Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - February - 2009 Issue
Literature from the William Reese Company
Now here's a title that is both scary and strange: The Danger of Premature Interment, Proved from Many Remarkable Instances of People who have Recovered after being Laid out for Dead, and of Others Entombed Alive... This horrific fear book was published in 1816, at a time before current embalming techniques, when there was great fear of being buried when comatose rather than dead, only to wake up entrapped in your tomb. Item 927, by Joseph Taylor. $450.
Item 179 is a letter from writer E.E. Cummings in 1941, to William James III, grandson of the similarly named psychologist and author. It's an entertaining item with numerous phonetic spellings, such as "fussclas," "tuhbakkaw," and "Boo Coo" (the last of those is French if you are having trouble deciphering). Here is a feature that you have to go back to the old manual typewriters to appreciate. The letter is typed in an erratic mixture of black and red ink. Those old typewriters had black and red ribbons, and if you put the setting in between, you would get this mix of black and red lettering. I know of no word processor/printer combination that can achieve this effect. $450.
The William Reese Company may be reached at 203-789-8081 or litorder@reeseco.com. Their website is www.reeseco.com.
