The Definitive Dwiggins no. 210—22 Printers’ Marks and Seals (Part 2)
Binding of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals Designed or Redrawn by W.A. Dwiggins (New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1929). Design and ornament by W.A. Dwiggins. Printing by The Printing House of William Edwin Rudge.
Title page of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals Designed or Redrawn by W.A. Dwiggins (New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1929). Design, lettering, and decoration by W.A. Dwiggins. Printing by The Printing House of William Edwin Rudge. Note the WER mark by Dwiggins.
This essay is a continuation of one begun as The Definitive Dwiggins no. 209.
One reason William Edwin Rudge may have acquiesced to the idea of publishing 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals, a book with a small prospective audience, was for the possible prestige it would bring to the firm. With the departure of Bruce Rogers for England in 1928, Rudge may also have been looking to hitch himself to another star designer. The prospectus for the book traded on W.A. Dwiggins’ new celebrity as an award-winning book designer:
” A Dwiggins Year”
“It is interesting to note that of the designers represented in this year’s show,* Mr. W.A. Dwiggins is credited with four books. It is, as Mr. Winship pointed out, a ‘Dwiggins year.’ One of his books, ‘America Conquers Death,’ is one of the best exhibits in the show.…”
Carl Purington Rollins,
in the Saturday Review of Literature*Fifty Books of the Year—1929 [1]
The prospectus must have been produced in the spring of 1929 since it inaccurately cites the source of the “Dwiggins Year” comment and refers to the Fifty Books of the Year for 1928 as chosen by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). [2] It shows the title page of the book and lists all twenty-two of the marks in it, indicating that Dwiggins had finally secured artwork for all of them—including the elusive Rutgers University seal.
Why did W.A Dwiggins choose to show twenty-two as the number of marks to show? It seems to be an arbitrary number, but I believe it was dictated by the design and format of the book, not by his body of work. He used A Book of American Trade-Marks & Devices by Joseph Sinel as a model. The copy that Elmer Adler sent him in 1925 is now in the unprocessed Dorothy Abbe Book Collection in the Boston Public Library. [3] Inserted in it are loose sheets from a special section of The Printing Art showing contemporary trademarks, monograms, and devices, including eight by Dwiggins—two of which subsequently appeared in Sinel’s book and four in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. [4]
Strathmore Paper Company device. From A Book of American Trade-marks & Devices by Joseph Sinel (New york: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924), p. 19.
The first thirty designs in A Book of American Trade-Marks & Devices are isolated on a page. The remaining 168 devices are ganged from three to nine to a page. [5] All have a two-line caption indicating the name of the owner and city—nothing more. Design credits for each trademark or device, where known, are listed in the back of the book. The designs are preceded by a two-page introduction by Sinel. To avoid show-through and thus better show off the designs in his book Sinel placed them on the recto of each page, leaving the verso blank. [6]
Dwiggins copied the format of the first section of Sinel’s book. With one exception, each design in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals is shown by itself on a page; and, with two exceptions, each has a two-line caption below a rule. (Both of the one-line captions say nothing more than “Personal mark”.) Seven of the twelve original designs follow Sinel’s formula of owner plus city. All of the nine redrawn designs list the owner on the first line and repeat “redrawn” on the second. The remaining captions are sentence fragments (e.g. “Used in the toy publishing enterprises of Dwiggins & Siegfried”). And, like Sinel, Dwiggins positioned his designs only on the rectos.
Dwiggins dispensed with an introduction to 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals and, unlike Sinel, he had no need for an index since all of the designs in the book were his. The book is composed of 28 sheets (or 56 “pages”). Once the title page, copyright page, two section openers and their blank versos, colophon and its blank verso, and the two paste-downs are subtracted, 44 pages remain for Dwiggins’ designs. Since only the rectos are printed, the book has twenty-two marks and seals. [7] Dwiggins may have also chosen twenty-two marks the visual alliterativeness of the number on the title page.
Stranger than the number of designs in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals is the selection itself. There are eleven printers’ marks—one for a commercial printer, five for private presses (three of which were operated by Dwiggins himself), one for a commercial publisher, three for university presses, and one for a magazine. There are four university seals, one state seal and one for an ethnic foundation, two marks for private groups (one of which was fictitious), and three personal marks (one of which was for Dwiggins himself). The designs are shown in two sections. Twelve are listed under “Original Designs” and the remaining ten under “Redrawn from Existing Designs”. They are printed alternately in black and red, making the book colorful, though less luxurious than A Book of American Trade-Marks & Devices.
Note: I had originally planned to reproduce all twenty-two of Dwiggins’ designs in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals as full pages, but since the entire book is available online in a high quality reproduction made by the Letterform Archive I have chosen instead to focus on images that supplement the published designs.
