A thing of beauty is a joy forever

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, como dizem os ingleses.

A frase ocorreu-me ao ver na página do Museu Americano de Encadernção (American Bookbinders Museum), de São Francisco, dedicada à colecção de Encadernados para Embelezar, em tradução livre de Bound for Beauty, estas belezuras. Muito séc. XIX, pensei, as encadernações e a frase pareciam adequar-se. Um pouco já do início do século seguinte, também. Fui ver no respectivo descritivo e coincidia. Referiam, como métodos empregados nas decorações, a utilização de selos, tintas e tingimentos, técnicas particulares. Cada um dos livros vem descrito em pormenor, basta clicar na respectiva imagem. A colecção é mais extensa e vale a pena ser admirada; está disponível aqui.

The sentence came to mind the moment I saw these beauties in the page of the American Bookbinders Museum, from San Francisco, dedicated to the collection Bound for Beauty. Very 19th century, I thought, the bounds and the sentence seem to adjust perfectly. And a little from the beginning of the next century also. I checked with the description of the museum to confirmed it too. As decorative methods they mentioned the use of elaborated "and colorful styles , made possible by increasingly sophisticated use of stamps, inks, dyes and techniques." Each book has a detail description, one can access by clicking the image. It is a collection with a very interesting number of items, worth viewing, that can be found here.

Encadernações executadas em têxtil, algodão, com certeza, numa trama que o tornasse mais encorpado, mais durável, onde fora criada uma deliciosa aplicação decorativa, umas vezes ao gosto Arte Nova, ou Art Déco, outras ao gosto particular do encadernador, possivelmente, mas belíssimas.

Bound with a textile material, cotton, surely, a thick one to strengthened it and made it durable, where a delicious decoration was applied, in an Art Nouveau style, or Art Déco, or any other in the taste of the bookbinder, but gorgeous all of them.

No entanto, da fundura da mente algo me acenava.

Something was bugging me. Um pequeno incómodo, relativamente à frase inicial, que precisava de tirar a limpo. De tanto usada, banalizara-se. Mas, o bichinho não me largava: eu já me deparara com ela, e não em obras/citações recentes.

Pois, não. O meu amigo Keats fazia toda a diferença. O seu Endymion (de 1818) começa:

Yet, in the back of the mind, something was waving. Something was bugging me about the first sentence referred that I needed to clarify. From so much use the sentence was banal by now. But what was bugging me was the fact of knowing that I had already came across it, and not in recent works, or quotations. No, of course not. My friend Keats made all the difference. His Endymion (1818) begins:

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Para degustar longamente, poderá lê-lo na totalidade aqui.

Keats debateu-se com problemas financeiros toda a vida, toda a curta vida, aliás. Esta obra, na edição original, tem uma encadernação modestíssima, mas tem hoje um valor extraordinário.

To long savor this treat, you can read it in full in here.

Keats faced economical problems all his life, all his short life, I mean. When this work first appeared it was on a very modest binding, but it has an incredibly high value today.

Embora o vídeo não refira o preço, há uma rara 1ª edição à venda (toda encadernada em pele) com um preço que lembra o comboio do Tua: $ 18.500,00 (dólares americanos).

Uma outra, de inícios do séc. XX (Elston Press), toda ilustrada e decorada a cores e com iluminuras, com uma encadernação de luxo decorada, custa $ 20.280,00 (dólares americanos). Mais um comboio.

Bonita, não é ?

Although prices are not mentioned on the video, there is a 1st. edition, all bound in calf, with a price whose number remembers a very long train: $ 18.500,00 (American Dollars)

Another one, from the beginning of the 20th century (Elston Press), very illustrated in colours and illuminated as well, in a luxury decorated binding, that costs $ 20.280,00 (American Dollars). Another train.

Beautiful, isn't it ?

Uma outra edição deste poema, de 1873, ilustrada também:

Another edition of this poem, from 1873, illustrated as well:

Esta estava apenas por $ 579,00 (dólares Singapura). Trocos !

Os livros têm, como peças de arte que são, preços variáveis. E que oscilam com o gosto e apetências das épocas. A valorização que sofrem pode estar no conteúdo, mas pode cingir-se apenas ao envólucro, isto é, à capa. Quem disse que não se deve escolher um livro pela capa, esqueceu que há capas e capas !

This one is just $ 579,00 (Singapore Dollars). Small coins, indeed !

As pieces of art, book prices may vary. Their price tag changes with the taste and the appeal of time. Their value may be laying in their meaning inside, but it can also lay on their bound, or their cover. Those who say that we can not judge a book by the cover, keep forgetting there are covers, and covers !