Guest Post: Bookish Bookends from Bob and Donna Seecof

I'd like to thank Eve Kahn for her intrepid scouting of blooks. Ever since I met this ebullient N. Y. Times columnist, she has faithfully kept me in the loop on bookish matters and has scouted out numerous blooks online, at fairs and in the press. Most recently she introduced me to Bob and Donna Seecof, authors of a fascinating blog and definitive book on the history of bookends Eve's column (Sept. 19, NY Times) and a link to the Seecofs' Bookend blog are below:

https://bookendcollector.wordpress.com

http://www.schifferbooks.com/bookends-objects-of-art-and-fashion-4931.html

Bob Seecof has put together this post on a selection of blookish bookends for your enjoyment:

We have no Blooks, but we have some bookends that incorporate books, and we will call them Blookends here.  These are not as exciting as Blooks, perhaps, but they are infectious to Blookend collectors. so beware:

1.  Nude on Book. These would be blooks if the nude were concealed within the book, but she is proudly perched on the Blookend because she is a nineteen twenties girl, newly liberated by the feminist movement of her day.

2. Elephant and Books. It is not possible to conceal an elephant in a book, but these are metal replicas of very small books from the Little Leather Library which was sold in the nineteen twenties and  elephants weight the Blookends.

3. Cherub and Butterfly. There is a book in the cherubs left hand.  The red book behind the cherub is meant to support books on a shelf.

4.  Devoted Monk. Monks are a favorite subject for Arts and Crafts style bookends.  This monk reads a book, probably the Bible.  He must be of a mendicant order because he has no shoes.

5.  Mission Padre. These Biookends commemorate the California Spanish Missions that were founded by members of the Dominican and Franciscan orders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The book below each padre is open to facing pages showing California woodlands and a California mission.

6.  Scopes Monkey. In 1925 John Thomas Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution to High School students in a trial given national publicity.  This forlorn chimpanzee is reading a book inscribed Essays in Evolution.

7.  Darwin’s Ancestor. This ape sits on three books, labeled from top to bottom:  History, New Testament, and Old Testament.  His book is inscribed Origin of Species by Ch. Darwin.

8.  Hiawatha. Arts and Crafts-style bookends sometimes displayed titles or passages from classic books.  Here we have passages from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem-Hiawatha with accompanying pine boughs and pine cones.  

9.  Gerdago Girl. This  lady is dressed for reading deco literature.

Halloween is Coming So Stock Up on Book Props

I can't resist a Halloween post even though it's early. But, blook lovers will have to get going if you are thinking of making a haunted library this Halloween. You might have seen an earlier post on how to make an animated bookshelf. Click here if you want to see it again. The impetus for today's post came from a late night blook repair binge. I had ordered a talking, spinning skull with flashing eyes on a stack of books and it came broken! Well, today it's up and about so all's well with the world. My collection includes a number of Halloween and other props. Book props commemorate  all of the larger holidays, but it is my subjective opinion that those made for Halloween are the best, or most engaging, and possibly the largest category (only to be outdone by Christmas in scale). 

Spirit Halloween is an online store, but they also have pop-up stores during the season and the carry a nice array of animated blook props. They have three at this time, all represented below. 

Here is the Spider Spell Book, an animated prop that sounds like the Psycho shower scene:

Here is a new prop for this year, a ghost writing open book with two feather pens. It's terrifying and magical:

And the last is the animated Dark Magic Spell Book. So save up your pennies and start collecting:

A lot of people make their own book props.  You can see any number of them by performing an online search. If you make some, send pictures! 

Please make your book props from scratch and don't alter real books. If you choose to do so, be very careful what you select to destroy ---- or it might come back from beyond and destroy youooooo! LOVE YOUR BOOKS and have a Happy Halloween. I'm sure you'll be hearing from me again with another Halloween post.

New to the Collection: A Box With Arabic Writing.

This week I had a visit from an old friend, artist book publisher, Gunnar Kaldewey. I haven't seen Gunnar for about a year, as he is now living abroad. To my surprise he arrived with this beautiful wood book box which he purchased in a Paris antiques market. He told me that he thought it dated from the early 20th century. His colleague told him that the lettering said "Images." The box is inlaid with various tpes of wood and metal. Other than that, we don't know anything about it at this time and more resarch is required to have a better understanding of it's purpose and origin. Be sure to comment if it has meaning for you. If you'd like to know about Gunnar's work, you might want to see this book.

 

 

Miniature Mysteries of R. Vernon Cook, or, How I Began Collecting Magic Blooks

I came late to the category of magic, simply because I didn't know it existed. After I finished the draft of my collection catalog and could see the scope of my collection, I asked myself if I had overlooked any particular genres of blooks and I thought about magic, among other topics. Now, I can't remember what made me think of it. I think I saw a 'hot book' or 'book test' and it got me started.  I looked around on the Internet for someone to talk to and the first person I contacted was Larry Kahlow owner of Eagle Magic and Joke Store, the oldest magic store in the country. Larry later sent me a wonderful personal story about another prop, the Dove Book, but that's for a later time. In any case, after several forays into the world of magic I began to understand bookish magic props and to put them into context.

It's rare to find a blook that is an 'association copy' or one whose owner or maker is known. If you find one, there's likely to be a story behind it. That's the case for Miniature Mysteries of R. Vernon Cook. 



Vernon Cook (1908-1988)

Vernon Cook was a 20th century magician born in Kansas and raised in Wyoming. He moved to Portland, Oregon, in the late 1950s where he worked in a tire factory, while his passion was magic. In the 1940s, during the height of his performing career, he was known as "the Montana Montebank".  He developed a couple of tricks that he marketed through magic dealers including the "Hot-Spot", a clever effect in which the magician's want goes into a block of wood but does not come out the other side. Surprisingly , the wand is absolutely solid. Cook was an avid collector of magic books and tricks, as well as a science-fiction enthusiast; he was a member of numerous magic societies, including the IBM (International Brotherhood of Magicians), of which he was a member for 25 years.

I don't know who made the box for Miniature Mysteries. It's possible that there was a binder or box maker who made these for magicians and may have advertised in magic periodicals. I haven't found that yet. Or, perhaps Vernon commissioned a binder specifically, which might account for the custom aspect of the box. The tricks inside are common table-top magic tricks involving trick thumbs, coin tricks, etc.

By the way, I'm looking for an amateur magician to perform book-related magic tricks at the opening of the exhibition of my collection at the Grolier Club. More details coming soon.