Home » 2011 » April

A Different Royal Wedding: Queen Victoria

I purchased “The Life of Queen Victoria” at an auction last weekend for a pittance. Although the book is in pretty bad shape, royal weddings are a hot topic this week. Since I don’t have any books about Kate Middleton, this will have to do.

This book was written by Charles Morris, LL.D and was published in 1901, the year of the Queen’s death.

Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901. This photograph is glued to the cover of the book.

There are no photographs of the wedding in the book, but the title below this drawing reads “The Marriage of Queen Victoria Celebrated in St. James Palace, February, 1840″.

An entire chapter is devoted to the wedding day. The wreath on her head was made of orange blossoms. How sumptuous.

Here is a picture eight years later in 1848 of the happy family with five of their children. By 1857 they had nine children.

The book’s pretty endpapers.

Although it’s a shame that the book needs so much repair, it makes a lovely picture. For some reason, I’m drawn to the stitching on the signatures.

Enjoy a very different royal wedding,

Posted on April 30, 2011 by aprettybook, Reply

Friday Collection of Pretty Books 4.29.11

Perhaps these will inspire you.

New Higher Arithmetic in the Frisco Heritage Center. Image: photographicleigh

Beautiful wall of books in Stockholm Apartment. Image: Freshome

Maria Brothers Antiquarian Booksellers in Simla, India. Image: bookchen

Pretty book spines from a book fair. Image: Gordon McLean

Girl and her book. Official title “Pictorial Review” by Nickolas Muray. Image: George Eastman House Photography Collection

Have a great weekend,

Posted on April 29, 2011 by aprettybook, Reply

Handmade Leather Journal or Sketchbook and Key

Writing in a leather journal or drawing in a leather sketchbook makes the act itself special. Something about the smell and feel of leather is just so intoxicating.

These leather journals from Etsy sellers are especially pretty because they include a key. The luxurious paper, the hand stitching, and the one of a kind design combine to make them treasures.

Seller: Teo Studio, Portugal

Seller: boundbyhand, USA

Seller: Megan Winn at Binding Bee, USA

Seller: Artreasury, Romania

Seller: Here Lions Abound, USA

If you can’t make it to the leather market in Florence to buy a leather journal or sketchbook, try the original art of these Etsy sellers.

Enjoy the pretty books,

Posted on April 28, 2011 by aprettybook, 6 comments

Bank Books

I recently visited the Cattle Barn Flea Market in Ft. Worth, Texas and spotted this small savings passbook from the First National Bank of Ft. Worth. I love the tinges of blue still showing on it and the wear around the edges. Makes me wonder if the owner kept it nearby in a pocket or a purse because it was so valuable.

Before the advent of computers, your savings passbook was your proof of how much money you had in your savings account. The teller recorded your deposits and withdrawals in the little book and wrote in your quarterly interest. If you lost your book, you might or might not be able to get access to your account.

This savings account owner opened their account with $50 in 1944 during World War II and saved $330 by 1949, or the equivalent of about $3,000 today. If you look closely you can see the first interest payment of $.44 in 1945. The little holes in the paper were effectively a punched card that a machine could read to identify the account on the bank’s records.

Another banking convenience used less and less today is the check, or cheque as it’s spelled in some parts of the world. This book, A Cheque for Three Thousand, published in 1897 has a miniature check glued to the front of the book.

While this little diary isn’t a bank book, I was intrigued by Athen Zachary’s great grandmother’s recounting of a trip to the beach, with a final notation “bank book balanced”. Her diaries are now in the care of her 92 year old son.

Have you ever seen a savings passbook or did you have one?

Posted on April 27, 2011 by aprettybook, Reply

Independent Bookshops in India

Oh the books you could find in these bookshops in India.

I’d go in this shop just because of the pretty yellow doors. Image: Guillermo Ruiz

Photographer Geoff Peace found this shop in Old Delhi. The boy’s job is to find your book request.

