La più grande e completa grammatica Italiana-Inglese con la pronunzia figurata data al modo italiano [The Largest and Most Complete Italian-English Grammar with the figurative pronunciation given in the Italian manner]. [n.p.]: [n.p.], 1907.
Title
La più grande e completa grammatica Italiana-Inglese con la pronunzia figurata data al modo italiano [The Largest and Most Complete Italian-English Grammar with the figurative pronunciation given in the Italian manner]. [n.p.]: [n.p.], 1907.
Description
The copyright date of 1905 on the verso of the title page is, of course, indicative only that the book was not published or printed before then. On the spine, however, is the date 1907, and the words preceding the date "ultima edizione" [latest edition]. We know nothing from the physical evidence of the book about the publisher or the author, but there's a lot to talk about in this book nevertheless!
The name G. Russo & Co. appears both at the bottom of the front cover, as you can see in the above photo, and with more detail on the entire rear cover, black stamped on green cloth, which you can see only if you examine the collection's copy.
Let's compare it to other copies and their descriptions. The largest institutional collection that is like mine, that of the University of Minnesota, in the Immigration History Research Center, has what is clearly a later copy (see discussion of Hathi-Trust copy), the "ultima [latest]" edition (1911) of the same work, though bearing the same 1905 copyright date, and also lists in one place that there is no publisher or author, but in another place on its website, it lists improbably a Seattle, Washington business, discussed here.
OCLC shows several copies - with different OCLC numbers - that seem to be like the Minnesota copy, with "A. Bressi" of Seattle, Washington, listed as "publisher". But the picture of what this all means gets muddled, as I will explain.
Indeed, the rear cover of the Hathi-Trust copy, copied from the U. of Minnesota copy - apparently like those of most of the libraries - lists not G. Russo & Co. but the said A. Bressi, a company that advertises itself (on the rear cover) as a "banchiere" (banker) that also arranges trips by ship to and from Italy and the U.S., and to and from South America. So at first blush, that would appear to put to rest any notion that Bressi was the publisher of this later edition (1911) of the same or similar - we're not sure yet - 1907 copy in the collection sponsored (but not published) by G. Russo. But maybe not so fast.
I turned to a usually excellent resource in the collection for this first decade of the 20th century, dated this same 1905, namely the 1905 Italian American Directory: Guida generale per il commercio Italo Americano, q.v. Yet there is no A. Bressi listed there in the entries for 95 Italian owned businesses in the city of Seattle, Washington, in 1905. So Bressi probably came into existence at some time after 1905, between 1905 and 1911, the spine date. Bressi is not listed in either Flamma (1930s) or in Schiavo (1940 edition of his Italian-American Who's Who), but both of those works are East Coast oriented, so the omission of a Seattle business is to be expected.
The digitized copy (in Hathitrust) from the U. of Minnesota shows, as noted above, the 1911 date on the spine, rather than the collection's spine date of 1907. But despite one of that library's references to this work as "published" by Bressi, the text block itself in fact lacks any information about publisher in the usual place (title page) (including A. Bressi), but does, as I note above, on the rear cover as a banker and ticket agent for ships to and from Italy and elsewhere, like G. Russo, who is listed in the 1905 Italian American Directory: Guida generale per il commercio Italo Americano as a banker, at 93 Mulberry Street.
Other evidence? This copy does contain another clue, on p. [8] just before the Parte Prima (p. [9]), namely, an ad for another book that may provide information about the publisher, namely, La chiave dei sogni [The Key to Dreams]. It lists the cost of that work as $1.00. Below a reproduction of the cover in the ad are the words, "Si vende in questa Libreria." Meaning "Sold in this Bookstore."
Happily, the collection contains a copy of La chiave dei sogni, q.v., whose publisher (copyright 1913) is Vincent Ciocia of New York City. That further suggests that Ciocia, and not A. Bressi of Seattle, Washington, could be the publisher of the grammar.
And yet, and yet . . . The ad for La chiave dei sogni in my copy of the grammar, first, lists its cost as $.50, not $1.00 as in the Bressi copies, and like the later (1911, Bressi) copy of this work also has Ciocia's name and address in the lower right corner cut out of the advertisement.
So, though I was at first going to put my money on Ciocia as the publisher of this grammar, Ciocia would of course not cut his name off of the cover the way this ad does.
Something is rotten in the state of Italian American publishing in this era for sure, as Luigi Carnovale declared in his work, Il giornalismo degli emigrati italiani nel Nord America, q.v.
Was the seller of this grammar selling bootlegged copies of Le chiave dei sogni?
What else? The cover notes the book is of 352 pages, divided into four parts (grammatica (subdivided into 30 lessons), a manual of conversation, a dictionary (subdivided into 35 parts), and a "secretary," that is, 120 letters for work, business and model love letters. (I have compared this length and these divisions to other grammars to see if there is a match, but there is not.)
