Modern Books and Manuscripts

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

Searching for information about flowers, medicine, and the secret to great skin?  Look no further than this beautifully illustrated French volume Les fleurs et secretz de medecine.

Until the late 19th-century the practice of bloodletting was regularly used to prevent illness and disease.  The idea is that blood and other bodily fluids typically referred to as “humors” needed to remain in balance for a person to be healthy.  So if someone was sick with anything from a headache to a more serious illness, bloodletting was a common occurance.  This concept of bodily humors came from Hippocrates who believed that human moods occur as a consequence of imbalance in one of the four bodily fluids.  The four fluids included blood which meant you were brave and passionate, yellow bile indicated you were easily irritable and angry, black bile meant you were downcast and short-tempered, and phlegm meant you were tranquil and impassive.

Hippocrates also believed in the practice of cupping, or local suction that is created on the skin to help mobilize blood flow and promote healing.

Cupping is a method strongly connected to traditional Chinese medicine.  It is believed that noted herbalist Ge Hong wrote about a form of cupping in the early fourth century in A Handbook of Prescriptions.  Later books written during the Tang and Qing dynasties described cupping in great detail; one textbook included an entire chapter on “fire jar qi,” a type of cupping that could alleviate headaches, dizziness and abdominal pain.  Though the popularity of cupping has risen and fallen over the years it has again become a desired procedure particularly with celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston.

But if you simply want the secret to skin as beautiful as a child’s don’t fret- just turn to the later pages.  You would only need a host of ingredients like aloe succotrin, borate, alum feather, cardamom, white lead, quicksilver, gall of a goat, camphor, and French blood and voilà!

Les fleurs et secretz de medecine was published in 1949 but the original French translation was published in Poitiers around 1544.  The woodcuts are credited to Gilbert Poilliot and the illustrations to Marie-Eve Mathis.  This copy is printed on velin de Rives, a sturdy cotton based paper, and is accompanied by a selection of uncolored woodcuts in the back of the volume.  This was a limited publication of only 1000 copies and this particular copy falls somewhere in the range between 41 to 100 though we could not find a specific copy number.

Les fleurs et secretz de medecine / Maistre Raoul Dumont Vert ; illustrations de Marie-Ève Mathis ; gravées sur bois par Gilbert Poilliot.  Monaco : Le Livre d’art, 1949. R128.6 .D89 1949 can be found at the Countway Library at the Harvard Medical School.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager and Joan Thomas, Rare Book Cataloger, for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

Today’s volume from the Santo Domingo Collection concerns Montmartre, the famous Parisian district of artists’ communes and nightclubs. In Les après-midi de Montmartre, published in 1919, author René Baudu documents the drinking, drug use, and prostitution that attended Montmartre’s heyday as the center of artistic life in Paris. Les après-midi de Montmartre describes, in fiction, the “lost girls” that inhabited the neighborhood, and the vagaries to which they were subject:

Montmartre girls need love, champagne, shots and a little mystery. What they mistake for love is a childish sentimentality found in music-hall songs and mass-market novels. (p. [17])

The text is accompanied by fourteen engravings by Édouard Chimot, depicting the young women of Montmartre. This copy is unusual in that the publisher, L’Édition, has been replaced on the wrappers and title page with “Pour le compte des auteurs”  (“on behalf of the authors”); it also features an envelope bound in at the end with additional copies of the engravings in various colors and states, as well as two original pencil sketches. This special treatment is understandable in light of the volume’s provenance: it was specially printed for  the author’s mother, Marie Baudu, and inscribed to her by her son.

René Baudu. Les après-midi de Montmartre. Paris: Pour le compte des auteurs, 1919. FC9.B3260.919a2.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

Most people picture a chastity belt as a device that looks like iron underwear (complete with a lock) that was meant to keep a woman from having sexual relations.  Legend has it that this device was invented during the Crusades to ensure a wife’s fidelity while her husband was away.  While the concept of the chastity belt is indeed quite old it is in a more metaphorical sense as a pledge of fidelity rather than an object.  No evidence of medieval chastity belts exist and it isn’t until the 15th-century that we can find something that even vaguely resembles one in Konrad Kyeser’s Bellifortis, which is a codex of weapons, armour and other military items.  Bellifortis depicts a type of armour that could concievably be a chastity belt but the tone of Kyeser’s text indicates irony for such a device: “Padlocks unto the four-legged creatures, breeches unto the women of Florence, A joke binds this lovely series together, I recommend them to the noble and obedient youth.”

