A guest-post and a request for help from Mark R. Godburn, author of “Nineteenth-Century Dust-Jackets” (Private Libraries Association & Oak Knoll Press, 2016).
When the Tulkens bookshop in Brussels closed in 2008, there were thousands of books in storage that were a century or more old but still in new condition. Many of these books were wrapped in newsprint or other scrap paper, or jacketed in old quire sheets or publishers’ jackets.
I am looking for any books from this shop that are still in these wrappings or jackets. I would like to buy them, or at least record them for my research on early dust-jackets.
An account of the shop by the late Martin Stone is in my book “Nineteenth-Century Dust-Jackets” (Private Libraries Association & Oak Knoll Press, 2016), on p. 201, note 36. There also is a chapter devoted to Martin and the Tulkens shop in “Rare Books Uncovered” (Voyageur Press, 2015), by Rebecca Rego Barry.
Martin believed that the stored Tulkens stock had been wrapped and jacketed by the shop’s own staff during World War One when, according to an old handed-down story, they were hiding books from the occupying Germans. I believed that the jackets and wrappings were original issue, but I had seen only one Tulkens book at the time my book was published, and I could not prove it one way or the other. Now, with more examples available, it is clear that many of the scrap paper wrappings and jackets were original issue from the binderies.
I would especially like to find any of the A&C Black 20 shilling series that were said to be in quire sheet jackets. If you have any of these books – or know where any are …
Please contact me at bookmarkstore@att.net
Thank you,
Mark Godburn, The Bookmark, North Canaan, CT, USA.
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