The final piece of evidence I have found suggests that my tentative conclusion that A. Bressi, a banker, could not possibly be the publisher - like the same conclusion I reached about Russo - may well have been too hasty and thus incorrect: in the 1910 edition of N.W. Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual and Directory, a standard reference work, there is a listing for A. Bressi of Seattle as the editor and publisher in 1906 of a weekly Italian newspaper, namely, Tempo! Go figure!
Finally, going back to the collection's copy: On the cover, as noted, there is imprinted on the bottom: G. Russo & Co., 93 Mulberry Street, New York.
Lacking any evidence that Russo had published anything else, I concluded that that company was not the publisher of this 1907 edition. I find support in this in that Giuseppe Russo & Co. (of 93 Mulberry Street, New York City) is listed in the 1905 Italian American Directory as a "banchiere" - a banker - just like A. Bressi.
And that company's name is not only on the front cover, with just its address, not the nature of its business; it is repeated on the rear cover, however, listed as not in the business of publishing, but doing rather what bankers did in the Italian community in that day: it was in the business of "vaglia [money orders], postali e telegrafici," and as agents for passage to and from Italy on all the shipping lines, and also to and from South America, including Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Cuba, Havana, Mexico City "ecc." (etc.). Russo also has U.S. branch offices in Youngstown, Ohio, and Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio.
Yet both from this example and from other research we know that bankers were indeed sometimes publishers or at least booksellers - note that the book ads in both Russo and Bressi copies tell interested readers to get themselves to "this office" to purchase a copy of the book advertised. So these bankers were booksellers even if not publishers.
So how does this all fit together? See my article on the website from The Routledge History of Italian Americans, "Italian American Book Publishing and Bookselling." There I note a contemporary, well-regarded account about the relation between bankers and book publishers or booksellers:
"Nobody can tell just why all the Italian booksellers in New York except the newspaper publishers are bankers, but they are. Not all the Italian bankers are book sellers, but every bookseller is a banker." Eliot Lord, John Trenor and Samuel Barrows, The Italian in America (New York: R. E. Buck, 1905), 246-247.
However, it remains a mystery: could the book be sold by different booksellers on each coast? Sure. But could the "publisher" in 1905-1907 of this work in New York have been one banker (G. Russo) while a "publisher" on the west coast, in Seattle, in 1911 be another banker (Bressi), one that clearly was also a (if not the) publisher (at least of a newspaper, which typically did have their own publishing arm)? If so, why doesn't the 1911 copy of this work note "Editore a cura del giornale Tempo", just as Italia in San Francisco or Chicago, or Il Martello in New York would do?
Stay tuned for further research. And if both Russo and Bressi sometimes, at least, acted as publisher or even as bookseller, why do they themselves advertise their business as that of "banchiere," and not also librai (booksellers) or editore (publishers)?
To me, that is the great mystery that only further research will solve. To start with: is this "latest" edition of 1911 any different from the 1907 edition? Stay tuned.
The name G. Russo & Co. appears both at the bottom of the front cover, as you can see in the above photo, and with more detail on the entire rear cover, black stamped on green cloth, which you can see only if you examine the collection's copy.
Let's compare it to other copies and their descriptions. The largest institutional collection that is like mine, that of the University of Minnesota, in the Immigration History Research Center, has what is clearly a later copy (see discussion of Hathi-Trust copy), the "ultima [latest]" edition (1911) of the same work, though bearing the same 1905 copyright date, and also lists in one place that there is no publisher or author, but in another place on its website, it lists improbably a Seattle, Washington business, discussed here.
OCLC shows several copies - with different OCLC numbers - that seem to be like the Minnesota copy, with "A. Bressi" of Seattle, Washington, listed as "publisher". But the picture of what this all means gets muddled, as I will explain.
Indeed, the rear cover of the Hathi-Trust copy, copied from the U. of Minnesota copy - apparently like those of most of the libraries - lists not G. Russo & Co. but the said A. Bressi, a company that advertises itself (on the rear cover) as a "banchiere" (banker) that also arranges trips by ship to and from Italy and the U.S., and to and from South America. So at first blush, that would appear to put to rest any notion that Bressi was the publisher of this later edition (1911) of the same or similar - we're not sure yet - 1907 copy in the collection sponsored (but not published) by G. Russo. But maybe not so fast.
I turned to a usually excellent resource in the collection for this first decade of the 20th century, dated this same 1905, namely the 1905 Italian American Directory: Guida generale per il commercio Italo Americano, q.v. Yet there is no A. Bressi listed there in the entries for 95 Italian owned businesses in the city of Seattle, Washington, in 1905. So Bressi probably came into existence at some time after 1905, between 1905 and 1911, the spine date. Bressi is not listed in either Flamma (1930s) or in Schiavo (1940 edition of his Italian-American Who's Who), but both of those works are East Coast oriented, so the omission of a Seattle business is to be expected.
The digitized copy (in Hathitrust) from the U. of Minnesota shows, as noted above, the 1911 date on the spine, rather than the collection's spine date of 1907. But despite one of that library's references to this work as "published" by Bressi, the text block itself in fact lacks any information about publisher in the usual place (title page) (including A. Bressi), but does, as I note above, on the rear cover as a banker and ticket agent for ships to and from Italy and elsewhere, like G. Russo, who is listed in the 1905 Italian American Directory: Guida generale per il commercio Italo Americano as a banker, at 93 Mulberry Street.
