Thursday, December 29, 2011
Booksellers Row, Crossword puzzle history
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Here are some stories, to remind us of the days before this 21st Century, when Fourth Avenue below 14th Street, a low rent district then, was the Booksellers’ Row of America, with dozens of antiquarian booksellers active. Then the rents forced these low-income cultural oases to dry up. Fortunately for us, the largest, The Strand, survived and is thriving, giving book lovers a citadel to rally around. I was the junior member of a group of book scouts, traveling the East coast on Saturdays, visiting book dealers and looking for underpriced book rarities. “sleepers,” for fun and profit. In addition to Jack Brussel, S.R. Shapiro and Sonny Warshall, the regulars included Dr. Paul Cranefield (nobelist candidate for heart electronics research), Mozart expert Sam Orlinick and button manufacturer Milton Reissman, and children’s book collector, who later started the Victoria bookshop.
When my group of book scouts visited the East Coast bookstores on Saturdays, looking for hidden values, the dealers would study our choices carefully, and sometimes renege on price, claiming that the marked amounts for certain books should have been updated. This was not fair, but in order to keep our welcome green, we would submit to it.
Once my group of Saturday collectors went out of town to an advertised sale by a dealer who had bought a private library and was trying to get rid of the chaff. There were tables of 10 books for $5, and 10 books for $10, constantly being replenished. I was looking through the better books, when my eye caught a German title, "Koenig, Dame, Bube," by W. Nabokoff-Sirin, published by Ullstein in Berlin, 1930. This was certainly a find, an early book by the author who signed such later books as "Lolita" with the name of Nabokov. I carefully picked 19 other books at that table, including more foreign-language titles, all worth the money and some of them quite flashy, and walked over to the cash register. The dealer examined most of my purchases practically with a magnifying glass, and gleefully withdrew four titles, graciously letting me pay $16 without insisting that I pick four more items. Nabokov's second non-Russian book passed without a second glance.
My triumph was short-lived. When I happily examined my great find at home, it turned out that the front end-paper, the folded page which holds the binding and the book together, had been carefully detached. It probably held the author's inscription to a Lotte Brandenstein, whose ownership stamp is in the book, maybe too intimate to be left in the book when she disposed of it. All I had was merciless ribbing from my friends.
Some of our tales about inscribed books could get profane. As told by Ike Brussel, Jack’s brother, the great bibliographer of Anglo-American and American-Anglo first editions, it seems that Theodore Dreiser (also a neighbor, who once rented an office in the former Guardian building at 17th and PAS), who was a big chaser, would ask every woman he met to sleep with him, counting on the fame of his name and on the law of averages for a supply of bedmates . A young girl in the office of his British publisher succumbed, and at the end of the brief encounter humbly asked the great author to inscribe a copy of "Sister Carrie" for her, hoping that this would make a nice souvenir for later years. Dreiser inquired for her full name, and wrote:” To Mary Smith, in memory of a certain wall in London." He grandly handed her the book, she thanked him, and, upon reading the inscription, burst out in tears. But the author would not waste another copy on a short relationship, and the girl tore up the inscription. So Ike was told.
The T&V Country has been quite a literary center of NYC. In the former Guardia Life Building on corner of 17th and PAS (now W Hotel Union Square) besides housing Theodore Dreiser, there were the publishing offices housing T. Y. Crowell and E. P. Dutton (then a home of Winnie the Pooh and other A. A. Milne stuffed animals), and on the elevators one would meet, on occasion, Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, snapbrim-hatted Mickey Spillane, author of Mike Hammer detective series, poet Allen Ginsberg and his longtime companion , the barefooted verse master Peter Orlovsky (1933-2010). Downstairs was Max’s Kansas City and Andy Warhol would come there in the evening, as celebrity client, and to the Chemical Corn bank next door, during the day, to deposit money.
Across Union Square also was (and is still) the Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing office, in a sense the birthplace of the crossword puzzle as we know it. As to the occasional dispute over the relationship of NYTimes puzzle (XWP) department to T&V Country, let me shed some light.
