When Vladimir Nabokov’s best-known and most scandalous novel, Lolita, was published in the USA in 1958, it topped bestsellers lists. Selling 100,000 copies in its first three weeks, it was on its third printing within just a few days, and shot the author to fame in the country. Until then, Nabokov, an émigré in the US, had struggled to find an American publisher bold enough to back his book and had – like James Joyce before him, for the similarly controversial Ulysses – looked to Paris for a supporter. In Nabokov’s case, this was Olympia Press, a publisher which, at the time, had a reputation comparable to that of Mills & Boon. Olympia printed 5,000 copies in 1955, all of which sold. Customs officials in the United Kingdom were soon instructed to seize copies of the book at the border, and a year later it was also banned in France.
As the remarkable correspondence accompanying this copy of the first edition reveals, Olympia Press defiantly continued printing and selling the book illicitly following the bans, increasing its price by one third, from 900 to 1,200 francs per copy. Its widespread censorship had failed to suppress public appetite for the story of Nabokov’s eloquent, witty protagonist Humbert Humbert, who details in this fictional memoir his paedophilic obsession and relationship with 12-year-old “nymphet”, Dolores (whom he nicknames Lolita).
First edition, this copy accompanied by a revealing trove of correspondence relating to the censorship of Lolita, as well as works of Jean Genet, and other Olympia Press books, between American screenwriter Theodore Reeves (1910-1973), and Olympia Press’s Ian Shine. Highly revealing of the mechanics of literary censorship from the point of view of an American customer. 1955. £12,500. If you are interested in this item please do not hesitate to contact us.
Early reception of the novel demonstrates how polarising it was. While its sales success proved its popularity, a New York Times review described it as “repulsive . . . highbrow pornography” (qtd. by Cooper, The New Yorker). At the same time as London’s Sunday Times judged it one of the best books of 1955, a reviewer at the Sunday Express considered it “the filthiest book ever read” (qtd. by Boyd, 1991). Although Nabokov had been rejected by multiple American publishers, the man who finally took on Lolita, Walter Minton of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, actively pursued it:
Minton got hold of an excerpt of the novel, via the unlikely agency of an exotic dancer named Rosemary Ridgewell, in whose living room he once fell asleep after a night on the town. “I woke in the middle of the night and there was this story on the table. I started reading. By morning, I knew I had to publish it.” (Cooper, The New Yorker.)
Perhaps surprisingly, Lolita was never banned in the United States (though it was in Canada). This may have been the legacy of Hon. John M. Woolsey, whose decision in the case The United States of America v. One Book Called “Ulysses”, in 1933, deemed Joyce’s epic nonobscene. Woolsey’s decision is described as “monumental” by Nabokov in Lolita’s foreword.
As the discipline of psychology and our understanding of sexual abuse and its lasting damage have advanced, Lolita is more categorically recognised as a story of paedophilia and child abuse told through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. Dictionary definitions of ‘Lolita’ testify to the historically unsympathetic attitude towards Nabokov’s 12-year-old character:
‘a precociously seductive girl.’ (merriam-webster.com)
‘a younggirl who has a very sexualappearance or behaves in a very sexual way.’ (dictionary.cambridge.org)
True to its nature of contrasts and controversy, Lolita is also considered a masterpiece and is taught on curriculums, referenced in diverse artistic works and has been adapted for screen and stage; it is widely regarded as a triumph of late modernist literature.
Theatrical release poster for the 1962 film Lolita, the first cinematic adaptation.
Though an early admirer of Lolita, literary critic Lionel Trilling nonetheless described the knife-edge any reader of the tale balances upon:
we find ourselves the more shocked when we realize that, in the course of reading the novel, we have come virtually to condone the violation it presents … we have been seduced into conniving in the violation, because we have permitted our fantasies to accept what we know to be revolting. (Trilling, qtd. by de la Durantaye, 2005.)
