The BooksellerBookseller, Bookseller, why do you weep?Because I must sell my books far too cheap.Bookseller, Bookseller, why do you grin?Because an old lady is just coming in.Bookseller, Bookseller, why all this joy?Because she requires a nice book for a boy.Bookseller, Bookseller, why do you cough?Ahem! Well, the discount forgot to come off.Bookseller, Bookseller, why are you gay?Beause it's my best of business to-day.Bookseller, Bookseller, why are you mad?Because the half-sovereign I changed her is bad.from Jack of All Trades a children's book first published in London in 1900. Text by JJ Bell. Illustrations by C Robinson.Courtesy of BibliOdyssey who features...
We’re Off to Illustrate the Wizard; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Zoe Andreas Blank Pages, an arm of the London based design agency Fridge Creative, would like you to help illustrate L. Frank Baum's classic 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz', How it Works:The entire text of the book has been uploaded with blank pages interspersed throughout. When you happen upon a blank white page it is need of an illustration. Draw it up and send it off, if the editors like it you're in.Blank Pages, whose mantra is to "Give old classics a new lease of life," plans on releasing other childhood favorites into the wild to be illustrated by the...
Famous Authors Drawn, Not Quartered
Martin Droeshout's 1623 Engraving Of William Shakespeare.The purpose of any portrait is to capture the essence of the subject. To somehow convey in a single image not just the outward appearance of the sitter, but his soul. But if the subject is a great writer, does that task become impossible? Poet Ben Jonson thought so, and maybe the curators at Princeton University's Firestone Library do, too.Those curators have just opened a new exhibit of 100 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, marble sculptures, and plaster death masks, depicting literary giants. The title of the gallery show is: The Author's Portrait. But the...
Rare Maurice Sendak "Where The Wild Things Are" Original Art Surfaces
A standard, letter-size envelope featuring Where The Wild Things Are original art by its sender, Maurice Sendak, has recently surfaced.The envelope (3 1/2 x 6 1/2 in; 90 x 165 mm), postmarked New York Jan 27, 1966, is autograph addressed by Sendak to fellow Caldecott Medal award winner, Nonny Hogrogian, with Sendak's autograph name and return address to the flap. Considering its journey through the United States Postal Service and forty-three year life, it is in miraculous condition.Original artwork by Sendak associated with and near contemporary to the publishing of his classic Where the Wild Things Are is exceedingly rare.The...