Page from first edition of "The Vampyre" by John William Polidori.

Molly Miller is a graduate student in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin. She is studying to become a teen services librarian, but has many other interests, including nineteenth-century British literature, vampires, rare books, and anything to do with the Victorian Era.  As part of a research project in Michael Laird’s class “Studies in the Book Arts,” Miller studied a first edition of John William Polidori’s The Vampyre.

Vampires have inspired human imagination for centuries. They even play a huge role in popular culture today, and vampire mythology has been explored in literature, movies, and many other forms of media. While big names such as Bram Stoker’s…

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Jeweled bindings, which use metalwork, jewels, ivory, and rich fabrics to decorate a book, date back at least to the Middle Ages, but the form was revived around the turn of the twentieth century by the English binders Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe met in evening bookbinding classes in 1896. After a few years teaching bookbinding at Camberwell College of Art, they opened their own shop in a rented attic in Bloomsbury despite the difficult economic climate. Then on October 1, 1901, they founded Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Quickly, they became known for their sumptuous multi-colored leather book bindings complete with gold inlay and precious jewels. Their designs were intricate, bold, and creative. These early years were the golden age of the company. During this time Sangorski & Sutcliffe created dozens of fine bindings and grew in both popularity and notoriety. More than 80 Sangorski & Sutcliffe originals are housed in the Ransom Center’s collections.

Many of the Sangorski & Sutcliffe books at the Ransom Center are high-quality bindings but rather plain in appearance, while a few of them are quite ornate. A Sangorski & Sutcliffe binding of Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh, for example, has semiprecious stones inlaid inside the front and back covers. An edition of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark is bound in leather with stingray onlay, and semiprecious stones are inlaid inside the front and back covers. Two works, Oliver Goldsmith’s The Hermit and James Russell Lowell’s The Vision of Sir Launfal, are handwritten in calligraphy on parchment by Alberto Sangorski with decorative borders and illuminated miniatures.

One famous book that the Ransom Center doesn’t hold is a book known as the Great Omar, which was a magnificent Sangorski & Sutcliffe binding of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, a narrative poem about the importance of living in the moment. Set in a Persian garden, the lyrical verses are filled with imagery of roses, celebrations of wine, and questions about mortality, fate, and doubt.

Sangorski & Sutcliffe was commissioned in 1909 to design the luxurious binding for the Rubáiyát. The front cover was to be adorned with three golden peacocks with jeweled tails, surrounded by heavily tooled and gilded vines. The Great Omar was the pride of Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Sadly, it was fated for disaster. The book was sent on the Titanic in 1912. The Great Omar went down with the ship and was never recovered. A second copy of the Rubáiyát was bound on the eve of World War II. This copy was kept in a bank safe vault to protect it. However, enemy bombing during the war destroyed the bank, the safe vault, and the second version of the Great Omar. Stanley Bray, the nephew of George Sutcliffe, created a third version of the book after he retired. This third version follows the original design and is housed in the British Library.

View a video that chronicles the story of the Great Omar, a story that was highlighted in the Ransom Center’s 2009 exhibition The Persian Sensation: ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ in the West.

Sangorski drowned in 1912, but Sutcliffe continued the firm until his death in 1936. The business changed hands and names in the postwar years as interest in fine bindings declined. The firm was bought by Shepard’s in 1998, and the name of Sangorski & Sutcliffe was restored.

A Sangorski & Sutcliff edition of Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark” is bound in leather with stingray onlay. Photo by Pete Smith.

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Alyssa O’Connell is an English Honors junior in Professor Janine Barchas’s seminar, “The Paperback,” in which students used the Ransom Center’s collections to research the history of paperbacks.

Among today’s reading public, the ubiquitous Penguin Books are nearly synonymous with the notion of mass-market paperbacks. The publishing house’s continual commercial triumphs since Allen Lane founded it in 1935 have provided inexpensive literary texts for readers of all ages. Despite its successes, however, Penguin has also faced failure, and one such misstep occurred only three years after the company’s inception.

On May 18, 1938, Allen Lane introduced a new paperback series, the Penguin Illustrated Classics. Ten out-of-copyright novels, short stories, and poetry collections were released simultaneously and sold at the low cost of six pence each, which is the equivalent of around $1 to $2 in modern currency. The titles were Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne, Some Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Selected Poems by Robert Browning, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (in two volumes), Typee by Herman Melville, The Story of My Heart by Richard Jefferies, and Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. Every book featured at least 12 woodcut illustrations by reputable wood-engravers of the twentieth century.

