Poetry – Page 4 – Paul Elder & Company

Fairy Tales Up-to-Now

22 January 202628 October 2012 by david

Extra, extra, read all about it! Wallace Irwin rewrites old fairy tales!

In contrast to Irwin’s Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, whose humor is obscure to modern readers, his 1904 Fairy Tales Up-to-Now is fairly accessible. The book contains five poetical satires of five classic children’s stories titled with tabloid newspaper headlines. Cinderella, a stenographer working for 50¢ a day, goes to the ball in a rented gown, but when the Prince discovers that her diamond slippers are just paste, he rejects her because he’s broke and needs a bride who’s wealthy. Cinderella, though, becomes a millionaire by selling faux-diamond slippers. Jack, of Beanstalk fame, rides off to slay the Standard Oil Giant, but is given a job instead, rises to the rank of treasurer and becomes a Giant himself, but then returns home to endow a library, gas-works and church.

A charming feature of the book are the front and back covers, which are flongs, temporary paper molds used for printing newspapers. Stereotype metal was poured over the flong, then the stereotype was wrapped around the press’s cylinder for printing. After a few thousand copies, the stereotype metal would begin to wear out: at this point it would be melted down, then poured again over the same flong to make a new sharp copy for printing. Once the day’s press run was finished, the flongs were normally discarded, but here they were sent to Elder to be chopped up into covers. Each individual copy of Fairy Tales Up-to-Now is therefore unique.

The *San Francisco Call*, 29 October 1903, page 2. This is the page printed from the above flong (tops of columns 3-4).

With a newspaper index service, it is possible to find the exact page a given flong was used to print. The example on this page is from the San Francisco Call of 29 October 1903, page 2. The flong would originally been the size of the entire newspaper page, but just the tops of columns 3 and 4 are used as the book cover. Presumably, other copies of Fairy Tales Up-to-Now exist somewhere bound with other sections of this page 2 flong. All copies examined so far have been from the Call, but Elder may have used flongs from other local newspapers as well.

The rear cover of Fairy Tales Up-to-Now is also a flong, but there was no attempt to match up flongs from the same page or date. Our example copy’s back cover is from 4 October 1903, molded three weeks before the flong used on the front cover.

Fairy Tales Up-to-Now was also issued in paper wraps instead of flongs, no doubt cheaper but far less whimsical.

Thanks to Molly Schwartzburg and Andre Chaves for information about flongs.

Updated 2026-01-22

The back cover of the same copy of *Fairy Tales Up-to-Now*, used to print the *Call* of 4 October 1903, page 35, columns 3 and 4.

Alternate paper binding of *Fairy Tales Up-to-Now*. But why would you buy this one when you could have a flong?

Fairy Tales Up To Now title — Title page of *Fairy Tales Up-To-Now*

Fairy Tales Up To Now p06 — pages 6-7 of *Fairy Tales Up-To-Now*

Fairy Tales Up To Now p10 — pages 10-11 of *Fairy Tales Up-To-Now*

A Book of Hospitalities and a Record of Guests

19 January 202623 August 2012 by david

Cover of *A Book of Hospitalities*, paper on boards

Guest books aren’t seen much today except at weddings and funerals. It seems they were more popular in the early 1900s, as Paul Elder published four guest books between 1904 and 1910.

Arthur Guiterman’s Book of Hospitalities And a Record of Guests (1910) was probably intended to be placed in the guest bedroom. The first section (“A Book of Hospitalities”) contains a selection of sayings and epigrams for the house, and the second half (“A Record of Guests”) contains blank areas for the guests to write in. Guiterman was also involved in two other Elder publications: the magnificent 1908 Guest Book with artwork by Robert Wilson Hyde, and the 1907 humor book Betel Nuts, Or What They Say In Hindustan.

Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943) was born in Vienna to American parents and graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1891. He was the author of a dozen books, primarily poetry. He was also editor of Women’s Home Companion and Literary Digest. In 1910, he co-founded the Poetry Society of America (which still exists and celebrated its centennial in 2010), and served as president in 1925.

Book of Hospitalities cover — Cover of *A Book of Hospitalities*, leather on boards

I am particularly fond of Guiterman’s poem entitled “On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness”

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,
And I don’t feel so well myself.

Book of Hospitalities title — Title page of *A Book of Hospitalities*

A Book of Hospitalities was published in two bindings: paper on boards, and leather on boards, both with a presentation box. If you happen to own a copy of my 2004 Checklist of the Publications of Paul Elder, 2nd edition, you will see that the page borders are taken from Book of Hospitalities.

Updated 2026-01-19

*A Book of Hospitalities*, presentation box

Book of Hospitalities frontispiece — Frontispiece of *A Book of Hospitalities*

Book of Hospitalities foreword — Foreword of *A Book of Hospitalities*

Book of Hospitalities main text — Text of *A Book of Hospitalities*

Animal Analogues

18 January 202614 July 2012 by david

If you liked How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers, then you’ll love Animal Analogues. That’s what Paul Elder thought too, and so in 1908 he published Robert Williams Wood’s sequel to similar acclaim. As any author can tell you, sequels are notoriously difficult to write, but Wood pulled it off, with poetry and drawings to delight old and young alike.

