Charles, Lord Bishop of Norwich. A Sermon Preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; at their Anniversary Meeting at the Parish Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, on Friday February 17, 1797. London: S. Brook, 1797. 78 pages.

As well a sermon this booklet contains the proceedings of the Society for Feb 1796 to Feb 1797, including receipts and payments, a list of members, female subscribers, a list of Bishops and Deans, and annual reports from the various missions, including the following from Newfoundland:

“The great and general alarm which the attempt of the French Fleet on this Coast occasioned last summer has been some impediment to the regular correspondence of the missionaries of the society.

No letter has been received from Mr. Evans. Missionary of Placentia.

By a letter from Mr. Harries, Missionary at St. John’s, on the 8^th of December last, the Society were concerned to learn, that on the account of some difference of opinion respecting the new Church to be built, they had not yet entered upon the work; the more to be lamented, as there had been a great influx of people from the Out-Harbors, which, with the raised Regiment, has added considerably to the population of St. John’s. In the course of the year he had baptized 61 children; married 21 couples; and buried 149 corpses. Which great increase in the Burials has been owing to the violence with which the Measles raged there last summer. The state of his Mission in other respects has admitted of no alteration.

By two letters received from Mr. Jenner, Missionary at Harbor Grace, &c. the Society are assured of the diligent attention of Mr. Lampen to his School. That, comfortable to the direction of the Society, he teaches the poor children to read; and to say their prayers and catechism; and has taken eight to instruct as far as is sufficient, and then he will take eight others, occasionally examining those he has instructed. He teaches 41 Day-Scholars, 8 in an evening and 8 on the Society’s Bounty. Mr. Jenner has in the last year baptized 45; married 12 couples; and buried 11 corpses. He has had serious conversations with many of his people, on the subject of coming to the Sacrament, and has the satisfaction to find, that the number of Communicants has increased six since last year. His Congregation also is increased. From a list of all the Inhabitants in the several Harbors, it appears, that there are 4284 Protestants, and 1635 Roman Catholics. In all 5883.

The Reverend M. Clinch, Missionary at Trinity, has acquainted the Society, that in the month of August last he visited Old Perlican, Greenpond, and Bonavista, agreeably to their directions, and at the last place baptized 14 children, preached to a large Congregation, and administered the Sacrament to a few Communicants. He makes mention of the particular attention of Mr. Bemister to the duties of his Office and the children under his care make an astonishing progress in reading and writing. His year’s Notitia stands thus: Baptisms, 32 infants and one adult; Marriages, 8; Burials, 13; Communicants, 28. The number of resident families nearly the same as before. That they are all very regular in their attendance on Divine Service.”

Binding: What first attracted my attention to this small volume was the binding. Initially, I thought it was an example of the practice of protecting books by covering them with local material such as brown paper (in this case I thought it might be wallpaper). It turned out to be something else. The binding is in fact contemporary. It is a decorated paper binding known as Buntpapier (made in Germany) or Dutch Gilt as it became known in England where it was imported through Dutch ports. For more information about decorated papers please see the following page  

Spivak, John L. Plotting America’s Pogroms: A Documented Exposé of Organized Anti-Semitism in the United States. [New York] New Masses, 1934.

“A web of anti-Jewish hatred has been woven around the country within the last two years and the effects upon our national life have been profound and far-reaching. In the business, professional and cultural worlds anti-Semitism has been whipped up until the Jew now feels a sense of isolation which he had thought he had lost with the ghetto days of the eighteenth century. It is no unusual thing to find handbills littering New York subway cars, preaching hatred of the Jew.”

So begins John Spivak’s Plotting America’s Pogroms: A Documented Exposé of Organized Anti-Semitism in the United States, published in 1934. This work was first published as a series of articles in the New Masses from October 2 to December 4, 1934.

John L. Spivak (1897-1981) was an American investigative reporter. He wrote about the working class and the spread of fascism and anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States from the 1920s through the 1940s. Plotting America’s Pogroms documents Spivak’s investigation of Nazi groups in the United States, and he continued his reports with Europe Under the Terror (1936).

John Spivak’s papers can be found at Syracuse University and The Harry Ransom Centre. Some of the text above and below is adapted from the finding aids.