The French text La ceinture de chasteté : son histoire, son emploi, autrefois et aujourd’hui : avec de nombreuses gravures hors texte, dessins et photographies d’après nature published in 1905 describes the history of chastity belts when the myth of the medieval chastity belt still persisted.  Included in the volume are photographic postcards of two chastity belts that were displayed in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, also known as the National Museum of the Middle Ages.

One of the Musée de Cluny’s chastity belts was long considered to belong to Catherine de Medici until a test of the metal in the 1990s showed it was from the early 19th-century.  It is true however, that chastity belts as actual objects became more widespread in America and England by 19th-century.  However they were typically used willingly by women to prevent rape and sexual harrassment in the workplace since industrialization had placed more women in factories and offices.

Eric John Dingwall is one of the primary historians that is responsible for the myth of medieval chastity belts with his 1931 publication The Girdle of Chastity which can be found in Countway’s collection at the Harvard Medical School, though we can hardly fault him when fake chastity belts were held up as authentic in respected museums.

 La ceinture de chasteté : son histoire, son emploi, autrefois et aujourd’hui : avec de nombreuses gravures hors texte, dessins et photographies d’après nature /Dr. Caufeynon [pseud.]Paris,P. de Poorter, 1905.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

Today’s Santo Domingo Feature: this copy of Deux coeurs simples, by the French novelist Jacques de Lacretelle. This limited edition, published by Gérald Cramer in 1947, features a suite of evocative lithographs by illustrator Valentine Hugo. This particular copy is number 7 of the edition’s 378 limited copies, and one of only eight copies to feature an additional double suite of the lithographs, one in black and one in violet, as well as an original Hugo illustration. The volume is bound by Micheline de Bellefroid in black morocco and decorated white paper, with the original wrappers preserved within. As a further enhancement, bound in at the end are additional copies of the title page and sample pages, as well as an invitation from the publisher to an unveiling event for the publication.

Jacques de Lacretelle. Deux coeurs simples. Genève: Gérald Cramer, c1947. FC9.L1193.947d.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Known for his contributions to logic, set theory, and semantics, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) stands among the most influential American philosophers of the twentieth century. From 1956 until his retirement in 1978 Quine held the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University, and his papers and library are now held by Houghton Library.

Professor Quine’s library numbers over 600 volumes and over 5,000 offprints (reprints of journal articles).  The collection includes numerous editions of Quine’s own works, as well as books and articles by his contemporaries in philosophy and mathematics. A significant number bear Quine’s own annotations, often written with the same wit and candor for which his published works are admired. Together with the W.V. Quine papers (MS Am 2587), the recently cataloged books and offprints represent a windfall to scholars wishing to know not only what the celebrated logician was reading, but what he was thinking as he read it.

While the subject matter of Professor Quine’s library may seem arcane to the non-specialist, there are nonetheless items which evoke the personable side of “Van”, as he was known to his friends. “The Logician’s Christmas Card” pasted to the rear flyleaf of J.H. Woodger’s Biology and Language is one such.  Poking fun at the seeming complexity of the propositional calculus, Dr. Woodger has illustrated the card with a lengthy, but elegantly hand-lettered theorem, and included a translation in plain English beneath it: “Wishing you a well distributed Christmas from J.H. and D.E Woodger and an equivalent New Year.”

W.V. (Willard Van Orman) Quine. Methods of Logic. New York: Holt, 1950. With the author’s annotations. AC95.Qu441.Zz950q (B)

J.H. Woodger. Biology and Language. Cambridge University Press, 1952.  With a Christmas card from the author and his spouse pasted to the rear flyleaf. AC95.Qu441.Zz952w

Thanks to Bibliographic Assistant Noah Sheola for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

As the use of hallucinogenic drugs proliferated in the counterculture of the 1960s, instructional texts appeared to guide novice users in the preparation and consumption of these substances. This week’s volume from the Santo Domingo Collection, The psychedelic guide to preparation of the Eucharist in a few of its many guises, is a prime example. As the title suggests, the guide also exemplifies the spiritual, mystical, and consciousness-raising properties associated with these drugs; the editing credits on the title page go to “Robert E. Brown & Associates of the Neo American Church League for Spiritual Development & the Ultimate Authority of the Clear Light”. There are several editions of this work in the collection; the volume featured here is the third edition, published in 1973 and distributed by the Linga Sharira Incense Co.

