Cover of the 1903 first edition of "Songs of Content"

In April 1903, Ralph Erwin Gibbs was at his desk in his study when he heard a loud crack: a tree was falling over in his yard. Knowing his pet dog was out in the yard, he rushed outside to save it, but was himself killed by the falling tree. He was just 27 years old.

Gibbs earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in science at the University of California, Berkeley but became more interested in literature and poetry, and soon turned to writing full-time. In 1900 he became an assistant at the University Library and in the English department, where he became a protege of Charles Mills Gayley (1858-1932), professor of Classics and English. After Gibbs’s death, Gayley received the family’s permission to gather up  the manuscripts and publish them. He also wrote a moving introduction to both Gibbs and his poetry.

Ralph Erwin Gibbs (1876-1903)

The book was republished in 1911 with the identical text but higher quality binding and imported laid paper.

Title page of 1st edition "Songs of Content"

Cover of the 1911 second edition of "Songs of Content"

Title page of 2nd edition "Songs of Content"

Cover of "West Winds"

The California Writer’s Club was founded in 1909 by a breakaway faction of the Press Club of Alameda, which had itself formed from various informal gatherings of Bay Area literati, including Jack London, George Sterling and Herman Whitaker. Their first publication, a compilation of fifteen short stories entitled West Winds, appeared in 1914. Its subtitle was California’s Book of Fiction – Written by California Authors and Illustrated by California Artists. The book’s western theme dovetailed with publisher Paul Elder’s own mission statement: he had styled himself “A Western Publisher” since 1904.

Title page of "West Winds", with frontispiece by Perham Nahl and decoration by Anne Brigman

Contributors to West Winds included London, Whitaker, Charles F. Lummis, Agnes Morley Cleaveland (whose 1941 memoir No Life For a Lady is still in print) and Harriet Holmes Haslett (author of the 1917 Elder publication Dolores of the Sierra). Featured artists included Maynard Dixon and Perham Nahl (one of the three original teachers at the California College of the Arts). Noted photographer Anne Brigman designed the title page decoration.

First page of Jack London's story "The Son of the Wolf"

The California Writer’s Club still exists today and has eighteen chapters and 1300 members across the state. Three subsequent West Winds compilations have been published over the years.

Maynard Dixon's illustration for Jack London's story "The Son of the Wolf"

Easter gift cover for "Sunday Symphonies"

Happy Easter from paulelder.org!

In 1906 Paul Elder published Jennie Day Haines’s Sunday Symphonies, a compilation of quotations for every Sunday of the year. Haines wrote five other compilations for Elder, including Weather Opinions and Ye Gardeyne Boke.

This particular exemplar of Sunday Symphonies came in a special gift box for Easter 1908, complete with a purple ribbon and attached gift card.

"Sunday Symphonies" gift box

Cover of "Sunday Symphonies" with Easter gift card & ribbon

rear cover of "Sunday Symphonies"

Title page of "Sunday Symphonies"

"Sunday Symphonies", pages 14-15

Cover of "A Child's Book of Abridged Wisdom"

Stories for adult readers go in and out of fashion, but children’s tales are timeless. Paul Elder and Company published a number of delightful children’s books that any modern parent could read at bedtime. One of these is A Child’s Book of Abridged Wisdom, from 1905. Each page has a short poem with accompanying amusing illustration. The simple pen-and-ink drawings are an interesting view into (and perhaps parody of) turn-of-the-century upper-class domestic life, particularly of children’s fashions: wide-brimmed hats, neckties and short pants for boys, hats and dresses for girls. Every page includes an animal, usually the pet dog or cat. Hints of Arts & Crafts architecture can be seen: wide porches, box beam ceilings, casement windows.

Alternate cover of "A Child's Book of Abridged Wisdom"

Two versions of the book have been seen: one in monochrome, the other in color. The latter is printed in as many as five different colors. The printing is on one-side only, with adjoining leaves left unopened.

The author and artist was the multi-talented Edward Salisbury “Ned” Field (1878-1936), who was also a journalist, playwright and poet.  Early in his career he worked as an artist for the Hearst Newspapers in San Francisco and signed his drawings “Childe Harold”. During this time he became the secretary and possibly also the lover of Fanny Osbourne Stevenson, recent widow of author Robert Louis Stevenson. Fanny was 38 years his senior, but they were companions until her death in 1914. Just six months later, Ned married Fanny’s daughter Isobel Osbourne (Ned was 20 years younger than Isobel, and only three years older than her son Austin).

