See you at the Sunshine City antiques show

We look forward every year to the Sunshine City Antiques & Collectibles Show at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg or "St. Petersburg's historic Coliseum," as the publicity material says, and rightly so. The venerable Coliseum is a beautiful place for a show. (We'll be back there again in March for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. More about that later.)

The Coliseum was built in 1924, amid the Roaring Twenties hoopla that was rampant in St. Petersburg and other places in the state. It was a ballroom. Still is, sometimes, with dances being staged there regularly. In fact, there's going to be a New Year's dance there in a few days – but, as they say, that's another story.

In the old days, The Coliseum was a venue for nationally known talent. It drew the likes of big band leaders Harry James and Paul Whiteman. Boyish crooner Rudy Vallee no doubt made the ladies swoon when he performed there. But the flappers are gone and so is the swing and the jazz (except for New Year's Eve and some other special occasions).

And in their place are the collective memories of our culture and of bygone eras. And, of course, the objects. It is the objects – and the spaces – that evoke for us the feelings of times past. So it is most appropriate that a show like this should be staged in a venue like The Coliseum, with its polished dance floor and its elegant arches.

In the slide show above, you'll see some of the kinds of books we'll bring to the show. In keeping with the venue and the theme, we'll have books that may remind you of your childhood, or of your grandma's childhood. We hope you'll stop by and see us.

The poem that gave us Santa Claus

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

-- Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas

Published in 1869.

The poem that gave us Santa Claus as an American tradition was first published anonymously in the Troy (NY) Sentinel in 1823. For generations, the poem was attributed to Clement C. Moore, a wealthy Manhattan biblical scholar.

Then about a decade ago, a literary sleuth from Vassar College advanced the notion that the famous poem was actually written by Henry Livingston Jr., a  gentleman poet from Poughkeepsie. The literary landscape at Christmas time has never been the same since.

Regardless of the author, the poem is probably the single work responsible for giving us the modern notion of Santa Claus, a jolly, rotund fellow with a sleigh full of toys powered by eight tiny reindeer. The poem also is the source of the tradition that Santa Claus lands on the rooftop and slides down the chimney.

To be sure, there were many European traditions from which Santa Claus came, but it was this poem, popularly known as The Night Before Christmas, that solidified in the American consciousness the traditions as we know them today.

The controversy over the authorship of the poem might have remained in literary obscurity forever had it not been for Mary Van Deusen, a descendant of Livingston and an amateur genealogist, who started pursuing the question while seeking information about her father, a Greenwich Village poet whom she had not known.

Van Deusen’s research led her to Don Foster, the Vassar professor, and the two worked together to uncover the facts they contend prove that Livingston probably wrote the poem and that Clement Moore most likely did not.

The New York Times published an extensive story about the controversy and Foster’s book, Author Unknown, in which he makes his case. Van Deusen produced a Web site with remarkable detail about the research and a wonderful collection of antique illustrated editions of America's favorite Christmas poem. Enjoy.

We wish you and yours a very merry Christmas. If you’re in the area between Christmas and New Year’s, drop in to see us. We’ll be keeping regular hours and we’ll look forward to seeing you.

Inflammatory Swedish history angered Danes

Johannes Magnus' history published 1558.

Johannes Magnus, Sweden’s last Catholic archbishop, got caught up in the politics of the Reformation but escaped to Italy, where he found time to write a book about the history of the Scandinavian people.

Some scholars, Danes in particular, don’t think much of Magnus’ history, though. Magnus was decidedly a Swedish nationalist and didn’t treat the Danish people very kindly in his book. In fact, he suggested that Danes were actually descendants of Swedish criminals who were exiled south of Sweden.

His book, Gothorum Sueonumque Historia, ex probatis Anriquorum Monumentis Colleta, & in xxiiij. libros redacta, naturally sparked loud Danish protests, and spate of Danish books refuting Magnus’ conclusions.

Johannes Magnus

Magnus was the son of a political official in Sweden. He was born Johan Mansson in 1488. Magnus is a Latin translation of his name. He became a theologian as did his brother Olaus.

King Gustav I of Sweden appointed him Archbishop of Uppsala, the ranking bishop in Sweden, replacing Archbishop Gustav Trolle, who had fallen in disfavor in Sweden after getting into an argument with the Swedish regent, Sten Sture the Younger.

Just as Magnus was about to leave for Rome to be ordained, word came that Archbishop Trolle was to be reinstated. King Gustav, caught up in the fervor of the Reformation, decided to defy the Pope’s authority and installed Magnus without papal approval.

It wasn’t long, though, before Magnus stirred the pot even more by declaring the Lutheran teachings wrong. The king promptly sent Magnus to Russia as a diplomat, and five years later installed Laurentius Petri as Archbishop of Uppsala. Magnus figured his chances of becoming archbishop again were pretty slim so he went to Rome, where his brother had gone to explain to Pope Clement VII why Archbishop Trolle ought to be removed.

