Thirty (or 230) Are Better Than One

Was idly reading about Warhol's interest in mechanical repetition; fairly obvious parallels with books and book-production. Doubtless this has been written about elsewhere. Editions consist of copies, plural. Print runs can be small—indeed, very small (even a single copy)—but books are not, by their nature, (normally) unique items; neither in terms of visual appearance (external) or in respect to printed matter (internal). Warhol's art also played on imperfect replication, something that would certainly run counter to the aims of any printer or book-maker. 

 

Books can contain reproductions of art within, of course, but individual books are not normally regarded as art in themselves. Part of the decorative arts, at a push—books and bookbinding were the craft in ‘Arts & Crafts’—but not part of the visual arts. Books are often utilitarian only; mass-produced and un-unique. When books are more than simply functional, when they are also visually pleasing, discussion is usually couched in terms of design. Having said this, Tolkien's jacket for The Hobbit is both brilliant design and striking visual art.

 

I think it fair to say the craft of bookbinding rises to art on occasion. Philip Smith's Lord of the Rings ‘Book-Walls’ are individual bookbindings brought together to create new, larger (front and back) ‘macro-images’. Smith (1928–2018) presented these multi-book images framed, as art; each individual binding was also a piece of art in itself. Smith had the philosophy of an artist, too. He was awarded an MBE for Services to Art in 2000.

 

Postcard showing the back of Smith's LR ‘21-unit Book-Wall’  

I'm reminded of something H. P. Lovecraft said (possibly in a letter to R.H. Barlow): that he (I paraphrase) ‘collected literature, not books’. Lovecraft certainly accumulated books—bought, gifted, and inherited—but he did not regard himself as a book-collector. He didn't much bother if a book he picked up second-hand in some New York bookshop was a later edition/impression or not, provided it was serviceable. For Lovecraft, books were merely the vehicle for the conveyance of words (literature); his library was for reading and studying (not admiring).

 

I think Lovecraft's stance is a fairly typical writer's posture; it is understandable that writers would value the content of books over books themselves. I don't see any evidence that Tolkien, to take another example, thought very much of books as objects either. He would have appreciated a beautiful book or an attractive binding, I'm sure; he obviously had strong opinions about the publication and presentation of his own work, too. But beyond this, I don't think his interest in books as physical objects extended very far. Consider Pamela Chandler's photographs of Tolkien in his study, and those bookshelves. Others, if they are looking at all, are probably attempting to descry titles and authors; all I can see is leaning spines. No doubt Tolkien would have given a ‘working library’ defence, but no self-respecting book-collector would shelve books with such carelessness...

 

And what about the madness of collecting multiple copies of the same work of literature? I collect multiple copies of The Silmarillion because I'm deeply interested in the book's printing and publishing history. I view most of the copies I have as bibliographically distinct; 1977 copies are into variant territory, some are copy-specific. I have written previously about my own justification for collecting The Silmarillion ‘in particular’ here; my ‘collecting manifesto’ if you like. But when confronted with a wall of 1977 spines—truly Warhol-like bookshelves—I continue to find myself with no rational defence for this narrow collecting focus.

I do agree with Warhol.

Thirty are better than one.

Two hundred and thirty are also better than one.

 

For more on Tolkien as an artist see Hammond & Scull's J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator (HarperCollins, 1995), The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2011), and The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2015). For some actual information on Tolkien's bookshelves see Oronzo Cilli's Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist (Luna Press, 2019 [2nd Ed. 2023]). I will hopefully write something a bit more substantive on Philip Smith later.

 

Also on SILMARILLION MINUTIAE

❆ Preface to an Imagined Catalogue: Why Collect The Silmarillion?

❆ For People Who Cannot Read the Pictures

❆ Tally of S'