A Tale of Two Books

A recent inquiry about the following rare book by one of Mrs. Eddy’s youngest students, Elizabeth Earl Jones, led to me decide to post bibliographical and historical information on two extremely rare books, one the Jones book and the other a book by Alice Jennings, an Augusta Stetson student:

The Language of Color, by Elizabeth Earl Jones. Asheville, N.C.: Hackney & Moale, [1903].

This book is “Dedicated with tender love and gratitude to Mother [i.e., Mrs. Eddy].”

A copy in my collection has pasted in a small, early photograph of Elizabeth Earl Jones that is otherwise unrecorded (see below). That copy also has the following inscription (as also seen below),

“For Dear Mrs. Smith

      Lily Hazzard

              Oct. 28, 1903.” 

In my collection is an original letter from Julia Leonard, the wife of early Christian Scientist, Frank Leonard, and the daughter-in-law of Pamelia Leonard, who was in Mrs. Eddy’s household at Pleasant View. The letter is to noted book dealer in Los Angeles, Ernest Dawson, and is dated March 19, 1926:

“The book ‘Language of Color’ by Elizabeth Earl Jones was presented by Mrs. Eddy to Frank Leonard’s mother Mrs. Pamelia J. Leonard. Mrs. Eddy’s card with ‘Happy New Year’ in Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting accompanied the book.”

Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr., reported at one point that Mrs. Eddy had a copy of the book on her nightstand for two weeks and would not let anyone remove it.

It is recorded that Mrs. Eddy ordered six copies of the book.

A letter from Jones to Mrs. Eddy appears in My., pp. 327-328, written at roughly the same time as the book was published.

The Fruit of the Spirit Poetically Interpreted, selected by Alice Jennings. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, [1903]. First edition, first issue, along with the subsequent first edition, second issue.

This surprisingly rare book—in either issue—is interesting and significant. In the first issue appear no writings of Mrs. Eddy, but in the second issue are the following poems by Mrs. Eddy: "Love" (pp. 31-32) and "Constancy" (p. 49). These two poems appear on cancel leaves in the second issue.

The copy of the first issue in my collection includes the following inscription on the front free endpaper:

 

"Mr. William B. Johnson, C.S.B.

With best wishes for the new year

Alice Jennings

1904"

Also included in this copy of the first issue are notes written by Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr., in which he cited nine letters that Mrs. Eddy wrote which refer to this book.

The copy in this collection of the second issue of this book, which includes the poems by Mrs. Eddy, has the following inscription:

"With love and best wishes

to

'Aunt Minnie'

from

Ethel"

This copy of the second issue originally belonged to Minnie Scott, who was one of Mrs. Eddy's maids.

 While the first book appearance of the poem "Love" was in Miscellaneous Writings in 1897, I believe this is the first book appearance of the poem "Constancy." (A separate copyright edition of the poem of probably only two copies exists elsewhere in my collection.) Adam Dickey in his Memoirs of Mary Baker Eddy (p. 77) wrote how Mrs. Eddy shed a tear when he read that poem from her newly printed book Poems in 1910. She said that she wrote the poem after she lost her husband. Bates-Dittemore point out (p. 69) that she wrote an early version of this poem in February, 1856—which suggests that the "husband" Mrs. Eddy was referring to was Daniel Patterson. However Mrs. Eddy frequently repeated her poems, and it is quite possible that this poem in its original form referred to her first husband George Glover.

This book is largely unknown, even among many Christian Science collectors. I only know of one collector with a copy of one of the two issues, and I have not seen it mentioned in any history of Mrs. Eddy or Christian Science. However, it was apparently mentioned in Henry Raymond Mussey's pamphlet The Christian Science Censor (1930), where on p. 14 he mentioned the Fleming H. Revell Company "who in 1903 had published a volume of Christian Science poems, . . ." Ralph Geradi and the Rare Book Company to my knowledge never had a copy of this book.

In the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity is an unusually large collection of letters by Mrs. Eddy, Alice Jennings, and others on this book. Also the Library has the original gift from Jennings to Mrs. Eddy of her book with inscription dated November 11, 1903.  

   

     

Comments

[Craig Beardsley]

Thanks for the interesting post. I have a copy of the first issue of the Jennings book and don't recall seeing the second issue. Are the cancel leaves substitute leaves as McKerrow classified the most common form of cancels, or are they simply leaves that have been tipped in, or merely laid in?

Is Mrs. Eddy's interest in these two volumes, in conjuction with their scarcity (and therefore unknown to most Christian Scientists) the reason for your writing this post? Perhaps a future post might discuss the surprising number of volumes of poetry written in Mrs. Eddy's lifetime by prominent Christian Scientists, and the object of research might be whether Mrs. Eddy took a recorded personal interest in them. We know that was the case with James Terry White (Captive Memories); maybe we could investigate her exposure to E. Mary Ramsay's Verses, Charles Adolphus Murray's The Revelation of Christianus..., William P. McKenzie's Heartease Hymns, Carol Norton's Poems and Verses, and Willis Vernon Cole's Our Leader and Other Poems, for example.

[Keith]

Great bibliographic questions. As I recall the leaves are pasted in to stubs made after the prior leaves had been removed. I will have to check to see how McKerrow defines that.

My purpose in this post was to highlight some otherwise obscure books that were dedicated or addressed to Mrs. Eddy and that she had some connection with. She seemed to like the Jones book but she was not pleased with the other because it took so long, as I recall.

The idea of a post on the other poetical works that you mentioned would be interesting. Certainly the Captive Memories was close to Mrs. Eddy, as she supported it. I might do a post just on that book. As I recall she also gave out as a gift the Revelation of Christianus book to one or more people. The others I am not sure about in regard to her views about them.

[Linda Bargmann]

I've never seen "Fruits of the Spirit" but I'm fascinated by it, as the reason for the "Obnoxious books" by law. I've enjoyed going through all of the correspondence about the book and the bylaw at the Mary Baker Eddy Library. Also, the MBEL mentions the book in an article they did on copy books recently. They record that the poem "Constancy" was originally written in one of Eddy's copybooks with the title "To My Absent Husband." There are two versions in the same copybook, the second one with the heading "Written Feb 1856 during sickness." So, she did repeat it - first with no indication of when it was written and second in 1856. Less than three years into the marriage, she certainly could have been looking at Patterson's empty chair wishing he was there.
Maybe we'll never know the answer to that one...
Thanks for the discussion!

[Keith]

Thanks, Linda. I will try in the near future to post some information on "Constancy" as a published poem. That gives me an idea.