Virginibus Puerisque

Book courtesy of Mr. Richard Blacher. Pictures and comments courtesy of Paul Jackson.

Virginibus Puerisque

Julia Ditto Young Presentation copy

This book measures 8" x 5 1/2" and has 77 pages plus colophon. The body of the text is set in Elzevir and was printed on Roycroft handmade watermarked paper.  The book above was bound in vellum or parchment. The monogram for Robert Louis Stevenson and the "Hades" letter on the cover were executed by Julia's husband Joseph Ditto. The binding variants of the regular edition on Roycroft paper include suede, modeled leather, incised leather, a parchment binding and a 3/4 parchment  with paper over boards. Additionally there was an edition of 100 that was bound in 3/4 Levant and printed on Japan Vellum.

Julia Ditto Young was an author who published two of her books at the Roycroft early in its early years. The books she published with the Roycroft were Glynne's Wife in 1896 and The Story of Saville in 1897. Mrs. Young whose maiden name was Julia Evelyn Ditto was born in Buffalo N. Y. in 1857. She became fairly well known for her poetry coming into local prominence in the 1870's. In 1893 she published a book of Poems with publishers Peter Paul & Brother entitled Thistle Down and this added to her prominence. Another non-Roycroft book and the first that she wrote was Adrift: A Story of Niagara published by Lippincott in 1889. In 1901 she published Black Evan a Tale of the Forty-Five in Verse with F. Tennyson Neely, New York and in 1908 she published Barham Beach: A Poem of Regeneration with the Floyd-Genthner Press, Buffalo, NY.

Julia Ditto Young died on the 19th of April in 1915. At that time she was living at 391 Lafayette Ave. in Buffalo N.Y. It appears that during her life she became an early bicycling enthusiast as we know that she inscribed a book with the following missive:
“Alas! Why did I learn to wheel? Now I never have any time to write. I make it my affair to inspect all the cycle paths in Erie County, and have forgotten that I possess a mind!” She dated the inscription 1900.

| Home |   | Unusual Roycroftiana |   | 1903 |