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Review
James Armstrong and Gary Miers. Of Obelisks and Daffodils. Portand.
ME: Handsack Press, 2003.
4to, Paperbound, iv, 148 Pp.
For more than half a century
the books of The Obelisk Press have been of major interest to collectors and
literary historians. It is indeed difficult to deal with 20th century
literature without running into Obelisk, the authors it introduced and the
books it published. Solid bibliographic information on Obelisk, however, even
reliable information on its history, has been sorely lacking. While the
influence of Obelisk on 20th century literature is unquestioned, there was no
definitive list of Obelisk’s output until James Armstrong published his
“Checklist of the publications of Henry Babou and Jack Kahane of the
Obelisk Press”, in The Book Collector, Volume 51, No. 1, in Spring,
2002. Armstrong researched the Obelisk Press on a grant from the
Bibliographical Society of London, starting in 1995. In 1999, he published
‘One Who Flies the “Jolly Roger” On a Sea of Censorship: Jack Kahane
(1887-1939)’ in Publishing History, issue 45. Gary Miers has collected both
these works with his own foreword, his own explanatory essay “Of Obelisks and
Daffodils”, and the last five chapters of Kahane’s autobiography, Memoirs
of a Booklegger, to form the best book yet published on Obelisk and its
importance to both the collector and historian of 20th century literature.
Miers himself admits that Of Obelisks and Daffodils is a starting
point, since there is a good deal yet to be uncovered about Obelisk. However,
his thoughtful treatment of Armstrong’s work, as well as his own, has given
us a solid set of starting blocks. Armstrong’s scholarship, evident in both
his essay and bibliography, is not only solid, but well-referenced in
extensive notes following his essay. As a springboard to further
research, the book opens numerous trails down which the sincere researcher
can pursue the elusive story of one of the most influential forces in modern
literature.
Miers, though downplaying his role, gives a very well-researched and complete
publishing history of Daffodil, or Accidents Will Happen, the
financial backbone of Obelisk, and Kahane’s own “light novel” under the
pseudonym Cecil Barr. Curiously, while publishing landmarks of 20th century
literature such as the work of Henry Miller, D. H. Lawrence and James Joyce,
and while introducing such talents as Lawrence Durrell and Anais Nin, it was
Kahane’s own unheralded novel that was the best selling book in English on
the European continent from 1931 through 1939. Miers also contributes a
bibliography of Kahane’s work as an author, the first such to see print.
To say that Of Obelisks and Daffodils presents an incomplete picture
is an admission the book itself makes. Buried in the story of Obelisk Press
there are influences that have been largely forgotten or cast into the mold
of legend. The mysterious printer, Marcel Servant, for example, Kahane’s
partner in Obelisk almost from inception to 1938. The romantic story of how
the destitute Henry Miller found his publisher and champion in Kahane. Even
the byplay of how Frank Harris traveled from Sylvia Beach and Shakespeare and
Company into Kahane’s office on Rue Saint-Honore, has become the stuff of
legend. There is much yet to be uncovered, even more to be explained; Of
Obelisks and Daffodils scratches the surface, however; it scratches a
surface that has been unscratched for far too long.
The care and meticulous scholarship of both authors is evident. And while it
has to be admitted that the story is far from complete, Of Obelisks and
Daffodils is splendid first step, a springboard from which any
sincere researcher can leap into the subject with every assurance of being
successful. For the collector, the publishing histories are detailed and
accurate, and soon to become the standard for any collection of Obelisk, as
well as a check on Obelisk authors.
Of Obelisks and Daffodils was issued by Handsack Press in a limited
edition of 200 copies.
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