Honorary Degree Books 2015

Women in the Production of Munitions in Canada. Ottawa: Imperial Munitions Board (Canada), 1916.

Women in the Production of Munitions in Canada

This extraordinarily rare publication offers a pictorial record of the contributions made by the large number of women who worked in munitions plants during the First World War. It was published to document the implementation of the Canadian government’s “dilution of labour” policy in which unskilled and semi-skilled workers, including women, temporarily replaced the able-bodied men who were then serving in the military. The work done by the women pictured in these pages, and the many others that they represent, not only helped to address crippling labour shortages and thereby aid the war effort, but also prompted a wholesale reconsideration of the role of women in the military and in Canadian society. [HD 6073 M92 C2 W87 1916]

Sharp, Frank Chapman, and Philip G. Fox. Business Ethics. New York: D. Appleton, 1937.

Business Ethics

This copy from the first printing of the first edition of a pioneering book on business ethics discusses ethical questions important in a competitive business world. From the jacket copy we learn that the book attempts to answer crucial questions such as, “What constitutes fair service? What constitutes fair practice among competitors? What is a fair price? and What is a fair wage?” Acquired from an established rare books dealer in London, England, this copy stood out as highly desirable for a bibliophile because it was the only copy available in the world with the collectible dust jacket. [HF 5387 S46 1937]

Williams, S. Wells. The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883.

The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants

Samuel Wells Williams (1812-1884) became one of the West’s leading Sinologists after an accomplished life as a linguist and missionary in China for 43 years. He arrived as a young man at Canton in October 1833 to study Chinese language and culture, and his work as prolific author and frequent lecturer on Chinese topics culminated in 1877 with his appointment as the inaugural Chair of Chinese Language and Literature in Yale College. In the course of his travels abroad, Dr. Williams learned a great deal about foreign trade with China, and in 1844 he published his Chinese Commercial Guide, which included invaluable information for merchants and mariners about regulations, treaties, and tariffs. His later work on the “Middle Kingdom” was the definitive English-language book on China for decades after its first publication 1848. In 1883, it was re-issued after a major revision. [DS 709 W72 1883 v.1-2]

Henderson’s Northwest Brand Book. 2nd ed. Winnipeg: Henderson Directory Co., 1889.

Henderson’s Northwest Brand Book

The second edition of one of the earliest “brand books” published in the Canadian Prairies, this book was used by readers to easily identify the owners of branded livestock. Accuracy was crucial, so the publisher assures readers that “no expense or trouble has been spared to make the work complete and reliable” (5). Designed in a handy pocket size with an envelope-style leather cover, a compartment for important papers, a sheaf of lined notepaper in the back, and a pencil sleeve on the side, this book was intended to be carried and used by ranchers. [SF 103 H49 1889]

Woolf, Virginia. Orlando: A Biography. London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth

Press, 1928.

The Hogarth Press Orlando

Although it was preceded by a limited edition published by Crosby Gaige of New York earlier in the same year, this first British edition is special because it was published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press. Featuring a rarely-seen dustjacket, this book will make a wonderful addition to the Peel Library, which is home to one of the great Hogarth Press collections in the world today. An important book by one of the great British authors, Orlando is an irreverent, time-travelling, gender-bending, fictionalized biography which spans centuries in order to challenge readers’ assumptions about the present. [PR 6045 O59 O7]

Wood, Dave. Excerpts from Chief Seattle’s Peace Treaty Statement. Pomoma, Australia: D.J. Harwood and Assoc., 1990.

Excerpts from Chief Seattle’s Peace Treaty Statement

This is a limited edition artists’ book printed on archival rag paper with archival pigment, bound in Australian wood, and belted with the words “precious earth.” Signed and numbered by the artist, this gorgeous accordion book celebrates the wisdom expressed by Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe in his famous 1854 treaty oration. There are several written versions of this legendary oration, and it is easy to see why Seattle’s words have been taken up as a manifesto by both environmentalists and Native American activists: “Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself…If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred and you must teach your children that it is sacred.” [N 7433.4 W876 E93 1990]

Treaties between Her Majesty, the Queen, and Foreign Powers. Ottawa: Brown Chamberlin, 1881. 

Treaties between Her Majesty, the Queen, and Foreign Powers

This early and important book of statutes contains Orders in Council, proclamations, and regulations, all having the force of law in the Dominion of Canada, and covering a variety of topics of national interest, including citizenship, government railways, provincial boundaries, and savings banks. This copy is from the personal library of a Father of Confederation and the first Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald (1815–1891), who was also a successful lawyer before he was elected to the provincial legislature in 1844. Macdonald proved himself to be an adroit politician who ably assumed a leadership role within his party and he went on to serve as Prime Minister from 1867-73 and 1878-91. The engraved bookplate on the inside cover shows Macdonald’s coat of arms and the opposite page features a tipped-in holographic letter with his signature. [KE 88 C36 1881 v.1-2]

Brault, Jacques. La naissance des nuages. Shawinigan [Québec]: Éditions Lucie Lambert, 1984.

