Special Collections recently purchased an “indestructible” 19th century edition of Mother Goose, Mother Goose’s Melodies: containing all that have ever come to light of her memorable writings. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1879. What makes it indestructible, you ask? It’s printed on coated linen, so the book is chewable, droolable-on, and unrippable. (If you click the image on the right, you’ll see that the page is made of cloth.)

This isn’t the first “indestructible” edition ever published. The London firm Addey & Co. advertised its “Indestructible Books for Children” printed on “cloth expressly prepared” as early as 1856 (see the ads in the back of George Measom’s Light from the East). American firms also published “indestructible” books around this same period.

While some might argue that all books should be indestructible, it seems particularly useful in a book for young children. Most students at Colorado College are familiar with cloth or plastic books from their own childhoods, so we’re guessing it won’t take them long to figure out why a publisher might print Mother Goose this way. If they can’t figure it out, I guess the curator could give them a hint by nibbling on the front cover.

In May of 2014 we acquired lots of new goodies. We purchased Karen Hanmer’s boxed set of binding models, Biblio Tech: Reverse Engineering Historical and Modern Binding Structures.

Adison Petti of Colorado College’s Collaborative for Community Engagement donated about thirty zines to the CC Zine Collection, most of them concerning social activism and/or transgender experiences.

And our own Amy Brooks, Cataloging Coordinator at Special Collections, donated a 1951 cookbook published by Westinghouse, Sugar an’ Spice and All Things Nice, which is full of excellent recipes and even more excellent illustrations.

Three exciting new acquisitions in Special Collections:

For our history of the book collection, an example of an unusual printing method for music (or anything): stenciling. Description from Les Enluminures: Antiphonal for the Day Offices, Diurnale Carmelitarum in quo continentur omnia quae cantantur in choro per annum [Carmelite Diurnal Containing Everything Sung in Choir throughout the Year]. In Latin, stenciled manuscript on parchment with musical notation. France, Paris, eighteenth century, ca. 1700-40 (?) (after 1689).

Jumping ahead about three hundred years, we have a diorama-style artists’ book, Bryan Kring’s Sea Monster. From the Abecedarian Gallery description: “When the brass ring is pulled, the waves move, the sailboat rocks, and the arm of the monster rises threateningly.” Yes, it does, and it’s wonderful.

Last and perhaps least, Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up to Dragon, an unauthorized Harry Potter book in Chinese, with illustrations stolen from Disney and other sources. This will be a useful book for Harry Potter fans and anyone interested in copyright and intellectual property. See this article for more information.

Isaac Clarke memoir

page 191

In September of 2013, we received an amazing gift from Tom Courtney: a 200-page leather-bound handwritten memoir, dated 1892, by Isaac Clarke, a Union soldier who witnessed the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864.

Along with the manuscript, we received a 60-page typed “reconstruction” of the memoir, available in full here. See pages 40-43 of the reconstruction (179-195 of the original) for Clarke’s memories of Sand Creek.

Please note: the reconstruction corrects spelling and syntax and frequently paraphrases Clarke’s words, sometimes changing the meaning or emphasis. For example, on page 191 of the original (pictured above), Clarke writes:

“…I do think it was the most cowardly act I ever saw and this was what is recorded in history as the grate sand creek Battle and it was a grate battle but all one sided for the indens were all kild an to tell the truth they wear a band of friendley indens and they were all masacread by the hundred day men.”

The reconstruction for this passage reads:

“…It was the most dastardly, cowardly act I ever saw, and this was what is recorded in history as the Great Sand Creek Battle. The truth of the matter was that it was a band of friendly Indians massacred by a regiment of white savages, the hundred day men.”

If possible, therefore, researchers should visit CC Special Collections and consult the original rather than depend solely upon the reconstruction.