The Marks and Seals
These are the designs (in the order they appear in the book), with their captions, notes on their origins, and attempts to date them:
Original Designs
1. “Used first by WAD—transferred to Russell B. Kingman”
This design is a Pillement-influenced version of the “digger,” as Dwiggins referred to the professional mark that he used from 1909 to 1914. [8] It was created in early 1910 for use on a mailing label. There was originally a decorative frame attached to the scene of the digger which enclosed space for Dwiggins’ 69 Cornhill address. [9] Dwiggins took the phrase “Il faut cultiver nôtre jardin” from Candide by Voltaire (1759). The “transfer” to Russell B. Kingman, a Dwiggins client from 1912 to 1919, may have occurred on May 20, 1913. Dwiggins’ work book for that date has the entry “R.B. Kingman imprint private press”. [10]
Mailing label with Pillement-style “digger” (1910). Design, illustration, ornament, and lettering by W.A. Dwiggins. Printing by The Merrymount Press. Image courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library. This is the original single color version of the label. A two-color (green and black) version was printed in 1911.
2. “The White Elephant / Hingham”
The White Elephant was Dwiggins’ name for the private press he established at his home in Hingham in 1913. A “white elephant” is a property or possession requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit. The name was deliberately ironic, chosen by Dwiggins with the prescience that he was not likely to accomplish much with the press. The motto “Was soll ich damit tun?” [“What shall I do with it?”] reinforced the name. The pressmark shown in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals is the second one that Dwiggins made in late 1914. [11]
The first White Elephant mark (1913). Design, illustration, and lettering by W.A. Dwiggins.
3. “Thedam Püterschein’s Sons / Hingham”
Thedam Püterschein’s Sons were Hermann Püterschein (aka W.A. Dwiggins) and Jacob Püterschein (aka Laurance B. Siegfried, his cousin). The full story of the fictitious Püterschein family was told in “Genus Püterschein” in The Fabulist no. 1 (Autumn 1915). The pewter pitcher mark appeared for the first time on the colophon/subscription page of The Fabulist no. 1—below the phrase, “Se non è vero è molto ben trovato.” [“If it is not true, it is a happy invention.”] [12] However, it is the second White Elephant mark, and not the pewter pitcher, that was used as an imprint for The Fabulist no. 1.
4. “Used in the toy publishing enterprises of Dwiggins & Siegfried”
This specific version of Dwiggins’ archer device dates from 1919 when it was created for use on the cover of the pamphlet Extracts from An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books as They Are at Present Published Undertaken by The Society of Calligraphers (Boston: Published for The Society of Calligraphers by W.A. Dwiggins and L.B. Siegfried, 1919). In his account books he called it the “Dwig-Sig mark”. [13] See The Definitive Dwiggins no. 33 for more on the archer motif in Dwiggins’ work.
BP personal mark from 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals Designed or Redrawn by W.A. Dwiggins (New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1929), p. [5]. Design and illustration by W.A. Dwiggins.
5. “Personal mark”
I have been unable to identify who BP (or perhaps PB) is or to assign a date to the mark. There is nothing relevant in Dwiggins’ account books and it is not reproduced anywhere else. Based on the style of illustration the mark was most likely made between 1905 and 1920. [14]
6. “Personal mark”
This mark was made in 1918 for Charles F. Whitmarsh, the editor and manager of The Printing Art. [15]
Why did Dwiggins include two personal marks in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals? He may have considered the latter mark tangentially a “printer’s” mark since Whitmarsh was affiliated with a magazine. Perhaps that is a clue to discovering the identity of BP.
7. “Carl Purington Rollins at the Sign of the Chorobates”
Rollins was the Printer to Yale University and a longtime friend and client of Dwiggins. At the Sign of the Chorobates was the imprint that Rollins used for his non-Yale activities as early as 1923 and the publication of A Lodging in the Night: A Story of Mediaeval Paris by Robert Louis Stevenson (New York: The Grolier Club, 1923). In 1928 it became the imprint of the private press he and his wife Margaret operated. The mark was designed by Dwiggins in 1921:
Rollins had decided that a plumb bob should be the central element. In his February 10, 1921 letter, Dwiggins sketched a humorous vignette on the subject and wrote: “No I haven’t forgotten the printers mark—the hand of fate dangling a plumb bob rises up to smite me nearly every other day.” [16]
W.A. Dwiggins to Carl Purington Rollins 10 February 1921 (detail). Image courtesy of the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.
Sketches for The Sign of the Chorobates mark by W.A. Dwiggins (c.1921). Image courtesy of the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.
Surviving rough sketches for the mark are very different—and inferior to—the final design. The motto “Magna est veritas et praevalet” [“Great is truth, and it will prevail
8. “The Saturday Review / New York”
The phoenix mark was designed for The Saturday Review of Literature in 1924 at the behest of its founding editor Henry Seidel Canby (1878–1961). [17] Instead of a frontal view of the phoenix with wings spread upwards, Dwiggins chose to depict the bird from the side in a Chinese manner. The phoenix symbolized the rebirth of The Saturday Review of Literature from the ashes of the Literary Review supplement to The New York Evening Post which Canby edited from its inception in 1920 to 1924. Canby may have come into contact with Dwiggins during his stint (1911–1922) as editor of the Yale Review.