Paperback heaven at Blossom Book House in Bangalore. Image: Anne Roberts

Cramped bookshop in Calcutta. Image: Carl Parkes

Cellar of Select Bookshop in Bangalore. Sometimes the best treasures are in the basements. Image: Rahul Ganguly

Enjoy browsing the books,

Posted on April 26, 2011 by aprettybook, Reply

A Few More Book Barn Finds

So many books in the barn, it would take years to photograph them all. But here are a few to start the journey.

Old Tom Swift and other books

I use anything I can find for bookends. This is a decorative shelf bracket.

Poems and such.

Wish I cooked more, some of these make you hungry just looking at them.

I should have read this before going to Italy in order to more fully appreciate the wonders that I saw.

Enjoy the pretty books,

Posted on April 25, 2011 by aprettybook, Reply

LetterMpress, an iPad Letterpress app

I’m so excited that LetterMpress wildly exceeded it’s fundraising goal and can now deliver a letterpress iPad app. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do with it, but I know I want it.

If you can’t view the video, click here for a direct link.

Enjoy the weekend,

Posted on April 23, 2011 by aprettybook, 4 comments

Friday Collection of Pretty Books 4.22.11

I found some amazing pictures this week. I hope you enjoy them.

Beautiful old books. Image: Jelen

I love the way the light plays on this bookshelf picture by Brent Betz

I really like the title fading out in this shot. Image: ganobristol

Nicholas Hoare Books in Montreal, Canada. Image: Bookchen

Bookmark and pretty book “The Pioneer Woman, Black Heels to Tractor Wheels“”. Image: Lisa of yarnattacks

Have a Good Friday,

Posted on April 22, 2011 by aprettybook, 2 comments

Penguin by Design, Phil Baines

Penguin by Design, written by Phil Baines, is “part history, definitely part celebration, and by design part critique” of Penguin covers. It contains over 500 illustrations, many of them full size, and highlights the intentional thematic design that varied by series.

Penguin’s first foray into full color covers in 1957 and 1958.

As the first mass-market paperback publisher in Britain, Penguin sought just the right balance of price, cover design, and good writing. Penguin by Design provides background information about the designers and their process, typography, and illustration.

Romek Marber’s grid used for cover layout in the early 1960′s.

Penguin green Crime Series using the Marber grid.

Other Marber grid covers.

A few of the illustrations in Penguin by Design can also be found in Postcards from Penguin, but what the book offers that the postcards don’t, is the context of the cover within a series. For example, this striking postcard has the same look and feel as others in the Modern Poets series.

If you’re not a collector of Penguin books, browsing the pages of Penguin by Design will convince you to become one.

Enjoy the pretty book,

Posted on April 21, 2011 by aprettybook, Reply

The Infamous Book Barn

Get ready, this isn’t a quaint, weathered New England barn. It’s a newer metal structure that some might call an outbuilding, but in our part of Texas we call it a barn. Barns in this area traditionally house horses, but we abandoned the idea of owning horses once we figured out how much work they were.

My book collection grew significantly when I started buying books at estate sales to sell online. I quickly ended up with more books than would fit in the house and more than I could sell. When we built the barn we envisioned the tractor, the tools, and my hubby’s bass boat living amicably among the books in the barn. But thousands of books quickly overtook all of the available space plus more.

One of our three cows in the pasture behind the barn.

This is the West wall of the barn, the East wall looks the same only much longer.

These bookcases line the middle of the barn and contain cookbooks purchased from an estate last fall. Remind me sometime to tell you about the card catalog I bought at that same sale.

While the livestock books are fascinating (just kidding), I actually took the picture for the rug. It’s huge, like 20′ x 15′. I pulled it out of an old clapboard house that was being demolished and it had been hidden under modern carpet for decades. It looks like something from the 30′s.

The barn is also where I store my flea market finds. I love old yardsticks and keep them in this little corner.

The type cabinet is from a printing museum that closed in downtown Dallas.

If I had the funds, I’d double the size of the barn so that I could get all of my books on shelves and add a sitting area. Sort of like my own private bookstore but then my family really would call for a book intervention.

Enjoy the barn,