The Project Gutenberg eBook of Book-plates of To-day, edited by Wilbur Macey Stone.

Book-plate of Mrs. Amy Ivers Truesdell, in colors. Designed by Jay Chambers.	Frontispiece
Book-plate of Arnold William Brunner, in colors. Designed by Thomas Tryon.	Facing 3
American Designers of Book-plates: William Edgar Fisher. By W. G. Bowdoin.	3
Book-plate of William Frederick Havemeyer, from the copper. Designed by Thomas Tryon, engraved by E. D. French.	Facing 9
Nineteen Book-plates by British Designers.	9
Book-plate of T. Henry Foster, in colors. Designed by Jay Chambers.	Facing 19
The Artistic Book-plate. By Temple Scott.	19
Book-plate of Miss Henrietta M. Cox, in colors. Designed by Thomas Tryon.	Facing 23
Thirty-two book-plates from various sources.	23
Book-plate of Robert Fletcher Rogers, in colors. Designed by Homer W. Colby.	Facing 33
Book-plates and the Nude. By Wilbur Macey Stone.	33
Book-plate of Willis Steell, in colors. Designed by Thomas Tryon.	Facing 39
The Architect as a Book-plate Designer. By Willis Steell.	39
Book-plate of William A. Boland, in colors. Designed by Homer W. Colby.	Facing 45
A Check-list of the Work of Twenty-three Book-plate Designers of Prominence. Compiled by Wilbur Macey Stone.	45

THE book-plate designers of to-day are legion because they are many. Almost every one who can draw, and many who cannot, have ventured into the field of book-plate designing; and the result has been that many of the book-plates that are current have little to commend them to critical observers. The present increasing interest in these little bits of the graver’s art has greatly encouraged the production of them, and new ones arise daily. It is desirable, therefore, if we are to have book-plates at all, that they shall be as artistic as may be; and it is important, from an art standpoint, to all those who are about to adopt the use of these marks of ownership that they shall have, as they may have, the artistic flavor about them.

Most of our leading designers have hitherto been grouped in the eastern section of our country, or at least not much further west than Chicago. Some few designs, it is true, have been produced in California, but for the most part the book-plates of note have been marked with an eastern geographical origin.

In William Edgar Fisher we have a designer who has strikingly departed from geographical conditions of book-plate designing heretofore prevailing, and in faraway Fargo, North Dakota, has set up his studio from whence have come designs that are fresh, original and very pleasing. Mr. Fisher loves to work in a pictorial field. He makes a plate that tells a story, and in his best plates there is artfully placed something bookish that harmonizes with the design-form selected; and, because of art coherence and harmony in design that go [4] hand in hand, his plates are more than satisfactory. The general eastern notion in regard to North Dakota is that nothing artistic can come out of the State, but the work done there by Mr. Fisher quickly dispels such an idea. The plates he has drawn are acknowledged as highly meritorious by the best American masters of book-plate designing. In all the plates from the hand of this artist that are here grouped, and which may be regarded as quite typical of him, there are only two that do not contain a book as a detail somewhere in the finished plate.

One of the exceptions is the plate of the Studio Club that gains infinitely by the omission of a book in the plate as produced. The grouping of the five observers (symbolic of the members of the Studio Club) around the feminine portrait is most charming, and to the writer it appears one of the happiest of recent productions in appropriate book-plates.

Mr. Fisher’s feminine figures that he introduces into many of his plates are likewise exceedingly effective. This is particularly the case when to the charms of femininity he has added those of symbolism, as in the case of the plate for Miss Winifred Knight, in which the graceful female masker appears at the shrine of the idealized god Pan, who writes, it may be something oracular, in her proffered album. The figure is gracefully posed and the lines of the arms and neck are marked by pleasant curves.

In the plate of Maie Bruce Douglas, Mr. Fisher may have been influenced by Hans Christian Andersen. At any rate, whether or not this is so, [6] he has neatly and most effectively grouped the old-time jester with his cap and bells, the pointed shoes from whence came our modern samples, and the maiden with the quaintness of head-dress and drapery, that at least suggests the fairy and the incidental sacred stork, making this plate with its shelf of books and the panel of repeated heraldic shields very attractive even to the chance observer.

In the plates for the Misses Mary N. Lewis, Elizabeth Langdon, Leila H. Cole and Elizabeth Allen there are several diverse methods shown in which convention has been pleasingly utilized. The vine and tree forms that are motifs are very effective, and in all of these we see suggestions of treatment similar to that which stands out perhaps a little more pronouncedly in the plate of Miss Douglas. Costume quaintness, charm of pose, graceful outline, the tendency toward lecturn detail and delicacy of touch, are in each instance here seen to be characteristic of the artist.

The plate of John Charles Gage has in it the atmosphere of the monastery. Two friars are busy with a folio manuscript that has been beautifully illuminated. The one reads the lessons for the day from the book of hours. The other has a pleasing bit of gossip that he is telling to his brother friar as he reads, and the reader hears with eagerness with his ears while he reads without absorption with his eyes.

Into the plate of Samuel H. Hudson the atmosphere of the monastery is also introduced. The cordelier sits absorbedly reading his matins. Through the open window of the monkish cell is seen the morning medieval landscape whose charms exercise no influence upon the solitary recluse, solitary save for the monkey who plays sad havoc with the vellum volume that [7] lies upon the cell floor and the destruction of which the Franciscan is too absorbed to notice. The monkey as a foil for the ascetic in this plate shows that Mr. Fisher has a strong appreciation of the most delicate humor, which here crops out most delightfully. The border makes the plate a trifle heavy, but this can easily be excused because of the charm of the plate otherwise.

The dog is given a prominent place in the plate of Miss Lula Thomas Wear. He dominates even the books, and it may be that the owner prefers her dachshund to her library, although it is evident that her books have some place in her esteem.

The design on the plate of Stanley Shepard suggests a derivation from an old print. The caravel rides upon the waves according to the conception of the old-time engravers. The anchor, the sword fish of the deep sea, and the sea-stars all suggest the ocean voyager who has deep down in his heart a love of books.

In contrast with the plate of Mr. Shepard’s appears that bearing the name of Silvanus Macy, Jr. The love of hunting stands out right boldly here, and in the fox hunt does Mr. Macy undoubtedly revel. He could not have such a book-plate otherwise, and live with it every day, let it be in all his books and have it stand for him as it does, unless it was fairly representative of the man’s personality. That is what makes a book-plate so eminently interesting, aside from the art work put upon it. Books appeal to all sorts and conditions of men, as the work of Mr. Fisher’s here grouped clearly indicates.

The plate from the books of Miss Edna B. Stockhouse is a trifle shadowy in motif notwithstanding which there can be no doubt the owner loves books. The face in the book-plate reads. There is also a love of the beautiful in ceramics indicated as an incident in the plate. No wonder the head wears an aureole.

[8] The “Bi Lauda” plate is that of a secret society at Wellsville, N. Y., and we, therefore, forgive if we cannot forget its poverty of bookish design.

In the personal plate of the designer, of all those here reproduced, we catch glimpses of the artist’s own personality. We see him as a book-lover and something of his inspiration is spread out before us. He goes reading along, carrying reserve volumes in case the one that engages his attention in the portraiture is happily finished. Mr. Fisher has been producing book-plates only since 1898, since which time he has to his credit some forty examples of work in this field. He is perhaps happiest in his rendition of the plate pictorial, and he has sometimes tinted his plates most charmingly. Mr. Fisher prepared for Cornell at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. At Cornell he studied architecture for two years, with especial attention to drawing. He also studied, for six months, at the Art Institute, Chicago, Ill., whither he went from Cornell. He has been largely self-taught in the matter of designing, but his work indicates that his teacher was a good one. He has privately but carefully studied the work of the best modern pen-and-ink draughtsmen, and from this he has formed his personal style. The methods and craftsmanship of reproduction were the subject of special study on his part while he was with one of the large Chicago engraving houses. Anything that comes from his hand will be sure of the most kindly reception, so long as his work is maintained at the present high standard.

A BOOK-PLATE, in its simplest expression, is a printed indication of the ownership of a book. It may take the form of the unadorned visiting card, or it may be embellished with heraldic and other designs explanatory of the owner’s name, ancestry, tastes, or predilections. Primarily, however, it is intended to fix ownership. How far it satisfactorily serves its purpose, is, perhaps, of little moment to the average book-collector; for the book-plate has emerged from the stage of practical utility and become a thing in itself, so to speak. It has taken its place beside the many articles de vertu which are godsends to the weary of brain and heart, inasmuch as they become the objects of a passion so delightful in its experience, as to make us forget the little trials and worries of life that make pessimists of us in this “bleak Aceldama of sorrow.” Nay, they may even become the one sun, shining and irradiating for us all the dark places of our wanderings, and cheer us with the hopes for newer and finer acquisitions than we already have.

