A visit to the island nation of San Serriffe

The scholarly corridors of antiquarians are not above a bit of biblio spoofing

September 16, 2017 04:00 pm | Updated November 04, 2017 01:20 pm IST

The distinguished antiquarian firm of Bernard Rosenthal, London, issued a catalogue in 1990 that seemed to list some rather odd — some would even say fishy — items.

One entry, priced at only $6, was described as: “Quintclaim, 1352, a document in Latin. Matted, in a Perspex envelope, in a frame, in a half morocco box, in a fitted case, in a solander trunk, in a dresser profusely gilt, enclosed in a small Norwegian farm. Written in a Veriaude script, somewhere between the typical miniscule of Lue Nautique Fringe and that of a Nutaisse Frutcaque. It is very rare.”

And then followed a photo of the document showing a squiggly manuscript hand which remarkably enough resembled English, and read simply as: “Happy birthday Barney.”

Bound by Eve

One or two more items in the catalogue of such side-splitting dubiousness (“Two single leaves, one larger than the other, both worn. Bound by Eve not in Adams”) and the jig was up: it was a spoof catalogue. A biblio spoof.

It had been the work of Christopher de Hamel, the renowned manuscript scholar paying tribute to the antiquarian bookseller, Bernard Rosenthal, by spoofing his first catalogue from 1954 that had listed great rarities.

There has been an entertaining, if low key, tradition of biblio spoofs in the annals of antiquarian book dealing and collecting that I relish and collect avidly. And some of these can be very scarce to find. The Rosenthal-de Hamel spoof catalogue was issued in only four copies, impossible to obtain. What I have is the facsimile issued in 2010 by Ian Jackson to celebrate this famous bookseller’s 90th birthday.

Finding a copy of the next biblio spoof of which there was only the one original edition involved vigorous pursuit and patience, before I unearthed the Caveat Bookshop catalogue spoof done in 1946 by bookman Francis Farquhar.

Among the many choice items here is a resplendent Ashendene Press folio titled “To Hell with Dante.” A biblio spoof is not to be confused with a literary spoof — of which there are perhaps too many, where a famous author’s style (or plot) is parodied. The biblio spoof revolves around the world of printing, bookshops, libraries, bookselling and collecting. (They also differ from biblio-hoaxes, which I’ve saved for another column).

In 1940 came a slender letterpress pamphlet titled The Mainz Diary . It reproduced a diary left by Gutenberg’s wife telling of how after her husband had gone to bed unable to solve the final step in printing with movable type, how she had figured out a way, and had got up in the middle of the night and printed the first page of the Gutenberg Bible on her own.

The diary was done so skilfully, dropping scholarly details here and there, that some people who bought the monograph thought it was recounting real events. It was actually the mischief of private press printer Arthur Rushmore of the Golden Hind Press.

One of the most celebrated biblio spoofs is the finely printed letterpress book The Private Presses of San Serriffe (1980) written by one Dr. Theodore Bachaus, who introduces us to the dubious private presses found on the little island country of San Serriffe in the Indian Ocean.

Many were taken in, not for a moment doubting there was somewhere a country called San Serriffe famous for its private presses whose capital just happened to be called Bodoni and where the chief of police went by the name of Claude Garamondo.

This witty and imaginative spoof was only one of several concocted by the noted fine press printer Henry Morris of the Bird and Bull Press.

He had been inspired to think of this when he had come across an April Fool’s joke in 1977 by The Guardian newspaper in a special supplement featuring a little-known country called The Republic of San Serriffe.

Morris, in the guise of the irrepressible Dr. Bachaus, went on to create more sumptuously printed fine press productions such as The Booksellers of San Serriffe , with several tipped in illustrations and three full-page wood engravings of these partly real, partly mythical bookshops.

Be fooled

My personal favourite among biblio spoofs, though, is the kind that stays subtle, and doesn’t give it away — or at least has you thinking ‘there’s something a little off about this narrative but I wonder what.’

The most successful example in this category of the understated biblio spoof is Paul W. Nash’s fictitious 2006 bibliography, ‘Christopher Larkspvr (the v keeps you distracted)and the Saint Ronan’s Press’, where he invents a fascinating author-printer of little talent who persuades some of the finest presses in the world to print his mediocre work.

At the end is a full bibliography of these imaginary books, with title pages and typographic pastiches, printed by the likes of the Coddlemere Abbey Press (which stands in for the much admired Stanbrook Abbey Press).

‘Christopher Larkspvr’ is a beautifully done bibliographical spoof where even if you figure out your leg is being pulled, you feel the author’s pleasure in the way he has worked it out, as he goes about carefully building his clever, knowing, witty details. And at the end, you can’t help wishing Larkspvr and his press were real. Now, that’s the formula for the perfect biblio spoof.

The writer is a bibliophile, columnist and critic.

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