Evelyn Waugh His Book

Transcription

1 Evelyn Waugh His Book Naomi Milthorpe Pasted in each of the 3500-odd volumes of Evelyn Waugh s personal book collection held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC) at the University of Texas at Austin, is a bookplate. By far the most frequent is what HRC librarian Richard Oram has termed the armorial bookplate, comprising the Waugh family crest and motto, Industria Ditat (Industry Enriches). 1 This bookplate, adapting the crest and motto from his father s armorial plate (which itself appears on many of the volumes inherited from Arthur Waugh), was engraved in June 1943 by an engraver named Osmond. 2 There is a bookplate which seems to appear only once, in a history of the Danish firm Peter F. Heering; the ex libris plate seems to be one used by the firm for presentation copies of the book. 3 By far the most interesting of the bookplates, which appears with great frequency in books published in the twenties, Oram has termed Waugh s modernist bookplate: Although it is not known when Waugh actually designed and began using this plate, it seems in style and spirit to belong to the early 1920s. Only a handful of earlier books from Waugh s library bear it. 4 The plate is printed in red and black script on a white ground. Four marginal panels, with text adapted from the marriage service, read for better for worse / for richer for poorer / to love & to cherish / in sickness & in health; these panels surround a central panel which proclaims: Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh His Book (see front cover). Waugh was a lifelong book collector, but he was not merely interested in the content of books. Indeed, although his father Arthur was chairman of publishing company Chapman & Hall, the young Waugh was at least initially more interested in the book as an aesthetic object. His adolescent diaries demonstrate his interest in collecting fine books, and at the age of sixteen he could be transported by handmade papers and fine bindings. 5 From an early age, whilst still a schoolboy at Lancing College and under the influence of private classes with the 1 Richard Oram, Cultural Record Keepers: The Evelyn Waugh Library, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Libraries & the Cultural Record, 42, no. 3 (2007): Evelyn Waugh, The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, edited by Michael Davie (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), Egmont H. Peterson, Peter F. Heering: A History of a Danish Firm during 125 Years (Copenhagen: [Peter F. Heering], 1943). Waugh s copy of the book is part of the Evelyn Waugh Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. I am grateful to the HRC for permission to consult the collection with the help of a 2009/2010 Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship. 4 Oram, Diaries, Script & Print 35:4 (2011) BSANZ [ISSN ]

2 220 Script & Print illuminator and illustrator Francis Crease, Waugh was introduced to the arts of script and calligraphy, and the beauty of fine inks and papers. 6 In 1920, just before his seventeenth birthday, Waugh writes of receiving a pamphlet of woodcuts by post: most attractive on handmade paper in red and black. When I am rich I will get them bound. 7 In 1921 he writes of having enjoyed the job of clearing out the librarian s room at Lancing: The literary refuse of the last fifty years has been allowed to accumulate there old periodicals, novels so popular as to be incapable of being mended and unworthy of being replaced, obsolete books of science and biography, bound volumes of parish magazines, a portentous mass of biblical and devotional rubbish, tomes of topography and travel. I previously found myself two perquisites from the heap: rather a charming book of rural reminiscences by a Sussex parson, and a work on popular science with a poem in it which is either the most ludicrous in the language or is meant to be funny and has been taken seriously by the pious author. In any case it is amusing. 8 Here we see a mind already at work on the proper ordering and care of a library, and with some set opinions on the value of certain types of books. The popular novel is unworthy of replacement or mending, while books such as those he chose as his perquisites are worthy of safekeeping partially because of their value as rarities or literary curiosities. At Oxford, Waugh s bibliomania continued, and after his viva in the summer of 1924 he travelled to Ireland, where he saw the Book of Kells and was much amused at the binding on a copy of Parnell s poems; on the return trip he visited Bristol, buying a book on Salisbury Cathedral of which the binding fascinated. 9 The diaries do not go into detail of what precisely was so fascinating or amusing about the bindings of these books, but Waugh s recording demonstrates his ongoing interest in the processes of book production. Later, in December of the same year, Waugh wrote to James Guthrie, owner of the private Pear Tree Press, asking to be taken on as a student of printing, though when he visited the press he was discouraged by Guthrie s methods of printing from photographs. 10 One book from the library, published during this period and containing the His Book plate, is particularly indicative of Waugh s interest in the material book: Douglas Cockerell s 1924 volume Bookbinding, and the Care of Books: A Text-Book for Bookbinders and Librarians. The editor s preface to this remarkable book sketches out its Ruskinian purpose in giving attention to true design, 6 See Diaries, for Waugh s time spent at Crease s workshop at Lychpole. 7 Diaries, Diaries, Diaries, Diaries,

