibliography
Gillian Fenwick, George Orwell: A Bibliography, 1998.
Peter Davison, George Orwell: A Life in Letters, 2013.
Barry Windeatt, “Rare Book Series: ‘Britain in Pictures’ (1941-1950)”, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, accessible online.

​Marginalia have always been subjects of curiosity and fascination.

This term refers to all the handwritten notes, marks, and symbols that can be found in the margins of books. The word comes from the Medieval Latin adjective marginalis, meaning “on the periphery”, which in turn derives from margo (“border” or “edge”).

When we open an old volume, we often find messages from previous readers. But what sort of things were people in the past writing in their books? Discover some of the most interesting and unusual marginalia we have encountered.

Index Notes

The most common type of marginalia is index notes: key words transcribed from the text into the margin for easy look-up. To mark a relevant passage, readers would also underline it and add signs of attention next to it, such as a line running vertically down the margin, the Latin word nota (“note”), or a manicula, a small drawing of a hand pointing to the text.

Especially in the post-incunable period, index notes were often already printed in the margins, but readers kept adding their own based on specific interests. Some would also compile a personalised list of contents and transcribe it on a blank page, usually an endpaper, with page numbers.

Copying Words of Wisdom

Another common way of annotating a book was to transcribe maxims from it or from other relevant sources. Erasmus recommended this practice to students as a means of forming judgement: “You will carefully observe when reading writers whether any striking word occurs … worth committing to memory … You will write some brief but pithy sayings such as aphorisms, proverbs, and maxims at the beginning and end of your books”.

A striking example is our copy of the second edition of Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1624), where an early reader has filled the endpapers and pastedowns (including the leather turn-ins!) with quotes. One of them is: Sapientes portant cornua in pectore, stulti in fronte (“wise men bear their horns in their heart, fools on their forehead”).

Scholarly Annotations

The most fascinating cases are books that ended up in the hands of exceptionally knowledgeable readers who decided to expand, clarify, and correct the printed text.

We recently had a remarkable copy of Apianus’s Cosmographicus liber (1533), a treatise on geography and astronomy. Its value lies in the extensive annotations, especially in the one on leaf XXXIV, shown below. The note corrects the text by adding the name of Columbus as one of America’s discoverers alongside Vespucci, and reports a learned tradition that America was known to Augustan Rome by quoting two lines from the Aeneid.

This edition is usually collected for the astronomical contents, but with these marginalia, it becomes a rare and fascinating “Americanum”: an early witness of the discovery of the New World.

Marginalia by scholars or students also include explanations of unfamiliar terms (glosses), references to literary sources (scholia), and paraphrases. Our copy of the 1532 collected comedies of Aristophanes shows how classical texts were studied: Latin translations of Greek terms are added in between the lines, and occasionally the infinitive form of Greek verbs is written the margins, also with one or two Latin translations. This information was dictated by professors during lectures, similarly as it happens today.

Personal Comments

Readers who were particularly invested with the topic at hand didn’t hesitate to write their own opinions into the margins. These are often expressed as simple symbols indicating approval or disapproval (e.g. an exclamation mark, a cross, a question mark). Elaborate comments are not unusual, and, especially when manifesting disagreement, they can be very entertaining.

The contemporary owner of our copy of Facchinei’s Note ed osservazioni (1765) filled the margins with insults to the author, page after page. In the treatise, Facchinei criticises Beccaria’s Dei delitti e delle pene and argues in favour of the death penalty – the anonymous annotator replies with comments such as: “Taci, ignorante” (“Shut up, you ignoramus”, p. 96) or “Questa è una filosofia da sciocchi” (“This is a philosophy for fools”, p. 119).

“I just needed a piece of paper”

At a time when paper was expensive, any blank space in a printed book (endpapers, margins, even the covers of vellum bindings) was a great alternative to buying new sheets. And so, in these places we sometimes find personal notes: calculations, doodles, pen trials, extracts from other texts, and more. In cookery books, we often see additional recipes:

Five blank leaves at the end our copy of Mendoza’s history of China (1589) contain a quite extensive manuscript transcription of passages from Zacharias Ursinus’s Catechismus (concerning the Communion). The relationship between these two works is difficult to grasp; we wonder if the reader used these blanks because he didn’t have a notebook at hand, or if the connection between the texts is related to something too personal to him for us to know.

These examples show only a few of the many different ways in which readers in the past interacted with their books, and perhaps inspire us, if gifted the latest novel of our favourite author, to write our own thoughts in the margins.

