Lisping Booksellers and La Belle Affemblee

Earlier this year I stumbled bought two odd volumes of Haywood’s La Belle Assemblée. I located the first (below) in a general search of eighteenth-century books on eBay—which surprised me, way since I have a number of searches which run continuously on eBay that should have picked it up and sent me an alert. It took a moment to realise why none of my searches had worked: the book was listed as La Belle Affemblee!

Since just about everyone reads the long esse and an eff the first time they see it, it should have occurred to me before to go looking for lisping versions of her titles. But it hadn’t. So I did a search for Belle Affemblee and found another odd volume straight away. What amused me about the second one was, while the first seller was obviously an enthusiastic amateur, the second was sold by “World of Rare Books”!

You’d think, that a specialist “rare book” dealer—who has sold 37,656 items on eBay, has over one hundred and twenty thousand books presently listed, including over five hundred eighteenth-century books—could distinguish an esse from an eff. But that would be a no.

However, “World of Rare Books” did know exactly how much to charge for it: an excessive amount, but not so excessive that I wouldn’t buy it. That I bought it at all, as a duplicate no less, says something about my present priorities. (And, possibly, that there really is a sucker born every minute.) Here is the description:

Brown leather hardback with gilt lettering and decoration to spine. Prelims missing. Internal hinges cracked. Wear and tear to pages with some losses. Heavy use marking, foxing and tanning present. Some pages creased. Text remains clear and legible throughout on yellowed pages. Illustrated. Binding has weakened due to hinge cracking. Heavy scuffing, edge wear and use marking present with sunning to spine. Bumped and torn corners.

I believe this is called lowering buyer expectations. I wish I could say that this was the ugliest Haywood volume I have bought, but it isn’t, not by a long shot. (this one might be, or possibly this one.)

* * * * *

Returning to the first Belle Affemblee—which had an old diary cover sticky-taped over the original full calf binding (so, also ugly)—I am grateful to the vendor (Billy), who bought this camouflaged volume, without realising it, in a huge box of books at an estate sale in West Virginia. Not only is there a battered Caesar Ward and Richard Chandler trade card pasted onto the front fixed endpaper (below; compare this to my other copy here)—which suggests both that Ward and Chandler may have been the original vendors of the volume and that it was sold, bound, with their trade card in place—but there is also some provenance and reading records in this volumes, which are gold for my present research.

A faded note has been tapped onto the front free endpaper; it reads:

To John from Cystlina Feb. 1953 | [I] bought this book over | from England when I | returned after 11 months | absence”

“John J. Jones, Malden WVA” and “John J. Jones — Malden, W Va. | Telephone WA53-838” are stamped on the endpaper and in the middle of the volume. There are also two dates, which appear to indicate where John (?) had reached with his reading, when he picked up the book nine years later: “Sep 29, 62” (on page 194) and “Dec 27, 62” (page 198). And, as you can see on the title-page at the head of this post, John (?) worked out that his book was 234 years old in 1966, which he updated to 238 years in 1970.

It is not clear whether it was, but it is certainly tempting to conclude that the huge box of books Billy bought was, from the estate of John J. Jones, of Malden, West Virginia. It is also not clear whether it was, but it is certainly tempting to conclude that it was, John who (read and) annotated this volume. But whether or not there were other owners since Cystlina in 1953, John is certainly the most important for my purposes. So, if anyone reader knows anything at all about John J. Jones, Cystlina or even Malden, West Virginia—the Wikipedia entry here is not particularly informative—I’d be grateful if you could drop me a line.

Routledge and the fate of my Bibliography

Routledge have bought out Pickering and Chatto. The Pickering and Chatto site (http://www.pickeringchatto.com/) now redirects here, where the reader is informed that "Routledge is pleased" with their acquisition of my publisher.

Although Routledge appear to have created listings for the "more than 750" Pickering and Chatto titles they acquired (on 1 July, according to this page), the detail from the old Pickering and Chatto site has not been carried over. Worse, the interface on the Routledge is appallingly designed, with entries listed horizontally behind a large search box (as below), which obscures much of the screen.

