Books On Books Collection – Ernst Strouhal

Gespräch mit einem Esel [“Conversation with a Donkey”] (2019)

‘The most beautiful things about him were his eyes and the fact that he could speak.”

‘This is how Ernst Strouhal’s new book begins. It recounts a conversation the author had by the stone wall of a Greek olive grove with a donkey—as clever as it is argumentative. They discuss literature, philosophy, pleasure and cruelty, and the relationship between humans and animals. The donkey proves to be an attentive and critical observer of human civilization. You’ve probably never seen a book as lovingly and elaborately designed as this one. ‘Conversation with a Donkey’ revives the ancient tradition of the magical transformation book …” — Publisher’s description.

Cover of the book 'Gespräch mit einem Esel' by Ernst Strouhal, featuring a textured beige background with black text.

Gespräch mit einem Esel: vom Lesen mit dem Daumen [“Conversation with a Donkey: Reading with the Thumb”] (2019)
Ernst Strouhal
Casebound hardcover “blow book”. H260 x W217 mm. [148] + 60 pages. Published by Brandstätter Verlag. Acquired from Momox, 6 September 2026.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Given the contents of Conversation with a Donkey, this entry for the Books On Books Collection is provided by Donkey Bentley, a resident of nearby Island Farm Donkey Sanctuary. Like Professor Strouhal’s Greek friend, Bentley is multilingual and well educated. In fact, he has a Reader’s Card for the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford. (I think he may have overemphasized the donnish and posh nature of his name and character, respectively, to get it.) At any rate, for our mutual convenience, we agreed he could examine the book at the Weston Library in Oxford.

The Bodleian Libraries are not that far from the Sanctuary, or as we prefer to put it, the Sanctuary is not that far from the Bodleian Libraries. The seats could be more accommodating, but the tables and lighting are excellent for nosing into books like Professor Strouhal’s and its ancestors. Hooves can make for awkward reading when it comes to such trickily made books, so it’s good that the staff are helpful. In a pinch, some of the dons and, with a nip, even the students can lend a thumb.

By “trickily made”, I mean it is a “flip book” and a “flick book” or “blow book”. With a flip book, if you let the the pages slip rapidly under thumb or hoof, their images move as in a film. With a flick book, because chunks of the book have imperceptibly different page widths, you can show the images of one chunk by flicking through the book, then change position of thumb or hoof along the edge to another chunk, blow magically on the book (hence the name “blow book”), and as you flick through the book again, the audience will think that you have transformed one set of images into another. These are old tricks, which the Professor explains in his preface. In fact, the explanation comes from my cousin whom the Professor met on the Greek island of Kea. My cousin and I haven’t seen each other in donkey’s years (yes, we have that expression, too), so this book is a delightful surprise in many ways.

I would begin at the beginning, but flick books have two beginnings and two ends. They are a kind of back-to-back (or dos-à-dos) book, which is why the front and back covers are the same but upside down to one another. By sleight of hand, the conjuror turns the book end over end, and the audience thinks the magician has blown in and out even more sets of images with a magic breath .

So to begin at the beginning, it depends on where you start — as with all beginnings, I suppose. In this book’s case (and it is casebound), what takes place in the conversation on one side of the book explains the portraits on the other side when it is turned over. But I am always content to put the cart before me (some mule or horse might then have to pull it), and besides, here on the portrait side of the book we are rightly stabled and magically identified with the greatest donkey painter of all time: Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. The Professor doesn’t admit it, but it is certainly no accident that Goya’s self portrait appears in one chunk of the flick book and disappears to be replaced by his aquatint of my Spanish cousin from Los Caprichos (1799). In fact, it is my Greek cousin who tells the Professor in the conversation side of the book that Goya was the greatest donkey painter. (A good thing he didn’t pull the Viennese don’s hind leg and tell him William Steig or Tom Hester instead.*)

A whimsical art piece featuring a dressed donkey sitting and reading a book, surrounded by a muted background.

I have to say the flip book presentation of Goya’s self portrait as if it is emerging from a burning page makes me heehaw. Having solemnly sworn, as a condition for receiving my Reader’s Card, to light no flame in the Bodleian Libraries, here I sit watching these flames reveal the artist’s sidelong glance under his top hat.

This side of the book shows that the Professor is clearly one of the more intelligent humans on our planet. After learning from my cousin about flip books and flick books, he has persuaded his publisher to combine the two. In one chunk of the flick book, we have the movie of a page burning away to reveal the self portrait. When we slide a hoof or thumb down to the other chunk and flick through the book again, hey presto! we have Goya’s portrait of my handsome Spanish cousin. If it weren’t for the glares from the other readers, I’d heehaw again.