Every mark left whispers a story of its own. More than just ink on paper, these annotations bridge the gap between past and present, reader and author, forging a dialogue that transcends the boundaries of time and space.

Written by Alessia Colombo, Bookseller and Cataloguer

Further information on this topic can be found in:

H. J. Jackson, Marginalia. Readers Writing in Books, 2001.

Patrick Spedding & Paul Tankard, eds, Marginal Notes. Social Reading and the Literal Margins, 2021

John Gould (1804-1881) holds an important place in the history of ornithology and natural history illustration. He was a pioneering naturalist who collaborated with Charles Darwin, a taxonomist, publisher, and collector. His magnificent folio works, published over six decades, are celebrated for their scientific accuracy and artistic beauty. They were the product of a collaborative process, in which Gould worked closely with such renowned artists as Edward Lear and Joseph Wolf. The results elevated ornithological illustration to new heights.

The Man

John Gould, known as “The Bird Man”, was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, the son of a gardener. He trained as a taxidermist, in his early twenties setting up in business in London, his skill bringing him to the attention of the royal family (George IV commissioned him to stuff the first giraffe to arrive in England). In 1828 he was appointed “bird-stuffer” to the Zoological Society and “was soon corresponding with the prominent naturalists of the time, Sir William Jardine, Prideaux John Selby, William Swainson, Edward Smith Stanley (later thirteenth earl of Derby), and many others, both in England and abroad”.¹

When, in the late 1820s, a collection of birds from the Himalayan mountains arrived at the Society’s museum, Gould, perhaps influenced by Edward Lear’s work on parrots (part-published in imperial folio in 1830-32), conceived the idea of publishing a volume of hand-coloured lithographs on a similar scale – and so the series of magisterial “Gould plates” was born. Gordon Sauer explains that, although Gould did not paint the final illustrations, “he was the collector (especially in Australia) or purchaser of the specimens, the taxonomist, the publisher, the agent, and the distributor of the parts or volumes. He never claimed he was the artist for these plates, but repeatedly wrote of the ‘rough sketches’ he made from which, with reference to the specimens, his artists painted the finished drawings. The design and natural arrangement of the birds on the plates was due to the genius of John Gould, and a Gould plate has a distinctive beauty and quality. His wife was his first artist. She was followed by Edward Lear, Henry Constantine Richter, William Matthew Hart, and Joseph Wolf”.

When Charles Darwin returned from his voyage on HMS Beagle in the autumn of 1836, he selected several scientists to describe his collected specimens, and Gould was presented with Darwin’s birds. “In January 1837 Gould pronounced a group of twelve birds from the Galápagos Islands, which Darwin had thought to be ‘blackbirds, warblers, wrens and finches’, as all one family of finches, with variations in their beaks and size. This was the crucial piece of evidence that enabled Darwin to come to his theory of island speciation. The ‘bird’ volume of Darwin’s Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle was contributed by Gould”.²

Gould’s Method

It is fitting that we will be offering this superb set at Firsts: London – whose theme this year is “The Art of the Book” – because Gould’s oft-reproduced illustrations of birds are among the finest ever executed. Although he did not paint the final illustrations, making rough watercolour sketches which his artists would work up into the finished article, Gould was, as expert Gordon Sauer explains: “the collector (especially in Australia) or purchaser of the specimens, the taxonomist, the publisher, the agent, and the distributor of the parts or volumes … The design and natural arrangement of the birds on the plates was due to the genius of John Gould, and a Gould plate has a distinctive beauty and quality”.³

To reproduce his illustrations, Gould chose the medium of lithography, which was relatively new when he started out in the 1830s. This meant that the original sketches would be redrawn by the artist onto limestone slabs, which were both heavy and unwieldy. Literally, a rather “massive” undertaking, particularly when one considers that a book like the Birds of Australia contains 681 plates.

Gould’s monograph on the hummingbirds required him to develop a new technique to reproduce the iridescence of these tiny birds. He experimented with gold and silver leaf and iridescent mineral paints overpainted with transparent oils and varnish to create their extraordinary shimmering hues.