Anyway, I discovered all of this a few weeks ago when I went looking for the URLs of a few of my publications for a post I was working on. When I eventually found a URL for my Bibliography of Eliza Haywood—which was not easy, either on Google or via the Routledge site—I discovered that it was listed as "out of stock"—which seems highly unlikely. My annual royalty statements from Pickering and Chatto suggest that I am (or should be) "in print" for a while yet. So I sent an email asking what was going on. Routledge have not replied.

Since my 27 other Pickering and Chatto Routledge publications are all available, I suspect that Routledge has actually read my contract, which included (at my insistence) a sunset clause that gave Pickering and Chatto the "exclusive right" to publish my Bibliography only "for a period of ten years from publication". That ten years expired in 2014.

What this suggests is that Routledge has the right to sell the copies it has acquired from Pickering and Chatto, but no longer has exclusive rights as publisher. At any point from now on I could sell the rights to a (revised or not) Bibliography to another publisher or simply publish it myself online—something I have long planned to do.

I am guessing Routledge have decided to despose of the copies it has—without consulting me about it, although I hope not. My original contract included a clause allowing the publisher to remainder my Bibliography—but required them to notify me in writing of their intention to do so and giving me "the option for twenty-eight days of purchasing such copies at the remainder price." (I am not sure why I would want scores of remaindered copies of my Bibliography, but if Routledge were proposing to sell them very cheaply, I might use them to make a papier mâché monument of some sort ...) Perhaps they simply destroyed them. It would be nice to know either way. So, if anyone reading this sees piles of my Bibliography at a remainder sale, please let me know!

Little Victories

Above and below are photos of a set of four volumes of Eliza Haywood’s The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, 5th ed. (London: H. Gardner, 1772)—Ab.67.8 in my Bibliography of Eliza Haywood (2004), but now Ab.67.8a for reasons I explain at the end of this post.

What makes this set remarkable is not its rarity, though I could only locate three sets in 2004, but both the provenance and the fact that I bought volume 4 in 2005 (from a US dealer) and volumes 1–3 last month (from a UK dealer who has had his incomplete set in his back room since the mid-1980s). The UK dealer bought his three volumes while he was in the States, but it seems unlikely that we bought our volumes from the same dealer, twenty years apart. Rather, I suspect the original vendor sold the volumes, at different times, to different dealers. Whether or not I am right, this “broken” set, which I have just re-united, had been broken for at least thirty years.

The reason that I don’t think that all four volumes were sold by the same vendor is that [1] no dealer worth their salt would sell an incomplete set unless that were 100% sure that the set was really incomplete—since incomplete sets are worth less than complete ones— and [2] the volume I bought in 2005 has been “improved” in a way that the other three volumes have not. Notice (above) that a pink-red tint has been applied to the leather binding of volume 4 and that the upper edge (below, fourth volume from the left) has been sanded in an attempt to brighten the dust-darkened page edges, so that it matches the un-darkened lower edge (below, right).

(That volumes 1–3 were not darkened after the set was broken is evident from the uneven effect that the sanding has on gatherings in volume 4 which are sewn in lower than the others. Beyond the reach of the sandpaper, these low-set gatherings remain dark—just as dark as the volumes that were not sanded. As well as removing dust, this sort of sanding damages the paper in distinctive ways, softening the edges, giving the paper a rounded and blurred look which is hard to describe.)

Re [1] above, there will always be dealers who disregard their own best interests, who sell odd volumes so vacuous ninnies can advertise their ignorance by decorating their homes with odd volumes, but such dealers are rare. And re [2] it is possible that the hack-dealer who slapped on some leather stain and sanded the edges of volume 4 bought this volume from a dealer who had bought a complete set but sold it off in odd-volumes, but this also seems unlikely.

I think that it is more likely that the vendor sold off the volumes at different times, to different dealers. My reason for thinking this brings me to the second remarkable thing about this set: their provenance: I think it is possible to trace the history of these volumes from eighteenth-century to today.

* * * * *

This set is half bound in early twentieth century brown roan morocco. All volumes contain the book label of “Richard Ashhurst” which has been removed from the original endpapers and reattached to new endpapers.

