Book-plates of To-day

by Unknown

A BOOK-PLATE, in its simplest expression, is a printed indication of the ownership of a book. It may take the form of the unadorned visiting card, or it may be embellished with heraldic and other designs explanatory of the owner’s name, ancestry, tastes, or predilections. Primarily, however, it is intended to fix ownership. How far it satisfactorily serves its purpose, is, perhaps, of little moment to the average book-collector; for the book-plate has emerged from the stage of practical utility and become a thing in itself, so to speak. It has taken its place beside the many articles de vertu which are godsends to the weary of brain and heart, inasmuch as they become the objects of a passion so delightful in its experience, as to make us forget the little trials and worries of life that make pessimists of us in this “bleak Aceldama of sorrow.” Nay, they may even become the one sun, shining and irradiating for us all the dark places of our wanderings, and cheer us with the hopes for newer and finer acquisitions than we already have.

When, however, we come to a consideration of the artistic book-plate, we enter upon a new field of enquiry entirely. It indicates that a simple usage of a necessary and harmless convention has developed into a complex expression—an expression not merely of the individual to whom the book belongs, but also of the artist whose business it is to give pictorial form to the desires and wishes and tastes of his patron.

From the crude, if sufficient, paste-board stuck on the end-paper, to the heraldic display, was, surely, no very far cry. In the countries of the Old World, where pride of ancestry touches the worthy and unworthy alike, it was to be expected that so valuable an opportunity for flaunting the deeds of “derring do” of one’s forefathers as a sign of one’s own distinction, such as the book-plate offers, was certainly not to be neglected. So we find that the coats of arms which once served as inspirations, and which once had a genuine meaning to their owners and retainers, now do service in the more peaceful realms of Bookland. And, assuredly, there are certain books in a library, which are more worthily acknowledged after this ancient and martial fashion. We cannot but believe that a Froissart from the press of Caxton or Wynkyn de Worde, would be handled with more reverence if one saw on the verso of its front cover a glorious display of the arcana of heraldry, in all its magnificence of mysterious meaning. This feeling would also be aroused in turning the leaves of, say, Philippe le Noir’s edition of the “Gesta Romanorum” (1532), or of Hayton’s “Lytell Cronycle” from the shop of Richard Pynson, or of Mandeville’s “Voyages and Travailles,” issued by T. Snodham in 1625, or of Pliny’s “Historia Naturalis” from the Venetian press of Nic. Jenson in 1472, or of Rastell’s “Pastyme of People,” “emprynted in Chepesyde at the Sygne of the Mermayd” in 1529. To these and their like a book-plate of heraldic story comes as a fitting and graceful complement.

But the average mortal of this work-a-day world and age has not the means wherewith to acquire such treasures of the bibliophile. Nor, perhaps, has he the necessary pedigree with which to adorn them, if acquired; though on this latter consideration, we suspect that the Herald’s College in the purlieus of Doctors’ Commons, and the more amenable, though not less expensive Tiffany on this side of the Atlantic, would, no doubt, prove excellent aids to a full satisfaction.

But we are not here dealing with the pomp and glorious circumstance of Heraldry. In dealing with the artistic book-plate, we are considering a matter which concerns itself not with past stories or past individuals, but with the present tale and the particular living personage who has the laudable and humble ambition to distinguish his copy of a book from his friend’s copy of the same book. A taste in books may be easily whitewashed, but a taste in a book-plate flares its owner’s heart right into the eyes of the demurest damsel or the simplest swain. It may be that our collection is but a series of Tauchnitz editions carefully garnered on a European tour, or a handful or two of Bohn’s Library, accumulated from our more studious days, or a treatise on golf, chess, gardening and photography, or a history of the state or town in which we live—it matters little what—these are the treasures we most prize, and we wish to hold them. Now, how best shall the collector mark them as his own?

He writes his name on the title-page. Ugh! What a vandal’s act! The man who could so disfigure a book deserves to have it taken from him, and his name obliterated. He who could find it in his heart to write on title-pages could surely commit a murder. We’d much rather he turned a leaf down to mark the place where he had left off in his reading; though to do that is bad enough, in all conscience. Nor does he save his soul by writing on the fly-title, or even end-paper. Moreover, this will not save his book either. A visiting card can easily be taken out—it looks too formal, nondescript, meaningless, common, to inspire any respect in a would-be thief. But an artistic book-plate! Ah! that’s another thing altogether.

An artistic book-plate is the expression in decorative illustration of the proprietor’s tastes, made by an artist who has sympathetically realized the feeling intended. It should objectify one, and only one, salient characteristic, either of temperament, habit, disposition, or pleasure, of its owner. If it does less, it is not individual; if it does more, it is not satisfying.

Now each one of us has some characteristic trait that is not common to us all—then let that be the aim of the artist to embody in decorative form. And let that embodiment be simple and direct—the simpler and more direct it is, the more will it appear; and the more beautiful it is the more will it soften the kleptomaniacal tendencies of the ghoulish book-hunter. For nothing touches him so nearly to the finer impulses of nature than the contemplation of beauty; and he would be less than human did he fail to respond. We would even go to the length of giving as an admirable test of the book-plate artist’s powers, the lending of a book (whose loss would give no qualms) containing the plate. If it come not back, there’s something the matter with your plate; or, you can libel your friend as a beast of low degree, which suggests a good way of finding out your friend’s true character. But then, there’s no limit to the powers of a beautiful book-plate.

Now there are a great many coy people who don’t care to wear their hearts on their sleeves; these would naturally feel indisposed to post themselves thus before the public eye, be the book-plate never so beautiful. To these we would say: Give us what you prize best—your home, your wife, your sweetheart, your motto (though that’s giving yourself away too), your baby, anything that is truly yours. (Babies are quite à propos, and should be characteristic, though it does not always follow. Some babies have a habit of taking after quite other people.) The idea is, to embody something individual, something special and particular.