NYT was a late entrant in the popular subjects (no comics ever, into today), with XWPs first printed in 1942 weekends, the daily puzzle only starting in 1950. The puzzle was invented by Arthur Wynne of the NY World in 1913, and spread like wildfire. Margaret Peterbridge, a young grad of Smith, became his assistant in 1919, and over the years developed the format and details that make XWPs our favorites . Simon and Schuster invited her and two others editors to produce a XWP book, and they sold 400K copies. Then, in 1926, Margaret married John Farrar, a young publisher and author. She was hired by NYT, to start the department, and retired in 1969, at 72, to join Farrar, Straus and Giroux of 19 Union Sq (15 St.). As director, she produced 134 XWP books by 1984. At NYT she had two pseudonyms, Anna Gram and Charles Cross, the latter often used for frequent contributors, to create an atmosphere of a less repetitive milieu. Her successor Will Wang (a Wasp, not Oriental, as rumored) was a former NYTimes city editor. Retired at 70 in 1977, he was succeeded by Eugene T. Maleska, a Bronx high school superintendent, a heavy smoker, who died in 1993, a few months after hiring one of his reliable contributors, Melvin Taub, for many years the champion creator of PANs (puns and anagrams), shortly after the latter’s retirement as an underwriting VP at Guardian Life, across Union Square Park from Farrar. Taub, with Maleska and separately had also published XWP books, now offprinted by Print on Demand rip-off artists .After three months of Mel’s emergency rule the NYT chose to permanently replace Maleska with the much younger Will Shortz, already a legend (e.g. he had Brown U make up a curriculum for puzzle management), a former editor of puzzle magazines and since 1987 the NPR Weekend Edition puzzle maker.
More to come, for inquiries address wally@ix.netcom.com. Best New Year’s wishes to our readers from Wally Dobelis and the T&V staff.
Here are some stories, to remind us of the days before this 21st Century, when Fourth Avenue below 14th Street, a low rent district then, was the Booksellers’ Row of America, with dozens of antiquarian booksellers active. Then the rents forced these low-income cultural oases to dry up. Fortunately for us, the largest, The Strand, survived and is thriving, giving book lovers a citadel to rally around. I was the junior member of a group of book scouts, traveling the East coast on Saturdays, visiting book dealers and looking for underpriced book rarities. “sleepers,” for fun and profit. In addition to Jack Brussel, S.R. Shapiro and Sonny Warshall, the regulars included Dr. Paul Cranefield (nobelist candidate for heart electronics research), Mozart expert Sam Orlinick and button manufacturer Milton Reissman, and children’s book collector, who later started the Victoria bookshop.
When my group of book scouts visited the East Coast bookstores on Saturdays, looking for hidden values, the dealers would study our choices carefully, and sometimes renege on price, claiming that the marked amounts for certain books should have been updated. This was not fair, but in order to keep our welcome green, we would submit to it.
Once my group of Saturday collectors went out of town to an advertised sale by a dealer who had bought a private library and was trying to get rid of the chaff. There were tables of 10 books for $5, and 10 books for $10, constantly being replenished. I was looking through the better books, when my eye caught a German title, "Koenig, Dame, Bube," by W. Nabokoff-Sirin, published by Ullstein in Berlin, 1930. This was certainly a find, an early book by the author who signed such later books as "Lolita" with the name of Nabokov. I carefully picked 19 other books at that table, including more foreign-language titles, all worth the money and some of them quite flashy, and walked over to the cash register. The dealer examined most of my purchases practically with a magnifying glass, and gleefully withdrew four titles, graciously letting me pay $16 without insisting that I pick four more items. Nabokov's second non-Russian book passed without a second glance.
My triumph was short-lived. When I happily examined my great find at home, it turned out that the front end-paper, the folded page which holds the binding and the book together, had been carefully detached. It probably held the author's inscription to a Lotte Brandenstein, whose ownership stamp is in the book, maybe too intimate to be left in the book when she disposed of it. All I had was merciless ribbing from my friends.