Penguin’s inspiration for the books came in part from a fellow member of the Lane family. Allen Lane’s uncle, John Lane, was co-founder of The Bodley Head publishing house. From the company’s beginnings in 1887 and into the 1920s and 1930s, The Bodley Head published elite illustrated hardbacks in small quantities at high prices. Because there was a woodcut revival in the 1930s, the nephew believed it was the perfect market to present such illustrated texts with wood engravings in the new, accessible, and inexpensive paperback format. To highlight the artists, each front cover featured the illustrator’s name in slightly smaller print than the author’s name. Also, while the front flap of the dust jacket provided information about the author, the back flap offered a biography of the wood engraver. Penguin, therefore, endorsed the artists nearly as strongly as it promoted the writers.

Despite its hopes and efforts, Penguin soon found the Illustrated Classics struggling in bookstores. World War II was approaching, and the refined series alienated consumers who sought simplicity and current information. The journalistic Penguin Specials, a different Allen Lane product that offered plain aesthetics and up-to-date intelligence, became extremely popular while the experimental Penguin Illustrated Classics failed to rouse much interest. Furthermore, as illustrated texts, the poor quality Classics did not impress customers. The cheap, thin paper could not support the rather bold art of the wood engravers, thus undermining Penguin’s venture to merge sophistication with an economical product.

Ultimately, the Penguin Illustrated Classics failed to secure a niche in the market, belonging neither with the expensive hardbacks that had inspired them nor among the pre-war softcovers associated with their publisher. Penguin Books could not transform The Bodley Head’s concept into one of mass production, and the series soon vanished from British bookstores. Allen Lane, who remained with Penguin Books from 1935 until his death in 1970, encountered a disappointing initial failure that forced him to abandon his idea of uniting sophisticated hardback trends with affordable paperbacks.

"The Sphinx" by Oscar Wilde, 1894.

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Behold this pair of Bibles. They were both owned by Andrew Fletcher (1653–1716), noted as the “Scotch patriot” in the Dictionary of National Biography. Fletcher had an interest in politics and letters but is often remembered today for his extensive library, believed to be the finest library in Scotland at that time. His distinctive signature can be seen on both images and in a Ransom Center copy of the first edition of the King James Bible (1611).

The first image is of the title page of a 1525 Hebrew Bible printed in Venice by Antwerp-born painter Daniel Bomberg. This was his third Hebrew Bible and the first to present the Masora, critical notes made on manuscripts of the Hebrew scriptures before the tenth century. It is dated ‫ה”רפ on the title page, indicating 1525. The colophon, shown in the second image, is dated ח”רפ, but Darlow and Moule (no. 5086, Historical catalogue of the printed editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1903) cite C.D. Ginsburg, who believes that the letter ח was substituted in error for the letter ה, thus changing the date from 1525 to 1528.

Also shown is a second Hebrew Bible. It was printed by Christopher Plantin of Antwerp in 1566. Leon Voet’s extensive bibliography on the Plantin Press [no. 650, The Plantin Press (1555–1589): A Bibliography of the Works Printed and Published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden, 1980] notes that the matrices for the type used in this Bible came to Plantin from his partner, Cornelis van Bomberghen, whose uncle was Daniel Bomberg, the printer of the 1525 Hebrew Bible. So, the two Bibles have a common thread.

The title page of a 1525 Hebrew Bible printed by Daniel Bomberg. It is dated ‫ה”רפ on the title page, indicating 1525.

Cover of Joseph Heller's "God Knows," a recommended reading pick by exhibition co-curator Danielle Brune Sigler.

The Ransom Center’s current exhibition The King James Bible: It’s History and Influence tells the little-known story of one of the most widely read and printed books in the history of the English language. Exhibition co-curator Danielle Brune Sigler offers a list of recommended reading that traces the history of the influence of this translation.

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The daughters of Patrick Brontë built a literary empire. Combined, the three women published seven novels and two books of poetry. In 1847 alone, Charlotte published Jane Eyre, Emily published Wuthering Heights, and Anne published Agnes Grey. For the Brontës, literature was a way of life that started young. Charlotte’s unpublished juvenilia book “Something About Arthur,”—housed at the Ransom Center—provides an active look into the childhood imagination of a woman who would become a major part of the Western literary canon.

Charlotte Brontë wrote “Something About Arthur” at the age of 17 shortly after returning from boarding school. The text is 25 pages long and includes a 42-line poem. It is the story of a struggling artist who battles an arrogant aristocrat for the heart of the heroine, Lady Emily Chalwort. Like many of Charlotte’s juvenilia books, “Something About Arthur” is small enough to fit in one hand, measuring only 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches). Charlotte’s handwriting is microscopic and barely legible.