By 1533, after finishing his investigation of Archibishop Trolle, the Pope agreed that Trolle should go and decided to name Magnus to the post. But by then Sweden had broken completely with the Vatican and installing Johannes Magnus was out of the question.

The brothers Johannes and Olaus remained in Italy. Johannes wrote his history of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. He died in 1544 and his brother had the book published 10 years later. A subsequent edition, published in 1558, contains two chapters by Olaus. A copy of that edition is in the rare book collection at Lighthouse Books, ABAA.

Johannes Magnus relied on the work of Jordanes, a sixth century Roman official who wrote a history of the Gothic people, to argue the venerable age of the Swedish nation and the inferiority of the Danish. Naturally the Danes took exception to his conclusions and there ensued a series of rebuttals and counterattacks over many generations.

Johannes’ brother, Olaus, was a talented illustrator and cartographer. He is considered one of the most important geographers of the Renaissance. He produced a massive map of the Scandinavian countries that was published in Venice in 1539. It was considered lost for a long time and was found in the National Library in Munich in 1886.

William Bartram's trials and travels

Published in London, 1792

Everybody has to find their niche in the world and for William Bartram it wasn’t life as a merchant. He was decidedly unsuited for business of any kind. He was a nature lover, and eventually established himself as a botanist. Lucky for us.

The man who gave us one of the best accounts of Florida during the British Period might not ever have gotten to Florida had it not been for his failure as a merchant.

William Bartram

Bartram grew up frolicking in the Botanical Garden his father, John Bartram, established on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia. He was the only one among John’s seven sons to show much interest in botany. As a young teenager he drew birds and trees and plants, showing the promise as a botanical artist that was realized later.

But in 1756, at the age of about 17, he began to learn the mercantile trade at the side of a merchant in Philadelphia. Still, he kept drawing nature. He spent every spare moment pursuing natural history. His father recognized his abilities and eventually some of William’s drawings ended up being published in England and Holland.

After more than four years in Philadelphia, William was undoubtedly most pleased at the opportunity to go to North Carolina under the watchful eye of his uncle, Col. William Bartram. Young William set up a trading post to earn a living but the wilderness beaconed and he spent considerable time studying his natural surroundings. His business failed.

In 1765, William’s father was appointed royal botanist for King George III. The new position required a trip to British Florida and on the way John stopped in North Carolina to see his brother and son. His business now closed, young William was basically unemployed so he became his father’s assistant and went with him to Florida.

Title page from London edition.

What a trip for the young man. William and his father met knowledgable scientists, cartographers and powerful officials, including James Grant, the British governor of Florida. William drew plants and animals every chance he got. The voyage undoubtedly gave him the experience he would need for later accomplishments.

In 1766, when his father’s business was finished and he was ready to depart for Philadelphia, William decided to stay on in Florida and grow indigo and rice on the banks of the St. Johns River. After all, there were numerous plantations up and down the east coast of Florida doing the same thing more or less successfully.

Not William Bartram. His effort lasted less than a year and was more financially disasterous than anything he had previously tried. He returned to Philadelphia, where he tried to earn a living in agriculture and as a merchant, without a lot of success. In the meantime, he joined Benjamin Franklin in an organization of scientists and scholars dedicated to the pursuit of useful knowledge.

Peter Collinson, an avid gardener and botonist, took in interest in young William Bartram and arranged for him to be commissioned to draw mollusks and turtles for wealthy British benefactors, including John Fothergill and Margaret Bentinck, the Duchess of Portland and the richest woman in Britain.

Frontispiece: Mico Chlucco, King of the Seminoles.

It was Fothergill who proposed and financed William’s journey to explore the wilderness areas of North and South Carolina, Georgia and East and West Florida. The trip began in 1773 and took four years, and eventually resulted in a comprehensive account of the flora and fauna as well native tribes and European settlers in the area at the time.

But not immediately. William was commissioned by his benefactor to ship specimens and drawings to London and he did so. In the meantime, relations between the upstart colonies and Britain deteriorated and the Revolutionary War began. William’s last shipment to Fothergill was in 1776. The following year, William concluded his travels and returned to Philadelphia.

Although several of his journals were published separately shortly after the end of his journey, it would be 15 years before William Bartram’s Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida was finally published in 1791. The following year the British edition appeared. Neither garnered particularly raving reviews at the time, though Bartram’s work inspired poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A copy of the British edition is in the collection of rare and unusual books at Lighthouse Books, ABAA.

In later generations, naturalists came to value Bartram’s detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna of the southeastern region of the country. And virtually no one cares that he was a dud as a businessman.