9. “American Scandinavian Foundation [sic] / New York”
Daniel Berkeley Updike of The Merrymount Press commissioned Dwiggins to design three variations of a seal for The American-Scandinavian Foundation in 1914. The first was intended for stamping bindings of books in the foundation’s Scandinavian Monographs series; the second was for use on title pages; and the third was a second binding stamp for the foundation’s Scandinavian Classics literature series. In 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals Dwiggins shows the second, lighter design. [18]
Two variants of the seal of The American Scandinavian-Foundation used for bindings. Both designed by W.A. Dwiggins (1914). Images from books in the private collection of Martin Hutner. Note the differences in the lettering especially (e.g. SCA in Scandinavian; and UND in Foundation).
The American-Scandinavian Foundation was established in 1911 by Niels Poulson, a fact that was emphasized in the design of the foundation’s seal that preceded the one by Dwiggins.
Seal of The American-Scandinavian Foundation (1911). Taken from the title page of The American-Scandinavian Foundation: Charter, Constitution and By-Laws (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1913).
10. “The Society of Calligraphers / Boston”
The Society of Calligraphers was concocted by Dwiggins in 1919 as an organization that could serve as a “front” for some of his writings, beginning with Extracts from An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books as They Are at Present Published Undertaken by The Society of Calligraphers. This mark, designed in 1922 or 1923, did not appear on Extracts or any other publication issued under the Society’s auspices. Dwiggins used it for its letterhead and half-sheet, but not for its envelope or return address label. [19] Note: see The Definitive Dwiggins no. 210 addendum no. 2 for more on the Society of Calligraphers seal.
11. “The Crows / New York”
The mark for The Crows, an informal group of New York metropolitan area men in printing and publishing led by Elmer Adler, was a recent design. Dwiggins created it between December 7, 1928 and the end of January 1929. Its first appearance in this form was on the seating list for the dinner honoring Dwiggins as the AIGA medalist on February 4, 1929. The crow, without the oval, had been used on the invitation to the dinner. Nine days after the dinner Dwiggins asked Adler to send an electro of the design to Rudge for inclusion in the book. [20]
Invitation to a dinner honoring W.A. Dwiggins and Francis Meynell on February 4, 1929. Typography by John Fass; mark by W.A. Dwiggins; printing by The Harbor Press. Image courtesy of Special Collections, Princeton University Press.
12. “The Cygnet Press / Cambridge”
This is the only page with two marks on it in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. That may be because the mark had yet to be finalized at the time the Rudge book went to press. The swan within a hexagon, interspersed with intertwined monograms, appears as part of the pattern on the cover of Dwiggins: A Characterization of the Designer of the Mark of The Cygnet Press by Paul Hollister (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Cygnet Press, 1929), while the title page has the two elements combined. (The monogram is a conflation of the initials of the press with the last initials of its co-proprietors, George Parker Winship and Philip Hofer.) Dwiggins: A Characterization was printed in June 1929. The swan on undulating water appears, minus the monogram, in the December 5, 1929 announcement of the press’ third book—months after the publication of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals.
Cygnet Press announcement of its third publication (December 5, 1929). The design of the swan at the top of the right-hand page (repeated three times) is by W.A. Dwiggins. The press’ original 1928 mark is at the left. Image courtesy of Jeffrey Harding.
Title page of Dwiggins: A Characterization of the Designer of the Mark of The Cygnet Press by Paul Hollister (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Cygnet Press, 1929). Mark by W.A. Dwiggins.
Note: To fully appreciate the quality of Dwiggins’ redrawings of existing designs I am showing, whenever possible, the design that preceded his.
Redrawn from Existing Designs
13. “Harvard University / (redrawn)”
Between 1909 and 1919 Dwiggins designed eight different Harvard University seals. [21] The one he chose to show in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals is the most obscure of them. It was made for the title page of Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Collection of Mediaeval and Renaissance Paintings (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1919). It is distinguished by the motto “Christo et Ecclesiae” rendered in textura instead of roman caps.
Harvard University seal from Heraldry in America by Eugene Zieber (Philadelphia: The Department of Heraldry of the Bailey, Banks & Biddle Company, 1895), p. 221. This seal, often with a tint added to the background, continued to be used for years after Dwiggins’ 1910 redesign.
Harvard University seal (1910). Design and lettering by W.A. Dwiggins.
14. “Harvard University Press / (redrawn)”
This mark for the Harvard University Press was created by Dwiggins in 1916. It was the second one he had made for it and it was still in use as late as 1948. [22]
Title page of The First Catalogue of the Harvard University Press (March 1914). Design, lettering, and device by W.A. Dwiggins. Image courtesy of Harvard University Archives.
15. “Yale University / (redrawn)”
Carl Purington Rollins (1880–1960) was hired as the manager of the manufacturing department of Yale University Press in early 1918. One of the actions he took to improve the work of the Press was to hire Dwiggins, a longtime friend, to design a new seal for Yale University. [23] Its first appearance seems to be on the cover and title page of Reports of the President and Secretary of Yale University and of the Deans and Directors of its Several Schools and Departments for the Academic Year 1917–18 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918), but it did not become a standard part of Yale University Press books until 1919.
Yale University seal from Heraldry in America by Eugene Zieber (Philadelphia: The Department of Heraldry of the Bailey, Banks & Biddle Company, 1895), p. 222.
