45
number produced was the variety; almanacs reached across all classes and were marketed to every possible niche consumer. The actual item varied considerably in form, both in size and in content. The calendars and tables were often accompanied by articles on popular subjects, or political commentary, but it was the calendar which was the central and most important aspect. The calendar linked the human and the natural world, bringing together eclipses and fairs, the weather and the dates of battles. The main purpose of the almanac was to instruct and advise, always aware of the movement of time and the changes of the seasons.
Much as in the modern day, branding helped sell products. Items were often sold bearing the name and face of current celebrities, and this is no exception. The star here is the “Swedish Nightingale”, opera singer Jenny Lind. Johanna Maria Lind (1820-1887) was born in Stockholm to Anne- Marrie Felborg and Niclas Lind. Anne-Marrie refused to marry Niclas until her first husband had died and so Lind was discovered in an almshouse while singing to her cat. She became famous after her performance in Der Freischütz in Sweden in 1838, but the subsequent over-exposure almost destroyed her voice. The singing teacher Manuel García saved it and she was in great demand throughout northern Europe during the 1840s, becoming the protégée of Felix Mendelssohn. After two acclaimed seasons in London, she announced her retirement from opera at the age of 29.
It was at the behest of the showman P.T. Barnum that Lind toured America. She gave 93 concerts for him and continued to tour afterwards as well. The concerts were phenomenally successful and she donated her proceeds to charities such as the endowment of free schools in Sweden. She returned to Europe with her new husband, the composer and pianist, Otto Goldschmidt, in 1852 where she had three children and occasionally gave concerts over the next two decades. A very modern star, her appearances inspired incredible public adulation and heavy merchandising, including Jenny Lind matchboxes and scent. Fans included Queen Victoria, who threw bouquets at her, and Hans Christian Andersen. She inspired many of his stories - including The Ice Queen after she rejected his marriage proposal. From 1882, for some years, she was a professor of singing at the Royal College of Music in London.
Lind merchandise was huge business. This particular item comes from 1848, two years before her great American tour, and shows how significant a figure she was in Europe. In George Augustus Sala’s Gaslight and Daylight (London, 1859) he writes a chapter on the burgeoning arcades, comparing the flash Burlington Arcade in Piccadilly with the cheaper Lowther Arcade on the Strand (Chap. 18). Catherine Waters suggests that the Lowther was “more versatile and responsive to market trends” and states: “Lowther attests to the success of consumer capitalism in creating new demands by convincing customers to make apparently unecessary purchases amongst its ‘minor utilities’.” (Catherine Waters; Commodity Culture in Dicken’s Household Words; Aldershot, 2008; p.78). Part of the method of persuasion was the association of items with popular figures of the day, and Lind was one such figure. She is important enough to have cameos of her mentioned along with Mary, Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette; she has a ‘Doll’s mansion’ which vies with toys from Peter Parley and Uncle Buncle; and she has artificial flowers (like Queens Adelaide and Victoria) called ‘Jenny Lind’s Bouquet’. That mention of her name is not only unexpected, but also occurs three times for very different items, gives some impression of the ubiquitous and widespread nature of this merchandise. For the first time such adornments and fancy goods were within the reach of the working classes and the new market was utterly exploited.
On her American tour Barnum, no stranger to innovative ways of making money, commented that. “We had Jenny Lind gloves, Jenny Lind bonnets, Jenny Lind riding hats, Jenny Lind shawls, mantillas, robes, chairs, sofas, pianos.” There were Jenny Lind stoves and even Jenny Lind chewing tobacco and cigars, despite Lind’s aversion to cigars. What is stranger to modern sensibilities is that none of these products earned Lind or Barnum anything. Lind’s celebrity was the selling point, but neither Lind nor Barnum felt she had any right to control the sale of these items, anymore than the sellers thought to get her permission. Barnum’s attitude was in fact the reverse. That so many people were using Lind’s name showed her popularity and suggested the concerts would be successful. This almanac would have sold because of the association but, unlike a Cheryl Cole diary or an Arsenal annual, would have had no monetary benefit at all for the associated party.
Interestingly there is also no real effort to relate this specifically to ‘Jenny Lind’ internally. Where today such an item would likely have biographical details, or label the recipes as her own, the almanac is generic, the only connection to her being the portrait and the blind stamp. This shows something of the disposable nature of fame. This year the almanac is Lind, but it might have been Conan Doyle or Florence Nightingale, with little extra work. The almanac represents a period of great appreciation for the value of celebrity but with very different understandings about whether that value should belong to the celebrity.
169. LINDGREN, Astrid (author). Richard KENNEDY (illustrator). Eric and Karlsson-on-the-roof. London; Oxford University Press. 1958.
£58
8vo. Original maroon cloth lettered in silver to spine, preserved in pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [viii] + 136; illustrated in line throughout; a very good copy with a few almost invisible marks to upper board; internally very clean with minor spotting to endpapers and one or two insignificant signs of handling; the unclipped dustwrapper (9s 6d) in remarkably clean and bright state with just a touch of nicking to spine extremities.
First English edition. Another creation from the pen of Astrid Lindgren, following the huge success of her tales about Pippi-
Longstocking. Karlsson is a fat and conceited little chap, with a propeller strapped to his back, who flies down from the roof of Eric’s house and leads him on a series of adventures.
170
BY THE CREATOR OF THE ROWFANT LIBRARY, FOR WHOM THE ROWFANT CLUB WAS NAMED
170. LOCKER-LAMPSON, Frederick. Poems by Frederick Locker. [Not published]. London: Chiswick Press / Whittingham and Wilkins for John Wilson, 1868.
£295
8vo (190 x 118mm). Original Roxburghe-style binding of olive-green, roan- backed, pebble-grained maroon boards, spine lettered, decorated and ruled in gilt, olive-green coated endpapers, top edges gilt, others trimmed; pp. [i]- viii (half-title with wood-engraved ornaments, limitation statement on verso, title with wood-engraved vignette, imprint on verso, dedication, verso blank, contents), [1]-134, [2 (colophon with printer’s device)], printed on thick, laid paper watermarked ‘J Whatman / 1868’, l. G8 a cancellans (as usual) with the reading ‘One Hundred years, like one short week’ on p. 95; [1]-20 (smaller format quire (163 x 118mm) on thinner paper with reviews of ‘Moxon’s Miniature Poems’ and Locker-Lampson’s poetry excerpted from various newspapers, and dating from 1858 to 1865 inserted at the end of the volume); etched frontispiece by George Cruikshank, retaining tissue guard, wood-engraved headbands, initials and tail-pieces to each poem; extremities lightly rubbed, spine and part of upper board slightly faded, a few light spots, otherwise a very good and fresh copy; provenance: A.F. Wright (early engraved armorial bookplate on upper pastedown) — slip tipped onto verso of frontispiece inscribed ‘A rare work one of 20 copies, six of these having the Cruikshank plate “coloured” by Mrs Lionel Tennyson. E.B.H. 1882’ — Percy Whiting Brown.
First edition thus, one of 100 on Whatman paper with Cruikshank frontispiece, from an edition of circa 270 copies. Frederick Locker (1821- 1895) was born at Greenwich Hospital, the son of the Hospital’s Civil Commissioner, and the great-grandson of the book-collector, American colonial Loyalist and sometime friend of George Washington, the Rev. Jonathan Boucher. Following a period of government service, Locker
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