- New this week, and already bustling, The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History. I've added a link to the sidebar.
- I rather love this: the signed copy of the seventh edition of A Christmas Carol sold recently at auction was purchased by the people of the town of Malton, the small Yorkshire town where the woman to whom Dickens inscribed the book lived (and which may have partly inspired the story).
- A complete set of Signer autographs was up for auction at New Hampshire's RR Auction yesterday. I haven't seen a result yet; estimates suggested that the collection might fetch $1.2-1.5 million.
- New from Harvard Law School, a digital exhibition on the life and work of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
- The Daily Mail got an early look at the BL's new newspaper storage facility.
- More on the Roger Williams shorthand, from Slate and (discussing the Slate piece in part) on the JCB blog.
- The Folger Library announced this week that they were the buyer of a beautiful copy of Gerard's Herball, with contemporary hand-coloring and the cipher binding of the Earl of Essex. Also from the cool new acquisitions department, the Houghton Library is now the owner of a fantastic sermon manuscript in print-facsimile.
- A good bit of provenance reporting, from the Cardiff University rare books blog.
- Over at The Collation, Sarah Werner considers the wonderful volvelle.
- From the Clements Library blog, a look at a Revolutionary War-era rebus.
- In the Houghton "You've Got Mail" bag this week, a letter from Delia Bacon to Ralph Waldo Emerson in which she lays out some of her theories about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.
- It's not entirely clear whether this is an actual surprising discovery, or one of those stories, but an early Hans Christian Andersen tale has been identified.
Reviews
- David Von Drehle's Rise to Greatness; review by Harold Holzer in the WaPo.
- Victoria Glendenning's Raffles and the Golden Opportunity; review by Ann Chisholm in The Telegraph.
- Alberto Manguel's All Men are Liars; review by Michael Jauchen in the NYTimes.
- Stan Knight's Historical Types from Gutenberg to Ashendene; review by Alastair Johnson at Booktryst.
- David Schoenbaum's The Violin; review by Tim Page in the WaPo.
- Robin Sloan's Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore; review by Roxane Gay in the NYTimes.
- Joyce Chaplin's Round About the Earth; review by A. Roger Ekirch in the WSJ.
