Behind the Design: How two unusual bookends came to be (and how you can help create the next one)

In this series, I take you behind the scenes at Levenger to see how we created some of our new products. I’ve asked Mim Harrison, the editor of Levenger Press, to give us the back story on two unusual bookends you’ll find only at Levenger.

Then I’m going to ask you to weigh in. I’m looking for ideas for our next set of bookends, which I’ll tell you about at the end of this posting.

                        —Steve

Is reading going to the dogs at Levenger?
 
Perhaps to at least one. Meet Minnie, one of two beloved dachshunds that E. B. White owned. (The other was Fred, and as any dachsie owner will tell you, it was more like the dogs owned E. B. White. I know: I’ve been at the beck and call of our mini dachshund, Frankie, for 12 years.)

A dogged search pays off

We first heard of E. B. White’s affection for dachshunds when we published his Notes on Our Times, our collection of some of his marvelous essays from his New Yorker days. Like the breed itself, we found ourselves engaged in a single-minded, nose-to-the-ground quest to sniff out more of White and Minnie/Fred.

True to form, the author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little did not disappoint. That drawing of Minnie is in fact E. B. White’s handiwork. He sketched it for the family’s Christmas card in 1950. Elsewhere we found a short piece he’d written on Minnie. And in a collection of White’s poems published back in 1928 was a stanza in “Fashions in Dogs” that paid homage to the tiny hound.

As a publisher, we were pleased to have found a way to reprise more of E. B. White’s prose (and poetry). As product designers, we were thrilled to transform a two-dimensional sketch into a three-dimensional object.

We called on the talents of Dean Shipston, the sculptor who’s worked on many of our Featured Creatures, to make the leap from paper to sculpture. Thus did our E. B. White’s Dachshund Bookend come to be.

“Are dogs necessary?”

E. B. White’s dachsie joins the growing Levenger pantheon of famous four-legged creatures, among them James Thurber’s dog.

We found Thurber’s drawing for his lovable canine in—surprise—his book Thurber’s Dogs. The dog had started life as a mere doodle, with legs too long to fit on the page. But Thurber’s drawings were so endearing that they had a way of taking on a life of their own.

And so this doggie, while not quite as demanding as Minnie, did love “serenity and heavy dinners,” according to his master, and hoped both “would go on forever.”

It’s fitting that White and Thurber share virtual shelf space at Levenger. They were contemporaries at The New Yorker and also collaborators. The two concocted a mischievous little book titled Is Sex Necessary? Published in 1929, it was a send-up on…well, check the title. White wrote the even-numbered chapters, Thurber the odd.

We’ll stick to the dogs, thanks. While they won’t fetch your slippers, they will happily uphold your books.

                    —Mim

Now it’s your turn

We’re now working on another literary bookend, and I’d like your help.

If The Great Gatsby were a bookend, what would it be?

Gatsby grabs readers like few other books. Some think it is the Great American Novel, or at least the best candidate so far. Many readers I’ve talked to have read it more than once. One woman told me she reads it every spring. What is the magic that Fitzgerald weaves in his 1925 classic? If it were expressed in a pair of bookends, what would they look like?

We put this question to our good friend and author Les Standiford, who often teaches from Fitzgerald’s classic in his creative-writing classes.

“I’d have some engraved facsimile of the original cover on the upright, and on the horizontal brace, a dock, with a green light at the end,” Les said, and then added: “So much for my design capabilities, eh?”

Do you have an idea? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

                    —Steve

Comments

[Anne Williams]

The cars
or
The old phonograph
or
The letter from Daisy to Gatsby

[caren epps]

A Mia Farrow-esque woman, seated on the ground with her knees to one side in a flowing 1920's chiffon dress, a long rope of pearls, with her flapper hat (tiny curls escaping the "helmet hat"), either with or without the signature cigarette holder and cigarette, staring pensively off into her daydream.....

[Chris]

How about one bookend being the flamboyant Gatsby mansion in West Egg, the other the more stately Buchanan mansion in East Egg?

[David Haigh]

The Gatsby bookends- The roadster, the link and instrument in the final destruction of the whole torrid and twisted lives of the characters?

[Mary S. Parisi]

I would love to see a bookend with the form of a turtle sticking his neck out and the inscription: "Behold the turtle, he doesn't make progress unless he sticks his neck out!" This is not my Gatsby bookend but one I have desired for a long time to give to my 8 grandchildren.

[Vicki Dial]

If it could be done, I'd have the bookends be two Rolls Royces, facing in opposite directions: The one on the left in mint condition, 2 glasses of bubbly champagne on the dash, a string of lustrous pearls hanging haphazardly from the rearview mirror, a gentleman's straw hat flung carelessly on the seat with his rumpled bowtie tucked inside.....on the other end, facing away, or in the opposite direction, I'd have a crashed rolls royce, with a shattered windshield, a flat tire, and a dented fender; remnants of a pearl necklace, broken and barely hanging by a thread from the rearview mirror, with loose beads scattered inside the car; the 2 champagne glasses, little more than slivers of glass now, scattered beneath the seats and twinkling like diamonds where they cascaded over the wheel well and into the street upon impact; the man's hat skewered by the car's antenna; and a book, wrenched open by the force of the crash, lying open and exposed on the seat, pages damaged, dirty, and torn...host to a small pile of ashes.

[dan]

I do not have a suggestion for your Gatsby bookends, but I would like to make a comment about the dog bookends. First of all, I think that they are delightful and very well done. But, while I do not dislike dogs, I prefer cats and I believe that there are as many literary cats to be considered. Ko-ko and Yum-Yum, Sneakie Pie, Alice's Cheshire Cat, Dr. Seuss's hatted cat, and others spring to mind.

[David Reilly]

I would have one bookmark be the top hat of Gatsby and the other bookmark be his car. You could also add a book beside each of the bookmarks like in the dog bookstands.

[Fuji]

Bookends should be of Gatsby and Daisy in an Art Deco style similar to the works of Erte.

[Linda]

I would suggest a dock with, perhaps a boat, the green dock light that so entranced Gatsby. Another book end concept could be Dr. Eckleburg's yellow spectacles (mentioned as a billboard or advertisement in the book).

[Joey and Maggie]

Did the bookend sell out? We don't see it anymore!!

[Steve Leveen]

Dear Joey and Maggie,

Our dachshund bookend was so popular that we've sold all of our holiday shipment. But not to worry--we'll have more this spring, most likely in May. I'll give our Customer Service group your contact information so they can let you know when the little dachsie is back. It's worth the wait, I promise--he's almost as adorable as the real thing (and much more obedient).

Best,
Mim

[Kent]

I'd like to see some Mark Twain bookends...one with Tom's friends whitewashing the fence on one side and Tom and Huck resting against the fence on the other.

[Mark Tully]

I purchased your "reading bear" bookends -they are absolutely great.