A CHECK-LIST of the WORK of TWENTY-THREE BOOK-PLATE DESIGNERS of PROMINENCE
Compiled by WILBUR MACEY STONE
IT WAS thought that interest and value would be added to this book by the inclusion of lists of the book-plates made by the more prominent artists whose work is reproduced here. These lists are the nearest complete of any that have ever been published, and as they have been verified in many instances by the artists themselves, and in others carefully collated from the actual book-plates, they may be relied upon as highly accurate. The sundry notes, bibliographical and otherwise, by which the individual lists are prefaced, are in no way exhaustive, but just a cursory gathering to relieve the bareness of the lists and to give some little additional assistance to the amateur. The lists are arranged alphabetically under the artists’ names as follows:
William Phillips Barrett
Robert Anning Bell
D. Y. Cameron
Thomas Maitland Cleland
Gordon Craig
Julius Diez
George Wharton Edwards
Fritz Erler
William Edgar Fisher
Edwin Davis French
Bertram G. Goodhue
Harry E. Goodhue
T. B. Hapgood, Jr.
Harold E. Nelson
Edmund H. New
Henry Ospovat
Armand Rassenfosse
Louis Rhead
Byam Shaw
Joseph W. Simpson
Hans Thoma
Thomas Tryon
Bernhard Wenig
WILLIAM PHILLIPS BARRETT
In Great Britain every family of rank has its arms suitably emblazoned on its harnesses, carriages, table-plate, dining-chairs, and, of course, in its library. When a new coach is ordered, or a new set of harnesses, the coach-builder or the harness-maker furnish the proper trimmings. So milord’s stationer fixes up the family letter-paper and the family book-plate. Somebody has to lick into some semblance of artistic unity the records of prowess of our medieval ancestors. In the workshops of Messrs. “Bumpus Limited,” Mr. William Phillips Barrett performs this more or less genial task. He has signed some ninety to one hundred designs, which were cut by the workmen in the Bumpus establishment. Mr. Barrett’s designs are not wholly without merit, but they so apparently lack the spark of vitality and their execution is in many cases so hard and mechanical that one is inclined more to pity than to praise. In the pages of the London Ex Libris Journal, that industrious encourager of the ordinary and banal in book-plate design, Mr. Barrett’s work is exploited at length. Vol. II., page 81, et seq.
1896
Lady Gerard
Hon. E. Byng
Mr. Jack Cummings
Lord Manners
Lady Sarah Wilson
Lady Charles Bentinck
H. Somers Somerset, Esq.
Lady K. Somerset