- The ABAA put out a security alert this week about the theft of a shipment of rare books from a West London warehouse.
- Mike Cummings has a piece in YaleNews, "Authenticating the Oldest Book in the Americas," about the recent scholarly work on dating the Grolier Codex.
- Two notebooks from the collections of Philadelphia's Girard College were recently returned; they went missing from Girard sometime between 1964 (when they were microfilmed) and the early 2000s, when their absence was noted.
- The February Rare Book Monthly features Michael Stillman's analysis of 2016 book auction prices, Bruce McKinney writing about a new book on the Eberstadt firm, and more.
- The AAS has acquired a collection of more than fifty manuscript sermons by Massachusetts minister Joseph Avery.
- David Sellers guest-posts on the Oak Knoll blog about printing, design, and bookselling in Havana, with some pictures from his recent trip there.
- Barbara Bair posts for the LC blog about the recently-digitized Whitman papers from the Charles E. Feinberg Collection.
- Peter Dobrin provides an update on the Sendak library matter.
- Provenance images from the collections at Bryn Mawr can now be found in the Provenance Online Project.
- The Concord Free Public Library has acquired a collection of Louisa May Alcott manuscripts.
- Over at Echoes From the Vault, the first post in a series on "book use and marginal contentions" in 18th-century books from the St. Andrews collections.
- Amy McDonald writes for the Devil's Tale blog about the Aldine Press Metadata Project.
- The ABAA has published an "In Memoriam" post for Bernard Rosenthal, with some wonderful stories from his colleagues.
- New: the Needham Calculator, useful for determining the category and size of 15th-century paper.
- Lorraine Berry writes for the Guardian on bibliomania.
- Lisa Fagin Davis has launched an Ege Field Guide, for identifying Otto Ege manuscript leaves "in the wild."
- Derek O'Leary posts on the JHI Blog about "Jared Sparks' American Archives."
- Over on the Course of Human Events blog, a look at the custodians of the engrossed parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence over the years.
Reviews
- Michael Sims' Arthur and Sherlock; reviews by Graham Moore in the NYTimes and Amy Henderson in the WaPo.
- Laurel Thacher Ulrich's A House Full of Females; review by Beverly Gage in the NYTimes.
- Robert McCracken Peck's The Natural History of Edward Lear; review by Adam Kendon in the TLS.
- Raymond Clemens' new edition of the Voynich Manuscript; review by Dustin Illingworth in the LARB.
- Matthew Mason's Apostle of Union; review by Daniel Crofts for Reviews in History.
- The Royal College of Physicians' exhibit on Sir Thomas Browne, "A Cabinet of Rarities;" review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
Upcoming Auctions
- Livres et Manuscrits at Sotheby's Paris, 8 February.
- Rare Books & Manuscripts at PBA Galleries (in Oakland), 12 February.
- Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks at Swann, 14 February.
- Remaining Books from the Library of Franklin Brooke-Hitching at Forum Auctions (online sale), 15 February.
- Books, Maps & Manuscripts at Freeman's, 17 February.
