Bookplate

“ Book-plate collecting, at least in this country, is a thing of yesterday. On the Continent, particularly in France, it attracted attention sufficiently serious to induce the publication, in 1874, of a monograph on French book-plates by M. Poulet Malassis, which in the next year obtained the honours of a second edition. In England, prior to 1880, we had no work devoted to the study; but, in that year, the Honourable J. Leicester Warren—afterwards Lord De Tabley—published A Guide to the Study of Book-Plates (Ex Libris) . ”

“ The style of a book-plate may be taken as some indication of the tastes and nature of the owner, and this is particularly true of modern French ex-libris, in which artistic fancy and originality have full swing. From this point of view a collection may have more value than might at first be supposed. It would be claiming too much to assert that no great man ever had an ugly or an inappropriate ex-libris, yet it may be safely assumed that few but men of taste and culture possess really artistic book-plates. ”

“ Some twenty years later, a still larger and more ornate book-plate (10 × 7 inches) was designed for use in the same library. Here the arms are in an oval frame, surrounded by the Golden Fleece; on the right and left are inverted cornucopiæ, and the crown is held aloft by four cherubs. All the book-plates of this library exist in a great variety of design, and nearly all the varieties are found in different sizes.
These examples are typical of many other German book-plates; the conception of the design is excellent, and its working out is equally good. ”

“ We think emphatically not! Many full-grown folks have no more idea of handling a book than has a school-boy.'
So far the 'caveats' on book-plates have been either original compositions or quotations, specially selected by the owner; but, as time went on, people did not trouble to compose their own verses or inscriptions, or to hunt up appropriate quotations. The same lines or words appear fastened beneath, or printed upon, the book-plates of many different persons; in the latter case the book-plate is generally little more than a name ticket. ”

“ With this gathering together of scraps and clippings I will bring my volume to a close. Most of what I have said, and a very great deal besides, is well known to the students of book-plates; but to them, I fancy, this work is not intended to appeal. It is meant for the public at large, to the majority of whom book-plates are unconsidered trifles. To promote wholesale book-plate collecting in albums and portfolios is certainly not my intention. ”

“ The would-be collector of to-day can, if he pleases, know something about the collection he is undertaking; he can tell when he meets with a good specimen; he knows the points which render any particular book-plate interesting; and he can, at [4] least approximately, affix a date to each example he obtains.
As to the morality of book-plate collecting, I suppose something ought to be said here. There is but one objection to it, but that is, undoubtedly, a serious one: taking a book-plate out of a book means the possible disfigurement and injury of the volume from which it is taken ”

“ A gentleman in eighteenth century dress, who may, likely enough, be Herr Nack himself, addresses himself to the goddess, and explains—as he points to the outer scene, which shows us ships and merchandise—that, whilst following his trade as a merchant, he still has time to devote some attention to literature. In any case, these and the few other instances there may be of the inscription referring to the book-plate and not to the book, seem hardly sufficient to make ex libris a good name for book-plates in general. ”

“ Collectors should also note that, in many instances, book-plates are found in a variety of sizes; this should [19] certainly be borne in mind when setting aside any particular specimen as a duplicate. In the present day, most people are content to have a book-plate small enough to go into a volume of any size; its dwarfed appearance on the cover of a full-sized folio is no eyesore to them, or, if it is, the pleasure of economy makes them bear with it. ”

“ Would an intelligent collector, having a book from the library of George Washington, with his plate upon the cover and his autograph in its accustomed place, think of soaking off the plate and cutting out the signature? Not at all; no matter how worthless the book might chance{14} to be, the fact that it was Washington’s is sufficient to insure it from any harm, while the presence of the autograph and the book-plate but adds to the value as establishing beyond peradventure the original ownership.
The book-plate collector is naturally a book-lover. ”

“ This is where, by the means of wooden or metal plates, the sides of a book are marked with lines crossed over each other, so as to form innumerable small squares in imitation of russia, or in imitation of the grain of morocco, scales of fish, and other substances. The operation is performed by placing the volume between the two plates even by the groove of the back, in the standing-press, and pressing it tightly down, and so even that the plate will be impressed equally over the whole surface. Nothing will look worse than a bold impression in one place and a slight one in another ”

“ Book-plates are found quite as often in the worthless literary productions of our ancestors as in the worthy; and it is puerile to cavil over the removal of a book-plate from a binding which holds together material by the destruction of which the world would certainly not be the poorer. So much for the book-plates in valueless books. As regards those in valuable or interesting ones, it is certainly unwise to remove them at all. This is a golden rule which cannot be too forcibly impressed upon collectors and booksellers. ”

“ Collectors are wont to reckon as the most interesting example of a view book-plate the vignette of Horace Walpole's house at Strawberry Hill, with his arms hanging on a shield from a withered tree. Mr. Wheatley, however, who is inclined to attribute the design to Walpole's friend, Bentley, has suggested (Bibliographica, vol. iii. p. 88) that the vignette was never used as a book-plate, but was exclusively reserved as a kind of printer's device for the adornment of the books printed at the Strawberry Hill Press. ”

“ Now there is a great deal to be said in favour of each of these classifications: so much, indeed, that no system is perfect which does not admit of a collection being arranged according to one plan to-day and another tomorrow—i.e. no arrangement is satisfactory which is necessarily permanent. Let each specimen be lightly, yet firmly, fixed on a separate sheet of cardboard or stout paper, of sufficient size to take the largest book-plates commonly met with. ”

