[ARION PRESS]. Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, the Whale. San Francisco, 1979. Large quarto. 577 pp. One of 265 copies, of which 250 were for sale. Bound in full blue morocco with stamped silver lettering to the spine. Faint darkening to the spine, else a very fine copy of this sumptuous work, considered Arion’s finest production. Housed in slightly faded blue cloth slipcase. Prospectus and other Press ephemera laid in.

According to the book’s prospectus, Barry Moser’s intricate boxwood illustrations were intended as informative depictions of the whaling industry in general rather than Melville’s story in particular, thus leaving “the Pequod, Ahab, and Moby-Dick described only by Melville’s words.” In order to render his subject matter with authentic detail, Moser spent many hours doing research at whaling and maritime museums in New England and San Francisco. This project marks his only collaboration with Andrew Hoyem, proprietor of the Press.

The sixth book issued by Arion Press, Moby-Dick went into production more than ten years after Robert Grabhorn and Andrew Hoyem began planning it. The book took over a year to print, and has been described by Arion as “one of the most elaborate printing ventures ever to be undertaken by an American press” and by William Everson, in Fine Print, as “a feat of craftsmanship unexcelled in modern printing.” In the 1990s the Grolier Club named it one of the 100 most beautiful books of the twentieth century. The text was set by hand in Goudy Modern, with initial letters printed in blue at the start of each of the 135 chapters in Leviathan Capitals, a special alphabet designed for the purpose by Bigelow & Holmes. Printed on Barcham Green’s handmade paper, which has a distinctive blue-grey tint to it and is watermarked with the outline of a whale, designed specifically for this edition. $11,500

FITZGERALD, EDWARD. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. London, Bernard Quaritch, 1859. Octavo. xiii, 21 pp. First edition of this translation. One of 250 copies printed. Originally issued in buff printed wrappers, this copy has been bound by Zaehnsdorf in full navy morocco featuring triple gilt rules on both panels, with the center of each panel also bearing an oval arabesque. Turn-ins gilt to a foliate pattern. Crimson silk doublures and endleaves. Housed in a matching slipcase. From the library of the noted Rhode Island collector Roderick Terry, with his bookplate on verso of front endleaf. A.e.g.

The name FitzGerald has become synonymous with The Rubaiyat, as his translation grew to be the standard text of this work. Prior to the appearance of this book, the poem was completely unknown to the English-speaking world. Ironically, the appearance of the first edition, which was published anonymously under the Quaritch imprint without permission, was quite inauspicious: lacking any sort of advertisement, copies were gradually sold off at reduced prices until the entire edition was exhausted at prices that reached as low as a penny. Finding readership at last, there was demand for a second edition nine years later, thanks in large part to the enthusiasm of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This was followed by a third edition in 1872 and a fourth in 1879. A fifth edition was published after FitzGerald’s death in 1883. These subsequent editions represented a significant expansion and revision of the text, which grew from 75 to over 100 stanzas.

FitzGerald’s version of The Rubaiyat (Persian for “quatrain”) is less a strict translation than a rendering. He arranged a portion of the more than 500 stanzas attributed to Omar that he thought best expressed the philosophical tenets of the Persian astronomer and mathematician. As an astronomer, Omar Khayyam was instrumental in reforming the Islamic calendar based on revised solar calculations, in which the length of a year is taken out to eleven decimal places. Following the success of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat, however, Omar’s achievements in other fields were eclipsed, and his fame in the West was likewise inextricably linked to this work. (Grolier/English 97). $35,000.

(JEWELED BINDING). La Journée du Chrétien, Sanctifiée par la Prière et la Meditation. Lyon and Paris, Librairie Catholique de Perisse Frères, 1844. Small octavo. viii, 524, (v) pp. A seventeenth century silver gilt, jeweled binding covering a French prayer book, which was placed into the binding at a later date. Very fine in a modern, velvet-lined dropback box.

The Journée du Chrétien concerned the daily duties of Christians, including devotional prayers to saints and angels, and was similar in construction and function to a Book of Hours. This copy is exquisitely presented in a seventeenth century jewel-encrusted binding, both covers of which bear a filigree ornament in all four corners as well as, at the top, a crucifix in which Adam’s skull appears at the feet of Christ to symbolize the cleansing of Adam’s sin through Christ’s blood. In the center of each cover is the imperial double eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, and below are a pair of hands clasping a heart. Both the covers and the spine are decorated with dozens of semiprecious stones including amethysts, garnets, simulated sapphires, and turquoise; the clasps are encrusted with similar jewels, as are the elongated head- and tailbands. The pastedowns are red velvet, endleaves blue silk. This is a truly remarkable binding of uncommon beauty, with all the stones present and firmly set, and only minor wear to the gilt. The book previously had been in the Hohenzollern collection exhibited at Frankfurt’s Städel Museum in 1928, and more recently was owned by Cornelius Hauck, who had acquired it from the famed German bookseller Emil Offenbacher in the mid-1950s. The inside of the front endpaper bears Hauck’s bookplate, and the stamp of “Stadtbibliothek” appears on the verso of the title page. $75,000.

