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)

Lissitsky, El. About 2 [squares]. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1991. Contents: [1]. About [two squares]: a Suprematist tale in 6 constructions / El Lissitzky (1 v. , unpaged). Text in English and Russian. [2]. More about 2 squares / Patricia Railing (52 p.). Facsimile reprint of the Russian text, printed in black and red; transparent overlays carry the English translation, which attempts to replicate the typographic and design elements of the original. A separate commentary by Patricia Railing accompanies the facsimile.

About 2 [squares] is an facimile reproduction of an experimental book titled Pro 2 ■ (Pro 2 kvadrata: (Of Two Squares: A Suprematist Tale in Six Constructions)) was created in 1920 in Vitebsk and published in 1922 in Berlin and then in De Stijl. It consists of 6 plates, and tells a story about two squares, red and black, travelling through space to Earth. El Lissitzky (1890 –1941), was a Soviet Jewish artist, active as a painter, illustrator, designer, printmaker, photographer, and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union.

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Malevich, Kazimir. On suprematism, 34 drawings: a little handbook of suprematism. With an essay by Patricia Railing. Artists Bookworks; Forest Row, East Sussex, England, 1990. A facsimile edition ofMalevich’s 34 Drawings(1919).

Suprematism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) in 1913. Supremus (Russian: Супремус) conceived of the artist as liberated from everything that predetermined the ideal structure of life and art. The school focused on the fundamentals of geometry (circles, squares, rectangles) and painted in a limited range of colors. The term suprematism refers to an abstract art based upon “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling” rather than on visual depiction of objects.

“Suprematists were fascinated by a new apprehension of reality discovered by science. Newtonian physics had been challenged by what was becoming nuclear physics, the principles of the stability and permance of matter replaced by that of relativity and energy.” P. Railing.

Real Art No. 8, 1980 and Real Art Vol 2. No. 5, 1994.  

A visual art anthology journal issued irregularly; content was by members of publishing collective and wider community of contributors, including Malcolm Gibson, Rachel Gibson, Andrew Law, Elsbeth Law, James Hall.

The journal, based in Carlisle, England and beginning in 1987, was devoted entirely to visuals. Some of the work is editioned and signed.

Marinetti, F. T. and Fillia. La Cucina Futurista (The Futurist Cookbook). Milano. Casa Editrice Sonzogno, 2024. Facsimile. Text in Italian. Commentary in Italian by Andrea Pautasso.

In 1932, Marinetti published La cucina futurista (The Futurist Cookbook), a Futurist recipe book accompanied by a metanarrative account of famous Futurist dinners across Italy and the political and culinary controversies surrounding the Futurist food revolution. This volume gathers the essential principles of the renewal of Italian gastronomy, introduced by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in the 1930s in the name of Futurism and Avant-Garde art in the kitchen.

“La cucina futurista (The Futurist Cookbook) was written by Marinetti in collaboration with the second-in-command of the Futurist movement, Fillìa (nom de plume of Luigi Onorato Ermanno Colombo), and although more than ninety years have passed since its publication, it remains unclear which of the two Futurists first came up with the idea to publish it in order to spread the guiding principles of “gastrosophy” and Futurist cuisine. The charm of The Futurist Cookbook lies in its total and absolute originality: it cannot simply be categorized as a cookbook; it not only contains recipes but also fundamental theoretical elements necessary to understand this unique gastronomic experience. The volume collects Marinetti’s latest version of the Manifesto della cucina futurista (Manifesto of Futurist Cuisine) (not the one written in 1913 by the French chef Jules Maincave, which Marinetti later reworked and presented in 1927 in the pages of “La Fiera Letteraria”). As an introduction, it features an intriguing mystery tale titled ‘Un pranzo che evitò un suicidio’ (A Lunch That Avoided a Suicide), starring Marinetti and Enrico Prampolini. The volume also includes the controversies that arose after the declaration of war on pasta and a systematization of the Futurist gastronomic dogmas organized by chapters.” from the commentary by Guido Andrea Pautasso.

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Marchionni, Valentina, Simone Pasquali and Guido Andrea Pautasso. NELLA TAVERNA DI ALLVMINIO (IN THE ALUMINUM TAVERN). Macerata; Biblohaus, 2022. Facsimile in Italian.

This volume includes a facsimile reprint of the Santopalato Tavern’s menu, the article ‘Dal Brodo solare al Pollo d’acciaio nella taverna futurista’ (From Solar Broth to Steel Chicken at the Futurist Tavern) printed on aluminum foil, first published for the inauguration of the Futurist restaurant, as well as a pamphlet containing some of Guido Andrea’s writings.

