BOOkplates: Macabre Marks of Ownership

The bookplate of Percival F. Hinton, found within Arthur Machen’s The House of Souls (PR6025.A235 H84), depicts a devilish and masculine visage, complete with a pair of horns. This figure is as bacchanalian as he is demonic, which is just as frightening– considering mythological Bacchantes regularly engaged in frenzied acts of cannibalism, blood sacrifices, and dismemberment. Bacchantes mutilated enough unfortunate victims that the Ancient Greeks created a special word just for such an occasion– sparagmos, meaning “tear, rend, pull to pieces.”

Another ghastly skele-treat for your candy bag, Waldo Leon Rich’s bookplate can be found in Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk: A Romance (PR4887 .M6 1796 vol. 1). Here, a robed skeletal figure pours over a large book, scepter in hand. Behind it, web-ridden bookshelves of a shadowy library looms. As stated above, skeletons and skulls are powerful and popular symbols. For example, memento mori (Latin for “remember (that you have) to die”) is an artistic trope that revolves around the universality and inevitability of death. This deathly art movement became incredibly popular in the late medieval and Renaissance periods.

The bookplate of the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, found within A Trve discovrse, vpon the matter of Martha Brossier of Romoarntin (BF1555 .T86 1599) comes with a special gift plate featuring a black cat and the zodiac symbol of Gemini. The cat stands arched in fear, bristled tail held straight up in the air. Black cats are among the most infamous symbols of superstition and have long been associated with witchcraft, bad luck, and the Devil. As for our astrological symbol, this book was gifted in May 1986– Geminis are born between May 21st and June 20th, thus the zodiac symbol was most likely utilized as a marker of what month the book was gifted to Indiana University.

Vincent Starrett employed a plethora of genre-specific bookplates for his book collection, such as a detective wielding a magnifying glass for mystery novels. His more preternatural books thus earned this bookplate, as found in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Edge of the Unknown. Here, a shining, winged eye looks out to the reader, hovering over an opened book. The symbol of the illuminated eye, known as the Eye of Providence and All-Seeing Eye, has become associated with secrets, mysteries, and the unknown. Fitting for Doyle’s exploration of spiritualism and ghosts, no?

Frank Graef Darlington’s kooky yet spooky skeleton is a feast fit for the [winged] eyes. This particular bookplate can be found in Henri Pène du Bois’s Four private libraries of New York : a contribution to the history of bibliophilism in America (Z987 .P39). A serpent swallowing its own tail frames the skeleton and although not in the typical ring, the symbol of a snake devouring itself– the ouroboros— represents the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. Other superstitious animals appear as well, such as the crow and owl. Coincidentally, both are symbolic harbingers of death, bad omens, and change.

It is not shocking that Francis P. Fretwell, who amassed a colossal private library of books related to dogs, had one adorn his personal bookplate. This particular hound appears in Joseph Taylor’s Canine Gratitude (QL795.D6 T35 1806). The bookplate utilizes a woodcut engraving entitled “The Water Dogge” seen in Gervase Markham’s Hunger’s Prevention, published in 1621. While the illustration depicts the dog with a bird in its mouth, one cannot ignore that from a certain angle, the bird eerily appears more like a dismembered hand. Of course, tales of dogs biting off the hands that feed them have ancient roots, such as the Norse god Týr losing his hand to the monstrous wolf Fenrir.

Owls are no strangers to superstition. Depicted as the familiars of witches since medieval times and as recently as in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, it is no wonder these wise birds of prey have retained an aura of mystique. Fun fact: the Latin word for Owl is strix, which is not only a genus name for true owls, but also the name of vampiric witch-like beings that transformed into bird demons and fed upon human blood and flesh, especially that of infants. This myth became prevalent enough that strix also became synonymous with “witch.” H. B. Charlton’s bookplate, which features an owl with human-like eyes, can be found in Pietro Vettori’s Petri Victorii commentarii, in primum librum Aristotelis de arte poetarum (PA3903.A2 V5).