Death and the Bibliophile (book plate)

I don’t think I’ve ever lent a book and got it back. The only book I remember coming back was one I had given to somebody only to have it returned after their death. It bore an inscription to me on the fly leaf, so his executors gave it back to me.

I’ve always loved book plates. I like to see them in an old book, little memorials to previous owners.

Any book that I paste one of these inside is unlikely to get lent out. But maybe when the Davies Library is dispersed, people in the future can wonder about me. And the faint-hearted can worry that I may have cursed the book, wishing upon them a visit from Uncle Death himself.

I’ve been thinking about this image for about the last month. It started out with her facing forward and fainting away at Death’s touch. The composition was much more four-square and had something of a Jugendstil Death and the Maiden about it. I’ve come back to the idea off-and-on over the month and it has developed in a more expressionistic direction. Yesterday I felt I’d got the drawing of the reader right, flinching yet unwilling to be torn from the book. I’ve been drawing some of the Deaths from Holbein’s Dance of Death, and that’s where his vibe has come from. I like that he seems quite importunate, and maybe a bit lizardy.