#captain alison

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Staff Pick of the Week

Books and Their History: Shown to the Children

I picked this book because it is about book history, but more so because it was written for children. It was published in the early 20th century as part of the “Shown to the Children” series published by T.C.& E.C. Jack, Ltd. of London & Edinburgh and printed by Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd. There are about 22 titles in the series. So far we only have this one, but hopefully UWM Special Collections will acquire more. On my wish list would be: Birds, The Farm, Stars, London, Our Country’s Wild Animals, and The Sea Shore. I imagine it would have been a wonderful little library for a child, and they are the perfect size for a child’s hands. T.C. & E.C. Jack also published literary classics in the “Told to the Children” series.

Books and Their History was written by the Irish poet and English teacher, R. N. D. Wilson. Wilson taught English for 10 years at Rendcomb College in Gloucestershire, England. Wilson’s text makes this book a delight to read. His passion for the subject and his native Ireland comes through in the section on Celtic Illumination.

That grey-green, mountain-bordered island flung out westward into the Atlantic, her shores whitened by the long waves breaking, her hill-tops veiled in mist, her rainy plains with their quiet flowing rivers and lakes- that remote and lonely country was for a few brief centuries spared the calamities and disasters that were wreaking such havoc on the mainland of Europe.

This little volume contains a solid overview of book history, from “The Beginnings of Writing” to examples of the “three-colour” printing process. We are enthralled that this was written with children in mind but full of great information for anyone. Max, our head of Special Collections who teaches the book history course here at UWM, admits that despite this book’s florid language, its scope and accuracy could actually serve as a basic text for his course. Does anyone know of any modern books for children that teach book history?

-- Alison

View some of our other Staff Picks.

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 Feathursday: The Avian Avatars of Special Collections

Continuing our Feathursday celebration of the Avian Avatars of Special Collections, today we highlight Alison, our Graduate Assistant Captain, as her assigned species, the Boreal Owl (Aegolius funereus).

General characteristics:

Highly intelligent, and very possibly wise. Sees all, knows all. After drinking coffee, a little too motivated. Gets along well with her colleagues, but must suppress the urge to devour them. Imperturbable.

Feeding habits:

Swoops silently down on prey and swallows it whole.

Call / vocalization:

Who? What?! When? . . . Why?!

Images shown here:

Boreal Owl, aka Tengmalm’s Owl, aka Richardson’s OWl, aka Alison from The Birds of the British Isles and Their Eggs (held by our colleagues one floor below us in the American Geographical Society Library).

Boreal Owl, AKA Richardson’s Owl from Birds and Trees of North America by Rex Brasher.

Even though we’ve tried and tried we just can’t recall which book from our collection Shrugging Owl comes from, so here’s a quote from another book:

Except when encountered on its roosting site by day, Tengmalm’s Owl always seems to show an expression of relaxed surprise or enquiry. -- from Owls of the Northern Hemisphere.

Find out more about Rex Brasher’s work. 

View more Feathursday posts.

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Edward Gorey’s Birthday Anniversary!

A bonus post...because donkeys!

From Lions and Lobsters and Foxes and Frogs: Fables from Aesop by Ennis Rees with drawings by Edward Gorey. This Young Scott Books edition was published in 1971.

I found this book while processing a gift from our friend and benefactor Jerry Buff. It was an unexpected surprise, and even more so to find Gorey donkeys!. I could not pass up the chance to highlight just a few of the donkeys that are so common in Aesop’s fables. These images are from the tale of “The Donkey that Fell in the River.”

-- Captain Alison

Check out our other Gorey posts

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Staff Pick of the Week:

February 22nd, Edward Gorey’s Birthday Anniversary!

These are images from Alvin Steadfast on Vernacular Island written by Frank Jacobs and Illustrated by Edward Gorey. First published in 1965 by Dial Press, this is the 1979 First Taplinger edition.

The text that American author and long-time contributor to MAD magazine Frank Jacobs wrote is a spoof on Victorian adventure stories for boys. Alvin Steadfast is chosen from 500 boys to join Dr. Thaddeus Cranshaw on his journey to Vernacular Island. The island inhabitants have unusual names, names that also describe what they do. The Running Commentary is a deer-like creature who bounds through the forest and hills giving a running commentary on the islands activity. The Bitter-Grudge and the Purple Rage are two bird-like creatures who block the path and keep the safari from progressing until the Common Good takes control of the situation. The safari is in search of the Doubt that has grabbed up Dr Cranshaw. Alvin pulls the group through this tough spot by fooling the Doubt into a trap labeled the One Last Hope. The only critter that lacks a name is the worm that appears in every image.

