The volume pictured here, C.K.C. – his book, chronicles the efforts of a little-known activist to establish international limitations on the opium trade. Charles Kittredge Crane (1881-1932) dedicated himself singly to this cause, which culminated in three League of Nations conventions held in Geneva: the first and second back-to-back in 1924 and 1925, and the third…
“A sense of happiness stole over him”
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Blackie, Fullerton & Co. was originally a bookselling firm founded in Glasgow in 1809 by John Blackie Sr., Archibald Fullerton, and William Somerville. They specialized in the sale of books in monthly or quarterly installments, mainly…
Examining “the Beat”
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. The arrival of the Beat Generation generated controversy, conversation, and in some cases literature; for some onlookers, though, it was mostly a source of opportunity. Hence Beatnik, which promises “an uncensored, unexpurgated exposé of the ‘Beat Generation’”,…
A Revere-d Colonial Cookbook
We don’t have the recipes that the Pilgrims used for the first Thanksgiving feast, but we can gain some insight about the food preparation practices of the Boston colonists of 150 years later, thanks to the survival of cookbooks like Susannah Carter’s The Frugal Housewife, or Complete Woman Cook (1772), just the second cookbook printed…
Father of criminology
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Cesare Lombroso was an Italian physician and criminologist who founded the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso’s theory of anthropological criminology was a mix of the concepts of Social Darwinism, physiognomy, psychiatry, and degeneration theory. Essentially…
Printers on Ice
The Thames’ frost fairs of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries are well-documented (as well as featured in two Dr. Who episodes). They occurred during Britain’s Little Ice Age, when winters were cold enough to freeze over parts of the Thames. During them, when the ice was thick enough and lasted long enough, Londoners…
Student life, 1864 Austrian edition
As a cataloger in a university library, naturally student life is of particular interest. So when I ran across Johann Strauss Jr.’s waltz Studentenlust (Students’ Joy), the cover illustration delighted me. The guy in the center is inked slightly darker, and clearly meant to be the focus: but what of his joys? A pipe, a…
Jesus Junk
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. The Daily Planet publication appears to be somewhat of a mystery. It is clearly a reference to the famed Daily Planet newspaper from the Superman franchise, but I couldn’t find any further information about the title. …
Demons, dames, and devices: DAMES
For the second in our series on Big Data (Demons are here) in John Ward’s collection of Strauss family dance music (surely a present-day Strauss would even now be writing a Data-Crunching Waltz!) we turn to images of women. The accomplished young lady beguiling long family evenings at her keyboard, or livening up a gathering…
Now they’ll sleep
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. The influence of drugs on literary output is in evidence throughout the Santo Domingo Collection, but the volume pictured here wears that influence with unusual prominence: pictured on the publisher’s book-cloth binding is a cluster of opium…