- The Jewish Theological Seminary is selling a Gutenberg Bible fragment from its collections: the complete Book of Esther (in eight leaves) will go on the block at Christie's on 19 June, with an estimate of $500,000-700,000. The JTS will also sell thirteen other early printed texts, in preparation for the temporary closure of the library.
- There is a report in The Guardian today about a major conference scheduled for 26 June at the British Library: The Written Heritage of Mankind in Peril: Theft, Retrieval, Sale, and Restitution of rare books, maps, and manuscripts.
- Sebastian Stockman, writing in the Boston Globe, recaps the Radcliffe Institute's recent "University as Collector" conference. Even better, videos from the conference are now available here.
- Andrea Mays talked to NPR this week about her new book The Millionaire and the Bard, about Folger's Foliomania.
- Over at Echoes from the Vault, a great story about the identification of incunabula leaves used as endpapers.
- More than 100 past Rare Book School lectures (going back to a Graham Pollard talk in 1973) are now available on the RBS website.
- From the Harvard Gazette, "Robert Darnton closes the book." See also the full text of Darnton's remarks at a farewell celebration.
- Nina Schneider writes on the Clark Library's blog about the opportunity staff there are taking to reorganize their fine press collection, as they prepare for a building retrofit.
- From the Essex Centre for Bibliographical History, "Twitter, the book historian's friend."
- The Kaiser Library in Kathmandu was badly damaged in the recent earthquakes.
- From the HRC newsletter, a peek inside the processing of the Gabriel Garcia Márquez archive.
- In an effort to break open the case, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has offered a $100,000 reward for the return of a bronze eagle finial stolen along with major works of art during the 1990 heist (this is in addition to the $5 million reward offered for all of the stolen art).
- A copy of the 1611 "Great She Bible" has been identified in St Mary's Parish Church in Gisburn, Lancashire.
- Historian Joseph Ellis is featured in the NYTimes' "By the Book" column.
- Historian Peter Gay died this week at the age of 91. Read the NYTimes obituary.
Reviews
- The new BBC adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; review by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in the Telegraph.
- Three recent books on the Battle of Waterloo; review by Gerard DeGroot in the WaPo.
- John Hemming's Naturalists in Paradise; review by Mark J. Plotkin in the WaPo.
- Andrea Mays' The Millionaire and the Bard; review by Howard Schneider in the WSJ.