When, however, we come to a consideration of the artistic book-plate, we enter upon a new field of enquiry entirely. It indicates that a simple usage of a necessary and harmless convention has developed into a complex expression—an expression not merely of the individual to whom the book belongs, but also of the artist whose business it is to give pictorial form to the desires and wishes and tastes of his patron.

From the crude, if sufficient, paste-board stuck on the end-paper, to the heraldic display, was, surely, no very far cry. In the countries of the Old World, where pride of ancestry touches the worthy and unworthy alike, it was to be expected that so valuable an opportunity for flaunting the deeds of “derring do” of one’s forefathers as a sign of one’s own distinction, such as the book-plate offers, was certainly not to be neglected. So we find that the coats of arms which once served as inspirations, and which once had a genuine meaning to their owners and retainers, now do service in the more peaceful realms of Bookland. And, assuredly, there are certain books in a library, which are more worthily acknowledged after this ancient and martial fashion. We cannot but believe that a Froissart from the press of Caxton or Wynkyn de Worde, would be handled with more reverence if one saw on the verso of its front cover a glorious display of the arcana of heraldry, in all its magnificence of mysterious meaning. This feeling would also be aroused in turning the leaves of, say, Philippe le Noir’s edition of the “Gesta Romanorum” (1532), or of Hayton’s “Lytell Cronycle” from [20] the shop of Richard Pynson, or of Mandeville’s “Voyages and Travailles,” issued by T. Snodham in 1625, or of Pliny’s “Historia Naturalis” from the Venetian press of Nic. Jenson in 1472, or of Rastell’s “Pastyme of People,” “emprynted in Chepesyde at the Sygne of the Mermayd” in 1529. To these and their like a book-plate of heraldic story comes as a fitting and graceful complement.

But the average mortal of this work-a-day world and age has not the means wherewith to acquire such treasures of the bibliophile. Nor, perhaps, has he the necessary pedigree with which to adorn them, if acquired; though on this latter consideration, we suspect that the Herald’s College in the purlieus of Doctors’ Commons, and the more amenable, though not less expensive Tiffany on this side of the Atlantic, would, no doubt, prove excellent aids to a full satisfaction.

But we are not here dealing with the pomp and glorious circumstance of Heraldry. In dealing with the artistic book-plate, we are considering a matter which concerns itself not with past stories or past individuals, but with the present tale and the particular living personage who has the laudable and humble ambition to distinguish his copy of a book from his friend’s copy of the same book. A taste in books may be easily whitewashed, but a taste in a book-plate flares its owner’s heart right into the eyes of the demurest damsel or the simplest swain. It may be that our collection is but a series of Tauchnitz editions carefully garnered on a European tour, or a handful or two of Bohn’s Library, accumulated from our more studious days, or a treatise on golf, chess, gardening and photography, or a history of the state or town in which we live—it matters little what—these are the treasures we most prize, and we wish to hold them. Now, how best shall the collector mark them as his own?

He writes his name on the title-page. Ugh! What a vandal’s act! The man who could so disfigure a book deserves to have it taken from him, and his name obliterated. He who could find it in his heart to write on title-pages could surely commit a murder. We’d much rather he turned a leaf down to mark the place where he had left off in his reading; though to do that is bad enough, in all conscience. Nor does he save his soul by writing on the fly-title, or even end-paper. Moreover, this will not save his book either. A visiting card can easily be taken out—it looks too formal, nondescript, meaningless, common, to inspire any respect in a would-be thief. But an artistic book-plate! Ah! that’s another thing altogether.

An artistic book-plate is the expression in decorative illustration of the proprietor’s tastes, made by an artist who has sympathetically realized the feeling intended. It should objectify one, and only one, salient characteristic, either of temperament, habit, disposition, or pleasure, of its owner. If it does less, it is not individual; if it does more, it is not satisfying.

Now each one of us has some characteristic trait that is not common to us all—then let that be the aim of the artist to embody in decorative form. And let that embodiment be simple and direct—the simpler and more direct [21] it is, the more will it appear; and the more beautiful it is the more will it soften the kleptomaniacal tendencies of the ghoulish book-hunter. For nothing touches him so nearly to the finer impulses of nature than the contemplation of beauty; and he would be less than human did he fail to respond. We would even go to the length of giving as an admirable test of the book-plate artist’s powers, the lending of a book (whose loss would give no qualms) containing the plate. If it come not back, there’s something the matter with your plate; or, you can libel your friend as a beast of low degree, which suggests a good way of finding out your friend’s true character. But then, there’s no limit to the powers of a beautiful book-plate.

Now there are a great many coy people who don’t care to wear their hearts on their sleeves; these would naturally feel indisposed to post themselves thus before the public eye, be the book-plate never so beautiful. To these we would say: Give us what you prize best—your home, your wife, your sweetheart, your motto (though that’s giving yourself away too), your baby, anything that is truly yours. (Babies are quite à propos, and should be characteristic, though it does not always follow. Some babies have a habit of taking after quite other people.) The idea is, to embody something individual, something special and particular.

If he can afford a large library, or is a collector of the works of one or two authors, there’s a way out of the difficulty for the coy person, by having the book-plate represent the characteristic of the author and have his name as an addition. That may be taking a liberty—but authors are accustomed to that; and, besides, you are appreciating them, and that should exorcise the spirit of an indignant “classic” from the four walls of your library. Have the original of the design framed on the wall; it may save you a lot of explanation should the spook even get “mad.” You can always lay the blame on the artist. Of course, this means a book-plate for each author; but as book-plates are not, after all, such very expensive luxuries, this consideration need be a matter of but small moment.

Yet another idea is to have an artistic treatment of a representation of your library, your “den.” That sounds very inviting and certainly can hurt no one’s feelings. If you don’t happen to possess a special apartment, give an apartment such as you would like to possess. Or show your favorite chair, or nook, or greenwood tree, or running brook, or garden plot. There are thousands of ways in which to fashion a book-plate, and an artistic book-plate, too. We thus can see what an advance the modern artistic book-plate is on the old style article—so formal, so characterless, so inchoate and so amorphous.

Indeed the artistic book-plate is a genuine inspiration, or it may be made so. How charming, or delight-giving, or valuable, or intoxicating it is, depends largely on the artist. But it also depends on the individual who desires it. It should be planned with care and executed with feeling. It should be like no other book-plate in the sense that it possesses some flavor that is private and personal. It should be as much an indication of the [22] owner’s taste as is his library—and no man can hide his nature from the friend who has had access to that. There are many things a book-plate should not be—but these may be summed up in the advice—it should not be a mask. You may order your books by the hundredweight from your bookseller, but that won’t stand you in any stead when your friend handles them and turns to you for a criticism, or an opinion. You may also commission your artist for a book-plate; but you are in a worse plight if you fail in the more direct explanation you will be required to make to the insistent inquiries as to its meaning or appositeness. No! Be it ever so humble, let it be yours. It may be a poor thing, but it is your own; but it may be also a very rich thing, and your own also.

LOVERS of the beautiful have been burdened with endless talk and writing and many quarrels on the nude in art, and now I have the temerity to open a new field of battle and throw down the gauntlet for strife. The Eternal Feminine is a prominent factor in the picture book-plates of the day, and she is showing some tendencies to appear minus her apparel. Question: is it wise and in good taste?

Of course, to start with, I am quite free to admit that good taste is a movable feast and is much influenced by the point of view. Your taste is good if it agrees with mine; otherwise it is bad taste or no taste. At any rate, there are a few things we can agree upon, I think. For instance, that there is a wide distinction between the nude and the naked. Also, that the human form divine is most beautiful, but that to remain most beautiful it must deviate not one jot or tittle from the divine, for any deviation is to tend to the earthy and gross, which is vulgar and—bad taste. We can also agree, I think, that partially draped figures can be, and often are, sensual and repulsive beyond the frankly nude, and this without the direct intent or knowledge of the artist.

But above all things a nude figure should never carry the idea of a consciousness of its nudity! Also, clothing or drapery used simply to hide portions of the figure is execrable and more suggestive than any entire absence of clothing; while to add, as I have seen done, a hat and French-heeled shoes to a nude figure is abominable beyond condemnation.

But all this is of broad application and is sawing upon the same old and frayed strings. Abstractly, a beautiful nude is as beautiful on a book-plate as in a portfolio or in a frame, and some of the most beautiful book-plates I have ever seen have been nudes. Nevertheless, to me the nude seems out of place and in questionable taste on a book-plate; the simple matter of repetition is enough to condemn it.

