Dust Jackets

It’s one of those memories from school age that I’m fairly sure happened but not totally. The memory I have is of school books taken home at the beginning of the term and then wrapped in brown paper to protect the cover. Did I put my name or the name of the book on the brown paper. Were they hardbacks? Was cellotape used?

Anyway, that got me to be thinking of Dust Jackets. Before the 1820s, most books were published unbound and were generally sold to customers either in this form, or in simple bindings executed for the bookseller, or in bespoke bindings commissioned by the customer. At this date, publishers did not have their books bound in uniform ‘house’ bindings, so there was no reason for them to issue dust jackets. Book owners did occasionally fashion their own jackets out of leather, wallpaper, fur, or other material, and many other types of detachable protective covers were made for codices, manuscripts, and scrolls from ancient times through the Middle Ages and into the modern period.

The oldest publishers' dust jacket now on record was issued in 1829 on an English annual, Friendship's Offering for 1830. It was discovered at the Bodleian Library in Oxford by Michael Turner, a former curator and Head of Conservation at the Library. Its existence was announced by Oxford in 2009. It is three years older than the previous oldest known jacket, which was discovered in 1934 by the English bookman John Carter on another English annual, The Keepsake for 1833 (issued in 1832).

The earliest known dust jackets of the modern style, with flaps, which covered just the binding and left the text block exposed, date from the 1850s, although this type of jacket was likely in at least limited use some years earlier. This is the jacket that became standard in the publishing industry and is still in use today. Throughout the nineteenth century, nearly all dust jackets were discarded at or soon after purchase. This was a golden age for publishers' decorative bookbinding, and most dust jackets were much plainer than the books.

After 1900, fashion and the economics of publishing caused book bindings to become less decorative, and it was cheaper for publishers to make the jackets more attractive. By around 1920, most of the artwork and decoration had gone from the binding to the dust jacket, and jackets were routinely printed with multiple colours, extensive advertising and blurbs, even the underside of the jacket was now sometimes used for advertising.

As dust jackets became more attractive than the bindings, more people began to keep the jackets on their books, at least until they became soiled, torn, or worn out. One bit of evidence that indicates when jackets became saved objects is the movement of the printed price from the spine of the jacket to a corner of one of the flaps. This also occurred in the 1910s and early 1920s. When jackets were routinely discarded at point of purchase, it did not matter where the price was printed (and many early jackets were not printed with any price), but now if book buyers of the 1910s and 1920s wanted to save the jacket and give a book as a gift, they could clip off the price without ruining the jacket.

Dust jackets from this time were often decorated in art deco styles which are highly prized by collectors. Some of them are worth far more than the books they cover. The most famous example is the jacket on the first edition of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1925. Without jacket, the book brings $1,000 or so. With the dust jacket it can bring $20,000 or $30,000 or more, depending on its condition. Other examples of highly prized jackets include those on most of Ernest Hemingway's titles, and the first editions of books such as Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.

I’m off now to check my book shelves. I know that I still have this book there from my school days.

The Coral Island

Somewhere in the Java Sea
roughly the size of Sark
with a Lookout Hill
views of smooth beaches
falls of fresh water
forests and pineapples
a call to adventure

Ballantyne’s book
unfurled after fifty years
the dust jacket flagging
but ready aye ready

were there coves
was the temperature
a steady twenty three degrees

no snakes (touch wood)
no sea creatures that sting
which is a reminder
to check for a medicine chest
with plasters and Ventolin

reading glasses
wide brimmed hat
a sort of large cushion
that could double as a mattress
and talking of doubling up

but that’s getting ahead
let’s get past the colour plate
to the first chapter

Roving has always been
and still is my ruling passion

First published in ‘To Have to Follow ’ by Julie Maclean and Terry Quinn. (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2016).

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Read More

Chickens

Years ago, when I worked in an infant school, I was given the task of drawing a large chicken which was to be the centrepiece of a class project and would fill a classroom wall. I may have skills, but freestyle drawing is not one of them and I mumbled such to the teacher, who was very lovely and kind, but spoke to me like I was another of her 4 and 5 year old pupils and suggested that I try my best and might surprise myself. Hilarious, Miss! 