La naissance des nuages

In La naissance des nuages, or The Birth of Clouds, Jacques Brault’s nine short poems are dedicated to the memory of his grandmother and explore the fleeting nature of life, dreams, morning rain, and the flight of the teal and the song of the lark. This book has nine separate fold-out sections, each containing two etchings by celebrated artist Lucie Lambert and one poem, and it also features an original etching plate inset on the inside cover. The sections are housed in a silk covered portfolio made by master bookbinder Pierre Ouvrard (1929–2008). During his distinguished fifty-year career, Ouvrard created more than five hundred beautiful bindings, and he is widely acclaimed for his extraordinary work designing and executing unique bindings for winners of the Governor General’s Literary Awards. In the spring of 1998, the University of Alberta’s Bruce Peel Special Collections acquired the Pierre Ouvrard Collection of preparatory sketches, proofs, photographs, and examples of his work, as well as business records related to his commissions. [PS 9552 R24 N158 1984]

Juvenile Pastimes; or, Girls’ and Boys’ Book of Sports. 

New Haven: S. Babcock, 1850.

Juvenile Pastimes

This charming little chapbook contains descriptions of popular games and pastimes for children, including playing ball, skipping rope, flying kites, and numerous others. Chapbooks are paper-covered printed booklets that were inexpensive to produce and therefore could be readily purchased and enjoyed as popular literature. Today chapbooks are valued for their research potential as an important record of popular culture, but because they were not made to last for a long time, it is increasingly difficult to find them in very good or better condition. This particular copy is in fine condition with illustrated covers that look like they were printed yesterday, not 165 years ago. The interior pages are beautifully embellished with 17 woodcuts showing a variety of sports for girls and boys. [GV 1203 J88 1849]

They Still Draw Pictures! With 60 Illustrations of Drawings Made by Spanish Children During the War. Intro. Aldous Huxley. New York: Spanish Child Welfare Association of America, 1938.

They Still Draw Pictures! 

This book offers a poignant glimpse of the landscape of war as seen through the eyes of a child and sketched by the hands of numerous children. In his introduction, Aldus Huxley asserts that, unlike adults, most children have significant artistic talents and that the young artists represented in these pages have created “wonderfully expressive” and “painfully vivid” images that evoke both admiration and horror. This is one of one hundred copies of the first edition that were signed by Aldous Huxley. There is a printed sheet laid in which offers thanks to the purchaser of the book, seeks donations, and explains that, “a million children like the little artists who made these pictures are on the hunger line in Spain. Homeless, fatherless, often motherless too, they are the innocent victims of war.” [N 352.2 S7 T49 1938b]

Cummins, Maureen. Deeds. Brooklyn:

Ianna Press, 1999.

Deeds

This limited edition artists’ book is made of found historical documents that were overprinted and rebound by the artist in a way that makes the text difficult to decipher and thereby underscores the often contradictory and sometimes impermanent nature of history. Deeds presents an account of the nineteenth-century displacement of First Nations peoples in the form of a fictional memoir, which is based on historical accounts, and that is overprinted on old real estate records from the same time period. It is the juxtaposition of the two interrelated but opposing histories that gives this artists’ book its power. [N 7433.4 C97 A6 D312 1999 folio]

Orwell, George. Down and Out in Paris and London. London: Victor Gollancz, 1933.

Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London

This largely autobiographical account of poverty and homelessness is based on Orwell’s own experiences and observations when, as a penniless author, he lived for an extended period in brutal and uncertain circumstances in a Paris slum and later as a tramp in London. A thoughtful and intelligent exploration of the roots of systemic poverty, the account is filled with Orwellian provocations: “The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit. Change places, and handy dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?” (163). This fine copy of the first impression of the first edition of Orwell’s important first book was gorgeously rebound by the Chelsea Bindery in blue morocco and decorated with gilt, a suitable treatment for a book of this stature but ironic given its subject matter. [PR 6029 R98 D7 1933b]

Bull, H.J. The Cruise of the “Antarctic” to the South Polar Regions. Frontispiece by W.L. Wyllie and illus. W.G. Burn Murdoch. London and New York: Edward Arnold, 1896.

