Eugene Field has just returned from a vacation in Europe and in his column, Sharps and Flats, Chicago is reading the first printing of Wynken, Blynken and Nod. Way & Williams, publishers, have an office on the floor below my studio. Irving Way, who would barter his last shirt for a first edition, his last pair of shoes for a volume from the Kelmscott Press of William Morris, is a frequent and always stimulating visitor.
“Will,” says Irving, “be over at McClurg’s some noon soon, in Millard’s rare book department, the ‘Amen Corner.’ Field will be there, and Francis Wilson, who is appearing at McVickar’s in The Merry Monarch, and other collectors. Maybe there’ll be an opportunity for me to introduce you—and Francis Wilson might ask you to do a poster.”
I go to the Press Club occasionally with Nixon Waterman, the columnist who was later to write his oft-quoted, “A rose to the living is more, If graciously given before The slumbering spirit has fled, A rose to the living is more Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead.” We sit at table with Opie Read, the well-loved humorist; Ben King, who wrote the delightful lament, “Nothing to eat but food, nowhere to go but out”; Stanley Waterloo, who wrote The Story of Ab and, with Luders, the musical comedy, Prince of Pilsen, and other newspaper notables whose names I have forgotten.
Two panoramas, Gettysburg and Shiloh, are bringing welcome wages to landscape and figure painters who will soon migrate to St. Joe across the lake and return in the fall with canvases to be hung at the Art Institute’s annual show.
Only one topic on every tongue—the coming World’s Fair.
Herbert Stone is at Harvard. He and his classmate, Ingalls Kimball, quickened with enthusiasm and unable to await their graduation, have formed the publishing company of Stone & Kimball. On paper bearing two addresses, Harvard Square, Cambridge, and Caxton Building, Chicago, Herbert commissions a cover, title-page, page decorations and a poster for When Hearts Are Trumps, a book of verse by Tom Hall—my first book assignment. This pleasing recognition from a publishing house is followed by a meeting with Harriet Monroe and a Way & Williams commission for a cover and decorations for the Columbian Ode.
Your studio is now in the Monadnock building. It is the year of the World’s Fair. You have an exhibit that has entitled you to a pass. Jim Corbett is in a show on the Midway. When he is not on the stage you can see him parading on the sidewalks. Buffalo Bill is appearing in a Wild West show. An edition of Puck is being printed in one of the exhibition buildings.
You design a cover for a Chicago and Alton Railroad folder. The drawing goes to Rand McNally for engraving and printing. Mr. Martin asks you to come and see him. His salary offer is flattering. But, aside from Bridwell’s designs at Mathews Northrup’s in Buffalo, railroad printing is in a long-established rut, void of imagination. You prefer free-lancing. Later Mr. Martin buys the K & L plant. Herbert Rogers, the former bookkeeper, establishes his own plant and you hope he will continue the K & L tradition.
Mr. McQuilkin, editor of The Inland Printer, commissions a permanent cover. When the design is finished I ask:
“Why not do a series of covers—a change of design with each issue?”