16. “Yale University Press / (redrawn)”
It took Rollins until 1924 to improve the Yale University Press imprint. After concluding that an effort by Thomas Maitland Cleland (1880–1964) was a disaster, he turned to Dwiggins in May 1923 and asked for his help. He wrote that he had someone in the office make a drawing “of the ornate seal which we now use, simplifying the details somewhat, and removing the Lux et Veritas to the outside of the shield” which he wanted Dwiggins to use as the basis for a new design. Dwiggins agreed to do the job, but although he started on it in June it does not seem to have been completed until the spring of 1924. [24]
17. “Princeton University / (redrawn)”
Dwiggins redrew the Princeton University seal in 1923. [25] He was presumably hired by Frederic Warde (1894–1939), then Director of Printing for Princeton University Press. The previous seal had been adopted in 1896 when Princeton College became Princeton University, replacing one designed in 1748. [26]
Princeton University seal (1896). Designed by a committee of five university trustees. From Universities and Their Sons: History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities… vol. 1. edited by Joshua L. Chamberlain (Boston: R. Herndon Co., 1898), p. 441.
18. “Columbia University Press / (redrawn)”
Dwiggins’ decision to include his redesign of the Columbia University Press mark is surprising given his reluctance to do the job in the first place, the struggle it was, and his remarks to Rollins, who had commissioned him to do it. On April 15, 1927, he told Rollins, “A NOTE TO YOU ALONE, CONFIDENTIAL, I don’t want to get you in bad and I don’t want to worry you because I love you but I really can’t serve any longer as a hack carpenter for people like Brook [commissioner of the Columbia mark] for your own personal enterprises as often as you need a hack-carpenter because you are not a phillistine [sic] but I have discontinued my hack-carpentering business so far as it relates to phillistines [sic].” [27] By “hack-carpentering” Dwiggins was referring to jobs where his role was to simply fix an existing design. The Columbia University Press mark was the epitome of this sort of work which he had been doing since his early days with Updike in 1906. In fact, the whole second half of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals could be relabeled “Hack-Carpentering.”
Columbia University Press mark in use from 1893 through at least 1926.
Columbia University seal used on Columbia University Press books as late as 1929. Detail from Slavonic Department course catalogue for the academic year 1921–1922.
Although Dwiggins’ redesign of the Columbia University Press mark looks like a mess—the worst design in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals—it is an immeasurable improvement over the two marks that were in use at the time. And Dwiggins had come up with a simpler and better mark (see below) that was apparently unacceptable to the people at Columbia University Press. [28]
Rough design no. 6 for Columbia University Press mark by W.A. Dwiggins. Image courtesy of Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.
There is a mystery about the fate of Dwiggins’ mark for Columbia University Press in that it does not appear to have been used on any book. In the 1930s a slightly improved version of the mark comprised of an open book with a crown above and motto on a ribbon below appears on title pages. [29]
19. “Rutgers University / (redrawn)”
Just as the Columbia University Press mark assignment came to Dwiggins via Rollins of the Yale University Press, the Rutgers University seal job also came to him from a third party. The commission is listed in his workbook as “Princeton Press Rutgers Seal” which suggests that Frederic Warde brokered it before he left Princeton University Press for Europe. [30] The impetus for the seal was not the poor quality of the existing one, but the school’s change of status from a college to a university in 1924—though the word college remained in the seal that Dwiggins designed.
Rutgers University seal from title page of Rutgers College Bulletin Series 3, no. 1 (October 1923).
Rutgers University seal attached to letter from W.A. Dwiggins to D.B. Updike 18 January 1928. When this was designed and by whom is unknown. Image courtesy of the Henry E. Huntington Library.
20. “The State of Connecticut / (redrawn)”
Rollins commissioned Dwiggins to design seals for the American Chemical Society and the State of Connecticut at the end of 1922. Dwiggins submitted designs for both January 5, 1923 with the comment, “The Connect. seal is to play opposite Yale seal and I have made it somewhat like Yale but different enough to make it interesting.” [31] This implies that the State of Connecticut seal was destined for use in a Yale University Press publication and not for state use. This supposition is supported by the history of the state seal. Wikipedia says that it is the only state seal with an oval shape which it has maintained since pre-Revolutionary times. Dwiggins’ seal is round. [32]
21. “Harper and Brothers / (redrawn)”
The commission to redraw the Harper and Brothers mark came from Arthur W. Rushmore, the firm’s longtime art director, in late 1925. It was surely sparked by Dwiggins’ successful redesign of Harpers Magazine a few months earlier. [33] At the time (and even years later) Harper and Brothers seem to have used several marks. The one that Dwiggins redrew can be found on the title page of A Few Figs from Thistles by Edna St. Vincent Millay (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1923).
Interestingly, the mark on the title page of Layout in Advertising by W.A. Dwiggins (New York and London: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1928) is different from this one in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. Is it by Dwiggins? The quality of the design—the rendering of the laurel leaves, hands, and the Greek motto—suggests the answer is yes. Perhaps Dwiggins designed it specifically for Layout in Advertising.
