George Macy and the Brown House Salammbo

I got some birthday money last month and decided to spend it on a copy of Salammbo. I went with the Mandrake press edition because the illustrations seemed salacious and though I hadn't read Salammbo before it felt like at least mildly salacious illustrations were appropriate. The copy I bought was advertised as near fine but when I got it I saw that the binding seemed to be coming loose, there was a strange sort of hole in the middle pages of the book near the binding, and (and this is what pushed me over the edge) the book smelled strongly of beef jerky. Moreover, though the illustrations were indeed salacious, I didn't like them as much in person and I didn't like the way the paper looked or felt as much as I'd hoped I would. So I returned it (with a usurious shipping charge to get it back to Canada but the whole experience was educational and what price education?) and now I'm looking to replace it. I like the look of the LEC version except the illustrations. First, there doesn't seem to be a salacious one among them as near as I can tell from looking around online. In fact, the titular character doesn't even seem to appear in any of them or at least the ones people have posted online. And second, they just...I dunno, they're maybe a little too childlike for the bloody and strange tale.

Anyhow, I've been doing a little more looking and I stumbled across the Brown House version of Salammbo which seems to have illustrations that are interesting (by Alexander King), mildly salacious and the overall design of the book looks nice from the few pictures I've been able to find. Also, some of the listings say that it was designed by George Macy which I thought was interesting. Does anyone own the book? Do you like it? And does anyone know how George Macy was involved? From the dates this was perhaps a few years before the Limited Editions Club.

The Brown House was George Macy's first attempt at a Limited Edition press (his first venture as publisher was Macy-Masius which was not fine press). A prospectus was sent out for the first 3 editions, Salammbo, Tom Jones, and The Brothers Karamazov, all to be illustrated by Alexander King, and all designed by Macy. A letter in Macy's archives also showed he was planning an edition of Baron Munchausen illustrated by John Held.

Salammbo was both a critical and commercial flop: although Macy's design was praised, King's illustrations were apparently universally disliked for being crude and (somewhat) salacious. It was as Salammbo was in the works that the Limited Editions Club had its genesis, and Macy dropped the Brown House venture altogether. Interestingly, Tom Jones, and The Brothers Karamazov with King's illustrations and Munchausen with Held's were early LEC productions.

I don't have the Brown House Salammbo, though I have seen pictures of King's illustrations and don't really care for them. I'm not really a big fan of Bawden's illustrations for the Limited Editions Club version, either. The color overlays I find distracting to the eye and would have preferred monochrome drawings. My favorite edition of the work is the 1931 Golden Cockerel edition illustrated by a master of woodcuts, Robert Gibbings. None of the illustrations could be described as "salacious" or even "titillating" and for me seem ideal for a story that doesn't need additional salaciousness! The printing is nonpareil, on a superb paper, with an unostentatious 3/4 linen binding with patterned paper sides.

For fans of less austere illustrations of this work, Mahlon Blaine illustrated an edition, and judging from the other work of his I've seen, may provide the degree of exoticism you are looking for.

Frankly, this novel is somewhat of a puzzle to me; why I have two editions, one of which was quite pricy, when I don't really like it at all, makes me wonder if I should read it again.

>1 JedediahG:
>2 Django6924:

I think the King illustrations are fantastic, as always. Much closer to the author of Salammbo, The Temptation of St. Anthony and Bouvard and Pechuchet than to the author of Madame Bovary. There is something grotesque to most of Flaubert's work (I consider this a plus).

Yes, I suppose I was following in the footsteps of uncle Fred, the earl of Ickenham who said something about home not being home without a couple of nude Venuses knocking about the place (which is why the Ickenham Hall gardens were full of them). After what I'd read about Salammbo, I imagined that Salammbo was not really Salammbo without a couple of nude Salammbos knocking around the pages. But if the better angels of my nature win out, then that Golden Cockerel Press edition does sound very nice.

Honestly, (though I'm not an expert here) it's a little surprising that the Golden Cockerel Press didn't decide to go with a racier set of illustrations. From the samples I've seen online, it seems like they were always more than happy to take any excuse to venture into the risqué. On the other hand, it's a little surprising that George Macy's Brown House edition did go that way. He seemed to err more on the side of propriety—on the Books and Vines blog entry about the Decameron, it mentions that he declined to have the first edition they published illustrated at all because he was worried that the illustrator might be tempted to get very naughty. Maybe those are oversimplified views of both presses—I'm still fairly new to all this.

I made it about a third of the way through the book before I started to notice the binding issues, but I've really enjoyed it so far. I didn't know much about Carthage going into it (really, nothing at all other than that they were great antagonists to Rome) so a large part of my enjoyment is immersing myself in a culture that seems alien and strange but also recognizing feelings and actions that seem so familiar. Some of the more psychologically penetrating novels seem to examine the human condition from the inside out but something like this seems to examine it from the outside in. And the grotesque definitely does seem to be half the fun of it.

I have a copy of the Brown edition and did a gallery of the illustrations.
For my 2¢, they fit the often silly and over-the-top prose.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/qMk7Uu4zmYJV4prs9

SteveJohnson—thank you so much for sharing those!

I do own a copy of the book and like it very much. As Django posted, Brown House was Macy's short-lived pre-LEC venture. I enjoy King's illustrations - they have a primitive charm and fit Flaubert's text. I also conflate King's outsized personality with his art, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

The LEC brought out Salammbo with illustrations by Edward Bawden in 1960. I prefer the 1930 Brown House effort.

I suppose my indifference to King's illustrations has a lot to do with my lack of enthusiasm for the novel itself. I found it too over-the-top with the violence and licentiousness for my taste, and the illustrations are certainly faithful to this aspect of the book (although one wonders how closely King read the work he was illustrating: the depiction of Matho's arm pinned to the table has him pinioned by a dagger, whereas Narr'Havas threw a javelin "piercing the Libyan's forearm...the shaft stood quivering in the air").

For me, as an historical novel Salammbo falls short of the standard of the very best--for me the best being Mika Waltari's The Egyptian, unjustly neglected today, and high my list of what I would have liked to have seen the Limited Editions Club publish; instead they opted for The Last Days of Pompeii--chacun à son goût.

django6924—wow, I’d never heard of that before but it sounds great. Are there any fine press versions of it?

>9 JedediahG:

No!!!! I can't believe that no fine press has printed it. It was even made into a big-budget Hollywood spectacle in the 1950s that had every chance to be great but was sandbagged by the casting. It's still worth a watch as Waltari's compelling tale comes through.

It was a Book-of-the-Month club selection back in 1949 and was on the NY Times best seller lists for over 2 years. My battered copy is an ex-BOMC copy translated by Naomi Walford--as I later found out translated from a Swedish translation of the original Finnish, and abridged by a third. Even in this bastardized version it is a great read, but I'm hoping some day a properly translated version of the original will come out in a fine press edition.

>10 Django6924: Hear! Hear! So let it be written, so let it be done.

>11 Glacierman:

Thank you, Rameses.

>12 Django6924: :-D