The Folios

All of Gould’s major folios are collected here. The monographs on the toucans and trogons, “two of the most beautiful of his works”⁴, are present in the preferred second edition, both containing more plates than in the first edition. The set is enhanced by the fact that Birds of Australia and the Humming-Birds have their supplements. Two folio works were clearly not originally collected with the set: the Icones avium, or Figures and Descriptions of New and Interesting Species of Birds from Various Parts of the Globe (1837-38, 18 plates) and the work that was cut short by Gould’s death, Monograph of the Pittidae (1880, 10 plates), a family of colourful, forest-dwelling tropical birds.

Sacheverell Sitwell, writing in Fine Bird Books (1953), points out memorably some favourite plates: the Birds of Europe “is remarkable for the owls and cranes drawn by Edward Lear”. Birds of Great Britain includes “lovely pictures of the homeliest of British birds; while fantasy and accuracy working hand in hand have full play in the fresh-water grebes and mergansers” (the beautifully imagined birds of prey and owls should also receive special mention). Birds of Asia “has some lovely kingfishers, and there are ten wondrous trogons in the first volume. There are sunbirds; no fewer than nineteen pittas; twenty-two woodpeckers, and an addition of fifteen parrots to Gould’s century of those bird-comedians, including three Racket-tailed Parrakeets of surpassing beauty”. The Humming-Birds is “the most stupendous of tropical publications”, requiring a “new technical process, which was the result of long experiment … in order to portray their metallic plumage”. Birds of New Guinea includes the spectacular birds of paradise, the subject of a separate monograph issued after Gould’s death by his old friend Richard Bowdler Sharpe in 1891-98.

Birds of Australia was the result of an eighteen-month sojourn in the country, during which Gould collected hundreds of specimens of fauna and flora. That famous work is present here with the complementary volume on mammals. Gordon Sauer rightly calls Gould “the pioneer naturalist of Australia”.

As a concluding aside, Sitwell gives an amusing description of Gould’s house on Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury – very much his avian HQ – where “artists and lithographers and small staff of colourists were employed … it is probable that no house that ever existed had as many dead birds delivered on its doorstep over so long a stretch of years”.

His Collaborators

Elizabeth Gould (nee Coxen,1804-1841): daughter of a sea captain from Ramsgate, she lived near Gould in Soho and was employed as a tutor in French, Latin, and music. They married in 1829. She became Gould’s first artist, drawing the birds and executing the lithography for his first folio, A Century of Birds … from the Himalaya Mountains (1830-32). She accompanied Gould to Australia in 1838. They returned to England in 1840 but the following year Elizabeth died of puerperal fever following the delivery of her eighth child.

Edward Lear (1812-1888): landscape painter and writer. Lear remains best known for his wonderful nonsense verse for children. Yet he was a superlative bird artist and a very fine landscape painter. He worked alongside Gould on the Birds of Europe (1832-37) and Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans (1834). His biographer Vivien Noakes remarks that “he combined precise anatomical accuracy with bold, rhythmic designs and an understanding of the individual personalities of the birds. His work was so fine that he is now considered by many to be England’s leading ornithological draughtsman”.⁶

Henry Constantine Richter (1821-1902): was born into an artistic London family. Following the death of his wife in 1841, Gould turned to Richter and their partnership maintained until Gould’s death in 1881.

William Matthew Hart (1830-1908): forced by financial circumstances to give up medical training, Hart began working for Gould in 1851, an association that would last for thirty years.

Joseph Wolf (1820-1899): born in Mörz, Prussia, Wolf showed a talent for wildlife art from his earliest years. In 1848 he left for London at the invitation of the Zoological Society. He later teamed up with Gould and assisted with the Birds of Great Britain (1862-73). Sir Edwin Landseer, doyen of Victorian animal painters, called him “without exception, the best all-round animal painter that ever lived”.

Footnotes

1. Gould expert Gordon C. Sauer writing in Oxford Dictionary National Bibliography (ODNB)
2. ODNB
3. ODNB
4. Fine Bird Books (1953)
5. ODNB

The Enlightenment produced many great thinkers, but Immanuel Kant stands out as one of the most influential philosophers in history. As celebrations take place around the world to mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, it’s an ideal time to reflect on his legacy in the world of rare book collecting. While Kant may be most renowned for his work in philosophy, his books reveal contributions in areas as diverse as physics, geopolitics, and theology. The remarkable scope of his achievements should secure him a place in collections of science, politics, and religion, as well as philosophy. So, what does the Kantian oeuvre look like, which works offer an accessible foothold into the market, and what do you need to know as a new (or established) collector?

