Tag: book plates

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Spooky Scary Halloween 2024 with the IDHH

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As the month of October draws to an end, we enter the festivities of Halloween, Samhain, Allhallowtide, and Día de los Muertos. For some it’s spooky season, a time to delight in the macabre and darker side of life and death (and free candy); for others, it’s a time of religious rites and celebrations, including feasting, prayer and fasting, and remembrance.

Here are a few of our favorite Halloween-related images from IDHH contributors:

image of bookplate with skeleton sitting on a pile of books and reading a book.
John Comstock, Skeleton reader. March 06, 1922. West Chicago Public Library District. Cornelia Neltnor Anthony and Frank D. Anthony Book Plate Collection. Courtesy of the West Chicago Public Library District.
a group of children standing behind their decorated jack o lanterns that are resting on a table
Mount Greenwood Park (0251) Events – Holiday celebrations – Halloween, 1971. 1971. Chicago Public Library. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs. Courtesy of the Chicago Public Library.
stereo card of women bobbing for apples with one women holding an apple in her mouth
Halloween party stereo cards, 1899 [page 1]. 1899. Bensenville Community Public Library. Bensenville Historical Collection. Courtesy of the Bensenville Community Public Library.
image of a boy and a terrier dog touching a jack o lantern
Independence Park (0083) Events – Holiday celebrations – Halloween, undated. Chicago Public Library. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs. Courtesy of the Chicago Public Library.

 

Want to see more?

Visit the IDHH to view more items related to Halloween, pumpkins, and other spooky things, or to view more items from Bensenville Community Public Library, Chicago Public Library, or the West Chicago Public Library District.

You can also view the IDHH’s previous Halloween-related blog posts:

 

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IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT: Haunting book plates from West Chicago Public Library District

Happy Halloween from the IDHH. Tonight we’re staying in and looking back through our most chilling collections from our contributors. If you’re feeling the boundary between this and other worlds thinning tonight, and looking for a little more, we recommend starting with the Cornelia Neltor Anthony and Frank D. Anthony Book Plate Collection at West Chicago Public Library District.

The Cornelia Neltor Anthony and Frank D. Anthony Book Plate Collection includes over 6000 individual book plates collected over 12 years by Cornelia Neltor Anthony before she donated her collection in 1935. At one point considered the second largest collection, just behind the Library of Congress’, the book plates show the more eerie side of individual book collecting.  Used to claim ownership of a book, to both deter book thieves and provide instructions for those who come across lost books. Here among the ex-libris are depictions of reading and what books contain, including dark and stormy nights:

black ink bookplate of a gothic castle on a hill with lightning in the background and a stormy sea in the foreground, with a border of statuesque figurines
It was a dark and stormy night. Waves and lightning were shaking the castle. From the library of Winward and Hazel Prescot. Designed by Charles William Sherborn. 1911.West Chicago Public Library District. Cornelia Neltnor Anthony and Frank D. Athony Book Plate Collection. Permission to display given by West Chicago Public Library District.

 Reading by candlelight:

black ink bookplate of an open book with an unlit candlestick on each side and a bare tree in the top with a holly leaf border.
Reading through the night, the pages lit by candlesticks. From the library of Phoebe C. Greeley’s collection, designed by Julia Collins Stohr. 1926. West Chicago Public Library District. Cornelia Neltnor Anthony and Frank D. Anthony Book Plate Collection. Permission to display given by West Chicago Public Library District.

or other scenes with archaic and occult moods:

black ink book plate of a full moon on a cloudy night rising over a chimney on a house.
When the storm cleared a full moon rose behind the tower. Book plate from Helen Banks, designed by Charles Searle McDonald, 1922. West Chicago Public Library District. Cornelia Neltnor Anthony and Frank D. Anthony Book Plate Collection. Permission to display given by West Chicago Public Library District.

Including fantastic and macabre images of reading:

Book plates pull together the arcane and the scientific, blending what appeals to contemporary readers, including mysticism. These images provide commentary on the purpose of the book, and attitudes people have with reading, including their desires and daydreams. Not all books are spell books, but some spells are to protect them.

black ink bookplate of a Sator Square within a pentagram surrounded by farm tools and alchemical and mystical iconography.
A Sator Square embedded in religious and mystic signs and tools. From the library of Henry Van Arsdale, designed by Jay Chambers, 1921. West Chicago Public Library District. Cornelia Neltnor Anthony and Frank D. Anthony Book Plate Collection. Permission to display given by West Chicago Public Library District.

These book plates also include a healthy dose of melancholy and death. Pulling from mythic and christian symbolism, and literature itself.  The owl symbolizing knowledge, wisdom, magic and skepticism, and the skull as memento mori- the reminder of both death and memory, heighten the fear factor.

 For more meditations on fear, reading, and the arcane, including black cats, bats, magic, star-crossed lovers, and hauntings of the skull and owl variety check out the rest of the collection from West Chicago Public Library District on the IDHH. Happy Halloween.