Nosediving Into the Interesting and Unusual Features of the Special Edition of Flying Dutchman

This past July was a very good month for my Sentimental Airman Collection. I acquired twenty-five books of the Lee J. Harrer Lindbergh Collection that I mentioned in last month's post. I also acquired my eighteenth book from the Derek Mason Aviation Collection, all eighteen of which I bought from Mike Slicker's Lighthouse Books. That's why I originally passed on buying a special edition of Flying Dutchman that John Howell listed in a recent Getman's virtual book fair.  However, I messaged John and asked him to contact me in a week or two if the book didn't sell during the virtual auction. Yes, I was leaving it to chance, but I was secretly hoping that the Fokker book would eventually join my other books by or about Lindbergh, Rickenbacker, Amelia Earhart, the Wright brothers and all the other aviators. John Howell contacted me ten days later, and Flying Dutchman was mine.

In every book I have ever bought from John Howell, he inserts a sheet containing his catalogue listing of the book. These inserts provide ready references about the books and their purchases.

By the way,  the manuscript notation, "December 1939!!  AHG," was not written by Fokker's hand.  December 1939 is the month and year that Fokker died. I believe it was written by a  former owner.  However, the writing of the initials "AHG" interested me.  If I knew Fokker personally and called him by his initials, I would have written "AHG."  But if I didn't know him personally, I probably would just have written "Fokker."

I like the gilt aircraft designs that are imprinted on the covers of Flying Dutchman. The airplane on the front cover is the first aircraft that Anthony Fokker built in 1911. The airplane on the spine and on the rear cover is the Fokker F-32 passenger aircraft that Fokker's aircraft company built in Teterboro, New Jersey in 1929. The 1931 date on the rear cover is the year that the book Flying Dutchman was published.

I didn't realize how special my copy of the special edition of Flying Dutchman was until I read the statement on the limitation page. 

"Two hundred and fifteen copies of this special edition of Flying Dutchman have been printed and bound."

That is true per se. But I was soon learned that more information should have provided in that statement.

"... and have been signed by Anthony H. G. Fokker."

That is not entirely true. Fokker did not sign all 215 copies of Flying Dutchman. He did not sign my copy! 

I took a dive into the web via Google. I searched for signed and unsigned copies of the special edition. And boy was I surprised with what I learned!

Fokker did not sign copy no. 42, which an Australian bookseller currently has listed for top dollar on the Biblio website. The binding is the same as mine.

Fokker signed and inscribed copy no. 148 on the frontispiece page. That copy was sold on eBay and listed on the Worthpoint website. I don't subscribe to Worthpoint so I can't tell you when the eBay auction was held.   What did catch my eye, however, was that copy no. 148 was bound in full leather and with no gilt airplanes on its covers!

 A 1994 issue of AB Bookman's Magazine listed copy no. 100 for sale. This listing had me scratching my head because it mentioned the book having  a partial dust jacket.

I stopped scratching my head when I read the Smithsonian Libraries listing for copy no. 89. That copy was bound in cloth as well. More importantly, Fokker inscribed and signed the book on the frontispiece page.

Harleana, an eBay seller from East Norwich, New York listed copy no. 96 for sale in July 2021, and at a reduced price because he believed that the signature page was lacking. A former owner had glued the inner front hinge back together, and harleana thought someone had removed the signature page. In my research of Flying Dutchman copies of both special edition and trade editions, I found that the frontispiece page was where Fokker signed and inscribed his books.

 I was about to write harleana and let him or her know what I learned when I discovered that copy no. 96 was completely bound in cloth, but with gilt airplanes on the front cover! The Holt trade edition was bound in cloth as well, but without the gilt airplanes on its front cover. I wrote harleana, explained that his book was complete, minus the dust jacket. I offered to buy no. 96 on the spot. We completed the eBay sale the next day and copy no. 96 is headed my way! To have one copy of the special edition was great. But to have  two copies of a special edition, and in different bindings was something else all together. 