Other evidence? This copy does contain another clue, on p. [8] just before the Parte Prima (p. [9]), namely, an ad for another book that may provide information about the publisher, namely, La chiave dei sogni [The Key to Dreams]. It lists the cost of that work as $1.00. Below a reproduction of the cover in the ad are the words, "Si vende in questa Libreria." Meaning "Sold in this Bookstore."
Happily, the collection contains a copy of La chiave dei sogni, q.v., whose publisher (copyright 1913) is Vincent Ciocia of New York City. That further suggests that Ciocia, and not A. Bressi of Seattle, Washington, could be the publisher of the grammar.
And yet, and yet . . . The ad for La chiave dei sogni in my copy of the grammar, first, lists its cost as $.50, not $1.00 as in the Bressi copies, and like the later (1911, Bressi) copy of this work also has Ciocia's name and address in the lower right corner cut out of the advertisement.
So, though I was at first going to put my money on Ciocia as the publisher of this grammar, Ciocia would of course not cut his name off of the cover the way this ad does.
Something is rotten in the state of Italian American publishing in this era for sure, as Luigi Carnovale declared in his work, Il giornalismo degli emigrati italiani nel Nord America, q.v.
Was the seller of this grammar selling bootlegged copies of Le chiave dei sogni?
What else? The cover notes the book is of 352 pages, divided into four parts (grammatica (subdivided into 30 lessons), a manual of conversation, a dictionary (subdivided into 35 parts), and a "secretary," that is, 120 letters for work, business and model love letters. (I have compared this length and these divisions to other grammars to see if there is a match, but there is not.)
The final piece of evidence I have found suggests that my tentative conclusion that A. Bressi, a banker, could not possibly be the publisher - like the same conclusion I reached about Russo - may well have been too hasty and thus incorrect: in the 1910 edition of N.W. Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual and Directory, a standard reference work, there is a listing for A. Bressi of Seattle as the editor and publisher in 1906 of a weekly Italian newspaper, namely, Tempo! Go figure!
Finally, going back to the collection's copy: On the cover, as noted, there is imprinted on the bottom: G. Russo & Co., 93 Mulberry Street, New York.
Lacking any evidence that Russo had published anything else, I concluded that that company was not the publisher of this 1907 edition. I find support in this in that Giuseppe Russo & Co. (of 93 Mulberry Street, New York City) is listed in the 1905 Italian American Directory as a "banchiere" - a banker - just like A. Bressi.
And that company's name is not only on the front cover, with just its address, not the nature of its business; it is repeated on the rear cover, however, listed as not in the business of publishing, but doing rather what bankers did in the Italian community in that day: it was in the business of "vaglia [money orders], postali e telegrafici," and as agents for passage to and from Italy on all the shipping lines, and also to and from South America, including Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Cuba, Havana, Mexico City "ecc." (etc.). Russo also has U.S. branch offices in Youngstown, Ohio, and Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio.
Yet both from this example and from other research we know that bankers were indeed sometimes publishers or at least booksellers - note that the book ads in both Russo and Bressi copies tell interested readers to get themselves to "this office" to purchase a copy of the book advertised. So these bankers were booksellers even if not publishers.
So how does this all fit together? See my article on the website from The Routledge History of Italian Americans, "Italian American Book Publishing and Bookselling." There I note a contemporary, well-regarded account about the relation between bankers and book publishers or booksellers:
"Nobody can tell just why all the Italian booksellers in New York except the newspaper publishers are bankers, but they are. Not all the Italian bankers are book sellers, but every bookseller is a banker." Eliot Lord, John Trenor and Samuel Barrows, The Italian in America (New York: R. E. Buck, 1905), 246-247.
However, it remains a mystery: could the book be sold by different booksellers on each coast? Sure. But could the "publisher" in 1905-1907 of this work in New York have been one banker (G. Russo) while a "publisher" on the west coast, in Seattle, in 1911 be another banker (Bressi), one that clearly was also a (if not the) publisher (at least of a newspaper, which typically did have their own publishing arm)? If so, why doesn't the 1911 copy of this work note "Editore a cura del giornale Tempo", just as Italia in San Francisco or Chicago, or Il Martello in New York would do?
Stay tuned for further research. And if both Russo and Bressi sometimes, at least, acted as publisher or even as bookseller, why do they themselves advertise their business as that of "banchiere," and not also librai (booksellers) or editore (publishers)?
To me, that is the great mystery that only further research will solve. To start with: is this "latest" edition of 1911 any different from the 1907 edition? Stay tuned.
Format
20.5x14.5cm; 352 p.
Citation
“La più grande e completa grammatica Italiana-Inglese con la pronunzia figurata data al modo italiano [The Largest and Most Complete Italian-English Grammar with the figurative pronunciation given in the Italian manner]. [n.p.]: [n.p.], 1907.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed April 28, 2024, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/447.
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