The Professor impressively adds the flip book effect to the chunk of pages showing my Spanish cousin’s portrait. The flip book effect makes it appear that the image-bearing page is turning on the page as we flick through the pages of the book. I don’t think I can describe this well enough in words — even in German, Greek, or Spanish. Better just to show you.

Having dealt with the portraits side of the cart, let me go around to the conversation side. Here is where we find their exchange about Goya, and there are many other wonderful passages on this side of the book. Some, however, make me edgy — for instance, when my Greek cousin educates the Professor about the Lesesel or “reading donkey”, that “narrow, upholstered frame on which one sits astride to write or read at a desk”. As I mentioned, the seats here could be more accommodating, so you can imagine why I look over my shoulder from time to time. You can never tell when a human will do something as humanine as to climb up on your shoulders to read a book.

That reminds me. So taken with the idea of preparing this entry about the Professor’s book, I requested other examples of blow books in the Bodleian as well as the original of Los Caprichos (1799). Let me trot over to the collection desk. Now let’s see. Yes, here it is. No. 42 in Los Caprichos. HEE -HAW. (Sshhhhhh!) Um, sorry.

Spanish proverb: “Tu que no puedes, llévame a sobre los tiempos” (You, who cannot, carry me on your back).

I wish the Professor and his publishing team could have included that image. I would also have enjoyed some images of the aniseed-flavored rusks the Professor mentions just before my cousin brings him up short with that learned definition of the Lesesel piece of furniture. For human readers, a pictured rusk would probably help those unfamiliar with that tasty item variously known as Zwieback, teething biscuits, biscotti, or rusks. Then again, it might have over-egged this madeleine of a book.

I should explain that remark.

There are only two chunks of differently trimmed pages on each side of this flick book. On the portraits side, one chunk for Goya and one chunk for my Spanish cousin. On the conversation side, there is one chunk for odd-numbered pages and one for even-numbered pages. Just as my cousin can tell from the recipe that Proust did not accurately describe the taste of a madeleine, I can tell that granting my wish for a chunk of rusks would have required another chunk on the portraits side of the book and spoiled the effect of exchanging the portraits. Besides, I’d have faced the temptation of sniffing the rusk pages, cupping them with my upper lip, and, like Sir Francis Bacon, scooping them into my mouth with my lower lip.**

I can tell too that the Professor and his publishing team have also combined the flip book and flick book effects on the conversation side just as they did on the portraits side. In the even-numbered-pages chunk, my Greek cousin’s ears and forehead rise as the pages slip under a thumb or hoof at one corner. In the chunk of odd-numbered-pages, they have added images of dog ears in the upper right corner. With a thumb or hoof at the other corner, the dog ears appear to fold and unfold as the pages slip by. It is not only a fine allusion to the conversationalists’ auricular discussion, but it has that self-referral that artists’ books always seem to have to themselves. There’s also self-referencing to the subtitle — Reading with the Thumbs — which, if you think about, refers back to title. After all, the thumbs make the even pages talk with the odd pages (sotto heehaw)! It’s the same self-referencing as in the page-turning impression on the portraits side of the book.

Page 20
Page 30
Page 46
Page 50

Page 21
Page 31
Page 47
Page 51

Nosing around the Bodleian’s blow books, I am all the more impressed with the portraits side of Professor Strouhal’s book. Some of these blow books go back to the 18th and 19th centuries. Each is a version of the conjuror’s trick book that the Professor describes in his preface, and some have as many as ten sets of images.

Ambigu magique (1770) is their oldest one and has eight motifs: blank page, harlequin, le pere, l’abbé, soldiers, flowers, la mere, and playing cards.

The Enchanted Scrap Book (1830) is next oldest, also with eight motifs: blank page, dancing bear, dancing girl, steamboat, mother and children, parrot, Highlander, and dragoon.

The Magic Volume! (1840) follows, also with eight motifs: blank page, face card, armored dog and cat, caricatured couple, number card, lady, flowers, and caricatured man riding a boar.

Next come Professor Anderson’s Magic Picture Gallery (c. 1860) and Le livre magique : tombé de la lune 1500 ans avant la création du monde, et retrouvé en 1860 [“The magic book fallen from the moon 1500 years before the world’s creation and recovered in 1860”] (not before 1860). Apparently Professor Anderson was as much a professional magician as Houdini was later on in that century. The images show a shared interest in séances and escapology. Professor Anderson performed for Victoria and Albert, hence the images of them. Although Houdini’s act reached London in 1900, he missed his chance to perform for the Queen, who died in 1901.