Our copy of Alvin Steadfast on Vernacular Island is a gift from our friend and Anishinaabe poet Meg Noodin.

-- Captain Alison

Check out our other Gorey posts

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Children and Libraries Exhibit

A new exhibition drawn from our Historical Curriculum Collection is now up in the Music and Curriculum Library, located on the second floor, east wing of UWM’s Golda Meir Library. Featured in this exhibit are books about children and libraries. Some were created with librarians, teachers, and parents in mind while others were meant specifically for children.

A book from 1912 entitled The Children’s Reading sets out to answer some common questions parents ask when it comes to their children and reading:

•  Of what value are books in the education of my children? •  How may I interest my children in home reading? •  What kind of books do children like? •  Where and how may I procure books?

These questions are still relevant today 100 years later as teachers, librarians, and guardians help to develop the relationship that children have with the library. As society, culture, and technology change, so too do our libraries, and like the books shown above, children should be encouraged to explore the library and all it has to offer.

This exhibit was curated by Special collections Senior Graduate Intern Alison Newman. Special Collections graduate-student staff curate a new mini-exhibit three to four times a year for the Music and Curriculum Library to highlight the connection between the Curriculum Library and the Historical Curriculum Collection in Special Collections. 

The Children’s Book on How to Use Books and Libraries. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937

Let’s Go to the Library. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1957

The First Book of Public Libraries. New York: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1959

Libraries. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964

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Weird and Wonderful #Pagefrights

Published in 1912 by John Lane The Bodley Head in a limited edition of 500 copies, we present a series of English ballads with illustrations by Vernon Hill (1887-1972). Hill was a sculptor, lithographer, and illustrator who started in the field of art as a lithographer’s apprentice at the age of 13. In the preface, Richard Pearse Chope says this of Hill’s illustrations:

These designs for Ballads Weird and Wonderful are indeed not only illustrations but decorations: they touch the soul with pity and with terror; they have the quality, the peculiar quality, of forming in the mind a permanent picture, long after the merely beautiful becomes an evanescent memory. Mr. Hill’s work is such stuff as dreams are made of.

Or, perhaps, nightmares.

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Staff Pick of the Week: A tunnel book by Edward Gorey

Welcome to The Tunnel Calamity by Edward Gorey. This copy is likely a first edition from 1984 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons and is a little worse for wear. Written in ink on the back is an inscription “Happy Father’s Day Papa! Love, Rebecca.” There is no text within the tunnel but on the back cover there is a description of what happened on St. Frumble’s Day, 1892. “Unexpected appearance of the ULUUS (thought to have been extinct for over a century) in the tunnel connecting East Shoetree and West Radish.”

Edward Gorey always created immersive worlds with his art but the Magic Windows format allowed his readers to truly get inside his work. It is an exceptional experience to be able to peer inside and journey through this snapshot full of Gorey’s unique characters going about their business. They all seem to be unfazed by the great creature ambling through the tunnel except for the little boy who looks directly at the Uluus who, in turn, seems to be caught off guard at being observed.

Seeing the Uluus in this book I was reminded of Elephant House or, The Home of Edward Gorey, a book of photographs and text by Kevin McDermott. The photographs of the interior and exterior of Gorey’s Massachusetts home were taken shortly after his death in 2000. They show his world, his sanctuary, a private place that few people experienced while he was alive. He was a collector of many things among which were stuffed toys, often ones that were old and worn or pre-loved as l like to say.  Gorey had an extensive collection of elephant things such as toys, etchings, and figurines. I’m not sure if the collection came before or after he started calling his home “Elephant House,” but perhaps a saggy, baggy well loved stuffed elephant toy was how the Uluus began its life in the mind of Edward Gorey.   

-Alison

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A Special Collections Caturday

Last week we presented our friend Reggie in a wreath of foliage. That striking image inspired us to showcase other feline friends and housemates of our Special Collections staff over the next few weeks.

This handsome, silver, Doll-face Persian is named Rumple and shares a home with our own Captain Alison. His size is deceiving, so we have the Captain here for scale. He was a stray and still a kitten when Alison rescued him from the street. Starving and matted he was not a particularly adorable creature, but he eventually “grew into his face.”

It was recently discovered, however, that Rumple is actually an alien!