Whitney Darrow, Jr.: Farewell to Helen & George

In the spring of 1955, a couple, Helen and George, relocated from Connecticut to Vermont. Their friends, Middy and Whitney Darrow, Jr., sent them off with a personalized farewell card. Whitney Darrow, of course, was a celebrated New Yorker cartoonist; if you don't know, someone has helpfully written it on the back. Darrow's pencil drawing depicts a circus act in which a young girl is lighting the fuse to launch a human cannonball (George?) while a woman (Helen?) in a two-piece costume anticipates the blast and holds her ears.

The artwork is available from Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc.:

Whitney Darrow, Jr.
AbeBooks listing accessed June14, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Going-Away-Card-Original-Drawing-Whitney/32224287366/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook_high

04972

Howard Moss's Copy of Snow Lessons by Ivar Ivask

Poet, playwright, and critic Howard Moss was The New Yorker's poetry editor from 1948 until his death in 1987, an impressive run. Very likely he accumulated a fine library. To wit, a copy of Snow Lessons (1986) by the Latvian-born poet and critic Ivar Ivask is signed and inscribed to Moss by the author. The volume is currently available on AbeBooks from Between the Covers Rare Books for $45 plus shipping. Ivask himself was the editor of the prestigious quarterly World Literature Today, formerly Books Abroad.

Ivar Ivask
AbeBooks listing accessed February 15, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Snow-Lessons-IVASK-Ivar-Poetry-Around/32131938102/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=readmore_low

Ivar Ivask
AbeBooks item description

04889

Mrs. Kennedy's Copy of The Penguin Ronald Searle

Oh, that Mrs. Kennedy. Between the Covers Rare Books is understandably circumspect about asserting that this copy of The Penguin Ronald Searle belonged to the First Lady of the United States. I've decided to go out on the limb that the bookseller won't. The date of the inscription is fewer than four months into John F. Kennedy's presidency. Much of the country, and indeed the world, was enchanted with Jackie Kennedy. Was Ronald Searle under her spell as well?

The book's inscription is an unusual one for him. The story behind how it was obtained is lost, apparently. The cartoon collection seems to have been signed without a face-to-face meeting. The British edition of the paperback was sent; there was no hardback edition. Searle adds a bit of pomp with "Signed specially For Mrs. Kennedy." He is giving her his best handwriting here, with For atypically capitalized and an extra bit of flourish on the word from. Searle's American agent, John Locke, might well have been an intermediary, but who requested the book in the first place? Was it requested?

Ronald Searle
AbeBooks listing accessed April 21, 2023

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Penguin-SEARLE-Ronald-Books/31479438567/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&cm_ite=readmore

Ronald Searle
AbeBooks item description

Note:  Of course, there are many other Mrs. Kennedys but, in May of 1961, not really. There might be some clues in John Locke's papers or in the Kennedy Library, but it's unlikely that many historians would be interested. Still, I would ask that if anyone does know something more about the history of this particular copy of The Penguin Ronald Searle, please leave a comment or send an email. Was it, for example, part of a much larger lot in the 1996 Sotheby's sale of the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis?

Cartoon books found in the libraries of luminaries is of interest to this blogger. Tell me what you know. Name names.

 

 

04298

Edward Gorey: In Stubville, Nebraska

There is, alas, no such place as Stubville, Nebraska, but that in no way diminishes the plausibility of Edward Gorey's 1987 Christmas card. It was published in an edition of 400.

In Stubville, Nebraska on December 23, 1911 Christmas tree ornaments fell from a cloudless sky.
Edward Gorey
Christmas card, 1987

Edward Gorey
AbeBooks listing accessed December 15, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=11841986419&searchurl=kn%3DEdward%2BGorey%2BChristmas%2Bcard%26sortby%3D1&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image6

04176

Paul Degen: Original Illustration Art

Between the Covers Rare Books offers a collection of 129 pieces by or related to the artist Paul Degen. There is a substantial variety of work, including some sketches and some finished illustrations. There is an interesting group of proposed covers for The New Yorker magazine. The five photographs in the listing don't allow a thorough examination of all this work. It would be great to get a better look.

Proposed New Yorker cover art

Paul Degen
AbeBooks listing accessed March 19, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=22619342904&searchurl=kn%3DYorker%26sortby%3D1&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image19

04043

Otto Soglow: Pieces for "The Talk of the Town"

As a go-to artist for The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section, Otto Soglow was without peer. He provided bold, simple designs in a signature style that can be recognized and appreciated from across the room. His drawings were inventive, humorous, and, one suspects, produced fairly quickly to meet looming weekly deadlines. A collection of sixty-six divers "Talk" drawings is available from Between the Covers—and has been for over five years.

