Curtis, Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar (1850-1933) Friendship Calendar with Signed Inscriptions, Photos, and Drawings, 1907; [and] To Cyrus H

Curtis, Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar (1850-1933) Friendship Calendar with Signed Inscriptions, Photos, and Drawings, 1907; [and] To Cyrus H.K. Curtis in Recognition of his Good Works, 1930. Folio, custom bound book consisting of the dissected pages of a calendar, each page inscribed and signed by business associates, friends and family, some with drawings and photographs, with some famous signers (including Grover Cleveland), bound in full custom crushed dark brown morocco by Stikeman, a.e.g., inner gilt dentelles, dark brown watered silk pastedowns and flyleaves, 14 x 11 1/4 in. [together with] another custom large folio volume, consisting of hundreds of letters in admiration of Curtis's "good works in behalf of our beloved city of Philadelphia," with photographic frontispiece of Curtis, title page, the ensuing content is a series of letters written on the occasion and mounted on album pages, arranged in alphabetical order; the whole bound in full brown morocco, in a large custom leather-covered box, 16 x 12 3/4 in. (2)

Curtis is still listed as the twentieth richest American to have lived. He was publisher of the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home Journal, and a native of Maine. He moved to Philadelphia in 1872, and was an avid yachtsman. Many of the inscriptions, drawings, and collages with photographs in this album reference Curtis's yachting obsession, should be viewed. Curtis's daughter Mary Louise Curtis married Edward William Bok in 1896, and this album includes many entries by Mary with photographs of the two Bok children, including a charming ten-year-old William Curtis Bok (1897-1962), later a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice.