Treasure Spots of the World

Walter B. Woodbury - Treasure Spot of the World (1875)

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Before vacation season is completely gone here's a book with some trip suggestions.  The Mosque at Cordova, Tintern Abbey, an ice cavern, the Bridge of Sighs, Bangkok, the Sphinx, Cairo, Niagara Falls - take your pick.  Each spot gets a photo then about three to four pages of text that tend a bit more towards encyclopedia facts than travel brochure enthusiasm which is a tad disappointing from one of the high eras of travel literature.  Still it manages to promote their treasure spots so if you go send a postcard.

The Story of the First Gas Regiment

James Thayer Addison - The Story of the First Gas Regiment (1919)

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Continuing last post's World War I soldier-life theme here's one that's a bit less humorous.  The First Gas Regiment was the only offensive gas unit in the U.S. Army and lasted for just 18 months.  Today of course a book about gas warfare is like a book promoting the value of DDT but really this is more a straightforward account.  If anything it's a bit dull even for a regimental history.

Addison (a 1909 Harvard graduate) was the regiment's chaplain and was an active writer afterwards.  He wrote a history of the Episcopal Church, on Ahmadiyya and religion in India, a study of medieval missionaries, and Ancestor Worship in Africa among many others.  None of these appear to have been digitized.

500 of the Best Cockney War Stories

500 of the Best Cockney War Stories (1920)

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I've only skimmed this but while the overall tone leans towards the comic (these were reprinted from the London Evening News) it does have the feel of military life presented by countless memoirs - boring, confusing, sometimes funny, sometimes frightening.  Of course a memoir is pretty much what this is, only collectively authored and cleaned up for a home audience.  They aren't vague Reader's Digest anecdotes but are usually quite specific, at times even using unexplained references.  It doesn't have an introduction but an "opening yarn".

The Comical History of Lord Flutter, Lord Spindle & Sir Harry Hopscotch

The Comical History of Lord Flutter, Lord Spindle & Sir Harry Hopscotch (1850)

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A pamphlet of children's stories involving anthropomorphic insects complete with a moral at the end.  Nice illustrations but I can find almost nothing about the book except that a copy is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum who says it's hand-colored.  Their copy was published in London so there were two editions.

The Boy's Book of Industrial Information

Elisha Noyce - The Boy's Book of Industrial Information (1858)

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Flax manufacture, glass painting, mining, boiler operation, distilling, bridge building - everything a young lad in the mid-19th century needed to start his industrial career.  What boy doesn't want to read about drainage and artesian wells?  Or proper bracing for ship construction?  Well, be deprived no longer!

On the Writing of the Insane

G. Mackenzie Bacon - On the Writing of the Insane (1870)

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Don't get too excited that this is an early discovery of outsider art (Adolf Wölfli would have been six when this appeared) or rather it is but the author didn't quite make the appropriate connections.  It's also a brief pamphlet with nearly all the illustrations excerpted below and the text not being much of an anthology.  Still, it's free, short and fairly interesting.

Documents japonais

Charles Gillot - Documents japonais (n.d. but possibly 1889)

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A grabbag of assorted Japanese images with almost no explanatory text or even any obvious organization.  It ranges from landscapes to fabrics to abstract designs to portraits to sketches of daily life.  This appears to have been something of an art book but I can't find any specific info - the date comes from the Hathi Trust listing but I have no idea how they determined that.  A price of 65 francs wasn't cheap at any period (as best I can tell anyway) and this is about magazine sized.  Too bad many of the images are faded.

Gillot was a collector and editor.  He directed the journal Le Japon artistique which lasted from 1888 to 1891.  His collection of Japanese art was admired by Edmond de Goncourt - part of it went to the Louvre.  He's buried in Montparnasse.