Richard Ashhurst appears to be Richard Lewis Ashhurst (1784–1809) who, ca. 1809, married Elizabeth Beck Crotto (1777–1857)—a widower; Richard and Elizabeth were the parents of Catherine Helen Ashhurst (1814–1910); mother of Richard Ashhurst Bowie (1837–87), father of Richard Henry Bayard Bowie (b. 1868), who sold the 11,887 volumes of his father’s “most interesting and very remarkable” library to Harvard in 1908 for USD10,000, stipulating “that any books containing the name or bookplate of Richard Ashhurst … be removed as belonging to Bowie's grandmother.”

All of the books belonging to Bowie's grandmother were removed (set aside, or preserved) from among those going to Harvard and kept by Mr. R. H. Bayard Bowie of 171 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. It is unclear what happened after 1908, but it seems likely that Mr Bowie spent some of this ten thousand dollars on having this set rebound. The family portraits—including portraits of Richard Ashhurst, his wife Elizabeth and daughter Catherine—and the “Richard Ashhurst” library were passed onto his son Richard Henry Bayard Bowie Jr. (d.1961) and then to Williams Cadwalader Bowie, who died, childless, in 1991 (his wife died in 1996).

I suspect Williams Cadwalader Bowie was the one who sold the “Richard Ashhurst” library, though it is possible that the volumes had passed to other family members and were sold off before the mid-1980s. Williams Bowie dropped out of University to join the Marines, unlike his many university-educated, gentlemanly, ancestors, and, also unlike his every ancestor back to Richard Ashhurst, he did not stay in Philadelphia, so he seems like a good candidate for disposing of the family heirlooms.

(Two of the important family portraits by Thomas Sully, mentioned above, were given away after the death of Williams’ father in 1961, including one of Elizabeth Crotto (1833) [below]; reproduced in Charles H. Hart, “Portrait of Mrs. Richard Ashhurst, painted by Thomas Sully,” Art in America, vol. 5 (April 1917): 140–43 [available here and here]; and Lewis Richard Ashhurst (1833). See also “The Misses Ashhurst” reproduced in The Life And Works Of Thomas Sully, 1783–1872 (Philadelphia, 1921), 124 [here] and Mrs. Thomas Ashurst.)

* * * * *

James E. Walsh's account of the “Richard Ashhurst Bowie Collection” (in A Catalogue of the Fifteenth-Century Printed Books in the Harvard University Library, vol.5 (1997), 21–25 [here]), which I have drawn on above, describes Richard Ashhurst as “Bowie's maternal grandfather,” but Richard Ashhurst was actually the grandfather of Richard Ashhurst Bowie—the book collector—not his son Richard Henry Bayard Bowie, who sold his father’s library, and whose actions are the subject of Walsh's account at this point.

It is possible that Walsh has confused father and son and that he is referring to Richard Ashhurst Bowie’s maternal grandfather, so that, when he says “books containing the name or bookplate of Richard Ashhurst” belonged “to Bowie's grandmother” he means that books containing the name or bookplate of Richard Ashhurst belonged to Richard Ashhurst’s wife: the book-collector’s grandmother, Elizabeth Crotto (above).

But it is also possible Walsh is simply inconsistent: mistaking Richard Ashhurst as “maternal grandfather” to the man selling off the library, but correct in identifying “books containing the name or bookplate of Richard Ashhurst” as belonged “to Bowie's grandmother”: the book-seller’s grandmother, Catherine Helen Ashhurst (below, at right; daughter of Elizabeth).

It is unclear why, if Elizabeth Beck Crotto—daughter of Henry Crotto and Catherine Van Flick, who married (first) Captain Joseph Hughes on 17 June 1794 (ætat 17) and (second) Richard Ashhurst ca. 1804 (ætat 27)—did own this set, it would contain the name plate of her husband. But if the books belonged to her daughter—Catherine Helen Ashhurst (1814–1910), who married Thomas Latimer Bowie—the presence of the name or bookplate of Richard Ashhurst in them would suggest that Catherine inherited them from her father’ meaning that Richard Ashhurst was, in fact, the original owner of this set (as his name-plates suggest).

I am inclined to think that the latter is true, that Walsh is inconsistent, and the relevant passage should read:

He [R.H.B. Bowie] stipulated a few conditions: first, that any books containing the name or bookplate of Richard Ashhurst, [R. A.] Bowie's maternal grandfather, be removed as belonging to [R.H.B.] Bowie's grandmother.

