Latest Addition To The Spill Library: A Bound New Yorker Profile
Alerted by a comrade-in-finding-interesting-New Yorker-stuff-on-Ebay (thank you, Steve Stoliar), I’ve ended up with an unusual (and inexpensive) bound volume of three issues of The New Yorker, dated, as you see in the photo, June 12th, 19th, 26th, 1943.
At first glance, seeing it listed on Ebay, I’d no idea what this volume was all about. “Mr. Public Printer” confused me. If I’d only taken a moment to see what was right there in front of me on the cover, I would’ve gotten it (if I’d investigated the issues, I would’ve immediately understood as well). I already have the three issues within the volume, so the desire for the volume itself was for its oddity rather than its contents.
Once it arrived here (yesterday) and I looked through, I found that each of the three issues contains one part of a 3-part series by The New Yorker‘s Geoffrey Hellman on the 13th Public Printer of The United States, Augustus E. Giegengack* (shown above in a US Government photo). Mr. Giegengack signed this volume to Gladys A. Thompson “a loyal associate.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information on Ms. Thompson.
Each of the three parts begins with a drawing of Mr. Giegengack. Below, left to right in order of publication, the artists are: Abe Birnbaum, William Cotton, and William Auerbach-Levy.
…As a footnote, Mr Giegengack also had printed a different version of his three part Profile, with just the pieces themselves bound and not the entire magazine.
*Sorry, but I can’t help but think of Seinfeld’s Todd Gack when I hear the name, Giegengack.