“On March 8, 1931, the first Futurist restaurant, the Santopalato Tavern, was inaugurated in Turin. Described by Fillìa and Marinetti in La cucina futurista (The Futurist Cookbook) as a large cubic box embedded, on one side, in a smaller one. Adorned with semicircular columns, internally lit, and large metallic eyes, also luminous, set halfway up the wall.

The Turinese restaurant was redesigned in a Futurist style by Fillìa and Nicolay Diulgheroff, who clad the walls with aluminum (an idea later adopted in the 1960s by Andy Warhol to decorate his New York Factory), and furnished the space with an anti-aesthetic minimalist décor that transformed it into a sort of submarine emerged from the waters or – more fancifully – into a spaceship landed on Earth. On the night of the inauguration, Marinetti ambitiously declared: In the realm of culinary art, we are still behind: I invite you to the most revolutionary anarchy. This is nothing. Beyond, even further, oh gentlemen. After this speech came the original banquet and we can still view its inaugural menu. It included two different covers, one made of aluminum like the restaurant’s walls, the other printed on cardboard with the inscription “Santopalato”. The illustrations on the plaquette comprised a photomontage by Diulgheroff and a series of advertising plates made for Amaro Cora, for Metzger Beer, and for Guinzio and Rossi Aluminum.” from Guido Andrea Pautasso’s text.

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Marinetti, F. T. Un Poeta Sansepolcrista with illustrations by Thayaht and Enrico Prampolini. Macerata; Biblohaus, 2020. Facsimile in Italian.

“All collectors of rare bibliographic finds from the 1900s know – at least by reputation – the two famous Futurist litolatte: the Words in Freedom Olfactory Tactile-Thermal by FT Marinetti (November 4, 1932), illustrated by Tullio D’Albisola, and L’Anguria lirica (long passionate poem) by Tullio D’Albisola himself (August 1934), illustrated by Bruno Munari. Only a few specialists on the subject, however, remember that at the time a third work was also planned and put in place poetics in litholact, destined to be printed again by the tinsmith industry of Vincenzo Nosenzo in Zinola; the title of this work in progress was I Sansepolcristi, a synthetic and free word aeropoem by Marinetti, dedicated to the lyrical exaltation of the sadly famous Gathering of Piazza San Sepolcro (1919), founding of the origins of fascism, in which numerous daring and futurists from all regions of Italy participated…” from Domenico Cammarota’s (editor) text.

Sansepolcrismo is a term used to refer to the movement led by Benito Mussolini that preceded Fascism. The Sansepolcrismo takes its name from the rally organized by Mussolini at Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan on March 23, 1919, attended by Marinetti and other Futurists.

Casanatense Theatrum Sanitatis, Rome, Italy, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 4182

The Casanatense Theatrum Sanitatis is a richly illuminated summary translation into Latin of Taqwīm aṣ‑Ṣiḥḥa by ibn Buṭlān of Baghdad, a medical treatise on the maintenance of good health based on six principles. Made in the late fourteenth-century manuscript in northern Italy, it contains 208 large-scale, vivid, and lively miniatures depicting medicinal plants, the preparation of medicine, and scenes from daily life. One of the earliest illustrated copies of the Theatrum Sanitatis, it is thought to have been commissioned by Giangaleazzo Visconti, Count of Milan, from the workshop of Giovannino de’ Grassi.

_{RICOTTA. Nature: cold and humid. Best freshly made from pure milk. Beneficial: it nourishes and fattens the body. Detrimental: it oppilates (blocks up), makes the stomach heavy, is difficult to digest and causes colic. Remedy the Detriment: with butter and honey.}

In the 14th and 15th centuries, works that we might define today as “illustrated medical encyclopaedias” were called “Tracuini” or “Theatra Sanitatis”. The European aristocracy, which until shortly before then had left the monopoly of literature to the clergy, now discovered its pleasures and commissioned sumptuous codices which summarised the culture of the era. The Theatrum Sanitatis of the Casanatense Library in Rome is a cross between art and history of medicine, facilitating an understanding of the system of knowledge of ancient medicine. Commentary in Spanish and English

