Monthly Letters and Sandglasses missing/desired

The Dropbox ML folders for the following appear to be empty:-
1929 Robinson Crusoe
1933 Francois Villon
1946 ArabianNitesEntertainments
1960 Toilers of the Sea
I hope they have not been eaten by some virtual silverfish or other cyber-parasite.

And although the ML for 1946's Montaigne is present and correct an empty duplicate folder for it appears inside the 1930 Undine folder!

>1 featherwate: I'm betting that someone attempted to download these files by dragging them out of the Dropbox folder onto their desktop. Normally, if you have a portable hard drive or flash drive, you can just click and drag files this way. But if you do this with Dropbox it actually removes the original file from the folder. There is no automatic file duplication like you would have with your typical stick drive.

If anyone has done this, please double-check the folders you removed the files from and replace them.

The 1953 Zadig Monthly Letter has now been uploaded to Dropbox, courtesy of Robert/Django6924. Thanks again Robert!

We have to be very careful about this. Errors like these are unfortunately very common if you don't think about what you are doing. I haven't made a backup yet so I would recommend everyone to make a backup of the ML folder. We've come to far to mess it all up

>4 ironjaw: I made a back-up of the folder back in May or June when I first joined up. I just checked it for the absent MLs and found that those files were missing even then. If anything else gets deleted, let me know and I will replace it with my backup. Now we just need whoever deleted those MLs to re-upload them.

>1 featherwate: There's a 1930 Robinson Crusoe folder with a Monthly Letter already in it.

6 My apologies I got the date right (1929) but the book wrong - it should be Gulliver's Travels not R. Crusoe. (And the GT ML is still AWOL.)

Could someone who owns it kindly upload to Dropbox the Monthly Letter (and publication announcement if that is available too!) for the 1954 edition of Cyrano de Bergerac? I am going to see the play in a week at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and plan to read my LEC copy prior to that. But I would prefer to start with the Monthly Letter, if possible. Thank you!

I've added the Monthly Letter for the last of the LEC Bernard Shaws, Pygmalion and Candida (1974), designed by John Dreyfus and illustrated by Clarke Hutton. As one would expect of the man the Macys appointed as their European consultant, Dreyfus produced a handsome volume, its text particularly easy on the eye. Hutton's 40-odd b&w drawings and eight full-colour plates are engaging and apt. Here one captures Liza Doolittle's horror at the sight of a Hot Bath!:

and another the resentful misery of Alfred Doolittle, dustman, shoved into the middle class by an unwanted legacy of three thousand a year:

>8 UK_History_Fan:

Sorry, Sean, my copy is lacking this documentation as well.

>9 featherwate:

Thanks for posting these, featherwate. I always appreciated Hutton's work in this, especially as he didn't reference either the 1964 film of "My Fair Lady" nor the wonderful 1938 film of "Pygmalion," my favorite of all Shaw films.

>10 Django6924: I too was glad Hutton refrained from turning himself into an ersatz Cecil Beaton. Looking again at the picture of Liza versus the bath, in particular the relationship between the two human figures, I think Hutton was consciously referencing the art of Walter Sickert's Camden Town Group. Shaw wrote Pygmalion in 1912 which falls dead in the middle of the Group's most active phase. Hutton (1898-1984) was the son of a London solicitor, too young obviously to have been one of its members, but their work would have still seemed new and exciting to him as he began his own artistic career as a stage scene painter (making him familiar with the London theatres and music halls that Sickert in particular liked to paint).
And there's a liking among several of the Group (Pissarro among them) for a blue and purple palette, as in this sketch of a London square by Spencer F. Gore:

and (allowing for a change from day to night) it is echoed in this illustration of Freddy and Liza dodging police constables in a similar square:
.
It's less prominent but still there in the bath picture and an earlier illustration of Liza in her lodging-house.
If I'm right, Hutton decided his illustrations should reflect not just the period of the play but also the work of a contemporary group of London artists, which increases my admiration for him. A thoughtful and successful illustrator and a modest one to judge by how little information there is about his life.

>11 featherwate: Have you ever seen Hutton's work to illustrate Shakespeare's Sonnets? His abstract work there is quite extraordinary and, despite that form of art not usually being my thing at all, I love this book and it's absolutely one of my favourites in my collection.

>13 HuxleyTheCat: Huxley, I hadn't seen it - but I have now seen some pictures on the net, tho' most of them are of the binding rather than his illustrations. It's certainly an attractive book but, hmm, not attractive enough to usurp my HP Valenti Angelo Sonnets. At least not at the asking prices I've seen! But I have taken a chance on a Hutton-illustrated Gray's Elegy from 1928....

But searching for him made me realise that he was a much more diverse artist than I'd realised and that he was a strong visual influence on my early childhood through his many book covers, pictorial histories and contribution to Brenda Rawnsley's brave attempt to bring contemporary art to children via the "School Prints" that were pinned up on our classroom walls (and are now worth up to £1000 - why, oh, why did no one tip me off to rip them off).

Added 1986 A Season in Hell

Not really on topic for this thread, but since we have gone on a Hutton tangent, I just thought I'd add that I picked up a lovely little old Folio Society book at one of my local used bookstores. It is the 1970 edition of Pushkin's The Queen of Spades / The Captain's Daughter. While I expected a nice old Folio with letterpress printing, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this volume was illustrated by Clarke Hutton and the pictures themselves are wonderful as well as being very well reproduced. I don't have enough knowledge to say how they were printed, but there is a real tactile feel to the page similar to what is often found in Limited Editions Club book illustrations, which is just yet another example of the fine quality of Folio Society books. According to my Folio 60, "the plates were printed directly from Hutton's etched plates" though it does not further describe the method of printing or reproduction. In any case, a really nice find for around $20.

>17 Django6924:

Wonderful stories, too--especially The Queen of Spades. Don probably remembers the excellent film version by Thorold Dickinson with Anton Walbrook as the Captain and Dame Edith Evans as the Countess. I have a DVD of the movie coupled with my alltime favorite British horror film, "Dead of Night."

Hello everyone! I have been following this group for quite some time now and just decided to become a member. Many thanks for helping me discover George Macy's legacy. I am interested in joining the Dropbox but perhaps there are some rules. Any advice will be appreciated. Cheers!

Greetings and welcome, vdanchev!

I'm speaking a little out of ignorance here, as I have had problems using the resource which is a result, I think, of having several Dropbox accounts, but I believe the Dropbox is reserved for members who have been with the group for a while--perhaps a few months--and who have some of their books cataloged on LibraryThing. The best way to know would be to send a personal message to Faisel (ironjaw), who set up the Dropbox and has done more than anyone here to make it available to members (and to fix it when we break it!)

>19 Django6924:

Thanks! I will work with the man in charge. Hopefully I can contribute some to this forum however questionable since I am a fairy recent G.M. admirer...

I've added three entries to the Dropbox folder for Heritage Press Sandglasses (which is really a sub-folder as it is within the LEC Monthly Letters folder).
Two of the books are Heritage Club exclusives, being from the their Charles Dickens series: Five Christmas Novels illustrated by Reginald Firth, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood illustrated by Everett Shinn.. The series design means they are attractive, clear-to-read volumes, with small black-and-white sketches as chapter headings and full page colour plates. Firth's plates in the Christmas Novels are particularly vivid, but a mixed bunch artistically. Some are excellent, one or two embarrassingly bad. Shinn's Drood plates are also variable in quality, but the less good ones are uninspired rather than unhandy.
The Novels have no introduction, but the Drood has a long and interesting one from Vincent Starrett (previously known to me only as one of the great Sherlockians). It also has some appendices, including the fragment of a missing chapter.
Five Christmas Novels came out in 1939, and was one of two Dickens works voted 'least popular books of the season' by the subscribers. The other was Oliver Twist, which I find surprising as it was illustrated by what look to be strikingly attractive autolithographs by Barnett Freedman. Tracking down a first edition is not easy today: most of the copies for sale are from the Heritage Illustrated Bookshelf range, which has a pictorial cover rather than the plain series binding and whose illustrations I would guess are reproductions of Freedman's originals.
Edwin Drood dates from 1941, something of an annus mirabilis for the Heritage Press and its exclusives. As well as another two Dickenses, these included an ingenious edition of The Moon and Sixpence; Valenti Angelo's beautifully simple treatment of Shakespeare's Sonnets; Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson's light-hearted take on Aesop's Fables; Sylvain Sauvage's very French approach to illustrating Sterne's A Sentimental Journey; Fritz Eichenberg's wood-engravings for Fathers and Sons, and Dale Nichols's superb binding design and illustrations for Two Years Before The Mast (which George Macy cheerfully claimed cost the Heritage Club more to produce than it could charge its subscribers). What a stunning stream of fine books!
The third Sandglass is for the Heritage version of the LEC edition of Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail. They were both issued in the summer of 1943, so it's no surprise to find that the Sandglass is smaller and shorter than usual – a victim of wartime paper shortages. The book itself, on the other hand, shows no falling-off from the HP's high standards.

NB Django has just published a generous selection of photos of Two Years Before The Mast in the Affordable Gems discussion. He mentions that it is hard to find a copy where the blue of the bookcloth hasn't faded badly. I have a theory that this is another victim of war – or rather of the anticipation of war: come 1941, prescient naval uniform contractors were buying up all the light-fast blue dyes.
The Sandglass for Two Years is already in the Dropbox, as is that for A Sentimental Journey, for which Django has also promised us pictures.

>21 featherwate:

Spot on, featherwate. 1941 was the peak of the Heritage Press in my opinion. Not that the quality deteriorated afterwards--in fact the books seemed to get more sumptuous after the war. But...they never again produced so many exclusives, being more and more a reprint service for the LEC's editions. I would have to check to be sure, but it may be that Ink and Blood and The Book of Edward A. Wilson were the last Heritage exclusives until after the Macys sold off the company, when you started to see books such as the John Carter Mars stories, The Poison Belt, Ragged Dick and other oddities that many times were facsimiles of facsimiles brought out by the Easton Press, such as The Ring of the Nibelungen.

BTW, I think you are probably also correct in believing the fading blue dye to be a victim of the wartime buildup of strategic materials--I can voice for the fact that US Naval uniforms never fade--I still have my brother's peacoat and dress wool crackerjack hat, and both are the same deep indigo they were when they were issued to him in 1959.

>23 EclecticIndulgence: Search for "heritage exclusives" at:-
WildCat

23/24: To simplify things, the exact link - http://georgemacyimagery.wordpress.com/heritage-press-exclusives/

It's not 100% complete, but it's a great intro to the world of Heritage Press exclusives! Most of it is compiled from discussions here.

Just upload the following 2

1962, THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY
1962, Magic Mountain.

Will upload the following items recently.

1953, Frithjof's Saga
1964, Ibsen, Henrik. THREE PLAYS
1974, A Raw Youth
1977, The Battle of Waterloo

I wish someone could upload

Death in Venice
Cape Cod

Thanks kafkachen. During Christmas and New Year, I will go through all my letters and see what I can upload.

Last Days of Pompeii anyone? (Only the card, not the letter, is in the dropbox.)

(I think this book is a gem, and would recommend anyone interested to get it now, when it's still available at unbelievably low prices. That might change if it gets a presentation on Booksandvine or George Macy Imagery.)

27) Well, it probably won't be me who covers it, at least for a while. I'd like to hope my blog isn't spiking up LEC prices! XD

Thanks for the Last Days of Pompeii card, now I just need the letter!!

1960 The Wisdom of the Fathers, The Living Talmud Monthly Letter anyone?

>30 parchment-:

I have the Sandglass for The Living Talmud--don't have an LEC edition of this work.

Would you please put a copy in the dropbox folder? I guess most of the Letters and Sandglasses are 90% the same, and my main interest is to learn about the illustrator Ben Zion and about the history of the text, which I presume is the Pirkei Avot (the book itself is on the way to me, unfortunately without the letter.)

A few years ago, most LEC:s that I bought came with letters, nowadays only a few. When I searched for this title, I noted on Abe, that a dealer listed the book without letter, and the letter separately for 20 dollars.