Kant: The Man and the Books

Despite the international spread of his books, Kant spent his entire life in the small city of Königsberg (modern-day Kaliningrad), in the Kingdom of Prussia. An academic at the University of Königsberg, he was by turns an undergraduate, a freelance lecturer, a sub librarian, and finally, the university professor of logic and metaphysics.

As a full-time academic, Kant left an extensive body of work – one bibliography lists 159 separate items. His earliest work in the 1740s and 1750s developed from his undergraduate studies, and focusses on scientific investigations. Physics gradually gave way to metaphysics, and his work in the late 1750s and 1760s increasingly criticises the rationalist philosophies of Leibniz and Wolff. The period from 1770 to 1781 is known as the silent decade: he published no major works and concentrated on writing the Critik der reinen Vernunft (1781). The 1780s, in turn, are dominated by the Critiks of reinen Vernunft, of practischen Vernunft (1788), and of Urtheilskraft (1790) – his key texts on epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. From the 1790s onwards, he wrote his principal books on politics, anthropology, and religion, and arranged several editions gathering his early articles and lecture notes.

With a couple of exceptions, the three Critiks remain the major treasures for collectors. The Critik der reinen Vernunft, arguably his single most important work, has always been the most highly sought-after, with good copies often selling for around £35,000.

Presentation copies, as always, add an extra level of interest. Kant’s letters suggest that he sometimes commissioned four or five such copies of his major works, printed on paper around three times thicker than that of standard copies, and with generous margins. Reflecting his modest personal ambitions, these were often sent to fellow philosophers and theologians, although at least one appears to have made it to an aristocratic patron. Presentation copies have been identified for the Critik der Urtheilskraft and for Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793).

Science, Newton, and nebular hypotheses

Other than the three Critiks, the major jewels for Kantian collectors are undoubtedly his scientific works, which date from the earliest period of his career and are extremely scarce on the market. Kant’s early studies at the University of Königsberg included mathematics and physics, so it’s not entirely surprising that his first published works deal with scientific questions. His professors introduced him to the work of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, and the Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (1749), his very first book, mediates between the Newtonian and Leibnizian approaches to measuring kinetic force.

Kant continued to write on scientific matters for many years, and with considerable success. Alongside the Gedanken, his most significant text for the collector of science is the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (1755), in which he develops the theory that planetary systems coalesce from the condensation of large gaseous clouds. The Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis, although heavily revised in the 20th century, remains widely accepted to this day. The Allgemeine Naturgeschichte, which was privately financed by Kant’s uncle Richter, is the most valuable of all his works, with one copy recently listed for just over £100,000.

Politics, Globalisation, and Democratic Peace Theory

Although Kant isn’t often thought of as a political theorist, the collector of political theory will find in him a prescient and perceptive writer – particularly in his Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf (1795). Against the backdrop of the French Revolutionary Wars, Kant envisages a global federation of states, reorganised as democratic republics – an idea which, as many have noted, contains something approaching a world league of nations. Kant’s belief that democratic republics are inherently less willing to engage in armed conflict anticipated the modern doctrine of democratic peace theory, and so the foreign policy of many 20th-century liberal states.

Religion, Rationality, and the King of Prussia

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of Kant’s most immediately controversial books was his major treatise on religion. Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, his final major work, argues that religious knowledge can be entirely grounded within human rationality – and not divine revelation. That argument led to censorship by the Prussian royal authorities, and then, when Kant ignored them, by King Friedrich Wilhelm II himself. In 1794, Kant was forced to promise the King not to publish anything further on religious matters: a promise he instantly dropped when Friedrich died in 1797. Although Kant led a famously uneventful life in Königsberg, the Religion episode indicates that this was due more to circumstance than to any inherent docility on his part.

Collecting Kant

Many of the aforementioned works provide accessible entry points to the Kantian market. The political and religious works of the 1790s come up regularly and can usually be found for under £5,000, while the philosophical treatises of the 1760s, many of which anticipate the later Critiks, often sell for under £2,500. A good example here is the Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grössen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (1763), a critique of Leibnizian rationalism. The collected editions of the 1790s, among the less appreciated of Kant’s books and a key source for his early lecture notes, can be picked up for under £1,000.

The major bibliographies on Kant are those by Arthur Warda (1919) and Eric Adickes (1970), both of which are accessible on Archive.org. The Kantian collector should ideally consult both, for while Adickes writes in English, Warda provides a more comprehensive breakdown of each text’s contents, including blank leaves (Blatt weiß), errata (Blatt Druckfehler), and more. Neither bibliography, however, documents the numerous translations of Kant’s works.

