80 HORNER, Emily Maguire. Four typescript diaries by an American expatriate in Paris and Madrid. Paris & Spain, 1931–35 “emily in paris” This captivating group of candid journals provides an entertaining account of an American woman’s life abroad in 1930s Europe and offers an engaging portrait of Madrid on the eve of war. Fastidious in their detail, they show the interweaving of conflict, suffrage, and urban life and give an extensive social history portrait of an American expatriate family in Europe during a decade of major political changes. The widowed Emily Maguire Horner (1873–1944) moved to Paris in 1931 with her daughters Mary Virginia, Anne Morgan, and Emily. She had been married to John Githens Horner (1872–1918), who came from an old New Jersey family and had been an assemblyman, speaker, and later a senator. The women relocated to Madrid in 1932, living there until 1935. They witnessed the Revolution of 1934 and the tumultuous years before the Civil War erupted in 1936. Three of the diaries focus on the Horners’ life in Madrid, and one covers their stay in Paris, often written in an acerbic and amusing manner. They experience Interwar France, still reeling from the First World War, and a tumultuous Spain, with a recently deposed monarch, provisional government, and looming Civil War. Horner displays a keen eye for detail and a particular fondness for sponge cake and coconut rocks. The entries comprise short essays on cultural differences, and lists of necessary vendors, such as dress- and hat makers, doctors, hairdressers, restaurants, lecture venues, and patisseries. Her narrative is punctuated with numerous illustrations of places visited and apt newspaper clippings. In France she is unimpressed with its amenities and the financial crisis, complaining that most elevators don’t work and that there is a general lack of “frigidaires”. Her waspish guide to Paris’s train station is particularly humorous: “Before going to meet a train or its contents in a Paris station, you should ask yourself: 1.) Is the person you are meeting really worth it? And 2.) How do you say, ‘Why the hell don’t you know?’ in French. Then you go to the station”. She continues to disparage the general chaos of staff and timetables. She concludes ironically: “I can think of no evidence of the French outdoing the Americans in efficiency. But we can learn from them on the proper employment of leisure and the art of doing nothing pleasantly”. On one of many cultural forays they see the legendary Picasso retrospective at the Galeries George Petit. On 16 February 1932, Horner observes: “To the Senate but couldn’t get in due to vote on suffrage which reversed Laval’s government”. In September 1933 she starts noting undercurrents of political upheaval in Spain: “the second election day in Madrid . . . Saw a polling place where vote-getters for both sides were shouting and there seemed to be much good- natured excitement”; she continues for 11 and 12 December: “Rumors of trouble, have been bombs and street brawls in Barcelona and Zaragoza and a couple of trains wrecked by bombs. Madrid continues calmly”, and “ New York Herald has horrible stories of troubles ‘terrorism’, etc. in Spain but we
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79 HOPPER, Grace M., & Howard H. Aiken. Description of a Relay Calculator. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1949 “navy to the core, a pirate at heart” First edition, first printing, in the uncommon dust jacket, of the operating manual for the Harvard Mark II, written primarily by Grace Hopper, “one of the most famous of the postwar computer pioneers” ( OOC ). In the mid-1940s mathematician Lieutenant Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) joined American physicist Howard Aiken’s (1900–1973) team working on the electromechanical Harvard Mark I, also known as the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. Hopper became its chief programmer, and other members of the team included Robert Campbell and Richard Milton Bloch (the first ‘coders’ of Mark I), Ruth Knowlton (secretary turned operator), and Ensign Ruth Brendell (mathematics instructor and the third woman to join the computation project). Hopper was the author of the 1946 Mark I manual, a milestone work now recognised as the first ever computer programming textbook. Aiken and Hopper continued to collaborate on the larger and faster Mark II and Mark III computers, supported by continuing navy contracts with the university. Quarto. Original dark blue cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt. With pictorial dust jacket. 36 full-page black and white photographs, including frontispiece, numerous tables and graphs. Minimal rubbing and bruising to spine ends, else the book fine; jacket rubbed and chipped at edges, a few short closed tears, some loss to spine ends, corners, and perforation to lower half of jacket spine, none affecting lettering, overall well- preserved given its scarcity. ¶ Origins of Cyberspace 416. Naval History and Heritage Command, “Grace Hopper: Navy to the Core, a Pirate at Heart”, CHIPS , 21 November 2016. £3,750 [148313]
continue to go about our business unmolested”. The following year, Horner outlines their experiences before, during, and after the Revolution of October 1934. On 5 October, when the revolution began, she notes: “Awoke to find a general strike so there was no bread for breakfast. E[mily] went to school as usual and reported that the only excited-looking group of men she saw, turned out to be discussing a dog that was run over by a trolley last week”. The action moves closer on 8 and 9 October: “The night was foul; there were two bad episodes, one about three and the other near five, with heavier guns brought into play; they sounded awfully near . . . Shooting began again around five-thirty. Food was harder to get”.
She continues: “The night was more or less a repetition of the one before, with three or four shootings continuing for a few minutes each, snipings, and then heavier guns. The government put out a paper last night informing us that all was under control, the revolutionary strike completely broken, and a great many other optimistic statements which are totally unconcerned with subsequent noises.” Four volumes, tall octavo (240 × 153 mm), ff. 56, 60, 59, 81. Typescript, text on rectos only, with marginal punch holes. Contemporary dark blue sheep, gilt rolled design on covers and spines, marbled endpapers, Tomas Alonso, Madrid, binder’s ink stamp in vol. I, and tickets in vols. II and III. Housed in custom light brown hessian solander box. With numerous illustrations and newspaper clippings mounted throughout, poesque pencil drawing in vol. I; 2 pp. knitting pattern for socks, and 1 p. “Spanish Addresses – Horner” on onion skin paper (2 copies), loosely inserted. Slightly rubbed, occasional marks throughout, a few leaves becoming detached, inner hinges of vol. II starting with contents shaken, knitting pattern torn. A very good and well-preserved set. £4,500 [161829] 81 HUTCHINSON, E. D. Creative Sex. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1936 First edition, first impression, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “Margaret G. Joice. With best wishes from the author. Christmas 1939”. Hutchinson’s controversial work, which advocated for sex education, contraception, and more lenient divorce laws, is scarce signed. Octavo. Original grey boards, spine lettered in blue. With dust jacket. Spine a little toned, faint foxing to edges, contents clean and free from marks. A very good copy indeed in the like jacket, spine panel a little faded and marked, ends nicked, else bright, not price-clipped. £1,250 [150017]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
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