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Aims of the Grolier Club part 2

Although there are an increasing few in America who know a beautiful book when they see it, there are also, alas! not a few who dwell in outer darkness, and in whose eyes the simple typographic beauty of the American edition of Lowell's "Democracy," or of the British edition of Mr. Lang's "Letters to Dead Authors," is no better than the ill made tawdriness of the American edition of Mr. Locker's "Lyra Elegantiarum"- a most feeble attempt at bespangled splendor. There are not a few, I fear me greatly, who know not the proper proportions of a printed page, and who do not exact that the cruel knife of the reckless and mercenary binder shall never shear a hair's breadth from width or height; who do not consider whether the fair white space of the outer and lower margins shall be precisely twice as full as the inner and upper margins; and who take no care that the width of the page of type shall be strictly one half of the length of the diagonal of the page. There are not a few to whom these niceties are unknown not a few in the United States and not a few in Great Britain.

So far as I know, the Grolier Club is the first society founded to unite book lovers and book makers and to gratify the needs and wishes of both classes of its members by collecting and exhibiting the best works of the great artists of the past and by producing new books which may serve as types of the best that modern skill and taste may do. This double function of the Grolier Club I do not find in any earlier organization either in America or in Europe. Neither in England nor in France is there any society exactly equivalent to this New York club.

In London, that useful body the Burlington Fine Arts Club was formed "to bring together amateurs, collectors, and others interested in art; to afford ready means for consultation between persons of special knowledge and experience in matters relating to the fine arts; and to provide accommodation for showing and comparing rare works in the possession of the members and their friends"; and during the past twenty years it has held nearly forty special exhibitions of works of art, and perhaps ten of these special exhibitions have been akin in subject to those held at the rooms of the Grolier Club. But the Burlington Fine Arts Club extends its interest over all the fine arts, and it is as likely to gather and display bronzes or ivories, porcelains or paintings, as it is to show woodcuts, etchings, or ,illuminated manuscripts; while the Grolier Club confines its attention solely to arts pertaining to the production of books.

In Paris the Societe des Amis des Livres declares that its aim is "to publish books, with or without illustration, which by their typographic execution, or by their artistic selection, shall be an encouragement to the painters and to the engravers as well as a motive of emulation to the French printers," and also, "to create a friendly feeling among all bibliophiles by means of frequent reunions." The Society of the Friends of Books is limited to a membership of fifty with an addition of twenty-five corresponding members non resident in Paris. Ladies are eligible for membership, and the first name on the list in alphabetical order is that of Madame Adam. Among the other members are the Duke d'Aumale, M. Henri Beraldi, M. Henri Houssaye, M. Auguste Laugel, M. Eugene Paillet, Baron Roger Portalis, and M. Octave Uzanne. The sumptuous tomes prepared with loving care and untiring toil by the Society of the Friends of Books are known to all bibliophiles through the world as examples of the highest endeavour of the art of book-making in France today.

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