I sure wish the statement on the Limitation Page had mentioned the number of copies that were bound in full leather,  the number of copies that were bound in three-quarter leather, and the number of copies that were bound in cloth!

I have to admit that I went off on a tangent in my research of the special edition of Flying Dutchman. Early on I noticed that Fokker's name wasn't the only author's name listed on the title page. Bruce Gould's name was listed as well.

Now one might assume that Fokker received all 215 copies of the special edition from his publisher. But if Bruce Gould was one of the authors, wouldn't he have received some of the copies of the special edition as well? And if so, that could be why Fokker did not sign all 215 copies. But who was Bruce Gould? And why was he listed as an author of the book?  Nosediving into the web I went again! 

 I subscribe to the N.Y. Times online, which gives me access to its archives, aptly named The Times Machine.  An April 24, 1931 article, the day Flying Dutchman was published, stated that the book was written in collaboration with Bruce Gould. I then read Gould's obituary which was published in the Times on Aug 30, 1989. When Flying Dutchman was published in 1931, Gould was the Aviation Editor of the New York Eventing Post. He wrote two aviation books, Sky Larking: The Romantic Adventures of Flying published by Horace Liveright in 1929 and Flying Dutchman published by Henry Holt in 1931. According to the obituary, however, both books were written with Anthony Fokker! 

Gould and his wife were co-editors of The Ladies Home Journal for twenty-seven years beginning in 1935. Together, they wrote their biography, American Story published by Harper in 1968. I then read T. J.C. Martyn's book review of Sky Larking, which appeared in the July 7, 1929 issue of the Times. Martyn made no mention whatsoever of Fokker in the review, but highly touted Gould and his book, writing, "Airmen are not, as a brood, either over-loquacious or literary, and it is fine that such a good writer on aeronautics as Bruce Gould should have written so excellent a book."

I found one other reference on the web where the author also mentioned that Gould wrote both aviation books with Fokker. But I suspect that her source was Gould's obituary. Nowhere else on the web did I read that Fokker had anything to do with the writing of Sky Larking. What did I do next? I ordered a copy of Sky Larking online from Resource Books, located in East Granby, Ct!

 I was surprised to receive the copy only a few days later. Kudos to Tami Zawistowski, the proprietor of Resource Books! If Fokker helped Gould write Sky Larking, Gould might have returned the favor and helped Fokker write Flying Dutchman. I read Sky Larking from cover to cover. I now firmly believe that Fokker had nothing whatsoever to do with this book. Gould himself was an aviator who knew what he was writing about. Even more, he knew how to write! Sky Larking was on the best seller list for a short while in 1929. I enjoyed reading it.  Moi recommends!

I should have been done then and there! But there was still one more source to dive into. And that was the Gould autobiography, American Story. Surely, if it was an autobiography, Gould would mentioned something about collaborating with Fokker on the publication of his book (or books). A preview of Sky Larking was unavailable on Google Books, but I was able to "search inside" the book for snippits.

From the snippit views, I can deduce that Fokker either read or heard about Gould's Sky Larking book, and hired Gould to ghost write Flying Dutchman. But Fokker added Gould's name as one of the authors, instead of having just his own name.

And just to put the nail on the head, I wanted to get a copy of Gould's American Story, and read everything Gould said about his collaborations with Fokker. Willis Monie Books in Cooperstown, N. Y. had a copy, and I've bought from him before. But Book Corner Tampa Bay in nearby Brandon, Fl. had a copy listed so I ordered the book from them on Thursday afternoon the 26th of August. I figured I might receive the book on Saturday the 28th, read it over the weekend, and then write about it in this blog post.   That idea, however, crashed and burned. Book Corner Tampa Bay couldn't find the book!  On Saturday they told me they think they might have previously sold the book and not deleted the listing.  So I ordered the book from Willis Monie Books on Sunday morning, but it will arrive too late for this post :-(

Lee J. Harrer: The Man and His Books

 My post this month is a tribute to my friend and mentor Lee J. Harrer who passed away on April 14, 2021.  I have divided the tribute into two segments,  Lee J. Harrer: The Man and Lee J. Harrer: His Books.  The first segment is a nineteen-minute PowerPoint Presentation about Lee J. Harrer: the Man.  It is followed by photo displays of some of the books in the Harrer Collections, including books I acquired from the Harrer Library.

