Never Mind The Book, How's The Cover?
Books As Literature
"It is a salutary discipline to consider the vast number of books that are written, the fair hopes with which their authors see them published, and the fate which awaits them. What chance is there that any book will make its way among that multitude? And the successful books are but the successes of a season. Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey. And if I may judge from the reviews, many of these books are well and carefully written; much thought has gone to their composition; to some even has been given the anxious labour of a lifetime. The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success."
So says the narrator in W Somerset Maugham's 1919 novel, based on the
story of Paul Gauguin, The Moon And Sixpence. Certainly, it's enough
to give any writer pause. And, doubtless, Somerset Maugham would have been
no less inclined to his conclusion if he were to face the stacks of books
which commonly confront every day that inveterately hoarding species, the
common bookseller. For here, evident even more some 80 years later, is concrete
proof of his theory - the 99% of books which failed to stand the test of
time, which weren't the Great American Novel, which didn't become standards
in the canon, which were merely, after "the tedium of a journey",
put on the shelf and forgotten forever.
Books In Context
Literary merit aside, though, it is often hard to do the sensible thing and throw these long forgotten, apparently worthless objects, into the dumpster in the alley - if only because they have managed to make it so far. Take, for instance, this volume found in the back row of a triple-stacked shelf the other day:
A Little Brother of the Rich by Joseph Medill Patterson, published by The Reilly & Britton Company, Chicago, 1908, fifth printing. Blue grosgrain cloth hardcover, decorated front board, octavo, 361pp, in Very Good condition, clean and bright but with corners bumped and a slight warp to the boards, probably from careless storage.
It must have been an unexpectedly hot item in its day: the first printing was August 24th, and there were reprintings August 27th, September 3rd, September 7th and this one September 16th. Moreover, Grosset & Dunlap, the reprint house, ran to at least seven printings in 1908 and 1909.
But hot in 1908 is one thing - hot in 2001 is quite another. Search in vain for the name of Joseph Medill Patterson (1879 - 1946) among the list of Nobel Laureates in subsequent decades. The first few pages aren't bad, but this is clearly not the stuff of which Great American Novels are made. A quick check on some of the book lists, too, confirms the suspicion: True, an optimistic seller has listed it for $125 on the grounds that it is a Rideout novel (ie named in Walter B Rideout's The Radical Novel in the United States, 1900-1954, pub. Harvard University Press, 1956); but there are 15 other copies (excluding the Grosset & Dunlaps) listed, including another fifth printing at $5 and quite a number around $12 - not really enough incentive to go to all the work of photographing it and putting it up on Popula.
As it happens, a little research reveals some good reasons (other than the hoarding instinct) to keep the book. For one thing, Joseph Medill Patterson, it turns out, is not a totally obscure name, after all. His grandfather was founder of the Chicago Tribune. He was in his youth a prominent socialist (hence, perhaps, the Rideout reference) and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives; he founded the New York Illustrated Daily News, in imitation of English tabloids he had seen during service in the first World War; and though he missed the Nobel he did win a Pulitzer for editorials supporting FDR's second re-election. Hence, though his name is not usually mentioned in the same breath as those of Mark Twain, Henry James, or even Nathanael West, it does lend enough incidental interest to provide an excuse not to chuck out the book.
Open the weirdly decorated, oddly compelling cover, and there is another
- a rather charming 
frontispiece, in
color, with a touch of Alma-Tadema/
Ladies Home Journal kitsch about it. The artist, it is noted within, is
someone called Hazel Martyn Trudeau (1887 - 1935). Off to the web again,
and we discover a couple more interesting tidbits. Hazel Martyn Trudeau
was widowed by the Canadian Trudeau at an early age and, apart from being
something of a painter herself, married in 1909 to a somewhat well known
Irish artist from Belfast, John
Lavery (1856 - 1941). His portrait
of her - a story in itself, since it also served at various times as
a portrait of three other women, including Sarah Bernhardt -- is one of
his better known works. The two of them, Sir John and Lady Lavery as they
became, apparently lent their London house in 1921 to Michael Collins and
others of an Irish delegation who came to negotiate the Anglo-Irish treaty
which shortly thereafter precipitated the Civil War in Ireland. The Irish
Free State government which emerged from that war invited Lavery, as a token
of their appreciation for his help, to paint a portrait of his wife to be
used on the Irish pound note, which it was for the next 50 years. The face
of the painter of the frontispiece was known to millions of people.
Hence, despite its apparent obscurity, the book has all kinds of unexpected historical associations.
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