Old Friends Among the Books

I grew up surrounded by books.  They lined the shelves in the family room, the most impressive looking were used as literary decorations in our living room, more books filled the shelves along the hallway, and my room was cluttered with them.  As my parents moved, first to Hampton Bays and then to Florida, they kept passing along more of the family books to me.  My mother figured that I’d take care of them.

I’m talking about books that have sentimental value – not genuine “rare book” value.  But for me, sentimental value is plenty real.  These are books that shaped who I am.

Here are some of the family books that I particularly value:

Tarzan and company:  Edgar Rice Burroughs!  Books by the prolific author of Tarzan of the Apes came at me from both sides of the family.  I found Burroughs’ At the Earth’s Core in my grandparents’ house (mother’s side) when I was around 10.  I loved it.  We found more Burroughs books in their wonderfully cluttered storage rooms, and then it turned out that there were even more Burroughs books left behind by my dad at my other grandparents’ house.  I claimed them all.  These books are early hardcover editions, mostly from the 1920s, but nothing overly valuable like the original pulp magazines would be.

The Spencer Press: World’s Greatest Literature:  I suspect that my mothers’ parents may have bought this 20-volume set of literature classics more for show than for actual reading.  But my mother loved them as she grew up, particularly the Best Loved Poems (now, unfortunately, lost) and Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination.  Their Spencer Press edition of Shakespeare plays is still the one
I reach for when looking for a fast quote.

The Story of Civilization:  Decades in the writing, Will and Ariel Durant’s magnificent 11-volume history of the world awakened a love of history in me at an early age.  I never read them through in order, but I’ve pored over great swathes of each of them.  Absorbed early, Will Durant’s approach to history and philosophy has profoundly influenced the way I view the world.

There are many others, too, but these are the books that I plan to focus on over the next 10 days.  If I can save these, I’ll be happy.

© 2010 Lee Price

Cautionary Tales / 2 of 2

We’re leading up to the point where a professional book conservator will look at some books from our June and Art family collection, but first I’m preparing for the worst with a couple of cautionary tales.  This is the second.

A vibrant exploration of Armenian folk culture, poetry and history, Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates (1968) is an abstract masterpiece.  Just accept there’s no coherent plot, let the images flow and, like me, you may love it.  (Note:  Conversely, if this doesn’t sound like your kind of movie, you may hate it.)

One brief segment near the beginning is the single best “water damage” scene that I’ve discovered in a lifetime of watching weird and obscure movies.

The monastery’s books have been soaked in a storm.  The monks squeeze the water out of the books in a press.

A young poet boy, who will grow up to be our hero, is instructed in the power of the word.

He climbs to the roof of the monastery.

He looks at the images of the illuminated manuscripts then lies down among the books, as they dry in the sun and the breeze.

Please note:  This is no longer recommended conservation treatment procedure for water-damaged books.

© 2010 Lee Price

Cautionary Tales / 1 of 2

We’re leading up to the point where a professional book conservator looks at some books from my family collection, but first I’m preparing for the worst with a couple of cautionary tales.

Producer George Pal filmed H.G. Wells The Time Machine in 1960 with stars Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux.

In yesterday's entry, I mentioned how William Blades, author of The Enemies of Books, identified dust and neglect as particularly pernicious.  Well, The Time Machine has the classic “dust and neglect” scene.

Far in the future, the Time Traveler enjoys a lunch with the peaceful Eloi people.  He asks them about their culture.  “Don’t you have books?  You must have books.”

“Books?” answers one of the Eloi.  “Yes, we have books.”  He offers to take the Time Traveler to see their books.

He leads the Time Traveler to a small museum room.

The Time Traveler takes a book off the shelf.

And it crumbles to dust in his hands.

Dust and neglect.

Postscript:  I love the way the books crumble to dust.  And the message is that they've deteriorated because of neglect.  However...  those pages that he's cracking with his fingers constitute brittle paper.  It looks like the pages were highly acidic and became embrittled over time.  In that case, the problem wasn't so much neglect but the way the book was made in the first place.

© 2010 Lee Price

The Enemies of Books

“The surest way to preserve your books in health is to treat them as you would your own children, who are sure to sicken if confined in an atmosphere which is impure, too hot, too cold, too damp, or too dry. It is just the same with the progeny of literature.”

                           William Blades

                           The Enemies of Books

In his classic work The Enemies of Books, William Blades (1824-1890) identifies nine arch-enemies of book collections.  Some aren’t really relevant to this blog, but others remain on the mark.

Here are the four that I'm especially conscious of as I consider the preservation of our family books:

Fire:  “There are many of the forces of Nature which tend to injure Books; but among them all not one has been half so destructive as Fire.”

Water:  “Next to Fire we must rank Water in its two forms, liquid and vapour, as the greatest destroyer of books.”

Dust and Neglect:  “Dust upon Books to any extent points to neglect, and neglect means more or less slow Decay.”

The Bookworm and Other Vermin:  “There are several kinds of caterpillar and grub, which eat into books, those with legs are the larvae of moths; those without legs, or rather with rudimentary legs, are grubs and turn to beetles.”

The following five enemies aren’t as serious concerns for me, at least when it comes to preserving our family books:

Ignorance and Bigotry:  There’s still plenty of these to go around, but let’s hope the books in our house are safe from them.

