The Butterfly Books - forging your own books.

 

Some years ago, in a collection of books we had acquired, we found a tiny, paper covered book with the front and back covers beautifully designed in the form of butterfly wings. The book was entitled "Poem", the author W H Auden, an 8 page booklet containing on three of the pages just the single poem "Hearing of harvest rotting in the valleys". 

A note at the back says that, of this poem, which first appeared in the 'Criterion' twenty-two copies were printed for the author. This particular copy, identified as Number 1, being one of five on Kelmscott paper. A spare title label was tipped in on the final page.

The booklet was indeed very beautiful, clearly hand-made - but why? - and by whom? The answers to these questions reveal a fascinating story involving deception and forgery, but most unusually a forger, who, when his financial circumstances demanded it, forged copies of his own genuine books. This makes it particularly difficult for collectors to separate the 'genuine' original issues (strictly limited in number) from the later forgeries.

These forgeries differ from those created some years before by Thomas J Wise (see 'Wise after the Event' in an earlier blog) in that Wise produced forgeries of books that never had existed (but might have) whereas the butterfly book forgeries are forged copies of pre-existing scarce volumes.

The producer of all these books was Wisconsin born novelist and poet Frederick Prokosch. In Cambridge during the thirties Prokosch met literary figures of the day, such as Auden, and conceived the idea of producing pamphlets of examples of their works. The Auden poem shown above was the first in an edition of 22 copies, all with distinctive paper covers with colourful 'butterfly' inspired designs. Often copies were presented to the authors as gifts, for example at Christmas. Our own copy came from the collection of a contemporary of Auden at Oxford. In all nearly 50 different titles were produced between 1933 and 1940, the final ones, including works of Joyce, Eliot and Yeats in Lisbon, in print runs of no more than 20 or so copies.

And there might the story have ended. One of the many fascinating cul-de-sacs of literary endeavour, being only remembered when one or more of the pamphlets appeared on the book market as the original recipients of Prokosch's gifts dispersed their collections, with, of course, values of the pamphlets that did surface increasing as the years passed.

What happened next is told in fascinating detail by Nicholas Barker in 'The Butterfly Books' (Bertram Rota 1987). In the sale rooms over the years from 1968 to 1972, sets of butterfly books began appearing, in particular at Sotheby's on May 1st 1972, when a complete set of the poetry pamphlets produced by Prokosch was offered for sale. Prices were, of course, high.

In his book Nicholas Barker details the forensic work carried out to show that some recently surfaced pamphlets had been printed at Paris after 1968 on paper supplied by Prokosch to forge more copies of the 1930s editions, in order to realise a belated income from what had begun as an altruistic venture. It was Prokosch himself who provided Nicholas Barker with the name of his printer.

So what is left? A dazzling set of small booklets with beautiful butterfly wing designs on the covers containing great literature from eminent 20th century poets and the nagging worry that what you hold in your hand may be an original from 1933 (perhaps handled by Auden), or maybe not. Either way these are gems to treasure, because first and foremost, like his great forging predecessor Thomas J Wise, Prokosch loved poetry and he loved books.