@02092025
Books published
by T. N. Foulis in the Robin de Beaumont Collection
Robin
de Beaumont was a pre-eminent collector and bookseller of Victorian books. He
died in 2023 aged 97. Details of his life and collecting are available via the
Sheila Markham interview https://www.sheila-markham.com/interviews/robin-de-beaumont.html
His
collection of Victorian publications was one of the finest, as the condition of
a book was paramount – always the copy in best condition was sought and
retained, whilst copies in a lesser condition were sold. Books with provenance
he frequently purchased. I had become familiar with some of the publishers’
bindings in his collection, having provided an essay and descriptive entries
for the four hundred books that he gifted to the British Museum in 1994,
entitled: “Prints, Provenance and decorated book covers. Cataloguing The
British Museum Robin de Beaumont Collection.” https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2019
/
His family
put up his collection for auction, via Bonhams. Consequently, an online sale of
the collection was held on 31 January 2024. Purchases of Lots 188 (grouped
together under the heading paper wrappers) and 189 (yellowbacks) at the online
auction were acquired by the British Library, with generous support from the BL
Collections Trust. Some ninety works
published by T. N. Foulis were sold as Lot 53 of the Bonhams sale, and these
were acquired by The British Library.
My first
acquaintance with books published by T. N. Foulis was on a visit to de
Beaumont’s house in the 1990s. In showing me some of these, he commented: ‘There
was not much activity collecting books published by T N Foulis; so I decided to
see what I could acquire….’ It seems likely that his interest was aroused by
his purchase for £30 in September 1967 of a scarce work: “A Descriptive
Catalogue of the Books Issued by T. N. Foulis” (as of 2025, two other copies
exist in the LSE library and in the National Library of Scotland).
The shelfmarks
for Foulis books acquired by the British Library are: C188a717 to C188a805. The
British Library decided to make images and descriptions for each of these Foulis
books, using Wikimedia Commons. Detailed pictures and descriptions are
available in Wikimedia commons at:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Formerly_Robin_de_Beaumont_Collection
(If this
link does not work, then keying into the Wikimedia Commons search box, the
category Formerly Robin de Beaumont
collection This enables all the books to be viewed
together. Click on an individual thumbnail image, to retrieve a full-size
image, and also the full descriptive entry. Alternatively, you can key into the
Wiki search box, the BL shelf mark and a running number for an individual book.
For example C188a573 01; C188a569 01)
For each
de Beaumont book entry, images were normally made of: the covers and the spine;
the title page; the frontispiece, if present; the notes, the bookplate,
endpapers and pastedowns. In the notes field of each Wikimedia entry, there a
full description of the work, and its book covers. de Beaumont routinely wrote
notes regarding where and when the book was purchased and price paid. As far as
possible, these are transcribed. There is plenty of information about Foulis
publications, such as:
TN Foulis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._N._Foulis
Glasgow
life: https://libcat.csglasgow.org/web/arena/foulis
https://www.jonkers.co.uk/blog/the-envelope-booklets-of-t-n-foulis
The most
useful accompaniment to the descriptions was the work of: Ian Elfick and Paul Harris, T.N. Foulis. The History
and Bibliography of an Edinburgh Publishing House. London: Werner Shaw Ltd,
1998. Both were collectors of Foulis publications. As they explain (p. vii):
“The hallmarks of a Foulis book - the buckram binding, tipped-in colour plates,
elegant Auriol typeface, rose-watermarked paper – were elegant enough in their
day. Today, such features are virtually unheard of in a world of generally
uniform book production, and once handled, any true bibliophile would find it
difficult to put down a Foulis book”. This
bibliography cites four hundred and nine entries. Robin de Beaumont was
acknowledged for his assistance in the compilation of the bibliography (p.vi). The
copies collected by de Beaumont number some ninety entries, whose acquisition
spanned some forty years from the late 1960s to the early 2000s. … Matching the
de Beaumont copy with the Elfick & Harris descriptive entry was rendered
straightforward, as they provide full details for each work.