“ Of course, you know there are many fine houses where a library is a part of the upholstery, so to speak. Books in handsome binding kept locked under plate-glass in showy dwarf bookcases are as important to stylish establishments as servants in livery, who sit with folded arms, are to stylish equipages. I suppose those wonderful statues with the folded arms do sometimes change their attitude, and I suppose those books with the gilded backs do sometimes get opened, but it is nobody's business whether they do or not, and it is best not to ask too many questions. ”

“ Minerva with a tomahawk! Can anything be more delightfully absurd?
One might go on with many pages of these descriptions, but enough has been said to show the burlesque spirit in which allegory is treated, doubtless quite unintentionally, on American Society book-plates. In that fact lies much of their interest. More happy in conception and execution is the homelier design appearing on the book-plate of the Village Library [160] in Farmington, which, if not a beautiful piece of engraving, is at least free from grotesqueness. ”

“ In the rare cases where the book-plate remains fixed in the book to which it originally belonged, some little assistance may be derived as to its date and possible ownership, and at least one point may be settled with tolerable certainty, namely, that the engraving has really been intended for, and has served as, an ex-libris; whereas, when once extracted from its book, many an early armorial ex-libris may be easily mistaken for a woodcut used on a dedication, or for an illustration extracted from some old treatise on heraldry. ”

“ Towards the close of the age of manuscripts, it became a fairly common practice, more especially in Italy, for book-lovers to cause their arms to be painted as part of the decoration of the first page of text. In the last years of the fifteenth century book-plates came into use in Germany, and during the next hundred years were slowly adopted both in France and England. But until the sixteenth century was far advanced the commonest way of marking possession of a book in England remained that of inscribing the owner's name on the title-page or a fly-leaf. ”

“ Block books are, of course, among the most desirable and the most difficult to obtain of all the treasures of the bibliophile. Even a single sheet torn from a block book is valuable. I recall vividly, when in England many years ago, my first visit to an old library which contained four perfect block books, all in magnificent condition. The margins were uncut and, in fact, they appeared to be exactly the same as when they left the hands of the unknown printer in the fifteenth century. ”

“ Beneath this, a pile of books is covered by a scroll, which bears upon it the motto, Amici et amicis. The Rev. Morgan Dix, of Trinity Church, New York City, uses an heraldic plate, in which also the crest only is given. This is surrounded by a circular garter, on which the motto, Quod dixi factum est, is printed. This ends our list of plain armorial plates.
Whatever sarcasm and disgust may be stirred up by the assumption of arms by persons not entitled to them, no word can be said against the display of authenticated arms upon the book-plate. ”

“ The following List of Early American Book-plates makes no claim to completeness: indeed it is earnestly hoped and believed that time will prove it to be quite incomplete: old plates new to collectors are continually coming to light, and there is every reason to expect their number to increase. ”

“ But probably the finest modern portrait ex-libris is that drawn by M. Henry André, the book-plate artist, for himself: this is dated 1894.
The collector must be on his guard against modern reprints from old plates, or ex-libris printed from re-engraved copper plates.
French collectors will commission engravers to copy rare old plates rather than be without examples of them in their albums; this they do openly and acknowledge frankly; but it is sometimes otherwise with the men whom they employ. ”

“ In libraries, public institutions, and very large private collections, this alphabetical method must almost necessarily be adopted, each plate being as readily accessible for reference as is a word in a dictionary. But it involves a large number of albums to allow sufficient room in each letter for additions, and the plates are all mixed in one heterogeneous mass, with little regard to age, style, or beauty in design. In the department of engravings in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, there are upwards of sixty large volumes full of ex-libris, arranged alphabetically. ”

“ Artists. A collection of signed plates carefully arranged under the names of their artists would, no doubt, be of great interest for comparison and study, but rather more for the lover of engraving pur et simple than for the lover of ex-libris, or for the student of heraldry and family history.
The great difficulty of any system of classification by the design is, that some plates might very properly be placed under three or four categories, so that, unless the collection be carefully indexed, the trouble is great in seeking hurriedly for any particular plate. ”

“ But adequate as the plates may seem, if they are judged not as book-illustrations but as engravings, no one could rate them high, and as a book what is to be said of an edition of La Fontaine’s Fables, which fills four volumes, each measuring nearly nineteen inches by thirteen? The bookman can only regard such a work as a portfolio of plates with accompanying text, and if the plates as plates are only second rate, enthusiasm has nothing to build on. ”

“ A well-known plate is that designed by Gavarni for the brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, and engraved by Jules de Goncourt himself. These brothers have written much on French art, and, in allusion to their literary partnership, the plate shows a sheet of paper on which are the letters E. J. held down by the two outstretched fingers of a hand. The design is at once simple and striking, but it has the great demerit of not proclaiming its owner’s name, which is, after all, the raison d’être of a book-plate. ”

“ The old nobility, or what remained of them, returned to France and resumed their ancient titles and armorial bearings, but the general public refused to treat them seriously, and heraldic book-plates have been on the wane ever since. Of late years nearly all men celebrated in arts or letters have adopted either allegorical, pictorial, or humorous ex-libris, whilst modern plates which contain the grandest coats-of-arms frequently belong to those who are least entitled to bear them. ”

“ Few libraries can afford leather-covered shelves like those of the British Museum, but all can have smoothness and rounded edges.
Fig. 3.—Ledged Wall Book-Case.
Reference library cases are constructed similarly to those above described; but as folio and quarto books require storage in this department, it is necessary to make provision for them. This is usually done by making the cases with projecting bases, rising at least 3′ high, and in the enlarged space so obtained fair-sized [6] folios and quartos can be placed. ”