Lines from the Library

One of the projects I've been working on this summer is sorting through the Kishi Collection. Over the past four years we have added about 1,200 books from the personal collection of Mr. Yoshio Kishi to Special Collections, but there are still 136 boxes of unprocessed materials.

Here's a shot of about half of those boxes:

It's a great mix of stuff -- mostly books, though there is a chunk of material that will remain together and be described with an archival finding aid. I am opening each box then sorting through the contents to determine where the books will reside. Recent secondary works will be added to the circulating collection in Bobst, but there are a lot of amazing historical gems that will remain in Fales. Like the contents of this box:

If you've been following my blog, you know that I am a huge fan of decorative cloth bindings. I had a great day recently when I opened half-a-dozen boxes just like this one.

This title caught my eye:

Japanese Physical Training: The System of Exercise, Diet and General Mode of Living that has made the Mikado's People the Healthiest, Strongest, and Happiest Men and Women of the World. by H. Irving Hancock. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904.

The title alone is great, but the whole thing is illustrated with photographs:

It's a whole book about jiu-jitsu from 1904! And there's plenty more where this one came from. It will take a long time to get everything into BobCat, but it's going to be an amazing resource for all sorts of cross-cultural research. Watch this space for more select gems!

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

– Herman Melville. Moby Dick.

I'm actually heading to the Adirondacks, which is much more William James than Herman Melville.

Let's take another trip back to the Old Weird America of the nineteenth century. I first came across Poor Mary Pomeroy several years ago:

Since then, I have kept an eye out for other examples of this cheap true-crime literature. Poor Mary Pomeroy dates from the 1870s, but these three are all from the 1850s.

Startling, thrilling AND interesting! That's quite a narrative. Fanny Danforth's story also features cross-dressing (she disguises herself as a man to go to sea in search of her lover) and pirates.

These aren't "dime novels" and they aren't "penny dreadfuls" -- they're cheap and sensational, but they all make some claim to being non-fiction. Except for Disappointed Love! which claims to be both FACT and FICTION!

I also suspect that these items were originally part of the Levy Dime Novel Collection -- years ago the Fales curators interfiled some of the Levy collection with the Fales American collection. One interesting thing about the Levy Collection is that Mr. Levy emphasized "feminine literature," hence the presence of such fine examples of crime, adventure, and heartbreak about women.

They remind me an awful lot of made for TV movies.