Hill, John
Food Talks: Culinary Candor for Epicures and For All Who Wish to Eat Wisely
Hotel Clarendon, Brooklyn: 1915
- $1,250
Uncommon promotional booklet for the dining menus and services of of Hotel Clarendon in Brooklyn, NY by its operator John Hill. Hardcover, pictorial covers, measures approx. 11.5x19cm, 20 pp (unpaginated), printed in black and red on gray stiff paper, designed in best described as a commercial variant of Arts&Crafts and Art Noveau style. Sections include cold storage, fish, eggs, soups, turkeys, cream, ready dishes, ice cream, salads, health in mind and body and a description of the hotel itself. In his preface, Hill criticizes the discipline of American chefs in New York (thus ceding cuisine to the French); hence his book. An New York Times article about the sale of the hotel in 1922 to an unknown investor reports that John Hill had been operating the hotel on a long term lease for 25 years. The Hotel Clarendon was located at the intersection of Washington and Johnson Streets. Scarce: OCLC list only 4 copies.
More from Johnnycake Books
THE LONELY DOLL
First edition, early printing,with 1957 date both on copyright and title page. Dare Wright's, arguably"offbeat" take on girlhood; even with "modern" sensibilities well-advanced from the 1950s when Dare created the characters and story of Edith and her Teddy Bears, some now perhaps regard it as "edgy". A very nice copy in price-clipped pictorial dustjacket front and back that replicates the covers of the book. With a young girl's bookplate on the pastedown.HOLIDAY FOR EDITH AND THE BEARS
First edition, 1958, of the sequel to "The Lonely Doll" printed the year before. An unusual take on girlhood; even with "modern" sensibilities well-advanced from the 1950s when Dare created the characters and story of Edith and her Teddy Bears, some now perhaps regard it as "edgy". A very nice copy in price-clipped pictorial dustjacket front and back that replicates the photograph on the covers of the book. With a charming bookplate for a young girl on the front pastedown.CALDER
Presentation copy from Calder to book's author Arnason. Inscribed by Calder on the title page to H. Harvard Arnason, with an exclamation coming from Calder's mouth in a photograph of him opposite page: "Hello Harvey! Glad you survived. Sandy Calder". Arnason, in turn, inscribed the book on the upper right corner ffe "to Robert Goldwater and Louise Bourgeois with affection and respect extending over many years Harvard Arnason 6/21/67" Arnason (1909 - 1986) was an art-historian, educator and museum administrator, who served as executive at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC in the 1960s and authored many books; his "History of Modern Art" (1968) remains the authoritative textbook on the topic. Robert Goldwater (1907 - 1973) was an art historian, African arts scholar and the first director of the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, from 1957 to 1973. Louise Bourgeois (1911 - 2010), French artist and sculptor, was his wife. Book near fine; dustjacket spine heavily faded.CALDER
Presentation copy by Calder to author and art historian Arnason. Inscribed, with Icelandic spelling of Arnason's name, in blue ink on the ffe by artist Calder to H. Harvard Arnason, who wrote the critical text, and Arnason's wife Elinor: "to Elinor and Hahvrarhd Arnaasonn Goda Knjda. Sandi Calder Hotel Stanhope Hope for lunch" H. Harvard Arnason (1909 - 1986) was Canadian-born of Icelandic immigrant parents. As an art-historian, educator and museum administrator, he served as executive at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC in the 1960s and authored many books; his "History of Modern Art" (1968) remains the authoritative textbook on the topic. Near fine in dustjacket.THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
First edition. Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Some tanning to front endpapers where newspaper article apparently had been laid in and in the center of the book, too. Unclipped dustjacket slightly toned, with shallow chipping most noticeable at spine head. No names or bookplates and desirable thus.CHANGES Vol. 1 Number 1. July 1963
CHANGES, about which little information is available aside from its contributors, was apparently a short-lived literary journal of the avant-garde printed in the lower East Side community in the early 1960s, which featured the early work of poets, philosophers and composers some of whom went on to have long and influential careers. This copy is Volume 1, Number 1 July 1963; we could find no record of subsequent editions. Paper covers with a graphic design in black and red, 20 pages, unpaginated, measures approx 7 x 8.5", reproduced from typewriter pages with spacing arranged in a graphic style. We presume the poems and compositions make their first (in some cases only) appearance here. A Bibliography of Contributors in the rear of the booklet describes the contributors. The most well-known is poet Jerome Rothenberg, who has a 4-page poem called "Preliminaries / From a Journal" which is not recorded in Harry Polkinhorn's 1988 descriptive bibliography of Rothernberg's writings. Rothenberg (1931 - 2024) had a long career as poet, anthropologist and translator, [perhaps best known for his 1967 work "Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries From Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania," According to his obituary in The New York Times, Rothernberg brought "English-language readers into contact with creative traditions far outside the Western establishment - a field he called ethnopoetics - (and) had an enormous impact on world literature and made him a hero to rock musicians like Nick Cave, Jim Morrison and Warren Zevon." Angus MacLise (1938 - 1979) was a percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher, known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground. He contributed a 5-line "poem" which is a stanza from "Orfeo" MacLise had been a member of La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music in the Lower East Side. In this publication, Young publishes a brief composition; Young (b 1935), composer, musician, and performance artist, is recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best known for his exploration of sustained tones, beginning with his 1958 composition Trio for Strings. CVJ Anderson (described as a "deadbeat" in the list of contributors), was part of the cadre of performance artists, composers and artists who performed at Yoko Ono's Chamber Street apartment in the early 60s. Anderson has two poems (although the table of contents says three): "Tropical Poem" and "Jacksonville in August". Louis Gallo, we presume, is Professor at Radford University where he teaches creative writing and modern and contemporary literature. Four volumes of his poetry, "Archaeology, Scherzo Furiant, Crash and Clearing the Attic" are in print. Clauss Stamm, described as living in Japan in the bios, is apparently the author of juvenile books on Japanese culture and mythology. One of his poems here is "Girl in Kimono". Peter Pllafian was published here for the first time; we could find no record that he was published again. We speculate Charles Ponceis likely the author of books on I Ching and Kabbalah. As for editor Tracy McCallum he is self described in the bio list as "unknown & not published'; indeed. So uncommon is this avant-garde pamphlet we could find no listing for it in OCLC.Manhattan Oases: New York’s 1932 Speak-Easies with a Gentleman’s Guide to Bars and Beverages
Early Hirschfeld drawings (before he developed his signature style of show biz portraits) with a bar guide to Manhattan by Kahn. 4to, blue cloth with title pastedown front and spine. 82p, 36 illustrations. Some light fading to cloth where dustjacket has seen loss, mostly at head and foot of spine. No ownership names or bookplates and desirable thus.VIVA: The International Magazine for Women. October 1973. Vol. 1. No. 1. Collector’s Edition
The first appearance of the trendy, literary / cultural "adult" magazine geared to women from Bob Guccione, the Penthouse publisher who successfully challenged Hugh Hefner's Playboy. Guccione wanted to publish a companion title to Penthouse for women. Viva was essentially an erotic magazine for women, containing articles and fiction delving into women's fantasies and exploring their sexuality, as well as reviews of the arts, interviews with well-known personalities, and fashion and beauty. It closed in 1980, having exhausted the 70s. An apparently unused/ unread copy.THE SONG OF ROLAND Done into English, in the original measure by Charles Scott Moncrieff, With an Introduction by G. K. Chesterton, and a Note on Technique by George Saintsbury
Unique association copy, inscribed on the free front endpaper and dated 1919 by Moncrieff to Vyvyan Holland, Oscar Wilde's youngest son. Besides being professional colleagues, in that they both were world-class translators, they shared an intimate correspondence that has been recently discovered. What's more, this copy is extraordinary in that its error (page 128, line 7 "Sones fell Gue.") has been personally emended correctly by Moncrieff (with a transposing line in ink notation) to "So Guenes fell.". At the bottom of page 129, across from the point of issue, as it were, at the conclusion of the work, Moncrieff has written his signature in the same ink. Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (1889 - 1930) was a Scottish writer and translator, most famous for his English translation of most of Marcel Proust's opus, which he published under the Shakespearean title "Remembrance of Things Past" beginning in 1922 until his death. Moncrieff served in the British forces in World War I. A brief affair in 1918 with poet Wilfred Owen led to a bitter dispute with Osbert Sitwell. Among Moncrieff's social friends was Noel Coward. Vyvyan Holland (1886 - 1967), English author and translator, was the second-born son of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. Like Moncrieff, he, too, was commissioned to serve in WWI. After the biography of Moncrieff, "Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C K Scott Moncrieff, Soldier, Spy and Translator", by Moncrieff's great-great-niece Jean Findlay, was published in 2014, Findlay revealed that she had "discovered 458 pages of letters and postcards to Vyvyan Holland, the translator, and son of Oscar Wilde. These spanned from 1910 to Charles's death, his whole adult life. They are witty and frank full of Rabelaisian adventures, homosexual badinage, gossip, limericks and the detail of his thoughts and feelings on every activity, especially his sexual affairs. Vyvyan was the one person to whom Charles revealed his sex life; in the absence of these letters I had believed that after the war he was celibate. The letters proved that he practiced an exuberant sexuality even until his final illness. To escape being compromised, the letters are in French, Italian, Latin, Greek and German." (source: FSG WORK IN PROGRES) . 