Charlotte’s motivation for creating such small books is debated. Patrick Brontë was by no means a poor man, though it is suspected that he may not have wanted to fund the paper cost of his children’s fantasies. The distance from the Brontë house to the nearest store to buy paper could be a reason. Some suspect that the small words kept the stories secret from adult eyes or that Charlotte was merely trying to imitate newspaper print. The most common theory, however, is that the books were originally created for a group of toy soldiers. In 1826, the year the first small manuscript was created, Patrick Brontë returned from a conference toting a set of 12 wooden soldiers for Branwell, the second eldest and only male child. Eventually, each child chose his or her favorite soldier. The stories in these juvenilia manuscripts, it is speculated, were not about the soldiers, but created for them. Thus, the size of the book would need to be in direct proportion to the size of the soldier.

When creating the worlds for their toy soldiers, the Brontë children were divided. Charlotte played primarily with the next eldest, Branwell, leaving Emily to play with Anne. Charlotte and Branwell created an imaginary kingdom and filled it with the characters of their imagination. They named the imaginary world Verdopolis. They created characters with names, occupations, and motivations. Charlotte transcribed their fantasies in her tiny, illegible hand. These fantasies became “Something About Arthur” and what is known as the “Glass Town” series. The majority of Charlotte’s juvenilia novellas are set in Verdopolis, the earliest written at the age of 14. “Something About Arthur” was written three years later, and Charlotte stopped writing about the characters of Verdopolis by her mid-20s.

The Brontë sisters’ fiction has long been the subject of biographical interpretation. The Brontë children were known to be social recluses. Charlotte especially was timid and often struggled to cope with her surroundings. Some scholars claim that because the Brontës spent the majority of their lives secluded, the fiction they produced must be the product of their own circumstances. Yet others dispute this claim. We may not see Charlotte herself in the characters of “Something About Arthur,” but we do see Charlotte’s evolution as a writer. This tiny book shows her love for strong heroines, current events, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Her writing mimics gothic literature and the adventure novel, two devices she would discard in her later works. “Something About Arthur” is the beginning of a craft that would be skillfully and carefully honed.

The Ransom Center acquired “Something About Arthur” in 1952 through the Nelda C. and H. J. Lutcher Stark Foundation. Fannie Ratchford, esteemed figure in the Ransom Center’s history, orchestrated the entire affair.  Miriam Lutcher Stark pledged her entire library to the university in 1925. Knowing that his library contained a similar Brontë juvenilia piece titled “The Green Dwarf,” Miss Ratchford prompted him to acquire “Something About Arthur” in 1952 when she found it on the market. He did just that. Today both juvenile manuscripts, and Miss Ratchford’s correspondence with Lutcher Stark, can be found in the Ransom Center’s collections.

Last December, another of Charlotte’s juvenilia books sold at auction to Le Musee des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris. This book was the first in the “Glass Town” series, penned in 1826 when Charlotte was 14. It too is believed to have been written for the wooden soldiers.

First page of Charlotte Brontë's manuscript for "Something About Arthur." The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches).

Russell Banks, Don DeLillo, and Anita Desai were selected as finalists for the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Authors Russell Banks, Don DeLillo, and Anita Desai were selected as finalists for the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.  The Ransom Center holds the archives of Banks, Delillo, and Desai.

Banks was nominated for his twelfth novel Lost Memory of Skin, DeLillo was nominated for his collection of short stories The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories, and Desai was nominated for The Artist of Disappearance, a collection of three novellas.

DeLillo was awarded the PEN/Faulkner award in 1991 for his novel Mao II (1991). Banks was previously nominated for Affliction (1990) and Cloudsplitter (1999). This is the first nomination for Desai.

The winner of the 2012 PEN/Faulkner award will…

Page from Spalding Gray journal, which spans from February to April 1990.

Spalding Gray was an actor, performer, and writer. He appeared on Broadway in various one-man shows and is widely accredited with the invention of the autobiographical monologue.  His archive, recently acquired by the Ransom Center, is composed of more than 100 private journals that span more than 40 years of Gray’s career. Nell Casey, editor of the book The Journals of Spalding Gray, which was released today, distilled the mass of journal entries into a portrait of the man behind the magnetic performer who ended his life in 2004. Cultural Compass spoke with Casey about her interest in Gray, the surprising notes she found in the journals, what she admires…

Each Friday, the Ransom Center shares photos from throughout the week that highlight a range of activities and collection holdings. We hope you enjoy these photos that reveal some of the everyday happenings at the Center.