With good grace, and for the sake of the class who were going to make eggs, chicks, wheat and bread to be part of the wall covering, I accepted the challenge. It was difficult but my end result was acceptable in so far as it looked like a chicken, if only through the eyes of a child, and with the work of the class added to it, the scene looked like a fabulous reproduction of the story, The Little Red Hen. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, the hen lives on a farm with other animals. She looks upon these animals as friends. When she finds a grain of wheat and decides to grow it to eventually make bread, she asks for the help of her friends. All refuse. She plants the grain, looks after it, harvests the crop and every step of the progress she asks for help and doesn’t get any. The wheat is milled into flour and she makes bread. The others all want to eat some, but the little red hen refuses to share. She eats it herself with her own chicks. Through the story, the aim was for children learn about sharing tasks, being fair, being helpful and working together. The collage remained on that classroom wall all term. The Little Red Hen, my ‘wonderful’ artwork, for all to admire. Long gone.

Why are cowards or anyone refusing a dare, called ‘chicken’? There is a lot to learn about the origins and some of it is fascinating, but to give a brief outline, chickens, usually called ‘hens’ were considered to be weak, timid creatures and completely the opposite of the male ‘cocks’ which were strong and fearless. Cocky, perhaps. And from Wikipedia, ‘According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest written instance of the word ‘chicken’ in the craven sense comes from William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, circa 1616. “Forthwith they fly, Chickens,” he wrote, describing soldiers fleeing a battlefield.’

Back to the world of childhood for my choice of poems, written by Jack Prelutsky, former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate.

Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens

Last night I dreamed of chickens,
There were chickens everywhere,
They were standing on my stomach
They were nestling in my hair,
They were pecking at my pillow
They were hopping on my head,
They were ruffling up their feathers
As they raced about my bed.

They were on the chairs and tables,
They were on the chandeliers,
They were roosting in the corners
They were clucking in my ears,
There were chickens, chickens, chickens
For as far I could see…
When I woke up today I noticed
There were eggs on top of me.

                                Jack Prelutsky


Ballad of a Boneless Chicken

I’m a basic boneless chicken,
Yes, I have no bones inside,
I’m without a trace of rib cage,
Yet I hold myself with pride,
Other hens appear offended
By my total lack of bones,
They discuss me impolitely
In derogatory tones.

I am absolutely boneless,
I am boneless through and through,
I have neither neck nor thighbones,
And my back is boneless, too,
And I haven’t got a wishbone,
Not a bone within my breast,
So I rarely care to travel
From the comfort of my nest.

I have feathers fine and fluffy,
I have lovely little wings,
But I lack the superstructure
To support these splendid things.
Since a chicken finds it tricky
To parade on boneless legs,
I stick closely to the hen house,
Laying little scrambled eggs.

                                Jack Prelutsky

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

Ekphrastic Poetry

When poets are writing Ekphrastic poetry there’s a fair chance they’ll be looking at an object from years ago. How often are they watching the piece being made? I had this chance when following Nick Williams, artist and poet from Preston, creating his River Clock sculpture in the summer of 2020.

During this time I was curious about aspects of his work and asked questions. I’ll just give his replies:

I follow simple rules. 1: No tools. 2: Only use what is found at the place. 3: There must be an element of balance and balancing involved in each work. 4: Anything of interest that I feel could be used in a different way goes in the rucksack which is the most useful sculptor's tool.

a beginning

I choose each place by feel and by the wood that is in that place, looking carefully at each shape to see if they speak together...glad you like the stones, am interested in building the dry stone pebble wall outwards into spiral arms next time I go out... they reminded me a little of old harbour buildings and cairns and buoys too... some of the wood won't stand up alone even though I want it too so after propping it up with a another it felt right to begin to build the base of stones around. I breathed a sigh of relief when I removed the prop and nothing fell over.

Every painting and poem and sculpture whether site specific or not has a story, every artwork in every medium has a story, the whole thing, art from the body decoration, drum beats and shamanic dancing to the cave paintings through to modern times has a story, even science is an art, numbers have a story, astrophysics theories and quantum theories all have a story, we are the story of the universe (a small part of it).