8vo, light red linen, paper spine label, xxii, 131. cloth slightly faded at top and bottom of covers, spine a tad darkened, title faded from spine label. This copy - inscribed, signed, issue point corrected by author, and, with historical retrospection, a revelatory association - is sui generis, indeed.Gedenkbilder für Elisabeth Steffen
Steffen, Albert Portfolio, with 4 pages of text and 12 fulkl color plates, each 12 x 17", a commemorative suite of painting dedicated to his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1961 just two years before his own death. Albert Steffen (1884 - 1963) was a Swiss poet, painter, dramatist, essayist, and novelist. He joined the Theosophical Society in Germany in 1910, and the Anthroposophical Society in 1912 and became its president after the death of its founder, Rudolf Steiner, in 1925. (Source: Wikipedia). Near fine,- $125
- $125
The Comic History of Rome
a Beckett, Gilbert Alber Undated. 8vo, green pebbled-cloth, blind stamped with gilt-pressed vignette front cover and three figures and titles to spine, aeg, xii, 308, ten colored, full page steel engravings ( frontispiece and title page) plus numerous wood engravings throughout text. Bookplate front pastedown. An exemplar of mid-19thC publishers binding in as nice condition as we have seen.- $425
- $425
THE STAG COOK BOOK: WRITTEN BY MEN FOR MEN (A MAN’S COOKBOOK FOR MEN)
Sheridan, C. Mac (editor). Davis, Robert H. (introduction). Charlie chaplin, Warren G. Harding, Otis Skinner, Houdini, John Philip Sousa, Rube Goldberg, Douglas Fairbanks, Florence Ziegfeld, et al. First edition. Compilation of favorite recipes of 102 contributors - all famous male celebrities, authors, politicians, entertainers, etc of the 1920s - that comprise a cookbook for the bachelor. There's nothing nouvelle about the recipes (Irwin J. Cobb's hog jowl, for example) but what's so macho about tomato wiggle? 8vo, tan cloth stamped in a dark brown pattern, xxvii, 31- 197. top edge soiled, spine tanned. Sound binding, internals quite nice. Owner bookplate on pastedown and his signature dated December 1922 on ffe.- $150
- $150
EAST IS WEST
Stark, Freya. (Davies, Winifred) Green cloth, solid binding, in supplied 4outh printing dustjacket that is price-clipped and slightly tones, most noticeably at spine. Ownership copy of English teacher and rock climber Winifred Davies with her signature lightly penciled on the ffe. Davies (d1939) was the daughter of David Davies and a niece of the sculptor William Davies (Mynorydd). She was a cousin of the climber Owen Wynne Jones, who trained her to climb. She was educated at the University of Wales and the University of London, where she graduated in 1891 with a first-class degree in botany.- $75
- $75
An Autobiography (Frank Lloyd Wright)
Wright, Frank Lloyd Uncommon UK edition of the first appearance of Wright's autobiography. A near fine copy, lacking dustjacket, save for a sliver of cloth shaved from head of spine. Polished black cloth with bright gilt, dulled a bit on the spine. Solid binding, Internals quiet nice. No names or bookplates and desirable thus.- $475
- $475
The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugal Love, After Which Follows the Pleasures of Insanity Concerning Scortatory Love: A Translation of “De Amore Conjugiali”. (Amstelodami 1768)
Swedenborg, Emanuel Early printing of American publication of the English translation of Swedenburg's spritual theses on marriage. 8vo, black cloth, blind-stamped decoration front and back, gilt-stamped titles spine. (iv) 472 (iv). Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 - 1772) was a Swedish Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher, and mystic. Swedenborg himself remained a bachelor all his life, but that did not hinder him from writing voluminously on the subject. Presumed translators are Samuel M. Warren and Louis Hermann Tafel. Solid copy, No names or bookplates.- $125
- $125
THE GANGS OF NEW YORK: AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF THE UNDERWORLD
Asbury, Herbert First edition. Pictorial covers with burgundy cloth spine, xviii, 282, (1), illustrated. The gentlest of toning about edges of covers and leaves. Slightest loss to cloth head of spine. Binding solid. Bookplate pastedown,- $500
- $500
LITTLE BLACK SAMBO
Bannerman, Helen. Wehr, Julian (animations) (Movable) The first edition animated by Julian Wehr. All 7 plates with movable parts operate as issued. The paper surrounding red plastic spiral spine is worn here and there and the edges of the covers of the book are soiled/ darkened but internals quiet nice. No names or bookplates.- $325
- $325
Food Talks: Culinary Candor for Epicures and For All Who Wish to Eat Wisely: https://rarebookinsider.com/rare-books/food-talks-culinary-candor-for-epicures-and-for-all-who-wish-to-eat-wisely/