The New Masses was launched in New York City in 1926. Initially, the magazine took a loosely leftist position: “Among the fifty-six writers and artists connected in some way with the early issues of the New Masses, [Joseph] Freeman reports, only two were members of the Communist Party, and less than a dozen were fellow travelers.” The editorial policy soon moved from “generic left” to a position of Marxist conformity. By the end of 1928, when Mike Gold and Joseph Freeman gained full editorial control, the “Stalinist/Trotskyist” division began in earnest.

David N. Bell passed away recently. It was his wish to have a number of his treasured book donated to the Special Collections of Memorial University Libraries. The books, largely French and Dutch imprints, were all published between the 17th and 19th centuries, with 25 of the 33 titles published in the 18th century. These are works by and about Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé as well as works about La Trappe Abbey. A few other volumes make up the donation, one of which is a two-volume edition of Hogarth’s prints (1833).

Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé (1626–1700, Soligny-la-Trappe) was a French abbot of La Trappe Abbey, a controversialist author, and a founding father of the Trappists.

Being of noble birth, at age ten he became commendatory abbot (an appointment granted for life) of the Cistercian abbey of La Trappe and two other abbeys, prior of two priories, and canon of Notre-Dame de Paris. At twelve he published a translation of Anacreon with Greek notes. He attended the College d ‘Harcourt in Paris where he studied theology. In 1651, he was ordained a priest. Having inherited great wealth, as a young priest, de Rancé reportedly divided his time between his religious duties, feasting, and fox hunting. He obtained his doctorate in theology in 1654. He was elected deputy of the second order to the General Assembly of the French Clergy in 1655. The death of his mistress, the Duchess of Montbazon, prompted a spiritual crisis. He disposed of all his possessions, except the Abbey of La Trappe of which he became abbot. There he initiated a series of strict monastic reforms centered on penitence. Rancé prescribed hard manual labour, silence, a meagre diet, isolation from the world, and renunciation of most studies. While his penitential mode of life made him a controversial figure, his ideas were slowly adopted by the Cistercian Order and by the 19^th Century a new order formed, the Trappists, in reference to La Trappe.

Nyrop, Kristoffer. The Kiss and its History. (Trans: William Frederick Harvey). London: Sands & Company, 1901. Format: x, 188 pages; 19 cm. Leaves edged in gold; cover and spine title embossed in gold.

The Kiss and its History is a translation of Kysset og dets History, published in Copenhagen 1897. The original work was written by Kristoffer Nyrop (1858-1931), a professor of Romance Philology at the University of Copenhagen. This scholarly work examines the history of the kiss in popular culture up to and including the 19^th Century. Nyrop draws from diverse sources in attempting to answer his many questions about the act of kissing. On the origins of the lip-lock, he argues that the practice has everything to do with smell and taste (p. 184).  His answers to the delicate question of ‘what is a kiss?’ range from the mechanical, “a pressure of the mouth against a body,” (p.4) to the poetic: “the fiery accompaniment on the keyboard of the teeth of the lovely songs which love sings in a burning heart,” (p.5) which Nyrop attributes to Paul Verlaine. Attempting to catalogue the many kinds of kisses (he credits German dictionaries with offering over thirty designations, while the French offer a mere five), Nyrop settles on five categories: passion, love, peace, respect and friendship (p.9). What does a kiss sound like? Apparently, Mark Twain said that “the kiss sounded just like when a cow drags her hind hoof out of a swamp” (pp 7-8).

Nyrop notes that the practice of kissing is not universal among cultures. He lists a number of alternatives, including this one from Charles Darwin, the Malay kiss: “the women squatted with their faces upturned; my attendants stood leaning over them, laid the bridges of their noses at right angles over theirs, and commenced rubbing. It lasted somewhat longer than a hearty handshake with us. During this process they uttered a grunt of satisfaction.” (pp. 179-80)

Testamente Nutak. Kaladin okauzeennut nuktersimarsok, nar’kiutigoaenniglo sukuiarsimarsok Kiobenhavnime, i.e. Copenhagen: C. F. Skubartimit 1827. vii, 10-1072 pages; 18 cm In the Greenland dialect (Yupik); translated by O. Fabricius and edited by N.G. Wolf. (Chosen from the General Rare Books Collection)

Otto Fabricius (1744-1822) was a Danish Missionary and scientist. In 1768, having learned the Yupik language from Paul Egede (1708-1789) at the Greenland Seminary in Copenhagen, he began missionary work in Greenland. In 1770 he left Frederikshaab and settled at Iluilarssuk where he worked until 1773, immersing himself in indigenous culture. He contributed scholarly work to the fields of Linguistics, Zoology and Ethnology. He was known to Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) who edited a Fabricius manuscript on the subject of sea ice.  Fabricius’ best-known work was Fauna Groenlandica (Copenhagen and Leipzig 1780) which offered the first scientific description of Greenland fauna. His linguistic works arose from his close association both Paul Egede and with the indigenous community in Greenland. Fabricius published a collection of hymns (1788), a translation of the New Testament (1799), as well as a grammar (1791) and a dictionary (1804). Fabricius’ retranslation of the New Testament removed and replaced numerous Danish loanwords. The 1827 edition (this copy) of the New Testament included further revisions by Niels Giessing Wolf (1779-1848).

