Thinking Of A Bookplate?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 441, 24 August 1928, Page 14

Thinking Of A Bookplate?

I Written for The Sun.] TO BEGIN WITH, we are all o£ us potential collectors. Out ol our swaddling clothes, we start with dolls. At school it is cigarette cards, butterflies, stamps. A boy collects perhaps girls’ handkerchiefs as well; a girl perhaps boys’ high school badges. The germ is there from the very first. Having passed through these youthful stages without any lasting wounds, I have succumbed at last to the charm of bookplates. After some years of collecting, I am more infatuated than at the beginning, when I thought there was no bookplate like mine In the world. Now, I know there isn’t Bookplates get you that way. Provided you have a really choice one to offer collectors in exchange, and you begin to store up compliments about it, compliments from men like Frank Brangwyn. Sturge Moore, the Pissarros, people who know, you soon cultivate that Balliol attitude of unconscious and effortless superiority. By no means the disdainful thing it might sound. To-day 1 feel about this Dr Johnson plate of mine as I feel about my collie dog, Eve, and my particular way of frying chipped potatoes .... in all the wide world, there is no equal! The first (only) I am willing to share with any appreciative person who envies it from its reproduction here. Don’t go to a dictionary to find out what a bookplate is. There, you will only read some humorless reference to a label or design, printed to be pasted inside a book to denote ownership. Far better it is to examine, when you get a chance, some public collection, or, better, a private one. Few things are quite so close to a man as his books, and nothing about them is quite so personal as their mark of ownership. It will not take long to discover that a bookplate is often a revelation of character. You will find the owner s attitude expressed in all its variants; little solemnities and parades of learning; pride of mind, of earthly wealth and rank; stupid affectations. Surprisingly rare, so I have found, is a plate which wins by its inherent sense of fitness. Indeed, it is a hard thing to 'choose an entirely satisfying bookplate, and many bookish men baulk at the attempt. That may be the reason why some are satisfied with a name-label only, like a visiting-card. But that can hardly be said to decorate a book, although it fulfils the first requirement, the statement of ownership. Other men take refuge in an armorial design, which gives scope for fine engraving but cannot be said always to have a pictorial or literary content. The plates of Lord Dunsany and the late A. C. Benson belong to this class. But it Is less from themselves than the getting of them that 1 have derived the greatest pleasure. The modern note in bookplates is grace, wit, design. Europe and Amer-

CAMDEN MORRISBY,

ica are in the lead. We out here are slowly following suit. Every year sees the creation of more plates, and their exchange and study lead up to the contemplation of artistic talent and so to critical appreciation. A sympathetic consultation with the designer your choice falls on is the wisest way to start. Some people fix on their own design and insist on the artist copying it. Better, I think, to exchange and compare suggestions. Then, you will get in the result something of yourself, something of the artist. Often, you will get a work of art. That Is how the best plates have come into being. The personal touch must be there, but spontaneous, unforced, whether the design is to be ribald, like some I have by Frank Papd, or symbolic, like others by Jack Yeats, of the Cuala Press, or bookish, like my own. In Australasia there are several bookplates, made only recently, which are as high in the regard of collectors as many done in Europe. In proportion, of course, the total number produced, about 2000, is inconsiderable. But the quality of, say 50, is first-rate. Lionel Lindsay, to begin with, has done several, mainly woodcuts, which collectors rush with their ears back. Adrian Feint, a young designer, is particularly good at heraldic plates, but he has a likeable modern touch with flower designs as well. Roy Davies and Neville Barnett have both made numerous designs, distinguished by beauty and fancy. Mr Barnett’s children’s plates are inimitable. Miss Hilda Wiseman, of Auckland, makes the best plates I have seen from the Dominion. One especially, for Huia Wiseman, is delightful in every way, subject, design, lettering.

All these artists favour the woodcut. One reason is the revival here, following on that in Europe, of this medium. Another, the more important, is that the woodcut is the most suitable for modern book-illustration. It goes best with the text and helps to form that complete harmony one looks for in the perfect book. A good etching will adorn any book it touches: but the copper is not the favourite medium the woodblock is, and it is, of

course, more expensive. Pen and pencil drawings are comparatively cheap and often perfectly satisfactory. D. H. Souter made a pen-drawing of his design for the Bertram Stevens plate, one of the loveliest done in Australia. For Mrs Mary Forrest, Sydney TJre Smith drew in pencil his best bookplate. But bookmen and artists agree that there is something in an appropriately designed woodcut which blends with the printed page. People say: Why spend several guineas on a bookplate, when I can get so many good books for the money?

Certainly, books are the more important. But the gains from having a good plate and exchanging with other collectors will more than weigh down the scales in favour of having one. I may not put down here in detail what pleasure has come my way from the plate, so full of vigour and humour, which started me on the way several years ago. But, in the possession of some hundreds of exquisite designs, from the best pen and ink men all over the world, in correspondence with men and women of twin loyalties to my own, and in the receipt of courtesies of all kinds, I count myself very much richer than if I had no plate, but, in its place, a shelf or two extra of books. In any case, I have made it my business to have the extra shelves as well. CAMDEN MORRISBY. Sydney.