
Earle has copied the decorative initials (larger, elaborately designed letters at the beginning of each section) from “ancient volumes, many of them being appropriately old herbals and books on husbandry.” She even supplies specific references for her typography choices: “A fine example of an heraldic capital is the old black-letter H shown on page 233, from a book printed in Paris in 1514.” In image 8, you can see just how hard these initial letters can be to read–proving that style and substance, though both important, are not always aligned in book design.
Earle, a historian of Colonial American life, dedicated the book to her adult daughter Mary “to commemorate her first summer with her own garden and sundial” after her marriage (image 9). She wrote in her inscription: “May the motto of her dial be that of her life[:] I mark only sunny hours.” For Earle, this book celebrated a connection between generations at a moment full of hope and optimism, like the first roses of the summer coming into bloom.
What Earle’s book lacks, however, is color. “A Book of Sundials,” published in this edition in 1922, fixes that with a color cover (image 10) and eight tipped-in color illustrations. Most of the book focuses on sundial mottos, brief phrases usually in Latin or English, that express some pithy sentiment about time passing. These can be as simple as “Carpe Diem,” as annoying as “I note the time that you waste,” or as hardcore as “Mors de die accelerat” (“Every day brings death nearer.”) These memento mori motifs make a funny textual juxtaposition with the volume’s vivid, bucolic illustrations of sundials in perpetually sunny gardens (image 11).