Nick in the act of creation

This has always been central to all my work as an idea. Time and space and the story made by them both. A sculpture made in the hinterland, in the tidal flood plain, the space between two states of being, the borders between land river and sea, dwells in two states, one submerged at certain times of the day or week and one unsubmerged in the water flows and adds a new dimension to the sculpture and this movement of water and weather and random things happening to it, slight minute changes which occur over time help continually co-create the sculpture, my hand, my eye and my mind guide the building of the repair and nature provides the accident and the transformation of static into narrative. At least that's how I see it. 

I went today to film the tide coming in and build an extra part of the spiral but the wind was very cold, and the tide didn't rise as far as I expected after yesterday, yikes, but even through my heavy duffle coat my shoulder whilst waiting for the tide to rise was cold to the marrow of the bones (they call this suffering for our art I had heard tell once - me ?) I decided that my arm had suffered enough after several hours of waiting and realizing the tide wasn't going flow completely over the banks.

You must have just arrived after I had left... not so worrying that it hasn't washed it away as I tested it under flooding conditions and the water rise does no damage... more worrying is, as you say, the lowness of the river but have seen river fall like this before so is hard to tell... the reason for the river flood at this part of the river is not the Ribble water coming from its source but the sea tide which comes in from the coast and mingling with the river water, hence the salt you occasionally see on the grass like a thin film of dust.

River Clock

It is called river clock... the shadows line up with the wood at approximately 1.33 pm afternoon and that line of shadow is approximately at the ratio 1/2 thirds which is golden section (I know most clocks and sun dials would use 12 noon to 12 etc but I like the oddness of 1.33 plus if you take off the last 3 and turn it round it's PI 3.1(4).

Yep, sheep very numerous if I sit still long enough I get sniffed which I quite enjoy. I have found if I become completely still most animals become calm around me, even had a butterfly land on a finger once. 

Today was hot and the heron of the Ribble was out to play, sadly yet again there had been some mindless vandalism since I was last there, but didn't take me more than a few minutes to fix (what is currently taking time is scouting up and down the river for large enough rocks and bricks to use for the segment walls as I elongate the spiral out like an ammonite, building method is as follows at the moment build a segment of the spiral as a walled enclosure then fill the enclosure with driftwood and then cover the driftwood with stone (this is symbolic as a burial of the trees yet also allows me to anchor any wood I deem beautiful enough to become a standing structure) carrying the larger rocks back from either end of the marsh is laborious but worth it.

bottle/bomb

The coast guard were there today because I found this (above) and reported it...when I left at 5:40/ 6 pm after answering the standard police questions for reporting such an object the bomb squad were on their way from Carlisle. Possibly a first or second world war mortar with the fin broken off at the back and the cap missing, it matched two items in their little blue book. I thought it was a beer bottle at first.

The sculpture is slowly reaching the right height (currently the outer wall is somewhere close to my knee level), though may have to extend parts of the spiral and central stone edifices being built around the wood upwards in order to have them standing out of the water when the tide is really high - currently am in two minds about whether I should cover the wood entirely with stone as am adapting the idea of it as I build.

I haven't worked on it or seen it since the thunderstorms when my boots got holes in so hopefully no-one has pinched it and started adding rocks, the only bits left to do are to cover the wood still sticking out of it with stone walls like a cairn (so it won't be any higher than maybe one stone above its current height).

stormy weather

There is wood underneath the stone surface in between the outer spiral wall and inner spiral wall anyway which is deliberate and will allow for the eventual and slow decline of the structure over a long period of time once finished. As each of the hidden pieces of wood rot down the pebble-stone overlay drops further towards the ground and thus over a period of three to ten years or longer the sculpture may slowly collapse into itself and become a ruin with an inner and outer spiral structure - again time and the long term or short term transient nature of all man made things are explored in this longer projection of the sculpture so that the slow collapse is part of the artwork too. If I came back in forty years time for example would it be covered in moss having become part of the landscape itself to be uncovered later by archaeologists who wonder what it was? Or will the river have eaten it and the flat salt marsh it rests on turn it at first into a lone island which slowly collapses into the river as the erosion takes it gradually away? All of these questions are being posed by me as I build.

