Selection of the Month
June 2008
Samples : A Book Containing Many Fine Pages From The Books to be Published by the Limited Editions Club in its Seventh Series with a Note on Book Collecting by Sinclair Lewis
New York : Limited Editions Club, c.1935
Letter and response card and envelope included
Gould Library Special Collections
This sample book advertising the newest publications of the Limited Editions Club was sent to Miss Luella F. Norwood in December, 1935. Founded in 1929, the Limited Editions Club published illustrated, limited editions, offered to member subscribers. The spiral-bound book included sample pages from the press’s recent and upcoming editions. The varying sizes of the bound pages reflect the designs and paper stocks of each book. In an introductory essay on book collecting, Sinclair Lewis reminisces about the “steel-engraved voluptuousness” of fine-press editions from his father’s library.
The membership solicitation letter that accompanied the sample book is addressed to Miss Luella F. Norwood, a 1914 summa cum laude graduate of Carleton College. Norwood went on to receive her Ph. D. in English from Yale in 1931. In 1935, when she received this letter and sample book, she was Head of the Department of English at Spelman College and Atlanta University. She donated a number of books to Carleton College, including this one.
The Selection of the Month is often chosen from the Library's Special Collections.