[34] The partially draped figures by R. Anning Bell are chaste and beautiful, and one never thinks of them other than as clothed; so they can hardly be considered in this discussion. Many of the book-plates by Henry Ospovat contain partly draped figures which are always beautifully drawn, pure and a constant delight. But really, I think it would jar me to meet even an angel—the same one, mind you—in each of a thousand volumes. Emil Orlak, in Austria, has made some fairly pleasing nudes, but they lack that purity of conception without which they are common. Armand Rassenfosse, of Belgium, has etched a number of dainty, faultlessly drawn and really most beautiful nudes, but many of them have been ruined by the needless addition of shoes and fancy head-dresses. Pal de Mont, of Antwerp, has a plate by Edmond van Oppel which he probably thinks a work of art, but which is surely the height of vulgarity; while in “Composite Book-Plates” is a design by Theodore Simson containing a large figure of a nude woman with her hair done in a pug, seated in a grove amid dandelions and poppies, and diligently reading a book. The figure is treated in broad outline, which is ill adapted to the subject, and it lacks that refinement without which nothing is beautiful. She is absolutely at variance with her environment, and the whole is a tour de force quite unforgivable.

Miss Labouchere, in her volume on ladies’ plates, shows a rather amusing pair of designs for Miss Nellie Heaton. These plates both bear the legend, “Gather ye roses while ye may.” In the first, the designer, Mrs. Baker, has a fair creature in all the glory of entire nudity plucking blossoms from a rose-vine. In the other, she used the same design throughout, but has fully clothed the figure. Evidently Miss Heaton protested.

These designs by a woman call to mind the fact that among the book-plates of over one hundred and fifty women designers with which I am familiar, I know of but one other nude. This other is by Miss Mary Florence, and is of a large full-length angel entirely undraped.

Fritz Erler, a German designer of much strength, has made a number of symbolic book-plates. All, I believe, have the feminine as motif, and in several the figures are nude. The design for Emil Gerhäuser is inoffensive and well-drawn, but surely is not beautiful, and lacks a good excuse for existence. In a generally pleasing decorative arrangement for Robert H. Smith, Harold Nelson, an English designer, shows a rather attenuated nude maiden looking with envy at a gorgeous peacock on the opposite side of the design; while the peacock in turn seems to say, “Why don’t you grow some feathers?”

We naturally expect to find well-drawn, if not always pleasing, nudes in the French school. Henry André, one of the best known French designers of book-plates, uses the nude quite freely in his work; in some instances pleasingly, but in one or two with marked vulgarity. Octave Uzanne has the most pleasing nude plate that I have ever seen. It is designed by Guérin, and represents a tortoise bearing the implements of the artist, and coaxed along by the hot torch of knowledge in the hand of a light-winged cupid. By Sherborn, the great, I have seen but one nude in a book-plate, and that a poor thing but innocuous, for Mr. Harris Fahnestock of New York. Mr. E. D. French has made but one nude that I have seen, that for Mr. E. H. Bierstadt; the design shows a nude shepherd boy piping to his flock. The plate Mr. French engraved for Mr. De Vinne, from the design by Geo. Fletcher Babb, has nude termini for bearers, and is elegant and beautiful, an ideal plate.

American artists have essayed the nude but little in book-plate design, perhaps through wisdom, perhaps through [38] fear; but the fact remains that they have thereby avoided the perpetration of at least some crimes. Judging by the examples we have been able to cite, and they are representative, it would seem that the best advice we can give those tempted to use the undraped beautiful in their book-plates is—don’t.

AMONG the book-plate designers of the present day the architect may, if he choose, take a high place. He is one whose studies have led him through the paths of artistic training where his eye and hand have learned to see color and form and balance of parts, and while the usual media of his profession are wood, stone, terra cotta and iron, there are many by-paths through which he must travel to appreciate the value of his pencil lines upon the flat.

No more delightful by-way than the book-plate route will open before him, hedged in as it is by purely artistic shrubbery and leading constantly to pretty and even beautiful designs in which the genius of architecture has played a great part. Moreover, all his preceding journey through the hard conventional country to which architecture at first seems limited, has equipped him thoroughly to give expression to his fancy. That the gift of imagination is among his endowments should be taken for granted, however, if the architect is to succeed in the line of drawing book-plates.

Fancy and imagination being in his mental equipment the architect can “rest” his mind in no more delightful fashion than by giving them full scope in this gem-like art. His experience, his collections of drawings, the work of others of his craft which he has studied, all tend to render his fund of information large, and if he has the key to book-plate art, inexhaustible, since nothing comes amiss to the pen of one whose facile fancy can grasp a good motive and direct it to a purpose other than that originally intended.

In the early days of art the architect [40] was not only a designer of buildings but was also a sculptor and sometimes a decorative painter. He was called upon by his patrons to design whatever was needed at the moment, and these men were “all-round” artists, the day of specialization and the speculator not having dawned.

Buonarotti is an awesome name to call up, but this great painter, sculptor, architect and builder touched nothing that he did not adorn, and in many of the hundreds of crayon sketches and cartoons that he left behind him, the feeling of the book-plate artist is clear. Had Lorenzo the Magnificent wanted a book-plate for use in his library, the great Michael Angelo could have filled the want from his own notes, with very little of either suppression or expansion. It may seem strange to think of this Titan of art, the creator of the sweeping “Last Judgment” turning his pencil to the delicate lines, the imperceptible nuances demanded by a book-plate, yet it may be repeated, in his work may be found a myriad of suggestions for these gem-like products.

Buonarotti was not, however, first and last an architect. Painter and sculptor also, these sides of his artist soul would have been drawn on for the book-plate. Therefore the statement that not every architect can design so fanciful and dainty a work as a book-plate becomes a truism patent to everybody. The architect’s profession calls for a two-fold nature, the one side tending toward that of the engineer with its eminently practical and very necessary tables of stress and strain, its mathematical calculations for loads and disposition of carrying walls, while the other side leans to a nice discernment of color and proportion. The laying out of vistas and the arrangement of surfaces and lines, so that the eye is aided in receiving the best impression from all points of view. Of this turn of mind is the one who can and does design book-plates. The very practical architect, if he wishes the glory, which is doubtful, has one of his draftsmen make the design and then signs the drawing and gets the glory. It would be amusing if such an one through some luck charm received constant application for such work. His draftsmen would change and his drawings be as dissimilar as the men who drew them. Possibly the signature would lead the long-suffering public to think him very versatile.

It is not of this class of architect that we write. It is of him who is half [41] painter or sculptor, and who loves his pen and pencil and delights in the personal expression of his ideals. He finds that his way of seeing things is more to his liking than any way of any other man. He sees the infinite beauty of nature and loves her shifting pictures in the clouds. Then too, he must have the ability to clearly comprehend the half-formed ideas of him whose plate he undertakes to draw. This is not always an easy matter. There are but few in the world who can formulate their ideas, much less invent a picture without first seeing it. Here the architect has, perhaps, an advantage over the purely imaginative artist, since the average man does not know the difference between the Classic period and the Gothic, the Napoleon era and the modern German renaissance.

Of the architects who have obtained unquestioned recognition in this exquisite art, Thomas Tryon is among those whose work is especially prized. His adaptation of architectural forms to the confined space of the book-plate shows the work of a man who has command of his tools and knowledge, and despite the narrow confines of the field his work is not at all “cabined or cribbed.” The illustrations accompanying this essay are taken rather at random from among Mr. Tryon’s designs, but they will convey to those unfamiliar with his work, a fair idea of its scope and treatment. His first design was a plate for his father, an ornate armorial design, the name being set up in type at the base. The plate for Miss Annah M. Fellowes is quite elaborate. A long-haired and bewhiskered knight stands before us in a suit of rich armor, his right hand bearing his sword and helmet, and his left resting upon his shield. His helmet is surmounted by a pair of spreading wings. The design is backed by a rambling rose bush on which is hung the motto ribbon.

Mr. Frank Pool is obviously a lover of the drama. In an oval window set in masonry, is a Roman gentleman, laurel crowned, reading from a [42] large volume, while at the upper right and left sides are comedy and tragedy masks from which hang a gracefully festooned wreath. Palms, ribbon and name plate finish the design. For Mr. Farragut, the son of our old admiral, Mr. Tryon has made a very “salt water” arrangement of arms. The shield is surmounted by a quaint ship and the bearers are dolphins, which on one side encircle a trident and on the other a sword. The conventional acanthus leaves give body and decoration to the whole. Perhaps one of the most distinctively beautiful of Mr. Tryon’s designs is the fleur-de-lis for Mr. Marcus. In this the artist has blended most delightfully the natural and the heraldic flower and has produced a gem of which one never tires. For his sister and her children Mr. Tryon has made a light and airy design, distinctively feminine and graceful. The main feature of the design is an ornate cypher of the letters S T. On the ribbon below the name is shown. This is changed to the names of Mrs. Stone’s three daughters for their individual use. The plate reproduced here is that of one of Mrs. Stone’s daughters. The design for “The Boys Club” is surmounted by the American eagle perched upon the globe, and the flag of our country is draped over the tablet bearing the lettering. This plate has been reproduced both by photo-process and copper plate.

