Kauffer Illustrates T.S. Eliot's Ariel Poems

Between 1927 and 1931, the publishing firm Faber and Gwyer issued a series of illustrated poems called the Ariel Poems, named after Shakespeare’s sprite. Several prominent English writers contributed to the series including T.S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, G. K. Chesterton, D. H. Lawrence, Siegfried Sassoon, Vita Sackville-West, and Edith Sitwell. Each pamphlet had more or less the same simple format: a black and white artist print on the cover and a colored print inside followed by a poem.

What is most striking about these deceptively simple pamphlets is the role the illustrations play to complement and vastly enrich the poetry. Edward McKnight Kauffer, one of England’s most prolific and influential advertising poster artists during the 1920s and 30s, illustrated five of the poems T.S. Eliot wrote for the Ariel series. These poems were “The Journey of the Magi” (1927), “A Song for Simeon” (1928), “Marina” (1930), “Triumphal March” (1931), and later when the series was revived in the 1950s, “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees” (1954).

Kauffer was renowned for his avant-garde graphic design and poster art for companies such as London Underground Railways (1915–40), Shell UK Ltd., the Daily Herald and British Petroleum (1934–6). His work incorporated techniques and aesthetics from numerous modernist movements including cubism, futurism, and surrealism. These influences are evident in his illustrations for T.S. Eliot’s Ariel Poems with their whimsical play with geometric form and abstraction.

To see Kauffer’s illustrations of T.S. Eliot’s poems, ask for Val 817 E42 X3, Val 817 E42 W7, Val 817 E42 S2, Val 817 E42 P451, and Rare Book PS 3509.L43 M3 1930.

Fleas

Yesterday we were giving a presentation to The Dartmouth Institute's Health Professions Educators' Summer Symposium on various plagues that are nicely documented here in Rauner. It was a room filled with death and despair: one section was devoted to a small pox outbreak that hit Hanover in 1777, another to the cholera pandemic of the 1830s, and another on the bubonic plague that devastated London in 1665. The London plague (alluded to in an earlier post) brings to mind Monty Python, of course, but also fleas. And fleas reminded us of one of our favorite books, Robert Hooke's Micrographia (London: J. Martyn and J. Allestry, 1665).

Micrographia was the first detailed account of life under a microscope. Hooke's meticulous descriptions and illustrations revealed a wondrous new world to behold. But it was the irony of the publication date that was a wonder yesterday. The book came out in September of 1665, right when London was in the throes of the Plague. Little did the original readers know that the marvelously illustrated creature made so utterly foreign by the microscope was the source of all of their current sufferings.

To see Micrographia, ask for Rare QH271.H79.

Shrouded in Mystery

Maria Magdalena, Duchess of Tuscany, was born into the Hapsburg family. The daughter of Archduke Charles the II and niece to Maximilian II, she married well. Her husband was Cosimo II de Medici. Her Book of Hours, perhaps originally prepared as a wedding gift, became for her a kind of album of miniature art and relics. The book is filled with miniatures she received as gifts from other royal families in Europe.

But what makes this so special is an extraordinary bit of cloth lovingly embroidered onto folio 172. On the back it is described in Latin, translated, "The Holy Cloth saved in Turin, in which was bound the body of Jesus Christ, as an example of its holy contact with the same, having been a gift to the most serene Mary, given by Fernando, Duke of Mantua." What this really is, we don't know. Likely it is a piece of cloth, painted with blood to look like the complete Shroud of Turin in miniature. But, could the cloth actually be a bit of the Shroud--a relic taken from it, then painted to represent the whole? Almost surely not, but the information on the back is inconclusive and these were the people with the connections, wealth and power to secure relics. That Maria treasured it as a relic is unquestionable.  Either way, it is an amazing bit of mystery.

To see it, ask for Codex MS 608940.

Maid's Night Out

It was just a coincidence that lunchtime was approaching when I came upon a 1936 menu from the Hanover Inn within a box of documents on my desk. So, I was already thinking about food, but the thing about menus is that they also can shed light on cultural, economic and historic events. The menu, for example, certainly leads me to assume that in 1936 there were many Hanover households with maids, maids who either did the cooking or the cleaning up, or both, and who apparently all took Thursday nights off. I don't know what the maids were up to on Thursday night, but the Inn provided Maid's Night Out Specials for dinner, and, later, dancing on the porch. (Your investigative blogger can tell you that the special 85¢ lobster salad dinner in 1936 would be difficult to replace at a similar location today for less that 30 times the cost.)

Rauner has any number of menus, many of them documenting meals at local restaurants, College dining halls, fraternity banquets and campus events. Somewhat less regional is the Christmas banquet menu from the Ziegler Polar Expedition, 1903-1905. The expedition left Norway in the summer of 1903, landing at the base camp in Franz Josef Land left from a previous Ziegler expedition. They then established an advance camp for their run (actually two unsuccessful runs) to the North Pole, Camp Abruzzi, several miles further north. By the time Christmas rolled around, their ship had been crushed in the ice; by January all traces of it would be gone. I wonder if the men would have been chowing down heartily on New York style chicken croquettes had they had known that neither a resupply nor a relief ship would reach them for another year and a half.

On a more cheerful note, especially for chocolate fans, there's the Tarif des Consommations from the Nestlé pavilion at the1937 International Exposition in Paris.

Chocolat au lait à la crème d'amandes, anyone?