Harper and Brothers imprint from title of Layout in Advertising by W.A. Dwiggins (New York and London: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1928).
22. “Fantastic paraphrase upon the mark of Houghton Mifflin Company”
Dwiggins deliberately chose this unusual mark as the culmination of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. It is in no way a simple redrawing of an existing mark as many of the preceding examples have been. By 1927 The Riverside Press imprint of the Boston publisher had used at least eleven different interpretations of a mark depicting a nude young man, sitting on a fragment of a classical column, playing the Pan pipes. Sometimes a lamp of knowledge is at his feet. [34]
Thus, there was no specific mark for Dwiggins to redraw. His “paraphrase” was created in 1926 for the jacket spine of Streets in the Moon by Archibald MacLeish. He had avoided using any version of the mark associated with The Riverside Press on the title page of the book and probably felt a need to include a variation of it, however loose, somewhere as a gesture toward the publisher. Dwiggins has given the young man an exotic East Asian headdress, replaced the column with a bench, and eliminated any background foliage and the motto “Tout bien ou rien” [“Everything well or nothing.”]
This was not the first time that Dwiggins had interpreted the Riverside Press mark. In 1914 he created an elaborate scene for the title page of The Poet by Meredith Nicholson that stood in for the mark.
Title page for The Poet by Meredith Nicholson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press, 1914). Illustration by W.A. Dwiggins.
The Context of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals
The foregoing analysis of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals has revealed the book to be filled with many peculiarities. But most of them can be explained away if the book is placed in the context of Dwiggins’ career. He created it as a portfolio with the goal of soliciting work from printers and publishers during his transition from an advertising designer to a book designer. This shift in professional focus largely determined his choice of which marks to include—and which ones to exclude. This is obvious when one compares Dwiggins’ book to its Sinel model. The latter was about “trade-marks and devices” while the former was about “printers’ marks and seals.” Although Sinel included marks for publishers and printers in his compilation, his orientation was heavily commercial with designs for businesses such as Ajax Rubber Co., Ashtabula Corrugated Box Co., DuPont Motors Inc., and United Toilet Goods Co. Even though he had designed similar marks, Dwiggins deliberately left them out of his book. [35]
Dwiggins included not only printers’ and publishers’ marks in his book, but also university and state seals. He saw them as equivalent because, in his time, they often were. University presses frequently used seals in place of press marks on the title pages of their books. I think he emphasized Ivy League universities and their presses because of their prestige. He had designed marks for other publishers and printers, such as the Cornhill Publishing Co. and Crosby Gaige, but they lacked the name recognition of Harper and Brothers and Houghton Mifflin Co. [36]
There are several possible reasons that Dwiggins did not include an introduction to 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. Having just published Layout in Advertising only six months earlier, he may have felt it unnecessary. At the end of that book, he included a page of roughs for a trademark for a fictitious company called Cereals General, though he said little about trademarks in general since they were “not directly cogent to a discussion of layouts”. [37] It is likely that Dwiggins did not use his alter ego Hermann Püterschein for this purpose because he would have given the book the wrong “tone”. Püterschein was the putative author of Paraphs, a set of fictional pieces, also published six months earlier.
Roughs for trademark for Cereals General (a fictitious company). Detail from Layout in Advertising by W.A. Dwiggins (New York and London: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1928), p. 190 (detail).
I believe that Dwiggins conceived of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals as one part of a group of books he wrote between 1928 and 1930 as part of a campaign to shift his work from advertising design to book design. It followed quick on the heels of Layout in Advertising, his farewell to his previous profession, and it preceded Form Letters: Illustrator to Author (New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1930) and A Technique for Dealing with Artists (New York: Press of the Woolly Whale, 1941). Although the latter was not published until 1941, the manuscript was ready by the fall of 1930 when it was announced as forthcoming by the New York publishing firm of Rimington & Hooper. [38] The final two books in this quartet were aimed at securing book projects for Dwiggins where he would have total control as designer, illustrator, and ornamentalist. With them he was setting forth his views on where he stood as designer/artist/illustrator vis a vis the publisher and author in the triangular relationship of an illustrated book.
The sort of book Dwiggins had in mind was not a Knopf trade book or even a limited edition book like those he was designing—and Rudge was printing—for Crosby Gaige in 1928. Instead, he was eager to do books that used more of his diverse talents like the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which he was working on for The Lakeside Press and Random House respectively. But the best type of book would be one where he was the author as well and he had one in mind at the time he was gathering material for 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. It was Siriling and Seven Other Tales of Athalinthia “told in the English Tongue by W.A. Dwiggins & Illustrated”. Dwiggins’ success in getting Rudge to publish 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals emboldened him to ask the printer/publisher if he would take on his Athalinthia stories and Rudge agreed. But the project never came to fruition, either a victim of the Great Depression or of the reorganization that followed the death of William Edwin Rudge, Jr. in June 1931. [39]
The Aftermath
“The publishing venture brought great prestige, but it must be said that it was not good business. The books were expensive and of limited appeal,” wrote the anonymous author of the profile of William Edwin Rudge, Jr. Exacerabated by the Great Depression, Rudge’s books, including three involving Dwiggins, failed to sell. [40] After the reorganization of the business in 1932 as William Edwin Rudge’s Sons, the New York publisher Mitchell Kennerley (1878–1950) took over the Rudge stock. He offered the Dwiggins books (America Conquers Death, 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals, and Form Letters) to George Macy (1900–1956) of The Limited Editions Club for disposal. [41] Macy was worried that selling them or giving them away would ruin the fine printing market for Dwiggins items and hurt Dwiggins’ reputation. At the time Dwiggins was working on Droll Stories by Honoré Balzac for The Limited Editions Club.
