The Unusual from Garrett Scott, Bookseller
The deadly Mrs. Walters on the cover of Garrett Scott's latest catalogue.
By Michael Stillman
Garrett Scott, Bookseller, has released Catalogue Twenty-nine, A Miscellany. The Ann Arbor based Scott specializes in the unusual. His books, pamphlets, and ephemera almost always meet one of the two standard meanings for "unusual," either uncommon or strange. You will not find much from Whitman or Longfellow in a Scott catalogue. However, if your tastes run to Richard Griffin, the early 20th century New York "poet" whose works may not be as well acclaimed as those of the previously mentioned gentlemen, but are infinitely more entertaining, this is your place. There are three books here from Griffin. Now for some of the material offered.
Richard Griffin certainly must qualify as one of the best of the worst when it comes to poetry. Griffin was not the standard "bad poet," such as England's legendary William McGonagall who wrote about serious topics of the day in the apparent belief that as long as the words rhymed, nothing else mattered. Griffin makes the transition from mere bad to very strange. As such, it's hard to discern whether he was pulling our leg or was a raving lunatic. Perhaps the best answer is that he was both. The total absurdity of some of his poems, and the strange but amusing photographs he took of himself, makes one think there was a joke here, or perhaps he was part of the dada movement of his day. On the other hand, such intentional absurdity is usually self-promotional, and Griffy never succeeded in promoting himself very well. His books were not bestsellers; he never achieved any recognition. His poems were self-published as no one else would touch them and his life is veiled in obscurity. He was apparently born in 1857, published and probably wrote his poetry from around age 60 and up (it is unclear what he did before then), put out his last book in 1931 (he would have been 74 then), and disappeared from history. Where or when he died is unknown (Griffin's pictures can be seen on the next two pages of this review).
Item 40 is Griffin's The Lobster's Gizzard and Other Poems, published by the author in 1916. Along with the title piece, it contains such entries as Water on the Brain, The Woman Without Any Ears, The Round-Shouldered Licker, and The Latter Day Saint, an ode to multiple marriage:
"The first girl I married, sweet Lulu,
Oh my! Such a dumpling, one corker,
High stepper, stuck up like a Zulu,
But also a nice little porker."
The title piece, Scott explains, is a tale of a man encouraged by a wizard to consume the gizzard of a magical lobster. One thing we learn from this poem is that there are several words that rhyme with gizzard - wizard, lizard, blizzard. Griffin uses them liberally. $150.
The charming young lady on the cover of this catalogue is Ann Walters, the lead character in the Confession of Ann Walters, the Murderess! Walters was a most evil woman, a tavern keeper on the Delaware-Maryland border. She did away with her husband and a baby, and then began running a gang of killer-thieves who did the same to some of the travelers who stopped at her tavern. It was all a very sensational tale, which lacked for but one thing - the truth. There was no Ann Walters, but why let truth stand in the way of a good story? Item 100. $450.
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The Unusual from Garrett Scott, Bookseller
Poet Richard Griffin displays how to remove a lobster's gizzard.
Talk about not letting truth get in the way of a good story, item 46 is The Horn Papers: Early Westward Movement on the Monongahela and Upper Ohio 1765-1795. William Horn's work was published by the Greene County Historical Society in 1945. In 1932, William Horn of Kansas began providing locals in southwestern Pennsylvania with an amazing collection of diaries and other early material from their neighborhood. Some of this material was published in this three-volume set. However, further investigations found inconsistencies in Horn's material and it was in time determined to be fake. Arthur Middleton and Douglass Adair, who published the expose that revealed Horn's deception, noted prophetically that the Horn Papers, that "now seem worthless to their purchasers will in time become collectors' items in the field of literary curiosities." Item 46. $500.
You probably won't see anyone holding up signs reading "Leviticus 18:18" at ballgames, but this obscure Biblical passage is the basis of three books offered in this catalogue. It basically says that one should not sleep with his wife's sister, at least while she is alive. The question is then whether it's okay to marry your dead wife's sister. One might not think this a topic momentous enough to generate a lot of writing, but one would be wrong for so thinking. Item 60 is 1880's anonymously written Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister. $75. Item 61 is The Doctrine of Incest Stated, with an Examination of the Question. Whether a Man May Marry His Deceased Wife's Sister... by "Domesticus" (clergyman Alexander McClelland), published in 1827. McClelland did not think it a good idea, warning that it would lead to "tales that will make your ears tingle." Item 61. $50. The other side is taken by Nehemiah Prudden in his 1811 book, To Marry a Wife's Sister Not Inconsistent with the Divine Law. Item 62. $75. You decide.
Item 16 is a sermon/tribute to the recently deceased President William Henry Harrison, delivered in the Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 14, 1841: Submission to the Will of God. The speaker was the Reverend William L. Breckenridge. The minister was the uncle of the better-known John C. Breckenridge, Vice-President of the United States under James Buchanan, and Southern Democratic presidential candidate who went on to serve the Confederacy. However, the Breckenridges, like their native state of Kentucky, were divided during the Civil War. Rev. William Breckenridge, who decades earlier had freed his slaves, remained a loyal supporter of the Union. $200.
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The Unusual from Garrett Scott, Bookseller
Richard Griffin and "friends" play the banjo.
Item 86 is a useful book, Horary Numerology of the Turf by Rasajo, published in 1961. This book enables you to use the movement of the planets and the numbers of the horses to pick the winners at the track. "The control of planets over racing numbers and in turn over horses is very astonishing." Indeed it is. How the horses were able to compute this information to know when to run faster is unclear, but science is amazing. $75.
Garrett Scott, Bookseller may be reached at 734-741-8605 or garrett@bibliophagist.com. His website is www.GSBbooks.com.
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