Le Livre Magique caught my eye for its being the first in the collection with ten sets of images (including the blank pages) and for being handcolored. The color change across the same image almost creates a flip book effect but not quite. The clown-dressed monkeys and dancing bear in Le Livre Magique, though, bother me so much that it’s hard to appreciate the color. The same goes for The Enchanted Scrapbook thirty years before. Humans, ah well.

A vintage book cover titled 'The Magician', featuring ornate illustrations of a wizard with a pointed hat and a staff, in red and green colors, against a beige background.

An open book displaying faint illustrations on the pages, one depicting a cloaked figure and the other a floral design, set against a dark background.

Then comes BilderZauberei  (1890). It has eight sets of images (again, including the blanks): a miscellany, silhouettes, caricature of man and woman, alphabet, animals, postage stamps, and mischievous children at play. Harking back to Ambigu Magique, which has some change of images within a chunk, BilderZauberei offers a variation on the motif in every page of each chunk. Why this matters, I don’t know. Unlike several of the other blow books, this one has no tempting edibles like flowers, which is of greater matter to me.

Colorful vintage book cover featuring a wizard with a long beard and pointed hat, surrounded by magical symbols and images, on an orange background.

Open book pages showing a library stamp in the center and a decorative spine ribbon.

A page featuring colorful illustrations of various characters and animals, including a bear, figures in historical attire, a rooster, and amusing scenes of people in playful poses.

Open book pages with a blank appearance and a circular emblem on each page, alongside a decorative white cord.

Open book with silhouettes of figures on each page, framed by ornamental vines. One page labeled 'Depart' and the other 'Retour'.

Of course, these rare books are worn, and their production values show their purpose as conjuring devices for amateur magicians. The more tabs and changes of image, the more amazing to the audience, I suppose. But I see now what a clever donkey the Professor was by keeping the “flickering” to just four chunks, two to each side. Not only does it make the book easier to manipulate, it’s what transforms and equates the artist’s self portrait with my cousin’s portrait when the magic flick occurs! Add in my cousin’s sage observations, his lovely ears, the care in design and production that the Professor and the publishing team have taken, and it cannot be clearer that Conversation with a Donkey is no mere magician’s prop. The ways that the structures and techniques of the flip and flicker books comment on the features of the “book as book” and on the text as well make it more than an illustrated book. It comes quite close to being an artist’s book.

I feel that I have not given full marks to the conversation.

Most human readers will be surprised at my cousin’s erudition. He is mistaken in his facts in only a few and the most trivial of instances. He quite rightly rails against Erich Kästner’s denying us a speaking role in The Animals’ Conference, but he will have to admit that Kästner’s illustrator Walter Trier did make the tiniest of efforts to rectify the omission. No doubt the admission would come with a snort and some aspersions about Kästner’s male chauvinism and Trier’s casual racism, but there is a donkey there, and what else can we expect from humans.

As I brayed, there are many wonderful passages on the conversation side of the book. The Professor’s descriptions of the Greek sunlight and air punctuate the exchange at just the right moments and make me envy my cousin’s surroundings. It is rare that we donkeys find humans like the Professor with whom we can be so unguarded. Once he gets over my cousin’s putting him in his intellectual place, I found the Professor refreshingly willing to listen and surprisingly open, for a human.

Some passages are, however, also dark for both humans and donkeys. For us, the fate of my Greek cousin’s rambunctious friend is hard to read. For you humans, I suppose the degree of darkness depends on your sensibilities. Even the Professor betrays your lack when he passes off chemical castration as humane. What a foolish word that is. At least the Professor admits a discomfort after his remark. In the end, my cousin is right to leave the Professor with two last comments: the one reminding him of Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly, and the other expressing our universal view on the matter — “HHIIAAAZ,” “HHIIAAAZ,” “HHIIAAAZ”.

*William Steig invented the character “Donkey” for his book Shrek! , and Tom Hester illustrated him for the movie.

**Sir Francis Bacon: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested …” from “Of Studies” in The Essays (1625). Bentley’s description of how he would eat a page with a rusk image on it follows precisely Professor Strouhal’s description how his Greek companion consumes the rusks offered to him.

Books On Books Collection – Thomas Stauss

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Magic Metamorphosis (2025)

Three books are arranged on a wooden surface. The book on the left has a plain leather cover, the center book titled 'Magic MetaMorphoSis' features a colorful illustration of a lizard, and the right book is a pink cover with the same title and an intricate black and white image on the bottom.