Dwiggins was more sanguine about the situation. He told Macy to buy them from Kennerley and sell them, commenting:
Speaking in general, I have the feeling that any trade in my books is safe in your hands, without thinking about the price at which the trade is made. If you do not dispose of them at a low figure Kennerly [sic] certainly will, and I should rather have the low figure emanate from you than from Kennerley.
As to the effect of ‘remainders’ on my reputation—I’m afraid that my rep. is about the last thing I worry about. Moreover, I am a realist, and if my books are hard to sell, it’s a simple fact, and it fits into my realistic scheme without bruising me, whatever effect it has on the commercial end of my activity! [42]
Dwiggins was not worried about his reputation because, by the beginning of 1932, it was secure within the book world. At that point six of his books had been selected for the AIGA Fifty Books of the Year competitions. He no longer needed to promote his abilities with publications such as 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals.
Notes
1. The quotation is taken from a copy of the prospectus for 22 Printers’ Marks and Seal Designed or Redrawn by W.A. Dwiggins in the Richard C. Jenkinson Collection, Special Collections Divison, Newark Public Library.
2. The “Dwiggins Year” comment appeared in “So These Are Dwiggins” by Jacob Püterschein [pseud. Laurance B. Siegfried] in Publisher’s Weekly vol. CXIV, no. 18 (November 3, 1928), pp. 1896–1904. The Rollins citation is a reference to “The Compleat Collector” column in The Saturday Review of Literature which he and Winship shared. (Rollins wrote about printing and book design while Winship wrote about the history of the book and book collecting.) Rollins probably confused Siegfried’s column with is own “Designed by Dwiggins” (29 December 1928) in which he reviewed Elizabeth and Essex, Ballades from the Hidden Way, America Conquers Death, and Layout in Advertising. His column about the AIGA Fifty Books of the Year for 1928 selections must have appeared in February or March of 1929 since the books went on display at the library of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn on March 14.
3. The Dorothy Abbe Book Collection consists of books that she owned at the time of her death in 1999. It includes books she inherited from Dwiggins as well as those she collected on her own. Although A Book of American Trade-Marks & Devices is shelved with books owned by her on Shelf 32, it is clear that it is the Adler copy since Dwiggins’ “WAD” monogram is inscribed on its inside cover.
4. The section is “Trade-Marks, Monograms and Devices” in The Printing Art vol. XXXI, no. 4 (June 1918), pp. 285–292. The eight designs attributed to Dwiggins (p. 289) are “a private mark” ( a man digging), Thedam Püterschein’s Sons, The White Elephant, the Pillement-style “digger”, The Cornhill Company, Friday Night Club of Boston, Charles Fulton Whitmarsh, and The Graphic Arts. The Merrymount Press device (p. 287) is also by Dwiggins.
5. Advertising for A Book of American Trade-Marks & Devices claimed that the book contained over 250 marks, but I only count 198. The first thirty are on pp. 5–35 and the other 168 are on pp. 36–62.
6. The sales department of publisher Alfred A. Knopf may have suggested the blank versos in order to bulk up the book so that it would appear to be better value. A Book of American Trade-Marks & Devices was priced at a hefty $6 when most Knopf books at the time were $2.50 or less.
7. There are actually twenty-three designs in 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. Dwiggins shows two variants of the mark for The Cygnet Press. There are also two more designs on the title page: WAD and WER monograms for Dwiggins and Rudge respectively.
8. For examples of the “digger” mark in various guises and uses see W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett (San Francisco: Letterform Archive, 2018), pp. 69 and 74.
9. See the Merrymount Press job ticket no. 6102 dated 27 January 1910 in The Merrymount Press Collection, Boston Athenaeum. The design, minus the address, appears as no. 2974 in The Merrymount Press Book of Designs II, Daniel Berkeley Updike Collection on the History of Printing, Providence Public Library. In Dwiggins’ mock-up of the page (in the 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection at the boston Public Library) the address frame portion of the design has been crudely cut away.
10. See the work book entry for 20 May 1913 in Folder 2, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. There is no carbon invoice in Dwiggins’ surviving financial records matching this entry which would support the notion that the mark was transferred. I have found no evidence that Kingman used the Pillement digger.
11. The translation from the German is by Bruce Kennett. For more on The White Elephant see W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett (San Francisco: Letterform Archive, 2018), pp. 79 and 84. Kennett dates the second mark as c.1915, but since it first appeared in The Occasional Bulletin of the White Elephant which was published in January 1915, I believe it was designed in late 1914.