CC Special Collections recently purchased a 1487 edition of Alphonso de Spina’s Fortalitium Fidei (Fortress of Faith), written in 1458 and published anonymously multiple times in the late 15th century. The Fortalitium is a pro-Catholic work containing arguments against Muslims, Jews, and other detractors; its final section is on demons and how to fight them. It may be the first printed book to discuss witchcraft, and most certainly played a part in the Spanish Inquisition. The Fortalitium is generally understood to be an anti-Semitic work; some believe that de Spina, a Franciscan priest, converted from Judaism.

Our edition (Lyon: Guillaume Balsarin) is in a later binding (probably 19th century) and contains a single woodblock illustration  depicting a demon with horns on its head and a face in its chest, perhaps a cousin to the Blemmyes (Latin Blemmyae), who have faces in their chests and no heads at all. Our copy, formerly in the library of the Convent of St. Francis of Siguenza in Guadalajara, Spain, has unusual marginalia from a former owner or owners, including decorative marks and, on the final page, a sort of doodle of a fuzzy-haired, winged demon.

ADDENDUM: in September of 2013, Penn’s Peter Stallybrass  visited Special Collections and viewed our copy of the Fortalitum. He believes the doodle may depict an 18th-century gravestone similar to those in the photographs below. We concur!

Special Collections is home to the Colorado College Zine Collection, an eclectic mix of low-price, semi-home-made, small-circulation publications. We recently acquired a complete set of J Diego Frey’s PocketBucket Lists, which are pocket-sized bundles of funny, poem-like lists of such things as “committees to avoid,” “the pillars of civilization,” and, as seen in the image, verb tenses for Coochie-Coochie. Frey also shares these lists online.

In May of 2013 we purchased a copy of Petite Ode à Jean François Champollion by Ron Padgett and Bertrand Dorny. We have number 8 of 24 copies signed by the author and the artist. Each copy is somewhat different, with hand-glued collages throughout. Both the original text and the collage materials (maps, etc.) are in French. The book can be stored flat or displayed in a pyramid shape. Our particular copy comes with typed instructions from Padgett himself on how to configure the pyramid. (It isn’t difficult to configure, but those of us who find spatial relations challenging — this Curator included — will be glad to have the instructions.)

We are the second U.S. library (with Yale) and the third world-wide (with the Bibliothèque Nationale) to own a copy of this book. We look forward to sharing it with students and scholars.

In the spring of 2013, Special Collections purchased two 16th century German books: Johann Schradin’s Expostulation (Augsburg, 1546) and David Chytraeus’s Historia der Augspurgischen Confession (Rostock, 1576).

According to Blackwell Books in London (the dealer who sold us these books), the Expostulation is a poem about Ariovistus, Arminius, Barbarossa, and Georg von Frundsberg visiting the author in a dream. Perhaps of interest to book studies folks, two of its pages didn’t print properly and someone added the missing text in manuscript. This image shows the manuscript text on the verso of leaf 9.

The Chytraeus has a contemporary pigskin binding with working clasps. A history of the Augsburg Confession, the text was translated into many languages and frequently reprinted after it first appeared in 1576. Our copy has marginalia from at least one previous owner and a rebacked spine.

Debra Weier, Charged

Book artist (and CC parent) Debra Weier visited Colorado College in the fall of 2012 to give a workshop on pop-ups. The library subsequently purchased her one-of-a-kind pop-up book Charged. When she mailed us that book, Weier sent us a bonus gift: another one-of-a-kind pop-up book, Fair Play.

Debra Weier, Fair Play

Thank you, Debra!

Our anonymous donor surprised us this month with a gift of the Ninja Press edition of W.S. Merwin’s The Real World of Manuel Córdova (1995). When stretched out, this accordion-style production measures fifteen feet long. Here’s the dealer’s description.

We look forward to sharing all fifteen feet with book arts and poetry students and other researchers in the coming years, perhaps alongside our similarly-stretchable two editions of Carlos Oquendo de Amat’s Five Meters of Poems (one from Ugly Duckling Presse and one from Turkey Press).