Some Alcoholic Americana First Edition - Bella C. Landauer

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Some Alcoholic Americana

Bella C. LANDAUER

Item#: 68906 We're sorry, this item has been sold

ONE OF ONLY 60 COPIES PRINTED

LANDAUER, Bella C. Some Alcoholic Americana. From the Collection of Bella C. Landauer. New York: Privately Printed at The Harbor Press, 1932. Octavo, original burgundy cloth, uncut and mostly unopened.

Limited first edition, presentation copy, of this pictorial catalogue of wine labels and wine-related items from the collection of Bella Landauer, number 5 of 60 copies, with a mailing slip from the publisher and a letter from Boston’s Business Historical Society thanking Mrs. Landauer for presenting them with this book.

New York eccentric Bella Landauer remains one of the most accomplished ephemera collectors of all time. This work showcases her collection of American wine labels. It contains an introduction written by Landauer and reproductions of her favorite labels, as well as a few other American wine-related documents. With a contemporary article about Landauer laid in.

An about-fine presentation copy, uncut and mostly unopened.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
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Chromolithograph Lithograph printed in colors, typically three or more.
Collation Process by which the contents of a book are inspected for completeness, checking against internal evidence, the table of contents and/or plate list, and reference works. Also a shorthand bibliographical description of a book’s composition by its leaves and signatures, rather than its pages. A-C, for example, would indicate a quarto volume composed of three signatures or gatherings of eight pages each for a total of 24 pages.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
Edition Print-run from a single setting of type without substantial change. Depending on demand, any number of printings can be made from a setting of type For example, a first printing might consist of 1000 copies, followed by a second printing of 2500 copies; in which case the book would have a first edition, first printing of 1000 copies, and a first edition, second printing of 2500 copies.
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Half Title Leaf preceding the title page that bears the book’s title, originally used to identify the unbound text block. The book’s binder would often remove and discard the half title at the time of binding. Remaining half-titles are therefore of interest to collectors.
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
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