Lee J. Harrer: The Man

This PowerPoint Presentation was broadcast on the Rare Book Cafe TV show on May 1, 2021. For Best viewing, please enlarge to full screen after opening the video.

 Lee J. Harrer:  His Books

The first time I saw Lee Harrer's books was after the March 20, 2005 meeting of the Florida Bibliophile Society.  Paul Ruxin was our guest speaker that day and we stopped at Lee's house after the meeting.  My first thought was that I was not in a house.  I was in a library!  There were rows and rows of bookcases in every room except for the kitchen and the bathroom.  And all the bookcases were filled with books; mostly Books About Books. At least that's all I saw.  I too collected Books About Books, but I had trade editions.  Lee had limited editions of the same books I had, limited editions that I never knew existed.   I'm sure his Chicago books and Brazil books were in his house too, but the books that were imprinted on my brain that day were Lee's rows and rows of bookcases containing his Books About Books.


Lee and His Chicago Books

Lee Harrer was originally from the Chicago area, and had an extensive collection of Chicago books. I made a photo album of his Chicago Books, and acquired two of the books for my own library.

Lee had two copies of Chicago By the Book.  One for his Chicago Collection and one for his Books About Books Collection.  15 Chicago Poets is for my Poetry Collection.

The Lee J. Harrer Collection of Brazil Books

Lee's last overseas tour in the Army before he retired in 1973 was as a military adviser in Brazil.  The first books he collected and then sold as a bookseller were books about Brazil.  He continued collecting books about Brazil for 40 years.  At the time of this post, his family is still trying to find a buyer for the collection.  Here's a photo album of the Lee J. Harrer Collection of Brazil Books.

The Lee J. Harrer Collection of Books About Books

Books About Books was the largest of all of the Harrer Collections.  The majority of Lee's Books About Books were donated to the University of Tampa in 2008, 2014, and again in 2018. What Books About Books remained in his library at the time of his death were mostly books that the University of Tampa already had copies of.  Lee's daughter Lisa thought that the members of the Florida Bibliophile Society would like the opportunity to acquire books from Lee's library so she had two book sales for Society members. I took advantage of the opportunity and acquired over twenty books and pamphlets  from the Harrer Collection of Books About Books.

The Book Collector Vol 1 Nos 1-4

Years ago I had a Vol 1 No 1 Periodical Collection.  I still have remnants of it, and it looks like I am building the collection up again.  

Bibliognost Vol I Nos I-IV, Vol II Nos 1, II

Bibliognost was published from May 1975 to May 1976, and then joined the American Book Collector to become the Book Collector's Market.

Punch or the London Charivai

Punch needs no introduction.  It was first published in 1841 and closed its doors in 1992.   The Brits tried to revive it in 1996 but it only lasted until 2002.  Lee had about fifteen volumes of Punch, and if I had the shelf room I would have acquired more volumes.

The Book-Shop: A Quarterly Journal  Vol I No I, II

I didn't realize that there were two issues in this wrapper until I decided to see if I wanted to include any of Harper's articles in this post.  The March issue was actually a duplicate for me since I already had a copy along with the June 1892 issue.  And those are the two issues Lee had!  The Journal itself, I believe, only had two more issues.  I did find an interesting article in the June 1892 issue to share with you, an early article about Poe's Tamerlane!

The Private Press

Lee was into printing presses at the Tampa Book Arts Studio so it didn't surprise me that he would have this book.