Of the three color plates reproduced the first was made for Mr. A. W. Brunner, and has for “piece de resistence” a very ingenious monogram set in an oval frame. For bearers there are two graceful palms and the keystone is surmounted by a pile of books and a classic student’s lamp. The base of the design is relieved by a pleasing arrangement of acanthus leaves. The plate for Miss Cox is a seal-like design, dignified yet dainty, and would be entirely in place in all kinds of volumes. The plate for Mr. Steell quite speaks for itself and makes the sportsman feel wildly for the trigger of his gun. The buck and doe silhouetted against the yellow of evening and the reflection in the stream are a delight.

[43] Three of Mr. Tryon’s designs have been engraved by Mr. E. D. French. The famous Sovereign plates being two, and one for Mr. Havemeyer being the third. This plate for Mr. Havemeyer is indicative of the owner’s collection of Washingtoniana, and is surrounded by several of the well-known portraits of the father of his country, while at the top is a small view of Mount Vernon. The portraits and view are interwoven with foliage and ribbon and form a frame in which Mr. Havemeyer’s arms are displayed. The “Sovereign” plates, which were made in 1895 for the library of Mr. M. C. D. Borden’s yacht, are of great richness, the first or “crown” design being especially so. This one did not please the owner, who had a second one made surmounted by an eagle instead of a crown. This is simpler in treatment and not so decorative as the earlier design. These plates were both cut on the copper by Mr. French who treated them in a very sympathetic manner and brought out in clear relief the ideas of the designer.

Mr. Tryon’s production has not been great, reckoned by the number of plates made, but as his work is never done hurriedly or slightingly it carries an air of finished dignity and worth that gives it lasting qualities. As he usually has one or two plates in hand to which he adds a few lines and a few thoughts from time to time, we may still expect pleasant surprises in this miniature art from his workshop.

IT WAS thought that interest and value would be added to this book by the inclusion of lists of the book-plates made by the more prominent artists whose work is reproduced here. These lists are the nearest complete of any that have ever been published, and as they have been verified in many instances by the artists themselves, and in others carefully collated from the actual book-plates, they may be relied upon as highly accurate. The sundry notes, bibliographical and otherwise, by which the individual lists are prefaced, are in no way exhaustive, but just a cursory gathering to relieve the bareness of the lists and to give some little additional assistance to the amateur. The lists are arranged alphabetically under the artists’ names as follows:

William Phillips Barrett
Robert Anning Bell
D. Y. Cameron
Thomas Maitland Cleland
Gordon Craig
Julius Diez
George Wharton Edwards
Fritz Erler
William Edgar Fisher
Edwin Davis French
Bertram G. Goodhue
Harry E. Goodhue
T. B. Hapgood, Jr.
Harold E. Nelson
Edmund H. New
Henry Ospovat
Armand Rassenfosse
Louis Rhead
Byam Shaw
Joseph W. Simpson
Hans Thoma
Thomas Tryon
Bernhard Wenig

WILLIAM PHILLIPS BARRETT

In Great Britain every family of rank has its arms suitably emblazoned on its harnesses, carriages, table-plate, dining-chairs, and, of course, in its library. When a new coach is ordered, or a new set of harnesses, the [46] coach-builder or the harness-maker furnish the proper trimmings. So milord’s stationer fixes up the family letter-paper and the family book-plate. Somebody has to lick into some semblance of artistic unity the records of prowess of our medieval ancestors. In the workshops of Messrs. “Bumpus Limited,” Mr. William Phillips Barrett performs this more or less genial task. He has signed some ninety to one hundred designs, which were cut by the workmen in the Bumpus establishment. Mr. Barrett’s designs are not wholly without merit, but they so apparently lack the spark of vitality and their execution is in many cases so hard and mechanical that one is inclined more to pity than to praise. In the pages of the London Ex Libris Journal, that industrious encourager of the ordinary and banal in book-plate design, Mr. Barrett’s work is exploited at length. Vol. II., page 81, et seq.

1896
Lady Gerard
Hon. E. Byng
Mr. Jack Cummings
Lord Manners
Lady Sarah Wilson
Lady Charles Bentinck
H. Somers Somerset, Esq.
Lady K. Somerset

1897
J. Watson Armstrong, Esq.
Lady Angela Forbes
Mrs. Panmure Gordon
Hon. Mrs. Charles Harbord
Miss Beatrice Dudley Smith
The Marchioness of Headfort
Miss Audrey Battye
Lady Beatrix Taylour
Miss Rachel Duncombe
J. S. Forbes, Esq.

1898
Lady Maud Warrender
Lady de Trafford
Hon. Marie Hay
The Countess Mar and Kellie
Mrs. Brocklebank
The Viscountess Wolseley
Robertson Lawson, Esq.
Baron Königswarter
Baroness Königswarter
Miss Van Wart
Reginald Nicholson, Esq.
Lady Sybil Carden
The Countess of Lathom

1899
The Duchess of Bedford
Miss Eadith Walker (Australia)
The Countess of Wilton
The Viscountess Chelsea
Mrs. Duff
J. E. Ballie, Esq.
Lord Bolton
Lady Margaret Levett
Miss Howell
Basil Levett, Esq.
Mrs. Harcourt Powell
Lady Ampthill
J. & E. (Mr. and Mrs. Muller)
Bishop Lefroy of Lahore
Mrs. McCalmont
Miss Gabrielle de Montgeon

1900
Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria of Great Britain
The Earl of Lathom
[47] The Duke of Beaufort
Hon. Mrs. Gervase Beckett
The Countess of Gosford
The Marchioness of Bath
Mrs. Lee Pilkington
Freda and Winifreda Armstrong
Mrs. Wernher
Miss Freda Villiers
Miss Muriel Dudley Smith
Lord Kenyon
Lady Savile Crossley
Hon. Hilda Chichester
Lady Dickson-Poynder
Sir John Dickson-Poynder
Gervase Beckett, Esq.
Canon Stanton
The Duke of Portland
Mrs. Alfred Harmsworth
Mrs. Arthur Wilson
J. Hutchinson, Esq.
Hon. Mrs. G. Kenyon
Captain Noble
Edward Hubbuck, Esq.
R. L. Foster, Esq.
Royal Naval and Military
Will Watson Armstrong
Masonic Supreme Council, 33° (Large and small)
The Earl of Shaftesbury
Miss Barclay (Wood block Armorial)
H. A. Harben, Esq.

1901
Ivor Fergusson, Esq.
Harold Harmsworth, Esq.
Lord Haddo
Lady Mary Cayley
Mrs. Sheridan (Frampton Court)
The Marchioness Anglesey
Sir Charles Cust
The Countess of Derby
Lady Hillingdon
Lady Alice Stanley
Lady Clementine Walsh
R. C. Donaldson-Hudson, Esq.

ROBERT ANNING BELL

Robert Anning Bell, Director of the Art School of the Liverpool University, is the most prolific designer of artistic picture-plates in Great Britain. His work has long been the envy of amateurs, and no collection can claim to be representative without some examples of his work. His book-plates have been reproduced and commented on in almost all published articles on the general subject. The book-plate number of the “Studio,” Simpson’s “Book of Book-plates,” Bowdoin’s “Rise of the Book-plate,” Zur Westen’s “Ex Libris” (Leipzig, 1901), all show examples. His work is characterized by dignity and grace, is in good drawing, and has an average of excellence unsurpassed. The list is complete to July 1, 1902.