Saint Petersburg Bestiary: St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS Lat. Q.v.V. 1
The Saint Petersburg Bestiary, also known as the Saltykov-Shchedrin Bestiary, is a lavishly illuminated manuscript describing the physical characteristics and Christian moralizations of animals, both real and mythical. It was made in eastern England and is closely related to the Worksop Bestiary (New York, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.81) in both textual content and the composition of its images. Dating from the 1170s or 1180s, it is an early example of a type of book that became extremely popular in thirteenth-century England. Its ninety-one folios feature 114 miniatures, four of them full-page, illustrating a Creation cycle and 108 animals. The bestiary’s text is a Latin version of the Physiologus (The Naturalist), a Greek text of the second century CE. This core text is preceded by an account of Creation based on Genesis and Adam’s naming of the animals. The text also includes many animal descriptions derived from the Etymologiae of the Spanish bishop, Isidore of Seville (d. 636).

The bestiary proper is comprised of short chapters, each devoted to a particular species, introduced by a miniature and by a pen-flourished initial. The animals described and depicted vary from large farm animals to worms and include a variety of exotic, fantastic, and hybrid beasts. The text is written in the Transitional Script of the long twelfth century. Although made in England, the manuscript reached France by the sixteenth century, when annotations, most labeling the depicted animals, were added in French. One annotation is in Greek. Commentary in Spanish

A bestiary (Latin: bestiarium vocabulum) is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson.

Hortus Amoenissimus by Franciscus de Geest. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Varia 291

Franciscus De Geest, Baroque painter from Holland (1638-1699), who had become famous for painting portraits and still-lifes, also enthusiastically devoted himself to the illustration of flowers, which resulted in this anthology of plants, Hortus Amoenissimus, dated “Leeuwarden 1668” and currently held in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Rome. It is a collection of 201 original drawings made directly from the plants and splendidly coloured using a combination of techniques. It provides evidence of the variety of flowered plants cultivated in botanical gardens at that time and of the extensive collections of the highly sought-after tulips originating in the Orient. A testimony to the immense variety of species that were cultivated in Europe.

Duilio Contin (commentary author) wrote: “The Hortus Amoenissimus by Franciscus de Geest is an extraordinary collection of 198 works of art, so many plates, drawn with a precise phytographic and watercolour technique with an elegant taste for a mise en page of 17th century art. A jubilant celebration of colour and mild accompanying flavours such as rose, hemerocallis, lilium, mallow and especially a multitude of tulips so alive that they seem to be just cut, in a grand, multi-coloured and joyful baroque garden. Franciscus de Geest fully seizes the botanic spirit and interest of his time and his works are worthy of a place among the best floral painters of that time”.  Commentary in Italian.

Latin Dioscorides. Vatican City, Vatican City State, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Chig. F.VII.158

The Latin Dioscorides is a fifteenth-century Italian picture book of plants understood in Greco-Roman antiquity to have medicinal properties. It is based on the text known as De materia medica by the Greek physician Dioscorides Pedanius, and the paintings may have been copied from a late antique manuscript of the text. It boasts more than 200 pages of illustrations, mostly sensitive naturalistic renderings of medicinal plants on bare parchment, but also some human and animal figures. Portraits of Dioscorides and other ancient Greek authorities on medicine are included.

Pedanius Dioscorides (40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of De materia medica (in the original Ancient Greek: Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς, Peri hulēs iatrikēs, both meaning “On Medical Material”) , a 5-volume Greek encyclopedic pharmacopeia on herbal medicine and related medicinal substances, that was widely read for more than 1,500 years. For almost two millennia Dioscorides was regarded as the most prominent writer on plants and plant drugs.

June 6, 2023

The International Labour and Radical History Pamphlet Collection is now digitized, marking a milestone for both the Digital Archives Initiative (DAI) and the Archives and Special Collections Division. The scale of the task was enormous: 2,176 pamphlets or 110,400 pages. Completion of this project (begun in 2011) is all the more remarkable because scanning was done wholly by students. Enormous thanks is due to the DAI team – Don Walsh, Heather Kinsella, and all the DAI students over the last decade (too many to name individually). The Collection is an invaluable resource for anyone studying the international history of socialism.

The pamphlet collection initially came from a bookdealer. Retired Collections Librarian Michael Lonardo was instrumental in organizing and providing initial access through a searchable standalone database. The collection was subsequently catalogued by staff of the QEII Library’s Cataloguing & Metadata division. Now fully digitized, it is available to anyone with computer access.

 -Patrick Warner, Special Collections Librarian

Web: https://www.library.mun.ca/asc/specialcollections/