Rose A. McCandless

@rosemccandless.bsky.social

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Bibliographer, rare book enthusiast, and special collections instruction librarian. I post about rare books & manuscripts, fine/small press, book arts, digital humanities, etc. MPhil, MLIS. Leftist. Silly goose. she/her

The math lady meme
The opening to Genesis in the Doves Press Bible (1905).
An opening of the 1905 Doves Press Bible, with stains resulting from staying wet too long after printing.
Morris & Co. Daisy wallpaper
Mid? 19th-century Spanish marbled paper
The old cold nose illuminator in all its old tech glory. It’s enormous.
A printed title page from 1543.
A metal plate engraving to the Nonesuch New Testament (1924-1927).
Ornaments designed by William Morris for the Kelmscott Press and reproduced in an Elston Press volume on Morris’ printing.
A magazine cover with a colorful illustration of a woman in a dance pose.
A close up of a manuscript leaf written in Beneventan script.
Ex Libris of T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, founder of the Doves Press.
A half-cloth bound book with green paper boards printed in a black design, with gold stamped typography.
Gold floral decorative cover of “Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books,” Scribner’s, 1896.
The title opening of William Morris’ design, The Work of Chaucer, published by the Kelmscott Press in 1896.
Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” in a binding designed by Laurence Housman
A black and white design
A green Morocco bound book with a lovely floral border stamped in red and gold by Rivière
The recto side of a Qur’an in North African Maghrebi script.
The opening of the prospectus with the text about “handling books in a cleanly manner” with a circular stain from the bottom of a bottle/glass on the facing page.
A colorful printed silk square with a cartoon depicting US and Allied leaders carrying Kaiser Wilhelm II to a fiery grave. Uncle Sam looks on with a shovel. The caption reads “Uncle Sam is ready to bury the chief of the barbarians/Uncle Sam e pronto a seppellire il capo dei barbari”
A woodcut by Hasagawa Settan showing people shopping for plants in c. 1830s Edo.
Hugh Thomson’s famous 1894 “peacock” edition of Pride & Prejudice, marred by reinforced book cloth spine and corners that cover the design.
A table with a full-size facsimile of Audubon’s Birds of America and a smaller reproduction, both open to the flamingo plate. The flamingo was so big that Audubon had to depict it with its neck bent at a low angle in order to fit it, at a 1:1 ratio, on the page.
A woodcut bookplate design in a circular shape, with a ship in water and the name “Frank H Whitmore”.
A hardcover book from 1937 with a plaid design. It’s a paper-wrapped case binding? With book board covers… what is the name of this?
A photo of a folder with advertisements and catalogs for printing supplies.
Evelina by Frances Burney, or as I like to call it, Men Behaving Badly
A small black book with a gold design on the cover.
The title page of Kelmscott, Doves and Ashendene (ed. Will Ransom, 1952). Essayists include William Morris, Emery Walker, Sydney Cockerell, T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, and Alfred W. Pollard—all major figures in the Arts & Crafts and fine press movements.
Two volumes of “The English Spy” bound by Zaehnsdorf. They are in black leather with gilt stamped spines.
A book bound with gilded edges bears the bookplate of A.N.L. Munby (1913-1974) with an illustration of the King’s College (Cambs.) Chapel.
A cat lies grumpily on the couch. In the background is a decorated Christmas tree.
Ohio State University, Thompson Library Special Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, SPEC.RARE.MS.MR.Frag.195.500
The carpet title opening of “Hand & Soul” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, printed and published by the Kelmscott Press (1895)
A drawing, among comic panels, of “Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits” by Increase Mather (1693). Page 436 of paperback edition.
Marginalia.
Thomas Bond’s elogie to his son, dated 17 November 1738.
A book open to two bookplates (one of Thomas Bond and one of Trelissick Library) with a pasted-in fly leaf in which a later Bond, still in East Looe, details the 16th-c. printer’s mark of Richard Jugge.
Rose’s hand holding two carrots and two little bulbs… not sure what yet! The fresh bed is in the background.
The engraved frontispiece of De re diplomatica.
Rose’s hand holding a book that has been ripped vertically down its spine.
The double carpet page opening of the Kelmscott Chaucer (1896).
A woodcut of a skeleton with its hand extended as if in welcome, from Arfe y Villafañe, De varia commensuracion para la esculptura y architectura (1585).
The inside of a front board, with lots of good stuff including hair remaining on the parchment, canvas binding supports, thongs of leather (spine support) woven into the board, and the imprint of a lost binding fragment.
An initial “S” inhabited by a lil guy with a sword and shield.
Rose’s handwriting noting shelfmarks for manuscript fragments on archival folders.
An Ethiopian manuscript with a painting of St. George.
A Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster hiding behind map cases.
A stack of portfolio-sized books, with Cook’s Third Voyage (plates, 1784) on the bottom.
A pamphlet, dated 1713, entitled “The Dutch: Better Friends than then French to the Monarchy, Church, and Trade of England”
A row of classic crime novels with titles pertaining to books: Death Stops the Manuscript (1936); Death of a Bookseller (1956); Murder at the Bookstall (1934); Death Took a Publisher (1938); Murder in a Library (1931); End of an Author (1938); The Library of Death (1938); Die by the Book (1966); The Shakespeare Murders (1933); and The Pulitzer Prize Murders (1932). All collections of University of Denver Special Collections and Archives.
A drawing with text and images describing some of the basics of handling rare books, including: don’t slide along shelves, try not to touch the ink, touch materials with clean, dry hands, keep materials out of direct sunlight, etc.
A page of Pilgrim’s Progress (Essex House Press, 1899) that shows an example of the red marginal section headers that reflect the influence of William Morris’ mise-en-page characteristics.