[ Ritchie, Ward, printer ].

The Booklover’s Litany. By H.L. With an Introduction and Five Supplications by R[obert].E[rnest].C[owan].

Pasadena: Harry Ward Ritchie, [Printed at the Abbey of San Encino Press,], 1930. Printed by Ritchie for the Zamorano Club two years before the establishment of the Ward Ritchie Press. At the time, the Zamorano Club had only been active for two years. Based on Ritchie’s other work from around the same time, the edition size for this item was probably between 75 and 100 copies. This copy is signed in ink by Robert Ernest Cowan on page seven, at the end of his introduction. A fine copy. Handmade brown paper wrappers printed with title in red. Three-hole pamphlet stitch binding sewn with white thread. Fabriano paper made in Italy. 5.5 inches by 9.5 inches. 11 pp., [1] p. Item #17391

According to Cowan’s introduction, the poem “The Booklovers Litany” was originally printed in the June 1887 edition of the magazine The Bookmart and then reprinted in The Bookworm in 1892. The poet, identified only as “H.L.,” pleads for divine protection against all manner of book-destroying forces including “heat and damp…fire and mildew…book-droppers and book wrenchers,” (pp. 9-10). Bookseller Robert Ernest Cowan (1862-1942), who wrote the Book Club of California’s Bibliography of California, is noted in this item’s colophon to have rediscovered H.L.’s poem and “drawn it from its obscurity…for the edification of the members of the Zamorano Club.”.

The Ward Ritchie Press and Anderson, Ritchie & Simon, p. 128.

Price: $300.00