PS: Today Nick told me that the River Clock is still there.

x marks the spot

River Clock
(for Nicholas Guy Williams)

OS map 102
Reference SD482287

a place needing boots
sandwiches and flask
in a lightweight rucksack

that was slipped off
onto the grass bank
of a tidal plain
and another viewing
of what is going to be
difficult to explain

a spiral of old bricks
pebbles rocks flotsam
branches boughs and twigs
which is all true enough

but doesn’t take into account
that it exists in two states
as my mate tried to explain
submerged or unsubmerged
linked by quantum entanglements
of water and weather and time
or a peacock butterfly
flapping its wings

unlike today as swallows
flit on a brisk wind
scudding their calls to my ear
and there’s a touch of loneliness
on a base of green and grey.

First published in Acumen, March 2022

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Read More

World Cup - Three Lions

A few World Cup memories.

 

I was there in sixty-six.  By ‘there’ I mean sat on the floor doing some artwork with my World Cup Willie colouring set, in front of a black and white television witnessing my mother go through every emotion. Eventually, someone on tv said, ‘They think it’s all over, it is now’ and my mother was ecstatic.  I must have inherited my love of football from her, and my maternal grandfather. We were in our upstairs sitting room in the pub on South Promenade. No big screens in pubs back in the sixties and no colour television for us at that time. Sport in pubs was limited to snooker and darts.

I didn’t follow the 1970 tournament. We were still in the same pub. I was sick of hearing ‘Back Home’ filtering upwards from the jukebox. My mother had passed away the year before. Life was hard and things were changing.

In 1978, my most significant World Cup memory is Archie Gemmill’s brilliant goal for Scotland against Holland. It was breath-taking and is still up there with my favourite goals of all time.

The 1990 World Cup didn’t have my full attention. It was there in the background while I sat at the sewing machine making wedding outfits for my page-boys and a tiny bridesmaid dress for yes, a tiny bridesmaid, my baby niece. There was cheering, beer cans being snapped open and I found myself singing Nessun Dorma a lot. England had fourth place. Now it was time to concentrate on our wedding.

I can still feel the sorrow from 1998. David Beckham and that petulant kick at Diego Simeone – I still can’t believe he was red carded, as he was fouled by Simeone in the first place and I can hardly type it, twenty years later. Football is such a passionate game. I was so upset that England lost out to Argentina on penalties and the first World Cup that our son was old enough to take an interest in ended for England the way it did.

Fast forward to 2014 and as always in our house, we have a chart up on the wall, flags flying from the windows and cars, England shirts at the ready and a Panini sticker album. It was a non-event, for us anyway. My husband was ill in hospital, though well enough to don an England shirt and watch a couple of matches in the day-room. By the time he was recovered enough to come home, the World Cup was all over for England.

So, here goes for World Cup 2018. In a few hours it might be all over again, but hopefully not. I’d like to see Gareth Southgate do well and I’d like to see this young, talented team progress. I’ll go and have a word with the three lions on my shirt.

 

 

I’m With These 2018 Heroes

 

The kitchen floor needs mopping

And the beds are left unmade

But I’m not doing housework

While there’s matches being played.

 

Look at the perfect pitches,

Neatly mowed and lush and green,

Ready for the world’s finest

To give us the best we’ve seen.

 

So bring it on, DeBruyne,

Ronaldo and Messi, too.

Fellaini and Suarez

I’ll be watching all of you.

 

A huge shout out for England,

For Harry Kane and the boys,

I’ve taught my grandkids to cheer

And to fill my house with noise.

 

Fav’rites Rashford and Lingard,

And my ‘Broadway’ Danny Rose,

I’m loving every moment

With these 2018 heroes.

 

It isn’t just the World Cup,

There’s tennis going on, too.

I’m sharing the time wisely,

It’s the only thing to do.

 

So, come on Kyle Edmund

What an impressive young man!

Wimbledon and I salute you.

Keep giving the best you can.

  

Pamela Winning 2018.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x 

 

 

Read More