Tinkatink PAL 216 and Tinkatuff PAL 217 Illustration Rares, and Tinkaton ex PAL 262 Special Illustration Rare by Tika Matsuno from Scarlet & Violet—Paldea Evolved

It's dandelion season here in Columbia, and thanks to a visitor to our reading room, we found a beautiful dandelion in our copy of Leonhart Fuchs' De Historia Stirpium (1542). Dandelions are native to Eurasia and may have been brought to North America for medicinal purposes by early colonizers. VAULT OVR QK41 .F7 1542

#MiniatureMonday

Wildflowers of the John Muir Trail

This the finale to our little summer series focusing on a small fraction of the lovely artists books by Peter and Donna Thomas.

This is also my last Miniature Monday post, as I am moving to my new job after graduating this spring. It has been great sharing all these lovely minis, and I am looking forward to seeing those that are posted in the future! --Diane

This wonderful collection of illustrations features plants painted by Donna Thomas while she was hiking the John Muir Trail with Katy McLaughlin.

"They identified these flowers together & Donna painted them on the spot. Donna made this book, using handmade paper made by Peter Thomas. "--Colophon.

Continuous accordion folded strip made from five sections folded to form forty leaves.

Peter and Donna Thomas are "book artists from Santa Cruz, CA. They work both collaboratively and individually; letterpress printing, hand-lettering and illustrating texts, making paper, and hand binding both fine press and artists’ books." They have made over 100 limited edition books, often with Peter making the paper, and Donna doing the illustrations.

Check out more of Donna and Peter's books at Uiowa here.

--Diane R., Special Collections Graduate Student

Some woodcuts for you from our 1541 Lazare de Baïf text, Annotationes in legem II De captiuis & postliminio reuersis. While he discusses the rights of captured soldiers and their later return to freedom, he gets a bit distracted by a reference to ships and explores Greek and Roman naval ships for most of the book.

Halo to you, too!

Book tour of Scotland

Scotland, a country of wonder and mystery. This is also the topic of our current exhibit for the reminder of the summer. Scotland has become a topic of pop-culture over the recent years, though it has always been an area of interest for travel, history, and adventure. While we cannot provide any resources for accessing magic time-traveling stones, we do have a small collection of men in kilts featured in this exhibit. Louisiana and much of the southern region of the United States has a strong Scottish heritage, there are several families with Scottish and Irish rooted names. In support of seeking family heritage, we have a small collection of Scottish clans in their tartan on display and a few books for those genealogical researchers to find their family’s possible tartan color.

However, Scotland is more than names and weaving patterns. We also highlight Scottish literary works, though that would be an exhibit of its own but we proudly boast our copies of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns. And it is difficult to discuss any European literary history and tradition without including at least one book that discusses the influence of fairy-stories. The British Isles are rich with fairy-lore and their own folktale heritage. The book selected for its discussion of Scottish folklore heritage has not only a chapter on fairies but also on ghosts.

Scotland has had a haunting history of rebellion because of its desire to remain an independent country with its whole ruler and government. This is highlighted through the line of Stuarts and the last try for the Scottish crown by the ol’ Bonnie Prince. We do host quite the collection of materials regarding the Scottish rebellions and feature a text with an inlaid map of Culloden during the Rebellion of ’45. This was known as the shortest and most tragic battle for not only Scottish families but also the Jacobite rebellion. While the Jacobite rebellion made history, it is not the only famous location in Scotland. There are a great number of famous and historic locations in Scotland, not only because of its capital, Edinburgh, but also because it was one of the most well mapped areas of the 1600s.

The diverse landscape makes the country a hot spot for hikers, sightseers, and general adventures. Scotland is also home to various species of wildlife and livestock, like the Highlander cattle and pony. It was the Highland pony that would lead to the development of the Clydesdale breed. The industries of academic, farming, and science based in Scotland have produced a strong economic infrastructure of the county.

I HAD ONE BOOSTER BOX AND A DREAM…

… AND IT CAME TRUE 😭🎉💖💖💖💕💕💕

But seriously speaking !!! The hits from this one box are So Insane !!! 🫵💫✨✨✨

I can’t imagine myself going back to collecting the English sets after this I won’t lie to y’all this treated me too well SKDJSKDJDND /lh

On this Fine Press Friday!

This week we present Lavengro; The Scholar, The Gipsy, The Priest, by English writer George Borrow (1803-1881). Illustrated with sixteen color lithographs and pen drawings by English book illustrator, painter, designer, typographer, and lithographer, Barnett Freedman (1901-1958), the edition, designed by Oliver Simon, was printed at the Curwen Press in London for The Limited Editions Club in 1936 in an edition of 1500 copies signed by the artist.