Drawing of open book by Art Price, circa 1949.

Gas and Heat:  Granted, heat is not good for books, but Blades’ major concern is with the fumes from the 1880s gas lights.

Bookbinders:  Malicious and/or incompe-tent bookbinders shave off margins when rebinding.

Collectors:  Namely the villains who cut books apart to sell the prints, woodcuts, and other artwork piecemeal.

Servants and Children:  “Children, with all their innocence, are often guilty of book-murder.”  So true…

© 2010 Lee Price

What's a Love Letter Worth?

Along with the condition reports and treatment plans, my sister and I received cost estimates for the proposed treatments on a handful of historic photos, some selected artwork, and a love letter.  It looks like a lot of

money.

What’s a love letter from 1949 worth?  If you mean, what can it fetch on eBay, the answer is probably not much.  In the case of the June and Art letters, the paper was cheap in the first place and has deteriorated since.  There was nothing special about the ink either.  There’s no association with famous people.  Just a set of ordinary 1949 love letters.

You can’t calculate the value of a family item in the usual way.  It’s not a question of what it’s made of or how high it could go at auction.  There’s a different calculus involved.  The paper and the ink are tied in with lives that in some way have touched yours, either directly or down through the generations.  There are echoes of passion, work, relaxation, mistakes, regrets, joy, and despair.  We’ll never fathom all the long chains of cause and effect, but this yellowed paper is a reminder that the links between then and now are real.

A frequent question that conservators hear is:  Any idea what it’s worth?  Ethically, the conservator isn’t supposed to respond.  That’s a question for an appraiser, not a conservator.  But when you’re dealing with family items, it’s not really even an appropriate question for an appraiser.

I know my parents treasured these letters.  They kept them safe through the years, knowing they were so much more than just paper and ink bought at a five and dime store.

My sister and I have the condition reports, the treatment plans, and the cost estimates.  Technically the money will be going to stabilize the paper and ink but the real value will be in its preservation of our family story.  It starts looking like a bargain from that perspective.

© 2010 Lee Price

Translating the Treatment Plans

The condition reports on our family collection items were a bit scary.  The artwork, period photos, and letters from the June and Art collection were—to varying degrees—soiled, discolored, stained, warped, rippled, and torn.

But these are problems with solutions, and the solutions are provided in the treatment plan sections.  As with the condition report, the language of the treatment plan is highly technical.  I’ll hazard a few interpretations here, pulled from the many steps involved in each treatment:

From the treatment plan for a love letter:

-- Test the support and media for stability and sensitivity prior to treatment.

The support is the paper.  The media is the ink.  So this is a test to make absolutely sure that the ink isn’t going to dissolve and spread when exposed to any water or chemicals involved in the proposed treatment.  The conservators will cautiously test first before starting the treatment.  I appreciate the caution!

Art Price with monkey on his shoulder.

 From the treatment plan for a photograph:

-- Consolidate lifting edges and areas of cracking emulsion with a gelatin solution.

-- Mend the tears and re-attach fragments with wheat starch paste and mulberry paper.

This poor beat-up photograph is obviously in need of some loving care.  The picture is cracking up and there are tears breaking the image into fragmentary pieces.  While gelatin, wheat starch, and mulberry may sound like the ingredients of a snack food, these are important tools found in the arsenals of all paper conservators.  Mulberry paper is a particular favorite among conservators—it's strong and lightweight.   Wheat starch paste does the job of scotch tape, attaching one thing to another but without the inevitable long-term damage of the tape.

Fabric textures by
June Anderson.

From the treatment plan for a drawing of fabric textures by June:

-- Realign tears and mend from the verso with wheat starch paste and narrow, torn strips of Japanese paper.

The verso is the back of the paper, so the conservator is flipping the piece over and lining up the pieces like puzzle.  The Japanese paper has extra long fibers that hold everything together for a strong repair, plus it doesn’t discolor.  Only the best for our family artwork!

© 2010 Lee Price

Translating the Condition Reports

Earlier I wrote about the accession process, where I brought in approximately 80 family collection items to the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts for preliminary examination.  At the end of the session, I left 20 items at the Conservation Center to receive condition reports, treatment plans, and cost estimates.

I got the reports last week – over 50 pages of detailed information, including (gulp!) the cost estimates.

The condition reports are amazingly thorough and filled with lots of impressively technical sounding terms.  Here are a few rough and unprofessional translations to help those who may not be fluent in “conservator-speak”:

Recto = front side of the paper

Verso = back side

Planar distortions = curved or warped paper (it doesn't lie flat)

Cockles = ripples or crimping on the paper surface

Media loss = it’s missing some of the writing or artwork
Friable media = pastels, charcoal, and soft pencil (the stuff that rubs off)

Brittle paper = the paper threatens to flake or crumble when touched

Pressure sensitive tape = probably scotch tape, sometimes masking tape

Soiled, grime = dirty paper

Apparently, my collection items exhibit the full range of these bad things:  planar distortions, cockles, media loss, and brittle paper.  There's acidic pressure-sensitive tape on some pieces, and the paper is often soiled and grimy.  And then there are easier to understand (yet still ominous) terms like tears, folds, discoloration, and staining.

Fortunately, there are treatment plans which address nearly every problem listed.  We'll turn to the proposed solutions in the next entry.