>32 parchment-: In most instances, with books published from 1950 on, I've found the Sandglass to contain nearly all of the information that an ML offers, excluding the LEC-specific details.

> 32
And that is the problem, too many sellers have decided to do the despicable thing and attempt to separate the Monthly Letters when present from the books and sell them separately. While I don't disagree that the ML has value and I will pay more for an LEC title with the ML than without, I wish they would just keep them together and raise the price of the book accordingly. It just seems silly and greedy to me.

>32 parchment-:

Sure--I'll scan it today (although I need to email it as I have had problems with Dropbox on my computer). If someone will PM me their address I will send it to them as a PDF attachment).

>35 Django6924: Send it to me and I will upload it to Dropbox. I have PMed you my email.

>36 andrewsd:

Thanks, I will also send you a scan of the Monthly Letter for Tristram Shandy, if you wouldn't mind uploading it as well.

>37 Django6924: Sure, no problem.

Does anyone have the Monthly Letter for LEC's Les Miserables from 1938? Thanks!

Les Miserables (LEC) from 1938 added, thanks to Django6924.

We love Django!

> 37
I too thought it was already uploaded, but perhaps we are both mis-remembering.

>42 UK_History_Fan: You'll recall the issue a few months ago where someone accidentally removed some files from the dropbox. I think most of them have been replaced, but there are still a few missing.

Remember all, if you want to make your own copy of the files, you can't just drag-and-drop them out of a dropbox folder (this removes the original file). You have to right-click the file and select "duplicate." Dropbox is not like a portable hard-drive or flash-drive that automatically creates a copy when a file is dragged from the folder onto your desktop. This accidental file removal is especially easy to do if you are an Apple user.

I believe that the original uploader also has to keep the file on his hard drive. It's not like cloud storage where you can upload it to a remote server and then delete it from your computer.

>44 britchey:. Nope. I uploaded several and deleted them on my HD. They are still in the dropbox folder.

>44 britchey:

You are thinking of torrent file-sharing where "seeders" have to keep files on their computers and stay connected to the Internet in order to share them with others. Dropbox is cloud storage.

I'm almost certain the issue stems from people dragging and dropping files out of Dropbox.

>45 parchment-:,46 Good to know! I've always stayed away from using dropbox more extensively because I thought it was a file mirroring service, not off-site storage.

Two Monthly Letters added, courtesy of Django:

The Education of Henry Adams (1942)
The Oregon Trail (1943)

Okay so who's my adversary that's bidding on:

1929-1936 LIMITED EDITIONS CLUB First 84 Monthly Letters & Promotional Materials
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201027265626?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984....

Give me a break, I'm trying to bring this to Dropbox. Isn't it fair enough that I have to pay $55 in shipping and probably another $80 on taxes?

Not I!

> 49
Your adversary is dombeyson (d***y 253) who uses an automatic program to bid on just about any LEC book. The prices he pays are often outrageous, several times the market rate. So I'm guessing it is someone with a very large disposable income. I feel your pain. I have lost many an auction to this one. But realistically, the final price was a bit steep, so Faisel, be glad you didn't have to pay it.

I might add that while I cannot guarantee it, I don't suspect this person is a LT contributor.

Holy crap. That auction sold for $817.13. I wish ironjaw would have won, but that is an outrageous price.

Is the price outrageous for 80+ Monthly Letters? I often see sellers asking $10+ for a single letter.

I however do not bid on such auctions just on principle.

I've seen certain Monthly Letters offered at $29.00. I would never pay that no matter what the book, but I have paid up to $10 for one.

Although that is a LOT of money, I really don't think it was that outrageous considering the books represented, plus promotional extras, but I wish Faisel had won.

Not me, 800 ? that means our dropbox worths several thousand.

Whew, I was really surprised when I woke up this morning. $800. I did not expect that. I put in a top bid of 250

As some of you have already mentioned $10 is the max for me for newsletters. I won't go higher and refuse to. I'm so glad we have Dropbox.

As Robert suggest when you look closer, its not that bad given its only 10 dollars a pop. I would rather spend 800 elsewhere. :)

>55 kafkachen: I think our Dropbox is worth several hundreds of dollars if you ask me. :)

On other matters I have been working hard to gather much ephemera on LEC and when I have all my books in place, you guys are in for a treat. I have many things to upload and share on Dropbox.

First of all, you could just buy the LEC book entitled The First Fifty Monthly Letters of the Limited Editions Club for $150 in fine condition from Pawprint Books right now. I understand the historical significance of owning the actual thing, but I wouldn't pay $817 for it. Besides, when items are sold in bulk like that, the value of each individual item almost always decreases. I suppose I just expected the lot to sell for MUCH less. I didn't think someone would actually be willing to spend $10+ a pop.

>57 andrewsd: " I didn't think someone would actually be willing to spend $10+ a pop"

Six years ago I would have. I have The First Fifty Monthly Letters of the Limited Editions Club and it is a great resource, but the next 32 Letters would have been for volumes such as Lysistrata, The Voice of the City, The Holy Bible, The Rubaiyat, Walden, Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Ulysses. Some of these I don't own, and probably never will unless my Lotto numbers ever come up, but they are among the most desirable LECs, and I'd love to read about them. And the Letters themselves are always so entertaining and informative, that even if one isn't particularly interested in owning the book--I've never felt the need to get either the two Lewis Carroll books nor the Kemble-illustrated Twain books--it would have still been fun to read them. Since it was so long ago, finding original Monthly Letters from the first seven years of the LEC would have been a bonanza in my salad days.

Still, I'm with andrewsd: had I $800 to spend on books today, I'd probably be looking for a copy of the LEC Robert Frost, Walden, the 2nd LEC Leaves of Grass or a semi-decent copy of Moby-Dick I could buy for that amount!

>58 Django6924: "Had I $800 to spend on books today, I'd probably be looking for a copy of the LEC Robert Frost..." Agreed! :-)

I added 11 MLs earlier today to the DropBox directory. Most of them are from 1935 (Ulysses, Peregrine Pickle, King James Bible, O'Henry, Slovenly Peter, Typee) and a few earlier MLs (Vanity Fair, Iliad, Tom Jones, 4 Gospels, Francois Villon)

I scan them with my iPad - the result is one PDF file, about 3 Mb per ML.

Reviewing other MLs in the Collection, I encountered quite a number of them that consist of 4 files with total amount of memory used - about 12 - 16 Mb. I would like to replace the huge files with better (smaller) sized pdfs, but would do it after ironjaw permission. Also certain pdfs or jpegs are of poor quality, and eventually have to be redone, in order to keep a certain standard. I appeal to everyone who participates in appending new MLs to the collection - to check-proof the results of your dropbox uploading activities.

>60 skyschaker: I've posted all my Monthly Letters as searchable PDFs. One file for the announcement ~1/2 Mb and another file for the entire Monthly Letter (8 pages ~7 Mb). I like searchable PDFs as they are very portable, easy to read and can be easily searched. I would not want these files to be further compressed if it resulted in decreased quality, portability or searchability. That said, I agree with you that it would be nice for the entire Monthly Letter to be in one file and I prefer PDFs over JPEGs.

Thanks for the great work, everybody. This is a treasure-trove!

Can I make a request for Confessions of an English Opium-Eater?

I think that's a great idea to replace the jpegs with PDF's. Though I don't mid the larger file sizes as quality and resolution is important than anything else. One PDF for the newsletter and one for the announcement is right on. I'm myself working up to creating the best files in quality, that can be printed without the fuzzy or grain as most files have.

Sky, you can add your suggestion to the folder just don't delete / replace the original files already uploaded.

New MLs were added today - starting from PreGulliver issues. The VERY FIRST ML is dated June 1929, 4 months before Gulliver's Travels appeared. All three books from 1929 are presented now by there MLs - quite interesting stories. The MLs are copied from the book "50 Monthly Letters of LEC" and from actual MLs. Quite an informative reading for us (Macy Devotees) .
It is time consuming type of occupation. It rains in the Bay Area, and it is cold and wet - the best thing to do is to append a few MLs. I appeal to the owners of the same 50 Monthly letters - to spend some time and upload the pix. Those MLs are very interesting to read, they are very informative!

>64 skyschaker: How are you scanning from "50 Monthly Letters of LEC"? I'd post from my book but I can't get a good scan on my flatbed scanner. Are you using a wand?

>65 kdweber: I use the DocScan HD app for the iPad. It works similar to a camera, but allows to create a pdf file with several pages in it. Quite convenient for a fast non-professional scanning.

>sky

Thank you very much for your effort, I appreciate it !

>65 kdweber:

Another alternative (and one I've been using for a different project) would be a Doxie. Specifically, a Flip: Doxie Flip. If you do get a Field Notes with your Flip, you can flip it (see what I did there?) for a profit. There are quite a few Field Notes fans that would want to get their hands onto the Doxie edition.

(Unrelated - don't go down the rabbit hole for Field Notes, I love them and use them daily).

Since I replaced my old scanner some months back, I have been scanning all my Monthly Letters which have been uploaded to Dropbox (thanks to some generous members here who have better luck with Dropbox than I have) on a flatbed Epson as jpegs at 150 dpi resolution. I haven't reduced the image size and have scanned them in full color as photos rather than text, because I find the tone of the paper, the texture, and the quality of the typography is reproduced more faithfully by the "Photo" setting than by "Text." The individual jpegs are opened in Apple's Preview as a document and then "printed" as a pdf. I realize these are rather large files, but I personally prefer to be able to really appreciate the care that went into the production of this so-called "ephemera." In addition, anyone who cares to may print them out and have an exact copy of the original--except for the paper, of course.

PS: I just checked nicklong's link to the Doxie scanner--what a cool gadget!

It's an A5 scanner right? It won't be able to handle A4 newsletter unless you stitch it?

I wasn't familiar with the ISO paper standards until your question, Faisel. Here in the States we have a different standard:letter-size, legal-size, ledger-size, etc. It appears the Doxie is a smaller, probably A5 scanner, but is capable of stitching together a moving scan of a larger document--somewhat similar to how you can pan some smartphone cameras while taking a picture and the built-in software creates a panorama view. (At least that's what I gleaned from the website.)

My Epson scans legal-size documents, , 8 1/2" x 14"

^70

Well, yes it is A5, but you can stitch larger items. I have a normal A4 flatbed as well. I just got the Flip for A5 size items (like Field Notes), and it lets you scan only part of a page, such as an illustration. What I enjoy the most is that it's fully portable (battery powered) and I don't have to spend time cropping A5 sized items. My time is limited, so any way I can save time, I'll do it. I plan to digitize a lot of what I've got as far as photographs go.

Here's the other reason I got it - my son (3 years old) dropped my laptop right before Thanksgiving last year. I lost all my work / photos / whatever else was on the laptop. I've been on an archival tear ever since, storing everything I can in the cloud. Unfortunately, this means some photographs I had already taken and was preparing for my blog/website are irrevocably lost.

Use Dropbox or some other cloud storage solution to back up your media. It's worth the extra cost. Especially with kids.

>72 nicklong:

Ouch! That probably cast a pall over last Thanksgiving. By any chance did you try taking the hard drive out of the laptop and accessing it from another computer? My cat knocked a 1 TB external drive off my desk several years ago, and it wouldn't mount on my computer. I thought it was lost, but I took the drives out of the enclosure and both mounted fine.

^73

It did. Had to go without a laptop for a couple of months. Got a new one for a great price because it had Windows 8. That's a bigger fiasco than Vista was, or even Me. I'd take Vista over 8.

Yep, did everything within my power to try to get the data off of the HD, including installing it into another laptop, external mount, etc. The only thing left to do would be to send it off somewhere and pay $3-4k for them to restore whatever they can. Not willing to do that, yet. Nothing was worth that much, except possibly photos of the culprit himself. But I have other photographs.

Nick, so sorry to hear that, 10 years ago I lost a big chunk of my music collection incl. iTunes songs that I had purchased on my iBook G4. I was gutted and didn't know what to do, but found a data retrieval company online and paid something like $100 or $200 I can't seem to remember but I got all of my data back. It was fairly simple, you had to download an application and run it and choose the disk drive you needed to retrieve data from and after 5 hours or so it would list the data that could be retrieved. It was a life saver. If you'll interested I can try to dig up the name of the company from my invoice which I hope I have in my mail.