(And since I am in the middle of marking undergraduate essays, I have to say avoid implied subjects—and don’t start a new paragraph with an implied subject—or, perhaps, just unclear!. This confusion of father and son is exactly the sort of muddle that occurs when writers make liberal use of implied subjects—Walsh refers to “he” twice before he gets to “stipulated”, by which time even the author has forgotten who “he” is.)

Unfortunately, the Thomas Sully portrait of Richard Ashhurst, “Merchant” of “No. 263 Arch St., Phila. … begun March 7th, 1826, finished April 13th, 1826” was “destroyed” prior to 1921 “having been injured beyond repair.” Consequently, I do not have a portrait of the man behind the name, but it is certainly satisfying to be able to trace this set—re-united after having been “broken” for at least thirty years—through six generations of the Ashhurst and Bowie families, from the eighteenth century through to the twenty-first.

* * * * *

As a final note, I should mention that I had not thought to buy another copy of this fifth edition, but I was offered the volumes with another Haywood item that I very much wanted. As a result I now have three complete sets of the fifth edition, and a fourth (incomplete, but seemingly unique) set of an undated re-issue that I did not know about when my Bibliography was published (thus Ab.67.8a and Ab.67.8b).

Four sets might be considered excessive but—as David Levy reminds me—there are no duplicates in the hand press era. And so, already having a Haywood item is “no reason to hinder a man from the buying of [another], if he has the money that is demanded for [it]”—as Richard de Bury writes—“unless it be to withstand the malice of the seller or to await a more favourable opportunity of buying.”

Miss Gaswell the Sand Witch, a 19C meme

I have previously posted on the subject of mysterious late 19C/early 20C postcard memes (see here for my attempt to work out what donkeys have to do with Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”).

Today’s nineteenth-century meme concerns the “sand witch.” What is a Sand Witch? Below are a series of postcards featuring sand witches.

After a lot of digging I think I have discovered the origin of this meme: it is a joke—first published in the Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph—that did the rounds in 1902.

The Sand Witch.

“Look at Miss Gaswell as she sits on the sand in her bathing-suit,” exclaimed a Pittsburgher at Atlantic City. “She is pretty enough to eat.” “That’s what she is,” assented his hearer. “She is a regular sand witch.”

Cue postcard-caption for any bathing beauty; anyone on the sand who is “pretty enough to eat.”

So, not a witch made of, or sculpted out of, sand and animated like a Golem. Though, it seems, modern sand-sculptors are fond of sculpting hag-witches. And not an actual, or Halloween, witch practicing real or Hallowe’en witchcraft on a beach, like Fairuza Balk in The Craft (1996).

And, despite the fact that, since 1998, The Library of Congress Subject Headings has contained an entry for “Sand Witch” that glosses it as “Fictitious character,” no such fictitious character existed pre-1902.

In the above painting by C. Coles Phillips, used as the cover art for Life Magazine, 22 July 1909, “The Sand Witch” is a bathing beauty, positioned between two men. In this scenario, Miss Gaswell is literally “sandwiched” between two men.

(Phillips’s art may be taken to suggest that you could caption any postcard of a woman—on a train, in a crowd, anywhere—positioned between two men as a “Sand Witch,” since any woman who is “pretty enough to eat may be considered a “witch”—because she is bewitchingly alluring—but the “sand” in “sand witch” makes the beach a necessity for the caption to work.)

As for Miss Gaswell, she is not a real person, just a stock name used in jokes in the late 19C/early 20C, along with Mr Gaswell and Mrs Gaswell. I presume gas-well is itself a joke meaning “joke-well” or “bluff-well,” related to the slang uses of gas recorded in the OED under, v.1, 7a “To mislead (a person) by clever or persuasive talk; to tease, to bluff” (as in “she’s gassin’ you” or “I used to gas you about this”).

* * * * *

Below are fifteen Gaswell jokes recorded in newspapers from 1889 to 1908, which give some context to Miss Gaswell the Sand Witch. I have not been able to find even a passing mention of this genre of jokey anecdote, so I have included as many as I could find, with titles where they had them.

