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Agnes Miller Parker Illustrates A Shropshire Lad

August 10, 2015, 12:17 pm
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I have long thought that A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad is a work of genius, flawed genius perhaps, but genius nonetheless. I also am something of a fanboy for the engravings of Agnes Miller Parker so it's surprising really that these images she created to illustrate the poems haven't appeared here before. The icing on the cake of course, for me, with my devotion to all things mercurial is the gorgeous image above to accompany one of the best poems in the sequence, "The Merry Guide" about being led through the English countryside by the beautiful, smiling but voiceless Mercury.









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The Anatomy of a Vintage Photograph

August 12, 2015, 1:18 pm
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So I picked up this photo at lunchtime today from a junk shop for just 70 pence. And the reason I was drawn to it, apart from the fact that I simply love photos of old interiors, is that at first glance it seemed to show really clearly how cabinet photos were used in display.

But one of the wonders of the digital age is the ability to scan things at high resolution and see into the details of the photo. With the naked eye I noticed that there was a photo on the wall behind the photographer reflected in the mirror. On closer inspection it becomes clear that this is a sporting team and, because I've seen a lot of them, I can tell you it's the kind of sporting team photo that you got from rather posh schools with hand-written calligraphy and heraldry on the mount.

This then, suddenly makes sense of the fact that the cabinet photos along the mantle are clearly not a family, they are all young men of about the same age, some of them wearing what can only be an academic mortar boards and many of them, once you are able to look closely, are signed. I had hoped to date the photo from the ceramics because the jug on the mantle is Royal Doulton Dutch Harlem which was produced in the 1880s and certainly there isn't much in the room that doesn't look like it could have been from that period, but then the scan revealed the writing on the trophy cup. Although most of the writing is unclear I am sure it is dated 1914. I also wondered if another of the words on the cup might be Harrow so, returning to the photo in the mirror, and remembering that it is reversed, it's clear that the crest is indeed for Harrow school. It was then I remembered that I have before come across the tradition of the men in a big public school house signing their photos and, though I can't rule out it happens elsewhere, that was at Harrow too.

So, what do we have? My best guess is a housemaster's study where the house trophies are kept. Who is DM? I don't know, presumably the initials of a house master at the school but that's where my research is going to close.

...still, not a bad bit of entertainment for 75p!








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Mercury in 1920s Germany

August 13, 2015, 3:03 pm
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Regular readers will know that we are discovering that Mercury alias Hermes was something of a big cheese in the design pantheon of the 1920s and 30s. This postcard cost me more online that I would normally like to pay, but everytime I thought I had decided not to buy it I kept found myself going back to it again. Suffice to say, it's mine now!
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Albert writes to Paul in 1912

August 17, 2015, 4:02 am
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I had to have this!

Reading gay relationships into the past is always a perilous business but so long as one does it with a level of respect and a light touch that doesn't impose modern categories on people who wouldn't have understood them, I have no problem with it. And certainly there is more than a whiff of same-sex romance about this postcard from 1912.

For a start, it was clearly intended as a card to be sent by a boy to his gal, and our Albert here has crossed out "Louise" and inserted the name of his 'beau' (maybe) Paul. Presumably the quote is a reference to the song lyrics from 1902, pasted below, which could only be said to be intended as romantic. 

It seems that our Albert moved away from his native La Grange, Indiana to teach in Turtle Lake. There are a number of possible candidates for Turtle Lake but the most likely would appear to be the small village in Wisconsin by that name.

Albert isn't impressed with the place: "I am going to a dance tomorrow night because I am so lonesome. This is the end of God's Country, he don't live up here, he would drown in whiskey."

I'M WEARING MY HEART AWAY FROM YOU
(Charles K. Harris,   1902)

I wonder where you are tonight, my love, 
As all alone I sit and dream. 
I wonder if your heart's with me tonight, 
And if the same stars for you gleam. 
I sometimes fear there is another love, 
Some fairer face has won your heart; 
But Ah, I hope the day will never come, 
The day that we two must live apart.

The bees are droning in the wild wood, love, 
The flowers their tiny heads bow low. 
The birds are singing soft and plaintively,
They miss your dear kind face I know. 
From o'er the meadow comes a faint perfume, 
It whispers gently, "Love you're true;"
But Oh, my darling, if you only knew, 
I'm wearing my heart away for you.

I'm wearing my heart away for you, 
It cries aloud, "My love be true,"
I dream of you by night, I long for you by day, 
I'm wearing my heart away for you.

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Mid 1960s DIY Toys

August 18, 2015, 1:29 am
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These amazingly colourful plates come from a brilliant book that tells you how to make toys and models out of paper, card and wire. Of course, it's the painting of these that makes them quite so spectacular. If you think I haven't tried one, you're mad: there's a slightly more restrained looking fish than the ones below sitting on my mantle right now!





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Richard Kennedy illustrates Crispin

August 19, 2015, 2:12 pm
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Meet Crispin, the star of this 1975 book by William Herschell who is perhaps better known for his previous childrens' book King Lizard. Crispin in 13 and has grown up happily on a farm until now when he is told that he is not the natural son of the farmer and his wife and his 'real' mother is claiming him back.  