Humbert Humbert’s irony, sarcasm and intelligence are appealing; we find ourselves somehow complicit in his actions. There are arguments for the literary and even moral value in this. Andrew Koppelman, in a 2005 essay for the Columbia Law Review questioning the legality of literary censorship, quotes American literary critic Wayne C. Booth:
Booth concedes that even the most malign material, such as the pornographic novels of the sociopath Marquis de Sade, can offer “the by-no-means contemptible gift of providing fodder for ethical discourse, including my own” (Koppelman, 2005).
Koppelman himself argues that attractive portrayals of perverse characters “are risky, but morally valuable, precisely because they help to dispel the notion that evil is wholly other” (ibid.).
Telegram Announcing prohibition of the novel ‘Lolita’ in New Zealand, 1959.
In Dirt for Art’s Sake, Elisabeth Ladenson traces the history of books that were once vilified and banned but are now considered canonical literature. Naturally, Lolita features. Ladenson describes the modern shift away from book banning as somewhat objective:
Two ideas which had already been circulating for sometime in the form of avant-garde heresy, gradually became accepted clichés, and then grounds for legal defence. The first is most conveniently encapsulated in the formula ‘art for art’s sake’ the notion that a work of art functions on its own terms, exists in a realm independent of conventional morality, and should therefore be exempt from the strictures of moral judgement. The second is that of ‘realism’. The idea that the function of the work of art may legitimately include and perhaps should even obligatorily take on, the representation of all aspects of life, including the more unpleasant and sordid. Both these ideas now seem obvious, but they were unmentionable for a very long time. (Ladenson, 2007, qtd. by A. G. Noorani, 2007.)
No matter one’s subjective opinion of Lolita, censorship is inherently at odds with the democratic necessity of freedom of expression. Political commentator A. G. Noorani has framed this more categorically: “Book banning is a civilised form of the vice of book-burning which is a sure symptom of fascim” (ibid.). Whether or not one agrees, Lolita will continue to be published, read, studied, championed and indeed deeply criticised for a long time to come.
Tell us a bit about what you do at Peter Harrington.
As the Customer Services Manager, I look after email and website enquiries, as well as processing online sales, photography requests and after-sale enquiries. I also refresh and upload our database to our website daily, and update other online platforms to ensure our latest acquisitions are available online promptly. We also receive many offer enquiries we receive from private individuals wishing to sell their books to us, which I assess and respond to.
What does an ordinary day look like for you?
The first part of my day involves checking the orders, enquiries and offers that will have arrived overnight, and dealing with them accordingly. Then it is time to evaluate any book purchases that might have arrived on my desk, and contact my own customers. The tail end of the working day involves database housekeeping and preparing upload files for all our online platforms.
How long have you worked with Peter Harrington and have you always had the same role?
I’ve been with the company for 27 years and have had many roles over that time. I joined the packing & shipping department in 1994. When we moved to our current premises on Fulham Road in 1997, I left shipping and started selling books. During this time I also took over other roles, such as book-keeping, photography, and office management, before moving into my current role as the company grew.
In what ways would you say the rare book trade has changed in the last 25 years?
The advent of the internet and e-commerce has presented many new possibilities for the trade, though also some challenges. For the first time dealers could showcase their books to a much wider audience and became less dependent on catalogue mailings, book fairs, and shop walk-ins. The internet has also introduced rare book collecting to a wider and younger audience, which is beneficial to the long-term future of book collecting and rare bookselling.
Can you share some of your weirdest and/or most wonderful experiences working in the trade?
The most memorable one that comes to mind happened a number of years ago, when a major Hollywood and Broadway actor, who was on a West End show at the time, ordered a set of the books and asked if I could deliver them to the theatre. When I arrived the actor inspected the books and asked if we happened to have another edition bound in the original cloth bindings, which they preferred to the leather-bound set I had brought. I said we did and offered to bring the other set to their dressing room before they were due to go on to the stage that afternoon. In my haste to do so I accidentally packed the actor’s packet of cigarettes, which was laying on the table next to the books. I was horrified when I unpacked the books back in the shop and discovered the cigarettes at the bottom of the box! To their credit, the actor saw the funny side of it all when I rather sheepishly brought them back and explained what had happened- they had apparently concluded their agent must have hidden the cigarettes away.
