Weird Science, Religion, Poetry, Etc. from Garrett Scott, Bookseller
Autumn Miscellany from Garrett Scott, Bookseller.
By Michael Stillman
We receive many fascinating catalogues here at AE, but none quite so entertaining as those of Garrett Scott, Bookseller. Scott specializes in not just the obscure, but the bizarre. His catalogues are filled with treatises from the strange if not deranged minds of people who might better have been institutionalized than published. There is mad science, terrible poetry, fanatic religion, and novels deservedly forgotten. Occasionally, these odd writers hit upon some true insights, but more often, they are just strange. This is not to say that all of the works in a Scott catalogue are peculiar. There are some serious obscurities here as well. Still it is the weird that fascinates us. For those looking for books to collect that are rare yet inexpensive, and quite entertaining, Scott has a catalogue full of them. His latest is Catalogue 21: Autumn Miscellany.
Edward Hammond Clarke was not a feminist, not even by 1874 standards. Clarke, a Harvard medical professor no less, argues that women's reproductive systems make education dangerous to their health. He quotes another physician describing a 16-year-old girl who studied civil engineering and trigonometry: "...schools such as the one this girl went to do more to unsex women than all the anomalies who prate about the right to vote and to wear trousers." Item 42 is entitled The Building of a Brain, and will make an excellent gift for the anomaly in your life for just $50.
As long as we're on the topic of sex and medicine, item 195 is Regeneration: A Discussion of the Sex Question from a New and Scientific Standpoint, by Sidney Weltmer. This 1899 book certainly offered a new standpoint, though the scientific claim is dubious. Weltmer, a Baptist preacher, believed that sexual fluids produced in the genitals of a child at night were taken in by absorbant glands in the morning and distributed throughout the body to generate growth. We believe Weltmer was the last Baptist minister to hold this view. $75.
Item 56 sounds like the title of a children's book, although it appears Henry DeWeese was trying to say something more profound: Fifty Reasons Why Wheat's Not Rye; or, The Spider and the Fly. DeWeese's thoughts had a tendency to wander. In this 1904 first edition, he explains, "It's to keep the people ignorant as long as printers' ink will flow without being clogged for want of ads or sensational news, while the one whets the other and both pull together, it only goes to show the drift of mind of the people. It's the caterer and that - $ just like a Pullman car porter, who would bare your feet in your sleep for a tip, no tip no sip, for one whets the other and they pull together." Well said, Henry. $45. If you enjoy this work, item 57 is DeWeese's What is Love? Good luck deciphering his answer to that question. $30.
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Weird Science, Religion, Poetry, Etc. from Garrett Scott, Bookseller
Dr. Burke worried about the health of everyone but his nurse, whom he attempted to kill.
Richard Griffin is something of a celebrity in then field of eccentric and bad poets. Item 84 is his The Melancholy Yak and Other Poems, published in 1917. Among his verses is the classic: "While upon earth I was living, / Fridays, I ran about giving / Catholic Wops hungry young / Sandwiches, made of beef tongue." Weren't Friday's reserved for fish? $150. If you like this, the good news is that Scott has a couple more Griffin classics available for sale.
Dr. William P. Burke offered a mix of sensible dietary advice and quackery circa the early 1900s in The Constructive and Remedial Properties of Food. He recommended a natural diet, although he strongly condemned root beer. Burke ran Burke's Sanitarium in Santa Rosa, California, but his career was disrupted when he was convicted of attempting to kill one his nurses by blowing her up as she slept in a tent. Item 33. $50.
Charles Pease was an early anti-smoking crusader. The New York dentist has been credited with advancing legislation to outlaw smoking in subways and other public places. Item 139 is his The Smoking Rector, published in 1936. Despite his success in combating smoking, Scott notes. "(h)is efforts against ginger ale, meat, vinegar, and lollipops, however, met with only mixed success." $25.
Item 92 is Stories, by Jessie Heckman, published in 1896. She mixes true stories, such as an 1894 tour of the White House, with the fantastic like an invasion of giants: "when the little girl and her mother saw all the giants coming, she went to the barn and called the hired man and he came in and brought his Gattling gun and gattled and gattled until he killed all the giants, but the big one" [were the other giants small?]. Miss Heckman can be forgiven her childish prose. She was only six at the time. Jessie was the daughter of Chicago attorney Wallace Heckman, and while we cannot be certain, believe she grew up to be Jessie Heckman Herschl, who graduated from the University of Chicago and, half a century later, was writing articles about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. This copy is signed in a juvenile signature by Miss Heckman dated July 20, 1896. Had she become a famous author, this book would probably be extraordinarily expensive, but she did not, so it is priced at $50.
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Weird Science, Religion, Poetry, Etc. from Garrett Scott, Bookseller
A grown up Jessie Heckman (we believe) from the Oregon (Illinois) Library.
Some may believe Hell lies in the center of the Earth, but not William F. Lyon. With help from the spirit medium M.L. Sherman, he wrote The Hollow Globe; or, The World's Agitator and Reconciler, first published in 1871 (offered is an 1875 second edition). Rather than Hell, Lyon believed there was a beautiful and highly developed world some 30 or 40 miles below the Earth's surface. It could be reached only through a spiral entrance beneath the Polar Sea. Lyon believed that this underworld was the next logical outlet for America's manifest destiny. Item 118. $100.
There are many more gems in the wonderful world under the surface of Garrett Scott, Bookseller's latest catalogue. You may reach him at 734-741-8605 or garrett@bibliophagist.com to inquire. His website is found at www.GSBbooks.com.
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