I found these first two plates in a curbed pile of books from the estate of a recently deceased local author. The artist signature looks like “M. A. Rasko”. Perhaps this is Maxmilian Aurel Reinitz Rasko (Hungarian-American, 1883–1961) who according to a (paywalled) NYT’s obit did portraits of U.S. Presidents. I have at least one duplicate of the muscleman plate if another collector wants to offer a trade.

The next plate from “Byrdcliffe”, is Pan and owl-themed. Signed with artist initials but I can’t make them out. Possibly this was ex-libris from the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony in Woodstock, New York? It was founded in 1902 during the Arts and Crafts-era (which would fit with this design).

I recently learned that one of my favorite illustrators, Frank C. Papé, did a bookplate for British Horror/Occult author Dennis Wheatley.

Papé did illustrations for a series of Bodley Head editions of allegorical fantasy writers; James Branch Cabell and Anatole France. The plates are vivid, bizarre and frequently use a pseudo-3D technique placing parallel action on different focal planes. To me he looks like a precursor of underground cartoonists Robert Williams and S. Clay Wilson.

I tracked the plate down and I’m very pleased with it. A jazz-age satyr smoking a cigarette with an iced bottle of Champers nearby, nudity, suggestive pagan imagery, a sacrilegious coda, all of my favorite things! Definitely one of the gems of my collection.

I haven’t read Wheatley yet, but if his taste in bookplate artists–and the batshit crazy Hammer adaptation from 1968, Lost Continent–are indicators, I expect to enjoy his work.

I haven’t posted new plates in a while. It’s not because I’m not finding them it’s more because I’m adding so many to the collection that I have to be selective or drown out my other posts.

Here’s a few recent additions.

First this Esther Nelson plate found in an 1889 Bound volume of Baily’s Magazine, London.

I like the graceful curves and the white-on-black scratchboard effect.

Next this skeleton flautist plate belonging to Bob and Mary Sullivan, found in a DIY book from 1938.

Skeletons would be a fun and fruitful bookplate theme to collect.

Next two plates from my soon to be Mother-in-Law and a faithful reader of this blog (who keeps putting little red stars on my visitors’ map in far-flung parts of the globe).

Her personal plate…

which I’ll let her describe:

Diana huntress was made for me by my Canadian godmother about 1946. She was from Scotland and was spending the summer of 1939 in Toronto on a student exchange before she started the Glasgow School of Art in Sept 39. I always thought the bookplates were very cool and loved pasting them into my books until some nasty kid saw them and made a big fuss about having naked ladies in my books, so I stopped using them I suppose that is why I have a stack of unused ones.

and this plate from her father-in-law, Charles Summers Stevenson who was the first American doctor to enter Nagasaki post bomb.

Charles was featured in the PBS Documentary “Mission of Mercy” and was the first American doctor to enter Nagasaki with the intention of treating survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb. He went in on a tender off his ship which was anchored out in the bay off Nagasaki with 2 orderlies and a sack of sulfa drugs (which were cutting edge at the time). He said it was unlike any thing he could have ever imagined and he realized in short order that there was basically nothing he could do despite all the best drugs that he had with him. Years later he joined Physicians for Social Responsibility on the strength of his experiences.

Found a striking batch of bookplates while culling my inventory and raiding the Strand Annex. Here are some:

First this retro-future cityscape reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. It belonged to an “Anna C. Ury” and was found (appropriately) in a Modern Library H.G. Wells from 1909

Next this decadent, allegorical (I’m guessing Wagnerian?) plate belonging to poet and labor historian “Elias Lieberman“. It’s in the Beardsley style (though more detailed). I like the repeated shape of the birds and the way the smoke is rolling off the ring. Looks like it’s signed “EB”.

Next this one belonging to “W. H. Kellogg Jr.” (possibly of the cereal family) found in Stewart’s Travels c 1840. The foliage has a great fairy tale feel to it.

Next this classic pissed-off Dumbledore plate by illustrator “Leon D’emo” belonging to W. A. Moran, found in Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Heroes 1872

And lastly this dog plate belonging to William Hale Harkness, found in Goodbye Mr Chips 1935. Harkness was the Standard Oil heir and husband to the famously batty Rebekah Harkness, a huge patron of dance whose

eccentricities were often reported in the New York tabloids in the ’60s and ’70s. She dyed a cat green and scrubbed her pool with Dom Perignon

More to come.

Lewis Jaffe of Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie created a trading page for bookplate collectors.

It’s just starting up so there’s not many posted yet, but you can have a look at the three beautiful plates that Mr. Jaffe had commissioned (and maybe be inspired to have one made for yourself).

I just submitted a couple of my doubles and plan to send him more down the road.