The William Augustus Brewer bookplate collection comprises 12,870 printed bookplates dating primarily from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, many of which were from the libraries of famous individuals or produced by significant artists. The collection also contains additional material relating to Brewer's collection, including Mrs. Augusta LaMotte Brewer's address book and printing plates and blocks, as well as reference material relating to bookplates. Series I. contains 12,680 printed bookplates collected by the Rev. William Augustus Brewer, which comprises the bulk of the collection and represents the original gift to the University of Delaware Library. The bookplates date primarily from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries and represent a variety of illustration styles, subjects, and symbols. The collection includes bookplates from the libraries of artists and literary figures, royalty, political and historical figures, book collectors, and many others. Notable figures include English author Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), American author Samuel Clemens (pseudonym Mark Twain), American photographer Alfred Stieglitz, American artist Walt Disney, Irish author William Butler Yeats, and English author Charles Dickens; Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Theodore Roosevelt; as well as King George III of England and Revolutionary War patriot Paul Revere. Many notable designers are also represented in the collection. The designers of the bookplates include Thomas Bewick, Edward Burne-Jones, Kate Greenaway, William Hogarth, Howard Pyle, Rudolf Ruzicka, and James A. M. Whistler. Subjects illustrated in the bookplates are varied, including acrostics, birds, death's heads, medicine, music, rebuses, and science and portraits of historical and literary figures. In 1957, the University of Delaware Library produced an index to the collection. The index, organized alphabetically by artist, notable owners, geographic region, and subjects depicted in the bookplates, can be accessed online in the University of Delaware's institutional repository, UDSpace. Photographs of the Rev. and Mrs. Augusta Brewer are also included in the collection, under plate numbers 12225 and 12226. Series II-V. contain material added to the collection after the acquisition of the original collection of Rev. Brewer's bookplates, including Augusta LaMotte Brewer's address book listing individuals who donated material to the collection; an additional 190 mounted and unmounted bookplates; printing plates and woodblocks; and reference materials pertaining to the collection and study of bookplates. The monographs and journals were removed for cataloging with imprints in Special Collections. An appendix of those removed items appears in Series V. Digital copies of many of the bookplates are available through the University of Delaware Library's Digital Collections website. Note: There is no pl. 117 in this collection. AbstractThe William Augustus Brewer bookplate collection comprises 12,870 printed bookplates dating primarily from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, many of which were from the libraries of famous individuals or produced by significant artists. The collection also contains additional material relating to Brewer's collection, including Mrs. Augusta LaMotte Brewer's address book and printing plates and blocks, as well as reference material relating to bookplates.
Burne-Jones became an elected member of the Royal Academy (RA) in 1885, but he resigned in 1893. Incidentally G. F. Watts was a member of the RA between 1867 to 1896. The RA hold a couple of his woodcuts that he submitted as illustrations to the magazine ‘The Good Word’. One of the woodcuts, The Summer Snow 1863 features a melancholy young woman leaning against a wall. The way that Burne-Jones drapes and folds the fabric of her dress reminds me of how Evelyn De Morgan also expertly tackles hers, which is not surprising when they were probably influenced by the same artists. A year after Burne-Jones resigned from the RA he was offered the baronetcy of Rottingdean and the Grange in the parish of Fulham by Gladstone, for his work in the arts. Burne-Jones knew a lot about heraldry, using his knowledge in his cartoons and tapestry designs. It was at this point that he received Royal Licence to be called Burne-Jones, his full name thereafter was Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Some say he was uncomfortable accepting the Baronet, but as his son was keen to inherit, he accepted the honour. I wonder if that is why he chose the strip, along the middle of his Coat of Arms (below), to go from left to right, which is rarely used as it mean illegitimate. He also chose Wings and Stars, in heraldry stars symbolise honour, achievement and hope and wings are an emblem of protection. For the background to the stars he chose Azure, which signifies loyalty, chastity, truth, strength, and faith, while the wings are in purple which signifies temperance, regal, justice, royal majesty, and sovereignty. The wings are situated on the band which is coloured silver meaning truth, sincerity, peace, innocence, and purity. He even created a crest, which bore his purple wings in front of flames and his motto was ‘Sequar et attingam’, meaning ‘I will follow and attain’.