New Plates

I just purchased a large book lot from an estate and it contained a nice selection of bookplates. Here’s a few:

Helen Larrabee and Charles Burton Robbins, found in Ferdinand and Isabella, V3 by Prescott (1899). An attractive plate done with red ink that unfortunately bled a bit on removal. Signed by the artist “E. K. Hess” – Emma Kipling Hess Ingersoll, portrait painter and miniaturest from Chestertown Maryland (1878-1941).

Next this nice gilt bordered-sailing ship plate belonging to “Clarissa J. Duff” found in The Dream Detective by Sax Rohmer (1925). The book was inscribed: “From Bill, Allegheny Gen’l Hospital”.

I love the perfectly geometric sun surrounding the realistic ship. Beautiful color too. This plate was produced by “Rust Craft USA” who seem to have printed a lot of Valentine and Birthday cards.

These next two plates belonging to “Samuel Oram Farrand”–one aviation themed the other music/violin–were both found in the same book: Life of Emerson by Van Wyck Brooks (1932). What a great score!

This last plate from the “New York Society Library” was originally engraved in the 1700s by “P. R. Maverick, 66, Liberty Street” but was reproduced well into the 1900s (this one was found in a book from 1960).

Thanks to Lewis Jaffe for the info. Hopefully they replaced the plate with something a little more PC.

More to come.

Movie Break: Stalags


I finally caught Stalags on the second-to-last day it was playing at the Film Forum. This is a documentary on the bizarre phenomenon of Israeli-produced, concentration camp fetish-porn paperbacks.

Gross? Yes. But completely fascinating.

According to interviewees in the film, because of the understandable hesitancy of survivors (and perpetrators) to talk about what went on in these camps in the immediate post-war period, rumor, fantasy, and just plain kink swept in to fill the void.

The earliest “Stalags” (as the genre is called because nearly all have the word in the title) took their cover illustrations from American men’s magazines. The plots all followed a similar pattern: an American or British pilot is shot down behind German lines, he’s imprisoned in a camp run by female Amazonian SS officers who rape and torture him. He eventually turns the tables, rapes and kills his captors, then escapes to tell the tale (the stalags all claim to be translations of first person accounts, though there were never any female officers in the SS).

The books were massive sellers and seemed to fill a basic need to reclaim the power role through fantasy while simultaneously capturing a curious self-loathing (sublimated by casting a rugged Allie pilot in the central role). They were advertised side by side with newspaper accounts of the Eichmann trial and were frequently the first erotica seen by Israeli adolescents. After a prolific two-year period, the books were judged obscene and banned from sale.

The second half of the film discusses a widely-translated book from the 50s (the title is eluding me but the author’s last name begins with “tz”) which offers a matter-of-fact account of female Jewish camp prisoners who were forced to act as prostitutes for the Nazi officers. According to the book these prisoners–while suffering a miserable, degraded existence–were kept in a separate bunker, given better rations and were more likely to make it out of the camps alive than others. Two different scholars in the film (Israeli women) state that there are no first hand accounts to support this arrangement but despite this, the book has been canonized and is a regular part of Israeli high school curriculum. One of the scholars claims that because of this book, single, attractive Jewish women were stigmatized after the war because people assumed they had whored their way through it. The film claims that this text planted the seed for the Stalags.

The comparison of the underground and overground dissemination of fetishized history is both instructive and disturbing. I highly recommend catching the film if it comes to a nearby arthouse.

1950 NYC Business Directory


I just listed this copy of the Greater New York City and Surrounding Territories Business Classified Directory: The Modern Buyers Guide 1950. It’s a fascinating historical record of mid-century NY commerce and all of the phone numbers are in the classic tough-guy (cause I only hear it in gangster movies) format with the first two numbers of the exchange made into a word, ex: “PLaza 7-6300”.

There are some really bizarre business categories included like “Adult Games — Jbrs”, “Doll-Voices — Mfrs” and more, but most interesting to me was the full page of listings for book- related businesses; binders, publishers, book clothe manufacturers and more. Here’s the book entries.