In its introductory material, the guide warns that the substances it deals in are all illegal (these substances being marijuana, peyote, and psilocybin and ergot fungi), and that the guide is “designed for persons who know how to use hallucinogens and who wish to use them for religious purposes such as the mystical Psychedelic Experience” (p. 1). Numerous illustrations, some spiritual and some biochemical in nature, accompany the text.

The psychedelic guide… Austin, Tex.: [Distributed by] Linga Sharira Incense Co., 1973. RM315.P73 1973.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

Though the Santo Domingo Collection is exhaustive in its coverage of opium and LSD, this week we feature a text on a perfectly legal drug: alcohol. A literary gent: a study in vanity and dipsomania, published in 1895 by the English novelist Coulson Kernahan, is a cautionary tale about a writer afflicted with the titular conditions. Dipsomania, a nineteenth century antecedent to our modern conception of alcoholism, is an uncontrollable craving for drink, which accompanies the egotism that our narrator experiences as he finds literary success. This 61-page story is part of a series of four, entitled Strange Sins, and is bound in decorative black publisher’s bookcloth.

While brief, A literary gent is relentless in its condemnation of alcohol abuse. In an address to the reader following his sorry tale, rather than offering apology or proof of redemption, the protagonist ends his narrative with a final twist of the knife:

No, I have only one reason for writing this story. Can you not guess it? It is that I may sell it—as I’d sell my immortal soul were I able—for money to buy more drink. (p. 61)

Coulson Kernahan. A literary gent. London : Ward, Lock & Co., 1895-6. PR6021.E727 L5 1895.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

Joel Dorman Steele, Ph.D. was the author of a series of textbooks in late 19th-century America including Hygienic physiology : with special reference to the use of alcoholic drinks and narcotics.  It was meant to be used not for medical students but to inform young people in the principles that underlie the preservation of health and to form good physical habits.  Steele and his wife, Esther, were both educators who believed that traditional textbooks of the time were self-indulgently long.  Their solution was to write a series of textbooks meant for fourteen week courses on a range of subjects such as history, chemistry, zoology, astronomy, and of course physiology.  Hygenic Physiology explains the various systems of the human body because as the author states, “Habits are often formed in youth which entail weakness and poverty upon manhood, and are a cause of life-long regret… use of a strained limb may permanently damage it.  A thoughtless hour of reading by twilight may impair the sight for life...”  What is fascinating is that some of these ideas, particularly the reading with dim light are still commonly believed as true even though medical study has refuted the claim.

The volume contains beautifully illustrated depictions of the various systems and operations in the body including the skeleton, muscles, circulation, the nervous system, and others.

The information contained in Hygenic Physiology is particularly interesting when one notes that it was published just before the idea of germ theory.  It is a fascinating window into the prevailing wisdom of the day and a stark example of just how far medical technology has taken us.  Another interesting aspect of the book are the “Practical Questions” at the end of each chapter which reveal a great deal about the typical worries of the general public, some of which seem not quite so medically important…

Have you ever wondered what causes hair to “stand on end” when we are fightened?

What is meant by a “furred” tounge?

When a law of health and a law of fashion conflict, which should we obey?

Is the blacksmith’s right arm healthier than the left?

Regardless of the modern relevance of these questions it is certain that the book popularized the subject of physiology, thus enriching understanding of the human body during this time.  Hygienic physiology : with special reference to the use of alcoholic drinks and narcotics /by Joel Dorman Steele. Enl. ed. with selected readings. New York : American Book Co., c1888. QP36 .S81 1888 and many other interesting medical texts can be found at the Countway Library at the Harvard Medical School in Longwood.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager and Joan Thomas, Rare Book Cataloger at Countway for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

What to do if you are looking for the “ultimate guide for safe mushroom picking”?  Frank and Cheeri Rinaldo have got you covered with Safe-pik, a flip book of handy mushroom identification cards.  Measuring only about 2 1/2 by 4 inches it could easily fit in your pocket and deals mainly with Psilocybins, the type of mushrooms that contain a naturally occuring psychedelic compound.  There is a helpful disclaimer that children should not take mushrooms, one should never trespass, and that mushrooms should be used for the purpose they were intended… mind expansion.

Identification of mushrooms is hardly a new concept as seen by the German publication Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches in Bildern by Dr. Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert.    