Regular readers will know that I am somewhat enamored by this style of illustration so prevalent in childrens' books of the 60s-80s and, despite all my pleading, no-one has been able to come up with an apposite and pithy name for the style. These are by Richard Kennedy, a prolific illustrator of (mainly) childrens' books whose career began at the age of 16 in the print room of the Hogarth Press with Leonard and Virginia Woolf, an experience which he later wrote about and illustrated in his book A Boy At The Hogarth Press. After the war he began to make his career in illustration and his output included over 40 books for 'backward' readers published by Benn as well as nearly 20 titles by Eilis Dillon. Other authors illustrated include Eleanor Farjeon, Moncia Edwards and Elizabeth Gouge

What is noticeable about the images in this book are how well he had observed the many odd and difficult bodily positions that a 13 year old can get into, many of which positions most adults have completely forgotten about, let alone the emotions they attend.











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Vintage Swimwear

August 22, 2015, 2:44 am
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We haven't had a vintage swimwear post forever, well for a few days at least. So here are a few of the new arrivals to the collection here at Callum James Heights. I have decided to assume that the chap above is sporting a nice tight pair of speedos... he seems the type! All these photos now safely reside in my collection save for the bottom two which come to you courtesy of one of your fellow readers of Front Free Endpaper who tells me the most delightful story about the guys in the photo of which I will tell you only that they are brothers, that this is the south of France and that it is the early 1950s! 

All contributions of selfies or others in vintage swimwear are gratefully received of course...








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1960s Amatory Unorthodoxy

August 23, 2015, 10:01 am
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One of the things that is invaluable to a bookdealer who has a specialism, is the ephemera of those who have gone before along the same paths: book catalogues, prospectuses, articles and so on...  So I was delighted to get hold of this folded catalogue from the early 1960s from a mail order firm in Paris. "L. Henry" is offering what were, at the time, new books and other items. There is some mention of gay books here but on the whole it has a solidly heterosexual bias, nonetheless it makes for a fascinating read. I like, in particular, the distinction between Romans Vivant and Romans Tres Oses. It's interesting to note that Roger Peyrefitte's Les Amitiés Particulières is there in the daring section along with Les Mauvais Anges by Eric Jourdan, both sharing some fairly unlikely company on that part of the list.






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Vintage Men

September 1, 2015, 5:44 am
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Always a good way to jump start the postings again after a bit of a break with a handful of hunky chaps from some distance in the past. None of these guys reside in my collection but I have swept them together from various parts of my hard drive for your delectation. The file names all suggest that they came from the Internet originally but some of them maybe some time ago. 












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Frederick Rolfe and Vincent O'Sullivan - A Slight Ex-libris Connection

September 2, 2015, 7:58 am
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There are some little piece of paper that can really connect us to the past. In this case, a somewhat battered ex-libris plate from St Mary's College, Oscott. At the time this bookplate was in use, two of the great names of the 1890s were both in residence, one as a schoolboy, the other as a seminarian and teacher. St Mary's was, and remains, a Roman Catholic seminary, but in the late 1800s it had a school for catholic boys as well as a full-blown seminary for training men for the priesthood. Sometimes the seminarians acted at teachers in the boys' school. So It was here that Frederick Rolfe (soon to be styling himself Baron Corvo and writing astonishingly baroque fiction) was, for a brief time before being asked to leave, a seminarian and, at the same time a teacher to Vincent O'Sullivan whose morbid musings on art and life would go on to fill such an important place in the corpus of the 1890s. Whatever book this came from in the college library may well have passed through the hands of one or both of them!
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Jean Cocteau Decorates a Church

September 3, 2015, 7:56 am
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Most people's knowledge of Jean Cocteau as a visual artist is related to his films and to his simple line drawings of nude men with often very homoerotic themes. It comes as something of a surprise to some therefore to discover that he also created mural decorations for a number of churches. The book above was reprinted in 1994 to mark the 30th anniversary of his death and includes a series of photos of the unique and peculiar decorations at St Pierre, Villefranche-sur-mer on the Riviera. The actual murals have colour in them and Google will help you find hundreds of photos of them if you want to see them in that way but I think the black and white of these reproductions actually has something rather fine about them.











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Jean Cocteau: Church Decoration II

September 7, 2015, 4:52 am
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The chapel of St Blaise des Simples is set in a garden in the small town of Milly La Foret a short distance from Paris. This series of black and white postcards arrived today and show the amazing decoration of the interior by Jean Cocteau in 1959. The garden is dedicated to growing medicinal and healing herbs and plants, which explains the tall flowers as part of the scheme in the chapel. There are, of course, colour photos easily discoverable with your favourite search engine.