Page 1, Page 2

Amazing how many binderies are listed.

Please DON’T call these numbers.

Quick Reviews: Money Shot – Heart-Shaped Box – Rocky Point Park

I haven’t had much down time to blog lately–and in fact I can barely reach my computer due to the large number of book-buying calls I’ve made this week. Lots of interesting stuff coming in, some of which you can see in my new arrivals section with more coming soon.

Anyway, I’ve recently read a few things that I think people should check out.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill


When I read the synopsis for this first novel–aging heavy metal icon and collector of macabre items (macabrabilia?) buys a haunted suit in an internet auction–I expected a quirky and slightly black-comedic story (and maybe that’s what the protagonist thought when he purchased his suit) but Heart-Shaped Box turns evil fast. I don’t want to give much away, because the suspense depends on a series of revelations, but the suit’s former owner–a gaunt Johnny Cash-lookalike with scribbles for eyes–was a formidable fucker even when alive and he crossed over with the express intent of dragging our hero down to hell with him.

The appearance of the ghost was definitely influenced by the Tall Man from the Phantasm films. He has the same surreal/absurd edge and the same refusal to fade into the shadows when company comes. I also noticed a hint of Matheson’s The Legend of Hell House too with the ghost a deliberate pioneer and exploiter of the ethereal realm. He lurked around my apartment for several nights after finishing the book, let me tell you.

The tension lets up a bit once Judas hits the road with his 20-something goth girlfriend to try and shake the ghost but the book plays fair and pays-off big.

Money Shot by Christa Faust


I knew I had to read this Hard Case Crime release as soon as I saw the Trompe L’oiel stripper cover (by Glen Orbik) and heard it featured a porn-star detective. Thankfully the book more than lives up to the packaging and the author uses the porn setting in smart and playful ways to comment on the generally phallocentric genre tropes.

The protagonist, Angel Dare, is simultaneously femme fatal and gumshoe. She’s tough and merciless in the Mike Hammer vein (though her handle is actually less pornie than Hammer’s). The sex / death link is played on (though funnily enough the intrigue of the story provides far fewer opportunities for sex than Angel’s normal life). And since porn and organized crime have always gone hand in hand the novel moves into noir territory neatly and swiftly. And who could be more world weary and hard-boiled than a porn-star after all?

Check out Faust’s website too. It’s pulp-eriffic.

Tales of Rocky Point Park by Jason Mayoh


Horror comic and work of urban archaeology on a defunct Rhode Island amusement park that was the source of many pleasant memories and bizarre tales. The author/artist is involved with the production of a documentary on Rocky Point and this comic uses attendee accounts and ephemera to record the myths the have sprung up around the park’s House of Horrors.

I’ve never been to Rocky Point Park but this comic definitely evokes memories I have of the former “Storytown” in Lake George which is now the Six Flags owned industrial “Fun” park “Great Escape” (with the Storytown attractions rotting where they stand). My memories would be safer if they had just bull-dozed the place.

New Plates and Tickets

Here’s a new batch of plates and tickets from the Donnell sale and some cheap tables.

First this nautical silhouette bookplate that manages to include a heavy-limbed tree, kids, and a sailing ship, all popular bookplate themes. From an undated decorative volume of Virgil (c 1910) owned by “R. Savadge”.


Next this crude but attractive library-themed plate belonging to “Elizabeth Kimball”. Forgot to note where this one came from (crap!).

The last and best plate is this aviation combat-themed plate belonging to “Edward E. Greiner” from a 1927 biography of Napoleon. This one is signed but I can’t make it out. Here’s a blow-up of the sig.


Here’s a ticket from the “Polish Book Import Company, Inc. – 38 Union Square, New York, NY”. Found in a translated children’s book (c1940)


Finally this “Chicago Booksellers Row” belly-band. Probably c 1980. I like this method of promoting a bookselling district.