Grouping
the entries relating to copies once owned by de Beaumont is done by creating a
category in Wiki Commons. This means that you, the user, can readily see images
online of the books that Robin de Beaumont owned. Simply key into the wiki
search box formerly Robin de Beaumont collection and
you will view thumbnail images for each book. Each wiki entry needs to be
unique, so a running number was created for each image (e.g. C188a770 01;
C188a770 02; C188a770 03 etc.), and there
are normally several images per book.
Some
features of the collection
Many
volumes had grey paper used as backing sheets upon which the illustrations were
mounted. Paper used for pastedowns and endpapers at times had chain lines. There
was frequent use of gilt top edges, deckled foredges and deckled tails. The
paper wrappers and dust jackets often had yapp edges. Foulis systematically
included one (or more) pages bound in at the end, detailing other titles newly
published, or titles in a series. The use of illustrations mounted on backing
sheets was also much deployed. As will be seen below, the mounting of an
illustration was also common for the front covers of the wrappers and
dustjackets.
Jessie
M King cover designs/ artwork
Elfick
& Harris listed (pp. 251-252) those artists commissioned by T. N. Foulis to
provide decorative or illustrative designs. There are twenty-three publications
with designs by Jessie M. King. Robin de Beaumont collected nine works; with
repeats or the text bound in variant bindings, the number rises to seventeen.
He acquired three copies of Grey Old Gardens C188a731; C188a732; C188a733;
dust jacket for C188a731
Covers by J
M King for C188a732 C188a733
For
C188a734, the dust jacket has been separated from its host book. However, it is
the same jacket as for C188a731.
There are
three copies of D. G. Rossetti The Blessed Damozel
C188a764 (paper),
has a cover design signed by Jessie King. There are five batik bindings
attributed to Jessie King: C188a764(paper); C188a765(Silk); C188a766(silk);
C188a776; C188a777. Elfick & Harris noted on page 156 of their
bibliography: “The silk [cover] was available in five different designs…the
silk bindings may be batiks designed by Jessie M. King. All the silk [bindings]
have the title blocked in a gilt plate in the top centre.”
There are
two copies of Frederick Myers St. Paul, which Elfick and Harris suggest may
have silk binding designs after Jessie M. King (C188a776; C188a767)
C188a741
dust jacket C188a741
covers and spine
There are
two copies of The Book of Old Sundials (C188a741; C188a742). C188a741
has its dust jacket. The covers and spine have essentially the same design by
Jessie M. King, as are on copies C188a731 and C188a732 – Corners of grey old
gardens, with the cover design being “all over”, after Jessie M. King. On
the upper cover of C188a731, there is a pair of garden gates, with a small tree
between the gates and more plants beyond them. For this design – C188a741 - a
large sundial is placed between the garden gates.
There is a
rare work in this Foulis collection: A
whip at the mast. Edited by Rev. J. J. Macaulay, Hon. Chaplain R. N. V. R.
(Clyde Division). The work was published with the imprint of Greenock: James
McKelvie & Sons [1911]. The grey wrappers/dust jacket have yapp edges, with
a mounted illustration by Jessie M. King on the front cover; acquired by de
Beaumont in 1997 for £55. Searching online via Library Hub Discover shows only
one other copy in the UK, in the National Library of Scotland shelf mark
APS.1.82.53
The
Cities series
Elfick and
Harris list (p. 213) eleven titles in this series. Of these, de Beaumont
acquired seven titles. Conspicuous are those books with evocative photogravures
by Joseph Pennell.
Venice (C188a718).
This copy was acquired in June 1968 from Frognal Bookshop. The frontispiece
mounted illustration on the dust jacket is of: “The narrow canal”. The term used
by T N Foulis for this type of binding was “Japanese vellum”.
C188a718
both covers and spine
New York (C188a720).