Photographer Elliott Erwitt views his own collection during a tour of the Ransom Center. Photo by Pete Smith.

Ransom Center intern Jenn Shapland helps during the bug check of an incoming collection. Photo by Pete Smith.

While visiting the Ransom Center for her book reading and signing on Tuesday, author Nicole Krauss signed the Center's authors' door located in the fifth floor stacks. Photo by Alicia Dietrich

Undergraduate intern Kelsey McKinney examines the Tropic of Cancer book cover in the Ransom Center Galleries' current exhibition Burned, Banned,…

Continue Reading Photo Friday

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Long before viewers watched Pimp My Ride or American Chopper—in fact, long before the combustion engine—readers personalized, customized, glamorized, and just plain peacocked their books. Whether encrusted with jewels, adorned by portraits of queens, or scribbled upon with ballpoint pens, the books pictured here demonstrate post-market enhancements, or primping, as a recurring phenomenon in book culture across centuries. These volumes embody fantasies of transformation through the act of dressing up. The story of the custom book starts with medieval illumination, a process that primped a book on the inside. The remaining books mediate the relationship with the text through their covers.

The warmth of red velvet, the chill of a silver hinge, the sparkle of precious jewel, or the smell of fine leather can create a sensory experience that complements, critiques, or even contradicts the words within the covers. Using these diverse materials, as well as techniques from inlay to Cosway, these covers make statements, sometimes even jokes, about their books’ contents.

Edward FitzGerald’s 'The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápúr.' Photo by Pete Smith.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápúr (Needham, MA: Rosemary Press, 1916)
Miniature Book Collection

This tiny Rubáiyát, like others in its series, is bound in Russian leather and hand-tooled in gold. It was one of only 60 published by Rosemary Press, founded by Charles Dana Burrage (1857–1926), a Boston lawyer, naturalist, Orientalist, and the first president of the University of California Club of New England. His wee books were given as party favors at club events.

Thomas Moore’s 'Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance.' Photo by Pete Smith.

Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance (London and New York: Routledge, Warne, & Routledge, 1860)

This copy of Moore’s Lalla Rookh was primped in the early twentieth century. Sangorski and Sutcliffe of London bound this weighty three-pound copy in a colored leather binding inlaid with gold to form an intricate floral pattern studded with a central diamond and several rubies, pearls, and turquoises. Hidden inside the front cover is a stunning Cosway-style portrait of Moore, similar to Marie Antoinette’s portrait on another book in this display. A floral pattern was chipped into the book’s gilded edges creating a bas-relief effect, not unlike the gauffered edges on the embroidered prayer book mentioned below.

Page from Book of Hours. Photo by Pete Smith.

Book of Hours (France, 15th-19th Century)
Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Collection

Illuminated Books of Hours, or private devotional manuals, emerged as a distinct genre in the late thirteenth century. By the fourteenth, these status symbols had become items of conspicuous consumption for the nobility. The quantity and quality of their illustrations, called miniatures, is often an indication of their value, but this particular example has a twist—these illuminations are nineteenth-century fakes. While the manuscript dates to the fifteenth century, the miniatures were either over-painted or entirely fabricated approximately 500 years later into blanks left by the medieval scribe (for just such enhancement). The work is probably that of a nineteenth-century artist attempting to increase the value of a medieval manuscript.

'Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis.' Photo by Pete Smith.

Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis (Venice: Paulus Balleonius, 1709)

Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, this devotional is bound in thin wooden boards held together by metal hinges. The delicate fronds and flourishes on the upper and lower covers were created by inlaying various colored woods into a black veneer. Some of these woods are stained blue and green, while others retain their natural colors. The mother-of-pearl dog-roses that adorn the covers and spine are a symbol of Mary, and thus function as both ornament and clue to the book’s content.

'La Mode Feminine de 1490 a 1920,' Volume 2 of 3. Photo by Pete Smith.

La Mode Féminine de 1490 à 1920, Volume 2 of 3 (Paris: Nilsson, ca. 1926)
The Library of Edward Alexander Parsons

This collection of hand-colored French fashion plates features a portrait of the Queen of Fashion herself, Marie Antoinette. This portrait is an example of Cosway bindings, miniature paintings on ivory inset into gold-tooled leather covers. While these bindings get their name from the English miniaturist Richard Cosway (c. 1742–1821), the London bookselling firm Southeran’s is credited with their invention. Cosway bindings became popular as post-market modifications in the early twentieth century. This fashionable cover is tailor-made for its subject.