Title page, color version

Ned later became a successful real estate developer in Southern California and built a home on Zaca Lake, in the mountains north of Santa Barbara. The Field home became a popular destination for writers and actors. Ned Field died on 20 September 1936 at the age of 58. Isobel outlived him by seventeen years, and died in 1953 at age 95.

pages 14-15, color version

pages 14-15, monochrome version

Cover of "The Heritage of Hiroshige" with Japanese-style binding

Japanese connoisseurs are inclined to wonder at the fast-growing demand in the Occident for good examples of the art of ukiyo-ye color printing. Why, they ask, should Americans and europeans pay great prices for these prints when, for a little more money and the expenditure of a little more pains, they can buy original paintings—if not the very greatest artists, at least men whose productions are above the mediocre?

It is a curious little problem, but the solution is by no means difficult. We collect Japanese prints for the same reasonthat many of us prefer a coin of Syracuse to a relief by Phidias, Botticelli’s lovely drawings of children to his paintings, the Great Anthology to Oedipus, the Vita Nuova to the Divine Comedy. We love these things because they are simpler, nearer to ourselves than the masterpieces, because we cannot understand the greatest things.

The San Francisco firm of Paul Elder & Co. has obtained an enviable reputation by its publications of illustrated works on Japanese art.

Back cover of "Heritage of Hiroshige", with roundel of a dragonfly

So wrote reviewer “L. C.” in the New York Times on 15 September 1912 about Dora Amsden’s Heritage of Hiroshige. The book tells the story of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) as seen through the art collection of John Stewart Happer (1863-1936). For Dora Amsden (1853-1947), it was her second work on Japanese art for Paul Elder, following Impressions of Ukiyo-ye in 1905.

This is a very handsome book, and the paper, binding, and art reproductions are high-quality. Although Elder was known for skimping on production costs for many of his books, he clearly did not do so here. Two different bindings are known (see photos).

Alternate binding for "The Heritage of Hiroshige"

L. C. finishes his Times review with a bleak portrait of Japan in 1912:

There is something very saddening about these books, now appearing so frequently, dealing with the old arts of Japan. It was only a little over a half a century ago that Hiroshige died, and in that half century Japan has become a “great power”—and has lots her arts, her poetry, her romance, and her happiness. Some Japanese are trying to organize a “revival” of the ancient arts of their country. It is a vain hope, a beating of the wind. Modern “civiliation” acts on art and on romance as a biting acid on a delicate substance, a miasma that withers and destroys. A hundred years ago the Japanese, despite the suppressions of the feudal system, were undoubtedly the happiest people in the world. Today the factories in their cities grind hundreds of thousands into neurasthenia and death more pitilessly than any cotton mill in the Southern United States. They are paying for their “progress”—and they are paying dear.

Title page of "The Heritage of Hiroshige"

"The Heritage of Hiroshige" p8-9

"The Heritage of Hiroshige" p36-7. The image is the well-known memorial portrait of Hiroshige by Kunisada

The gallery at Paul Elder's Post St store (1921-1948)

Can a bookstore also be an art gallery? If the bookstore was Paul Elder & Company, the answer was a resounding “yes.”

Elder had learned about the book business while working for William Doxey at his bookstore in the Palace Hotel on Market Street. But while photos of Doxey’s shop show nothing but books, Elder’s stores included a healthy dose of objets d’art: paintings, prints, pottery, metalwork. This was the influence of Morgan Shepard, Elder’s partner from 1898 until 1903. Shepard was both an author and an artist, and he decorated the original 238 Post store (1898-1903).

Art objects were for sale from the beginning, but it wasn’t until 1909 that Elder had a lecture hall/exhibition space within the bookstore. Both the 239 Grant store (1909-1921) and the 239 Post store (1921-1948) had gallery rooms. The photo at right shows the Post St gallery adorned with Asian prints.

How many exhibitions did Elder host? Very many. Years ago I started making a list of all the artists’ shows at the Paul Elder Gallery, but I gave up when the count grew past fifty. It seems that the gallery was never empty for long.

Cover of "Prosit". The motto "nunc est bibendum" comes from Horace's Odes, and means "now is the time to drink"

What better book for ringing in the New Year than a book of toasts? Prosit — A Book of Toasts (1904) was written by “Clotho,” but everyone knew this to be a pseudonym of the Spinner’s Club, a popular women’s club in San Francisco dedicated to encouraging creative genius is women.

Happy New Year to all from PaulElder.com! May you keep all your resolutions!

Alternate cover for "Prosit" with cloth ties

Title page of "Prosit". Frontispiece by Gordon Ross.

"Prosit", page 72-3

Happy Holidays to all!

Christmas Card #64, with poem by Agness Greene Foster. Circa 1909. Artist unknown.

Cover of "On the Laws of Japanese Painting"

One of the little joys of researching obscure century-old books is when the equally obscure author suddenly springs to life. So it was with Henry P. Bowie, author of On the Laws of Japanese Painting, published by Paul Elder in 1911.

