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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 720—Bertram B. Udell, W.A. Dwiggins & Oswald Cooper: A Question of Attribution

This post is an update and corrective to The Definitive Dwiggins no. 20 in which I tried to figure out how Bertram B. Udell (1877–1956) of The Printing Studio had come to print work signed “WAD” and “C”.

Portrait of Bertram B. Udell (1912). From The Inland Printer vol. XLIX, no. 3 (June 1912), p. 385. Photograph by Misses Ray and Heine.
Bertram B. Udell
Bertram B. Udell was born in Rantoul, Illinois in 1877. [1] His father E.J. Udell (1838–1903) was the publisher of …
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The Song of the Twisted: Being a Tale of Woe Told by the Victim

Frank Holme (late 1890s?). Image courtesy of Special Collections, University of Arizona.
In 2015 I discovered an amusing yet fascinating manuscript of doggerel in the Frederic and Bertha Goudy Collection at the Library of Congress. [1] The manuscript, entitled “The Song of the Twisted: Being a Tale of Woe Told by the Victim” was written, lettered, and illustrated by Frank Holme (1868–1904), the celebrated newspaper artist and proprietor of the School of Illustration in Chicago. It tells the story of how Holme …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 131—Reed and Dwiggins, Publishers

Reed and Dwiggins, Publishers letterhead (1906). Design and lettering by W.A.Dwiggins. Image courtesy of Special Collections, Boston Public Library.
For nearly two years, between the time that he left The Village Press in early 1905 and the beginning of 1907 when he fully gained Daniel Berkeley Updike’s trust, W.A. Dwiggins was floundering about professionally. He had a powerful urge to be an artist in the Arts & Crafts manner, producing bibelots, prints, and sundry other artistic items. And at the …
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