Teddy Sunbeam

12 March 2011

“Little Fables for Little Housekeepers” is the subtitle of this 1905 children’s book by Charlotte Grace Sperry. The idea, it seems, was that if you read your son or daughter a bedtime story about housecleaning, he or she would cheerfully help you mop the kitchen floor the next morning. Whatever works, but I’m thinking the [...]

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The Simple Home

27 February 2011

In 1979, Peregrine Smith republished Charles Keeler’s most famous work, The Simple Home. The edition included a new introduction by Dimitri Shipounoff. This brilliant piece of writing by Shipounoff, a Berkeley native who now lives in France, is nearly as long as Keeler’s own text. Here is Shipounoff’s opening paragraph: The architectural development of the [...]

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The Garden Book of California

8 February 2011

The most famous sentence about gardening from California’s Arts & Crafts period is “Hillside Architecture is Landscape Gardening around a few rooms for use in case of rain.” Often ascribed to the poet and naturalist Charles Keeler, the line appears not in The Simple Home, as is sometimes cited, but in an untitled 1906 pamphlet distributed [...]

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Stray Leaves

8 January 2011

In addition to books published under the Paul Elder imprint, the Tomoye Press also printed a number of vanity publications. Stray Leaves is a particularly handsome example. Author Mary Murphy has gathered poetry from various sources into this elegantly bound volume. I do not know the identity of the artist or bookbinder.

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New Year’s Brew

31 December 2010

Before continuing on, stop and read the text of Robert B. Howell’s “New Year’s Brew.” I’ll wait. Now, read it a second time, keeping in mind the devastating 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, which happened just seven months before.  It does not sound like the work of someone wailing in despair over the still-ruined [...]

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A Christmas Message of Peace and Love

20 December 2010

This Christmas card was issued in late 1906, after Paul Elder and John Henry Nash had setup an outpost in New York City following the earthquake and fire of April 18th. It was issued with an envelope that doesn’t match the card’s artwork; it may have been a generic Christmas envelope used for all the [...]

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The Great Small Cat and Others

15 December 2010

A decade after publishing her popular “101″ cookbook series, May Southworth wrote this book of seven tales for cat lovers. Handsomely bound if unimaginatively typeset, the book is illustrated with eight sepia photographs. From an Arts & Crafts perspective, the book is notable chiefly for the decorations by artist Pedro J. Lemos (1882-1954), who in [...]

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Ebisu

4 December 2010

In Japanese mythology and folklore, Ebisu is the Japanese god of fishermen, workingmen and good luck, and is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. Although slightly lame and deaf, he is happy and auspicious. He is often displayed with Daikokuten and Fukurokuju, two more of the Seven Gods of Fortune, in shopkeeper windows. Paul [...]

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Miniature Leaflets

28 November 2010

Paul Elder frequently called upon artist Harold Sichel to illustrate ephemera. Elder was quite fond of the genre where an inspirational quote from English literature was centered within a floral or nautical scene. These small Miniature Leaflets, all illustrated by Sichel, were about 4″ x 2-1/2″, and were issued beginning in 1905 until at least [...]

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California — A Poem

22 November 2010

Paul Elder published this beautiful booklet during the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. It’s a real gem, with striking full-color drawings by Audley B. Wells and a matching envelope. Perhaps only after admiring the booklet do we notice the poem it contains, California, by Fred Emerson Brooks (1850-1923). Though Brooks and his poetry have been forgotten, [...]

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