Modern Rejection

'Le Petit Journal des Refusées' (The Little Journal of Rejections) by Gelett Burgess was a fun, modernist magazine published in San Francisco in 1896 on butterfly-shaped wallpaper by James Marrion. Only one edition was ever released.

"The cover of Le Petit Journal des Refusées advertises that it will be published quarterly, but the magazine appeared only once. That issue came out in the summer of 1896 in San Francisco, California, a city that was not “attracting the same attention as that of other cosmopolitan centers”, but had a lively Bohemian scene. Le Petit Journal was the creation of Gelett Burgess. The other contributors, if there were any, are unknown.

Le Petit Journal is sixteen pages long, intricately illustrated by hand, printed on wallpaper cut into trapezoids, “and full of parodic references”. The small volume claims to print only “productions that have been ruthlessly rejected” at least three times “by less large-hearted and appreciative editors”. All of the pieces in Le Petit Journal are attributed to women whose names, such as Alice Rainbird and Lulu Lamb, signal to the reader that they are fictitious.

While the mysterious and short-lived journal is very humorous, it is also seriously well-informed of the trends of American and British magazines. Gelett seems to be poking fun at the quick rise of magazines because of the breadth and specificity of the magazines (real and invented) he names as having refused the “exceptional merit” of “female authoresses”. There is a magazine for everything, Gelett illustrates, yet there is not a place for these refused works. Until, of course, with playful absurdity, Gelett creates one.

Le Petit Journal des Refusees had a very small circulation that did not extend past San Francisco, but it is “important as a precursor of the more ambitious little magazines, offering hints of Dada and Surrealism before these modes of modernism existed” (Scholes)".
[Compiled by Zoe Balaconis for Little Magazines & Modernism. {nb. slightly edited for clarity}]

• 'Le Petit Journal des Refusées' - :: A “reductio ad absurdam” [sic] literary journal in which works “ruthlessly rejected by less large-hearted and appreciative editors than [James Marrion, 2nd] are permitted to witness the light of day for the first and last time.” :: is online at Harvard University's Houghton Library. In fact, they have a second printing also which is worth seeing for comparison [via & via]
• A couple of pages of an essay - 'Le Petit Journal des Refusées: A Graphical Reading' by Johanna Drucker, 2010 - can be accessed here for free (the full article is available for subscribers/purchasers).
  
• Ms Drucker released a facsimile version of 'Le Petit Journal des Refusées' (with an Afterword) in 2007 through Rice University Press. See: Druckweb ::: also.
  
• A joint Brown U & U Tulsa Modernist Journals Project - another (so-so quality) digital copy of 'Le Petit Journal' can be accessed here.

Peking Embassy

The German 1666 title page (after the Dutch original) was rendered into English a couple of years later as:

'An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China: delivered by their excellencies Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking wherein the cities, towns, villages, ports, rivers, &c. in their passages from Canton to Peking are ingeniously described by John Nieuhoff; also an epistle of Father John Adams, their antagonist, concerning the whole negotiation; with an appendix of several remarks taken out of Father Athanasius Kircher; Englished and set forth with their several sculptures by John Ogilby'

Macau

Ceremonial barge or long-boat

Street scene in Nanking

Tianjin* (city in N China)

A pair of views of the Imperial Palace in Peking with bilingual legends

Canton town and harbour, including the palace of the Viceroy

Pagoda near the Chinese city of Sinkicien

The Porcelain Tower or Pagoda of Nanjing, otherwise known as the Temple of Gratitude

"It was a pagoda constructed in the 15th century during the Ming Dynasty, but was mostly destroyed in the 19th century during the course of the Taiping Rebellion.

In 2010 Wang Jianlin, a Chinese businessman, donated one billion yuan (US$156.3 million) to the city of Nanjing for its reconstruction of the pagoda. This is reported to be the largest single personal donation ever made in China."

Chinese peasants near a traditional farmhouse

Untitled

Mongol ambassadors stand in front of an encampment [alternative]

Hunter or warrior men from Tartary*, Mongolia

Chinese priests and monks

Tiger, musk deer and other animals and birds

The first edition of this important book by Johan Nieuhof was published in Dutch in [?]1662 and translated into the major European languages within a couple of years. It was one of the few non-Jesuit sources on China from this period and was famous for its wealth of engravings.