Schubert was a 19th-century German physician, naturalist, and professor in Munich.  Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches in Bildern is the botanical part of a textbook set, Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte, that includes additonal plates.  The beautiful hand-colored lithographic plates help to identify and educate the reader to also expand their mind… though perhaps the intent was not in quite the same way as the Rinaldos.  

Mushrooms may have an even greater role according to mycologist Paul Stamets who states that they play a vital role in the survival of both earth and the human race.  Stamets has published many books including Mycelium running : how mushrooms can help save the world which can be found here at Harvard.  Stamets briefly explains the connection between mushrooms and survival in an amazing video excerpt featuring time-lapse footage of mushrooms from the documentary Fantastic Fungi: The Forbidden Fruit.

To see more botananical items from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection check out the Botany Libraries.

Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches in Bildern : nach der Anordung des allgemein bekannten und beliebten Lehrbuchs der Naturgeschichte / von G.H. v. Schubert ; bearbeitet von Chr. F. Hochstetter.  Esslingen a. N. : J.F. Schreiber, [1865].  Bot Ill Sch8n 1865.

Safe-pik mushroom identification cards / [Frank & Cheeri Rinaldo ; photographs by John Allen].  [Seattle?] : Shroomer Publications, c1979. QK604.2.H34 S127 1979x.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager, Gretchen Wade, and Judith Warnement of the Botany Libraries for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

The Santo Domingo Collection gathers together publications ranging from the 16^th century to the present day, and from the mass-market to the obscure. Obscure indeed is this week’s feature: a selection of issues from Hawkfrendz, a British fanzine for the science-fiction-tinged space-rock band Hawkwind. Trevor L. Hughes produced Hawkfrendz, one of his several fanzine titles, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While Hawkfrendz generally dedicates itself to discussion of the band, several of its issues take a different tack: they consist entirely of marijuana propaganda, comic strips, and advertisements, recollected and reprinted. Bearing the cover title Reefer Madness, these issues make no reference to Hawkwind beyond Hawkfrendz copyright statements. Much of the material is propaganda: some is anti-drug, here used to celebrate marijuana use by satirizing its critics, while some argues for legalization. To ease any doubt about his own position on recreational marijuana, Hughes describes Reefer Madness #2 as “compiled and collated entirely under the influence of the Devil’s Weed”.

Reefer madness issues from Hawkfrendz. [Wallasey, England : Trevor L. Hughes, 1989-1990]. HV5822.M3 H84 1989.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

The opium dens prevalent in France and the United States during the 19^th century, as well as the culture surrounding them, resulted in copious literature, such as this rarely-seen work: Le livre de la fumée, by French author, musicologist, and student of Chinese culture Louis Laloy. This treatise on opium’s use and history both domestically and in China features a preface by Claude Farrère, author of the novel Fumée d’opium. It was published in 1915 by Dorbon-Ainé in a lavish limited edition of 220 numbered copies with illustrations throughout. The Santo Domingo Collection includes several of the 220 copies; the one shown here is bound in full tan morocco with gilt stamping and embroidered cloth endsheets by the French bindery Marius Michel. The binding preserves the publisher’s original wrappers, themselves sumptuously illustrated in color.

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This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

Could it be true that similar animal forms share the same habits?  José Joaquim da Gama Machado certainly thought so, and produced the text and drawings to back it up.  Machado was a 19th-century scientist who studied homeopathy, phrenology, as well as physiognomy before he took up natural history in his fifties.  An extremely eccentric Portuguese man he spent his life surrounded by birds and was known to stroll about Paris, usually accompanied by his favorite parrot on his shoulder.  The idea presented in Théorie des ressemblances is that animals that share the same form, color, and outward appearance also share the same habits and customs.  Théorie des ressemblances illustrates Machado’s theory with beautifully colored lithographic plates modeled on Machado’s own drawings along with French text detailing the comparisons.

Théorie des ressemblances, ou, Essai philosophique sur les moyens de déterminer les dispositions physiques et morales des animaux, d’après les analogies de formes, de robes et de couleurs / Par le Cher de G.M. — ; orné de Vingt Planches.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager, for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

This week, we depart briefly from drugs and the counterculture to focus on the aesthetic beauty of modern books. Gallows Orchard, a romantic tragedy by first-time Scottish author Claire Spencer, was published in this American edition by Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, Inc., in 1930. We feature it here not for its text, but for the striking design of its dust jacket – a fine example of its period, and in excellent condition on this Santo Domingo Collection copy.