Bernard Kops’s 'The World is a Wedding.' Photo by Pete Smith.

Bernard Kops’s The World is a Wedding (London: Mayflower-Dell, 1966)

Not all post-market portraiture is elegant. Kops modified this presentation copy of his autobiography for his friend and colleague Arnold Wesker, whose archive resides at the Ransom Center. Kops removed the original cover and replaced it with the inverted cover torn from a paperback copy of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, which he then decorated with pen and a family photo. In his inscription on the title page, Kops explains, “I hated the… cover so much I made my own. Yours Bernard Kops December 65.”

'The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ.' Photo by Pete Smith.

The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ (London: Christopher Barker, 1598)
The Stark Library

Early pocket-sized Bibles often benefitted from the protection of clasps and cornerpieces, which protected a volume’s edges from wear, enhancing longevity and portability. This small New Testament volume, printed by the same printer as the Book of Common Prayer, belonged to a wealthy individual: the edges of the pages show the remains of gilding, while the clasps and cornerpieces appear to be genuine silver. The Tudor roses visible on the cornerpieces and an inscription by a previous owner on the inside cover may link the book to Queen Elizabeth I.

Washington Irving’s 'A History of New York,' Volume 1 of 2. Photo by Pete Smith.

Washington Irving’s A History of New York, Volume 1 of 2 (New York: Inskeep & Bradford, 1809)

Written under the pseudonym Dietrich Knickerbocker, this playful account of New York parodies earlier histories. Owned by the New York cotton magnate M. C. D. Borden and bearing the seal of New York City on its cover, this first-edition copy was re-bound by prominent Parisian bookbinder Georges Canapé (1864–1940) close to 100 years after its printing. The bright orange color may hint at New York’s Dutch history, while the goatskin leather, commonly used by Canapé, fits the nickname that Irving gave to New York City: Gotham, or “goat town.”

C. H. A. Bjerregaard’s 'Sufi Interpretations of the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald.' Photo by Pete Smith.

C. H. A. Bjerregaard’s Sufi Interpretations of the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald (New York: J. F. Taylor, 1902)
Numbered edition, no. 1 of 5
The Stark Library

Bound in brown pigskin, this painted cover lavishly depicts Omar’s vines of wisdom, each line of the drawing seared into place by a heated tool or flame. True to Bjerregaard’s vow to explore the “mines under the vineyard,” the pages between the decorated covers—rich with watercolor paintings, additional pyrographic illustrations, and brocade backed endpapers—reveal further artistic enhancements. One of only five printed, this opulent “Jamshyd” copy presents Bjerregaard’s anti-sensualist pairing of the famous quatrains with Sufi wisdom.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 'The Last Days of Pompeii.' Photo by Pete Smith.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (London: Collins, ca. 1910s)
The Library of Edward Alexander Parsons

Polished wooden inlaid boards cover this otherwise unassuming edition of Lytton’s popular novel, leaving the original spine visible. The inlaid upper cover is composed of at least eight separate pieces of wood, cut and fitted together so precisely that the surface feels completely smooth to the touch. Inlaid bindings peaked in popularity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so this early twentieth-century repackaging was likely a deliberately anachronistic choice—perhaps a playful reference to the famous mosaics of Pompeii.

Book of Common Prayer. Photo by Pete Smith.

Book of Common Prayer (London: Christopher Barker, 1586)

Embroidered with silver cord and thread, this rare surviving example of textile binding features red velvet covers decorated with spangles. Although the exact date of this binding is unknown, it closely resembles the embroidered velvet Bible presented by the same printer, Christopher Barker, to Queen Elizabeth I as a New Year’s gift in 1584. The identity of ‘F. S.’ remains a mystery, but the gauffered edges—gilded, and then impressed with patterns by a heated tool—indicate that this book was owned by a member of the upper class. A final clue to the mysterious owner’s status lies in a 1638 statement by a guild of English embroiderers, who claimed that their book covers were fit for the “Nobility and Gentry of this kingdome… and not for common persons.”

Students in The University of Texas at Austin Professor Janine Barchas’s fall 2010 graduate seminar, English 384k: Graphic Design & Literary Text put together a display case at the Ransom Center with these examples of various bindings. This display can be seen during Reading Room hours through the end of January. Students who worked on this project include Lynn Cowles, Colleen Eils, Jennifer Harger, Brianna Hyslop, Aaron Mercier, Michael Quatro, Robin Riehl, Jessica Shafer, Connie Steel, Laura Thain, Joanna Thaler, and Jay Voss.