Flying Witch and Charybdis Plans

I just sold a large lot of model magazines to an overseas buyer and I didn’t want to let these two peculiar aircraft plans get away.

First this plan for a Flying Witch’s Broom by Frank Scott (American Aircraft Modeler, Nov 1972)

Page: 1, 2, 3

Next this spiraling, single-wing craft named “Charybdis” by designer Charles W. McCutcheon (American Aircraft Modeler, Oct 1972)

Page: 1, 2, 3, 4

Don’t hurt yourself!

High-Five Fridays #12

Day late but not a dollar short.

#1. Extinct Attractions Club: Fan site that compiles and sells Books and DVDs on vintage Disneyland rides and attractions. I found them because they bought an elaborate 1950s Disneyland papercraft book from me. I hope they assemble it and take pictures.

#2. Deep Value: A paean to simple and repairable technology that’s recession and global catastrophe proof, Abi Sutherland on Making Light.

#3. Retro-Futurism from Modern Mechanix: Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today. Scan blog of innovative, quirky, and bizarre ideas from a technology magazine begun in 1928. And while you’re at it check out Grandpa’s Secrets, an eBay store specializing in vintage hobby plans from similar magazines.

#4. The Earl Kemp Interview: Part 1 of a gonzo journalism interview with Earl Kemp, science fiction critic and editor of Greenleaf Classics the groundbreaking 1960s erotic paperback publisher, Silent Porn-Star.

#5. Upward Departure: Fascinating blog on book theft; methods, law and consequences. This is why having an open shop would kill me. Link via Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis.

Find out how to give your High-Five Fridays here!

The purpose of this meme is to give high-fives to 5 people, posts, blogs and/or websites you’ve admired during the week. I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 5 high-fives on Friday. Trackbacks, pings, linky widgets, comment links accepted!
Visiting fellow High-Fivers is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your High-Fives in others comments (please note if NWS).

Find more High-Five Friday folks here!

Field Report: Donnell Library Sale

Last Friday I attended a sad FOL sale at the Donnell Branch of the NYPL. Sad not because the books were of low quality but because it marked the move into limbo of New York’s best circulating collection of children’s literature.

The NYPL recently sold the real estate occupied by the Donnell Branch to the Orient-Express Hotels for 59 mil. Apparently the library was in need of more renovation than the system could afford and this was the only way to raise the $$.

The hotel will still devote two floors to the library but there won’t be room for children’s reading room so–while the collection will remain intact (the sale was mostly to liquidate duplicates)–it’s currently homeless.

I attended the sale with a born-and-bred Manhattanite who’s used the Donnell for years and she said we were pillaging her childhood.

If you’re a library-loving New Yorker write the administration and tell them how much you want the Donnell children’s collection to get a good home…and soon. I understand that the main branch (the famous one with the lions) is going to go partial circulating soon, maybe the Donnell collection would fit there?

What happens to city librarians when their branch closes? Are they laid-off? Relocated? If so, how much say do they have in their new assignments?

Depressing. Anyway here’s what I pillaged.

A nice stack of NYC ephemera and tour books from the Woolworth building, at one point the tallest building in the world (and still one of the top 50). I think I can see this building from out of our kitchen window, but neither my eyesight nor my city geography is good enough to say for sure.


A booklet called Villages and Hamlets within New York City yielded this great description of the founding of Luna Park in Coney Island.

I picked up a number of beautifully bound and illustrated classics including Down-Adown-Derry a Walter De La Mare verse collection with plates by Dorothy P. Lathrop.


And this charming lift-a-flap / pop-up book by Italian designer Bruno Munari, The Elephant’s Wish.


I love the text in this book.

The ox is bored with being
a fat, lazy ox with flies
buzzing all around him,
and he is wishing…

The find of the sale though was this first edition of The Day the Cow Sneezed by hep-cat record jacket designer, commercial illustrator, and children’s book writer Jim Flora.

Very hard to part with this one.

See the rest of my new acquisitions in my Children’s catalog new arrivals.