^74

I respectfully disagree! Windows 8 is NOT like Vista. The Metro interface and the lacking Start button (thanks Microsoft for training us how to use it and then taking it away) are annoying but fiasco is too strong a word for this experiment.

^75

It's physical damage to the drive itself. If I had to, I'd go to Drivesavers, but I don't want to go down that route yet. All the truly important things were backed up for the most part. The most important thing of value that I lost was my time.

^76

Metro interface is designed for tablets and the like. My new laptop is lacking any sort of touch-screen capability. Try using Windows 8 without a Start button. The "apps" take up the entire screen. Thankfully, Toshiba had preinstalled a hacked Desktop. And it is definitely a fiasco, when they disabled support for WEP WiFi entirely and nobody will give you a straight answer about it.

I had to log into my router with my mobile phone to change it to WPA2 security, just so I could use my laptop, because it wouldn't even let me log into it until I connected it to the Internet first. And they removed WEP functionality. Took me a few days to figure it out and finally get the router reset using a mobile phone. And basically at this point, it's either the laptop or the Wii that I can use. The Wii is only enabled to use WEP. You see where I'm going with this? It is definitely a fiasco. Try finding a straight answer about WEP Shared from Microsoft. They'll just say "oh, just change to WPA2". But if I didn't have another device that could attach to the router to change its settings, I wouldn't have been able to use the new laptop out of the box. That's a joke to me.

The Metro screen is just a full screen start menu. I rarely use it because Windows 8 still has a desktop and I have all my needed programs as shortcuts on it or pinned to the taskbar. All the other start menu functions are accessed by moving your mouse down to the bottom left and right-clicking.

>77 nicklong:, 78 - This is why I will always use an Apple computer. Hehe

>79 andrewsd:

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall

Careful, andrewsd! Apple has disgruntled its loyal users before and is likely to do so again: 1) Licensed Apple clone to use the operating system and then withdrew the license, 2) The switch from the Classic Operating System to OS-X which eventually obsoleted all my image editing software, 3) The switch from Power PC to Intel processors, which soon obsoleted my software and hardware, 4) Replacing Final Cut Pro 7 with Final Cut Pro X--a move which still rankles many.

Granted, all of these changes eventually proved to make the systems more powerful and were forward-thinking; perhaps Windows 8 will also prove likewise. At the moment, I'm really happy with Apple, but....

May I assume, the last 13 posts are not directly related to the topic "Monthly Letters and Sandglasses missing/desired".

>81 skyschaker:

Well, part of them address scanning issues which is directly related to getting material for the Dropbox; the rest are related to concern over an accident that befell one of the members here and efforts to help. If our solicitous comments are annoying please feel free to ignore them and the posters thereof.

^77

In this day and age many www users are (frankly we all should be) concerned about data security. Turns out WEP uses a security algorithm that can be broken easily. Personal computer and a freely available software can crack any WEP key in a matter of minutes. As a result WEP was deprecated in favor of newer (more secure) WiFi standards. WPA2 being one of them.

Aside from the inconvenience of recreating your home wifi network, you are better off from where you started :-) Multiple SSID router will work well for you too. One SSID for your gaming device(s) and another one for your WPA2 enabled devices.

>80 Django6924: OT

Touché, Robert. I also experienced an issue with their numerous software upgrades. Many important applications stopped working only two years after I bought my late-2009 MacBook Pro. I was forced to update, but I guess that's a good thing.

>81 skyschaker:

So pushy lately, skyschaker. "I want files in PDF format." "Why aren't you talking about the topic."

;-)

We could use an off-topic thread in the forum where discussions like this can take place. Maybe I'll create a thread and Robert can move them, if he has that power.

As for the files, I've gone through and converted a couple of my giant iPhone picture uploads to PDF. I really need to rescan a couple of mine; I also have a number of MLs that are not in the dropbox that really should be. I just need to be less lazy on the weekends and get to a scanner. I prefer scanning them because it retains the original color of the paper, but your app works well also.

I own a few LEC titles and a large number of HP. I would really enjoy reading the Monthly Letters and Sandglasses in the Dropbox. Could I possibly be granted access to the Dropbox?

> 85
Contact Faisel (ironjaw) as he is the owner of it. I would suggest a PM.

>84 andrewsd:
I hope my polite and suggestive posts do not need an unfriendly interpretation. If you read my posts again and compare with your translation from English to English, you can notice quite a difference.

I like the scans that are very similarly looking as the original MLs, but I do not know, who originated them . If somebody can share the way to make them look that nice, I would certainly be interested to hear. The way I do it with iPad, creates readable but not too attractive scans. I have very many MLs that dozens of devotees would like to see and read, and I am eager to spend some time to place it in the dropbox. However, I use the Dropbox for work, and there is always a limitation issue that appears from time to time - therefore I am interested in keeping the dropbox folder with LECs not excessively large.

>87 skyschaker: What's an example of a scan you liked? Three Men in a Boat and Sons and Lovers are two examples of my posts.

>87 skyschaker:

The limitation is probably due to ironjaw being the owner of the Dropbox account... If you ask me, we need to better coordinate the dropbox access - so the limits on his account get bigger. Here's a helpful link:

Dropbox Storage Upgrades. Especially the referral link.

>87 skyschaker: "the way to make them look that nice"

Most scanning software gives you the option to scan the material as "Line Art" ("Text") or as "Photo" ("Picture"). The former option gives a high contrast scan in black & white with no continuous tones (shades of gray). The "Photo" or "Picture" setting gives a continuous tone scan with thousands, or even millions, of gradations from the darkest value to the lightest value, and reproduces the full color spectrum (relatively speaking).

The "Line Art" (or "Text") scan will obviously be much smaller, as it contains a very limited amount of information. Most OCR software seems to prefer this type of scan, so if you are needing to convert the material to searchable text, that may be what your OCR software will prefer.

Since most of the members here seem to lust after things such as paper texture, tone, and typography, the "Photo" or "Picture" setting will give them a file with which they could reproduce very closely the original document, should they wish to print it, or at least give them as close an experience of reading an original ML as electronic software can offer.

>88 kdweber: kdweber, your examples are very nice looking and reasonably sized. I like Anna Karenina, but the size is 17 MB - too much memory is used. a pdf for tristram shandy - 4 pages! - takes 38MB. Daphnis and Chloe - 4 jpg pages - takes only 1 MB, about 200+ kb per page! Les Miserables pdf has a kind of a record: 46MB!

As you see, different methods of scanning create a huge difference in files, placed at the dropbox. Should we think about a standard we should try to reach?

I use the dropbox for my classroom work. I write the lecture in the ipad app Noteshelf and save it in an appropriate folder, and my Calculus students have access to the folder, which becomes quite helpful if a student misses a class for some reason.
>89 nicklong: I made many referrals (mostly to my students!) and reached the maximum of 16 Gigs. For the nearest future I have plenty of memory in the dropbox, but it is slowly decreasing. This enables my interest in having optimal size scans.

>91 skyschaker:

The Tristram Shandy and Les Miserables are probably mine.

I think we should have a forum of the members here and have everyone vote for the type of scans they want.

Not surprisingly, I vote for color, searchable PDFs with the Monthly Letter saved as a single file.

I'm not that worried about storage space. I have about 1.5 maybe 2 GB left dedicated to our folder. I am sure once I've been through and organised my other documents in Dropbox more space would be available even at worst case scenario a file using 50 MB of space that's still another 30 to 40 files. At 20 MB that's 75 to 100 letters. I know it does not sound a lot but I know I can free up around 5 GB equaling to 100 at worst scenario to 250 newsletters.

I would support both Robert and ken. I scan in picture/color at 600 dpi and sometimes at 300 trying to keep as much of the original feel and quality as possible. I save one PDF of the newsletter and one PDF of the announcement.

While I support high quality scan , I do worry that this will give future contributor more reason to hesitate about uploading new ML.

I am one of the those who upload ML with jpeg format, even that could took me a while. I would offer a better quality scan if I could find the time for it.

Yes that's true, I guess, having a new ML is better than no letter at all. I think we should just ask for any contribution that's available to offer

I prefer to keep my scans at high resolution and continuous tone color, but I could send the jpegs to anyone who would want to reduce them and upload them.

I found out the way to make the scans look more soothing, with the natural color. As result, I added 10 MLs to the year 1936 - now it is completed. I still do not know, how to make the PDFs become searchable while using the scan app on the ipad. All newly appended PDFs have the size of 1.9 - 2.2 Mb

^98

I have no Apple products, and you've not said which app you're using. I took the liberty of searching for apps that should make searchable pdfs:

Genius Scan
Turbo Scan
Scanner Pro
Perfect OCR
Readiris 14 Pro

Basically, you need something that specifically supports OCR.

How did you guys decide to use DropBox as a file storage/share point? Today our Monthly Letters folder is large enough (+2GB) to exceed the limit for the free Dropbox account. And while $10/month is not a lot it adds up. As far as I can tell other file sharing services have better terms. Box.com for example offers 10GB free storage.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with Box.com in any fashion.

>100 BuzzBuzzard:

"Oh, Dropbox is soooo much cooler than Box.com," said the Dropbox fanboy.

It's just easier to have a local folder on your Computer than logging into a service

^103

For access to the LEC Dropbox you have to PM ironjaw.

The Dropbox folder: 1961 The Story of an African Farm, contains two photos of the book cover. Can someone upload the Monthly Letter instead?

I will also appreciate if someone can share the following LEC MLs:

Russian Folk Tales
The Story of an African Farm
Irish Folk Tales
Tales of East and West

I have the ML for The Story of an African Farm and can scan it tomorrow. Send me a PM so I can e-mail it to you as I don't think I can upload it to the Dropbox.

>105 BuzzBuzzard:, 106
The African Farm ML is back. I uploaded the original in November 2012 and fortunately had a back-up of the pdf. Why or when it disappeared I have no idea!
The pictures of the cover were loaded (also in 2012) to supplement the ML not replace it.

> 106, 107 Thanks!

I am a long time Librarything user, and pretty heavy Folio and occasional Heritage and LEC collector, I have recently been bitten by a serious LEC and Heritage bug, which has finally drawn me out of lurking mode. Just now I have just 11 LECs and around 90 Heritage books. I'm sorry this has happened as knowing me I will want to get all of them! I currently have Monthly letters of Zadig 233 - 1952, New Arabian Nights 492 - 1976, Outcast of the Islands 479 - 1975 and Tristram Shandy 70 - 1935 if anyone is interested. I'm just now making an inventory of which Heritage Sandglasses I have and will post a list. The other day I managed to pick up in almost new condition the 2 volume Bussacco Sandglass companion books for $25. Not the same as the original thing of course, nor even a good scan which maintains the original formatting, but a really interesting read to have almost all of the Sandglasses in 2 volumes. It would be great to have something like that for LEC monthly letters.

>109 Geedge:
Some more Sandglasses will be welcome - there are over 330 Monthly Letters in the Dropbox, but fewer than 30 Sandglasses!

>109 Geedge:

Welcome to the group! That was quite a find on the Bussacco Sandglass companions! I paid more than that for Volume 1.

>110 featherwate:

Let me know which Sandglasses you need--I have quite a few.

I have just inventoried about 1/3rd of my Heritage books and so far have the following Sandglasses which I could scan :-

Robinson Crusoe (39)
Les Miserables (25)
The Prince (44)
Flowers of Evil (36)
Henry V (16)
Decline & Fall Roman Empire (J)
Herodotus (24)
Psalms (26)
2 Plays - Chekhov (32)
Trial & Death of Socrates (28)
Symposium, Love & Friendship (33) - Plato
Aeneid (31)
Tom Jones (16)
The Possessed (24)
Bridge San Luis Ray (27)
Oedipus (44)
Journal Plague Year (34)
Voyage of the Beagle (No #)

If any of these are not in the Dropbox I will be happy to add them. I have seen reference to the Dropbox, is it possible to apply for this?

