Links & Auctions

- Don't forget the (virtual) Boston Book Fair, 18–20 November.

- