As everyone knows you can’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes covers are really rather more interesting than the contents.

Having skimmed through the contents – Washington Irving was put up in the Governor’s apartments of the Alhambra, lucky him – and spent some of his time writing a rather flowery account of his time in the palace and surroundings.

Flowery prose is not my fave.

“The inn to which he conducted us was called the Corona, or Crown, and we found it quite in keeping with the character of the place, the inhabitants of which seem still to retain the bold, fiery spirit of olden time, The hostess was a young and handsome Andalusian widow, whose trim basquina of black silk, fringed with bugles, set off the play of graceful form and round plaint limbs. Her step was firm and elastic; her dark eye was full of fire and the coquetry of her air and varied ornaments of her person, showed she was accustomed to being admired.”

I rest my case, and there are another 435 pages in the same vein.

But, luckily, I am not here to read it, I am here to see if it is worth something and we can sell it.

Inside though was a bookplate which was rather interesting and more decorative than usual.

It turns out that ‘Foy Pour Devoir’ is the motto used by the Seymour family dating back to 1547 and 

‘The present dukedom is unique, in that the first holder of the title created it for himself in his capacity of Lord Protector of the England, using a power granted in the will of his brother-in-law, Henry VIII

I don’t have the time, inclination or access to try and track down where May’s branch of the family started life in America. That’s not on my to do list.

And I have no idea who Mike was:

But I did find out that May Seymour studied library science and she was one of 20 students in Melvil Dewey’s first librarian class at Columbia College.

(I am not sure if my May Seymour is the same May Seymour, but if so, I am sure her bookplate will add to the value…… just saying.)

Dewey was appointed New York State librarian and he took his library school with him from Columbia to. May Seymour was one of the five instructors who moved with it. She also worked at the New York State Library, where she was in charge of classification.

Seymour collaborated closely with Dewey on the development of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and the preparation of the 1904 American Library Association (ALA) catalog, which listed over 8,000 books essential for libraries.^[4] In the 1890s, Seymour and Florence Woodworth boarded with the Deweys. (wikipedia)

However, in 1906 the ALA censured Dewey for his behaviour towards women which included ‘unwanted kissing and hugging’. 

And also in 1906, Seymour was fired from the New York State Library. Seymour moved to Dewey’s Lake Placid Club, where she worked on editing the fourth through eleventh editions of the DDC.

I don’t know why she was fired (and, an admittedly cursory, search on Google didn’t help).

This club was set up by Dewey and his wife:

They chose this site as a place where they could establish contact with nature, find relief from their allergies, and to foster a model community that would provide for recreation and rest for professional people, specifically, educators and librarians. Dewey and his wife felt that occupations involving “brain work put people at higher risk of nervous prostration that, if not checked, would lead to fatigue and even death”

You can read more about this in an article https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2020/12/dewey-lake-placid.html.

I found it interesting but I can quite understand if you don’t have time.

Dewey as well as his behaviour towards women, may well not have endeared himself by banning any black people or Jews.

A club pamphlet read: “No one shall be received as a member or guest, against whom there is physical, moral, social or race objection. … It is found impracticable to make exceptions to Jews or others excluded, even when of unusual personal qualifications.”

Dewey was sacked, also in 1906, when the pamphlet became public. 

In 1927 he hired a stenographer but Aafter he hugged and kissed her in public, she threatened to file charges and ended up settling with Dewey for $2,147.66. 

Dewey was apparently upset with the settlement not because he had been reprimanded for anything improper, but because he worried the stenographer might spread rumors that “she got $2,000 for no work.”

In 2019 The ALA removed Dewey’s name from their leadership award.

Anyway, it would appear that May clearly didn’t object to public unwanted caresses or racism….. oh May, I would have hoped for better of you.

She died in Lake Placid on June 14, 1921. (wikipedia)

Meanwhile, as they say, Joseph Pennell is the illustrator of our copy of the Alhambra.

In 1880, Pennell was involved in the violent expulsion of African American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, a fellow student, from the academy. Tanner had suffered bullying at the academy since his entry earlier that year, which culminated when a group of students, including Pennell, seized Tanner and his easel and dragged them out onto Broad Street. The students tied Tanner to his easel in a mock-crucifixion, and left him struggling to free himself. Pennell apparently did not regret this action; many years later, when Tanner was already renowned in Europe and beginning to gain repute in the United States, Pennell recounted the attack as “The Advent of the Nigger,” writing that there had never been “a great Negro or a great Jew artist.” (wikipedia)

It does rather seem as if this little book has some tenuous but unpleasant connections.

( Just say Washington Irving seems not to have been, at least publicly racist or sexist, so perhaps I should have stuck to reading the text.)