Say It With Flowers

Roses are the perennially favorite flower for sending as gifts.  But what are you really saying when you send someone a dozen roses?  According to Sarah Hale's Flora's Interpreter (Boston: Thomas H. Webb; Co., 1833) it depends on the type of rose and the shape of the flower.

A red rose bud signifies a wish that the receiver remain ever pure and lovely while a damask rose hints at a bashful love. However, beware sending a thornless rose which is associated with a feeling of ingratitude or the dark Chinese rose with its message that the sender has been forsaken. Worse yet, is the withered white rose of despair.

Hale lists numerous other flowers and ascribes a sentiment to each. She also provides a poem illustrating the associated sentiment, a literary extract mentioning the flower by name, the flower's scientific name and a brief description of it's characteristics and origin.

The language of flowers is thought to have evolved out of the eastern tradition, particularly that of Turkey, of associating certain objects with specific meanings. Lady Mary Montagu, who visited Turkey in the early eighteenth century, is credited with one of the earliest English accounts of this custom.  In the book Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M---Y W---y M----e (London: Homer and Milton, 1766), she details much of what she saw as typical Turkish life, including the language of objects. Interestingly enough, our copy, printed by "Homer and Milton," appears to be a pirated edition of the work and, according to the accompanying letter of provenance, may be the only existing copy of this particular printing.

Find out more about the language of flowers by asking for Rare Book GR 780 .H35 1833. Lady Mary's often scandalous accounts of Turkish life are found in Rare Book DA 501 .M7 L48.

Foolish Ida

Watercolor original

Maurice Sendak, the author of wildly funny and darkly tragic children's books, died this morning.  Sendak never shied away from the terrors of childhood even as he celebrated kids' slightly naughty side. Today we offer a highlight from our Morton E. Wise Collection of Maurice Sendak: the original artwork behind "Foolish Ida" of Sendak's Outside over There (New York: Harper and Row, 1981).

Pencil sketch

Progressing from the pencil sketch through the watercolor to the final published image, you can see Sendak manipulating Ida's expression, transforming it from one of sad determination to one of deep mourning. A fitting tribute for today.

Final published image

To see them, ask for Iconography 1610, 1611 and Illus S467out.

Derby Day

As Derby Day approaches, we thought it might be fun to travel back in time and across the pond to look at 19th-century engravings of the original race responsible for the creation of the Kentucky Derby and other similar races. The Epsom Derby was (and is) held annually at the Epsom Downs just outside of London, where it began in 1780. These particular images of the Epsom Derby were created by Gustave Doré, a prominent 19th-century French artist and engraver. He first came to prominence in England because of his captivating illustrations in a new English Bible, printed in 1866. The success of this work opened professional doors for Doré in London, and several years later he collaborated with Blanchard Jerrold on a work entitled London: A Pilgrimage (London: Grant & Co., 1873).

This large folio contains breathtaking engravings by Doré, who is the true star of the work despite Jerrold’s narration. In Chapter Seven, titled, "the Derby," Doré manages to demonstrate the mass of London humanity that turned out annually in May under the pretense of seeing the races, an event that often was more about letting off carnivalesque steam than focusing intently on the horses. However, as Doré shows us in the image of the fallen horse and rider, there was also an element of excitement, danger, and darkness within the races themselves that held a universal appeal.

In this book, Doré’s representations of darkness do not confine themselves to day-lit public games and races. London: A Pilgrimage was criticized by contemporaries for displaying numerous scenes of London’s dirty back-streets and darkened alleyways where the poor and destitute huddled in squalor, as exemplified by this night scene from the Whitechapel neighborhood. Hearkening back to Dickens, Doré and Jerrold unflinchingly display all of London’s social classes. Above all, one leaves London: A Pilgrimage with the unshakeable feeling of claustrophobia, of exciting noisy streets and of the jostling chaos of the crowds that swelled around pilgrims to England’s capital.

 To wander the teeming streets of 19th-century London for yourself, race over to Rauner and ask for Illus D73j.