Claire Spencer. Gallows orchard. New York : J. Cape & H. Smith, c1930. PZ3.S7456 Gal 1930.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

The illustrated presidential report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography is the product of curious historical circumstance. Authorized by Congress to investigate the validity of obscenity laws in 1967, during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, the Commission’s work extended through the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon’s election, events which greatly diminished the Commission’s governmental favor. When the report was finally released in 1970, it was fractured in two: a majority report recommending that anti-obscenity laws be struck down, and a dissenting minority report that expressed the views of the reigning Republican Party. The majority report was censured by the Senate, discredited by Nixon, and apparently doomed to immediate obscurity, until a copy found its way into the hands of William Hamling and Earl Kemp of the erotic publishing house Greenleaf Classics.

Hamling and Kemp rereleased the report, illustrating it with hundreds of explicit pornographic images – images similar to those the Commission had used for evidence in its research. While initial sales were predictably brisk, the unauthorized publication soon came to the President’s attention, and Hamling and Kemp were indicted on obscenity charges and ordered to sell Greenleaf. As a result, the illustrated report is relatively rare, but copies such as this one, inscribed by Kemp to Julio Santo Domingo, do survive the political tumult of their creation. The volume’s illustrations, captioned with excerpts from the text, are an exhaustive survey of sexual imagery in American culture, juxtaposed against the report’s survey results, legislative recommendations, and general commentary. The pages seen here are among the few suitable to reproduce in this space.

The illustrated presidential report… San Diego: Greenleaf Classics, 1970. HOU-LC HQ471 C65 1971x.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

The works of Aleister Crowley, the British occultist and author at turns renowned and infamous, are ably suited for inclusion in the Santo Domingo Collection: Crowley’s mysticism, drug use, bisexuality, and overall libertinism, emblemized in his famous slogan “do what thou wilt”, demonstrate his lifelong interest in altered states of mind. Among his most beloved subjects, of course, was himself, and nowhere is this in greater evidence than in his autobiography, The spirit of solitude: an autohagiography: subsequently re-antichristened the confessions of Aleister Crowley, published in this edition by the Mandrake Press in 1929.

The cover (top left) is illustrated with a grotesque self-portrait. The text, divided into “stanzas” rather than chapters and illustrated with portraits, drawings, and facsimiles of Crowley’s manuscript writings, consists of Crowley’s reminiscences interspersed with social criticism and personal philosophy.

As an example of the narrative’s self-aggrandizing tone, here Crowley describes changing his name from his given Edward Alexander, nicknamed “Alick”:

Aleister Crowley. The spirit of solitude. London: Mandrake Press, 1929. EC9.C8863.929s.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

Known for the openly sexual themes in his work as well as for his battle with opium addiction, the creative polymath Jean Cocteau is a fitting author for inclusion in the Santo Domingo Collection. Maison de santé, one of the works Cocteau produced during his detoxification cures, consists of Cocteau’s line illustrations, many of them twisted self-portraits, and text reproduced from his original manuscript. This copy, one of an edition of 500 published by Editions Briant-Robert, features on its half-title page an original Cocteau pencil illustration, depicting the author at his opium pipe, and an inscription “à mon Jacques”, dated 1938. The Jacques referred to here is likely the philosopher Jacques Maritain. A devout Catholic, Maritain supported Cocteau’s recovery from opium addiction as well as his return to the church, both of which proved temporary.

Jean Cocteau. Maison de santé. Paris: Editions Briant-Robert, 1926. FC9.C6478.926m

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

The volumes in the Santo Domingo Collection are variously remarkable for their content, their condition, their presentation, and their provenance. Perhaps the most arresting example yet of the latter is this unassuming item: Kokain, a German translation of Cocaina, the novel written by Dino Segre under his pseudonym Pitigrilli. The book follows the misadventures of Tito Arnaudi, a cocaine-addled nihilist, as he pursues romance and falls into dissipation. The cover, rebound with the original front cover pasted on, is not among the most beautiful in the collection. The front endsheet, though, bears two bookplates, besides that of the Houghton Library: the bookplate of the Fitz Hugh Memorial Library, whose former holdings make up a significant portion of the Santo Domingo Collection, and the bookplate of Adolf Hitler.