Thank you. I also picked up the first 3 volumes of the Bussacco Annotated Bibliographies, but couldn't find volume 4 covering authors S - Z. Do you happen to know if this was ever issued?

> 112
Contact ironjaw, he is the Dropbox owner and can give you access and then we would welcome any contributions (uploads) you can make!

>Geedge, these are the Sandglasses already uploaded:
1935 For Properly Interested People
1936 For the Book Trade
1938 Rime of the Ancient Mariner
1938 The Song of Roland
1939 Five Christmas Novels
1940 Diedrich Knickerbocker's New York
1941 A Sentimental Journey
1941 Mystery of Edwin Drood
1941 Sonnets of William Shakespeare
1941 Two Years Before the Mast
1943 A Complete Elia
1943 The Oregon Trail
1944 Life on the Mississippi
1952 Anna Karenina
1952 Emily Dickinson
1955 The Masque of Comus
1956 Green Mansions
1956 The Gods are A-Thirst
1956 The History of Henry Emond, Esquire
1958 & 1959 The Heritage Shakespeare
1959 Histories of Herodotus
1959 The Possessed
1960 Living Talmud
1963 The Swiss Family Robinson
1964 Cyrano de Bergerac
1967 The Aeneid
1969 Aesop's Fables
Very little overlap (only two I think) with what you've listed so far, which is good!

As for the S-Z annotative bibliography, it definitely existed in 2006. There is an article on "Buying and Selling The Heritage Press" at
BookThink
which includes a picture of the four volumes - spiral-bound, colour-coded covers. Indeed, BookThink had a 'buy now' link for the set (it no longer works).
Michael Bussacco has always referred to his books as work-in-progress and some indeed exist in revised editions. But I have yet to find a copy of Authors S-Z in any form anywhere, which is odd - if the books were sold as a set you'd expect the occasional copy to turn up now and then.
I have the five Bussacco books you mention plus his Heritage Press Catalog and Checklist (also useful). Mine are Kindle copies, which have the benefit of being searchable. At the time I bought them they were actually cheaper than the physical copies.

>Django, thanks for the offer! but as I already have the Buccasso books I was being altruistic - not everyone will want to invest in the Sandglass Companions. And uploaded copies of the originals make for a pleasanter reading experience than the digitised ones!

Just to chip in briefly here, I would be happy to upload my Sandglasses to the Dropbox in the summer. I have several of them on my site already, but I have dozens more I haven't spotlighted yet.

>115 featherwate:

The 3 volume annotated bibliography I have is a second edition fully bound paperback set dated 2008. It would appear that volume 4 was not or has not yet been issued as a bound paperback in second edition, in 6 years. Does anyone here know if Michael Bussacco is still alive or writing? I cannot find any reference to him online after February 2009. I will look out for volume 4 in spiral binding. I would really like to have Kindle copies too for the searching, but I'd almost prefer to have searchable PDFs, like the searchable PDF listing of all the LEC Monthly Letters I downloaded the other day, but I digress.

Thank you for the list of already scanned Sandglasses, I certainly have quite a few not on that list, and now that IRONJAW has very kindly allowed me access to the Dropbox folder I will be able to upload them when I have scanned them.

Thank you all for making this newbie feel so welcome so quickly!

>110 featherwate:

'there are over 330 Monthly Letters in the Dropbox, but fewer than 30 Sandglasses!' - perhaps this is a typo, but there are 304 Monthly Letters in the Dropbox.

>118 BuzzBuzzard:
Maths were never my strong point! I simply ran the cursor down the list from 1929 Munchausen to 2001 Cosi, which gave me 299. I then realised that meant the 34 Shakespeare Commentaries were only registering as one, so I added 33 to the total, and reached 332.

However I now notice that the 1929 Pre-Gulliver entry is also a multiple one (4 Letters) , so logically I suppose I ought to add another 3, making a new total of 335...

Whichever way you look at it it's a heartening accumulation of Letters in the just over 3 years since mboudreau floated the idea of assembling a collection of scanned LEC Monthly Letters and Heritage Press Sandglasses (in PDF format) for group members to share.

>119 featherwate:

I did not realize the LEC Shakespeare MLs are in one parent folder. Perhaps you are more on target then!

Indeed a heartening effort.

Would someone please share the ML for Fathers and Sons? I could not help but noticed that Eichenberg's engravings are on a different paper than the Curtis Rag used for the text. Smooth and somewhat transparent. Perhaps it was deemed more appropriate for the art. I wonder if there is a word on this in the ML.

I've added a searchable pdf of the Monthly Letter for the 1938 Madame Bovary to the Dropbox.
The book itself is compact (5½"x8½) and bound in flexible boards (of what material? perhaps Don or Robert could elucidate this). This makes it surprisingly light for its 350 pages: a good travelling companion, comfortable to hold while reading in the train or the back of a cab.
My copy has no slipcase unfortunately, so the yellow silk binding material has dulled somewhat. But it's done so pretty evenly, so at least there's none of the usual glaring contrast between a sunned spine and protected boards. And for such a fragile material its slipcaselessness hasn't led to much fraying or tearing.
According to the Monthly Letter, the book's 50 small to medium-sized watercolours were not commissioned for the LEC; delicate and colourful or where necessary delicate and sombre, they were chosen from a hundred or so already made by the artist, Gunter Böhmer, and brought to Macy's attention by one of Böhmer's mentors, Hans Mardersteig of the Officina Bodoni (another mentor was Hermann Hesse):

The day of the agricultural show



Monsieur LHeureux, oleaginous draper...........A room full of mournful solemnity

The translation, from 1886, is by Eleanor Marx Aveling. She is named on the title page but is nowhere mentioned in the Monthly Letter; perhaps Macy thought some of his more conservative subscribers might succumb to apoplexy if they knew their next book was coming to them courtesy of Karl Marx's secretary and youngest daughter. (The later LEC/Heritage Press edition has a different translator, J. Lewis May, and illustrator, Pierre Brissaud.)

>123 featherwate:
Added to the Heritage Press section of the Dropbox:
Sandglass Number XVIII: 20 for Oedipus the King (1956).
I was wandering through WildcatJF's GMI blog when I came on his review of Oedipus headed by his photo of the striking cover. I read the review...and now I have the book.
Thanks, Jerry! a real gem this one.

And Jack, thanks again for the Bovary ML! This book is a real delight and I have to say I much prefer it to the much, much larger, later LEC of Bovary. Bohmer's illustrations are simply gorgeous, and gorgeously reproduced, and what a profusion! (I'd love to see the illustrations the LEC didn't use.) This is somewhat of a personal taste issue, as Brissaud was never one of my favorite illustrators, and his somber, muted colors contrast unfavorably to my eye to Bohmer's bright, delicate vignettes. I especially am moved by the illustration of Emma's funeral and the last illustration--Emma's gloves on the ground with the butterfly hovering nearby.

Several years later, Bohmer returned to the LEC for the edition of De Maupassant's stories, and these are also splendid, though more impressionistic and less emotional than the Bovary illustrations.

>124 Django6924:
Glad you share my liking for this book. At first glance it looks more like a Heritage Club volume than an LEC - small and unadorned bar the yellow silk binding. Only when you open it does it reveal its true quality. It's about as perfect a match of story, illustrator and book craftsmanship as you could wish for. Very feminine and very French (down to the flexible boards which are surely a genuflection to the livres brochés in which so many French texts appeared, including limited editions). Which is paradoxical, since the physical side of the book is wholly a masculine German/Swiss affair.
Yes, I've wondered about those other illustrations! Presumably their ownership remained with Gunter Böhmer since he had already completed the whole hundred before Hans Mardersteig brought them to the LEC's attention. As a professional artist he'd presumably painted them in the hope of finding a publisher (or had Mardersteig, his patron, encouraged him knowing that they would appeal to Macy?). Whichever, one hopes the unused ones were returned to Böhmer (or Mardersteig) and not retained by the LEC. For them to be languishing, forlorn as a beautiful woman in a provincial backwater, in some rarely consulted university archive would be a tragedy.
I quite like Pierre Brissaud. His Art Deco fashion plates are wonderful, and the rich, velvety colours he uses for the heavy costumes of the 17th and 18th century make for effective crowd scenes, as in the Saint-Simon memoirs and Cyrano. But the people in the clothes (or climbing out of them in his mildly risqué interbellum erotica) don't seem to have much depth of character.

The Snadglass for Brave New World uploaded to Dropbox. Not quite sure if the publication date is 1974.

Uploaded the newsletter for the 1951 Don Quixote in black / white and colour in both OCR and photo.

The Sandglass for Droll Stories uploaded to Dropbox. My understanding is that it was published in 1939, but I am not sure if it was ever reprinted. Hence no year for the folder. The Snadglass Number is VIII:29.

Oh my god! I don't have access to a computer. I can see that from your list Don Quixote files that I uploaded have also been deleted.

I have no idea who Lars is. Doesn't ring a bell but I can only find out when come home. This is really serious. I haven't backed up in months

Faisel, since you own the Dropbox folder itself, perhaps you could consider setting up a link that has read-only access to it if you're so technologically gifted? A friend of mine was able to do this with a Dropbox folder for me and a few friends: he doesn't actually share the folder, but just a link to it, which restricts everyone but him to read-only access. We can browse, download copies, etc. but no one can actually change items in the folder itself. (How he did it, I'm not quite sure. Apparently there's advice at Dropbox's help centre about this, even though Dropbox's still working on enabling a permissions feature.)

This would mean that you would become responsible for uploading files as the admin, though.

Otherwise, the only advice I have is to set up a regular back-up program (once a week, say?), but that assumes no one messes around in the folder in the interim, unfortunately.

I am sure this is accidental. I have a back up from earlier this year. 304 MLs plus the LEC Shakespeare. Likely I am missing a couple that were uploaded after my back up. Putting all back one by one will be a hassle... If all agree ironjaw can delete all the content of the LEC Dropbox folder and I can upload my back up. Unless someone has a better idea.

This is really urgent. I know. I will try to do this as soon as come home from the hospital this evening/night (my father is gravely ill).

I'll check Dropbox and see if I can make others co-owners or do something smart as per suggestions. The link idea sound very interesting. And there is also google drive though I have it I will have look into whether this would be a better suited system. I never liked the idea that files could be moved around or deleted by other users.

This is the second time this has happened in Dropbox. I'm not waiting for a third. We've invested too much time and effort in amassing these letters to see them deleted in seconds.

Okay I've just checked Dropbox and I can see that the files are - over 100 of them - deleted, incl. the Don Quixote 1951 newsletter that I painstakingly dug out of moving boxes that were in storage, drove to the other side of the city to a friend to get scanned and drove back to upload to dropbox. This whole affair is very unfortunate and distressing and can't fathom why this has been done.

I have contacted the individual responsible - a new member and I am not saying who.

I think I can restore them. I am not sure will have to go painstakingly through the list and each file to restore but this is going to take some time and energy.

Faisel, I am so sorry you have to be dealing with this when you are also worrying about your father.

I agree that this needs to be set up as read-only to prevent this issue from happening yet again. It isn't fair that someone who is doing this out of generosity of spirit should be put to this extra care and concern.

>138 JeromeJ:
>139 Django6924:
Jerome and Robert, don't worry about it. I was glad to be asked to do the favour. I was just upset over the fact that files have been deleted; that something like this could happen. Friday's a day off (bank holiday) so I will see what I can do.

I have restored:

on. 15/5:
1951 Don Quixote
1973 Wilde-Being Earnest
1966 Verne-Center of the Earth

I think, I know the explanation of the matter.
Before disclosing it, I must tell that I use dropbox for my students in the colleges where I teach. A folder per class. After a lecture (I teach Calculi) I save the file as a PDF in the tablet and upload it to the appropriate folder so that appropriate students can explore the class notes and see the class examples.
It worked fine until recently. At the beginning of May my students started to complain that they lost their access to the class folder, and there was no clear explanation to this effect. In a few days a letter from dropbox came to me explaining the issue. Here is this letter.
======
Hi Vladimir,

We’ve provided details on our blog about a web vulnerability that affects shared links to documents containing hyperlinks. This issue isn’t exclusive to Dropbox, and we haven’t seen any exploitation of the vulnerability. However, as a precautionary measure, we’ve disabled shared links that were created before May 5 to file types (such as PDF or Word docs) that might contain a hyperlink.