Heathenish Customs

May Day has been celebrated as a springtime holiday for centuries, its origins stretching back to a Roman festival of the flower and fertility goddess Flora. In early modern England, the first of May was traditionally a holiday for laborers commemorated by revelry and dancing centered around a Maypole. The celebration of May Day was outlawed by Puritan authorities during the English interregnum, but after the Restoration in 1660, the festival commenced again in earnest.

The revival of May Day revels was much to the dismay of Thomas Hall, a pastor and the author of a pamphlet titled: Funebria Florae, The Downfall of May-Games: Wherein Is set forth the rudeness, prophaneness, stealing, drinking, fighting, dancing, whoring, mis-rule, mis-spence of precious time, contempt of God, and godly Magistrats, Ministers and People, which oppose the Rascality and rout, in this their open prophaneness, and Heathenish Customs.

The pamphlet's long-winded title speaks for itself.  The title begins in large type but finishes several sizes smaller -- apparently the compositor had difficulty in fitting all of Hall's abundant condemnations onto a single page.

A poem written from the perspective of the Maypole concludes Hall's criticisms:
...
Yea, Hobby-horse doth hither prance,
Maid-marrian, and the Morrice-dance.
My summons fetcheth far and near
All that can dance, and drab, and drink,
The run to mee as to a sink.
These, mee for their Commander take,
And I do them my black-guard make.
…
To reel and spue, to brawl and fight,
To scoff and rail with all their might:
I bid men cast off gravity,
And women eke their modesty:
Old crones that scarce have tooth or eye,
But crooked back, and lamed thigh
Must have a frisk, and shake their heel,
As if no stitch, nor ache they feel.
I bid the servant disobey,
The childe to say his parents nay.
The poorer sort that have no coin,
I can command them to purloin;
All this and more, I warrant good,
For 'tis to maintain neighbourhood.
…

Fielding on the Poor

Henry Fielding is best known for his picaresque novels Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, but he also dabbled in the social issues his day. The title of this recently acquired treatise by Fielding, A Proposal for Making an Effectual Provision for the Poor, for Amending Their Morals, and for Rendering them Useful Members of Society (London: A. Millar, 1753), expresses his view of the poor fairly succinctly. They were morally lacking and not fit members of society. His proposal was little more than a debtor's prison that could accommodate 5,000 paupers and 600 petty criminals. There were cells and a whipping post as well as a chapel.

The proposed structure was never built, but served as a model for the rebuilding of Newgate Prison.  Ironically, our copy has been sumptuously rebound by Riviere and Son complete with gilt edges.

Ask for Rare HV61.F53 1753.

Phishing for Poets

Robert Frost received a lot of mail in his lifetime – we have more than 18 linear feet of it at Rauner – from his family, his friends, and often from complete strangers. One of the oddest letters in our Frost collection falls into this last category.

A man who signs his name "J." writes: "I am in jail sentenced for fraudulent bankruptcy, and I beg you to inform me, if you are willing to help me save the amount of $185,000.00 dls. in bank notes that I possess within a trunk in a Custom House in the United States."

If the letter is starting to sound fishy, that’s because it is. The writer goes on to request (in broken English, of course) that Frost reply to a third party in Mexico City, who will forward him details of how to obtain the “velice that contains a secret hiding” from customs and will ensure that he receives “as a compensation… one third of the said amount.”

Frost appears not to have taken the bait – we don’t have any record of a response to "J." Ask for MS-1178, Box 6, Folder 15 to see the letter for yourself.

Timely Herbals

The Grete Herball

We tend to think of herbals today as handy guide books for identifying the wild flowers growing in our backyards and woods, but herbals were among the first medical texts. Steeped in folk traditions and medical practice, herbals expounded on the "virtues" of various plants with an emphasis on their effects on the human body.

Fuchs' Herbal

We have a large collection of herbals dating from 1526 up to the mid-19th century.  For today, we offer images of the same plant from the first printed herbal in the English language, The Grete Herball (London: Peter Treveris, 1526); the more complete De Historia stirpivm commentarii insignes (Basileae: In officina Isingriniana, 1542) by Leonhart Fuchs; and the most popular English language herbal of the 17th century, John Gerard's The Herball (London: A. Islip).

Gerard's Herbal

To see them ask for QK99.G7 1526, QK41.F7 1542, and QK41.G3 1636