In 1929, Samuel R. Ogden, Jr. presented James Branch Cabell with Twenty-two Plates From Cabell's Jurgen, a group of Ogden's own linocut prints inspired by Cabell's book, Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice. The loose leaf folio has front and rear cover cards. The front cover is printed with a silhouette of Jurgen riding the centaur Nessus surrounded by a decorative border.
Ogden inscribed his gift:
To James Branch Cabell
With the knowledge that the prints
do slight justice to the subject, but with
the hope that they may amuse – Samuel R. Ogden
First published in 1919, Cabell's Jurgen was soon labeled obscene by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which seized the printing plates and all copies of the book while the infamous case worked its way through the courts from 1920 to 1922.
Following the dismissal of the indictment against defendants Robert M. McBride & Co. and editor Guy Holt, the public rushed to purchase copies of the previously unavailable Jurgen. The ribald, yet melancholy fantasy inspired a number of adaptations and artistic interpretations. In 1925, American composer and music critic Deems Taylor composed a one movement symphonic poem based on Jurgen for the New York Symphony. Both the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies performed Taylor’s piece in 1928, and the following year, modern dance pioneers Ted Shawn and his wife Ruth St. Denis presented a dance version of Jurgen for which Taylor provided a two-piano arrangement.
Samuel Ogden appears to have included photographs of that Jurgen dance performance with his gift. Beneath the title on Ogden's cover page, "and four photographs of the Jurgen ballet" is written in Cabell's unmistakable lettering. One of those photographs, signed in red by photographer Edwin F. Townsend, may be seen on the James Branch Cabell Literary Life and Legacy website.
The artist responsible for Twenty-two Plates is almost certainly Samuel Robinson Ogden, Jr., who is well-remembered for his impact on Landgrove, VT. Born in Elizabeth, NJ, Ogden became increasingly disillusioned with urban life during the 1920s. Like Cabell, he was politically conservative, yet dissatisfied with the world of his ancestors. Following his father's death in 1927, he felt free to leave New Jersey and by the spring of 1930 he and his wife Mamie completed their move to a new life in Bennington County, VT. According to historian Paul Searls, Ogden
was emblematic of the divided mind of Vermonters in an era of dramatic change. He embodied the paradoxes and conundrums of a state struggling to reconcile the contradictory goals of embracing the modern world while trying to preserve what was best about Vermont tradition. (Searls, Paul. "Samuel R. Ogden, Renaissance Vermonter." Walloomsack Review, vol. 21, Spring 2018, pp. 35-44.)
So far as we know, printmaking was an avocation for Samuel Ogden, a writer and musician who was deeply active in Vermont public life. VCU Libraries holds two sets of Twenty-two Plates from Cabell's Jurgen, which appear to have been privately printed. To date, only two other copies have been located, one held by the University of Virginia, and the other in private hands.
Additional research information
Individual images from Ogden's gift to Cabell are presented here. Individual print titles are taken from the artist's "List of Plates." Blank pages have been excluded, but can be accessed via the PDF of the work.
Descriptive text in italics indicates selections from Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (Robert M. McBride & Co.,1922) that likely inspired Ogden's illustrations.
Physical copies of this work at VCU are available in Special Collections and Archives.
This collection of prints is presented as part of the James Branch Cabell: Literary Life and Legacy project.
Copyright
This material is in the public domain in the United States and thus is free of any copyright restriction. Acknowledgement of Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries as a source is requested.
Credits
This collection was digitized by Katie Condon in 2024. Digital Outreach and Special Projects Librarian Alice W. Campbell provided research on this work and artist Samuel R. Ogden, Jr. She also created text for the landing page and item descriptions. Additional metadata was created by Digital Initiatives Librarian Irina Rogova.
