I've been updating my recent post on Edgar W. Smith's ouvre and the products of his 'Pamphlet House' press.
In looking into this I picked up a copy of 'A Laurison Garden of Verses' by Helene Yuhasova. Summit, N.J.: The Pamphlet House, 1946, but printed at the Thorneycroft Press of Summit, NJ. p. [15]. Limited to 250 copies.
Bruce Harris provided the images shown on that blog post and it's in great condition. My copy looks like it was dragged through a garden. Nevertheless, it was being sold at a scientist-friendly price.
When I glanced at the inside rear wrapper, I spied a small private library stamp: Will Ransom Library Record. No. 3347, From E.W. Smith. Rec'd 10/27/48.
Will Ransom (1878-1955) was a designer of typefaces and other graphic, but also well known as a collector and bibliographer of private presses - a historian of printing. Ransom's notebooks and correspondence were organized prior to his death and donated to the Newberry Library - an independent research library in Chicago. The library has several of Smith's publications in its holdings. So as the operator of a private press, Smith was likely in touch with Ransom, and perhaps correspondence between them exists in the Ransom collection at Newberry.
What a nice find.
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A kind of neat circular feature of Smith's book 'Baker Street Inventory' is that he includes in the list of published bibliographies, the very book in which it is published: "The present bibliography". I've never seen that before - talk about being up-to-date at the time of printing!
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As a side-note, Smith has been on my mind, and yesterday my mind led me to Second Story books in Rockville. There in the little Sherlock section they have, I picked up a non-Sherlockian book by Doyle - 'Rodney Stone'.
Opening it up, what do I see find......
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And finally, in non-Smith book luck, I recently purchased one of Arthur Morrison's stories on the detective Martin Hewitt - 'The Red Triangle'. Beautiful cover, but on opening this cheap book I was thrilled to find Vincent Starrett's owner's signature inside!
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