When Kant died in February 1804, the final words of a lifetime of contemplation were, “it is good”. Challenged and championed in equal measure, the diminutive academic from Königsberg had forever changed the course of Western philosophy. The depth of his thought, and the breadth of his contributions, make him an essential figure for collectors across the board.

Written by Bookseller and Cataloguer Simon Cumming

The Hejaz Railway, the lifeline of the Ottoman Empire in Arabia and a strategic target of the Arab Revolt, began to be constructed by imperial decree in 1900, at the behest of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909). It was an astounding feat of engineering which demonstrated to the world the Ottoman programme of modernization and ushered in a new era of communication. Extending 1,300 km across vast tracts of inhospitable desert towards the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, the railway simplified travel between Damascus and the heart of Arabia, replacing arduous journeys by caravan with swift and comfortable transportation. From 1908, when the line reached Medina, it allowed hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims to make the hajj to Mecca in safety and with relative ease. It also supported Abdülhamid’s project of Pan-Islamism, allowing Ottoman troops to stream into Arabia and increase the empire’s influence in the region.

Breaking Ground

The central line from Damascus to Medina largely followed the old caravan route. Its course was surveyed in 1900 by the veteran military engineer Hajji Mukhtar Bey, who conducted expeditions in east Africa in the late nineteenth century. This rare and important official map from 1903 is based on a manuscript drafted by two Ottoman cavalry officers, Captain Umar Zaki and Lieutenant Hasan Mu‘ayyin, under Hajji Mukhtar Bey’s supervision. The map covers the entire region, from just north of Hama, Syria, all the way south to Mecca. It provides a rare perspective on the railway’s embryonic development, clearly delineating those parts that had already been built in 1903 and those under construction, and each station is labelled. Additionally, it depicts the two alternative routes proposed for extending the line to Mecca and traces the suggested (but unrealized) route of a rail line from Mecca to the port of Jeddah.

Early Accounts of the Route

On 1 September 1904, Abdülhamid arranged a splendid inauguration ceremony to celebrate the laying of the track between Damascus and the town of Ma’an (now in Jordan). Many Ottoman dignitaries attended, and journalists from around the world were invited to document the empire’s great engineering achievement. Among the attendees was Eduard Mygind, a roving reporter for the Berlin Tageblatt, who had been based in Istanbul for some years. Mygind later published an account of the railway entitled Vom Bosporus zum Sinai (From the Bosphorus to the Sinai), a wry narrative which relates his preparations in Istanbul and journey to Damascus, before describing the technological achievements involved in the construction of the railway. Mygind also highlights the importance of the Hejaz Railway to pan-Islamic unification, concluding by emphasizing the significance of German expertise in its construction and praising Abdülhamid II as the driving force behind the project.

Changing Priorities: The First World War

After the deposition of Abdülhamid and the sudden loss of the empire’s North African and European territories, the Hejaz Railway acquired an even greater significance in holding the remaining Ottoman territory together. The strategic demands of the First World War encouraged the Ottoman state to build branch lines, particularly in the direction of the Suez Canal, which was under British control. This rare decree by the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies, written in the opening months of the First World War, vividly demonstrates Ottoman military preparations in action. It outlines the state’s commitment to constructing a 23-kilometre railway connection between the towns of Jenin and Nablus in what is today the West Bank, as an extension of the Jerusalem branch of the railway. The railroad was a key piece of infrastructure in supplying Ottoman troops in the Sinai, hence the decision of the Ottoman government to spend large amounts of money on its expansion as the war began.

The Arab Revolt

On 10 June 1916, the Arab Revolt against Ottoman authority was launched at Mecca. The Hejaz Railway immediately became an important target for the Arab forces: if the principal Ottoman supply line could be disrupted, the Arab bid for independence would have a far greater chance of success. While T.E. Lawrence fought alongside the Arab forces on the ground, British officers at the Arab Bureau in Cairo, the famed military intelligence unit of which Lawrence was a part, closely followed the course of the Revolt. This exceedingly rare and important map of January 1917 was produced by the bureau and focuses on northern Arabia, which became the epicentre of the revolt in the months immediately following publication. The locations depicted include Aqaba, which fell to Arab forces in July 1917 with the assistance of Lawrence, and the Hejaz Railway, which was targeted in Arab-British raids at al-Akhdar and Mudawwara. This map would have been hurriedly produced in a very limited print run. It was almost certainly the most accurate map of this critical theatre available to the British high command at a vital moment in the campaign.