A typescript letter, addressed from a soldier named Rollin Wilson to a “Mother Clark” and dated 7 May 1945, accompanies the volume. In it, Wilson describes his visit to Hitler’s bombed-out mountain residence in Berchtesgaden, and encloses Kokain as “a small souvenir” for Clark’s library.

Provenance often adds to a book’s research value by way of the annotations and markings former owners leave behind. In Kokain, a single passage on page 145 is underlined; in it, the protagonist Tito excoriates farmers, describing them as egotistical, cruel, ignorant, and of “an inferior race of men”.

Pitigrilli (pseud.). Kokain. Berlin: Eden-Verlag, [c1927].  IC9.P6825.En927g.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Today we focus our attention on books from the publishing house of book dealer, collector, and Henry Miller expert Roger Jackson. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jackson is Managing Editor of Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, and co-author of authoritative Miller bibliographies.  Since 1994 Jackson has published limited edition books by and about Henry Miller, as well works by Miller’s friends and associates. Roger Jackson editions are small, seldom longer than twenty-four pages, and diverse in content, encompassing memoir, poetry, letters, and interviews. It is their physical qualities, however, that make them so remarkable. Fine hand-made paper, deluxe storage containers, and whimsical decorative elements abound in Jackson’s publications.

Illustrative of Jackson’s approach to publishing is Henry Miller: 18 Individual Portraits and an Introductory Essay, by Peter Gowland, shown below. The book features photographic reproductions on gloss stock, and is signed by the author. The leaves are unbound but enclosed in a handsome envelope made from fibrous Nepalese lokta paper. Within this envelope are two further wrappers, first a black and gold paper from Thailand, and a second in natural white fiber paper embedded with a profusion of brightly colored silk strings. The cumulative effect of such lavish design affords the reader a pleasure that is both intellectual and tactile.

Lokta paper outer wrapper with decorative title label.

One of 18 portraits of Henry Miller by Peter Gowland showcased in this publication.

Decorative outer and inner wrappers, characteristic of Roger Jackson’s publications.

Gowland, Peter. Henry Miller: 18 Individual Portraits and an Introductory Essay. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Roger Jackson, 2000.  AC9.M6145.P2000ga

Thanks to Bibliographic Assistant Noah Sheola for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

A curiosity from the Santo Domingo Collection this week, reflective of Julio Santo Domingo’s far-ranging interest in French history and culture: this broadside, printed in France by Librairie Hayard in 1944:

The front is printed with a satirical invitation to Hitler’s “mise en bière,” or formal funeral ceremony, with an accompanying last will and testament on the reverse. Beyond the obvious insult of declaring Hitler dead, the broadside’s tone is one of absurdist ridicule. The funeral invitation declares that “this fragrant hour has been chosen in order to complement with dignity the foul odors that will emanate from the carcass of this august stiff, and give pleasure to the excellent cretins who will follow the procession.” Guests are encouraged to bring “neither flowers nor wreaths, only old stillborn toads.” Toward the bottom of the sheet is the invocation “prière de rigoler,” or “please laugh,” an inversion of the expected admonishment. On the verso, the following are among the will’s bequeathals: to Mussolini, “my pair of suspenders, to hold up the boxer shorts that encumber him;” and to the Museum of Berlin, “an onion which I had between the big and second toes of my left foot.”

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo collection.

Previous posts in this space have focused on the erotica in the Santo Domingo Collection, but prurience is not the only aspect of sexuality to be found there: the medical, psychological, and social history of sex are amply represented as well. Today we have a work of strident moralism: Man and his sexual relations by John Thompson, published in 1890. Thompson, also the author of several works on phrenology, writes with urgency on the subject of sex, laying blame for many of our physical and mental ills at the doorstep of overindulgence. He claims, for instance, that “the majority of even those who are suffering from sterility would have children if they were temperate sexually” (v.1, p. 177), and ascribes insanity, criminal tendencies, and suicide to childhood self-abuse. The urgency with which Thompson expounds on these positions frequently leads to such melodramatic and violent language as this, in the course of his excoriation of seductresses:

Later in the text, Thompson provides perhaps the ideal summation of his argument: “I know of nothing so perverted as man’s sexual nature. Society is rotten—rotten to its very core!” (v.2, p. 129)

John Thompson. Man and his sexual relations. South Cliff, Scarborough, [Eng.]: J.B. Keswick, Broughton House, 1890. HQ36.T5 1890x.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.