To Know Her Was to Burn and Be Burned

Of late I have been researching pulp fiction book covers in preparation for a photoshoot on the theme. HOW some of these ridiculous or over-the-top sexpots on these covers make me laugh! ‘To know her was to burn and be burned … but when you are dealing with drug traffickers you must keep cool … and alive.’ Or, ‘She was gorgeous – and her curves spelt death!’ They’re like the bodice rippers aimed at women. There is a thesis in here somewhere, but I’m sure it’s been done already. I also love these pulp fiction reimaginings of modern tales: Blade Runner, The Matrix and George Orwell’s 1984. 

Abra-carrrrd-abra!

The front room on the first floor. The Bookroom :: John S // D-Type Plate // No flashRecently I have purchased quite a lot of ephemera online, mostly from Etsy, and some in charity shops and antiquarian stores. Yesterday I visited a haunt from my old neighbourhood in East Kew. I’d already been on a fleeting visit there a couple months ago and bought some antique postcards, but I hadn’t had time to properly explore the rabbit warren. I made sure yesterday that I would – and in fact only hunger and an urgent need to locate a bathroom drove me away!

The shop front declares itself as Abracardabra, although they seem to answer the phone as Roycroft Booksellers, or some such less imaginative title, and it is as chock-full with ephemera, books and journals of all sorts as it has ever been. It is also quite dusty (the mark of a good antique bookstore, I surmise).

Phil Mays Illustrated Winter Annual, 1892 :: Tinto 1848 // D-Type Plate // No flashAs soon as I entered the store I was brought to a standstill by the contents of the right-hand bookshelf, and probably spent half an hour absorbed there rifling through books and journals, and two enormous boxes of generic ephemera (there were many additional boxes labelled specifically railway, shipping, opera, programmes, and the like).

I purchase this 1892 issue of Phil May’s Illustrated Winter Annual, struck by the wonderful typesetting and illustrations, and the aged, foxed patina of the pages.One of James Bell Esq.’s receipts on lovely periwinkle blue, thin paper. One of the other receipts has even more beautiful copperplate handwriting, but it was too large to fit on my scanner. Here is where I happened upon a sheaf of aged, blue receipts issued to one James Bell, Esq., in 1866–7. He purchased such an assortment of goods from what I suppose was a warehouse that perhaps he might have been a draper, or chemist. The copperplate script is beautiful to behold, if not entirely readable, and one can only marvel at how long it must have taken a clerk to write out.

A different receipt informs me that on November 1st, 1915, a Mr I Roberts of Castlemaine purchased from Geo. Clark & Son (wholesale grocers, ironmongers and general merchants): 6 Aromatic Hav 4½ [not sure what ‘hav’ could possibly be?], 100 pkts of Red Ochre, 1 doz Blk Dolly Dye, 1lb Nonpariels, ½ doz Colic Remedy, 5 Cls [cylinders, I presume] Kero, ½ doz P’mint Cure, 3 Bags New Chaff and 1 Bag Pick Onions – all to the tune of one pound seven shillings.

Eventually I moved on from the paper ephemera and wended my way past the shelves of vintage packaging, the boxes and boxes of antique postcards, the Australiana section, (I didn’t even venture into the rows of bookshelves), past the photograph of the owner with Ron Barassi (one of the most important figures in Australian football), and stepped up to the next room.

Big Boob Sketchbook :: James M // C-Type Plate // No flashThis was full of newer paperbacks, some ‘modern’ (the last two decades) and many older (1960s and earlier), and piles and piles of journals, periodicals, magazines, newspapers, sheet music – and enormous antique hard-bound volumes full of newspaper cuttings assiduously assembled by persons unknown 60, 70, 80 years ago. The cuttings are yellow with age and old glue, the pages crisp and crackly. The room is dusty with age and the whispers of people long-dead.

This was all just on the first floor.

Little Women :: James M // C-Type Plate // No flashI slowly walked up the creaky wooden steps to the second floor and was struck dumb anew at the sight of the landing, the corridor, and the two rooms filled to the rafters with old books galore upon every subject. There were more old newspapers and strange and obscure journals that you cannot imagine anyone ever read, even upon publication. I am momentarily excited when I find a shelf of PG Wodehouse books, but am by this time so dazzled by the sheer volumes contained on the shelves that I cannot see the titles for the books.

