The Gist of Whist, and Other Literary Surprises

My Aunt Dana launched me on a new track of research last month. She had been looking through old books on her bookshelf and noticed that a couple of them had G. Oliver Riggs’ signature inside the front cover.  The books, she was surprised to see, were not music-related. One was a Temple Shakespeare 1895 edition of Hamlet, which contained a few pages of handwritten notes.

The lovely title page of the pocket-sized copy of Hamlet

G. Oliver’s signature and his notes on Act III

More notes, and the question: Why did Hamlet offer no resistance in being sent to England?

Other books that had belonged to G. Oliver were an 1895 edition of Homer’s The Iliad, an 1894 edition of The Human Body by Henry Newell Martin, The Knightes Tale by Chaucer and The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser.

Dana also found books that contained the signature of Mrs. G. Oliver Riggs, aka G. Oliver’s wife, Islea. Her personal library included biographies of musicians Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart by Louis Nohl, and a 1925 edition of How to Teach Music to Children by Elizabeth Newman, which had a Schmitt Music stamp on an inside page.

Dana said she had always thought the books had belonged to her parents, and not her grandparents, and she wondered whether my dad also had books that belonged to G. Oliver and Islea. So I asked my dad, and after some digging, he came up with some great finds, too, some that were music-related and some that were not:

Books from the library of G. Oliver and Islea Riggs, my great-grandparents

• The 1872 Peters’ Burrows’ Thorough-Base Primer: Containing Explanations and Examples of the Rudiments of Harmony
• An 1888 edition of the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
• An 1892 edition of Poems by William Cullen Bryant
• An 1895 edition of The Gist of Whist, by Charles Emmet Coffin, with the signature of G.O. Riggs, Joy, Ill. (G. Oliver played whist? Who knew?!)
• An 1898 edition of The Music Dramas of Richard Wagner by Albert Laignac (this book has G. Oliver’s signature from 1914 but also has an Ex Libris book stamp with the signature of Mrs. G. Oliver Riggs, so perhaps they shared it?)
• A 1911 edition of The Standard Operas by George P. Upton, from the Lyon & Healy store in Chicago, which G. Oliver inscribed on Dec. 10, 1913
• A 1911 edition of Songs and Song Writers by Henry T. Finck, which G. Oliver inscribed on April 18, 1914
• A 1911 edition of How to Listen to Music by H.E. Krehbiel
• A 1924 edition of Outlines for Teaching Piano Teachers by Carolyn Bowen, a teacher at the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis. This book has Islea’s signature and St. Cloud address written on an inside page.

Last but not least is my sentimental favorite, The Pianist and the Art of Music by Adolph Carpé. This is also a Lyon & Healy book, and it appears that G. Oliver gave it to Islea Graham in 1892, six years before they were married, when Islea was studying music in Chicago. The words at the top of the left-hand page say: Isla Graham, celebrated Boston pianist, which I imagine is some kind of inside joke, and contains a misspelling of her first name. Underneath that is her correctly spelled name and her address in Chicago, and underneath that in different handwriting it says: Presented by G. Oliver Riggs 1892.

The inside of a book G. Oliver gave to his future wife, Islea

I knew that G. Oliver and Islea began performing together in the Aledo/Joy Illinois area in the early 1890s, but it’s fun to see that he gave her a music book during this time. It appears that she read through at least the first 31 pages because she underlined some of the text, and on page 25, she wrote very true at the end of this paragraph:

The greater the variety of composers and compositions of sterling value that come within the range of the student’s efforts, the more thoroughly each is studied and appreciated in its musical character, the more chance will the pianist have to acquire that subtle intelligence, that broadness of character, and intensity of feeling in musical reproduction, which is the chief charm of piano playing.

This line of research got me thinking about the books I buy and choose to keep year after year – what does this say about who I am and what I value? I have books on my bookshelves that I may never read again but keep for sentimental reasons. I have books that I love and do occasionally reread. I have books that I am using for research, and I have books that I have meant to read, but never seem to get around to starting. Some of the books make perfect sense for anyone who knows me, but others may prove puzzling for my descendants (like the book signed to me from David Broder, the late Washington Post reporter and editor, whom I met the summer after college when I had a Pulliam Fellowship in Indianapolis).

The books on the shelves in my office

What books will I have on my shelves 30 years from now, and what picture of me will they portray? Time will tell. But it is probably safe to assume that my future self will still not have mastered the gist of whist.