The Cruise of the “Antarctic” to the South Polar Regions

One of many Antarctic “firsts,” the author claims that the Norwegian expedition of 1894-95 described herein was the first to reach “the mainland of the great Antarctic Continent, never before trodden by human foot” (1). The men of this expedition, purportedly the first to set foot in the Antarctic, would never have suspected that less than a century later a thin spot in the atmosphere above where they had been would become known as the Antarctic ozone hole and would serve as an important measure of the impact of humankind’s footprint on the planet as a whole. This copy is a first edition with the original decorative cloth binding and several full-page illustrations on plates. [SH 382.5 B935 1896]

Warren, John C. Surgical Observations on Tumours, with Cases and Observations. Boston: Crocker and Brewster; London: John Churchill, 1839.

Surgical Observations on Tumours, with Cases and Observations

This is a very rare early edition of the first North American book about tumours. It is written by John C. Warren, the Harvard professor and practicing surgeon who is famous for having performed, in 1846, the first surgical operation with the aid of a general anaesthetic. The book grew out of a series of lectures based on Warren’s own case files and expanded to become his magnum opus. This copy retains the original cloth binding and contains sixteen hand-coloured lithographed plates with illustrations by David Claypool Johnston. [RD 651 W37 1839]

Ferguson, James. An Introduction to Electricity. London: W. Strahan, and T. Cadell, 1770. 

An Introduction to Electricity

Born in the north of Scotland to parents of modest means, James Ferguson (1710–1776) rose to prominence as a self-taught inventor of astronomical and scientific instruments. He embarked on a career as a lecturer and an author in London and was eventually awarded a Fellowship with the Royal Society. A leading scientist of his day, Ferguson ingeniously observed his own scientific experiments and awakened an interest in a variety of intellectual pursuits, including astronomy, anatomy, medicine, clock-making, and electricity. In 1770, he published a pioneering work in electrical science that offers a detailed account of his experiments with electrical machines. This copy of that important book was beautifully bound in quarter leather and marbled paper by Edmonton bookbinder Alexander J. McGuckin. It also has three engraved plates showing the instruments and mechanical apparatus of Ferguson’s experiments. [QC 516 F35 1770]

Grotius, Hugo. De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Amstelaedami: Apud Janssonio Waesbergios, 1712.

De Jure Belli ac Pacis

This is a masterpiece by a renowned philosopher and political theorist, a pioneering work in the field of international law. In De Jure Belli ac Pacis, or On the Laws of War and Peace, Hugo Grotius constructed a theory of law that would restrain and regulate war in order to minimize bloodshed. First published in 1625, this rare early edition is a reprint by the original publisher. It features two engraved images, which function as a sort of double frontispiece: a portrait of Grotius facing an allegorical representation of blind justice. [KZ 2093 A3 J88 1712]

Tschichold, Jan, ed. Chinese Poetry Paper by the Master of the Ten Bamboo Hall. Basle, Switzerland: Holbein Publishing, 1948.

Chinese Poetry Paper by the Master of the Ten Bamboo Hall

In the late-Ming, early-Qing dynasty, Hu Zhengyan, proprietor of the publishing house called Ten Bamboo Studio, was a versatile artist, skilled calligrapher, and master printer. His Shizhuzhai shuhua pu (A Manual of Calligraphy and Painting from the Ten Bamboo Studio) showcases his pioneering work in multicolour woodblock printing, while his Shizhuzhai jianpu (Ten Bamboo Studio's Decorative Letter Paper) showcases the gorgeous ornamented paper that is traditionally used in China to complement beautiful poetry. The master and his associates worked with the idea that “painting and poetry are two aspects of the same thing” (13). The editor of the facsimile edition, Jan Tschichold, was a leading typographer and a prolific writer, one whose work had a profound impact on twentieth-century design and type. Tschichold produced this beautiful reprint to celebrate the ornamental papers, which he considered to be “a unique gem amongst all that is known to us of the graphic arts throughout the entire world” (15). [NE 1300.8 C52 H6913 1948]

Langdon, William B. Ten Thousand Chinese Things. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Collection, Now Exhibiting at St. George’s Place, Hyde Park Corner, London, with Condensed Accounts of the Genius, Government, History, Literature, Agriculture, Arts, Trade, Manners, Customs and Social Life of the People of the Celestial Empire. London: Chinese Collection, 1843.

Ten Thousand Chinese Things

This attractive publication is a catalogue of American collector Nathan Dunn’s vast collection of “rare specimens” that illustrate “the costume, the manners, habits, science, arts, trades, agriculture, and genius” of China’s “wonderful people.” The Chinese Collection was on exhibition at Philadelphia where it was visited by hundreds of thousands of curious observers before it was taken down and remounted at St. George’s Place, Hyde Park Corner where it was housed in a building made in the style of a Chinese summerhouse from a model in the collection. The book is handsomely bound in cloth with gilt lettering on the cover, and it has 24 woodcut illustrations, including a lovely frontispiece showing the impressive entrance to the exhibition. [DS 714 L36 1843]