12. The name of the Püterschein paterfamilias was accidentally coined by Dwiggins who was frustrated while cleaning a pitcher and complained, “I can’t make the damn pewter shine.” See W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett (San Francisco: Letterform Archive, 2018), p. 84. The Italian phrase was supposedly first used by the Renaissance philosopher and heretic Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) in Gli Eroici Furori (1585).
13. See the entries for 9 and 11 August 1919 in Dwiggins’ job ledger in Folder 5, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library.
14. The BP mark is not mentioned in W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett (San Francisco: Letterform Archive, 2018).
15. See the entry for 8 May 1918 “Whitmarsh device (A) no time” in Dwiggins’ job ledger in Folder 5, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. No time presumably means that Dwiggins created the mark for free.
16. See “Carl Purington Rollins and William Addison Dwiggins” by Gay Walker in The Yale University Library Gazette, vol. 58, no. 1/2 (October 1983), p. 81. Walker suggests a date of 1920/1921 for the mark but 1921 seems more probable since Dwiggins’ account books have an entry “Rollins imprint” for 14 April 1921 that reads. See Folder 6, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library.
17. See the entry for 28 July 1924 in Folder 6, Box 81(1), 1974. W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. The first issue of The Saturday Review of Literature was August 2, 1924. The magazine included a column by William Rose Benét called “The Phoenix Nest.”
18. See the entries for 10 June 1914 “DBU PM Book stamp Scandinavian Foundation”; 8 July 1914 “D.B. Updike Scand. Found. seal for letterpress-work”; and 18 July 1914 “D.B. Updike Scandinavian Classics side-stamp” in Folder 3, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. My explanation for the two variant binding seals is that Updike, upon seeing the lighter version of the seal for letterpress printing, asked Dwiggins to adjust the lettering of the stamping version to match it.
19. The exact year that the seal for the Society of calligraphers was designed is unclear. Bruce Kennett simply says early 1920s. See W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett (San Francisco: Letterform Archive, 2018), p. 187. Given that the address of the Society of Calligraphers on the letterhead and half-sheet is 201 Fenway Studios, 30 Ipswich, Boston, the mark or seal had to have been designed after May 1922 when Dwiggins moved his studio to that address. Although there are a number of entries for “calligraphers” in Dwiggins’ account books between 1 October 1923 and 2 January 1925, none of them mention a seal or mark. I think the seal was designed between October 1923 and January 1924 as part of the work Dwiggins did on Transactions of the Society of Calligraphers Bulletin No.1, Part I (January 1, 1924). The letterhead existed by May 1924 when it was reproduced in the first Model Letterheads Printed on Certificate Bond portfolio issued by Crocker-McElwain Company.
20. Adler asked Dwiggins to design The Crows mark on March 13, 1928. Dwiggins agreed but asked if he could put off the design since he was busy. Adler prompted him on September 20 and again on December 5. On the later date he said he needed the design for the AIGA medalist dinner. DOn December 7, 1928 Dwiggins said he would get to work on it. The correspondence between Adler and Dwiggins regarding The Crows mark is in Folder 1, Box 236, Pynson Printers Collection (C0262), Special Collections, Princeton University.
21. Dwiggins drew his first Harvard University seal at the request of Daniel Berkeley Updike for use an invitation to the 1909 inauguration of Abbott Lawrence Lowell as President of the University. He made a second seal for Updike in 1910; and then between 1913 and 1919 he made five for the use of Harvard University Press, including the Fogg one and a tri-colored design. I don’t know who commissioned the remaining (5–6 September 1916), described in Dwiggins’ account books as “Harvard large seal”. For the Fogg Museum seal see the 24 June 1919 entry in Folder 6, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library.
Cover of Harvard University Press catalogue for Fall 1917. Design, decoration, and lettering by W.A. Dwiggins. Image courtesy of Harvard University Archives.
22. For the second Harvard University Press mark see the account book entries for 20 March 1916 and 11 May 1916 in Folder 3, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins, Boston Public Library. The first mark, a shield with “VE·RI·TAS”, is probably the entries 7 February 1913 and 22 April 1913 in Folder 3, Box 81(1).
23. The entries in Dwiggins’ account books for 18–19 November 1918 read “Yale Press Yale seal.” See Folder 5, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. Dwiggins also drew versions of the Yale University seal for specific purposes (e.g. the diploma) in 1923, 1924, and 1926 at the request of Carl Purington Rollins, Printer to Yale University.
24. See the letter from Carl Purington Rollins to W.A. Dwiggins 17 May 1923 and those from Dwiggins to Rollins 6June 1923, 30 November 1923, and 8 March 1924 in W.A. Dwiggins Folder, Box 2, Series II, Carl Purington Rollins Papers (AOB9), Arts of the Book Collection, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.
25. See 6 June 1923 workbook entry (“Princeton Univer Press Prince seal”) in Folder 6, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library.
26. For information on the previous two seals see Pictorial History of Princeton by Wheaton Joshua Lane (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947), pp. 8 and 182.
