It's been almost a year for many of us since we first experienced 'Lockdown'. It has changed our lives in so many ways and now we can add a Valentine's Day without overpriced dinners and being drowned in red hearts and marketing spiel. About time we returned to love poems, hand-made cards and reading a good novel instead of watching a cheesy Netflix film.
Sammy Jay at Peter Harrington has worked on a specially themed catalogue this year - Literature in Love. It seeks to present the universal experience of romantic love, in its ecstasy and anguish, as expressed in great stories and poetry throughout the ages. A selection of 181 items covers everything from passionate and unrequited love to religious devotion, early erotica, prose pornography and descriptions of LGBT+ relationships; representing the universal themes of love as captured in novels, artworks, lyrics, poetry and prose.
Among the highlights are rare and special editions of works by Sappho, Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, as well as a rare presentation copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, a 1923 collection of inspirational essays which remain eternally popular as a source for wedding readings. Collectors will find plenty of dedications and love letters, charting the role of literature in courtship, with inscribed copies from F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jorge Luis Borges honouring their respective lovers and muses. In good time for Valentine’s Day, there are also several items related to the history of the day of love: a unique ‘True Love Knot’ manuscript from the 19th century, a guide to kissing and a colourful collection of early poetic Valentine’s cards.
We asked Sammy Jay a few questions about his latest catalogue:
With Valentine's Day fast approaching...what makes the best gift in the catalogue...in your opinion?
Love has ever been of infinite variety, so I would hesitate to pick what would work as a Valentine for anybody else – if however anyone is thinking of getting me a Valentine, I’d like the Aubrey Beardsley illustrated King Arthur in the hand-painted Chivers binding, please. Of course the catalogue has its chocolate-box poetry favourites, first appearances of things like Byron’s “She walks in beauty, like the night…” or Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”, and a lovely little hand-embroidered volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but for me the fun of curating this selection was trying to make it as representative as I could of the many different experiences of love as expressed in literature.
We love Presentation Copies and you have managed to add some particularly beautiful and insightful ones to the catalogue, which ones are your favourites? Any surprises?
I adore the book by Natalie Barney, the “imperturbable” lesbian salonniere known as the “Amazon” of Paris, inscribed to one of her lady lovers, but probably my favourite is the Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald’s novel about the breakup of his marriage to Zelda, inscribed by him to his lover at the time, with one of his wonderfully facetious inscriptions “For Margaret, who has inspired all my books, this tale of our life together in Switzerland, France -+ the U.S.S.R., from her chattel”. She even clipped from one of his letters to her the words “you are very lovely” and stuck them in. That or the first book of poems that Thomas Hardy ever inscribed to Florence Dugdale, who would seven years later become Florence Hardy.
Letters and diaries are certainly one way to get closer to understanding a love story, which ones did you find particularly fascinating?
The saucy cache of letters written in the 1930s from a young Ian Fleming to his Austrian girlfriend are full of passionate intensity – some so brief they’re more like sexting, just “ich küsse dich” written on St James Club stationery, or even a sketched diagram of her body showing the intended targets of said kisses. One of the letters she has even torn up in a fury, and later taped back together.
When you started looking for books for the catalogue, some bindings and covers must have been your first 'impressions' - which ones stand out for you?
One of my favourite books in the catalogue is the translation of Sappho by Renee Vivien (one of the lovers of aforementioned Natalie Barney) – from 1903 it is in fact the first published translation of Sappho by a lesbian. I found a copy in the original wrappers which has the most haunting illustration by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer on the front. I also love the rare thermofaxed cover of the 60s counterculture magazine charmingly titled FUCK YOU, which shows a still from Andy Warhol’s art-porno “Couch”, on which the entwined limbs of three figures can be dimly made out sprawled over the tired red couch at The Factory.
After you finished the catalogue, which love story is the one that stayed in your mind?
I know when people think of love stories they tend to want fireworks: brief, intense, ending with a bang – Romeo & Juliet or Anna Karenina. But I find myself more moved these days by real loves that last. One of my favourite items is a Valentine Allen Ginsberg drew for his lifelong lover Peter Orlovsky: a heart with an arrow through it, an eye in the centre, and the words “Take care of your tender sad heart for others’ sake” written within. This was in 1994 when they’d been together 40 years – it really moved me, that, both the sentiment and their long and loving relationship.
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We had a good read of the catalogue and searched online for some potentially Valentine's gifts and spotted these:
A superb “pearl bible”, a love token to an aristocratic spouse or paramour, the clasp engraved with the presentation monogram “AM” with a crowned love heart from 1658 is included in the catalogue as well as a beautifully bound The Faerie Queen, Spenser’s great romance, originally published in 1590-96 and available here as the first edition illustrated by Louis Fairfax-Muckley from 1897, bound as a wedding gift. Jonkers Rare Books have a copy of Spenser's Poems in their Valentine's offering - a special publisher's binding from 1907 with an introduction written by W.B. Yeats and illustrations by Glasgow artists Jessie M King.
Among the dedication copies in the catalogue is also a copy of Jean Racine's works (1836), interestingly inscribed and presented by Lytton Strachey to David 'Bunny' Garnett in 1915 but with a pencil note 'lent to Miss Bell', his lover's daughter. He famously declared at Angelica's birth that he would marry her and did indeed do so in 1942.
An autographed letter by Mary Shelley to her half sister Claire Clairmont with a clipped signature of her late husband makes for a rather interesting choice as they had been rumoured to have had an affair: “Yours ever faithfully – Percy B. Shelley”.
Also included in the catalogue is the short story “A High Wind-less Night in Jamaica” by Ernest Hemingway's lover Jane Mason (believed to be unpublished) and sold with his revisions to the typescript.
Among the more quirky objects are Pablo Neruda's vinyl LP of him reciting his first and most popular collection of love poems, and Leonard Cohen's amorous poem 'Dance Me to the End of Love' illustrated in colour throughout with Henri Matisse's paintings.
When it comes to famous lovers, Tristan & Iseult are included twice in the catalogue - Salvador Dalí's 1970 Folio (at the higher end at £45,000) and the 1903 Joseph Bédier’s retelling of the chivalric romance illustrated by Robert Engels (£900).
Let's not forget Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Lacos, which is included in the catalogue as the rare first printing from 1782, but also features in Shapero Rare Books' latest catalogue on the French illustrator George Barbier. Les Liaisons Dangereuses was his last major work in 1934. The Shapero's catalogue also includes the uncommon French edition of the 'Dessins sur les danses de Vaslav Nijinsky' from 1913 celebrating the Ballet Russes.
Happy Valentine's Day to all Bibliophiles!