If your files don’t contain sensitive info, or if you’re less concerned about the vulnerability, it’s now possible for you to re-enable all your disabled links. You can do so at dropbox.com/reenable_links.

Please keep in mind that re-enabling these links won’t resolve the vulnerability for them. If you don’t want to re-enable all your links at once, you can create new links by following these instructions.

Over the coming days, our team will continue working to re-enable shared links that aren’t susceptible to the vulnerability.

We take security very seriously, so we appreciate your patience while we make sure your files are safe.

- The Dropbox Team
==========

So all I had to do was re-enable the invitations by clicking a button on the letter. I may assume that Faisal, as an owner of the ML directory, will receive the same letter and re-enable the access for all participants.

As for me, I can see all ML folders on my screen. Nothing is lost.

Yes but the folders themselves are empty. As far as I know we don't have PDFs with hyperlinks. I have corresponded with the person that accidentally deleted the files and we are both trying to restore them

I see all folders and all files in them. Then it is a sort of mystery. To be protected, I am making a copy of all LEC folder to my flash drive ( it is 2 gigs +). Let me know if I can help you.

I'm the guilty party, I'm afraid. I'll try to explain:

I bought a new iMac last week, and set up a new Dropbox account. A few days ago, I saw several hundred jpegs and PDF's in my finder window. My thought was that they were on my hard drive and found that unnecessary since I had access to them on Dropbox. I deleted them from what I thought was my hard drive, but obviously, they were deleted from Dropbox.

Then, I started changing all my different passwords. Safari suggested a password that I used. Then I couldn't log in to LT. For a couple of days, I have been trying to log in, but in vain since I hadn't left an email address when I registered. I have now given up on the task and re-registered with two minuses.

Yesterday, I read about what had happened on this thread, and thought that what I had done was impossible to make undone. Then I remembered that I had bought a separate hard drive to use as Time Machine on my Mac. I opened Time Machine, clicked restore, and it looked like everything was all right with the Dropbox folder. Hopefully it is, since skyschaker can see the files? Perhaps, those of you who can't see the files need to sync the Dropbox folder?

Sorry for all this trouble. I feel like a Volkswagen driver who just bought a Ferrari and took a flight into a tree.

I´m glad though, that I set up the Time Machine option. If some of us use Time Machine ( a 4 TB hard drive was just $200), then the Dropbox folder would be protected.

I copied all LECs folders and files successfully to my flash drive. So no worries if you cannot restore the thing. I can create a shared folder in my dropbox and share it with Faisal so that he would get access to all the LEC Folders one more time.

Don't worry. Be happy. :)

parchment, thanks for explaining what happened, and there is no reason to agonize over what was obviously a mistake. I must be honest and say that I gave up Dropbox a long time ago because I feared I had probably done the very same thing to some files that I thought were only on my hard drive. That is why when anyone today asks for a scan of a Sandglass or ML I have, I prefer to mail it to them rather than take the chance of causing Faisel unnecessary work.

Thanks for all the help everyone. It has been a bit daunting but I'm so happy for the help. I think everything is restored now

No need to worry Karl. It can happen to all of us. We are so happy that you as a time machine backup. It really saved us but teached us a good lesson in backup.

I'm the one who needs to say thanks.

I have tried to figure out how come Time Machine worked if the files that I deleted were in Dropbox. It shouldn't have worked, since Time Machine only saves files on my computer as far as I am aware of.

Could anyone knowledgeable about the Mac try to educate me?

Karl, next time you get another new Mac, unlink your current Mac with Dropbox before moving over to your new Mac.

>148 -parchment-:

Dropbox is by default part of Time Machine's backup, so even though the Dropbox files aren't stored locally in your computer's Dropbox folder, when you do a TM backup the files are synced and available locally in the TM backup.

I've zipped up the entire Dropbox archive and dropped it onto my web server, so there's a permanent archive (at least for the files to this point in time) out in the "cloud". I know we've wanted to keep these letters somewhat private, but I'd be glad to host files if desired on my account.

>151 nicklong:: Clarification - on my website. I was already planning something different as a related project and I've been working on it offline for a while - this could be integrated into that.

I hope that the Dropbox folder is OK. I just resigned and uninstalled my Dropbox application because it totally messed up my new accounting software. I have spent a couple of days with software support because the application crashed all the time, and apparently it was because of syncing with Dropbox. So, goodbye to the Monthly Letters - I wish there were another way to share them.

Thanks for archiving them! I appreciate the help

Karl I will look into Google Drive option for the letters

> 154 Parchment, you can still access and share monthly letters by just logging in to Dropbox in your internet browser. I do not even have a synced Dropbox folder on my computer - I do everything through the browser.

>156 aaronpepperdine:

This is an excellent point! I also only use Dropbox by logging via an internet browser. Periodically I download the whole content of the ML folder to my computer - it is only around 2GB so not a big deal. This way I can do whatever changes I want to my local copy of MLs without worrying that these changes will affect others.

There seems to be some degree of misunderstanding about syncing with Dropbox. If you sync your computer with Dropbox this means that you create an identical ML repository locally on your computer. Every change on either one of the repositories reflects in the other. Rename/add/delete - all changes will be replicated. If you choose to use the syncing option of Dropbox please educate yourself how to use it properly. I am not saying that incidents will not happen, but use syncing only when/if you are comfortable with it.

The sync feature in Google Drive, Box, Amazon and every other cloud storage provider out there is identical to the syncing feature of Dropbox.

>156 aaronpepperdine:,157. Thank you for that information - I didn't have an idea.

Is there an easy way to see when new ML's have been added if you don't have the app?

How do I upload a new ML to dropbox? Just by dragging a new folder into the window?

You can create a new folder, rename it and add / upload the file. it's very easy.

>158 -parchment-:

How do I upload a new ML to dropbox? Just by dragging a new folder into the window?

Yes. Dragging and dropping is one option. Another option is to click on the Upload icon and then choose the file(s) or folder(s) you want to upload. a third option is to click on the icon right next to the Upload icon and create a new folder in Dropbox. Give the folder a name and upload the desired file(s).

Is there an easy way to see when new ML's have been added if you don't have the app?

I am afraid not. But you can download the LEC Monthly Letters folder periodically and ensure you have the most up to date info. This is what I do. Or follow the Monthly Letters thread and see when new MLs and Sandglasses get uploaded.

Hope this helps.

I've added to the Heritage Press section of the Dropbox a searchable pdf of the Sandglass 4F for A Woman's Life, the fourth of the Ten Great French Romances. This is the first edition from September 1942, and carries only the "London, The Nonesuch Press" imprint on the title page. Edy Legrand's illustrations were hand-coloured in New York by Charlize Brakely's industrious band of stencilpersons.
The second, July 1952, edition has both the Nonesuch and Heritage Press imprints; this time the illustrations were coloured via hand-cut rubber plates.
I have both editions (though not, alas, 1952's Sandglass II:17). If anyone is interested in comparing the two colouring methods used, I'd be happy to put up some pictures.
As Django points out in his excellent Guide to the Ten French Romances on Jerry's site, an LEC edition of A Woman’s Life was also issued in 1952, the illustrations being hand-coloured in Walter Fischer's studio "one of the few times when an LEC in essence reissued the same book originally published by the Heritage Press using the same illustrations."

Hello everyone,

I would like to request the Monthly Letter for the LEC Ferdinand and Isabella, if anyone has one. I do have a Sandglass with my Heritage edition if I recall correctly, but oftentimes the info is different. Thanks in advance!

> 163
I think I do, I will check when I get home.

164) Robert is sending me his, but thank you anyway! If I don't get it up on Dropbox before you do, then feel free to tackle it!

Good to hear as I'm about to take a big vacation and don't know when I would get it to Dropbox.

Added to the Heritage Press section of the Dropbox: searchable pdfs of
Sandglass 9G for the 1944 edition of Mademoiselle de Maupin, the seventh of the Ten Great French Romances and the first not to be designed by Francis Meynell (which may explain why I like title-page rather more than I like some of the first six...).
Sandglass 2J for the 1945 edition of Robinson Crusoe.
Sandglass 1MM for the 1948 edition of Robinson Crusoe (the two editions differ in a number of ways; both are attractive, with the 1945 one having a particularly striking bas relief front board).
Sandglass NC428 for the 1963 edition of Utopia.

How do I join the Dropbox folder?

Sorry if there was an obvious answer somewhere but I didn't find it.

Ironjaw (Faisel) is the owner and can grant you access. PM him.

>167 featherwate:

Thank you, Jack--much appreciated! (PS: which edition of Crusoe do you prefer?)

Thank you!

Courtesy of Robert, I've added the ML of Ferdinand and Isabella to Dropbox this morning. :) Thanks!

I'm looking for the Sandglass for the Heritage Press edition of Sense and Sensibility. I see the LEC letter is in the folder but I need more specific info about the HP edition. Many thanks if anyone can help.

I am planning on doing a Books and Vines article on Green Mansions sometime soon, having just read it. Does anyone have the monthly letter for that one? Thanks!

> 174
Yes, I have that one. I am at work at the moment so cannot photograph it, but I will try to remember to do so tonight and send it to you and upload it to Dropbox.

>175 UK_History_Fan:, thanks so much!

UK_History_Fan, I sent a scan to Chris already.

Yep, thanks! I will add to dropbox now.

Being a pain now, but just realized there is one other I could use.... I would like to do a quick article with pics on the 1935 THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM to go with the recent articles on this work, but just realized I do not have the letter with my edition. Does someone have this one that could either send to me (chrisadamson@booksandvines.com) or add to Dropbox? Thanks!

In noticed there is a folder for the LEC Toilers of the Sea, but nothing in it. Did it get accidentally deleted? Does someone have this one that could be added? thanks!

I noticed two HP Sandglass folders for Robinson Crusoe in the Dropbox are empty.
Also would anyone have the Crusoe first edition 1930 Sandglass to scan to the Dropbox?

>181 Jan7Smith:
Jan, I've re-instated the two Sandglasses -no idea why they went AWOL!
The 1930 Crusoe was the LEC edition - George Macy didn't start the Heritage Press until 1935 - and you'll find the Monthly Letter for that in the Dropbox.

That was a fast response and a big help. Thanks!

180 Chris a couple of months ago I was pleased to see the monthly letter in LEC Toilers of the Sea folder. This is so irritating that things disappear. Anyone have this letter?

Just added the 1973 Tales of East and West Sandglass to Dropbox.

I've added Sandglass Kx1 (for a 1946 issue of the The Song of Songs which is Solomon's) to the HP section of the dropbox.
There is more about this wonderful hand-illuminated book in the discussion headed The Song of Songs which is Solomon's.

Courtesy of Django the Sandglass for the 1940 (thus first) printing of HP Gulliver's Travels is in Dropbox.

Courtesy of Django Snadglass 12B for Beowulf uploaded to Dropbox.

If anyone can upload the ML for Vathek I would appreciate it.

vdanchev, I am out tonight until late, but I can scan it tomorrow and send it.

Thanks to Django the ML for the 1944 Vathek is in Dropbox.

Sandglass 5D for the 1940 Wuthering Heights and Sandglass 6G for the 1943 Poems of Edgar Allan Poe are now in the Dropbox, as is the Monthly Letter for the 1969 LEC The Anabasis of Xenophon.

Anyone have the ML for RELIGIO MEDICI? Thanks!

Chris, I'll try to scan it on my lunch break today.

Thanks!

Thanks to Robert, I uploaded RELIGIO MEDICI to drop box.

Does anyone have the ML for Utopia? Thanks!

Chris, I uploaded Utopia to Dropbox. It's not perfect but it is readable. This was my first attempt at using the DocPro iPad app recommended by skyschaker. I'm still getting used it and practicing.

Thank you!