1 Walter George Bell
2 Rainald William Knightley Goddard
3 G. R. Dennis
4 Barry Eric Odell Pain
5 Jane Patterson (circular)
6 Jane Patterson (rectangular)
7 Christabel A. Frampton
8 Frederick Brown
9 Matt. Gossett
10 Arthur Trevithin Nowell
11 Edward Priolean Warren
[48] 12 Frederick Leighton (small)
13 Frederick Leighton (large)
14 Arthur Melbourne Sutthery
15 Juliet Caroline Fox Pym
16 Yolande Sylvia Mina Noble Pym
17 Florence and William Parkinson
18 Nora Beatrice Dicksee
19 Felsted School
20 Arthur E. Bartlett
21 The Hon. Mabel de Grey
22 Geraldine, Countess of Mayo
23 Walter E. Lloyd
24 George Benjamin Bullock-Barker
25 George Benjamin Bullock-Barker
26 Thomas Elsley
27 University College, Liverpool
28 Rowland Plumbe
29 Rennell Rodd
30 Alicia, Lady Glomis
31 H. E. John Browne
32 Barham House
33 Cecil Rhodes
34 Mander Bros.
35 Hon. Harriet Borthwick
36 Beatrice Patterson
37 Walter Drew
38 Walter Raleigh
39 Théodule, Comte de Grammont
40 Joshua Sing
41 Alice Emma Wilkinson
42 James Easterbrook
43 Theodore Mander
44 W. H. Booth
45 Hector Munro, 1897
46 Margaret Wilton
47 L. and M. S.
48 Gardner S. Bazley
49 Ex Libris Sodalium Academicorum Apud Lyrpul
50 Roberti A. S. Macfie
51 Richard T. Beckett
52 Edmund Rathbone, 1898
53 Croy Grammont, 1898
54 A. J. Stratton
55 John Duncan
56 Helen Woollgar de Gaudrion Verrall
57 C. Kohn
58 C. J. R. Armandale
59 Wm. Renton Prior
60 H. and O. Lewis
61 Herbert Lyndon
62 Johanna Birkenruth
63 Fanny Dove Harriet Lister
64 Mary Josephine Stratton
65 Louise Frances Foster
66 Caleb Margerison
67 Ellis Roberts
68 Marie Clay
69 Fanny Nicholson
70 L. and E. Stokes
71 Alfred Cecil Gathorne Hardy

D. Y. CAMERON

D. Y. Cameron is one of the most prominent artists in the so-called “Glasgow School of Designers.” His plates are nearly all etchings and are decidedly his own in subjects and treatment. They are most excellent productions. His work has been most fully exploited in Simpson’s “Book of Book-plates,” Vol. I., No. 4. There are eleven designs listed in Fincham, and the “Studio” Book-plate number reproduces four.

Donald & Grace Cameron Swan
Robert M. Mann
John Roberton
John Maclaren
Roberta Elliot S. Paterson
Joanna Cameron
[49] Jeanie Ure MacLaurin
Katherine Cameron
J. Craig Annan
James Arthur
John Macartney Wilson
James Henry Todd
James J. Maclehose
Robert G. Paterson
R. Y. Pickering, 1895
R. Y. Pickering (another design)
John A. Downie
Beatrice H. MacLaurin
Sir James Bell, Bart.

THOMAS MAITLAND CLELAND

Mr. Cleland is a young man who has an innate appreciation for decorative effect and, what is more to the purpose, an ability to apply it. For some years past his skill in typographic arrangement has added much to the products of several of our more advanced publishers; by more advanced I mean those with a knowledge and belief that it is good business to offer to the public books that delight the eye as well as the mind. Mr. Cleland has done many decorative bits by way of head- and tail-pieces and initials. There are also to his credit a baker’s dozen of book-plates. These last are intensely decorative, and to class them as pictorial really does them injustice. They are thoroughly conventional and quite medieval in feeling.

Sara Stockwell Clark
Herbert Wood Adams
Laura Gaston Finley
Elmer Bragg Adams
Lewis W. Hatch
Angus Frederick Mackay
Julian Pearce Smith
Irving and Sissie Lehman
Louis and Bertha Stillings
Alice and Arthur Cahn
Rubie La Lande de Ferrière
Maurice M. Sternberger
George Louis Beer

GORDON CRAIG

“The Page” has been so much exploited in the public press that it seems supererogation to write anything more about it or Gordon Craig, one the embodiment of the other. Mr. Craig is very much of an all-round young man; brought up in the atmosphere of the theater and of books and pictures, he has dabbled in all to some purpose. He has a clear-cut individuality that differentiates him and his—work, I was going say, but perhaps play would be better, for Mr. Craig is one of those inconsequential chaps that seem to take things as they come and be chipper and happy and youthful-hearted with all. His book-plate work is of the meat-ax variety and inspired by the rough wood-cuts of the early engravers. His work has the air of the poseur that is as balm to the heart of the dilettante.

James Pryde, 1898
M. P. (Margaret Palgrave)
Ellen Terry (large), map
Ellen Terry (small), map
K. D. (Mrs. Kitty Downing), 1900
Katie Black
[50] E. T., 1899 (Ellen Terry)
James Corbet
V. C. (Vincent Corbet)
R. C. (Robin Craig)
H. F. (Helen Fox)
C. M. (Carl Michaelis)
Nina (Lady Corbet)
B. (Beatrice Irwin)
C. D. (Charles Dalmon)
W. H. Downing
M. M. (Maud Meredith)
A. L. (Aimée Lowther)
William Winter
Roche (Charles E. Roche), 1900
S. B. B. (S. B. Brereton)
C. (Christopher St. John)
G. C. (Gordon Craig)
Edy (Edith Craig)
J. D. (John Drew)
L. W., 1897 (Lucy Wilson)
Oliver Bath, 1899
E. D. L. (monogram) (Edie Lane)
G. C., 1898 (Gordon Craig)
Martin Shaw
Miss Norman
Lucy Wilson
E. C. (Edith Craig)
Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Marion Terry
Cissie Loftus
Evelyn Smalley
Edith Craig
C. B. P. (Mrs. Brown-Potter)
Tommy Norman
Jess Dorynne
Jess Dorynne
Rosie Craig
G. C. (Gordon Craig)
Gordon Craig
Gordon Craig
Gordon Craig
Mrs. Enthoven
Audrey Campbell
M. Tolemache
G. Tolemache
J. B. R. (Madam Bell-Rauche)
M. Fox
Anna Held
Pamela Colman Smith
Katie Dunham
Haldone McFall
N. F. D. (Mrs. Dryhurst)

JULIUS DIEZ

The work of Julius Diez is rich with the flavor of medievalism and full decorative effect. The example shown in this book, the plate for Max Ostenrieder, is a little masterpiece and an ideal book-plate. Mr. Diez has done others much more elaborate, and with well-drawn and well thought-out motifs, but none to excel the bit referred to.

Bayerischer Kunstgewerbe-Verein
Gustav Euprius
Max Ostenrieder
Gustav Wolff
Richard Hildebrandt
August Drumm
Luise Riggaur
Joseph Flokmann
Dr. Jul. Fekler
Julie von Boschinger
Georg Hirth
Adolf Beermann
Julius Diez
Paul Scharff
Elise Diez
Georg Buchner
Franz Langheinrich
Paul Meyer

GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS

Mr. Edwards has made a large number of very excellent book-cover designs and has decorated several volumes throughout. One of the most beautiful of the latter is Spenser’s Epithalamion, published by Dodd, Mead & Company. Mr. Edwards has done a few other book-plates in addition to those listed here, but these are all he wishes to stand sponsor for.

Harvard University, Arnold Arboretum, 1892
Grolier Club
Author’s Club Library
George Washington Cram
Tudor Jenks
G. W. Drake

FRITZ ERLER

Fritz Erler has been one of the leading contributors to that prince of German art periodicals, “Jugend,” since its beginning. His book-plates are characterized by the same imaginative spirit and weirdness that appear in all his work. His work is often reproduced in soft tints with excellent effect. In the third volume of “Jugend” there was a double page given to prints of Mr. Erler’s book-plates.

Carl Mayr
Arthur Scott
T. Neisser
Hugo Wolf
C. Schoenfield
Sigmund Schott
M. Souchon
S. Fuld
Albert Schott
Ulrich Putze
Max Mayr
Toni Neisser
M. von B.
M. von B.
E. Gerhäuser
H. Marx
Gustav Eberius Liebermann

WILLIAM EDGAR FISHER

Mr. Fisher’s work is fully described in the leading article in this book by Mr. Bowdoin. The list of plates is in chronological order and is complete to July 1, 1902.

1 William Edgar Fisher
2 William Edgar Fisher
3 William Edgar Fisher
4 Winifred Knight
5 William Lincoln Ballenger
6 Stanley Shepard
7 William A. Brodie
8 Silvanus Macy
9 Edna B. Stockhouse
10 Leila H. Cole
11 C. A. W. (C. A. Wheelock)
12 Lula Thomas Wear
13 Gertrude T. Wheeler
14 Guild of the Holy Child, Peekskill, N. Y.
15 Elizabeth Langdon
[52] 16 John Charles Gage
17 Sallie A. Richards
18 Albert Edgar Hodgkinson
19 Samuel N. Hudson
20 John Elliot Richards
21 Ellen E. Langdon
22 Maria Page Barnes
23 Maie Bruce Douglas
24 Sara Grace Bell
25 Edward A. Wilson
26 Peyton C. Crenshaw
27 Marion Maude Lindsey
28 Chauncey E. Wheeler
29 Bi Lauda (secret society)
30 Mary N. Lewis
31 Elizabeth Allen
32 The Studio Club
33 (Dr.) I. N. Wear
34 William Chauncey Langdon
35 Charles S. Young
36 Frederic H. Church
37 John M. Harrison
38 Les Chats Noirs
39 George H. Phelps
40 Mary Speer
41 Julia Locke Frame
42 John D. Farrand
43 Lucy P. Winton
44 Winifred Knight
45 Mary Cheney Elwood
46 Ernest Orchard
47 Reta L. Adams
48 Edward C. Brown
49 Adeline Cameron
50 T. Frank Fisher
51 Edna B. Stockhouse
52 John Le Droit Langdon
53 W. J. Awty
54 Henry McLallen
55 William Edward Ramsay
56 David S. Calhoun
57 Walter W. Wait

EDWIN DAVIS FRENCH

The book-plates of Edwin Davis French are the most esteemed of those of our present American engravers. His work is decidedly the vogue among those who can afford the best, and is much prized by collectors. There has rarely been an article on book-plates published in the past five years or more that has not contained a eulogy of his work, and there have been reproductions galore, both from the original coppers and by half-tone. There is no American designer whose work is so eagerly sought by the collector or for which larger returns are asked in exchanges. Mr. French usually designs the work he engraves, but in several instances he has cut plates from the designs of others. Such instances are noted in the list. Mr. French’s work is characterized by daintiness of design and great beauty of execution. He is unquestionably a master of the graver in decorative work. In the following list those numbered 133 and below are from Mr. Lemperly’s well-known list, and credit is hereby rendered him therefor. The rest of the list is made up from various sources and has been very carefully compared and is believed to be accurate and complete, with the few exceptions noted, to July 1, 1902.