The book is a more than just the laws of Japanese painting; it also discusses calligraphy, ink, animal and vegetable sources for different colors, signature seals, and even how to properly view the artwork (from a distance of one tatami mat, and not from a standing position). There are 65 plates (a very high number for an Elder publication). The production doesn’t quite measure up to the content: the typography feels too ‘industrial’ and printer John Bernhardt Swart peppers the text with florid ‘st’ and ‘ct’ ligatures.

Henry Pike Bowie (1848-1921) was born in Maryland, but his family moved to San Francisco soon afterwards. He studied law with the attorney Hall McAllister (after whom McAllister street in San Francisco is named). He seems to have done well for himself as a lawyer, but did even better for himself as a husband: in 1879 he married the wealthy and twice-widowed Agnes Poett Howard, retired from the law, and went to live with her at her estate “El Cerrito” in Hillsborough.

Title page of "On the Laws of Japanese Painting"

In the 1880s, Henry and Agnes approached Makoto Hagiwara to build a garden and tea house on their estate. (Hagiwara would later design the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for the 1894 California International Midwinter Exposition. He is also often credited with introducing America to the fortune cookie.) They named their garden Higurashi-en, meaning “a garden worthy of a day’s contemplation.” Among the signature plants is a silver-green, five-needled Mikado pine, said to be given to Bowie by Emperor Meiji. (The estate was subdivided long ago but the garden still exists at 70 De Sabla Road in San Mateo, although much reduced in size. The current owners purchased the neglected property in 1988 and have gradually restored it. The garden is now on the National Register of Historic Places.)

"Laws of Japanese Painting", page 1. The headband shows flowers and leaves of the peony.

When Agnes died in 1893, Henry Bowie took a trip to Japan, and enjoyed it so much he returned the next year. It was a turning point in his life: Bowie would subsequently live in Japan for extensive periods and become fluent in Japanese. He studied many aspects of Japanese culture, including painting and the Shinto religion. In 1905 Bowie co-founded the Japan Society of Northern California and served as the society’s first president (the other co-founder was David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University). In 1909, Bowie dedicated a memorial gate in the garden, designed by Sekko Shimada and Suikichi Yagi, and built by Japanese craftsmen brought over specifically for the project. The gate was designed to honor the valor of Japanese sailors and soldiers during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5.

In 1918, he sailed for Japan as special emissary of the U.S. Department of State. Shortly after returning in 1921, Bowie fell ill and died at the age of 72. When his will was read, all were shocked to learn that half the estate was left to his wife Komako Hirano, and his two sons Imao and Taweo. No one in California knew that Bowie had married and started a second family in Japan—although it was common knowledge in Japan and the Japanese newspapers ran prominent obituaries. Bowie’s stepson George Howard unsuccessfully contested the will in 1922.

"Laws of Japanese Painting", page 6-7. The design is leaves of the icho plant, placed in books to prevent bookworms.

"Laws of Japanese Painting", page 46-7. The art is the pattern known as "bamboo and the swelling sparrow"

"Laws of Japanese Painting", plates X and XI

Cover of "Impressions of Ukiyo-ye". At lower right are three kanji that read "ukiyo-ye"; followed by a tomoye with a 'roof', which has no meaning.

Japonisme was all the rage at the turn of the 20th century, and Paul Elder’s carefully constructed bookstore-as-art-object was, in many ways, built upon the Japonisme sensibility. Dora Amsden’s Impressions of Ukiyo-ye, published in 1905, was the first of several Elder publications about the art of Japan block printing. Elder was no doubt happy to use the double entendre “Impressions,” suggesting both hazy romantic views of Japan as well as the physical image of a printer pressing his paper to the stone. Indeed, Elder’s in-house magazine was also called “Impressions,” surely for the same reasons.

Impressions of Ukiyo-ye is bound in a Japanese style, with visible external cording on the spine. The book uses thin rice paper, printed on one side only with the pairs of leaves left unopened. Plates of ukiyo-ye scenes are inserted on white coated stock. The papers covering the inside of the boards contain pulped bark, a method that Elder used on several occasions.

Title page of "Impressions of Ukiyo-ye"

Amsden’s book was notable enough to warrant a review in the New York Times Book Review of 8 July 1905. However, reviewer Charles De Kay was not overly impressed. “Miss Amsden has good-will and certainly is far removed from the ordinary denseness which fails to understand an alien point of view; yet it can scarcely be said that she offers a new departure in the estimate of Japanese art.”

I can find little information about Dora Amsden (1853-1947). Her brother Charles Watson Jackson was the brother-in-law of Thomas Dykes Beasley, who wrote Paul Elder’s book “A Tramp Through Bret Harte Country”.

"Impressions of Ukiyo-ye", page 44