The Book in America &The English Bookman's Library: A Short History of English Printing 1476-1898

These two books fill holes in my Books About Books Collection.  I have Donald C. Dickinson's bibliography of Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt's works and now I finally have one of Haupt's works, The Book in America.  And Alfred Pollard, whom I wrote about last month, edited The English Bookman's Library Series, so I had to have that book too.

Publishing and Bookselling

The title on the spine is a little hard to see.  It reads, " Publishing and Bookselling F. A. Mumby."  A bookman by the name of L. C. Elger was an earlier owner of the book.  He pasted his Ex Libris on the front pastedown, and inserted a bag full of interesting newspaper clippings in the book.  There is at least one other book listed on the web that has his bookplate as well as newspaper clippings he inserted in the book.

Elger gathered newspaper clippings from the 1940s to the 1960s about publishers and booksellers.

Authors and the Book Trade

The top book is the 1970 reprint by the Books for Libraries Press.  The book on the bottom is a 1933 reprint of the 1932 first edition.  It was formerly owned by the renowned bookman Frederic Melcher, who also had a library of Books About Books.

Book Collecting and Care of Books

A revised edition of a guide by the Smithsonian of a bibliography and listing of books on book collecting and the book trade.

Reading For Survival

This essay is one of the last works that John D. Macdonald wrote before he died.  He wrote it for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club.  Unfortunately, the 'perfect binding' isn't perfect anymore.  The glue has browned and dried and the pages have separated from the cover.

The Bookman's Wake

I had the paperback.  Now I have the hardback too!

A Roycroft Anthology

An anthology of Poetry published by the Roycrofters in 1917. Requires rebacking.  The presentation inscription interested me.  I wondered what the recipient taught.  Did she work at the Roycrofters?

A Thousand & One Epigrams and The Roycroft Shop: A History

One more Elbert Hubbard book for my Books About Books Collection.

In Celebration of the Book: Literary New Mexico

This was Lawrence Clark Powell's copy of the book.  And he donated it to the Occidental College Library. The book made its way to the Harrer Library some time after the college released it.

Some Observations on Book Design

A keepsake written and printed by Richard J. Hoffman in 1986 for the members of the Roxburghe and Zamorano Clubs.

Catalogue of an Exhibition of Engraved Portraits, being the effigies of the most famous English Writers from Chaucer to Johnson

This catalogue of the Grolier Club exhibition in 1891 is in pristine condition.  I already have the 1895 catalogue of French authors .

First Editions:  A Guide to Identification

I can't believe I'm just getting  Zempel's guide now.  But McBride's guide held me over all these years.

Essays on Collecting John Steinbeck Books

The Chief End of Book Madness

Almanack For Booklovers

A trio of pamphlets.  I already had a copy of The Chief End of Book Madness and I'm keeping both copies!

FWG

The letters FWG are the initials of the bookman Frederic W. Goudy.  This pamphlet contains tributes to him from Norman W. Forgue, R. Hunter Middleton, Myron Monsen , Jr. and Will Ransom.

A Tribute to Wilberforce Eames

I already have the 1924 first edition of this book. But that copy won't have the bookplate I am contemplating on making: From the Books About Books Collection of Lee J. Harrer.

The Lindbergh Collection of Lee J. Harrer

Books About Books weren't the only books I acquired that were formerly owned by Lee.  Back in May 2019, Lee had enjoyed reading my blog post, A Sentimental Airman's Second Aviation Collection, but he noticed that I did not have many books by or about Charles Lindbergh.  So he wrote me and told me that his Lindbergh Collection was mine if I wanted it after he died.  Here is the Lee. J. Harrer Lindbergh Collection. There are five books by Charles Lindbergh, including two copies of We; six books about Lindbergh, and fourteen books by his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  This Sentimental Airman is honored to have the Lee J. Harrer Lindbergh Collection.  Thank you Lee.

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RIP   Lee J. Harrer 1930-2021