Magic Metamorphosis : The Secrets of a Rare Italian Picture Album Revealed (2025)
Thomas Stauss
Slipcased two volumes. Slipcase: H375 x W230 x D53 mm. Both vols: H362 x W225 mm. Facsimile: [336] pages. Explanatory vol: 256 pages. Published by LIBRUM Publishers and Editors (Basel, Switzerland). Acquired from Amazon, 2 September 2026.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. See end of entry for credits to photographs in Magic Metamorphosis.

Collectors who can describe their collections and their searches without prompting yawns or worse are almost as rare as unicorn horns. Thomas Stauss knows how to tell a story. With his background in acquiring antique games and magicians’ apparatus, he was well equipped to recognize what the oddly organized portfolio volume presented to him in a Parisian book shop was meant to be — a “blow book”, a trick book that at first appears to be completely blank but then, with a magical breath blown over it, displays a set of themed images that, with another breath blown, changes into yet another set, and then another, and so on. But whoever commissioned these sets of watercolors in the 1600s had not had the finishing touches made before the sets were bound in a single volume. With a familiar and unassuming style, Stauss turns his discovery and its transformation into a page-turning read that is as magical as any blow book.

An open book with an illustrated map on the left page and text on the right page. The map depicts buildings and gardens, including the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, while the text discusses a scientific research project related to a significant find in Paris.

Until now, Ricky Jay’s Magic Magic Book (1994) could be considered the definitive work on this book structure and conjuror’s apparatus that arose in the wake of Gutenberg’s printing press. Thomas Stauss’s study now takes center stage and assumes that leading role. Perhaps his training in hydrology and geology — as well as his collector’s focus — instilled the curiosity and patience to accomplish this. Also he has been studying the history of science for over 25 years and, somewhere along the way, acquired the skills in bibliographical science necessary for this project. Stauss wears his scholarship lightly though. Discovery, fact, explanation, and conjecture proceed with fine balance and an engaging pace.

After the prologue recounting his discovery of Disegni Antichi Bizzarri [“Bizarre antique drawings”] Stauss’s first chapter introduces the history, nomenclature, structure, and working of the blow book. Its various methods of construction are clearly described and shown by diagram and photography, and the production team should be lauded for the quality and positioning of images with the explanatory text. No better description of how a performer worked the audience with a blow book has occurred since the mid-17th-century picaresque novel by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, and Stauss uses it to conclude the chapter.

An open book with a detailed illustration on the left page depicting a historical scene with several people and a man presenting an image, and text on the right page introducing Chapter 1 of the book.

An open book displaying illustrated pages, featuring a figure wearing armor alongside two dark, horned creatures with fiery hair.

An illustrated engraving from the second complete edition of Grimmelhausen's works, depicting a ragged beggar named Springinsfeld playing a musical instrument. He is surrounded by various musical instruments and magical props, including cups, balls, and a triangular magic padlock. — From *Magical Metamorphosis*, p. 29.

The second chapter delves into the history of Disegni Antichi Bizzarri itself and provides details on its collation, pagination, binding, geographical origins, dating, and provenance. The photography of the portfolio volume by Stauss and the Basel University Library is stunning.

Open book page featuring a detailed illustration of fish on the left side and text about Italian picture albums on the right.

An open book displaying an illustration of fantastical creatures amid flames, with a dragon-like figure coiling, a bird-like creature, and a humanoid figure interacting with a large, mythical beast.

In the third chapter, Stauss rewards us with the results of his research into the pictorial motifs not only of Disegni Antichi Bizzarri but also of blow books pre-1670 up to 1870. Stauss provides visually convincing links of influence on the artist of Disegni Antichi Bizzarri from Hans Memling, Conrad Gessner, Ulisse Aldrovandi, Jan Jonston, Jacob de Gheyn II, Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, Giovanna Garzoni, Octavianus Monfort, Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer, Nicolas Robert, Guillaume Toulouze, and the album called Raccolta di disegni di animali (Modena, c. 1650).

An open book displaying Chapter 3 titled 'The Visual Worlds,' featuring a detailed illustration of men in historical attire pointing towards an array of marine and terrestrial creatures above a wooden bookshelf.

A table displaying various categories related to historical works, including headings for women, men, soldiers, birds, jugglers, devils, animals, and more, with various illustrations and notes.

The fourth chapter presents the history of blow books from 1550 through 1870 in greater detail and extensive illustration.