Otto Soglow
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved January 18, 2020

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=21509150358&searchurl=kn%3DYorker%26sortby%3D1&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title12

Note:  This extraordinary listing was discussed on Ink Spill late in 2016 here. Over the intervening years, despite inflation, the price has not increased. Yet.

04035

Edward Gorey: The Broken Spoke Dust Jacket Cover

The dust jacket illustration for Edward Gorey's The Broken Spoke—that's one catchy, alliterative title—plays with our expectations of perspective. This composition would ordinarily call for a simple one-point perspective, but the bricks on the ground fail to recede towards a vanishing point on the unseen horizon, instead making a vertical pattern that doesn't in any way establish a realistic foreground. The broken bicycle is possibly too small while the urn immediately behind the wall is way too large. The two urns create the illusion of receding into the distance, but the three figures violate the rules of perspective, getting a bit larger the farther they get from the viewer. The trees, however improbably, seem to reside in the same plane. The colors overall are muted, but the straw hat reveals a varied palette.

What is unseen is somewhat unsettling too. The two figures beyond the wall must be on bicycles obscured by it, while the cyclist on the right is giving all his attention to something behind him out of the frame. 

This is copy 56 of 250 numbered copies, plus 26 lettered copies:

Edward Gorey
AbeBooks listing accessed July 14, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Broken-Spoke-GOREY-Edward-Dodd-Mead/31165815400/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&cm_ite=viewbook

04016

Peter Arno Uncovered

I bought my copy of Peter Arno's Circus (1931) for $12.50 in late 1988. The cartoon collection was pushing sixty then, so it was not surprising if it was a bit beaten up with no dust cover in sight. That was really not a concern of mine at the time. I was happy enough to add it to my library in its imperfect state and to bring my Arno collection closer to completion. Besides, I wouldn't have known how to find a copy with a proper dust jacket if I'd wanted to. Before the internet, pretty much it either came your way or it didn't.

Now the book is pushing ninety and that missing original dust jacket is something of a collector's item. It's a real curiosity today too, a relic of the long-defunct circus sideshow. The cover depicts a circus "fat lady" named Fatima, the exotic name taken, apparently, from a song in the 1921 stage musical "Love Birds" by Sigmund Romberg which punned on the name's first syllable. Arno's stock Timid Man character, walking with his rail-thin wife, turns to contemplate the bountiful mysteries of Fatima, who regards him in turn with an alluring smile. That ability of Arno's to let us read his characters' unspoken desires is truly uncanny!

A copy of the book is currently offered for $250 on AbeBooks by Between the Covers. It includes the dust jacket and three additional Arno prints which do not appear in the book and which may have been provided by the publisher. The price is twenty times what I paid for my copy in 1988.

Peter Arno
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved June 28, 2019

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=5849304204&searchurl=sortby%3D1%26tn%3Dpeter%2Barno%2527s%2Bcircus&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image1

"Fat, Fat Fatima" from "Love Birds" (1921)

Music by Sigmund Romberg

Lyrics by Ballard MacDonald

José Ferrer as Sigmund Romberg

From "Deep in My Heart" (MGM, 1954)

Directed by Stanley Donen

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2871/

Arno knew his audience connected the name Fatima to the sideshow "fat lady." A 1928 Arno cartoon depicts a magic act at a circus sideshow. Signage across the background advertises "Fattest Woman—La Belle Fatima."

"Fake, ain't it?"
Peter Arno
The New Yorker, May 8, 1928, page 13

http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1928-08-11#folio=012

Reader and long-time contributor David from Manhattan has sent along three images of the flap copy:

Photo by David from Manhattan

Photo by David from Manhattan

Photo by David from Manhattan

Note:  I wish to extend an apology to every woman in the world named Fatima.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Peter Arno

Sideshows

Attempted Bloggery's Recovering Index

02970

Ilonka Karasz: The Amorist and Other Verse

Long-time New Yorker cover artist Ilonka Karasz designed The Amorist and Other Verse, a twenty-two page volume of poetry by Penfield Royce. The eleven illuminated leaves may indeed be a private commission, as suggested by bookseller Between the Covers, or it could be a mock-up for an unpublished book. The bound volume is offered at $7,500.

Ilonka Karasz
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved June 28, 2019

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=14093810294&searchurl=bi%3D0%26ds%3D30%26bx%3Doff%26sortby%3D1%26kn%3DYorker%26recentlyadded%3Dall%26sgnd%3Don&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image28

Between the Covers Catalogue 16

https://www.ilab.org/sites/default/files/catalogs/files/2710_arc16.pdf

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Ilonka Karasz

Attempted Bloggery's Illuminating Index

02969