Blog posts of '2016' 'June'

Sometimes, when the world feels bleak, I make the deliberate decision to lose myself, forgetting all pains and woes for a while, in a book.  And because, in these circumstances, I want to be sure that the book is good enough to get lost in, I turn for comfort to an old favourite which can be guaranteed to freeze out a cold world, at least for while.  I don't mean to provoke, but the EU referendum results that emerged on Friday morning and the responses to it since then, have left me saddened and feeling in need of a good comfort read.  So this morning I picked up a dear old friend, Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, which I have loved since I first came to know it as a O'level text.  And on page one, this is what I found:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Although Dickens' penned this in the 1850s, and was of course commenting on the times of the French Revolution some 70 years earlier, his words seem remarkably apposite this weekend. There are other themes, too, in A Tale of Two Cities, which seem to pre-echo today's political debates - relations with Europe, the role of the banks, disconnects between different sectors of society, rapidly shifting political powers playing out in the day to day lives - often with violence and hatred and rarely with understanding or tolerance - of less empowered people, driving wedges between friends and among families. Dickens uses A Tale of Two Cities to show, to the point of ridicule, just how rich and powerful the rich and powerful actually are.  One character needs four, yes four - count them -  servants to make his daily drink of hot chocolate. He shows how that sort of excess breeds discontent among those struggling to survive. He portrays the start of the French Revolution as a critique of the aristocracy and then vividly recounts how the fine ideals of the new classless Republic become an even harsher and more bloody form of class warfare than that which went before.  Let's hope that, despite starting in very similar scenarios, the outcomes of the political turmoil we find ourselves in now do not play out to in the same way. [caption id="attachment_2128" align="alignnone" width="3072"] 'The Sea Rises', illustration from Book 2 of The Tale of Two Cities, by Phiz[/caption] I think that's enough of Dickens novels for me today.  I'm off to find my copy of Pride and Prejudice...oh, wait...may be today is a day to stick to a good crime thriller.

Rummaging around local charity shops often rewards with a wee gem or sought after book but the this morning's find turns out to be a little different.  I'm very fond of reading vintage crime fiction and Freeman Willis Crofts is one of my favourite authors in the genre.  His books were published largely in the early part of the 20th centre and are rarely reprinted, so finding one his books that I haven't read being offered second hand makes for a good day and I almost always snap it up.  And this one comes in the lovely green and cream bands of classic Penguin mystery and crime, so was irresistible.  It is a little battered and dog eared but I don't mind books like that if their just for reading, so long as they are not smelly, brittle or falling apart. But its turns out that this copy has another twist which appeals in particular to that part of me which wishes I was a book collector as well as a reader.  When I got it home I found it had a bookplate in it.  When I find bookplates, I always google a bit to see if I can find out a bit about the previous owner - often they turn out to have been local or had local connections.  Turns out though that the Anne and  F G Renier, whose names appear on the bookplate,were themselves book collectors of some note. [gallery ids="eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczpcL1wvYm9va2FkZGljdGlvbi5jby51a1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxNVwvMDhcL2Jlc2lkZS5qcGciLCJ0aXRsZSI6ImJlc2lkZSIsImNhcHRpb24iOiIiLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6IiJ9,eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczpcL1wvYm9va2FkZGljdGlvbi5jby51a1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxNVwvMDhcL2NyaW1zb24uanBnIiwidGl0bGUiOiJjcmltc29uIiwiY2FwdGlvbiI6IiIsImFsdCI6IiIsImRlc2NyaXB0aW9uIjoiIn0=" type="rectangular"] Fernard Gabriel Renier (1905-1988) was a Dutchman, born in Flushing, who as a young man settled in England around 1918, studying languages at London University in the 1920s.  It was here he met his future wife, Anne Cliff (1911?-1988) through a common interest in collecting match box labels.  After university, Renier worked for the BBC World Service but he also translated several works from his native dutch and from German into English and produced various Dutch and German grammars and learning aids among other books,  at times working in collaboration with Anne . Together they built up an enormous and in elements important collection of books, illustrations and popular printed materials.  In 1970, they donated their collection of children's literature to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  The Renier Collection was subsequently transferred to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green and more recently to Blythe House, where it is now known as the Renier Collection and comprises some 80,000 books, games and printed materials. Two delightful colouring books from the Renier Collection were recently featured in a V&A blog post, Colour Our Collections. Some of the Reniers' manuscripts and ephemera were acquired in 1993 by Adelphi University in New York, where they now form the William Hone Manuscript Collection.   But it seems that they were also rigourous about adding their bookplate, which reads 'From the Library of Anne and F. G. Renier', to the less special books they acquired as well.  A quick scan of some book sellers catalogues etc reveal several books being offered for sale with this bookplate - presumably books which were generally dispersed when their collection was broken up. And more important books they owned are now in the collections of national institutions such as the Royal Academy, which has acquired, for instance, the Reniers' copy of Memoirs Of John Bacon, Esq. R.A. (1822). Or their broadside,  The Grand Mortar, from Cadiz, in St James's Park which is now in the British Museum. I shall enjoy owning the Reniers' copy of The Loss of the Jane Vosper all the more for knowing that it once sat alongside some really important books on the shelves of such notable book collectors.  Definitely my favourite find of the week!

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Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and started way back in 2012 to help booklovers and readers celebrate the arrival of new and exciting books in their homes and on their bookshelves. But I owe my inspiration for using this meme to the lovely Hayley at Rather Too Fond of Books.  The BookAddict’s  posts under this heading may be a little different in that (a) they are occasional rather than weekly, and (b) they are certain not to be exhaustive.  I also run a small second hand bookshop selling beautiful, unusual, vintage and quirky books which means some weeks literally hundreds of books arrive all at once!

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