1935 Canterbury Tales Monthly Letter added to dropbox

>199 Geedge:

Much appreciated!

1947 Westward Ho! Monthly Letter and pre-announcement added to Dropbox, also
1942 Jane Eyre Sandglass 11E

1959 Froissart's Chronicles Monthly Letter added

Sandglass VII:24 for The Literary Works of Abraham Lincoln (1959) added.

Added Sandglasses for :-
1947 The Beggar's Opera No 4L
1955 Masque of Comus III:20
1959 Histories of Herodotus (Color pdf scan- I couldn't open the file format that had been uploaded previously) Nos II & III:24
1969 The Satyricon of Petronius II:34
1970 Jude the Obscure No II:35

Sorry just noticed Masque of Comus already added! Have left my scan in as an alternative as it is in color. Will be more careful not to unnecessarily duplicate

>205 Geedge:
Glenn, there's certainly no point in wasting valuable Dropbox space with duplicates, so I've deleted my version - which anyway took up twice the space of yours!

featherwate, I love the way I can print your uploads. Maybe you could give tips on your way of uploading. I can print yours in the exact size and format of the originals.

..

>207 Jan7Smith:
Hopefully you can do so with any pdf upload that makes an actual size scan. The problem is usually with jpeg or other formats which are not page specific as pdf files are. Let me know if you have any problems printing any of the pdfs I upload, all tips gratefully received, as I have a lot of Monthly letters and sandglasses I want to upload, but only if they are going to be usable by people. I am following Featherwate's lead of scanning Sandglasses so they can be printed on both sides of one sheet of paper, and made into a wee booklet the same size as the original.
>206 featherwate: I agree however ordinarily I will not upload if I see there is already one there in pdf format, Comus was a mistake. As long as yours was not twice as good a scan of course!i

The Monthly Letter for the 1932 Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things is now in the Dropbox.

The following 3 Sandglasses have now been uploaded to the Dropbox:-

1960 Les Misérables
1963 The Trial and Death of Socrates
1968 Dialogues on Love and Friendship

Sandglass Number 2B for the (exclusive) HP Penguin Island uploaded to Dropbox. Illustrated by Sylvain Sauvage and not issued as an LEC.

>212 BuzzBuzzard:
Hurray! Thanks!

>213 featherwate: You are welcome!

I am going through some of my books and putting new glassine (so controversial I know). To be presize Canson Tracing Paper. Therefore will be uploading MLs and Sandglasses as needed.

Edit: The ML for the 1960 Eugenie Grandet is in Dropbox.

>209 Geedge: I can print yours as a booklet, but it isn't full size.

.

The ML for the 1959 Marguerite de Valois is in Dropbox.

Great - Thank you

Sharing the ML for the The Confessions of an English Opium Eater is much appreciated.

The Monthly Letter for Joseph Conrad's An Outcast of the Islands (1975) is in the Dropbox. As a surprise it includes the publishers announcement. It wasn't intended to be a surprise but I scanned it in the wrong order. {:o(
Also, Sandglass XII:30 is in the Heritage Press section of the Dropbox. This is for the second, 1966, edition of Oliver Twist. I don't have the Sandglass (6c) for the first edition, which came out in 1939 and was rated by subscribers as one of the least popular books of the season, along with another Dickens, Five Christmas Novels, illustrated by Reginald Firth. I can understand their not liking the latter - Mr Firth was no longer at the top of his game - but O.Twist has Barnett Freedman's wonderful autolithographs. (His work for the LEC is very popular with some print dealers, who remove them from Lavengro...War & Peace...Anna Karenina... and try to sell them on eBay for £100 upwards.)

Anyone have the ML for The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge?? Doing a B&V article on this excellent edition, but do not have the ML. Thanks!

Monthly Letters (with announcements) added to the Dropbox:
1943 Old Creole Days
1944 One World
1944 The Red Badge of Courage

Does anyone have the sandglass for The Essays of Montaigne that could be uploaded?

If someone who is conversant with Dropbox and is willing to upload the Sandglass for Montaigne will PM me with their email address, I will be happy to send this scan.

The Essays of Montaigne sandglass has been added. Thanks to the person that uploaded the file.

The ML for 1941 Carmen is in Dropbox. A rather largish file of 35MB but of excellent scan quality. Thanks Django!

I have uploaded an article by Carol Grossman titled The Two Faces of The Limited Editions Club published in the Biblio magazine March 1999.

File name OnTheLimitedEditionsClub.pdf is in the Dropbox folder Promotional Materials & Letters.

>227 BuzzBuzzard: Useful to have it in the Dropbox! There was some discussion about the article - or articles, since there are two - on the "Book on LEC due out yet this year" thread. I remember Django felt Ms Grossman did not entirely understand George Macy's role in the LEC.
The discussion somehow moved on to movie versions of LEC books. As it sometimes does.

>228 featherwate: Some members might find it useful since it outlines the history of the LEC. I was actually looking for another short article/interview with Sid Shiff for one of his very first books for the club: The Gentleman from Cracow & The Mirror. As it often happens articles that one comes across on his i-device in the middle of the night are not so easily discoverable during the day. Anyhow I remember that Shiff was really excited about this book. Now I enjoyed The Magician of Lublin a lot and I am trying to convince myself that a book (albeit a finely produced one) containing two short stories is worth it...

>229 BuzzBuzzard: "I am trying to convince myself that a book (albeit a finely produced one) containing two short stories is worth it..."

It's worth it for Raphael Soyer's watercolors, but even more for the 30 or so pages of his pencil studies for the watercolors--as long as you like voluptuous nudes in almost every conceivable pose (obviously an artist who really enjoys his work). Singer's stories are icing on the cake.

>229 BuzzBuzzard: This very brief article probably isn't the text you saw on your i-d but it's a pointer to when Sidney Shiff was out and about drumming up interest in the new club: it is from the New York Times of January 12 1979:


(The NYT has an oddly formal search facility: if you search for Sid Shiff you find nothing. It has to be Sidney!)

Edited to add:
There's a bunch of LEC ephemera on Abebooks including several signed letters from Shiff, one of which says:
"I am genuinely gratified by the favorable response of so many members to our latest publication, the tales by Nobel Prizewinner I.B. Singer and the water colors of Raphael Soyer."
Another, referencing the Paz/Balthus Sight and Touch, says:
"The most impressive book since the Kelmscott Chaucer!"
More prosaic is one that begins:
"A tax and gift-giving opportunity . . ."
An abe title search "Ephemera 29 items" will bring the entry up.

>231 featherwate:

A few items in that story raise my hackles, but chiefly the statement "Boise-Cascade held {the Club} for a while after Mr. Macy surrendered it." I would have thought the NYT would have had better research.

>232 Django6924: Sorry to further undermine your faith in the quality East Coast press, Robert, but....
NYT April 12 1982, from long article on the revived fortunes of the LEC:
"The Limited Editions Club is back in business ... Known for its lavish editions of illustrated classics in the 1930's and 40's, when it had a membership of 2,000...."
and
"Macy started the practice of limiting press runs to 2,000 numbered copies..."
and
"Two of the most famous Limited Editions books are a ''Lysistrata'' illustrated and signed by Matisse and a 1935 ''Ulysses'' autographed by James Joyce and by Pablo Picasso, who illustrated it. Each of these two now sells for $2,500 and up."
(Such wicked jokers, those pesky Old World artists, scribbling their names under each other's work!)
and
"After Mr. Macy died in 1954..."

To be fair, the Times did append a correction to this last error, on Tuesday, April 20, 1982, Late City Final Edition:
"An article April 12 on the Limited Editions Club gave an incorrect date for the death of the founder, George Macy. He died May 20, 1956."
The rest is silence.

Can anyone please share the ML for the 1933 Anna Karenina?

MLs for 1933 Anna Karenina and Batouala added to Dropbox.

Added:
Monthly Letter Number 426 for the 1969 Selected Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas,
and
Sandglass Number 246 for the 1976 Norwalk edition of the Short Stories of Oscar Wilde.

Can anyone share MLs for Green Grow the Lilacs and For Whom The Bell Tolls?

Added:
Advance announcement card and Monthly Letter Number 103 for Uncle Tom's Cabin (book number 97 in Bill Majure's Collectors' Guide).

Thanks to Django the ML for 1941 For Whom the Bell Tolls added to Dropbox.

Any idea why the Monthly Letter for Kwaidan was just deleted?

>240 kdweber:
No idea why it disappeared but I've replaced it.

Added:
Monthly Letter Number 172 for the 1944 Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (book number 162 in Bill Majure's Collectors' Guide). The book was issued in August 1944 having first appeared as the Heritage Press selection for May the previous year. Another first for the cadet branch of the Macy enterprise!

Thanks, Jack, for this inclusion. I have all the American Poets series in the Heritage editions, and I have always felt the Longfellow volume to be one of the best illustrated. I have never felt the need to own the LEC version--and still don't. Despite the attraction of a binding in wonderful full leather (crushed sheepskin, Don's favorite), I have always liked the Heritage American Poets series binding of homespun with the sampler-like decoration in patriotic colors, and the letterpress, paper, and art reproduction in the HP series are plenty fine enough for me.

Speaking of leather binding, it was very interesting to see in the letter that the binding might be either black, or copper, or tan--the difficulty in finding dyes in wartime? That would help account for the different color of bindings noticed by another member here. And apparently wartime shortages indicated there wasn't enough available materials to make the normal run of 1500, but that it was expected there wouldn't be copies available for 15 of the subscribers? Very interesting.

Although the ML could be panegyrical in tone about the Club's productions, for this volume there is an interesting tone of diffidence: apparently Macy felt that the Hanna wood engravings were a bit on the "wooden" side (which they are compared to the work of A. Miller Parker or Lynd Ward), and that much of Longfellow's poetry could be "vapid." In my opinion Hanna's illustrations seem quite right for Longfellow's verse, and although Longfellow is one of the 2 most parodied American poets (the other, tellingly, being Whitman), and though his poem "Excelsior!" is included in Wyndham Lewis' and Charles Lee's delightful The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse, those anthologizers comment, that "a man who can produce...'a boy's will is the wind's will,/ and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts'...is a poet absolute...."

Another fascinating bit in this ML is the discussion of how two other mass market publishers are introducing illustrated editions of classics--the Modern Library and Doubleday Doran. I will have more to say on this, but I think it belongs in the thread started by vdanchev with the Doubleday Doran Anna Karenina.

>243 Django6924:
To be honest, Robert, I probably wouldn't have upgraded my HP Longfellow to an LEC but just replaced it with a better HP, had I not come across a cheap but Very Good+ LEC (complete with the Monthly Letter) on eBay.
Macy's problems with getting the Longfellow volume put together certainly reflect the dire state of things at the time. I suppose an LEC completist would feel compelled to track down a copy of every variant binding. Good luck to 'em!
I don't think Hanna ever worked again for Macy, who presumably couldn't see him developing into a more fluent engraver. But that one commission did ensure he would thereafter benefit from being listed in auction-house catalogs as an LEC artist.
At least he found his feet with the Peter Pauper Press, which means I now have another Compleat Angler to collect:

Would make a nice bookplate, that.

You recommended the Richard and Doris Beer//Emerson Poems combination as very successful. It's certainly an attractive volume which I'll look out for. But researching the Beers on the net was a nightmare. It's not a good surname to have if you want to be found, and a surprising number of Dorises are associated with beer. Most of the hits are for a Bavarian conventual, brew-master Sister Doris Engelhard, whose career of 45 years and three and a half million gallons has made her an international celebrity, 'the last of the badass brewing nuns'.
Maybe she and your father would have enjoyed swapping recipes. Growing up surrounded by self-reliant small farmers, my own childhood alcohol of choice was home-made cider, ranging from Chateau Pigskin De-bristler to barrel-aged nectars as lethal as they were exquisite.

That is a beautiful engraving! Lord knows I don't need another Compleat Angler, but.....

Apparently Peter Beilenson did not share Macy's opinion, as he used Hanna again on one of the priciest Peter Pauper books, the limited edition Leaves of Grass.

