Honor C. Appleton. Me and my Pussies. Illustrations by the author. Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1927.
And so ends Cat Week here at The Art of Book Design.
I couldn’t find a copy of this one for you to read, but the David and Joyce Milne Public Library will let you look at several of the illustrations. They’re completely charming.
Cover Photo via: Stella and Rose’s Books
Hartwell James. The Cat and The Mouse: A Book of Persian Fairy Tales. Illustrated by John R. Neill. Philadelphia, Henry Altemus Company, 1906.
I was a cat person long before I was a dog person and it’s still cat week (which I didn’t announce) so this seems like a good fairy tale choice. The book is interesting because it contains artwork from 2 different sources. The frontispiece and title story The Cat and The Mouse are illustrated by an unnamed traditional Persian artist and the remainder of the book is illustrated by John R. Neill, who is famously known for illustrating the stories of Oz.
Geraldine Ross. Scat the Cat. Illustrations by Kurt Ross. McGraw-Hill, (1958)
Cover Photo via: Amazon.com
Sorry, but I couldn’t find a digital copy for you to read.
Natsume Soseki. I am a Cat. (1906) First English translation published in 1909. Translated by K. Ando and revised by K. Natsume. Tokyo, Hatori Shorten, 1906-1909.
This classic book, written by one of Japan’s most celebrated novelists, is a satire of Japanese society during the Meiji period (1868 – 1912) when western customs were first being incorporated into the country. It’s written from the perspective of a supercilious and eloquent housecat who humorously comments on the people and events that fill his life.
I couldn’t find a copy of the book for you to read, but it’s been reissued many times (and in many languages) and is available at most major booksellers. If you’d like to read a few quotes before deciding to buy, the site Cocosse-Journal is the place to go. I’ll share just this one quote from the book:
“Thus, as I review the list of my friends and acquaintances, most of them emerge as stained withmaniac stigmata of one sort or another. I begin to feel considerably reassured. The truth maysimply be that human society is no more than a massing of lunatics.”– from I am a Cat via Cocosse-Journal
Cover photo via: Old Timey Cats
Louis Wain. The Louis Wain Kitten Book. London, Anthony Treherne & Co. Ltd., 1903.
Photo via Biblio
The book is available to read at Children’s Books Online
The School for Cats. Written and illustrated by Esther Averill. Harper and Row, 1947.
A beautiful, short, sad story from Avalus.
Last year, I photographed bumblebees on lavender. This year, it was much less frequented but still abuzz with all kinds of bees. You can really see how much less insects are around.
A Year Later. ©Avalus, all rights reserved
Ruthven Todd. Space Cat. Illustrated by Paul Galdone. Charles Scribners Sons, 1952. Photo from Amazon.com
Space cat is a series of 4 books written in the 1950’s by Scottish novelist Ruthven Todd about Flyball the cat and his adventures in outer space. The books are filled with charming illustrations by Paul Galdone who also designed the set of 4 covers that have made the books highly collectible and hard to find. The Book isn’t in the public domain so I can’t send you to read them, but in 2018 the set was re-issued and is available for purchase at a reasonable price. Here’s the link to Amazon, but the books can be found at most major book stores. Click through if you’d like to see the other 3 book covers – they are fun!
First I must say that my writing will continue to be very, very sparse for about two weeks (again). I think I finally found out what is wrong with my hands. I had a pain in my metacarpal bones and joints ever since I worked a bit too much in a too short time. Sometimes it almost went away, but then it came back with a vengeance whenever I did some work. The orthopedist has made an x-ray and has ruled out arthritis, and I have not visited a doctor since because it got multiple times better to the point I thought I am OK.
I think I know what is wrong – I think I have started to develop stress fractures. Those are not visible on x-ray until they develop in a full-blown fracture.
And whenever they almost healed, I did something to aggravate them again. There is only one cure for that – several weeks of no-strain. And due to the nature of the injury, that also means no-excessive writing on PC, no grinding knives, no cutting or splitting wood, etc. I have tried consistently this last week to do that and today and yesterday I was again almost pain-free. But I think I need to keep it up for at least two more weeks for the bones to recover completely. If that does not help, then I am going to the doctor again to try and find out what the hell it is.
What I could safely do was to coat the knife handle with boat lacquer. And this weekend I started, carefully, working on the sheath.
First I have cut the two slabs for the sides and then two strips for the belly and the back. To get the strips to conform with the blade geometry I did not cut them curved but I formed them from a wet leather strip. When it dries, it holds form nicely and it saves material.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
The next step was to glue everything together with wood glue. In case you ever do this, beware. Wood glue on dry tanned leather works really, really fast. Not superglue-fast, but fast enough for you to want to be sure that when you press the parts together, they are in the correct position straight away. Wetting the leather beforehand might give me some time, but I did not want to do that because the clamps would leave impressions in it.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I have let it dry for a few minutes, then I took off the clamps and I inscribed a line with a knife-tip for stitching and cut the opening for a belt. In case you are wondering why there are round punched holes at the end of the cuts – those are there to avoid stress concentration and thus to prevent the leather from tearing further when used.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Now I leave it to completely dry until tomorrow evening. In the meantime, I am trying to figure out a way for making my maker’s mark on the leather. I could cut it, but that seems a bit inelegant.
Neil Munroe. Gilian The Dreamer: His Youth, His Love and Adventure. New York, Dodd Mead, 1899.
Loretta Ellen Brady. The Green Forest Fairy Book. Illustrations by Alice B. Preston. Boston, Little Brown & Co., 1920.
I’ve included all the colour plates in this book below the fold. The drawings are done in a limited palate in the Art Nouveau style and I think the artwork is charming.
Our book today was sent in by Anne, Cranky Cat Lady. I am greatly amused that our resident Cat Lady is sharing a book about the killing of a bird.
Who Killed Cock Robin & Other Stories. New York, A.L. Burt Co., 1916. Photo courtesy of ©Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
Who Killed Cock Robin & Other Stories. New York, A.L. Burt Co., 1916. Photo Courtesy of ©Anne, Cranky Cat Lady
This week Opus has sent us an interesting fungus that he found growing on his property.
Finally had a little time for photography so started with some fungus from the property. I have no idea what this is, or why it grows in square segments, but it is striking.
©Opus, all rights reserved