Susanne Schulz-Falster Rare Books has issued their Summer 2023 catalogue. It contains primarily antiquarian European and English books. However, subjects vary widely so it is hard to pinpoint them. Here are few examples from this varied collection of very old works.

 

Before Samuel Morse and his electronic telegraph there was a primitive system of telegraphy in place in some countries known as an optical telegraph. Though we may think of telegraphy as being an electronic means of communication, it simply means the transmission of messages over long distances. The optical telegraph was never used much in America but we are familiar with the concept through the Indians' use of smoke signals. Optical systems in practice in some European nations covered long distances by sending optical signals from one location to another, and so on to the next until long distances were reached. It was too cumbersome for personal messages but was used in particular by the military during wartime. Johann Bergstraesser presented one of the earlier plans for such a system in his book Signal - Order-und Zielschreiberei in die Ferne oder über Synthematographe und Telegraphe in der Vergleichung (orders and destinations at a distance or comparing them via synthematographs and telegraphs), published in 1795. He proposed using flares and other means of relaying the messages from one site to the next. He also criticized the better-known system of French inventor Claude Chappe. This copy comes with one of another 1795 book, Die Telegraphie von ihrem by Adolph Poppe, which discusses the history of telegraphy as of that date. Priced at £1,500 (British pounds or approximately $1,906 in U.S. dollars).

 

Here is another primitive device that would soon be replaced by a far more advanced technology. It too is from around 1795, and as optical telegraphy would be replaced by the electronic telegraph around 1840, physionotrace would be replaced by photography around the same time. Physionotrace was a process whereby an “artist” would trace a person's image, likely a profile, from a shadow cast on a translucent screen. The pen they used employed a system of arms to copy that image to a printing plate. Features such as the eyes and mouth could be added later. One of the major benefits of this as opposed to painting portraits, other than ease, was that the etching it produced on a copper plate could be used to make multiple copies, as photographic negatives would allow a few decades later. Schulz-Falser notes that a contemporary account said a subject would only have to sit for six minutes and a dozen copies, hand-colored if desired, could be delivered in four days. Offered is a circular physionotrace portrait of an unnamed young lady. £2000 (US $2,544).

 

Dorothy Kilner is not well-remembered today, but she was a prolific English writer of children's books in the late 18^th and early 19^th century. Both she and her sister-in-law wrote children's books, each publishing them under pseudonyms as was common for women writers in the day. Kilner's best known and likely best work is this one, The Life and Preambulations of a Mouse. First published in 1783, this is an edition from John Marshall published circa 1790. It follows the adventures of Nimble the Mouse as he travels from house to house interacting with their people. It is designed to be entertaining for children while at the same time, as was the norm for such books at the time, teaching them lessons in good behavior. Good things happened to those who behave well, while others suffer the consequences. £3,600 (US $4,578).

 

Next is The Holy Bible containing the Old Testament and The New. This is not a first edition of the Bible, of course, but still an old edition from London, published in 1674. It contains a long inscription of provenance by its then owner, George Leigh Cooke. Cooke was a favorite cousin of Jane Austen, technically a second cousin. She wrote fondly of him in her letters to her sister, Cassandra. Austen described him as witty. In one she says at one of her visits to the Cookes, he “was very kind and talked sense to me every now & then in the intervals of his more animated fooleries with Miss Bendish...” Austen continued, “...There was a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any Wit; - all that border'd on it or on Sense came from my cousin George, whom altogether I like very well.” Cooke went on to become an Anglican priest as well as a professor at Oxford. In this Bible, Cooke has written that it “must have belonged to my Aunt Mary Leigh” and later added, “Inherited from my dear Sister Mary Cooke.” Mary Cooke, naturally another cousin of Jane Austen, was another of her favorites. These Cookes were apparently not that well-liked by Austen with these two exceptions from the younger generation. £3,500 (US $4,448).

 

This item is a book of illustrations based on a very popular book at the time - 1807. Its title is Sixteen Scenes taken from the Miseries of Human Life. By One of the Wretched. The wretched one was John Augustus Atkinson, a British artist, illustrator and engraver. The book on which the illustrations are based was The Miseries of Human Life; or the Groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive, with a Few Supplementary Sighs from Mrs Testy, published in 1806. Written by James Beresford, it recounts various ordinary but unpleasant mishappenings of every day life. Examples include washing your hands in cold water and then being unable to find a towel, dropping a piece of bread or muffin to the ground, which falls buttered side down, finding shelter from a storm to discover someone you have been avoiding doing the same, and using scissors that pinch instead of cut. These are not major tragedies, simply little things that make your day miserable. The book was originally illustrated by George Cruikshank, but Atkinson has provided a separate collection of sixteen larger illustrations suitable as a supplement. It worked because of the great popularity of Beresford's original. £1,200 (US $1,525).

 

Susanne Schulz-Falster Rare Books may be reached at +44 (0) 1993 811 100 or susanne@schulz-falster.com. Their website is www.schulz-falster.com.