My father also made cider (although the accepted term for the alcoholic version in the USA is "hard cider"), but I didn't like it as much as I liked his beer. In fact, though I have tried many English, Brittany, and Normandy ciders over the years, I've concluded I prefer my apple juice unfermented--and in fact prefer fresh apples or apple pie to any other use of this wonderful fruit.

Yep, if only Eve had baked the serpent's gift in a pastry case perhaps with a few cloves the aroma would have floated up to heaven and we'd still all be living in paradise. Verily an apple-pie a day could have kept god's wrath at bay.

>246 featherwate: "Verily an apple-pie a day could have kept god's wrath at bay"

Especially topped with a slice of English farmhouse cheddar!

>248 EclecticIndulgence:

That was how my father liked his apple pie. He was born in Oklahoma Territory before the turn of the century, and grew up on a ranch where there was no electricity, so pie a la mode was out of the question. His father was English, so I don't know if that is where the custom originated, but I think raw apples and cheese--especially cheddar--has always been a natural combination, sweet and salty complementing each other, as you say. The trick is finding a sharp-flavored, crumbly cheddar.

The ML for 1939 Sister Carrie added to Dropbox. The announcement card reads that the title is stamped in gold on a linen label when it is actually stamped in gold on leather label.

In an earlier post, it was noted:

"Another fascinating bit in this ML is the discussion of how two other mass market publishers are introducing illustrated editions of classics--the Modern Library and Doubleday Doran. I will have more to say on this, but I think it belongs in the thread started by vdanchev with the Doubleday Doran Anna Karenina"

So, after a bit of struggling with my schedule, please to proceed to that thread!

It would appear that the LEC Fathers and Sons letter has not been uploaded yet. Since I just so happen to have one now, I'll add it in when I get it scanned sometime this week.

>252 WildcatJF: Awesome! Thanks. Great read this is.

Added:
Advance announcement and Monthly Letter Number 278 for the LEC choice for December 1956, Stevenson's The Beach of Falesa (book number 271 in Bill Majure's Collectors' Guide). Illustrated by Millard Sheets.

I plan on scanning the Fathers and Sons letter tomorrow, and I'll stick it into Dropbox sometime then. :)

I'm uploading Fathers and Sons now. Be aware that for some reason my scanner now doesn't like folds or creases, and some of the text is smudgy. :( I'll redo them soon.

Added:
Monthly Letter Number 177 for the LEC choice for January 1945, The Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson (book number 168 in Bill Majure's Collectors' Guide). Illustrated by Richard and Doris Beer.

>257 featherwate: like pale ale, lager or stout?

>258 BuzzBuzzard:
Being a drinker of cider, I'm not well-qualified to place them on the beer scale - more mild than stout or bitter I'd guess!
In fact, they were less the product of a brewery than the brewery itself - to be precise a microbrewery. My dictionary defines this as "a small, independent brewery, usually supplying a single town or area." This neatly sums up their partnership, since they were best-known for their watercolor miniatures of Nantucket, the locality wherein they lived and exhibited.
These pictures were collaborative, Richard being the linesman and Doris the colorist - a very fine colorist:

This isn't from the LEC, which I can't photograph owing to an ongoing camera hiatus. The LEC illustrations may not be among their very best work, but nonetheless they're apt and attractive and very well reproduced by Macy favorite Charlize Brakely.
Edited to add that though I haven't seen all the American Poets series I'm sure Django's right to say the Emerson is the most beautifully illustrated, and in its plain black sheepskin a very satisfactory piece of book-making.

Indeed, the most beautifully illustrated of all the American Poets volumes. The Beers should have been named "Champagne."

A newspaper clipping about two early LEC publications. The comments on The Four Gospels are particularly outrageous. I wonder if anyone has seen the broadside that came with the ML for The Three Musketeers.

>261 BuzzBuzzard:
Curious. The ML for The Three Musketeers doesn't make any mention of the Maastricht 'broadside', and a (quick) search of the descriptions of 3M copies for sale didn't throw up any reference to it either. Without this clipping, completist collectors of LECs might never have known their copies are, well, incomplete.....I'm sure they'll be grateful to you for pointing out the deficiency!
I've just come across another brief article I found quite interesting:-

I mentioned this on another thread but this is the place to ask. Can someone add the sandglass for War and Peace to the dropbox?

>264 Jan7Smith:

I posted in that thread I have scanned it, but I need to email it to someone who can upload it to the Dropbox. I haven't had any luck trying to upload or download items.

>265 Django6924: If you email it to me I will add it to Dropbox.

264: Eventually, I will have my Sandglass for W&P on my site, but that probably won't be until next month at the earliest.

>264 Jan7Smith:
>265 Django6924:
Sandglass 7GRS for War and Peace (1943) now in the Dropbox. Sorry for the delay, Robert, I got locked out of my Yahoo account!

Thanks to both of you.

Does anyone have the ML for the 1937 Beggar's Opera?

Anyone have the 1942 Huck Finn ML? The next article on B&V will be highlighting the 1933 and 1942 editions, but I cannot find the ML for the one!

Anyone have the ML for The Black Swan?

I have a scan of Cape Cod if someone wants to invite me to the Dropbox. Also about 20 others that may or may not be duplicates.

Now that I have the ML for Toilers of the Sea I will upload it to Dropbox. Just need to mention that the ML was previously there and then disappeared.

Toilers of the Sea ML added to Dropbox.

Does anyone have p3 of the Back to Methuselah Monthly Letter? It seems to be missing from Dropbox.

Also, I would be very interested in the ML for The Little Flowers of St Francis.

Many thanks if anyone can help.

Message 276 appeared twice, so I have deleted its repeat here.

>276 EwanB:
Methuselah ML page 3 back in the folder! When I have time I'll re-scan the letter into a single document (and do the same for the leaflet).

>276 EwanB:

The St. Francis ML is in the book The First Fifty Monthly Letters which I can scan tomorrow and upload, unless someone here has the original.

Thanks to both of you. I have been a member of Dropbox for some time, but have only just got round to looking into it. In order to add something useful in return, I have uploaded the ML for The Age of Fable. I hope I have done it correctly: please let me know if I haven't.

>280 EwanB: Beautiful scan.

P3 of Mlle De Maupin and The Ring and the Book also seem to be missing. What is it about these elusive P3s?

>273 kirkeet:

Kirk I will invite you to dropbox if you leave me your email address by sending me a private PM on my LT page

I have the ML for The Little Flowers of St. Francis available for upload, but Dropbox says I can't upload it because I am out of room--would anyone with more available space volunteer to let me email it to you to upload?

The Little Flowers ML is in Dropbox.

Does anyone have The Grapes of Wrath and The Decameron (NY 1940) sandglasses that can be uploaded to the Dropbox?

I have The Grapes of Wrath Sandglass and will scan it tomorrow morning; I just need someone I can email it to who is able to upload to the Dropbox.

>287 Django6924: You can send it to me but I will be able to upload it on Monday.

>288 BuzzBuzzard:

Very well--PM me your email.

The Don Quixote 1950 HP sandglass would be appreciated too.

The sandglass for The Grapes of Wrath is in the Heritage Press folder in Dropbox. I am not sure when it was published and did not put the year in the folder name.

>290 Jan7Smith: I think I have it. Will scan and share later this week.

>291 BuzzBuzzard: >287 Django6924: Thanks so much for the sandglass scan & upload.

I have the Decameron Sandglass on my site: https://georgemacyimagery.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/heritage-press-the-decameron-...

There's also a bonus letter there Macy sent out to subscribers explaining a few changes to the Heritage lineup.

Edit - I also have the 1951 Don Quixote Sandglass here (I think; it may be from a later edition) - https://georgemacyimagery.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/heritage-press-don-quixote-by...

With the DB getting pretty full, I don't want to add these to those archives, but feel free to copy them from my site. :)

>293 WildcatJF: Thanks. I agree the Quixote you have is a different edition.

>294 Jan7Smith: My copy has the same binding as >293 WildcatJF:. Sorry I will not be able to upload the Sandglass today. Which Sandglass number you are looking for?

>295 BuzzBuzzard: The sandglass you and Django6924 provided is satisfactory. Thanks!

Edit; that was The Grapes Of Wrath. I don't have the Don Quixote sandglass. I have the HP version illustrated by Edy Legrand.

In case someone is interested in $1.16 each newsletters:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Around-100-Limited-Edition-Club-LEC-1929-1940-Book-Newsl...

Added: Monthly Letter Number 238 for the LEC choice for February 1953, Frithiof's Saga (book number 232 in Bill Majure's Collectors' Guide). Illustrated by Eric Palmquist.

Does anyone have the ML for the Arabian Nights Entertainment illustrated by Szyk? The folder is in Dropbox but is empty.

Hello everyone. Fiona (HuxleyTheCat) is having a problem with Dropbox.

She has only 2.2GB and the LEC folder is 2.64 GB so she's not allowed to access the LEC folder unless she buys more space. I was wondering if there was anything that could be done to help her out? I know that invites gets more space but anyone know how we could help her out.

>300 ironjaw:

Faisel, this is the problem I've been having with them for the past three years. I have nothing in Dropbox besides the Macy shared folder, but I am likewise out of space.

>300 ironjaw: >301 Django6924:. I don't know too much about the way Dropbox works but I thought it was possible for someone to be given a link so that they didn't need to be a member, in which case it shouldn't make any difference how big the folder is. Perhaps that only relates to individual files though, rather than folders? Another thought - how much work would be involved in splitting the collection into two folders? It must be nearly complete now in terms of an archive of MLs, so how much more space does it need?

>302 HuxleyTheCat:
"someone to be given a link so that they didn't need to be a member"
That rings a bell. In effect, they'd be a read-only participant?

Thanks to Robert, the Main Street ML is now in the Dropbox. I'm glad to see it bears out my thought that the designer deliberately chose a homely binding to reflect the homely setting of the story. Mundanity rules!

>303 featherwate: "I'm glad to see it bears out my thought that the designer deliberately chose a homely binding to reflect the homely setting of the story. Mundanity rules!"

No offense to those who love beautiful bindings, but I think Kittredge chose well. The thought of Sinclair Lewis, in a book that satirizes the conspicuous consumer, being dressed in leather or brocade seems incongruous.

In fairness to those who would prefer to rebind the book, I will say the binding isn't very durable, and my copy, which judging from the interior, has been read perhaps twice, looks rather shabby on the exterior.

I'm seriously thinking of moving from Dropbox to Google Drive. I have been slowly adding the files to my Google Drive for backup and adding the links to my comment page under my LEC books in LT. They are then available in the browser for future access via an iPad and also available in the folder.

What do you all think? It will help with the storage restriction but you'll have to a member of Google. I can't remember how much Google offers but it's much more than the 2GB that you get from Dropbox

I love Dropbox and don't have familiarity with Google Drive. But I obviously support whatever solution provides the most access for GMDs.

>304 Django6924: "The thought of Sinclair Lewis, in a book that satirizes the conspicuous consumer, being dressed in leather or brocade seems incongruous."

Reminded me of exiting that temple of capitalist excess that is the twenty-first century GUM dept. store, looking directly across the 100 metres or so of Red Square to Lenin's mausoleum and thinking 'I somehow doubt he would have approved'.

>305 ironjaw:

Oh, please switch to Google Drive, Faisel! It's a lot easier to navigate than Dropbox (rest easy, >306 UK_History_Fan:!), I find, as it's far more intuitive and less restrictive.

EDIT: I should also note that you can lock documents in Google Drive so people can only have read access. That would remove the whole problem of people who accidentally delete the whole folder (or portions thereof) in what they think is their personal copy of the GMD folder.

In fact, the default is that the creator/uploader is the only person with write access to begin with. You can then choose if I, for instance, have the following privileges:

a. edit access (translation: you've made me a co-moderator)
b. view access (read-only access)

If you only grant me view access, I can see the file, but may not make changes. I can, however, download it and make as many changes as I want to my personal, downloaded copy that will not affect the master version on Drive.

Yeah, I kinda use Drive for everything these days. ;)

>305 ironjaw: Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud - they all work for me.