What would you say the key qualities of an avid book collector are?
Patience and perseverance. Finding scarce titles or books in uncommonly fresh condition is a waiting game, and requires dedication and self-restraint to stop you from buying an inferior copy of a book you always wanted simply because there is not a better copy available at the present time.
How do you support and advise Peter Harrington’s customers?
As well as providing support and answering any questions they might have regarding our books, delivery, and any after-sales queries, I also help my customers maintain and build up their book collections, or find the perfect gift for a special occasion. I particularly enjoy advising clients who want to gift a book to a friend or loved one but are stuck for ideas. Putting together suggestions based on the life, profession, hobbies or even year of birth of the person who is to receive the book is a lot of fun, and very satisfying when I succeed, and the customer reports afterwards that the book was a hit with the recipient.
Do you think the way that customers are discovering and buying items is changing?
Absolutely. The internet has enabled the public not just to find a given title with more ease, but also to better-inform themselves about various aspects of book collecting, from the importance of the condition to the various editions, issues, or binding styles that might be available for particular title they wish to acquire.
Lauren Hepburn talks to Adam Douglas, Head Cataloguer at Peter Harrington about the importance of the book catalogue within the rare books trade.
Tell us more about what you do as Head Cataloguer at Peter Harrington.
I’m in charge of overall standards, making sure that we all write our book descriptions to an agreed set pattern. I don’t want to cramp anyone’s individual style, but customers like to know where to look for the information they need. If one cataloguer mentions the binding in the very first line of the description and another cataloguer leaves it until the last paragraph, it can be confusing.
I trained most of our existing cataloguers, and I wrote the house style manual, which guides our cataloguers on matters great and small, like whether “dust jacket” has a hyphen or not. (It doesn’t.) I also teach cataloguing skills at the annual York Antiquarian Book Seminars.
What is the importance of printed catalogues within the trade?
Traditionally, print catalogues were the main method of distance-selling rare books. A sole dealer might have been able to get by with single offers by letter or telephone, but a book catalogue is more efficient and showed that they were a proper going concern.
Saving books up for a catalogue is a seasonal ritual for most booksellers. Issuing them helps remind customers that the bookseller is still plugging away, even if they don’t want anything from the current offering.
The most prestigious dealers issued lavish catalogues that have become reference works in their own right – grand dealers like Bernard Quaritch, Maggs Bros., Martin Breslauer, H. P. Kraus. All good dealers have shelves of old dealers’ catalogues which help them in their research. It’s my aspiration to keep producing book catalogues for Peter Harrington that live up to those high standards.
What are the main functions and benefits of using print catalogues?
Printed catalogues give the potential buyer time to contemplate the item on offer, read through sometimes lengthy descriptions at their leisure, and consider buying a book, without the time pressure auctioneers rely on to get people to make up their minds. They also get the opportunity to browse through other items they may not otherwise have considered. The internet is brilliant for finding books, but it tends to narrow down the search to only one or two items. A print catalogue is more like browsing the shelves of a well-managed bookshop.
As booksellers who issue catalogues, we have a golden opportunity to show the same kind of taste and judgement that goes into buying our stock. It’s hard to imagine that a bookseller who issues an ugly, badly produced catalogue cares much about the aesthetic appeal of the books they offer for sale.
Have book catalogues evolved over time?
In the past, every dealer worth his or her salt issued a book catalogue, from the flimsiest photocopied list to a massive hardbound book. From the 1980s desktop publishing and cheap colour photography greatly improved the general appearance of booksellers’ catalogues. Nowadays, the influence of digital platforms is beginning to show in the formats of print catalogues. Many innovative dealers are beginning to chafe against the old restrictions and dare to try different layouts and presentations. But rare bookselling and collecting is by definition a refuge for traditionalists – old habits die hard.
What goes into the creation of a Peter Harrington catalogue?