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Karmic Astrology and Naked Planets

September 8, 2015, 2:28 am
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Hard to resist these cards which are marketed as "Tarot Astro Karmique" although they are a long way from either divinatory Tarot cards or the continental European playing cards also called Tarot. These were published by Editions Dusserre in 1991 (despite their rather 1980s vibe) and are intended for use as divinatory cards relating to a rather niche brand of astrology which attempts to link your past lives and karmic debts to its telling of your future path in this life. That said, what great cards! There are a few women featured on some of the cards that I haven't scanned, but overwhelmingly this is a homage to the sinuous, naively painted male form. Is it just me or does the gaydar ping somewhat browsing through these images? Strangely, although the accompanying booklet is given as by Eric Jansen, the images are nowhere signed nor credited and so we might have to assume that the author is also the artist.



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1960s Penguin Illustrated Book Covers

September 14, 2015, 7:01 am
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I have been scanning some mainly 1960s Penguin book covers, a period in which they used a lot of line illustrators, so I thought I would share some of them here. From top to bottom the illustrators are Robin Jacques, Enzo Apicella, Adrian Bailey, 'the author' (i.e. Sandy Wilson), Osbert Lancaster, Adrian Bailey again, Ronald Searle and Charles Raymond.








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1940s Hand-painted Patterned Papers

September 14, 2015, 11:30 am
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Readers with long memories may recall eighteen months ago, this post, in which I showed off some stunning hand-painted patterned papers I had bought by one Gwendoline K. Young, whom I assume to be an art student in the 1940s. It's only now, digging around under a chair (!) that I have discovered a whole batch more of these great period designs. It's possible I didn't include these in the previous post because they are bigger, some of them over 20" on the long side and therefore not amenable to scanning. These images here are photographs, always slightly duller and not as crisp as a good scan, but I hope they give something of the measure of the collection.

...And to answer the email questions that I know will come, yes the collection will be for sale in my next Short List in a few weeks time so if you are not signed up to my mailing list please click immediately on the email link at the top(ish) of the right hand column and ask me to add you on!











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Sultry Young Man

September 15, 2015, 2:06 pm
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Today has been an excellent buying day and the results will be in upcoming catalogues as soon as I've had a chance to catalogue things but we have ranged from 1980s goth/post-punk lyrics back a hundred years to 1880s sketchbooks. An alongside those things and others, this solitary postcard came to my attention at the back of a junk shop today and, given the sultry good-looks I thought he ought to come home with me: taken in Coney Beach Studios in Porthcawl...
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Howard Hardiman - Mythology

October 1, 2015, 1:19 pm
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Tonight is the opening night of an exhibition on the Isle of Wight (just over the water from Callum James Books HQ) of a series of drawings by Howard Hardiman called Mythology. Howard first came to the attention of Front Free Endpaper through the graphic novel The Lengths which tells a love story among London's rent boys, with all the characters drawn as dog-headed men, and based on interviews with real sexworkers.

For some time now, through ill-health, Howard has been based on the island and these meticulous drawings are, on one level a meditative exercise, making thousands of tiny and repetitive marks provides as an escape from otherwise constant pain. On another level, that same turning inwards that is a result of such meticulous work is reflected in the subject matter which links universal myths to the artist's own world.

The exhibition is at The Brading Roman Villa and runs until 31st January 2016.



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Vintage Swimwear...

October 5, 2015, 1:38 am
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The top photograph in this post is one which I bought recently and now resides in my collection. The two below however are much more interesting and thank you to Per Anderson, correspondent of Front Free Endpaper for thinking of us all and scanning these two that he found in his father's photo album. They were two friend's of Per's father who worked for the Danish resistance during WW2 and the photographs are taken in the garden of an aunt where they hid while undercover. The two young men pictured here became policemen after the war and remained friends their whole lives.



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Callum James Books: Short List #20

October 5, 2015, 3:26 pm
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I can't quite believe that I am saying this but I have sent out in the last few days my 20th Short List! The first one was sent out in May 2011 I see now, looking back through my files. The Short Lists go out only to those on my mailing list (not an overwhelming proposition as you can see by the roughly five a year pace suggested by the above!). The lists contain mainly gay-interest literature and ephemera but also lots of other things that appear on Front Free Endpaper and similar.

If you would like to be on the list simply click on the email link at the top of this page to the right and let me know.
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Books by their covers...

October 7, 2015, 1:30 pm
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Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@CallumJBooks) will have seen some of these jackets before. These are the results of my not quite being able to swerve away from bookshops whilst on holiday recently in The Lake District. And talk about judging a book by its cover...!

From top to bottom these fabulous jackets are by: John O'Connor, a pupil of Eric Ravilious who has featured on this blog a couple of times before; the prolific and incomparable Biro is the artist on the Louis Golding short stories (perhaps my favourite of the lot); the finest artwork though definitely graces the Maclennan cover by W. Francis Phillipps; The Prokosch novel jacket is covered by Charles Gorham; the striking cover of the Alun Lewis memorial book is by John Petts who also contributes black and white illustrations inside and a pencil portrait of the author as a frontispiece; and the cover of Dominique is by probably the biggest artistic 'name' of the bunch, Michael Ayrton.  







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