“I want the library,” said Mr. Gaswell to the architect, “to be the largest and airiest room in the house.” “I don’t see what you want with a library,” interposed Mrs. Gaswell, “you know very well you don’t smoke.” [The Brooklyn Daily Eagle [Brooklyn, NY] (7 July 1889): 8]

Nautical Blood in Her Veins. “You may sit in the stern of the boat and work the tiller, Miss Gaswell,” said the young man, as he took the oars, “if you think you can steer.” “I think that won’t be hard to do,” responded the proud young heiress. “I have heard mamma say she was a good steerer, because she crossed the ocean in the steerage.” [The Topeka State Journal [Topeka, KA] (18 March 1891): 5]

A Finished Education. “Oh, Uncle George!” exclaimed Miss Gaswell, “why didn't you come a week ago? I graduated last Wednesday.” “Ah,” replied Uncle George, who takes a great interest in his niece’s education, “what did you graduate in?” “Why, in the loveliest white India mull, made up over the sweetest white silk.” [The Wichita Daily Eagle [Wichita, Kansas] (16 August 1891): 2]

Unfortunate. Miss Gaswell “Pop, did you see the Prince o’ Wales while you was in Europe, and did you talk with him?” Pop “I saw ’im, but the crowd was so big he didn't see me.” [The Evening Visitor [Raleigh, NC] (7 April 1891): 3]

Attractive to Bicyclist. “Have you visited the Phipps’ conservatory lately, Miss Gaswell?” “No, Mr. Dukane, I haven’t” “I think you would enjoy a visit very much. You are such an enthusiastic wheelwoman.” “Pardon me, but I do not exactly see the connection between a conservatory and bicycling.” “Well, tho conservatory is full of bloomers, you see.” [Evening Sentinel [Santa Cruz, CA] (22 June 1896): 3]

Presumption Rebuked. “One of the strong points about this carpet, ma’am,” said the salesman, “is that it won’t show dirt as plainly as some others. You wouldn't have to sweep it nearly as often as.” “I shouldn’t have to sweep it at all young man,” interrupted Mrs. Gaswell, with much sharpness. “We keep a hired girl.” [The Daily Democrat [Huntington, IN] (29 April 1896): 8]

A Connoisseur. Sir Gaswell, accompanied by several members of his family was looking through the stock of the picture dealer with a view to making a purchase. “What is the name of that one” he asked pointing with his cane at a painting banging on the wall. “That is St. Cecilia” replied the dealer. “How does that strike you” said Sir Gaswell, turning to his daughter. “It wont do” answered Miss Gaswell, with much positiveness. “She wears a style of halo that's twenty-five years old.” [Chicago Daily Tribune (15 May 1897): 12]

Mr. and Mrs. Gaswell had moved only a few weeks before into a fashionable neighborhood and were preparing to issue invitations for their silver wedding. “I’m afraid,” said Mr. Gaswell, looking dubiously at the pile of costly stationery before him, “most of these will go begging.” “Why, James,” responded Mrs. Gaswell, “that's what we are sending them out for.” [Ann Arbor Argus (8 July 1898)]

Mrs Gaswell: “The Emperor of Germany took 102 trunks with him on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem.” Mr Gaswell: “I suppose his wife was with him.” Mrs Gaswell: “Yes; the Empress’ clothes were in two trunks.” [Mataura Ensign (27 April 1899): 4]

Mr. Gaswell: “I wonder why Minister Conger’s messages are all undated. Do you suppose he omits the date to save cable tolls?” Mrs. Gaswell: “No, I don’t. It’s my opinion those Chinese Boxers have stolen his calendar.” [The Sacred Heart Review, no. 11 (15 September 1900)]

Mrs Gaswell: “The Czar of Russia now has four daughters”. Mr Gaswell: “Oh, the dear little Czardines” [San Francisco Chronicle (4 August 1901): 27]

Mrs. Gaswell: “I thought you wanted to go to London for the summer. Now you're talking about Paris. What has made you change your mind?” Mr. Gaswell: “Well, in London I'd be worth only £200.000, while in Paris I’d be Worth 5,000,000 francs, and I tell you, there,s a heap of difference in the way it sounds.” [Indianapolis Journal, vol. 52, no. 184 (3 July 1902)]

