In Memoriam : Nancy H. Wessells
18 February 1934 – 28 October 2025
Category: Paris
commonplace book : fall 2023
W. B. Yeats. The Wind among the Reeds, 1903. One of a few copies in a special vellum binding.
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an example of the bookplate of H. P. Lovecraft (designed by Wilfred Talman, 1927).
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Francis Grose. A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785. The author’s interleaved copy, with his additions for the second edition. Now at the Lilly Library, Indiana University.
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Charles Baudelaire. Manuscript essay on Edgar Allan Poe, as an introduction to Révélation magnétique, the first story by Poe translated by Baudelaire, 5 pages, Paris, 1848. Now at Firestone Library, Princeton University.
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Cyril Connolly, The Modern Movement (1965), author photo by Otto Karminski. What is going on here?
current reading : October 2023
current reading :
— Jonathan Lethem. Brooklyn Crime Novel. Ecco, [2023].
/ tricky and fun ! even as a reader might wonder about just who is this editorial or authorial ‘we’ sneaking in as parenthetical notes. A posse of all the Jonathan Lethems of the past ?
/ file under : the courage to revisit childhood
— Sarban. The Doll Maker and other tales of the uncanny. Peter Davies, [1953].
— Charles Renouvier. Uchronie (L’Utopie dans l’histoire). Esquisse historique apocryphe du développement de la civilisation européenne tel qu’il n’a pas été, qu’il aurait pu être. Bureau de Critique Philosophique, 1876.
commonplace book : how I spent my summer vacation
a few snapshots of Paris and a very, very restrained selection of objects seen
Utopia & Uchronia
— [Charles Renouvier]. Uchronie (L’Utopie dans l’Histoire). Esquisse historique apocryphe du développement de la civilisation européenne tel qu’il n’a pas été, tel qu’il aurait pu être. Paris : Bureau de la Critique philosophique, 1876.
A recent glimpse of a copy of Uchronie prompted me to start reading this landmark of speculative history. It’s a tricky book, a work of ideas that employs several layers of apparent estrangement devices (somewhat like the original Castle Rackrent). I will report further.
I saw Uchronie in a display case not far from a nice copy of Utopia (Louvain, 1516) in La science-fiction à la Sorbonne, an exhibition at the Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de la Sorbonne. Truth be told, the BIS copy of Uchronie is a little nicer than the one I’m reading :
The exhibition, which had just opened, is part of an ongoing Année de la science-fiction and is on view in the salle Jacqueline-de-Romilly (BIS, 17 rue de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris) through 20 December. Non-university folks must register to visit, details here : http://www.bis-sorbonne.fr/biu/spip.php?rubrique537 . There are author events announced through March 2024 and joint initiatives with the scholarly journal ReS Futurae.
The exhibition, which includes books from More’s Utopia through contemporary paperbacks of French science fiction and works in translation, with an interesting visual component. The case of early works contains these:
Also of note was a bibliographical item : Régis Messac. Esquisse d’une chrono-bibliographie des utopies. Lausanne : Club Futopia, 2962 (sic). The title page carries an epigraph from Leconte de Lisle : “Ton coeur est dévoré d’un songe indestructible”.
The checklist of the displays of more recent books in the reading room is available here : https://www.calameo.com/read/005807300bb9b578a61e7
P.S. Glare from the overhead lights meant I couldn’t take a picture of the BIS Utopia, but here is a snapshot of the copy at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal :
dateline : Paris
The Endless Bookshelf will be filing occasional despatches from Paris during annual congrès of the Association internationale de bibliophilie (AIB), and may lapse into French on occasion
[from an earlier visit, the mural of the reader, by Ferdinand Humbert, in the Petit Palais]
— Charles Dantzig. Encyclopédie capricieuse du tout et du rien. Grasset, [2009].
And, soon after arriving in a rooftop apartment in the 4e, well, yes, of course I opened this book, to this page (252), in the Listes des personnes [list of persons]