Lawrence’s Involvement with the Railway

Lawrence’s famed assault on the railway is described in detail in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom. This outstanding exemplar of his “big book” was presented by Lawrence to his “imperturbable” brother-in-arms, Lieutenant Samuel H. Brodie, and is accompanied by a collection of photographs which draw us into the world of front-line service on the Hejaz Railway. This copy is inscribed on a preliminary blank in the hand of Brodie’s mother “Samuel H. Brodie from Colonel T. E. Lawrence, December 1926”, and is one of 32 incomplete subscribers’ copies (from a total edition of 211) intentionally issued in this way under Lawrence’s instructions.

The core of the accompanying collection consists of over 150 original photographs, loose and in albums. Highlights include wonderfully evocative images of Brodie’s unit in the field, including Brodie himself, his second-in-command George Pascoe, and attacks on strategically important stations along the Hejaz Railway. Images illustrate the 8 August 1918 attack at Mudawwara, a key station south of the heavily fortified Ottoman stronghold at Ma’an. Brodie’s snapshots show the destroyed station from different positions, including images of shattered buildings and a shot of the explosion that destroyed the well.

Hejaz comes to Hollywood

Finally, perhaps the most famous representation of the Hejaz Railway appears in David Lean’s classic film of 1962, Lawrence of Arabia. The centrepiece of this insightful archive is a gift given to the film’s star, Peter O’Toole, shortly before the film’s premier, by his wife Sian Phillips and his close friend, the Welsh actor Kenneth Griffith. The gift consists of an unpublished Lawrence letter and a postcard, framed as a piece, intended to help O’Toole through two anxious months of post-production, providing the actor with a tangible link to the man whom he portrayed so memorably on screen.

The desire to replicate nature in print has created some of the most desirable and collectable publications in the book world, as well as incredible developments in printing techniques. These have consequently often been adopted by artists interested less in botanical science and more in aesthetics. From the woodcuts used in the monumental early herbals, to the use of collotypes to reproduce the essence of flowers in the artwork of Gustav Klimt, our blog today takes us through some key moments in the history of botanical illustration.

Leonhart Fuchs De historia stirpium, printed in 1542, was “one of the landmarks of pre-Linnaean herbal-botanical literature”, richly illustrated with woodcuts and containing the first printed glossary of botanical terms. It encompasses over 400 German species and 100 foreign species of plants, most of which were drawn from samples in Fuchs’s personal garden. The woodcuts of the plants are to scale and include their root systems and, often, sample-specific details such as leaves damaged by insects. They established a standard of plant illustration still followed to this day. For the illustrations, Fuchs employed three artists: Albrecht Meyer, who drew the plants from life, Heinrich Füllmaurer, who transferred the images to woodblocks, and Veit Rudolph Speckle, who undertook the woodcutting. Portraits of these men all appear in the book itself, making it “one of the earliest examples of such a tribute paid to artists in a printed book” (PMM).

The first German edition of 1543 was extensively revised and enlarged with six additional illustrations and a new index. With these changes and its stronger medicinal focus, the function of woodcuts was further sharpened with their accuracy to nature paramount for their scientific use.

John Gerard’s The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes was published in 1597 and became most famous herbal in the English language. For that richly illustrated edition the publisher used borrowed woodcuts from the German physician Tabernaemontanus’s Neuw Kreuterbuch, published in 1588. The production of the woodcuts was funded by Count Palatine Frederick III and the publisher Nikolaus Bassæus, and the first volume took 36 years to produce. They were later acquired by the printer John Norton and thence used to illustrate the plants described by Gerard, demonstrating the practical nature of book production at the time.

In 1633 a much revised and enlarged edition of Gerard’s Herball was issued by the keen botanist Thomas Johnson, his corrections to Gerard’s original text diligently marked up. Johnson’s edition was also expanded with new illustrations. These were taken from Rembert Dodoens’s herbal Stirpium historiae pemptades sex, originally published by the famous Antwerp printer Christopher Plantin in 1583, and they were praised for the finer level of detail they provided.

