Menehunes are popular characters in Hawaiian mythology; they are said to be a race of small people that live in the deep forest, far from the prying eyes of humans. The Menehunes arrived in Hawaii before the Polynesians, and were excellent craftspeople who built heiau(temples), roads, and fishing ponds.
In fact, a famous fishing lake called the Menehune Fishpond is located just south of Lihue, Kauaʻi. Officially called the ʻAlekoko Fishpond, it is believed to have been constructed in the 15th-century. Described as “the most significant fishpond on Kauaʻi, both in Hawaiian legends and folklore and in the eyes [of] Kauaʻi’s people today,” the fishpond was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.1https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/73000677_text
The Menehunes, subtitled Their Adventures With the Fisherman and How They Built the Canoe (1905), by Emily Foster Day, was one of Paul Elder’s many charming children’s books. This small volume was bound in Hawaiian kapafabric, with delightful illustrations by Spencer Wright.
Frontispiece and title page of “Menehunes”
In 1906, Emily wrote another book of Hawaiiana for Paul Elder, The Princess of Manoa.
Emily Foster was born in Onondaga, Ontario on 24 October 1860, the fourth of five children, and only daughter, of Charles Lucas Foster, a carpenter, and Elspeth Gauld. Emily’s grandparents were immigrants to Ontario from England and Aberdeenshire, Scotland, respectively. In 1885, Emily married Francis Root Day (1859-1906), a prominent doctor. In 1887, they moved from Chicago to Honolulu, where they spent the rest of their lives. Emily outlived Francis by nineteen years; they are buried at O’ahu Cemetery in Honolulu.
Updated 2026-01-25
Pages 2-3 of “Menehunes”The decorated endpapers of “Menehunes”
Beginning in 1901, Paul Elder compiled and published a series of booklets of aphorisms, each with a separate theme. Friendship was published first, followed by Happiness, Nature and Success in 1903, and finally byLove in 1905. They were quite successful: over 70,000 copies were sold by 1904. In 1906, while also continuing to sell the booklets individually, Elder packaged up the five booklets and issued them as a single volume entitled Mosaic Essays.
Elder commissioned Santa Barbara artist Robert Wilson Hyde to design the cover and title page, which very cleverly riff on the title by constructing the elements out of small “mosaic” pieces. Elder almost certainly met Hyde while opening the Santa Barbara bookstore in 1904. Hyde would later design Elder’s grand Guest Book and wedding book, The House That Jack Built.
Mosaic Essays, special decorated frontispiece and title page
There are four known bindings:
“Camelot Edition”: flexible red-brown French board, stamped in gold, boxed
(edition name unknown): brown paper over stiff boards, stamped in gold
“Stratford Edition”: flexible leather, boxed
“Craftsman Edition”: heavy leather, hand-modeled and colored (not seen)
Updated 2026-01-25
Formal title page of Mosaic Essays“Stratford Edition” of Mosaic Essays, in flexible leather“Camelot Edition” of Mosaic Essays, in “flexible florentine”
Matching gift box for the Camelot Edition of Mosaic Essays
Today Paul Elder is known primarily for his books, but he also produced a large amount of ephemera. Here is a page from a 1907 calendar. The months and days are almost an afterthought, taking a backseat to the illustrations and quote from Robert Louis Stevenson.
Katharine Hooker’s Wayfarers in Italy is perhaps the finest book issued by Elder & Shepard during their five-year partnership. It was printed in 1901 at the Stanley-Taylor Company on hand-made Ruisdael paper in two different limited editions of 100 and 300 copies. The The title page decorations and illuminated chapter headings were almost certainly designed by Morgan Shepard, and the book contains many photographs taken by Katharine’s daughter Marian. In 1902, Scribner’s bought publication rights the book from Elder; their edition of Wayfarers went through four printings by 1905.
It’s not clear how many copies of Wayfarers in Italy were offered for sale to the public. The colophons suggest that only the fancy 100-copy edition was offered for sale, but the 1902 Elder & Shepard holiday catalog reads “private edition of four hundred copies of which two hundred are for sale.” Even more confusing, my copy of the 300-copy edition has no binding, and appears never to have had one.
Hooker (1849-1935), born Katharine Mussey Putnam in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, grew up privileged and well-connected in turn-of-the-century California. She had an active, athletic youth, climbing Half Dome in Yosemite Valley and hiking the Grand Canyon: feats very rare for a woman in the 1860s. She learned French and German as a teenager, and had a lifelong interest in books.
Title page and frontispiece of “Wayfarers in Italy”
In 1869, Katherine married John Daggett Hooker, who became wealthy in the ironworks industry. This allowed her to take an extended trip to Europe in 1896 with her daughter Marian and family friend Samuel Marshall Ilsley (author of By the Western Sea, Elder & Shepard’s first publication). She and Marian returned to Italy in 1899 (by which time Katherine had also become fluent in Italian), and it was this trip that became the basis for Wayfarers. The commission came to Elder & Shepard through Katharine’s sister Mary Putnam, who was married to Morgan Shepard. Katharine also wrote two other travel books about Italy, Byways in Southern Tuscany (Scribner’s, 1918) and Through the Heel of Italy (Rae D. Henkle Co., 1927).
Map of Italy in 1901, included in the back of the book. The boundaries of several regions have changed since then, and the national border does not yet encompass South Tyrol or Trieste, areas that were annexed to Italy after World War I.
Hooker’s prose is enjoyable, and if she uses the passive voice a bit too often, I forgive her. She is adept at painting a gauzy, romantic picture of warm Italian summer afternoons, while also recounting amusing and interesting conversations with the locals. In Milan’s Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Hooker and her daughter fail to find a certain Madonna and Child listed in their catalog; they quiz the custodian without success, but later he escorts them into a private room to show them the painting. In Ancona, she delightfully describes a heaping plate of light, fluffy fritto misto. In Venice, they strike up a friendship with their gondolier, Giovanni, who teaches them about the hardships and politics of his profession. Hooker’s visit to Siena can be dated to August 1899 because she witnessed the Palio on August 16th, where the contrada of Lupa was victorious. And if you are an experienced visitor to modern Italy, you will shake your head on almost every page as you think about how much has changed in the last 110 years.
Marian Osgood Hooker (1875-1968) also had a notable life. She became a physician and published numerous medical and scientific books, in addition to being a prominent amateur photographer. In 1903, Marian became the first woman to climb Mt. Whitney (the tallest mountain in the contiguous 48 states, named in honor of her great-uncle Josiah Whitney), in a party that included family friend and famed naturalist John Muir.
Page 3 of “Wayfarers in Italy”
Elder & Shepard’s edition of Wayfarers in Italy is rare because so few were printed, but the Scribner’s edition is easier to find. Here is one vintage book you will enjoy reading.
Pages 88-9 of “Wayfarers in Italy”Pages 242-3 of “Wayfarers in Italy”Pages 244-5 of “Wayfarers in Italy,” with one of Marian Hooker’s photographsPage 279 of “Wayfarers in Italy”Colophon of the edition of 100 copies. The “E” was written by Paul Elder, the “S” by Morgan Shepard.Colophon of the edition of 300 copies