174 Adams, Ruth
141 Allen, Charles Dexter, 1899
a with portrait
b with book-case
c with one club emblem changed
[53] 170 Alexander, Amy B.
187 Adams, Frances Amelia, 1901
199 Adams, Edward Dean, 1902
207 Adams, Ernest Kempton, 1902
44 Alexander, Charles B., 1895
11 Andrews, William Loring, 1894
76 Andrews, William Loring, Compliments of, 1896
195 Adriance Memorial Library, Poughkeepsie, 1902
111 Armour, George Allison, 1898
98 Author’s Club (designed by Geo. Wharton Edwards), 1897
10 Avery, In Memoriam, Ellen Walters, 1894
142 Bakewell, Allan C.
43 Bakewell, A. C., 1895
36 Bates, James Hale, 1894
53 Barger, Samuel F., 1895
17 Baillie, W. E., 1894
20 Blackwell, Henry, 1894
16 Bierstadt, Edward Hale, 1894
42 Bernheim, A. C., 1895
60 Biltmoris, Ex Libris (designed by owner, George W. Vanderbilt), 1895
67 Bar of the City of New York, Association of the (Chas. H. Woodbury’s library, 1895), 1896
118 Bar of the City of New York, Association of the (the John E. Burrill Fund, 1897), 1896
119 Bar of the City of New York, Association of the (Gift of James C. Carter)
69 Biltmoris, Ex Libris (like 60, but smaller), 1896
87 Bliss, Catherine A., 1896
104 Burke, Edward F., 1897
133 Bradshaw, Sidney Ernest, 1898
1 Brainerd, Helen Elvira, 1892
4 Brainerd, Helen Elvira, 1894
124 Brown, Georgette (adapted from Parisian trade-card 18th century)
a with border
b without border
176 Borden, M. C. D.
177 Borden, M. C. D. (small)
139 Boas, Emil L.
80 Borland, Harriet Blair, 1896
166 Buck, John H. (designed by Miss Marion Buck)
171 Bullock, James Wilson, 1900
180 Barnes, John Sanford
65 Bull, William Lanman, 1895
147 Blackwell, Henry (monogram), 1899
150 Blackwell, Henry, Compliments of, 1900
91 Carnegie, Lucy Coleman, 1897
96 Candidati, 1897
7 Chew, Beverly, 1894
47 Chew, Beverly, 1895
41 Church, E. D., 1895
59 Champaign Public Library, 1895
8 Clark, Charles E., M. D., 1894
9 Clark, Charles E., M. D. (smaller), 1894
18 Colonial Dames of America
28 Coutant (Dr.), Richard B., 1894
66 Clough, Micajah Pratt, 1896
83 The John Crerar Library, Chicago, 1896
97 Connell, William, 1897
100 Child Memorial Library (Harvard), 1897
125 Cox, Jennings Stockton, 1898
51 Clough, Micajah P.
156 Cheney, Alice S., 1900
167 Chamberlain, Elizabeth (The Orchards), 1900
145 Cushing
22 Deats, Hiram Edmund, 1894
131 Dana, Charles A. (designed by A. Kay Womrath), 1898
70 Dows, Tracy, 1896
[54] 56 De Vinne, Theo. L. (designed by George Fletcher Babb), 1895
84 Denver Club, The (designed by Cora E. Sargent), 1896
143 Duryee, George Van Wagenen and Margaret Van Nest, 1899
46 Ellsworth, James William, 1895
88 Emmet, The Collection of Thos. Addis, M. D., New York Public Library, 1896
2 French, Mary Brainerd, 1893
3 French, Edwin Davis (Volapük), 1893
5 E. D. F. (French, Edwin Davis), 1893
a E. D. F., without enclosing frame
b with frame
c Edwin Davis French
19 Foote, Charles B., 1894
168 Foot, Margaret H., 1900
198 Furman, Dorothy, 1902
21 Grolier Club, The, 1894
29 Goodwin, James J., 1894
30 Goodwin, Francis, 1894
32 Godfrey, Jonathan, 1894
64 Goodrich, J. King, 1895
89 Gray, Adelle Webber, 1897
110 Goldsmith, Abraham, 1898
121 Goldsmith, James A., 1898
49 Goodwin, James J., 1895
136 Gale, Edward Courtland, 1899
185 Gage, Mabel Carleton (design by owner), 1901
202 Gray, John Chipman, 1902
181 Harvard, Society of the Signet (designed by B. G. Goodhue)
186 Harvard Union (designed by B. G. Goodhue), 1901
a 1901
b In Memoriam Henry Baldwin Hyde
184 Harbor Hill (Mrs. Clarence McKay)
38 Haber, Louis I, 1894
106 Hartshorn, Mary Minturn (designed by Miss E. Brown), 1897
55 Havemeyer, William Frederick (designed by Thomas Tryon), 1895
73 Herter, Christian Archibald, 1896
149 Horsford, Cornelia
155 Hopkins (Maj.), Robert Emmet
23 Holden, Edwin B., 1894
24 Holden, Edwin B. (smaller)
61 H(olden), E(mily), (Miss), 1895
25 Holden, Alice C., 1894
26 Holden, Edwin R., 1894
164 James, Walter B., M. D.
33 Kalbfleish, Charles Conover, 1894
90 O. A. K(ahn), 1897
94 Kingsbury, Edith Davies (designed by Lilian C. Westcott), 1897
113 Lambert, Samuel W., 1898
85 Lamson, Edwin Ruthven (designed by E. H. Garrett), 1896
173 Larner, John B.
35 Lawrence, Emily Hoe, 1894
6 Leggett, Cora Artemisia, 1894
15 Lefferts, Marshall Clifford, 1894
39 L. B. L(öwenstein), 1895
105 Lefferts, Mollie Cozine, 1897
102 Lemperly, Paul, 1897
169 Loveland, John W. and Lee Partridge
159 Livermore, John R.
172 Little, Arthur West
192 Long Island Historical Society, 1900
a Storrs Memorial Fund, 1900
b Ecclesiastical History
148 K. D. M. (Mackay, Mrs. Clarence) (small monogram with crest)
[55] 58 Marshall, Frank Evans, 1895
37 Mausergh, Richard Southcote, 1895
95 Marshall, Julian, 1897
188 Merriman, Roger Bigelow
40 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1895
a Cruger mansion
b new building
54 Messenger, Maria Gerard, 1895
85 Messenger, Maria Gerard, 1896
a gift-plate with book-pile
b with view of Pleasantville library
74 Morgan, A. J., 1896
92 McCarter, Robert H., 1896
115 Medicis, Ex Libris (Cushing), 1898
45 McKee, Thomas Jefferson
151 Messenger, Maria Gerard and Elizabeth Chamberlain (The Orchards), 1899
68 V. E. M(acy)
a V. E. M.
b Macy, Valentine Everit and Edith Carpenter, 1896
140 Moore, Louise Taylor Hartshorne
128 Nimick, Florence Coleman, 1898
163 New York Yacht Club, The (after sketch by the late Walter B. Owen)
12 Oxford Club, The, Lynn, 1894
57 Osborne, Thomas Mott and Agnes Devens, 1895
62 Odd Volumes, The Club of, 1895
13 Players, The (designed by Howard Pyle), 1894
50 Pyne, M. Taylor, 1895
63 Pine, Percy Rivington, 1895
81 Plummer, Mary Emma, 1896
107 Pyne, M. Taylor, 1897
204 Pyne, R. Stockton, 1902
108 Princeton University, Library of, 1897
132 Prescott, Eva Snow Smith, 1898
160 Porter, Nathan T., 1900
189 Phillips, William (design arranged from 16th century armorial by P. de Chaignon la Rose), 1901
14 Reid, Whitelaw, 1894
34 Rowe, Henry Sherburne, 1894
103 Ranney, Henry Clay and Helen Burgess, 1897
191 Richards, Walter Davis, 1825-1877, 1901
158 Robinson, C. L. F.
99 Sabin, Ruth Mary, 1897
109 Sampson, Florence de Wolfe 1898
52 Sherwin, Henry A., 1895
77 Sedgwick, Robert, 1896
82 Sherwin, Henry A. (similar to 52, but smaller), 1896
117 Sherwood, Samuel Smith, 1898
129 Scripps, James Edmund, 1898
101 Skinner, Mark, Library
134 Stickney, Edward Swan (Chicago Historical Society), 1898
112 Stratton, A. Dwight, 1898
93 Stearns, John Lloyd, 1897
71 Sovereign (designed by Thomas Tryon) (crown), 1896
79 Sovereign (designed by Thomas Tryon) (eagle), 1896
193 Society of Colonial Wars, Connecticut, 1901
179 Sherman, William Watts (design by B. G. Goodhue), 1901
78 Taylor, Chas. H., Jr. (designed by E. B. Bird), 1896
135 Talmage, John F.
152 Treadwell Library (Mass. General Hospital) (designed by B. G. Goodhue)
127 Thorne, Katherine Cecil Sanford, 1898
[56] 122 Twentieth Century Club (designed by Mrs. Evelyn Rumsey Carey), 1898
157 Union League Club
154 University Club, Cleveland
48 Vail, Henry H., 1895
116 Vassar Alumnae Historical Association, 1898
196 Varnum (Gen.), James M.
128 Van Wagenen, Frederick W., 1898
31 Warner, Beverly, M. A., 1894
114 Wendell, Barrett, 1898
126 Williams, E. P., 1898
130 Wood, Arnold, 1898
137 Wood, Ethel Hartshorne
182 Worcester Art Museum, 1901
144 A. W. (Arnold Wood), 1899
146 Williams, John Skelton
161 Wodell, Silas
175 Woodward, S. Walter, 1900
178 Whitin, Sarah Elizabeth
120 Winthrop, Henry Rogers, 1898
75 Willets, Howard, 1896
27 Woodbury, John Page, 1894
72 (Yale) The Edward Tompkins McLaughlin Memorial Prize in English Composition, 1896