LAMB, CHARLES. “Dream Children; a reverie” — original manuscript. (c. 1822). Folio. (2) ff. The original handwritten manuscript of Lamb’s famous essay, containing the author’s revisions and signed “Elia,” Lamb’s pen name.

Written after the death of Lamb’s brother John, the essay was first published in The London Magazine in 1822 and then again a year later in the first edition of the author’s essay collection Elia. In the essay, Lamb, who in reality was a childless bachelor, presents a dream sequence in which he invites his two imaginary children, Alice and John, to listen to tales of their great-grandmother Field, a devout and pure-hearted woman whose death was widely mourned. He reminisces about her garden and fruit trees, which he enjoyed as a child, and how his grandmother loved all her grandchildren, but especially their uncle John, his brother. Lamb relates to the children that the death of his brother “haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do . . . yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him.” In the essay’s touching last lines, a lament for his departed brother which the author reinserted after originally having crossed it out as being perhaps too personal, Lamb reveals the true nature of the foregoing scene: “. . . awaking, I found myself seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side — but John L . . . was gone forever.”

This manuscript belonged to the renowned book collector and author A.E. Newton, and bears his bookplate. In his book, End Papers, Newton writes extensively about the manuscript, explaining, for example, Lamb’s revision of the original title, “My Children,” which is crossed out on the manuscript. Newton also recounts his purchase of the manuscript from the legendary Philadelphia bookseller A.S.W. Rosenbach on the day the Germans sank the Lusitania and set the stage for the U.S. entry into World War I. “. . . Our hearts sank in consequence,” he writes. “It was hardly a day for successful book-hunting, but Harry B. Smith’s ‘Sentimental Library’ had just been put up on sale, and one felt that one must rise to the occasion. . . .”

Laid in with the item is a handwritten note, dated June 1933, from Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie to Lamb biographer E.V. Lucas thanking Lucas for his gift of what was presumably a fair copy manuscript of “Dream Children.” In the note Barrie writes, “These are the two most golden pages I have ever held in my hand.” Also included is an octavo-sized version of “Dream Children” in wrappers, one of 500 copies printed by Bruce Rogers.

The manuscript is bound in full blue morocco with gilt lettering to front cover and spine, and elaborate gilt dentelles. Some wear to spine, small nicks or scratches to boards, corners slightly bumped. Manuscript itself shows some discoloration along previous fold lines, although the text is scarcely affected, and is legible throughout. A most touching and personal manuscript from the pen of one of the nineteenth century’s great essayists, and apparently also an influence on the great twentieth century storyteller J.M. Barrie. (Newton, pp. 8–12; Roff 149). $85,000

[MIDOLLE, JEAN]. Alphabet Gothique par Midolle. N.p., (1845).
Octavo. (26) ff. A manuscript alphabet book of calligraphic paintings, signed by the artist. Includes title page, twenty-four letters, and “Fin.” A renowned nineteenth-century Swiss calligrapher and miniature-painter, Midolle executed his alphabets in the gothic style of lettering to resemble the text of a medieval manuscript, and often decorated his work elaborately. Ruari McLean, in Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing, refers to Midolle’s Ecritures Anciennes et Modernes as “extremely odd,” perhaps for its boldly grotesque depictions of gargoyles, serpents, and other bizarre creatures.

Although a leading figure in the field of chromolithography — a relatively inexpensive process of full-color printing that enabled the mass production of color prints — Midolle also handcolored his work in the fashion of the miniature paintings found in fifteenth-century French illuminated books. Entirely drawn by hand, Alphabet Gothique is executed in such a style, with each elaborately detailed letter rendered in bright colors that have retained their vibrancy to a remarkable degree. Multi-colored flowers, birds, and serpents are prevalent as compositional motifs, intertwined with the letters and quite often forming a part of the letter itself.

Bound in full light brown morocco with a cover design by Cornelius Hauck. The design depicts an oak tree in brown and green morocco onlays. The tree is situated behind three arched and spired portals, in gilt, that suggest a cathedral, and the whole is framed within a gilt border with an oak leaf and acorn design at the corners. A portion of the design repeats on the book’s spine, which also bears gilt lettering within green morocco labels. Gilt dentelles and silk endpapers complete this handsome binding, which is a fitting complement to the exquisite artwork inside. Very fine. A.e.g. $20,000.