Building Bridges

As Independence Day fast approaches, it is hard not to feel a sense of anticipation in the air. Perhaps it emerges from imminent firework displays, the onset of long summer days, remembrance of our Founding Fathers, or familial traditions of hot dogs, hamburgers, and all things red, white, and blue.

Thomas Paine and his work of propaganda, Common Sense, is often overshadowed by these familiar representations of Independence Day. Nonetheless, he is an important figure in America’s early history. Paine was an Englishman who immigrated to the United States in 1774. A publicist, writer and orator, Paine soon became very active in the fight for independence upon his arrival in Philadelphia.  In 1776, Paine published his pamphlet criticizing the British government and calling on the colonists to declare their independence and fight for freedom. 

Common Sense became a sensation throughout the colonies and among the higher ranks of political greats such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. The relatively short work is remembered for its influential ideas and its impact on the American Revolution. For Paine and Americans in agreement with his arguments, independence was a want, a necessity, and, above all, their right. Rauner Special Collections Library has a copy of the tenth edition of Common Sense from 1776, the same year that the pamphlet was originally printed. The fact that a tenth edition was printed during its first year of publication demonstrates its true popularity. This particular copy was also quite popular with its previous owners: the wear and tear on the pages resembles a beloved novel that has been read and re-read.

In addition to his interest in politics, Paine was also very focused on the sciences and is credited for experimenting with marsh gas, a smokeless candle and the construction of bridges. It is his passion for bridge-building that is fascinating to us here at Rauner. In our manuscript collections, we have a handwritten letter from Paine to Benjamin Franklin, dated June 14, 1786,  that references Paine’s homegrown bridge models. Franklin at the time had retired from his role as Ambassador to France and had assumed his new role as Governor of Pennsylvania. It can be concluded from the letter and some additional research that Paine and Franklin had a relationship akin to mentor and protege, which can be traced back to Paine’s first arrival in America: Franklin had met Paine abroad and had written a letter of introduction for him in the early 1770s. The relationship formed during those early days of revolution lasted into Franklin’s later years and was close enough to warrant Paine seeking Franklin’s observations on his bridge models; the two men evidently shared a passion for more than politics.

To see our copy of Paine’s Common Sense, ask for Rare E211 .P126 1776.

To read Paine’s letter to Benjamin Franklin, ask for Ticknor MS 786364.1.

Posted for Julia Logan, a library school student at Simmons College who is Rauner's Public Services summer intern.

The Friday Fowl at Rauner

As we have mentioned in a previous post, Rauner Library owns an incomplete copy of James Audubon's Birds of America that previously belonged to Dartmouth's favorite son, Daniel Webster 1801. In years past, we have enjoyed displaying various birds depending upon the particular holiday, such as a turkey at Thanksgiving or a crow at Halloween. However, beginning in Winter Term 2014, we here at Rauner Library decided to be more egalitarian in our display of Audubon's drawings. For the last twenty-three weeks, we have been turning a page in one of the massive tomes every Friday morning. We call it "The Friday Fowl at Rauner," and we are almost through the first of three volumes. We plan to keep going until all of the fowl have been viewed, and then we'll start the process all over again.

The Friday Fowl for any given week will be on open display in Rauner's reading room, but if you can't make it here in person, or if you'd like a preview ahead of time, be sure to "like" Dartmouth College Library's Facebook page, where a snapshot of the bird of the week is posted every Friday. A few of our more enjoyable pages this term have been the Golden Eagle and the Barn Swallow, but it's hard to choose a favorite from among all of these amazing hand-painted masterpieces. We're always excited to see what new and wonderful bird will appear. To be one of the first to witness the week's favored fowl, show up in the reading room between 10:30-11:00 on Friday, which is generally when we turn the page.

The call number for the three double elephant folios is Rare QL674 .A9 1827.

Roman Rooms

George Ticknor 1807 was a professor of languages at both Harvard University and Smith College during the 19th century and amassed a formidable personal library during his many trips to Europe for both study and pleasure. In particular, his collection of Spanish and Portuguese literature was arguably the best of its kind in the United States during his lifetime. Rauner Library was given a significant portion of Ticknor's library by his estate as well as his library furniture, mantlepiece, and sculptures, all of which now reside just off Rauner's reading room in a room named after the family.

In addition to George's library, furniture, and artwork, Rauner also holds his personal papers and those of his wife Anna, which include personal travel diaries written during their travels abroad in the 1830s. The diaries are filled with interesting perspectives on the countries and places that they visit, and comparing the couple's entries on any given day is a fun exercise in seeing how different individual impressions and experiences can be. Anna's diary is written in a beautiful cursive hand and begins in May of 1835, when the Ticknors landed in England, and ends in September of 1837 near the Splügen Pass between Switzerland and Italy.

In the winter of 1836, The Ticknors took up residence in Rome on the third floor of a private house overlooking the city. Anna took it upon herself to draft in her diary a floor plan of the rooms, which is quite detailed and provides a fascinating example of the style in which wealthy families of the period were accustomed to traveling. The apartments include "six sleeping rooms, a sitting room and dining room, servants' eating room, kitchen and outer & inner antechambers." For Anna, however, the best quality of the rooms is that they are situated upon the side of one of Rome's many hills and are therefore provided a wonderful and constantly sunny view of the city. She also mentions that everything has been provided for them upon their arrival, and that this comprehensive service is possible because tourists of their stature are so common in Rome.

Anna's diaries can be found in her personal papers, MS-1249, while George's diaries are located in his papers, MS-983. The Ticknor Room at Rauner Library can be viewed any time that the reading room is open.