Thursday, August 02, 2007

Acquisitions News in Brief

Shelf:Life points out a few biblio-news items:

- Through a provision in British law known as the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, the British Library has received "a pair of unique 15th century East Anglian illuminated manuscripts" in place of inheritance tax. "The Kerdeston Hawking Book was made in the 1430s for Sir Thomas Kerdeston of Norfolk and his wife Elizabeth. It was written by an East Anglian scribe using local dialect spellings and includes six texts on hawking, and preserves the only known copy of two of them." Five leaves from the earlier Kerdeston Hunting Book "include two previously unstudied treatises in Middle English and have two half-page miniatures, one depicting St George and the Dragon flanked by portraits of Sir Thomas and his second wife Phillipa."

- The Indian government paid 18,500 pounds for the seven-page handwritten draft of an article written by Gandhi just nineteen days before his death in 1948, according to News Post India. The article argues for the promotion of a "pluralistic culture" in India. This draft had been set to sell at Christie's, but was pulled when the government provided funds for its purchase from a Swiss collector.

- Southeast Missouri State University's Center for Faulkner Studies has acquired a one-page handwritten Faulkner manuscript, the Kansas City Star reports. The 1933 piece, "Sorority," was donated by 86-year old collector Jane Isbell Haynes of Irvine, CA.