The Devil is in the Details

Whether it's the rubber for the stamps used to create the text, the copper wire for the binding, or the number of copies (30) in the edition, everything in Angela Lorenz's book The Binding Ties has a double, or even triple, meaning. This cleverly crafted artist's book is a poem that does poetic justice to the impact of international trade and colonization throughout history. The poem is "hidden," where it can be discovered by the reader (just like the natural resources that attracted traders and colonizers to various parts of the world), in a set of die cut British regimental ties. Each tie stands for a regiment sent to colonial territories where one of the natural resources represented in the book - rubber, silk, cotton and copper - were found.

This book is typical of the complexity of ideas represented in artists' books, but particularly of the depth and intellectual detail that Lorenz brings to all of her projects.

For more information on The Binding Ties, see the artist's website. To see the book ask for: Rauner Presses L876lobi No. 2 of 30. Or come in and look at this book alongside other examples of Lorenz's work.

Tender is the Author

In 1934 Charles Scribner's Sons published F. Scott Fitzgerald's  Tender is the Night. It was hoped the novel would return Fitzgerald to the spotlight nine years after the publication of The Great Gatsby.

But you get the feeling Scribner's knew that their fragile author would need some help generating sales: to stimulate interest,  they chose to serialize the novel. It came out in four consecutive issues of Scribner's Magazine between January and April 1934, with the first book edition appearing in April. In the depths of the Great Depression, the voice of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties was not the first place people turned for relevancy. But by putting Fitzgerald alongside Gilbert Seldes, Thomas Wolfe, John Strachey, Lincoln Steffens, Stuart Chase and William Lyon Phelps, the magazine sought to make him new again.

The novel was not well received. Sales were disappointing and the flashback narrative must have been particularly difficult when spread over four monthly installments. The magazine tried to push the book. The blurb in the March issue proclaimed:

Both popular and critical verdicts are that Scott Fitzgerald's novel becomes more exciting as it goes along. How Richard Diver extricates himself from the extraordinary situation in which he finds himself is revealed in these last chapters of one of the big novels of the year.

To see the serialized copy, ask for Rare PS3511.I9 T4 1934b.