Apologies for the rather lengthy post this week: I've been on the road just a bit (New York last weekend for some family time, then to Boston for a couple days, then to New York for Book Expo America (on which there is a good writeup in the NYTimes), and now in Charlottesville to kick off the Rare Book School season) so I've fallen quite behind and had accumulated lots of things to pass along. So here they all are!
- The Law Society of England and Wales is moving ahead with the sale of selected items from the Mendham Collection, which will occur (barring any last-minute action) on 5 June at Sotheby's (see the catalog). This has sparked quite a discussion about the legal, moral, and ethical implications of the Society's decision, including calls for a boycott of the sale. Watch this space for more on this as events progress this week.
- A volunteer at the Buffalo History Museum, Daniel J. Witek, 50, has been charged with the theft of letters and postcards from the Aaron Conger Goodyear collection. Witek, using the alias "Walter Payne," tried to sell the documents to Lion Heart Autographs of New York City, but Lion Heart president David Lowenherz contacted the museum. As a volunteer, BHM officials say, Witek used the name "Daniel Mountbatten-Witek." So far mail fraud is the only charge filed against Witek, but more to come on this one, I'm sure.
- The head of Library and Archives Canada resigned in mid-May over improper use of government funds, and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries has called on the prime minister to consult with the library and archives community about filling the vacancy.
- The Baltimore Sun reported this week on the gradual return of the documents stolen from various archives by Barry Landau and his accomplice. So far only about twenty percent of the recovered materials have been returned.
- Quite an interesting resolution to a longstanding standoff over one of the original copies of the Bill of Rights: the New York Public Library and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have agreed to share custody of the document for the next hundred years, at which time the settlement will be reexamined. The copy may be that which originally was sent to Pennsylvania (this is unclear); it has been at NYPL since 1896.
- Over on the Cardiff University rare books blog, a guide to manicules found in their collections.
- From Sarah Werner at The Collation: an excellent look at oddities in digital surrogates (and other topics).
- There's a good report on the PEN charity auction in the Telegraph; this saw a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone annotated by J.K. Rowling sell for a record £150,000.
- Molly Schwartzburg posted a very interesting account of 18th-19th century cicada emergences as documented in 1824 by "J.S."
- The NYRB looks back on fifty years of book advertisements in its pages. At BEA this week I picked up a copy of the facsimile edition of the first NYRB issue they'd printed up for the anniversary, which makes for a very neat browse.
- Stephen Brumwell has been awarded the 2013 George Washington Book Prize for his forthcoming book George Washington: First Warrior.
- Two men have been sentenced in Denmark for the theft of more than 1,000 World War II documents from the Danish National Archives between 2009 and this year. The pair received jail terms of 24 and 21 months. Some documents were reportedly sold before they could be recovered.
- The great printer/designer Kim Merker died on 28 April; an obituary ran in the New York Times this week.
- From the new Mapping Books blog (link added on the sidebar), Mitch Fraas explores from a wide-angle view some of the things he's found in examining the "unique at Penn" ESTC books, and takes a look at the geographical distribution of the first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
- Vince Golden writes on the AAS blog about the recent acquisition of a volume of the National Magazine, purchased in honor of Marcus McCorison.
- The June AE Monthly is up; it includes an interview with Joel Silver, the new director of the Lilly Library.
- At the Public Domain Review, Christine Jones explores the early English translations of Charles Perrault's fairy tales.
- Heather Cole offered up a post on the anthropodermic binding at Houghton Library.
- John Van Horne, director of the Library Company of Philadelphia, has announced that he will retire in May 2014.
- From Erin Blake, the first in a series of posts about proof prints, covering trial proofs and progress proofs.
- Speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature, Matthew Haley of Bonhams told his audience that the loss of secondhand bookshops is a dangerous trend, but that "book towns" stand a real chance of successfully navigating the current rough waters.
- Jerry Morris at My Sentimental Library has posted some images and thoughts on the possibility that a book in his library may have belonged to John Hancock. We've emailed extensively about this and frankly I'm just not sure, but it makes for quite a good mystery!
- Also retiring is the chief librarian of the D.C. library system, Ginnie Cooper, profiled recently in the Washington Post.
- In a 1895 letter, Rudyard Kipling writes to an unknown correspondent that he may have "helped himself promiscuously" in drawing from other sources when he penned The Jungle Book.
- On the Houghton Library blog, a wonderful example of how collaborative scholarship is making some great things happen these days.
- The Junto folks have launched a podcast.
- From Nathan Raab at Forbes, a (very) brief survey of the history of the written word.
- The oldest known complete Torah scroll has been identified in the library of the University of Bologna; the twelfth-century manuscript had previously been miscataloged as dating from the seventeenth century.
- From the University of Glasgow rare books blog, a look at the use of false title pages in a 1670 octavo edition of Spinoza. And in other Spinoza-news, some good old-fashioned bibliographical detective work has resulted in the identification of Spinoza's printer.
- The Spring 2013 Common-place is out, and as usual is well worth a thorough read.
- Newly updated from the Society of Early Americanists: recent publications of interest to the field.
- I had a chance to read through the summer issue of the Journal of the Early Republic, and recommend it highly. Most of the articles draw on the A New Nation Votes project (AAS and Tufts), which is also a great way to wile away some time, I should note.
- At JCB Books Speak, Kenneth Ward reports on a very exciting new acquisition of a variant edition of Vetancurt's Arte de la lengua Mexicana (1673). There are some lingering mysteries around these two editions, so go check out the post and see if you can help!
- From Goran Proot at The Collation, a look at all ten Folger copies of the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Duplicates? I think not!
- Over on The Appendix blog, a guest post from Ox and Pigeon editor Jason Curran.
- The Antiques Trade Digest reported recently on a few cases of the U.K. National Archives taking action to keep public records from being sold at auction.
- Felicity Henderson has a post on the Royal Society's blog about the group's early collections of curiosities.
- The John Rylands Library's Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care will be digitizing the extensive archival collection of the papers of John Henry Cardinal Newman. They've started a blog to chronicle the project.
- On the OUP blog, Robert McNamee writes on the "marginalization" of Alexander Pope, both as a Catholic and for his physical deformity, and Pat Rogers offers up an essay on Pope's wordplay and writing technique.
- There's a short writeup in the Washington Post by Ron Charles on recent goings-on there, including an exhibit hall renovation and a particularly important copy of Shakespeare's works currently on display.
- From Princeton: the manuscript and annotated galleys of The Great Gatsby have been digitized.
Reviews
- Victor S. Navasky's The Art of Controversy; review by Deborah Solomon in the NYTimes.
- Peter Carlson's Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy; review by Tony Horwitz in the WaPo.
- Allen Guelzo's Gettysburg; review by Thomas Donnelly in the WSJ.
- J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur; review by Elizabeth Hand in the LATimes.
- David Scott's Leviathan; review by Brendan Simms in the Telegraph.
- E.O. Wilson's Letters to a Young Scientist; review by Bill Streever in the NYTimes.
- Philip Gura's Truth's Ragged Edge; review by Michael Gorra in the WSJ.
- Charlie Lovett's The Bookman's Tale; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
- Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed; review by Wendy Smith in the LATimes.
- Joel Harrington's The Faithful Executioner; review by Daniel Stashower in the WaPo.