Some of our tales about inscribed books could get profane. As told by Ike Brussel, Jack’s brother, the great bibliographer of Anglo-American and American-Anglo first editions, it seems that Theodore Dreiser (also a neighbor, who once rented an office in the former Guardian building at 17th and PAS), who was a big chaser, would ask every woman he met to sleep with him, counting on the fame of his name and on the law of averages for a supply of bedmates . A young girl in the office of his British publisher succumbed, and at the end of the brief encounter humbly asked the great author to inscribe a copy of "Sister Carrie" for her, hoping that this would make a nice souvenir for later years. Dreiser inquired for her full name, and wrote:” To Mary Smith, in memory of a certain wall in London." He grandly handed her the book, she thanked him, and, upon reading the inscription, burst out in tears. But the author would not waste another copy on a short relationship, and the girl tore up the inscription. So Ike was told.
The T&V Country has been quite a literary center of NYC. In the former Guardia Life Building on corner of 17th and PAS (now W Hotel Union Square) besides housing Theodore Dreiser, there were the publishing offices housing T. Y. Crowell and E. P. Dutton (then a home of Winnie the Pooh and other A. A. Milne stuffed animals), and on the elevators one would meet, on occasion, Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, snapbrim-hatted Mickey Spillane, author of Mike Hammer detective series, poet Allen Ginsberg and his longtime companion , the barefooted verse master Peter Orlovsky (1933-2010). Downstairs was Max’s Kansas City and Andy Warhol would come there in the evening, as celebrity client, and to the Chemical Corn bank next door, during the day, to deposit money.
Across Union Square also was (and is still) the Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing office, in a sense the birthplace of the crossword puzzle as we know it. As to the occasional dispute over the relationship of NYTimes puzzle (XWP) department to T&V Country, let me shed some light.
NYT was a late entrant in the popular subjects (no comics ever, into today), with XWPs first printed in 1942 weekends, the daily puzzle only starting in 1950. The puzzle was invented by Arthur Wynne of the NY World in 1913, and spread like wildfire. Margaret Peterbridge, a young grad of Smith, became his assistant in 1919, and over the years developed the format and details that make XWPs our favorites . Simon and Schuster invited her and two others editors to produce a XWP book, and they sold 400K copies. Then, in 1926, Margaret married John Farrar, a young publisher and author. She was hired by NYT, to start the department, and retired in 1969, at 72, to join Farrar, Straus and Giroux of 19 Union Sq (15 St.). As director, she produced 134 XWP books by 1984. At NYT she had two pseudonyms, Anna Gram and Charles Cross, the latter often used for frequent contributors, to create an atmosphere of a less repetitive milieu. Her successor Will Wang (a Wasp, not Oriental, as rumored) was a former NYTimes city editor. Retired at 70 in 1977, he was succeeded by Eugene T. Maleska, a Bronx high school superintendent, a heavy smoker, who died in 1993, a few months after hiring one of his reliable contributors, Melvin Taub, for many years the champion creator of PANs (puns and anagrams), shortly after the latter’s retirement as an underwriting VP at Guardian Life, across Union Square Park from Farrar. Taub, with Maleska and separately had also published XWP books, now offprinted by Print on Demand rip-off artists .After three months of Mel’s emergency rule the NYT chose to permanently replace Maleska with the much younger Will Shortz, already a legend (e.g. he had Brown U make up a curriculum for puzzle management), a former editor of puzzle magazines and since 1987 the NPR Weekend Edition puzzle maker.
More to come, for inquiries address wally@ix.netcom.com. Best New Year’s wishes to our readers from Wally Dobelis and the T&V staff.
Labels: eugene t. maleska, Ike Brussel, Jack Brussel, John Farrar, Margaret Farrar, Melvin Taub, Mickey spillane, Milton Reissman, Paul Cranefield, Peter Orlovsky, Sam Orlinic
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:05 AM 