We start with the choice of books, whether it’s going to be a specialist selection or one of our seasonal miscellanies. If it’s a selection, one of our book specialists will be closely involved, choosing the books and arranging their order, as well as writing an introduction. All the books will have been photographed beforehand, but sometimes we might ask Ruth, our photographer, to take additional shots that will suit a particular spread we have in mind.
We then gather the books together and the editorial team reads through the descriptions once more, checking for consistency, accurate condition reports, and any little errors that may have crept in. We also use this time to freshen supporting notes that may have been too frequently used in the past, sometimes rewriting them altogether to suit a new context.
In a collaborative process with our print designer, we then create layouts of the text and images, usually aiming to produce a 100-page catalogue. At that point there is often more photography required; an index is a useful addition, if necessary; then proofreading, more proofreading, another round of proofreading. And then, off to the printers, who usually take two weeks to print, bind, and post them out (which gives us time to spot the errors we’ve missed!)
How do the print and digital spheres interact and collaborate at Peter Harrington?
That’s a fascinating question, and the answer is that they’re still in flux. For several years now we’ve been able to send our catalogues in PDF format, which means that the customer can print the pages themselves, much as they would see them in the physical catalogue, although not so well reproduced. New digital publishing formats mean that we can design much more interesting multimedia digital publications, but there is still some resistance to novelty. Collectors are like cats – they don’t appreciate change.
There is no doubt that digital publication requires a briefer presentation. It’s tough to read long descriptions on a screen. In the digital age catalogue descriptions need to be shorter, snappier, pithier. That’s the challenge – to tighten up our descriptions without sacrificing accuracy and vital information.
Our website offers the same full-length descriptions as our print catalogues, but we present the elements of our descriptions in a slightly different order. It’s a new mise-en-page, a new visual grammar, and we’re still learning how to do it best. The advantage the website has over a printed catalogue is that we can attach as many photographs as necessary to each description and also add 360° videos which allow the customer a much more detailed look at bindings, and give a more accurate picture of the book as a physical object .
What do you think the future of catalogues will be?
Given the fact that the rare books trade is centred on love for and appreciation of the printed book, I think that the printed book catalogue and its digitally formatted first cousin will show a remarkable resilience. If you love old books, you probably love reading booksellers’ catalogues, even if they are occasionally a little fusty and filled with obscure jargon.
The more innovative rare booksellers who produce catalogues are showing ways to create more attractive publications – less stuffy but without sacrificing honest, accurate descriptions.
Illustration from CUALA PRESS: YEATS, Jack B. A Broadside. Series 1-7, comprising nos. 1-84 (complete set). Dun Emer and Cuala Press, 1908-1915.
By Suzanna Beaupré
Peter Harrington is proud to present a unique Arts and Crafts calligraphic manuscript of John Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn, produced in 1903 by the renowned binder and calligrapher Anastasia Power.
Power was born in Whitby, the ninth, and youngest daughter of a local occultist. Initially a student of book binding grandee Douglas Cockerell, she soon set up a binding studio on Museum Street in London with fellow binder (and family friend of Virginia and Vanessa Stephen) Sylvia Stebbing, where they were regularly visited by the two sisters. There, in 1901, the young Virginia Stephen (later Woolf) “asked for lessons in binding old books of sheet music, and engaged in her book binding with purpose and application”. Writing to her cousin Emma Vaughan, she said “I have been making endless experiments… there seem ever so many ways of making covers… which the ordinary lidders never think of”. Undoubtedly these early experiments with Power had significant bearing on the first books she was to create at her own Hogarth press, providing a direct influence from the earliest women in the private press movement to its later continuation.
MANSFIELD, Katherine. Prelude, printed and Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, . £6,750.00. (BOOK SOLD)
In 1902 Power was invited to run the Essex House bindery, a key element of the private press arm of Charles Robert Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft, which moved out of London to Chipping Campden in the same year. While Janet Ashbee’s active involvement “had already done much to dilute the male ethos of the Guild, in the summer of 1902 they found themselves adjusting to the Amazon figure and long mannish strides of Annie (usually known as Statia) Power” (Crawford, p. 117).
