Cultural Record Keepers: Serendipity in Adelphi University Libraries’ Special Collections: The “Emilie” Bookplate

“Emilie” bookplate by René Lalique. Image courtesy of University Archives and Special Collections, Adelphi University Libraries.

In 2007 the Grolier Club in New York held an exhibition titled Illustrating the Good Life: The Pissarros’ Eragny Press, 1894–1914. Professor Alice Beckwith of Providence College curated this first all-inclusive presentation of the Eragny Press in the United States.¹ A subsequent search for Eragny Press books within the Adelphi University Libraries’ Donald V. L. Kelly Small Press Collection led to the discovery of a unique bookplate connecting Eragny Press to the story of a singular woman.

Lucien Pissarro (1863–1944), son of the French impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, founded Eragny Press. Lucien and his wife, Esther, lived in England but named the press for the Normandy town that was home to the Pissarro family, Eragny-sur-Epte. There was a listing in Adelphi University’s catalog for La Légende de Saint Julien l’Hospitalier by Gustave Flaubert, published in 1900 by Hacon & Ricketts and printed at the Eragny Press in London. According to the book’s colophon, “The frontispiece was designed and engraved on wood by Lucien Pissarro. The borders and decorated letters were designed by Lucien Pissarro and engraved on wood by Esther Pissarro, 1900.” The edition was limited to 226 copies, of which 200 were for sale. The Adelphi copy had a book-plate tipped inside the front cover.

The horizontal bookplate measured 2.5 inches high and 5 inches wide and was printed in gray on buff-colored Japan paper with an art nouveau floral design, trailing leaves outside the lower borders of the lithograph. It was signed “R LALIQUE” at the lower right. At the lower left the name “EMILIE” appeared within the image. “R LALIQUE” was the French jeweler and glass artist René Lalique (1860–1945), renowned for his innovations in the decorative arts. “EMILIE” turned out to be an American woman of extraordinary means and circumstances.

Emilie Busbey Grigsby (1876–1964) was born in Kentucky, and her life has been documented in newspaper accounts and historical studies of her famous benefactor, Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837–1905), the Chicago and London public transportation tycoon.² In 1898 Emilie was deeded a Park Avenue mansion by Yerkes, which soon was filled with art and literary collections. Emilie was the inspiration for Theodore Dreiser’s character of Berenice Fleming in his Trilogy of Desire.³ After her death, she was described as a charming hostess who entertained sculptor Auguste Rodin and poet William Butler Yeats.⁴

Some years after Yerkes passed away, Emilie decided to move to London, and the Anderson Auction Company of New York sold her collections in January 1912.⁵ A notation appeared in the sales catalog above the listings for books and prints: “Miss Grigsby’s bookplate designed by Lalique of Paris will be found in every volume in her Library.”⁶ The availability of this documentation, both online and in print, facilitated the search for other titles once owned by Emilie. Listed in the books portion of the catalog were 1,352 lots. Closer examination of Adelphi’s Eragny Press title revealed the faint pencil marks of the sale date “Jan 30 1912” in the gutter of page 2.

A second “Emilie” title from England was Vaughan’s Sacred Poems, Being a Selection by the seventeenth-century author Henry Vaughan. Hacon & Ricketts published this edition of 210 copies in 1897. Lucien Pissarro’s friend Charles Ricketts designed the decorative borders, initials, and frontispiece. Both Pissarro and Ricketts continued the Arts and Crafts movement approach to fine book design begun by William Morris.

Other titles at Adelphi exemplify Emilie’s interest in American publishing, specifically works produced in Portland, Maine, by Thomas Mosher (1852–1923).⁷ The History of Over Sea by William Morris, first published in 1894 by Kelmscott Press, was brought out by Mosher in 1899. John Brown’s Marjorie Fleming and Richard Jeffries’s Hours of Spring and Wild Flowers were also published in 1899, printed at George D. Loring...