During the 1700s the flourishing genre of travel accounts meant an increase in botanical plate books depicting plants from across the globe. Griffith Hughes’s The Natural History of Barbados was published in 1750 with a large paper issue that featured 25 of its 30 engraved plates hand-coloured. 12 of the plates featured were after renowned botanical artist Georg Dionysius Ehret, one of the greatest botanical painters of the 18th century and the most dominant influence in the field. The botanical plates in Hughes’s work are listed as engraved by James Mynde, George Bickham (who also drew the artwork), and, some scholars claim, Ehret himself. Unfortunately, his skill as a painter was not matched by that as an engraver, being described as “usually competent – but uninspired” (Blunt, p.149).

What does it mean for an engraving to be “after” someone?

Engraving (intaglio printing or gravure) was invented in Germany in the 1430s and was developed as an original art form in the 15th and 16th centuries by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden, and Andrea Mantegna. The image is incised into a plate, initially copper and later steel, and the cut line then holds the ink: the deeper the cut the darker the impression. This is the reverse of a relief print like a woodcut. Incisions can be made by a wide variety of methods, including using a burin, needles, or acids. A plethora of printing techniques were consequently developed in this medium and they allowed a greater accuracy in reproducing drawn and painted works.

In the 18th century the practice of engravers reproducing the work of artists in a more accessible form became highly popular. Although a remarkably close copy of the original was possible, at this point it was impossible for a reproductive print to be a perfect replica of a painting. Reproductive prints therefore often distorted the intention of the painter, whether unintentionally or not: some engravers gaining a reputation for softening images, idealizing them, or making them more picturesque. Indeed, some artists such as Joshua Reynolds were particularly careful to allow only those engravers in which they had certain confidence the privilege of reproducing their work, recognizing the interpretive nature of the job.

Engravers were often named alongside the original artist on the plates, their skill in copying the details of the original artwork recognized, and their plates listed as “after” the artist.

Hand-colouring of botanical plates existed from the earliest herbals: the publisher of Fuchs for example issuing copies in a coloured state based on Fuchs’s coloured drawings of living specimens. Hand-colouring of copper-engraved plates theoretically allowed a level of accuracy that the black and white printing could not, and it was standard in botanical works into the 19th century.

Thomas Green’s The Universal Herbal, for example, first issued in parts from 1816 to 1820, was an encyclopaedic work that claimed to list all the known plants in the world. The revised edition of 1823 featured 106 hand-coloured engraved plates. From the 1830s that form of colouring was replaced by a wave of new methods, including aquatints, mezzotints, and stipple engravings, often printed in colour. This period is often referred to as “the finest hour of colour printing” (Sitwell, p. 1). By the end of the 19th century the chromolithograph, the colour printed directly on the stone with the etched design, had become the predominant method of botanical printing for books, with some regretting the loss of detail this more efficient and cheaper method entailed.

New methods of printing, including photographically based reproductive printmaking, appealed both to botanists and artists alike. While the botanical illustration discussed thus far aimed for near perfect accuracy with a scientific purpose, the corresponding world of flower painting that developed alongside it was all about the aesthetic. Although remembered most for his portraiture, botanicals and landscape painting became an increasingly important outlet for Gustav Klimt from the 1890s onwards, and stylised floral motifs appear throughout his work.

His portfolio Eine Nachlese, was printed in 1931 by the art historian Max Eisler using the collotype printing method. This fragile technique was often employed by artists for its ability to reproduce the subtle delicacy of drawings, as well as the tonal gradations of the original work. The fine chine colle paper Eisler used for the portfolio allowed even greater colour saturation, and the resulting prints are now some of Klimt’s most well-regarded.

What is a collotype?

Collotype is a form of photographic printing invented by Alphonse Poitevin in 1855. It was the first form of photolithography. The complicated, lengthy process involves gelatin colloids mixed with dichromates (salts of certain acids). A photographic negative is projected onto a printing plate coated with light-sensitive gelatin that hardens and becomes receptive to the application of ink. Paper is laid on top and the image is printed. It became an increasingly popular form of fine art printing in the 19th century. Fragile hand-printed collotype plates cannot be reused, so the run must be completed on the first go and in only a limited number, adding to its appeal, if not cost-effectiveness. Endeavours to make this labour-intensive and time-consuming process economically viable for large print runs failed, and consequently it fell out of popularity by the latter half of the 20th century.

Written by Rare Book Specialist, Suzanna Beaupré

Bibliography

1. Wilfrid Blunt, The Art of Botanical Illustration, Collins, 1950.
2. Sacheverell Sitwell (ed.), Great Flower Books 1700-1900, H. F. & G. Witherby Ltd, 1990.