Consider the Lilies :: Tinto 1848 // C-Type Plate // No flashDumbfounded, I take some photos instead, of the front room where the afternoon light drifts through dusty windowpanes, of the parquet flooring in the back room. As I tread back downstairs, something green sticking out of a random bookshelf on the first landing catches my eye. I sit right down where I am and began pulling old exercise books from the shelves. Here are old school assignments on the roadways of France, on Indonesia and North America, all by one girl who scored quite high marks; someone else’s vintage psychology notes, and yet another lady’s recipes, hand written in pen and ink and barely decipherable to my modern glance. There are sketchbooks too, and eventually I pick out two to buy: an old Victorian Pastel Paper sketchbook, and a Cathedral Exercise Book, both unused (visit the SNAP Facebook page for pics of those).

Summer Fashions :: James M // C-Type Plate // No flashMy hands are very dirty by this time, and I long to wash them. I leave, knowing I have accumulated enough ephemera … for now. This place truly is magical, an Aladdin’s cave of vintage treasure, and it is indeed aptly named.

Check out the Abracardabra gallery for lots more photos.

~

For those Melburnians inclined to rifling through dusty bookshelves, Abra Card Abra Roycroft Antiquarian Booksellers is located at:
680 High St, East Kew; phone 03 9859 4215. 

Purple-Eyes and A Lady

Madame Butterfly :: Loftus // DC // No flashI can’t say I have ever really thought about the origins of the story Madame Butterfly, and have never heard of John Luther Long, but I was delighted to find this very old book in a charity shop yesterday. There is no publication date, but from the style I would put it in the 1910–1920s. The typesetting is so quaint, the pages old and crackly. It is a beautiful object in itself.

I also was thrilled to find some very old sheet music in such a state of decrepitude that it will be perfect for use in my random poems. The soft paper is so old it has gone floppy, the edges would disintegrate with rough usage. 

Isn’t this the prettiest dedication? ~ Those Exquisite Hands :: Loftus // DC // No flashFrontispiece :: Loftus // DC // No flashWords & Music :: Loftus // DC // No flash

A Collector’s Trail

Spread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonWith my revived interest in collecting ephemera with which to make collages, I was prompted on the weekend to pull an old book from the shelf. Written by Barbara Hodgson, Trading in Memories – Travels Through a Scavenger’s Favourite Places is a wonderful account of a collector’s trail through Europe, the Middle-East, the Orient and back home again to Vancouver in British Columbia.

The short chapters are written as essays, and they are easy to read and full of fascinating titbits and a wealth of detail. Hodgson’s writing style is evocative – her words draw an enticing picture in the mind’s eye that would surely be best expressed in the form of a magic lantern show, or flickering film reel from 1910.

Spread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonIf the words aren’t enough to help you step back in time, the images will. What an astonishing assortment of ephemera she has collected or photographed, presented in collages or displayed in cases reminiscent of the Victorian mania for collecting curios.

Her words will truly whisk you off on a whirlwind tour while you are still comfortably curled up in your armchair, a cup of Turkish coffee at your elbow.

Scroll through some sample pages here, and make sure to click on the images to see larger versions. Included are the four pages of the last chapter, with her ‘few words to scavengers’.

Read a review at Good Reads or The Sydney Morning Herald.

Spread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonTwo pages from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara Hodgson

What’s in a Lady’s Name?

I like old books. Sometimes I buy them just for their looks. Yeah, I totally judge them by their covers. If they bear quirky titles and quaint designs; if they’re beaten up and shabby, and looked well used, then I will reach for them.

All these books bear lady’s names, and two of them have been made into films. Patricia Brent, Spinster opens with this:

“She never has anyone to take her out, and goes nowhere, and yet she can’t be more than twenty-seven, and really she’s not bad-looking.”

And to think she is only twenty-four after all! Poor Patricia. She goes on to be quite indiscreet, and declares that she is dining with her fiancé the next day – and then she has to make good on her word or face the humiliation of being found out. I think I must actually read this book!

Here’s some more oldies but goldies.