Had Heard of It. Young Professor (who has taken her down to dinner): “By the way, Miss Gaswell, have you ever seen the nebula of Andromeda?” Miss Gaswell: “No; I was abroad with papa and mamma when that was played. But I’ve heard that it drew crowded houses.” [San Francisco Call, vol. 97, no. 21 (21 December 1904)]

Natural Mistake. Mrs. Gaswell (making a call): “Ah, I see you have here a volume of poems. I’m ashamed to confess it, Mrs. Highmus, but. I never could appreciate blank verse.” Mrs. Highmus: “Why—er—that’s a catalogue, Mrs. Gaswell.” [Lompoc Journal, no. 44 (21 March 1908)]

Pope's Pen-portrait of Haywood

Alexander Pope included Haywood in his Dunciad (Book 2, ll. 149–56, 179–80; published 18 May 1728). The portrait is unflattering—which is no great surprise, Pope was a sexist pig—but it is one of the only pen-portraits we have. And for this reason, although it is a poisonous pen, it is quoted with tedious regularity in relation to Haywood. Here is the text:

  See in the circle next, Eliza plac'd,
  Two babes of love close clinging to her waste;
  Fair as before her works she stands confess'd,
  In flow'r'd brocade by bounteous Kirkall dress'd.
  Pearls on her neck, and roses in her hair,
  And her fore-buttocks to the navel bare.
  The Goddess then: "Who best can send on high
  The salient spout, fair-streaming to the sky;
  His be yon Juno of majestic size,
  With cow-like-udders, and with ox-like eyes."
  […]
  Thou [Curll] triumph'st, victor of the high-wrought day,
  And the pleas'd dame soft-smiling leads away.

152. Kirkall, the Name of a Graver. This Lady’s Works were printed in four Volumes duod. with her picture thus dressed up, before them.

The features mentioned (a low-cut brocade dress and a rose in her hair) make it clear that Pope had seen the Vertue engraving, or the Parmentier painting on which it is based, before he penned these lines. (For more about the portrait, see this post.)

* * * * *

The following poem was written as a response to The Dunciad. I think it should be quoted just as regularly in relation to Pope. The poem appeared in The Daily Journal (28 May 1728) under the title "Alexander Pope's Nosegay: or, The Dunciad Epitomiz'd" (a transcript is available online here. I have glossed the blanks, as appropriate.).

SIR,
If the following Verses, at first Sight, be thought too gross for a Place in your Paper, you'll however not refuse it that Favour, when you find it to be the faithful Contents of a Piece, lately publish'd, intitled the DUNCIAD, from P. 18, to P. 34. The whole of which is certainly the most filthy and indecent Instance of the True Profund that ever defiled the English Language. If, as a great Poet says, Want of Decency is Want of Wit, I am sure nothing can be a greater Instance of Folly than the DUNCIAD, and nobody can be so fit to exhibit the intended Progress of Dulness, as the Author of it.
I am, Sir,
Yours, &c. A. B.

First Jove strains hard to give Ambrosia Vent,
And wipes the Ichor from his F—da—nt.   [fundament
C—l's Vomit, and his Mistress's Discharge   [Curll
By Stool and Urine, next are sung at large.
Then with her T—d our Bard embrowns C—l's Face,   [turd, Curll
And fills with Stench the Strand's extended Space.
Eliza's Breasts, in Language most polite,
Are two Fore Buttocks, or Cows Udders hight.
Ch—d by C—l at Pissing overcome,   [Chetwood, Curll
Crown'd with a Jordan, stalks contented home.
But who can bear the Stink from muddy Streams
Of Fleet-Ditch, rolling Carrion to the Thames?
Or the foul Images he draws from Jakes?
Or what a Dutchman plumps into the Lakes?

Thus P—e is dwindled to a Bog-house Wit,   [Pope
And writes as filthy Stuff as others sh—.   [shit
Who reads P—e's Verses, or Dean Gully's Prose,   [Pope
Must a strong Stomach have, or else no Nose.

The poem was reprinted in Gulliveriana; Or, A Fourth Volume of Miscellanies (1728), 315–16.