An Unusual Collection from Ian Brabner
Ian Brabner's Occasional List 5 with Du Pont family cartoon on cover.
By Michael Stillman
Ian Brabner, Bookseller, of Wilmington, Delaware, has issued a fascinating collection of eclectic works, Occasional List 5. There is no way to classify this grouping. It is filled with the odd, the uncommon, the mundane, and something for everyone. There is a concentration of 19th century material in this catalogue. That is about as close as I can come to picking a common thread. However, I can promise this catalogue will be fun to peruse, and much of the material you will want to read out of curiosity, even though these are collectibles. So, all we can do is present a few samples of what we found, with the caution that this is both not particularly representative of what is in this catalogue, and yet in another sense, it is totally representative of this diverse collection.
Item 30 is an anonymous circa 1870s broadside, perhaps published by a pair of aggrieved Iowa sisters. The heading states, An Incident of the late War -- The Brutal Burial of a Dead Soldier. The dead soldier was James McDannel, the sisters' brother, and the brutal undertaker J.W. Johnson, a government undertaker given the job of burying the wounded veteran when he died shortly after the war. Evidently, a dispute broke out between the undertaker and the sisters over the quality of the casket. The sisters were expecting an upgrade over what Johnson planned to bury him in. According to the sisters, Johnson had not yet dug the grave when he arrived for the burial. Apparently, there must have been an unresolved disagreement over the coffin, so Johnson went off to get another body that needed to be buried that day. They also said that Johnson borrowed their carriage to attend another funeral, which makes one think the situation was not as contentious as the sisters later described. Otherwise, why did they loan him their carriage? When Johnson returned, there was another disagreement over the coffin, whereby, according to the sisters, Johnson threatened to "throw the body on the ground and take his coffin back." Tacky, Mr. Johnson. Next, the undertaker took off for yet another funeral, again borrowing the sisters' carriage. All of this happened years earlier, but either they harbored a permanent grudge, or something else came up which led to the publishing of this attack several years later. As the sisters explain, "Years have passed by with the wave of time -- but in the hearts which once loved, can never forget 'THIS MONSTER IN HUMAN SHAPE,' though he still lives and continues his devotions at the Altar of God and continues to still bury the DEAD." Today, we would not publicly display such disagreements in broadsides. We would do it on reality TV, like we should. Priced at $200.
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An Unusual Collection from Ian Brabner
1763 marriage certificate of Thomas Hall and Sarah Holland.
Item 32 is a humorous yet telling look at the lives of the very wealthy in 1930. It is a "newspaper" created by children of Delaware's Du Pont family on a rail trip they took out west that summer. The reality of the coming depression was facing much of the nation, but the wealthy Du Pont kids could still laugh and joke on a luxurious vacation. Their "paper," the Newport News, includes made-up funny stories and cartoon caricatures of family members. One caricature shows Pierre S. Du Pont III as the "facist" leader, knife between his teeth. Pierre, roughly 19 at the time, did not go on to be one of the more famous Du Ponts, but his son, Pierre IV, became Governor of Delaware and made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1988. Pierre III did put together a notable collection of navigation and voyages which was auctioned at Christies in 1991. The "newspaper" is pictured on the cover of Brabner's catalogue. Why hasn't some Du Pont grabbed this thing? $275.
Item 56 is a radical broadside, printed in 1896, but might just as easily have been published today. The author was William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., son of the famous abolitionist. In it, the younger Garrison deplores a "...nation of immigrants and the children of immigrants...considering the feasibility of barring other immigrants." Garrison defends the "downtrodden" Italians, Hungarians, and Russian and Polish Jews. "Let us try to understand the true immigrant and separate him from the mythical picture of the alarmist." Garrison notes that many descendants of these immigrants are already indistinguishable from other citizens. $150.
Here is a circa 1850s book that will absolutely fascinate your children: Read and Imitate. It is the story of a young Edward Fuller, who dedicates himself to being a "children's book-binder." He gathers up the books of his playmates and generously devotes his time to rebinding them. His father "gives him money to buy paper, leather, glue and pasteboard enough to commence bookbinding... He soon had plenty of books with worn-out covers brought to him to be rebound, so that in a short time all the Latin grammars and arithmetics in the school began to assume quite a new and uniform dress." I won't spoil this spellbinding story by revealing the ending (not that I know it anyway). Today, Edward Fuller would be the geek who fixes his classmates computers. Item 129. $45.
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An Unusual Collection from Ian Brabner
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Items 73-79 are a group of broadsides and the like which appeal for help from the public on behalf of people with various maladies. They were perhaps something of a sophisticated form of begging. The unfortunate person would frequently have some sort of a poem to sell, which was essentially an excuse for people to provide assistance. Among the conditions described in these writings which brought about the need for help were blindness, an injured spine, and the need for an artificial limb. A brakeman who fell between two rail cars and was crippled pleads for aid, while a poor young girl whose father died and mother is ill seeks help. Most are priced at $50.
Item 29 is an epic poem, a literary form once of great popularity. I have no idea why. Of Battles by James H. Rea retells the Civil War as a poem. "Were Longstreet's pets and Lee's best fighting men; / Tho' ne'er been whipped, were doomed to whipping then. / They met the Philadelphia brigade / Who, unprotected or protected, staid. / Brigade with canon soon was reinforced. / Retained their ground all officers unhorsed..." On and on it goes, and you can read it all for $125.
Over fifty people attended the wedding of Thomas Hall and Sarah Holland at Goshen Meeting House in Pennsylvania. You weren't one of them. We know this because the wedding took place over 240 years ago, in 1763. The lovely couple is long gone, but surprisingly, their marriage certificate is still with us. They pledged to be "loving and faithful" husband and wife, and there being no evidence to the contrary, I will assume they were just that, "until death shall separate them." They have affixed their names to the certificate as have more than fifty of their neighbors and relatives. Item 117. $200.
Item 100 is one of those rare items pertaining to Penn County, Pennsylvania. Penn County? Where is that? It isn't. At the time of this petition, To the Honourable the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, circa 1840s, there had long been a movement to create a new county, Penn, from portions of Lancaster and Chester Counties. This petition is signed by many residents of Chester County, and they opposed the plan. They state that the only point of the new county would be to enrich a few people who held land near the proposed county seat. Penn County was never to be, though it is never too late for those who might like once again to raise this cause. $200.
Ian Brabner, Bookseller, may be found online at www.bookgarden.com, phone number 302-998-2886.
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