BERTRAM G. GOODHUE

Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue is a Boston architect who has made several book-plates of merit. One made for a department of Harvard University is particularly rich in decorative effect, and a design of which one would not grow weary. Others of Mr. Goodhue’s designs are treated in broad line and might have been reproduced very effectively by wood engraving.

A. Squire
Udolpho Snead
Rachel Norton
Harvard University Library, Lowell Memorial Library of Romance Literature
H. I. K. (H. I. Kimball)
Library of the Harvard Union
Society of the Signet, Harvard
Treadwell Library, Mass. General Hospital
M. A. de Wolfe Howe
William Watts Sherman

HARRY E. GOODHUE

The few book-plates designed by Harry E. Goodhue are mostly of the “girl and book” type. In the plate for Jessy McClellan the young woman appears to be sorry she “done it,” or else is quite discouraged at the idea of lifting her folio romance into her lap. Mr. Goodhue’s most pleasing design is that for Constance Alexander, shown on page 27.

Amy M. Sacker
Constance Grosvenor Alexander
Jessy Trumbull McClellan
June Eldredge
Juliet Armstrong Collins

T. B. HAPGOOD, Jr.

Mr. Hapgood is a decorative designer in Boston, and his work on the covers of various periodicals and catalogs is well known. Plate No. 5 was submitted in competition and took second prize. It has never been reproduced. No. 1 was reproduced in “The Red Letter,” No. 2 in the book-plate number of “The Studio,” as was also No. 4. No. 14 has not been reproduced. No. 15 was originally made as a printer’s mark and was so used. It was later altered to serve as a book-plate.

1 Rev. George Fred Daniels, 1896
2 Norris Hastings Laughton, 1897
3 A. F. Skenkelberger, 1897
4 Theodore Brown Hapgood, Jr., 1897
5 Society of Mayflower Descendants in Mass., 1897
6 Rufus William Sprague, Jr., 1898
7 Frances Louise Allen, 1898
8 Andrew C. Wheelwright, 1898
9 Andrew C. Wheelwright, 1898
10 Richard Gorham Badger, 1898
11 Thursday Club, 1899
12 North Brookfield Free Public Library, 1900
13 Edwin Osgood Grover, 1900
14 Harriet Manning Whitcomb, 1900
15 Carl Heintzemann

HAROLD E. NELSON

Many of the figures in the book-plates by Harold Nelson are of the attenuated pre-Raphaelite type, but there are others one can believe really once lived. The frontispiece to the book-plate number of “The Studio” is a beautiful decorative bit by Mr. Nelson, and makes us quite willing to forgive him some of his more eccentric designs. The plate referred to is enhanced in beauty by a few lines of gold judiciously used. The musical plate on page 18 of this volume is a pleasing one.

Mary L. Oldfield
Edith A. Kingsford
Robert H. Smith
Fanny Nelson
Ellen Maguire
Edward Lomax
Ernest Scott Fardell, M.A.
Ernest Scott Fardell, M.A.
Geoffery Parkyn
A. Ludlow
James Wilmar
Bedford College Library
Horace Shaw
Harold Edward Hughes Nelson
Lady Literary Society
Mark Nelson
Evelyn Wynne Parton
A. A. Wood
Maude Burton
Marion H. Spielmann
Alfred Anteshed
Jane Nelson
Leopold d’Estreville Lenfestey

EDMUND H. NEW

The book-plate designs by Mr. New are in a class by themselves. No one else has worked quite the field occupied by this artist. Mr. New has [58] used architecture for the motifs of a series of unusually pleasing plates. He has treated in a most decorative way whole buildings as well as details, doorways, and so forth. His plates are particularly adapted to the dignified old houses that contain the libraries for which they were made. Mr. New has not limited himself to this field, as he has done a number of designs with no architectural suggestion. His work in book illustration and decoration is of a most delightful quality, and is well known to all lovers of black and white. A number of his book-plate designs were reproduced and commented upon in Simpson’s “Book of Book-plates,” Vol. II., No. I. The book-plate number of “The Studio” also showed some of his designs. The list is in chronological order and complete.

Herbert New
Rev. Richard R. Philpots
Rees Price (wood cut)
Montague Fordham (wood cut)
C. Elkin Mathews
Dr. Edmundi Atkinson
Edward Morton
Frederic Chapman
William and Catherine Childs
Beatrice Alcock
Arthur Fowler
No. 1 Highbury Terrace
Julia Sharpe
Herbert B. Pollard
William Malin Roscoe (three sizes), 1897
Edward Evershed Dendy
J. G. Gardner-Brown
Phil. Norman
Edward Le Breton Martin
Roberti Saundby, M. D., LL. D. (two sizes), 1900
George Lewis Burton
George Cave, 1900
Alexander Millington Sing (two sizes)
Peter Jones
Edward Alfred Cockayne

HENRY OSPOVAT

Henry Ospovat is a young Russian artist residing in London. He has done some superb decorative work for the sonnets and poems of Shakespeare published by John Lane. His book-plates are precious bits of decoration worthy the adoration of all lovers of the beautiful. There have been only a few reproductions of them. The book-plate number of “The Studio” shows several and Fincham’s “Artists and Engravers” lists two.

Arthur and Jessie Guthrie, 1898
James and Maud Robertson, 1898
John and Jessie Hoy, 1898
Arthur Guthrie, 1898
Walter Crane
Charles Rowley
James Hoy
James Hoy
Frank Iliffe Hoy
John and Jessie Hoy (second design)
George Moore
A. Emrys Jones
Fred Beech
J. H. Reynolds
T. C. Abbott
Frank and Marie Hoy

ARMAND RASSENFOSSE

Armand Rassenfosse is a resident of Liege, therefore, presumably, a Belgian and a subject of the German Empire. But as stone walls do not always a prison make, so frontiers do not always mark the nationality of art and letters. Mr. Rassenfosse is distinctly French in his feeling and artistic point of view. Perhaps I should rather say Parisian, for it is of the Latin Quartier and the Beaux Arts that his work breathes. His designs are almost entirely of nude femininity and his method of expression the etching. He has made some eight or ten charming bits, full of life and chic—I was going to say, frou-frou, but that would be a misnomer, for his models are innocent of gowns or lingerie. Their spirit and beauty of execution is high, but as book-plate designs—well, it’s a bit like champagne for breakfast.