27. W.A. Dwiggins to Carl Purington Rollins 15 April 1927 in W.A. Dwiggins Folder, Box 2, Series II, Carl Purington Rollins Papers (AOB9), Arts of the Book Collection, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. What is odd about the letter is that it was written two weeks after the 28 March 1927 entry for the job—for which he was paid $100—in Dwiggins’ account books. See Folder 6, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library.
28. Dwiggins sent eight annotated roughs for the Columbia University Press mark to Rollins. They are all shown in W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett (San Francisco: Letterform Archive, 2018), p. 177.
29. For an example see Bibliography of Nicholas Murray Butler 1872–1932: A Check List compiled by Milton Halsey Thomas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934).
30. See the entry for 6 March 1924 in Folder 6, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins, Boston Public Library.
31. See the entry for 4 January 1923 in Dwiggins’ account books in Folder 6, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins, Boston Public Library; and W.A. Dwiggins to Carl Purington Rollins 5 January 1923 in W.A. Dwiggins Folder, Box 2, Series II, Carl Purington Rollins Papers (AOB9), Arts of the Book Collection, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.
32. However, contrary to Wikipedia’s assertion, An Outline History of the United States… by Benson J. Lossing (New York: Sheldon & Company, 1876), p. 106 shows a round seal.
State of Connecticut seal from An Outline History of the United States by Benson J. Lossing (New York: Sheldon & Company, 1876), p. 106.
33. Dwiggins recorded work on two imprints for Harpers 14–15 January 1926. See Folder 6, Box 8191), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. In 2001 bookdealer Irving Oaklander showed me Rushmore’s copy of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals. It had a different design for Harper and Brothers by Dwiggins tipped in to the front. This may be the other imprint he recorded.
Original artwork for imprint for Harper and Brothers (1926). Design by W.A. Dwiggins.
34. My statement about the press mark is based on an examination on Hathitrust of books published by Houghton Mifflin Co. with The Riverside Press imprint from 1890 to 1930.
35. Dwiggins designed a number of commercial marks during his career. Prior to 1929 they included designs for General Motors, RKO, Chemical Paper Manufacturing Co., DeJonge Paper, the Submarine Signal Co., and The Linweave Association.
36. It is also possible that Dwiggins left some of the printers’ marks he had designed (e.g. The Sun Dial Library) out of 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals because he lacked the artwork or a photo-engraved plate for them. At the time—and for decades later—it was routine for clients to retain artwork. Without either, Dwiggins would have been forced to use printed samples of his designs which would have entailed “carpentering” on his part. For instance, in an undated letter to Rollins, Dwiggins writes regarding the marks for Sign of the Chorobates, Yale University Press, and Columbia University Press: “If you can send me slip proofs of these in what sizes you have I can then tell you which ones to have electrotyped or whatever, and where to send ’em.” See W.A. Dwiggins to Carl Purington Rollins n.d. [1928] in W.A. Dwiggins Folder, Box 2, Series II, Carl Purington Rollins Papers (AOB9), Arts of the Book Collection, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University.
37. Layout in Advertising by W.A. Dwiggins (New York and London: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1928), p. 189.
38. See Rimington and Hooper, The Third List (Autumn 1930) where A Technique for Dealing with Artists is listed as a Spring 1931 publication. The pamphlet was a victim of the Great Depression as the publisher asked Dwiggins to delay publication until the economy improved. See Critchell Rimington to W.A. Dwiggins 15 January 1931 in Box 103, 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. It is likely that Rudge would have printed it since they printed Beau Brummell by Virginia Woolf, designed by Dwiggins and published by Rimington & Hooper in 1930. Dwiggins subsequently tried to convince Mergenthaler Linotype to use the text as promotional material for his Electra typeface, but failed. In early 1940 he sent the manuscript to Melbert B. Cary, Jr. of The Press of the Woolly Whale who agreed to publish it. The lengthy history of A Technique for Dealing with Artists will be the subject of another Definitive Dwiggins post.
39. See W.E. Rudge to W.A. Dwiggins 12 September 1928 in Folder 1, Box 12, 2001 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library. The book (with “Siriling” spelled “Sirraling”), described as a “collection of tales for children that grown-ups love,” is mentioned as being in progress in “William Addison Dwiggins—Maker of Books” by Frances Parsons Davis in The Boston Evening Transcript Book Section for February 16, 1929, p. 3. A design for the title page of the book, with an imprint of “The Publisher / New York / 1928,” is part of an undated letter from Dwiggins to Ruzicka. See Dwiggins Folder, Box 1, Rudolph Ruzicka Collection (UP-66), Rauner Library, Dartmouth College.
40. America Conquers Death was priced at $5.50; 22 Printers’ Marks and Seals was priced at $7.50, and Form Letters at $6. See A Catalogue of the Publications of William Edwin Rudge (Spring 1930) and Cumulative Book Index: A World List of Books in the English Language 1928–1932 edited by Mary Burnham (New York: Wilson, 1932), p. 609.
41. George Macy to W.A. Dwiggins 17 February 1932 in Folder 10, Box 100, George Macy Companies Collection, Harry R. Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.
42. W.A. Dwiggins to George Macy n.d. [February 1932] in Folder 10, Box 100, George Macy Companies Collection, Harry R. Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.
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