Library Company of Philadelphia
Our feed has been looking a little gray-scale this week, so we decided to introduce a little color. But then we couldn’t decide which color, so we just did all of them.
G. W. Septimus Piesse. Chymical natural and physical magic intended for the instruction and amusement of juveniles during the holiday vacation. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1859.
We had an incredibly difficult time choosing which images to share from Johann Heck’s Iconographic Encyclopædia of Science, Literature, and Art (New York, 1851-1852) for this week’s #LibraryBookArt feature! The two image atlases that accompany the text are chock-full of beautiful engravings, depicting fossils, minerals, natural phenomena, and so much more.
Flowers, four lines pica, from the 1809 specimen book of metal ornaments offered by the type foundry Binny & Ronaldson. Binny & Ronaldson, a printer and a baker, went into business together in 1796 to form the highly successful Philadelphia Type Foundry.
A specimen of metal ornaments cast at the letter foundery of Binny & Ronaldson. Philadelphia: Printed by Fry and Kammerer, 1809.
Back to work! It’s #MorrisMonday and we’re getting some workweek inspiration from Janet Morris, pictured here carrying firewood while camping with her family at the Pocono Lake Preserve in September, 1909.
The Pocono Lake Preserve was pioneered by a group of Quakers, including Isaac Sharpless, who camped in the area in 1904. In 1908, this group bought the property from the Pocono Mountain Ice Company and designed it as a basic, rustic campground.
Mocking the “Other”: The Irish American Experience
This year the Print Department acquired a set of four cards mocking the experience of Irish immigrants in America. In size and appearance they are similar to advertising trade cards, but there is no particular product associated with these late 19th-century collecting cards.
Today on the Library Company blog, Sarah Weatherwax, Curator of Prints and Photographs, examines how this set of cards uses both visual and textual tropes to demean the Irish, playing off commonly held stereotypes that would have been readily understandable to the cards’ intended audience.
We’ve still got Shakespeare on the mind, so decided to highlight the Wayward Sisters again, this time #PublishersBindingThursday style.
This is volume 6 of a 15 volume set of the works of Shakespeare, each volume with a different gold-stamped decoration to match the contents. If you look very closely, you can see the name of the die-cutter, [John] Feely, engraved into this stamp, in the folds of fabric just under the Witches’ fingers.
The plays and poems of Shakespeare. Edited by A.J. Valpy. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1842.
“When shall we three meet again”…
We’re kicking off September’s #LibraryBookArt challenge with our copy of George Kingsley’s The Social Choir (Boston, 1835), which features this fantastic drawing and inscription on its front pastedown. Who doesn’t love a casual Macbeth reference?
George Kingsley, editor. The Social choir. Boston : Leavitt, Lord, & Co., 1835.
Our #TinyTuesday offering this week is too small for its own woodcuts, but no matter. We think they look just fine sideways, don’t you?
Charles Perrault. Cinderilla; or The little glass slipper. Litchfield [Conn.]: T. Collier, ca. 1800.
It’s #FishyFriday and these gilt-stamped beauties on our copy of John Ray’s Collection of English VVords Not Generally Used (London, 1674) are ready for their debut!
We’re already planning to incorporate some of the amazing vvords featured in this collection into our vocabulary, including Flizze, Fudder, and Fuzzen.
It’s #PublishersBindingThursday, which means it’s almost Friday! If you’re still making plans for the long weekend, we have just the book for you. Impromptu charades, anyone?
William B. Dick. What shall we do to-night? or, Social amusements for evening parties. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1873.