Alongside her role as binder Power was “an accomplished artist and calligrapher” and practised illumination with Fred Partridge (Dowd, p. 61). She consequently provided the illumination for much of the Press’s output at this time. This manuscript, which is rendered entirely on vellum, appears to have been for her personal practice; Essex House never produced an edition of this work.
Power is a standout example of women in the private press movement, excelling in her work and directing the output of the press, however, she was far from the only example. Bookbinding was a key component of the press movement and there were several remarkable female binders working adjacent to the presses at the time. These included the renowned Sarah Prideaux, Katharine Adams, and Sybil Pye, with the Guild of Women Binders established in 1898. Marianne Tidcombe’s crucial work Women Bookbinders 1880-1920 (1996) explores many more.
Women were employed across the book production process as compilers, designers, authors, artists, and illuminators, roles which have been explored more broadly by writers such as Anthe Callen in Women Artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, 1870-1914 (1979).
A key example of a fully female-run press, aiming to provide an education in these processes and work for women in all of these roles, is the Cuala Press, one half of Cuala Industries, which came out of another female-run press, Dun Emer. In 1903 Elizabeth Yeats (known as Lolly) and her sister Lily joined embroiderer Eveyln Gleeson in forming Dun Emer, with Lily running the embroidery arm, Evelyn the weaving, and Lolly the printing.
Artistic and financial tensions between the Yeatses and Gleeson eventually led to the split of the organisation in 1908, the sisters reforming as Cuala Industries. Cuala was founded with the aim of reviving the craft of book printing in Ireland and especially “to give work to Irish girls, the production of books being incidental to the encouragement of crafts among Irish women” (McMurtrie, p. 472). Each element of the book production was carried out using Irish materials, using all-rag paper that was produced locally and creating “clearly legible, slender volumes with distinctive paper labels, seen as the sole survivors of the handcrafted ideal established in 1900 by Walker and T. J. Cobden-Sanderson’s Doves Press” (ODNB). The press was instrumental in the early printings of W. B. Yeats’s works, as well as works by other influential Irish authors such as Lord Dunsany and Oliver Gogarty.
Another example of a press equally concerned with localised art and craftsmanship, this time in Wales, was the Gregynog Press. This influential private press was founded in 1922 by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies at their house, Gregynog Hall, in rural mid-Wales. The press established a reputation for its woodcut illustrations, harmonised with the type page. Two of the key artists working at the press were engravers Gertrude Hermes and Agnes Miller Parker.
Bibliography
Crawford, Alan, C.R. Ashbee: Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist, Yale University Press (2005); Dowd, Anthony in Bookbinder: Journal of the Society of Bookbinders and Book Restorers, Volumes 7-8, The Society, (1993); Humm, Maggie, Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and the Arts, Edinburgh University Press (2010); McMurtrie, Douglas C., The book : the story of printing & bookmaking. Oxford University Press (1948); Thomson, John Mansfield, Farewell Colonialism: The New Zealand International Exhibition, Christchurch, 1906-07, Dunmore Press (1998); Tidcombe, Marianne, Women Bookbinders 1880-1920, Oak Knoll Press (1996).
Our regularly scheduled miscellany for the summer months, this catalogue showcases a selection of new acquisitions to our shelves.
For this catalogue, we are proud to partner with Beat – the UK’s leading eating disorder charity. Peter Harrington will donate 20 per cent of the list price of all catalogue orders to Beat to support its efforts to provide prompt help to those affected.
How did you come to be a cataloguer at Peter Harrington?
Slightly by chance! I wasn’t aware of the rare book world until I started job hunting upon completing my history degree. I had specialised in my final year in material and visual culture and was looking for a role that would let me continue research from that angle, and there was Peter Harrington offering the perfect mix!
What brings you the most excitement about working with a rare book dealer?