Alex. von Winiwarter
Alfred Lavachery, 1890
M. R. (Marie Rassenfosse)
A. R. (Armand Rassenfosse)
Alb. Mockel
H. v. W. (Hans von Winiwarter)
Three designs without names
D’Alb. Neuville

LOUIS RHEAD

The illustrator of “Pilgrim’s Progress” and the “Idylls of the King” needs no introduction to the average book-lover, and the hearts of the poster-collectors throb at his name. Mr. Rhead is an American of English birth and a resident of one of the suburbs of greater Gotham. His decorative work has been long and favorably known, and his book-plates can but add to his reputation. He has done but fifteen, and two of these are yet to be reproduced, but some examples of his work are in most collections.

Gertrude Tozier Chisholm
James Henry Darlington
Samuel Moody Haskins
Le Roy W. Kingman
Frank J. Pool
Louis Rhead (symbolic)
Louis Rhead (fishing)
Katharine Rhead
W. H. Shir-Cliff, 1897
Jean Irvine Struthers
Stephen S. Yates
David Turnure
Ivy Club (Princeton University)
Rector Kerr Fox
George Weed Barhydt

BYAM SHAW

The one or two book-plate designs by Mr. Shaw that have been published show a magnificent imaginative conception and makes the lover of the beautiful ardently wish for “more.” The one for Isabella Hunter, [60] on page 216 of Vol. I. of the “International Studio,” is at the head of its class. Mr. Shaw’s other line-drawings and his paintings have a richness and weirdness of design that is very attractive.

JOSEPH W. SIMPSON

Mr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, is a young Scotchman of infinite ambition and generous talent. He is not only a clever designer of book-plates, but he has a magazine to exploit his schemes and theories of art. This is reputed to be a quarterly, but it is erratic, like its sponsor, and issues “once in a while.” Mr. Simpson’s designs are full of feeling and rich in treatment. About twenty-five of these have seen the light and are prized by the lovers of modernity.

Robert Bateman, 1897
Kris Allsopp, 1897
Kris Allsopp, 1897
J. A. Whish, 1898
James Dick, 1898
F. N. and A. W. Hepworth, 1898
Cissie Allsopp, 1898
J. W. Simpson
Charles Holme
Julio Guardia
K. E., Graf zu Leiningen-Westerburg, 1898
Maud H. Scott, 1898
A. Gaston Masson
Geo. May Elwood
T. F. M. Williamson, 1899
(Gordon) Craig
Mabel Waterson
Fiffi Kuhn
Maisie Phillips
Samuel Linsley
Pauline Stone
T. N. Foulis
Joseph W. Simpson
W. M. Stone

HANS THOMA

Hans Thoma is a painter of national reputation in Germany who has thought it not beneath his dignity to do book-plate designs. This by way of recreation or to strengthen his line for more pretentious efforts. His designs are along classic and dignified lines. His own personal plate is a weird one; on it is a nude youth bearing the torch of knowledge and riding a gruesome dragon.

Dr. S. Herxheimer, 1898
Hans Thoma
Adolph von Gross, 1896
Dr. Henry Thode
August Rasor
Martin Elersheim
S. Herrheimer
Sofie Küchler
[61] Hermann Levi
Dr. Otto Fiser
Luisa Countess Erdödy
R. Spier
J. A. Beringer
Karl and Maria Grunelius

THOMAS TRYON

Mr. Tryon’s work has been described at length in another part of this book and a large part of his designs reproduced.

William Frederick Havemeyer (engraved by E. D. French), 1892
James Seymour Tryon, 1892
Arnold William Brunner, 1893
Frank Jean Pool, 1893
“Sovereign,” Crown design (engraved by E. D. French), 1896
“Sovereign,” Eagle design (engraved by E. D. French), 1896
Annah M. Fellowes, 1896
George Elder Marcus, 1897
Loyall Farragut, 1898
Mary Tryon Stone, 1900 } same
Janet Tryon Stone, 1900 } design in
Rachel Norton Tryon Stone, 1900 } different
Mary Tryon Stone (2d), 1900 } sizes
J. C. M. (Miss J. M. Cox), 1901
Library of the Boys’ Club, 1902
Willis Steell, 1902

BERNHARD WENIG

Bernhard Wenig is a comparatively newcomer in the field of book-plate design, but he has already established for himself an enviable reputation in Germany, and his work is meeting with a growing appreciation by collectors in this country. Mr. Wenig’s general manner is that of the old engraved wood block, bold and more or less crude of line, but full of virility. Most of his work is reproduced in black on white, but in a few instances he has used a color or two with good effect. His choice of subjects is varied, but the studious bookman of the middle ages seems to be uppermost in his heart and mind. Mr. Wenig has made one plate for a child, a small boy, that is among the best half-dozen of designs for children.

Baroness May v. Feilitzsch
Bernhard Wenig, 1897
Anton Wenig, 1897
Joh. Nep. Eser, 1899
E. W. J. Gärtner, 1900
Richard Schulz, 1900
Mathilde Schulz
Heinrich Stümcke
Karl Emich, Graf zu Leiningen-Westerburg, 1901
Günter Otto Schulz
Gertrud Schulz
Dr. Adolph Brenk
Carl Selzer
Lorenz Wenig
Countess Sofie du Moulin
Max H. Meyer
Dr. Fr. Weinitz
H. von Sicherer
Hugo Schmid
[62] Julie Speyer
Louis King
Claire von Frerichs
Franz Menter
L. Frankenstein
Dr. Hans Lichtenfelt
Heinrich and Hedwig Brelauer
Fr. Schade
F. Schaffener
G. Drobner
H. R. C. Hirzee
Wolfgang Quincke
Alfred Misterck
Ludwig Stivner
Max Landmann
Hans Jaeger
Dr. Louis Merck
Richard Jaeger
Rosalie Eeginbrodt
Georg Ortner
Melaine Dorny
Anna Furstin
Ludwig Klug
Doris von Heyl
Frieherr Max Heyl
Carl R. Peiner
David von Flansemann
Paulus Museum, Worms
(Mrs.) Hedwig Smidt
Wilhelm Karl Herams
(Mrs.) Julie Wassermann
Dr. C. Schonborn
Maria von Ernst
Wolfgang Quincke
Walther Frieherr von Seckendorff
Wilhelm von Schon

Transcriber’s Note

Minor punctuation errors have been repaired.

Printer errors and inconsistencies have been amended as follows:

Page 28—Bernard amended to Bernhard—By Bernhard Wenig

Page 36—Gerhaeuser amended to Gerhäuser—The design for Emil Gerhäuser is inoffensive ...

Page 43—portaits amended to portraits—The portraits and view are interwoven ...

The final chapter, the check-list of works, contained a number of errors and inconsistencies in the names. Where there were other mentions of the name in the book, the transcriber has made amendments for consistency, as follows:

Page 45—Bernard amended to Bernhard—Bernhard Wenig

Page 49—Pierce amended to Pearce—Julian Pearce Smith

Page 51—F. amended to E.—E. Gerhäuser

Page 51—Lulu amended to Lula—12 Lula Thomas Wear

Page 58—Jomes amended to James (second instance)—James Hoy

Page 61—Havermeyer amended to Havemeyer—William Frederick Havemeyer (engraved by E. D. French), 1892

Page 61—Fellows amended to Fellowes—Annah M. Fellowes, 1896

The following are likely to be errors, but as they appear only once in this book, they are preserved as printed. This list may not be exhaustive.

Page 58—Dr. Edmundi Atkinson should probably be Dr. Edmund Atkinson

Page 62—Rosalie Eeginbrodt should probably be Rosalie Eigenbrodt

Page 62—Melaine Dorny should probably be Melanie Dorny

Page 62—Frieherr Max Heyl should probably be Freiherr Max Heyl

Page 62—Carl R. Peiner should probably be Carl R. Reiner

Page 62—Dr. C. Schonborn should probably be Dr. C. Schönborn

Page 62—Walther Frieherr von Seckendorff should probably be Walther Freiherr von Seckendorff

Page 62—Wilhelm von Schon should probably be Wilhelm von Schön

The frontispiece illustration has been moved to follow the title page. Illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph.

BOOK-PLATES of TO-DAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AMERICAN DESIGNERS of BOOK-PLATES: WM. EDGAR FISHER

NINETEEN EXAMPLES OF DECORATIVE BOOK-PLATES BY MODERN BRITISH DESIGNERS

THE ARTISTIC BOOK-PLATE

THIRTY-TWO EXAMPLES OF BOOK-PLATES from PRIVATE COLLECTIONS and Other Sources

BOOK-PLATES AND THE NUDE

THE ARCHITECT AS A BOOK-PLATE DESIGNER

A CHECK-LIST of the WORK of TWENTY-THREE BOOK-PLATE DESIGNERS of PROMINENCE