(Miniature). SCHRAUB-MEDAILLE. Germany, mid-eighteenth century). Thirty-one circular miniature prints, each one with bright, contemporary hand coloring. Twenty-nine of the loose prints are numbered in ink and feature tribulations of the ongoing religious reformation and landmarks of the Protestant faith. The opening and closing engravings, affixed to the inside of the medal, are not numbered and show an image of the Coming of the Holy Spirit and a crucifixion scene. The twenty-ninth image is noteworthy for its Masonic symbolism of a pyramid hovering over a candlelit Bible, surrounded by an overturned barrel of fruit and a crowd of believers. Hand-painted flowers adorn the versos of each print. Housed in a schraubtaler, or “screw medal,” silversmithed with two classical allegorical scenes in relief. Each side is engraved with a Latin motto: “Martis armorum cura” and “Mars paci et justitia subjectus.” The medal was released as a token of remembrance for the March of Salzburg emigrants, whose oppression is depicted along with religious scenes in the picture cycle. (Diameter 1 3/4 inches; 44mm.).

In 1729, Count Leopold Anton Eleutherius von Firmian, a Catholic, apparently paid his way into the office of Archbishop of Salzburg. He regarded Salzburg as a buffer between the Bavarian and Austrian royal houses, and zealously attempted to protect its position as well as the Catholic faith. On October 1, 1731, the 214th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, Firmian issued his Edict of Expulsion. The “Emigrationspatent” declared that all Protestants must recant their non-Catholic beliefs or face banishment. To add to the humiliation of the Protestants, Firmian publicly read the statement on the 248th anniversary of Martin Luther’s baptism. The Archbishop had hoped to simply drive the Protestants into the countryside, but many thousands remained resilient in their faith and left the city within the allotted timetable. This period is marked by terrible persecutions, and the picture cycle depicts some of the unfortunate and tragic events: one man is dragged through city streets, a Catholic high priest sanctions the burning of Protestant books, churches are set ablaze, and children are torn from parents and tortured.

While many craftsmen signed their metalwork, it is unlikely that the creator of this piece would have wanted something so controversial traced back to his workshop. While the exact geographical origin of this piece is unknown, the schraubtaler’s roots lie in Augsburg, a town in southern Germany known for its traditional metalwork. Since the fifteenth century, the value of silver coinage remained unstable due to continuous warfare. With the steady debasement of currency, metal workers would hollow out the insides of the coins and insert pictorial histories of major events. This medal bears “safe” classical allegories on the exterior to deceive beholders of the actual contents. Two very small metal corrosions on one lateral side of the medal, not affecting the object’s ability to open and close, else this is an extremely fine piece, a rich embodiment of an historically significant event. $10,000.

[SHAHN, BEN]. Rilke, Rainer Maria. For the Sake of a Single Verse ... from the Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. (NY, Atelier Mourlot, 1968).Elephant folio. 56 ff. From an edition of 950 copies, this is one of 200 deluxe copies with twenty-four original lithographs printed on Richard de Bas handmade paper, each lithograph signed by the artist. Extremely fine. Loose, as issued, in wrappers and vellum-backed cloth folding case. Includes original corrugated shipping carton.

Representing Shahn’s major artistic achievement in both scope and scale, this book seamlessly merges the visual with the poetic to produce one of the most powerful contemplations on life, death, and what feels like the whole of human experience. In executing the illustrations, Shahn builds on the poetic prose of Rilke’s autobiographical novel, which he had first read in 1926. At that time, according to Kenneth Prescott, Shahn was “just beginning to doubt his own traditional style of painting and was seeking more personal expressions, when he found in Rilke the same searching, probing, and slow emergence of forms characteristic of his own experience.” Thus, the artist’s return to this text, which was published a year before his death, may be seen as an act of completion, with the resulting work being the full expression of his original style. Prescott notes that, in the deluxe copies such as this one, the lithograph accompanying the section “to nights of travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the stars” differs from the one in the regular copies, in that the stars gracing Shahn’s ethereal sky are made from hand-applied gold foil.

Ben Shahn once told The New York Times, “I wouldn’t have attempted to do it if I hadn’t had myself every one of the experiences [Rilke] described.” For Shahn, producing a book was a very special undertaking. “He put every effort into its conception and execution,” observes Diana Klemin. The twenty-four lithographs range in style, but all are unified by Shahn’s ingenious interplay of shape and shadow, economy of line and color, and articulate rendering of hands and facial expressions. Shahn’s choice to print the book in his own script further invests the work with a sense of personal and emotional immediacy.

To help tell the story, Shahn shows us a lonesome figure gazing at a formless sea, a woman in labor confined to her bed, two lovers sharing an embrace, and other recognizable moments in life. At the end of the journey, the artist redirects our attention to an image of his hand holding a pen, as if to grant a peace to all that he has just shared and to say that all life’s experiences have the ability to inspire beauty. (Klemin, pp. 80–81; Prescott 104). $17,500.