I think, for me, it’s the very physical connection to the past that you experience when you discover an inscription or note laid into a book. I’m a big proponent of writing in your new books (although maybe not in the ones you buy from us…) so that historians have a future record to work from. I get huge excitement from seeing inscriptions such as the one in our copy of The Accomplish’d Housewife (1745), owned by one Mary Bacon, who wrote inside, “Mary Bacon – her book. 1775 Steal not this book for fear of shame for here you find the owner’s name Mary Bacon Her Book”. It’s likely this copy belonged to the Mary Bacon (1743–1818) who is the subject of Ruth Facer’s 2010 micro-history Mary Bacon’s World: A Farmer’s Wife in Eighteenth-century Hampshire (2010), and I was pleased, during lockdown, to see the inscription used for a Society for Renaissance Studies online event on early modern conceptions of book provenance. It’s always fun when a book you have started to research is picked up as part of a wider discussion.
The Accomplish’d Housewife; or, the gentlewoman’s companion. 1745.
A similar example of this tangible connection with the past was in one of my favourite recent items, the Rebecah Childe manuscript ‘receipt’ book. I studied food history, which has led to me becoming involved in some of our cookery material here, and the immediacy of seeing authentic signs of use such as a cookery stain on a recipe is always a rush.
Another simple joy that comes from working in this industry is the range of time periods we work across; the surreal nature of looking at your desk and seeing a 1595 Daemonolatreiae, a pulp edition of Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, and a book of Maya Angelou’s poetry published in 1971, as if, in some way, time has been collapsed in the shop.
How do you feel that the industry contributes to the preservation of culture and history?
I used to feel like we were the shady underside to the more upstanding library and curatorship industry, but increasingly I see the potential for us to work in partnership with these institutions to source items for public benefit. We have the time and resources to uncover unique and important items where institutions are often a bit more squeezed.
An example of how my job now colours everything I do (beyond not being able to listen to my favourite history podcasts without madly searching for first editions of the books mentioned) was my visit to the excellent Thomas Becket exhibition, currently showing at the British museum. I loved it but I couldn’t help thinking a copy of the first edition, first impression, of Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral would have sat well in it (750 copies were published in May 1935 and were sold at its production in Canterbury Cathedral). It might also have been fun to have included another item we have; actor Michael Miller’s working copy of the final script for the 1964 film Becket – possibly with a clip of the film running alongside. Although, I may well only be suggesting that as it’s such a treat to see Peter O’Toole’s depiction of Henry II!
When certain things come up, such as the Honresfield Library sale, I can come over all Indiana Jones – “it belongs in a museum!” – so finding a perfect institutional home for an item can be rewarding. Institutional ownership doesn’t always guarantee that the item will be more accessible, however, and depends hugely on the resources a given institution has at their disposal. The painstaking research undertaken by cataloguers in the rare book trade is not always preserved, and items are sometimes not easily available to view, either in person or through an approachable digital database.
We are always keen to increase access to the items we hold here – and whenever we receive enquiries from researchers interested in learning more about a certain book or piece of ephemera we are always happy to help by providing photographs, or arranging in-person viewings.
You often focus on women’s work and helped curate Peter Harrington’s first catalogue dedicated to female authors and artists. How do you go about purchasing and spotlighting female authors and artists?
We are continually on the lookout for authors whose importance has been hidden by the misogynistic mists of time and are currently gathering items for a second catalogue of women’s works to follow our 2019 Works by Exceptional Women catalogue (cat. 151). There has definitely been a shift in the rare book trade to recognise the blindingly obvious importance of collecting female authors and, consequently, a lot of exciting material is emerging.
I was also very excited recently to get hold of the first English edition of Christiane Ritter’s A Woman in the Polar Night (1954), the original version of which was first published in German in 1938. I came across thePushkin Press 2019 reissue of Jane Degras’ translation and fell in love, so I immediately started the hunt for a first edition. It’s a remarkable work which has never been out of print in Germany, detailing Ritter’s 1934 stay on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen.
