‘Scouts in Bondage’ Super Quirky Book 2011
Scouts in Bondage : And Other Curious Works from Bygone Times with Titles That Might Cause Vulgar Minds to Misapprehend Their Content Hardcover – January 1, 2011
By Michael Bell, Author. Publisher : Aurum Press (January 1, 2011). Measures 5.25 x 8 inches. 98 pages. Full color illustrations. Very good condition.
All the books illustrated in facsimile in this irresistible little volume were collected by Michael Bell when he owned an antiquarian bookshop in Lewes. His criterion was simple: these were old books that raised a grin if not a guffaw from his customers as soon as they saw them. Some are mystifying or bizarre or simply evoke a world which has long since vanished. But best represented of all are the titles, like Scouts in Bondage itself, that now suggest something quite at odds with the author’s original intentions.
*** ABOUT THIS BOOK:
All the books illustrated in this irresistible little volume were collected by Michael Bell when he owned an antiquarian bookshop in Lewes. His criterion was simple: these were old books that raised a grin if not a guffaw from his customers as soon as they saw them. Some are simply mystifying like the enigmatic “Book of Blank Maps”; bizarre like Frances E. Willard’s perfectly straight-faced account, “How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle”; or simply evoke a world which has long since vanished like Paulo Montegazza’s manual on “The Art of Taking a Wife”. Sometimes it is the combination of title and cover artwork that does the trick, but most frequent of all is the title that now conveys a meaning quite at odds with the author’s original intentions, the boy’s story “Invisible Dick”, for example, or another children’s novel, “How Nell Scored”.
Michael Bell and his wife set up their own design consultancy in Lewes. On retirement, they spent seven years running a secondhand bookshop, which provided the raw material for this collection.