3 Evelyn Waugh His Book 221 involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish and so on, as an inseparable element of quality book production. 11 In this emphasis on design above ornamentation, the preface presages Waugh s own writing on the plastic arts, particularly in articles such as A Call to the Orders published in There is no evidence in the diaries or letters to suggest the date of the His Book bookplate s design. Although the plate is simple in aesthetic, Oram s labeling of it as modernist oddly does not satisfy. Some alternatives for its aesthetic provenance spring to mind. It seems indebted to the Arts and Crafts movement led by William Morris, which would be in keeping with the thesis that it is Waugh s twenties bookplate. Similarly, it also resembles particularly in the font design the work of Eric Gill, an artist for whom Waugh had a great enthusiasm, as evidenced by the inclusion of several of Gill s works in Waugh s library (figure 2, figure 4). Oram labels the bookplate modernist on the basis of its more avantgarde design and its appearance in books published in the twenties, however a reconsideration of its stylistic origins in Eric Gill s font designs, or in the Arts and Crafts movement, unsettles this assumption. Waugh s ambivalence concerning modernist aesthetics is well known, whereas his affection for Gill and for the designs of William Morris continued throughout his life. Figure 2: Greetings from the Ditchling Group. Waugh s aesthetic absorption of Morris and Gill occurred at an early age. In an early diary entry he records seeing an exhibition of Gill s prints, and a comparison of Waugh s youthful drawings and woodcuts shows his stylistic debt to Gill [Figures 4a & 4b]. In October 1924 Waugh records a day spent drawing bookplates, one for his friend Dudley Carew ( a pastoral of pot-boiling ) and an armorial plate for his father. 13 It is tempting to think that this armorial plate 11 Preface to Douglas Cockerell, Bookbinding, and the Care of Books: A Text-Book for Bookbinders and Librarians (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1924), viii. 12 Evelyn Waugh, A Call to the Orders, Country Life, 26 February Reprinted in The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh, edited by Donat Gallagher (London: Methuen, 1983), Diaries, 182.

4 222 Script & Print is the one pasted into the books inherited from Arthur, upon which Waugh s own armorial plate [Figure 3] appears to be based. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the His Book bookplate could, similarly, be of Waugh s design, influenced by the Ditchling Group or the Arts and Crafts movement. If this is the case, then biographical evidence would suggest a twenties dating: much of Waugh s published work as an illustrator was conducted during this decade. Figure 3. Armorial Bookplate Evelyn Waugh Industria Ditat. Evelyn Waugh Collection, Harry Ransom Center Further evidence unsettles Oram s methods for dating the His Book bookplate. While Oram assumes the plate dates from the 1920s, basing this assumption upon its appearance in twenties-era publications, its use in the library is not chronologically exclusive. The plate appears in volumes in the Waugh collection published (and annotated) well into the 1960s, while the armorial bookplate appears in volumes such as Harold Acton s Humdrum, known to have been read by Waugh in the twenties, suggesting that a dating system based on the publication dates of books in which the plates appear is uncertain at best. As has been suggested, the aesthetics of the bookplate seem to chime with the work of Eric Gill and the Ditchling Group; Gill s art was a lifelong interest of Waugh s, suggesting a dating anywhere from the late 1910s to the mid 1930s if the bookplate was designed by an artist other than Waugh.

5 Evelyn Waugh His Book 223 Figure 4a: Eric Gill, illustration from The Devil s Devices (1915), in Evelyn Waugh Collection, Harry Ransom Center; Figure 4b.: Engraving by Evelyn Waugh, circa Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library, photographersdirect.com. The His Book bookplate is richly suggestive of Waugh s relationship with books. The text within the marginal panels is adapted from the marriage service; the centre panel declares both ownership of, and identification with, the volume it marks. In this centre panel, Evelyn Waugh is bonded to his books. Waugh s abiding passion for books is suggested by an infamous diary entry from the war, dated 13 November Waugh writes of his plans to evacuate his library from London due to fear of attacks from German rockets: At the same time I have advocated my son coming to London. It would seem from this I prefer my books to my son. I can argue that firemen rescue children and destroy books, but the truth is that a child is easily replaced while a book destroyed is utterly lost; also a child is eternal; but most that I have a sense of absolute possession over my library and not over my nursery. 14 This diary entry speaks of the complexity of Waugh s habits of book ownership. It suggests a need to control and regulate the relation between reading, writing, and book owning. More importantly, it shows a man wedded to the proper care of his library. Waugh was a devoted bookman, and the His Book bookplate illustrates Waugh s lifelong relationship with books. Like husband and wife, Evelyn Waugh and His Book become one in the sacrament of marriage: for better for worse, for richer for poorer, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health. The final part of the vow until death do us part is not included in the plate s design, though its absence seems only to magnify its significance. 14 Diaries, 555. Australian National University, Canberra

6 Copyright of Script & Print is the property of Bibliographical Society of Australia & New Zealand and its content may not be copied or ed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or articles for individual use.