Between 1750 and 1850, as many as 20 versions of the Greenlandic Bible were published by Danish Lutherans, German Moravians, the Danish Bible Society, and the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS)

References:

“Bible translations into Native languages”. L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia. Marianopolis College (Online) http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/bibletranslations.htm

Carey, Hilary Mary. “Blubber for Bibles: translating colonialism in Inuit missions, c. 1750-1850.” Polar Record v. 60 (online)

Dillon, Richard H. “Otto Fabricius ‘On the Floating ice in the Northern Waters.’ ” Geographical Review: V. 45 (3) 1955. Pps. 405-415.

“Otto Fabricius.” Encyclopedia Arctica: 15-volume unpublished reference work (1947-51) https://collections.dartmouth.edu/arctica-beta/html/EA15-28.html

Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier). A Plurality of Worlds. John Glanvill (translator). London: Nonesuch Press; 1929. (selected from the General Rare Books Collection)

208 x 134 mm. (8 1/8 x 5 1/4″). [4] leaves, x, 138 pp., [1] leaf (colophon), [2 leaves]. Translated by John Glanvill, with a prologue by David Garnett. No. 1229 of 1,600 copies. Publisher’s limp vellum binding: the upper cover with gilt astrological design. The page edges are untrimmed. Eight astrological decorations designed by T. L. Poulton and stenciled at the Curwen Press in blue, gray, and gold.

Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle or Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) was a French writer, playwright and scientist. Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes) was a popular science book and is considered to be one of the first major works of the Age of Enlightenment.

Published in 1686, the work was not written in Latin but in French, making it one of the first books to attempt an explanation of scientific theories in the vernacular. This translation consists of five lessons popularizing the knowledge of René Descartes and Nicolas Copernicus, taught through conversation with a Marquise, spread over six evenings. The book expresses support for cosmic pluralism and discusses the topic of astrobiology. Fontenelle speculated on the existence of Venusians as a distinct species of extraterrestrial life.

The Nonesuch Press was founded in 1923 by Francis Meynell (1891–1975), Vera Mendel (1895–1947), and David Garnett (1892–1981) with the purpose of making books “for those among collectors who also use books for reading” (Cave, The Private Press: 1983: p. 162). Meynell was a scholar with strong literary interests. Nonesuch became something of a flashpoint for those whose definition of a private press was founded on the Arts and Crafts tradition of Kelmscott or Doves, where the work was done by hand either by or under the owner’s supervision.

Meynell, who had a keen interest in design, particularly of title pages, and typography, avoided creating a house style for Nonesuch books. He relied on the best commercially available modern types, particularly those from the classic faces being issued by Monotype under the guidance of Stanley Morison. Meynell operated under the theory “that mechanical means could be made to serve fine ends” Cave 164). To that end, Nonesuch occasionally printed books, but most of their titles were printed at different commercial and university presses. The press had hoped to provide finely made books to a wider audience, and was successful in doing so. It produced more than 140 books and was active until the late 1960s.

Translation: The first English translation of Fontenelle’s Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes was published in Dublin by Sir William Donville or Domville in 1687, followed by another translation by Aphra Behn in 1688, under the title A Discovery of New Worlds. John Glaville’s (1664?–1735) version is the third English translation (1688).

Illustrator: T.L. (Thomas Leycester) Poulton (1897–1963) was a British magazine and medical illustrator. During his lifetime he produced many erotic drawings, usually on commission from various patrons

Stylistically, the Nonsuch edition was influential on the Canada’s Gauntlet Press (virtual exhibit). Peter Sanger says that “the Nonesuch edition of John Glanvill’s translation of Bernard de Fontenelle’s A Plurality of Worlds, designed by Francis Meynell in 1929, was “key to the direction they were seeking in terms of design” (Through Darkling Air: The Poetry of Richard Outram. Kentville: Gaspereau, 2010. P. 71).More information about the Gauntlet Press can be found here.