Lavengro was first published in London by John Murray in 1851. It is an autobiographical novel, Borrow began writing in 1842 and finished with a text that included fictional episodes that are inseparable from his genuine life experience. It was met with mixed reviews because of the mixture of fact and fiction, however it has become recognized as a classic in 19th-century English literature. Barnett Freedman, who produced the lithographs and pen-drawn illustrations for this edition, worked for the London publisher Faber and Gwyer where he illustrated many books. His first large commission was Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, published in 1931, which provided him some notoriety. George Macy, founder of the Limited Editions Club, commissioned Freedman to provide the illustrations for Lavengro, which marked a new phase of his work with its bright rainbow palette. He also developed a technique for black and white line drawings printed in line block to imitate lithography, which created uniformity in the book. George Macy was so impressed with Freedman’s work that he would later commission him to illustrate several other books including Henry the Fourth Part One from The Plays of William Shakespeare in Thirty-Seven Volumes (1939-40) and Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1938) and Anna Karenina (1951). The latter two were recognized as some of the finest book design of the twentieth century.  

For George Macy’s Heritage Press, which often reprinted classics by the more exclusive Limited Editions Club, Freedman illustrated Dicken’s Oliver Twist (1939), Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1941), and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1942). Freedman’s illustrations for Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are regarded among the best done for those titles.

View more posts on books from the Limited Editions Club.

Go here for more Fine Press Friday posts!

-Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern. 

well now I kinda just wanna post comparison pictures of faith and max from every year to show off how much they've changed in my style since that first drawing in 2021 😭

New beginnings

Process work:

This scene comes at the beginning of the story, when Dylan and Riley are still very close. It was a lot of fun to explore their dynamic through the thumbnails and it really helped me to get to know them better!

I think this scene contrasts really well with the other key frame I illustrated too, which was probably my favorite drawing of this whole project :)

Rare edition of Rip Van Winkle

This 1905 copy of Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, is #79 of a signed 250-print limited edition by Heinemann. The binding is vellum, and the second half of the book is composed of over four dozen colored plates separated by tissue guards that bear quotes from the story.

A quote from one of the tissue guards, just because it made us smile:

Ralts SVI 211, and Kirlia SVI 212 Illustration Rares, and Gardevoir ex SVI 245 Special Illustration Rare by Jiro Sasumo from from Scarlet & Violet

A few creepy crawlies for the weekend before Halloween! These lovelies are from lllustrations of Exotic Entomology by Dru Drury (1837). Drury collected natural history specimens through a network of officers on merchant ships throughout the world. Drury employed artists Moses Harris and Mary Gartside to create drawings from specimens for his work Illustrations of Natural History, which was first published in London between 1770 and 1782. The same images were reproduced in this later work in 1837.

Drury, Dru, and J. O. Westwood. 1837. Illustrations of Exotic Entomology : Containing Upwards of Six Hundred and Fifty Figures and Descriptions of Foreign Insects, Interspersed with Remarks and Reflections on Their Nature and Properties. H.G. Bohn. RARE QL466 .D79

Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie of Midnight Oil

The more I look at this frontispiece (from this 1684 account of the trial of King Charles I), the more the White Lotus Season 2 opening theme song intensifies in my head.

Summer & Strawberries

There are many things that come to mind when the word “summer” is said for everyone. It may be cookouts with family, days at the pool-side with friends, or not having to go to school for several glorious weeks. There are also the holidays that mark the beginning, middle, and end of Summer which are normally themes in red, white, and blue. So, how many people think of strawberries? 

            There is a select day especially for picking strawberries and it is May 20th, which is also Armed Forces Day. However, we recognize our nation's service personnel at a later date. Today we are discussing a little hybrid species of fruit. Strawberries first came into existence in the late 18th century in Brittany, France. At least the common garden strawberry did, there is also a wild species of strawberries. The fruit we use in our pound cake was cultivated from breeding the Virginia strawberry or mountain strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) from eastern North America and the Chilean strawberry or beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis). When the Spanish first observed the growth of the female Chilean strawberry in 1551, they brought it over to Europe where it flourished but did not produce fruit. It was not until the mid-18th century that when the Chilean variety was planted between rows of musk and mountain strawberries that it produced an abundance of large fruit. This resulted in a series of scientific discoveries regarding plant-breeding methods. The resulting strawberry, Fragaria ananassa, was named by Antoine Nicolas Duchesne due to its similarity to the pineapple with the larger strawberries’ shape, smell, and taste. 

            For this litter post, two books were chosen which deal with the growth of the ruby fruit. The oldest of the two is from 1934 and contains a chapter regarding the strawberry; The new American gardener; containing practical directions on the culture of fruits … by Thomas Fessenden (https://bit.ly/437S6IU). The second text is from 1850 and has illustrations of strawberries, which are dispersed throughout this post. The American Fruit Culturist … by John J. Thomas (https://bit.ly/3WsspR7) contains various descriptions and illustrations regarding fruit trees grown in planet nurseries, orchards, and gardens.