On the upper cover of the dust jacket, there is an evocative illustration of
New York skyscrapers, all lit up in darkness – this is a larger version of
plate X: “Courtland Street Ferry”. Another copy of this illustration is mounted
on the upper over of C188a721
C188a721 upper cover
A
little book of London
may have sold well; C188a723 has a London street scene blocked on the upper in
black. This is repeated for C188a724, with the blocking in gold on the upper
cover. The copy at C188a725 has a copy of plate XXII – The Monument, pasted
onto the upper cover.
The
volumes for Boston (C188a740), San Francisco (C188a727), Glasgow (C188a726) -
all have dust jackets. The volume for Edinburgh C188a728 has grey paper
wrappers.
A number
of books had bindings described in advertisements of the day as ‘Japanese
Vellum’. Examples are:
C188a741
design by Jessie M King C188a754a
decoration kept fresh by dust jacket
Other
books with ‘Japanese vellum’ bindings
are: C188a755; C188a756; C188a718; C188a721; C188a727.
There are some five books with velvet/ suede bindings. The lower covers of these have no blocking/ printing. The spine titles are in gilt. The upper covers are blocked fully.
C188a747 black blocking on upper cover C188a758 Aucassin & Nicolette
Other
examples of velvet/ suede bindings are: C188a749; C188a758; C188a771.
Dust
jackets: paper and glassine
There are
a few dozen dust jackets accompanying books owned by de Beaumont. Many were of
grey paper and most had some printing (author/ title or lists of other titles),
plus a mounted illustration on the front cover. The glassine dust jackets were
mostly plain, with The Great New York (C188a720, shown above) being an
exception.
Maxims
of Life Series
The artist
Frederick Carter designed the cover decoration for number 1 and 2 in the
series. The simplicity of the colours is striking, as are the larger than life
depictions of Napoleon and Madame de Sevigne.
On occasion, biographies elicited striking portraits for the covers. Joseph Simpson provided a strong profile portrait for Haldane Macall’s Irving. Emily Handasyde Buchanan’s Sir Walter Scott & his Country has Scott looking to his right.
C188a730
both covers C188a752 both covers
Elfick and
Harris list seventeen works in the ‘envelope books’ series. Of these, de
Beaumont acquired four. He acquired number two, Browning, Rhyme of the
Duchess May in February 1968 for 8/6d (C188a738). Thirty-eight years later,
September 2006, he acquired number nine, Tennyson, Lady of Shalott, for
£20 (C188a794). Number three, Keats, Isabella
or the pot of Basil, has both the the dust jacket and the original covers
complete with the gummed lower edge of the dust jacket, used for sealing and posting
(C188a787).
C188a787
dust jacket, envelope flap and upper cover C188a787 gummed lower flap of
jacket
Envelope
book number five was the work: Aucassin
et Nicolette. It has a silk binding of ‘japanese’ style (C188a758). This is
the only book in this collection with this ‘frame’ style, and the mounted
illustration on the upper cover sits rather awkwardly on the design.
C188a758 both covers and spine
Conclusion
For some twenty-five
years after 1900, T N Foulis produced over four hundred works, of which some
ninety were collected y Robin de Beaumont. Distinctiveness sums up this
activity. There was a great variety of illustrations, of covers and dust
jackets, and a large number of series, into which the output could be placed.
All combine to leave a lasting impression of a company determined to produce
originality, at affordable prices. Robin de Beaumont used his discernment to
build up a representative number of these works for us to enjoy.
Edmund M B
King
St Albans
September
2025
Further
reading
Ian Elfick
and Paul Harris, T.N. Foulis. The History and Bibliography of an
Edinburgh Publishing House. London: Werner Shaw Ltd, 1998.
TN Foulis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._N._Foulis
Godburn,
Mark R. Nineteenth Century Dust Jackets. Pinner: Private Libraries
Association, 2016.
Jonkers
Rare Books https://www.jonkers.co.uk/blog/the-envelope-booklets-of-t-n-foulis