Adding to the definitive nature of Magic Metamorphosis, the fifth chapter delivers the surprise of over two hundred reproductions of the watercolor drawings from the oldest known blow book: Libro dei Diavolo (late 16th century), which resides in the New York Public Library. The images are accompanied by the entirety of Louise George Clubb’s essay that, similarly to Stauss’s rescue of Disegni Antichi Bizzarri, established the true nature of this work that had been misidentified for nearly half a century as a sampler of a commedia dell’arte troupe’s wares and repertoire.

A two-page spread featuring a chapter title about the oldest known blow book, accompanied by an artistic illustration of a mythical creature with horns and smoke rising from its hands on the left page.

A colorful illustration from a book showing five figures in traditional attire, holding hands and dancing in a line on a grassy area.

Stauss’s final chapter brings the blow book into the 21st century and his readers to the brink of enjoying his transformation of his discovered album into a facsimile working blow book. Although graciously giving ace-conjuror Ricky Jay the last word in the chapter, Stauss introduces his readers to the blow book’s possible transformation into an object of higher art.

A black-and-white illustration of a donkey with human features, wearing a coat, sitting at a piano and reading sheet music, alongside text from an epilogue discussing new perspectives on a topic.

A page of a book featuring an orange background with text entries on one side and an illustration of a monkey on the bottom left.

Stauss notes that art historian Nancy Princenthal looked at Jay’s The Magic Magic Book and wrote in 1996 of the blow book from an art historical perspective, but he notes it only in passing. Princenthal was dismissive of any kinship between the blow book and book art:

The magic book has only an incidental kinship to elaborately structured bookworks built around accordion folds and gatefolds, cutouts and pop-up elements, whether historical or contemporary (as in the recent work of Scott McCarney, Clifton Meador, Margot Lovejoy, or Carol Barton). — Princenthal, p. 186.

Stauss underplays his alert observation of two 21st century blow books that are works that Princenthal’s roll-call of book artists would appreciate. The first is Horst Antes’ Flickbuch (2000); the second, Julie Chen’s & Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder’s Book of Hours (2021). Both of these works — as well as Jay’s two-volume set and the other serious contemporary blow book Stauss mentions, Ernst Strouhal’s Gespräch mit einem Esel (2019) — are in the Books On Books Collection. As with all of the other chapters, the photography illustrating these works is superb. They will entice institutional and individual collectors of artists’ books.

A side view of a closed book with a textured brown cover and a white spine featuring alternating striped patterns.

Including the spread of blank pages, there are eight transformations. Their printing order is 1) the spread of blank pages, 2) demons, 3) pike men and musketeers, 4) land animals, 5) birds and insects, 6) sea creatures, 7) fruit and vegetables, and 8) bouquets of flowers. Their order in performance would depend on the performer’s patter like that of Simplicius or Hopalong from the picaresque novel by Grimmelshausen, which Stauss excerpts in chapters two and four of the explanatory volume. Most likely, the performer would flip through the book showing only blank pages; then after blowing on the book, the performer might display spread after spread of bouquets of flowers; or with another magical breath, a variety of sea creatures.

A historical illustration depicting two male soldiers wearing ornate armor and vibrant clothing, each holding a spear. They stand on rocky terrain with greenery in the background.

Two men in historical costumes, each holding a firearm, standing amidst greenery. The man on the left wears a green outfit with a feathered hat and a belt, while the man on the right is dressed in blue and red, with a more relaxed posture.

Collections that specialize in art history and book history will be drawn by both the explanatory and facsimile volumes in this definitive work. Hopefully, book artists will find their way to it for inspiration toward many more magical metamorphoses.

Credits for Photographs in Magic Metamorphosis:

The page numbers given below refer to the pagination in Stauss’s Magic Metamorphosis:

[8]: Turgo map of Paris (1739): akg-images (AKG3090703).

[14]: From Huber, Volker & Antes, Horst. 2003 (p. 8). Fresh Breath on the Blow Book. Humble (Texas).

29: akg-images (AKG 573051)

60: University Library Basel (UBH HA II 2 Folio).

[100]: Houghton Library, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts (MS Typ 530, p. 276)

116: Baden State Library, Karlsruhe (KK 408).

138, 158–159: New York Public Library (Spencer Collection MS. 180).

[216]: Zurich University of the Arts (9900-102).

Photographs from the original album Disegni Antichi Bizzarri: University Library, Basel (Switzerland)

Books On Books

Curated by Robert Bolick

Ernst Strouhal