The cover says “Denatured Series No. 24”, but this is a joke, as was the “Nature Series No. 23” on the cover of How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers. Wood wrote no further books in this series.

Updated 2026-01-18

Animal Analogues title — Title page of *Animal Analogues*

Animal Analogues p10 — Pages 10-11 of *Animal Analogues*

Animal Analogues p14 — Pages 14-15 of *Animal Analogues*

Animal Analogues p20 — Pages 20-21 of *Animal Analogues*

Animal Analogues p28 — Page 28 of *Animal Analogues*

How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers

18 January 20261 July 2012 by david

How to Tell Birds cover — Cover of *How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers*

As with animated cartoons, the best children’s books are ones that satisfy both the children and the adults. Paul Elder published a number of innovative children’s books, but perhaps the most delightful is How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers by Robert Williams Wood, which appeared in 1907.

There is no traditional typesetting in the book; everything was drawn and lettered by Wood. Each page contains drawings of a bird (for example, the catbird) and a flower (the catnip), plus an amusing poem on how to distinguish them. It’s a perfect bedtime storybook.

The California quail is said
To have a tail upon his head,
While contrary-wise we style the Kale,
A cabbage head upon a tail.
It is not hard to tell the two,
The Quail commences with a queue.

How to Tell Birds alt cover — Alternate binding of *How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers*

Robert Williams Wood (1868-1955) was a professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University from 1901 until his death. He specialized in optics and was a pioneer in both infrared and ultraviolet photography. In 1903, Wood invented an optical filter glass which allows ultraviolet and infrared light and pass through, but blocks most visible light. He used this special glass to make a device called a “Wood’s lamp,” for use in dermatology to diagnose certain skin conditions which fluoresce under ultraviolet light. Today we call these lamps “black lights,” though because of technology improvements black lights now use different filter materials in the glass. Wood also published many papers on spectroscopy, phosphorescence, and diffraction.

How to Tell Birds title — Title page of *How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers*

Although the cover says “Nature Series No. 23”, that name was concocted for this book and there are no earlier titles. Wood subtitled his 1908 sequel Animal Analogues as “Denatured Series No. 24.”

Instead, Wood co-wrote two prescient science fiction books with Arthur Cheney Train. The first, The Man Who Rocked the Earth (1915), is known for describing the effects of an atomic explosion thirty years before the first atomic bomb was created. Its sequel, The Moon Maker (1916), describes interplanetary space travel, including a plan to send a spaceship to destroy an asteroid that’s on a collision course with Earth.

Update, April 2017: In 1917, Dodd, Mead and Company copyrighted a new edition entitled “How To Tell The Birds From The Flowers, and Other Wood-cuts.” Your editor has seen a 19th edition of this title from 1939, so it was clearly a very popular title for Dodd Mead. Paul Elder was still publishing his own books in 1917, so it seems he either lost, or more likely sold, the publishing rights.

Updated 2026-01-18

How to Tell Birds p16 — Page 16-17 of *How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers*

How to Tell Birds p20 — Page 20-21 of *How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers*

How to Tell Birds p28 — Page 28 of *How To Tell the Birds From the Flowers*

Songs of Content

18 January 202613 May 2012 by david

In April 1903, the young author 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 outside, he rushed outside to save it, but was himself killed by the falling tree. He was just 27 years old.

Gibbs was born in San Francisco on 22 March 1876 and attended public schools in Oakland. He graduated from the University of California in 1898, and continued on to earn a master’s degree in science in 1900. For some time, he had been writing stories and poems for two University publications, the Occident and the Magazine. He gradually 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 protégé of Charles Mills Gayley (1858-1932), professor of Classics and English (and for whom Gayley Road on the UC campus is named). After Gibbs’s death, Gayley received the family’s permission to gather up the manuscripts and publish them as Songs of Content. In his moving introduction to Gibbs and his poetry, Gayley wrote:

Songs of Content 2nd ed cover — Cover of the 1911 second edition of *Songs of Content*

I had not worked deep into his manuscripts before the conviction came that not to have preserved the best of them for the public would have been no mere mistake, but an injustice. Of his lyrics the more beautiful, and of his poems of life and death the more seriously considered, deserve an honorable place in the estimation of Californians. If my interest in the author does not deceive me, they will win their way not only where promise untimely stricken is deplored but where the comfort and the grace of art are for their own sakes welcomed.

Elder published a second edition in 1911, with the identical text but higher-quality binding and imported laid paper. Such a second edition was very unusual for Elder; the only other example is Charles Keeler’s Bird Notes Afield.

Updated 2026-01-18

Songs of Content 1st ed title — Title page of 1st edition *Songs of Content*

Songs of Content 2nd ed title — Title page of the 1911 second edition *Songs of Content*