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Goodbye Fanfrolico

· Fanfrolico Press,DH Lawrence,Beresford Egan,Norman Lindsay,Antichrist of Nietzsche

In my last musing, Musts for Collectors, I went over some of the book learnings over the past decades. I also gave the reason why I have decided to move my Fanfrolico books and related items from the personal library to Raven & Gryphon Fine Books. I started this process a couple of days ago and have listed the two high spots in the collection. No feelings of sadness or misgivings but writing up the Abebooks listing for the two items reinforced my belief in adding special items into a book collection.

To build a truly unique collection, that other collectors cannot emulate, you need to add unique books or ephemera – the spice. In my Beresford Egan collection, many items are signed but the real spice are the collections of his letters and notecards that have been added. Many have one-of drawings that are unique. Special presentation inscriptions by the author or artist are terrific additions to the collection. Below are the Abebook descriptions of the two items put up for sale, together with the five photos that I uploaded with the description. (Abebooks only allows for five photos per listing and I invariably do five and why not.) They are both unique. I acquired the Nietzsche because it was so special. It was my second copy of the book, and the first copy was special because it was a presentation copy from the artist Norman Lindsay. But the second copy was even better and I had to have it. You will see why when you read the description.

Remember – the more one-of items you have the grander the collection.

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This book was never published and most never bound, and most copies cannot be traced or found. It was a victim of Jack Lindsay’s departure for London where the great majority of the Fanfrolico books were published. This copy has the following presentation inscription – To Wal Stone with compliments from friends JKM & JK Nov 1954, signed by John Kirkley. Walter W. Stone’s bookplate is pasted inside the front cover. This book was likely bound at this time and is in full brown leather. This was the second book to carry the Fanfrolico imprint. A history of the press – The Fanfrolico Press; Satyrs, Fauns & Fine Books, by John Arnold was published by the Private Libraries Association in 2009. Here is some commentary from that history relating to this book – The book was never bound nor formally published, the copy at the National Gallery of Australia being possibly bound after Kirkley and Lindsay left Sydney for London in February 1926. Kirkley in a letter to Harry Chaplin, 13 April 1963 wrote – Len Gilmour, a Sydney bookseller, was going to take 35 or 50 copies, but he changed his mind. We only finished it on the eve of our London departure & my mother had two copies bound experimentally in dark boards & linen back. The rest remained unbound. Copies #20 and #22, held in the National Library of Australia and State Library of Victoria are bound and these may be the two copies that Kirkley’s mother had bound. Note that Lindsay did a partial reprint of this title in London in 1929 with two of Norman Lindsay’s drawings. This book has 22 full-page & vignette illustrations by Norman Lindsay.

This book, 78 pages is in near-fine condition. The only fault is some spotting on the blank endpapers, and very lightly on the title page and facing limitation page. Norman Lindsay’s drawings for this book are exquisite and some quite risqué, as normal for this famous Australian artist. No one knows how many copies of this book exist and it is very likely the rarest of all the Fanfrolico books.

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The edition is limited to five hundred and fifty copies printed on Arnold’s Handmade paper – this copy out of series with the following presentation inscription: to D. H. Lawrence with respect from P. R. Stephensen. From the Book Wild Man of Letters: The Story of P. R. Stephensen, by Craig Munro, Melbourne University Press, 1984 – At this time Lawrence was in a fury over the English suppression of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. So, he eagerly seized upon the possibility of publishing his paintings, a project Jack Lindsay had suggested in an offhand way to Orioli. Lawrence not only asked Davies to mention it to Stephensen, but on 14 December wrote to his London friend, S. S. Koteliansky, enclosing a letter to Lindsay offering an introductory essay on modern painting if the Fanfrolico would issue his paintings. Before Lawrence’s letter reached England, Stephensen arrived in France with his trunk of books, putting up in fashionable Nice where he had little difficulty disposing of his expensive stock. Rhys Davies was also in Nice, and a week before Christmas 1928 Stephensen decided to travel down to Bandol with him by train, a journey of some hours, to visit Lawrence. They spent two days with Lawrence and Freida at the Hotel Beau Rivage and Stephensen dropped Winifred a line on hotel notepaper saying he had got on wonderfully with Lawrence. Stephensen also presented seven Fanfrolico books – including this book – to Lawrence who afterwards characterized them to Huxley as what a waste of good printing. But Stephensen assured Lawrence that the paintings would be published under a new imprint, and one which would not employ any of Norman Lindsay’s artwork, for which Lawrence obviously had scant respect. The new press, which Stephensen called the Mandrake, had already been discussed with Jack Lindsay and was tentatively planned as an offshoot of the Fanfrolico. That did not happen and Stephensen left Fanfrolico and set up the Mandrake Press, where he published Lawrence and Aleister Crowley.

This folio sized book is in near-fine condition. The binding is scuffed but the text and illustrations are in fine condition. A wonderful association copy.

And there, you have the rest of the story.