The Library of Little Books (Selections)

 

 

 

 

 

Thee are survivals from a large collection

of little books curated 1967-2000 

I shed my obsessive library some 15 years ago

These are ones still stashed away in storage boxes

A hard-bound facsimile edition was produced

recently but the fragile originals are quite scarce

 

 

 

 

 Published in 1918

With its wise epigraph

 

 

 

One of the most distinquished of

Greenwich Village writers & of course beyond

This being a posthumous publication of epigrams

issued by The Hanuman Press

 

 

 

 

Tuli Kupferberg was one of The Fugs

He is referenced in Ginsberg's poem "Howl" 

as having jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge & lived

("not even a free beer")

Tuli was an early DIY (do-it-yourself) publisher

for a long stream of pamphlets & periodicals

 

 

 

 

 

 

This and the following item

are tales told in drawings by

French artist Theophile Steinlen

Reproduced in the 1960s by 

The Museum of Fine Art in Boston 

 

 

My favorite is this tutelary tale

of a young man who was too fond

of his pipe

 

 

 

 The Blessed Damozel by Rossetti

1908 UK edition

 

 

 

 

 Illustrated throughout with watercolors

by Paul Woodroffe

Cover art by another artist

 

 

 

 A rare booklet by the celebrated American poet

1970s

 

 

 

My professor and friend 

 

 

Hiroshige's Tokaido Goju-Santsugi

(The Fifty-three Stages of Tokaido)

Woodcuts finely reproduced in miniature

pasted into a fold-out "accordion" binding

with texts in Japanese & in English

Early 20th Century 

 

 

 

 

1 September 2021