Sandglass No 3F for Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable (1942) is now in the Dropbox, the Heritage Press section of which is filed within the LEC Monthly Letters folder.

>311 featherwate: How do you feel comparing this one to the one illustrated by Mugnaini? I am very fond of Mugnaini illustrations and the book can be had surprisingly cheap.

Although I like both versions, and though I think Stanley Hayter's often startlingly graphic illustrations in the 1942 HP have real power, I personally think Mugnaini's illustrations for these myths are the gold standard. (Of course I have to have both.)

I'm thinking of featuring this edition in my next HP exclusives post.

>312 BuzzBuzzard:
Impossible to say! The book only arrived today so I am barely acquainted with Hayter's illustrations and haven't yet seen Mugnaini's LEC (although I do know his work from his H G Wells volumes).
All I can say is that the production qualities of the book are typical of those early HP volumes; that is say, excellent - all the more so considering it came out during the war. It has a really solid feel to it, an attractive binding, good paper, text well laid out, and striking double spread endpapers designed by Fritz Kredel. Hayter's etchings look to be interesting, though I don't think the writer of the Sandglass was entirely happy with them. And I'm not sure they would be as effective on the larger pages of an LEC - which could explain why they weren't used.
Bulfinch's book was clearly popular in the USA, and the title was familiar to me, but on a quick look I have no recollection of ever having read the text (perhaps it came out over here in a simplified version for children). If it's interesting enough I might be tempted to consider the LEC as well!
>313 Django6924:
I'm thinking of featuring this edition in my next HP exclusives post
Yes, do! It doesn't deserve to be eclipsed by the later HP reprints of the LEC (one of them came out post-1995, which I don't think was a golden age for the press.) And you have the bulk of your article already to hand in your long opening (but unillustrated) post under "The Age of Fable--Heritage Press times 2" thread a couple of years back!

>309 scholasticus:

Greg! Thanks for the info. I'm loving Google Drive and am using there Google Docs heavily. So easy with access anywhere.

Okay so I've copied the LEC Monthly Letters folder to Google Drive. Need to set it up and invite you all over.

Sean, Ken, Fiona and Greg, I'll send you the invites first and then I will take the rest.

>315 ironjaw: Very many thanks indeed Faisel!

ETA - I've tried several of the files and they all open perfectly for me.

Thanks Faisel

>315 ironjaw: Faisel, thanks again for all your hard work. I'm only seeing the first page of each pdf when trying to view the letters. I get a Google error message acknowledging the problem. Anyone else having success or difficulties?

Thanks Faisel. It works fine!

Ken, do you open each letter and scroll down? When you click on the name it only opens a thumbnail of each pdf's first page, but when you click on that you see the entire document.

>315 ironjaw:

Very glad to have been of assistance, Faisel! I'm glad to have brought you over to the dark side. ;)

Yes, I use Google Docs for everything these days. I only really use a USB for large files. Everything else that needs to be 'e-portable' ends up on Drive for however long I need it.

The way you've set it up is perfect, Faisel. No problems with any of the files, &c. Go ahead and invite the rest of the group at your leisure, I think.

That sounds wonderful everyone. Hope it all works. Just one question, what about adding to the folder. Can you do that with the viewing permission?

Also do remember to unlink the dropbox shared folder and unshare yourself from dropbox

>321 ironjaw: Works for me. View only. Thanks!

Does anyone have the ML for the Black Tulip?

>318 kdweber: Works for me after getting an invite on my gmail address instead of yahoo.

Faisel, sorry but I haven't tried to access the Google Drive yet. I did get your email though. Unfortunately, whenever I think about checking it out, I get distracted by something else! Will let you know soon. Thanks.

>315 ironjaw: Works great.

So what is the process for uploading material to the drive? Email to ironjaw?

That sounds like good idea. Just send it to me. check my profile.

Or for the sake of diversity we could nominate two othes as editors that can also be contacted and have editing rights.

>327 ironjaw:

I'm happy to be one of the North American editors if people would like.

Or why don't we share a separate folder called simply "ML uploads" where everyone is a co-owner (editor). We can all upload whenever we like and Ironjaw, Scholasticus or whoever we nominate checks at his/her leasure and moves material to the actual ML folder. This would eliminate the exchange of emails.

>329 BuzzBuzzard:

That's an excellent idea!

>329 BuzzBuzzard:

Buzz, my dear friend, that's the single most fantastic idea I've heard since Nutella!

>328 scholasticus:

Greg that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made editors by time and fate, but strong in will
To enlighten, to seek, to find, and not to yield

Done. The folder has been created and I've invited all of you again. Please do get back with obsolete / wrong email addresses as I can see from the list that there are some duplicates.

Fantastic! I have uploaded Sandglass Number 1A to that folder.

Well I browsed the original threads here and found some interesting facts about this venture.

The idea was originally conceived by Michael (mboudreau) on 29 August 2010 in this post.

Michael originally suggested Google Documents.

Our Dropbox LEC ML folder was created 11 September 2011, officially announced 12 September 2011 in this post - almost a year later.

We actually have rules: The Dropbox LEC Ring of Trust Rules

And it took only 4 years to finally move over to Google Documents. This we did on 8 August 2015 solely to use Google's 'viewing' permissions and eliminate accidental deletion of the letters as have unfortunately happened earlier in Dropbox. Rights' management is a feature that Dropbox charges for.

Superb teamwork, and as always, a special thanks to Faisel for making all this possible in the first place and being our go-to guy for all this time!

Incidentally, I have been going through some boxes and found some ML I acquired at auction for which I don't have the volumes (yet)--I would be happy to upload these if people post their desires for missing MLs and any of these are among the requests.

You're welcome, Robert. I am quite amazed how much we've succeeded in our collection since 2010. Browsing through the folders and seeing so many letters, I can only applaud all the hard work of everyone here and their continuing commitment.

I scanned 9 of the MLs and tried to upload one of them, but apparently the file size (256MB) was too big for Google-drive to scan for viruses of something so I removed it. I them uploaded a much smaller file (19MB), but the quality doesn't look to good. As this is the first time I've tried to contribute to the project, are there any tips for optimum file size? Also the files that are already up there all look like they are folders whereas mine is a single PDF, is there any preference?

Folks, what's the ritual for joining the cabal of the ML? :-)

>338 kermaier:
Oh that is easy, you merely sacrifice your firstborn. And by that I mean you must deliver up on Faisel's altar your very first LEC. That way you give something you cherish while Faisel builds his collection 😁

>339 UK_History_Fan:

And what do Faisel's minions colleagues who do all the actual work get? ;)

I am looking for the ML of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, 1987, thank you so much.

>339 UK_History_Fan:
Hmm, I think my first LEC was "The Celebrared Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Do I tear out the colophon and use it to light my barbecue? :-)

Fiona that sound a bit weird about the 256mb file size. When I get home I will check google drive folder LEC ML Upload and check online the restrictions if any.

>337 HuxleyTheCat:, >344 ironjaw:

This is what Google (Alphabet?) has to say on the issue:

Image requirements

Images must be less than 2 MB in size and be one of the following file types:

.gif (not animated)
.jpg
.png

(Source: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/97447?hl=en)

However, most images of MLs on Google Drive are over 2MB in size (generally 2.3-2.7MB), so I'm not sure what it is, unless you're using a format other than the three listed above, Fiona? At the very least, a 256MB file size for a scanned image is enormous.

Edited for incorrect attribution.

Er, surely .gifs .jpgs & .pngs aren't the only uploadable formats in the alphabet soup of file types? What about .pdfs et al? Are they subject to the same limits?

Doesn't seem to be the case with file limits regarding PDF's:

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/37603?hl=en

So please try uploading again to the LEC ML Upload folder Fiona

>347 ironjaw: I tried again - uploaded 8 MLs and they are fine in My Drive, but when I try to view them in the shared folder there are errors.

>348 HuxleyTheCat: Fiona, I assume the eight pdf's in the upload directory are yours. I have no problem reading any of them.

The Drive preview option is not working likely because of the file sizes. When downloaded the MLs open just fine. However why are these pdfs around or over 200MB? This is a lot for a four page pdf document. Not to mention that we do not want to run out of Drive space just like we did with Dropbox.

>349 kdweber: >350 BuzzBuzzard: Ok, that's fine then if they are opening ok. The size is the default that my scanner/PDF software gave me, and I left it alone for two reasons, firstly that I did another ML scan on a low quality setting and didn't like the result at all, and secondly, I read back some of the earlier posts in this thread and it seems that of those who expressed a preference, the higher quality scans were the preferred option. I don't know what the size limits in googledrive are, but if there is going to be a problem again then I'd be happy to rescan at a lower resolution at the weekend.

It is not so much about the individual file size limit of the Drive as to the total space of 15GB that we have. I agree that the higher quality scans are of preference but check the ML for 1963 Resurrection. The scan is of very fine quality and the file size is 11MB. I am sure the scanning software you are using is doing something funky.

>352 BuzzBuzzard: OK when I've got some time I'll set up the scanner again and experiment.

>352 BuzzBuzzard:, >353 HuxleyTheCat:

I can confirm that it must be your scanner, Fiona. I just tried scanning a multi-page doc for the fun of it here at home at max resolution. Was able to upload a 29.9 MB (yes, it's an obscenely super-fine and hence ridiculous resolution!) file to my Google Drive without any problems. Has to be your scanner because I can certainly open your uploaded files without any problems on my end here.

>348 HuxleyTheCat: onwards.

I think everything is working now and the files are a far more sensible 3-5MB with ok quality.

The problem may have been that I was operating the scanner through my PDF creation software.

Thanks to everyone for help and advice, and the following have now been uploaded:

1951 William Tell
1953 The Revolt of the Angels
1953 The Three Musketeers
1954 Comus
1954 The Prince
1966 Two Plays for Puritans
1968 American Indian Legends
1969 Marguerite de Valois
1974 Gilgamesh

>355 HuxleyTheCat: The scan look very nice!

>355 HuxleyTheCat: Looks great but could you make searchable pdf's next time? My scanner software (came with my HP Officejet) has an option to save as a pdf or a searchable pdf. The searchable pdf is a slightly larger file but not by a lot.

>357 kdweber: Hopefully third time lucky. I needed a plug-in utility for my Epson scanner, and once I'd installed that, I rescanned and have replaced the files in the ML upload folder, so hopefully everything is now satisfactory.

>358 HuxleyTheCat: Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's perfect now.

Fiona, you're doing some pretty good stuff here ;)

>359 kdweber: >360 ironjaw: I'm very happy to be able to contribute to the project at last. I've gone through all my LECs and LT records to add an ML link to every book in the personal comments field, so I'm pretty sure that I've added as many as I have for which there wasn't an existing record. As I acquire more books hopefully there'll be a few more to add - and at least I know the correct settings for the scanner now :)

>361 HuxleyTheCat:

That's good to hear Fiona! I'm also happy that you've also adopted adding ML link to your comments field.

Monthly Letter and Announcement Card for The Black Tulip are in GD.

The ML for Tom Sawyer added to GD. Also added two newspaper reviews one from 1939 and another one from 1940. Both reviews are well worth a read especially the Kansas City Times review/interview with Benton.

>364 BuzzBuzzard: I found a clipping of the 1939 Kansas City Times review in my recently purchased LEC of Tom Sawyer.

>365 kdweber: Prior to getting my copy of Tom Sawyer I saw another copy with the same newspaper clipping. I think the review is a least as informative as the monthly letter.

Can I slowly start closing down the Dropbox folder?

>367 ironjaw: No objections from me Faisel. Google Docs seems to be working fine.

>367 ironjaw: OK here

>367 ironjaw: I am fine with that too.

Thanks again, Faisel--good to close!

what happened to The battle of Waterloo monthly letter. I got the book today (!) without ML. I could not find it among the copied MLs
Thank you (assuming you see this after a number of years)

Hey everyone, looking at this thread and the topic continued there seems to be something wrong as that starts at 2015

Anyway I’ve bought some storage as Google Drive was filling up to accommodate the files and as it’s the start of the year let’s get the everyone to make a backup of the files.

So can I get some volunteers?