The book was translated into English by the great Scottish mapmaker and publisher, John Ogilby, in 1669, and included excerpts from Athanasius Kircher's 'China Illustrata' (1667) and illustrations (at least some) by Wenceslaus Hollar, based on the originals from the Dutch text.

Nieuhof (1618-1672) [previously] was a Dutch diplomat and traveller who wrote about his journeys to Brazil, China and India. The most famous of these was a trip of 2,400 km from Canton to Peking in 1655-1657, which enabled him to become an authoritative Western writer on China. After an adventurous career in the service of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) in Sri Lankan and Indian posts, Nieuhof lived in Batavia until 1670. In 1672 he disappeared without trace in Madagascar while travelling in a sloop from which he had landed to seek drinking water.

• The images above were sourced from a newly digitised book posted by the University of Heidelberg, 'Die Gesantschaft der Ost-Indischen Geselschaft in den Vereinigten Niederländern an den Tartarischen Cham und nunmehr auch Sinischen Keiser' (1666; published by Jacob van Moeurs) :: {click anything below 'Inhalt' and then 'Vorschau' for thumbs}
• The image below, engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar, comes from the English edition of Nieuhof's book, online at the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin (arguably, these are better quality engravings and also better quality digital files - note the gallery view link in the sidebar).
• [W]: Johan Nieuhof, John Ogilby.
• Previously: Connecting with China [& China]; Voyage to Exotica.
• Follow along on Twitter, if you are so inclined.

Canton

Atlas Title Pages

Title: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum
Creator: Abraham Ortelius
Published in Antwerp, 1650






Title: Atlas Nuevo contiene Todas las Partes del Mundo, adonde Sono exactamente fefialados los Imperios, Monarchias, Reynos Estados, Republicas, y los Pueblos que al presente se conocen
Creator: Sanson
Publisher: Georgio Gallet, Amsterdam, 1699





Title: Atlas containing ye Best Maps of the severall parts of the World collected by Phil: Lea who selleth all sorts of Mathematicall Books and Instruments
Creator/Publisher: Phillip Lea, 1580 ~1690





Title: Atlas Novus Terrarum Orbis Imperia, Regna et Status exactis Tebulis Geographice demonstrans, Opera Johannis Baptistae Homanni
Creator: Johann Homann
Publisher: M.P.?, Nuremburg (undated but late 17th/early 18th c.)






Title: Ioannis Ianssonii Novus atlas, sive Theatrum orbis terrarum : in quo tabulae & descriptiones omnium regionum totius universi accuratissime exhibentur. In quinque tomos distinctus
Creator: Jan Jansson
Publisher: D. V. Bremden, Amsterdam, ~1649





Title: Cinquième Partie du grand Atlas, contenant une parfaite description du monde maritime, ou hydrographie générale de tout la terre, enrichie des particularities de la Navigation tant Ancienne que Moderne, avec un excellent et curieux tableau du monde des Anciens
Creator: Jan Jansson
Publisher: D.V. Bremden, Amsterdam, 1657





Untitled/incomplete title page
Creator: Joan Blaeu, Amsterdam, 1645





Title: Livre Troisieme des Villes Principales du Monde
Undated and anonymous (according to the source site) but possibly by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenburg from the late 16th c.





Title: Nouveau Theatre du Monde ou Nouvel Atlas (Tome Second)
Creator/Publisher: Iohannem Iansonium (Jan Jansson), Amsterdam (undated but mid-1600s)





Title: Atlas Gerardi Mercatoris et Ivsti Hondii Cosmographorum mortem dolens
Creator: Gerhard Mercator
Published by Jodocus Hondius, Amsterdam, 1633



The Artz Atlas Title Pages are among the Oberlin College Digital Collections - [FB Arntz bio].

Previously: cartography.

Toucans

'Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis et des Rolliers, Suivie de celle des Toucans et des Barbus' -- François Levaillant ; Jacques Barraband ; Perée, Jacques Louis ; Grémillier ; Bouquet, Louis, Paris : Denné le jeune / Perlet, 1806.


All the images above were background cleaned fairly meticulously. More to come*.

• Source material.
• Subsequent related BibliOdyssey post: Birds of Paradise.
• Slideshow ::::: [w] ::::: previously ::::: Twitter