Wonder Movies

A curious production from the early 1920s intended to mimic motion in a book for young readers. Each “movie” is viewed by turning back successive panels on a scored page to reveal new scenes. While a bit awkward to manipulate, the idea works well enough to entertain and delight.

Wonder movies by Victor M Earle; Illustrated by Benjamin Seielstad
(Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page, 1923).

Schwimm, Schwamm, Schwumm

Illustrated plates from a German primer on swimming.

Carl Purkart, Vorschriften für den Schwimmunterricht (München, 1826)

Past Times

Les Jeux des jeunes garçons représentés en 25 gravures à l’aqua-tints

d’après les dessins de Xavier Le Prince ; avec l’explication détaillée des règles de chaque jeu ; accompagnées de fables nouvelles par MM. Armand-Gouffé, Le Franc, etc. et suivis d’anecdotes relatives à chaque jeu.

(A Paris : Chez P.C. Lehuby, [n.d., after 1822?])

Noted as “sixieme edition” in the preface.

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Scenes of juvenile ludic life in France in the early part of the 19th century.

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A Garden by the Sea

Selected poems and images from a privately distributed volume from 1935:

Noailles, Anna Elisabeth de Brancovan, Philippe Gonin, and Jean Berque. 1935.
“Les jardins”: Poèmes de la Comtesse de Noailles. Paris: Frères Gonin.

Evidence of follies past

An exceedingly rare paper share for an English company traded at the height of the stock mania in the summer of 1720 – perhaps the only known survival of this iconic type of object that appears in numerous satirical prints and plays from the period as the symbol of folly – worthless bits of paper being blown by the wind of speculation.

M. M.

A pair of Mickey Mouse books from the early 1930s.

Mickey, chercheur d’or [Paris] : Hachette, [©1931]
whose endpapers advertise the adventures of the fellow on film and in the local newspaper.

AND

Mickey Mouse movie stories. Philadelphia, David McKay Co. [©1931]
contains comic strips and images of Mickey and Minnie at the bottom of every page, so that the reader can flip the pages and create miniature “movies”.

But the most charming attribute of this copy is the owner’s inscription:

The Jumble Club

The records of The Jumble Club, a group dedicated to playing whist (and *only* whist) which thrived in Glasgow, Scotland, approximately between 1799 and 1877.
The records consist of 4 ledgers containing minutes of meetings, with additional meeting minutes, inventories, insurance policy, checkbook. flyers and other related papers and ephemera.

And they came in a lovely metal coffer, complete with a set of keys, none of which fit the box lock.