P. Warner (April 2025)

New Catalogue highlighting private press works held by Memorial University Libraries. To access the catalogue, please click on the image (above) or HERE.

1. India. Hindu Palm Leaf Manuscript, South Asia, Tamil. Each Page is 2.7″ H 20″ W. The closed manuscript is 5″ H. 250 Pages. Circa 1780

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2. Buddhist/Burmese, Prayer Book, Kammavaca. Manuscript in Burmese/Pali text on gilded palm leaves. 16 pages: 53cm L x 12cm W. (c. 1870-1930) Kammavaca is a Pali term describing an assemblage of passages from the Tipitaka –  the Theravada Buddhist canon –  that relate to ordination, the bestowing of robes, and other rituals of monastic life. A Kammavaca is a highly ornamental type of manuscript usually commissioned by lay members of society as a work of merit, to be presented to monasteries when a son enters the Buddhist Order as a novice or becomes ordained as a monk.

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3. Buddhist/Burmese palm leaf sutra prayer book. Manuscript in Burmese/Pali text. 15 double pages, the edges gilded. Engraved-23 1/2″ x 2″ painted cover.

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4. India. Sanskrit Manuscript in Devanagari Script. 154 hand-made paper leaves (308pps). Each page has six lines of fine, hand-written devanagari script in black and red ink. The Devi Mahatmya or Devi Mahatmyam (Sanskrit: देवीमाहात्म्यम्, romanized: devīmāhātmyam, lit. ’Glory of the Goddess’) is a Hindu philosophical text describing the Goddess, known as Mahadevi or Adishakti, as the supreme power and creator of the universe. It is part of the Mārkandeya Purāna, a collection of the eighteen major Purānas in Hinduism. This is No.3.

1. Chinese Bamboo Slips with Calligraphy Jiandu. (C. 19th Century). Bamboo slips vary: 10 inches long and .75 inches wide to 12 inches long. 68 pieces from an old Chengdu collection assembled in the 1970s.

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2. Gunpai Hika. Edo Period (date unknown) Military Waka Manuscript – Secret Song. 19 cm x 13 cm. 17 pages. Japanese manuscript.

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3.“孟子正文” Woodblock Print Book Chinese Confucianism. (C. 19th or early 20th century). Formal Name: 孟子正文  (It means “Meng Zi’s correct text.”  This book presents the correct writings of Chinese Confucian Philosopher Mencius (c. 371 – c. 289 BC). The text, which is written in Chinese, is marked here and there with Korean symbols. These are a kind of translation symbols that make it easier for Koreans to read Chinese into Korean. They function to clarify the meaning of individual words and phrases, and to convert Chinese syntax into Korean syntax.

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4. “Fengshen Yanyi.” Set of 8 Chinese Woodblock Print Books.(C. 1920s) Size: 8” L, 5.25” W, 1” H

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Chinese Dictionary. Qing Dynasty woodblock printed books, complete set. (c. Pre-1800)

Prayerbook in Middle Dutch dated 1556 in its Original Sixteenth-Century Binding. 222 fols. On paper, wanting only the first folio. The Netherlands, dated 1556 in red ink on the last folio:148mm x 95mm (justification, 108mm x 55 mm with an additional ruling to accommodate marginal annotations). Written in black and red ink in a very elegant littera hybrida cursiva. Single column, 17 lines. Foliated 1-222 in modern pencil in the upper right-hand corner of each recto.

Contents: meditations on sin and forgiveness, prayers for specific circumstances accompanied by scriptural readings, as well as numerous reflections upon the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed. Doubtless written for (or by) a friar, since fol.22r mentions a “lieve broder” (dear brother).

Binding: contemporary blind-stamped calf on four raised bands with floral borders featuring curling tendrils with birds, as well as a central blind-stamped bird on the upper and lower covers; two brass clasps and catches. The binding, clasps, and catches are all in excellent condition.

Provenance: from the collection of noted Dutch bibliophile Gerard Jaspers.

Condition: lacking first leaf, water stain on first folio and final blank, extending from inner margin, slight thumbing and damp-stains, a few pencil annotations in the margins, minor professional repairs; otherwise immaculate. (Description by Dr. S. Gwara).

Dr. Scott Gwara is Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of South Carolina, and Owner/Operator of King Alfred’s Notebook.

Dr. Scott Gwara (image from USC website)