RITTER, Christiane. A Woman in the Polar Night. Translated by Jane Degras. 1954.
You also specialise in more niche themes – what led you to specialise in them?
Nosiness, largely! Spotting interesting books on my colleagues’ desks and asking questions or seeing if I could get involved with them. One example of this involved a sample catalogue of albumen photos of late Victorian London, which I was excitingly able to date after spotting a promotional poster in the background of one images for the German Exhibition of 1891, and an advertisement for the first performance of Charles Reade’s comedy Nance Oldfield, in which Ellen Terry took the leading role (a role which she reprised for Cicely Hamilton’s 1909 suffrage fundraiser A Pageant of Great Women). This, I think, sparked my interest in the books we get which demonstrate the entanglement of Victorian cultural life and politics – the connections and overlap between the fight for suffrage, worker’s rights, socialism, vegetarianism, anti-vivisectionists, later Esperanto proponents, and, throughout much of it, a great deal of spiritualism and theosophy. Having also previously studied early modern witchcraft through the lens of visual culture, the adoption of the occult by these various left-wing movements is fascinating. From Matter to Spirit (1863) by Elizabeth Sophie de Morgan offers a good example of these conjoining forces.
A slightly later witchcraft-related story I particularly love involves one of my favourite novels, Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Upon reading it, Virginia Woolf asked Warner how she knew so much about the lives of witches, to which she simply replied, “becauseI am one”.
A related area which I love to catalogue is private press books. I am a devotee of the Cuala Press books, one half of the Cuala Industries, a co-operative business run by Lily and Elizabeth Yeats following a split from the equally attractive Dun Emer Press. Cuala Industries was founded with the aim of reviving the craft of book printing in Ireland and “to give work to Irish girls”. They combined Irish Nationalist, feminist, socialist, and artistic interests into one press. Their output’s distinctive and simple style is beautiful. Women played a key role as binders and illuminators in the private press movement. Florence Kingsford Cockerell and Anastasia Power at the Essex House press produced some stunning pieces, and there was an upsurge in amateur calligraphy and bindings, often embroidered, during this time. I love getting examples of these into the shop; seeing the time and care put into the craft of the printed book.
Peter Harrington is best-known for its rare book collections, but in fact offers precious material in diverse mediums. Can you describe some of the items you’ve worked with other than written texts?
Absolutely – despite being a book shop you never know what you will end up with on your desk. One recent item that springs to mind is the Bea Nettles Mountain Dream Tarot set – the first known photographic tarot deck. Ours is signed by the artist.
Some other, older items I have worked with include photographs taken by Californian historian Frances Rand Smith in 1918 of architect Henry A. Minton’s model of the Mission Santa Cruz and a collection of woodcut proofs for Wuthering Heights, each signed by the artist.
NETTLES, Bea. Mountain Dream Tarot. 1975.
What has been one of your most standout experiences working with Peter Harrington?
There have been many moments where I have stepped back and thought, “wow, what I’m holding is incredible”. Condolence letters sent to Vanessa Bell after Virginia Woolf’s death have this effect; a beautiful unrestored copy of the first edition, first issue, of Dracula had a similar impact on me, as always do any books inscribed by Queen Victoria. Finally, I had this same sense of awe about a beautiful set of The Lord of the Rings in our recent fantasy catalogues In Other Worlds: Fantasy, Science Fiction and Beyond, which I had a ball cataloguing for.
As a single experience, cataloguing a collection of material relating to Hawaii has been my biggest and most rewarding challenge. It was a fascinating deep dive, taking me from the earliest printed works on the islands, through the colonial struggle for possession of the land, and up to, following the inclusion of the islands as a U.S. state in 1959, technicolour American tourist guides from the 1960s.
As the discipline of psychology and our understanding of sexual abuse and its lasting damage have advanced, Lolita is more categorically recognised as a story of paedophilia and child abuse told through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. Dictionary definitions of ‘Lolita’ testify to the historically unsympathetic attitude towards Nabokov’s 12-year-old character: 
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