Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - November - 2004 Issue
Strange and Eccentric: American Books<br>From Garrett Scott, Bookseller
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B.F. Woodcox was an Indiana poet who published his collection of poetry, Beyond the Store Light, for private circulation. However, on discovering how cheap it was to print additional copies, he upped the press run so the whole world could share. Many of his 1901 poems focus on issues of morality of women and inconsistent treatment of the missteps of women versus those of men. In one case he attacks the evils of the "deflourer." Well he should. Now she'll never bake again. Item 213. $45.
Ernest Davis was a motorman/poet from Los Angeles around 1913. His book's title, Dreaming on a Trolley Car, is a bit scary. Motormen should be awake while driving their trolleys. Alas, Davis was a romantic. Among his verses he penned "A motorman was dreaming, / One night at Mesa Drive, / He loved a lovely maiden, / The sweetest girl alive." At least there's no indication that Davis thought himself a greater poet than Milton or Poe. Item 60. $75. In case you think this might not be popular, Davis' work made it to a second printing, and that is available too. Item 61. $50.
If this type of poetry is too soft for you, there's always Drops of Blood / Prison Verse by Royall Douglass. "No. 19173" San Quentin, published in 1911. Douglass covers such topics as the despair of imprisonment and capital punishment. It's not clear whether he was imprisoned for writing bad poetry or other reasons. Item 62. $100.
Joseph Lemuel Chester was a respected American genealogist, residing in London from 1858 until his death in 1882. He published several genealogical books, helped found a genealogical society, and corresponded with Charles Darwin about the latter's family history. However, he had a career before crossing over (the Atlantic), writing poetry and music under pennames such as Julian Cramer, and writing the bizarre A Preliminary Treatise on the Law of Repulsion, as a Universal Law of Nature...in 1853. In it Chester points out "we profess to have attacked and vanquished sundry notions manifestly conceived in error, and which have been sustained so long only by that mental obstinacy which ever clings to 'received opinion.'" Among the old beliefs held to by mental obstinacy Chester vanquishes are Newton's theories, the concept of geological stratification, and "proves" there is a uniform temperature for all of the planets and that Mercury and Jupiter have the same mass. It is amazing what we can learn when we stop being so obstinate. Item 40. $125.
J.W. Shiveley of Saratoga, New York, was a courageous political crusader, who printed this broadside in time for the 1884 presidential election: That Same Old Serpent, Old Satan, the Devil, the Great Red Dragon! The Wonderful Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns! In it he attacks the established political parties, or the "Gigantic European and American God and Moral, Old Monopoly, Steal Rings and Whiskey, Star Route Sneak Thief Steal Rings." Wasn't that the platform Ross Perot ran on? I don't know about you, but I believe they still control the government. Shiveley supported the candidacy of "darling sweet Belva Ann Lockwood." She was not successful, though she did collect 4,149 votes (about 4,870,000 fewer than Grover Cleveland). In fairness to Lockwood, she was a serious campaigner for women's rights, helping bring about equal pay for equal work in government jobs, and was the first woman lawyer admitted to practice before the Supreme Court. In other words, unlike Shiveley, she still had all her marbles. Item 168. $350.
Garrett Scott, Bookseller, is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, may be found on the internet at www.GSBbooks, and reached by phone at 734-741-8605.
