Lost Books, Found Pages
Archive Highlights from Summer 2023
Hello everyone! Since we last met, I’ve completed my cataloguing of all 90 of the numbered archive boxes that greeted me upon my arrival last year.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we have spotlighted our last Archive Highlight; I celebrated the milestone by diving straight into the unchartered waters of the unnumbered boxes! So we have a bumper Highlights issue here, featuring a Bond-ish book cover, orphaned botanical illustrations, and mysterious Victorian drawings…
The Return of 007
Our older or more espionage-inclined readers might recognise my first find! By now, many of you will know our James Bond-related tale of woe – the Library did have a completely intact (and incredibly valuable!) first edition of Fleming’s Casino Royale, the first book in his Bond series.
Sadly, however, that’s no longer true after a nefarious book binder stole the boards and cover, leaving only the text block intact. Thankfully, book binder Brian Cole came to the rescue to produce the lovely and completely unique cover and box we have today.
The book boards and jacket you see here (contrary to my first assumption) don’t belong to our text block. In fact, the plain green back of the dust jacket dates them to a 1963 reprint – not quite as valuable as the original, but still worth more today than they were when these were first stored in our archive!
Lost Books, Found Pages
My next highlights are these beautiful printed botanical illustrations of trees and their seeds. They’re all from the same book, but the title and author of the text is a mystery – I found them barely held together with a scrap of spine in an unlabeled plastic folder. The box they’re housed in is full of similar orphaned pages and covers, all stamped with the Library’s name.
Hello, Humphrey Davy!
This portrait of inventor and scientist Humphrey Davy was found in another unlabeled box in the archive room, under a folder of bills from 1997.
Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) is most famous for his chemistry experiments, inventing the Davy Lamp, and coining the name ‘laughing gas’ for nitrous oxide after it made him laugh during experiments! This portrait is signed ‘Your Humble Servant H. Davy’ and dated in the same hand to July 1825, when Davy was President of the Royal Society.
Why the Library has this is another mystery entirely. I found it stored in the brown envelope pictured here, originally addressed to F. Martin Jorysz (Librarian 1980-1987) but now labelled ‘Humphrey Davy (Portrait – Signed)’. Perhaps it was sent to us by a member, for safe keeping? However it arrived, I’m glad it found a home on the shelves of the Library archives.
Mystery Painter
I could have dedicated an entire issue of Archive Highlights to our next and final collection. These lovely drawings were in the same unlabeled box as Mr. Davy, in amongst dozens of clippings of paintings and drawings in a similar style. I have been unable to find a date or artist recorded on any of them – apart from the initials ‘H.B.’, written on a few pieces.
The lack of information makes dating difficult. The illustration style has some hallmarks of Victorian art, however - round faces, pastoral landscapes, etc. This theory is bolstered by an invitation to a 1881 dinner found amongst H.B.’s work
The variety of materials here is just a small sample of what lies hidden in the depths of the Library’s institutional archive. If you have any questions about our highlights today – or any other archive enquiries – please don’t hesitate to contact me at day-goughn@theleedslibrary.org.uk! The Leeds Library provides free access to our archive for researchers of all kinds, and I would be delighted to hear from you.
All images courtesy of The Leeds Library.
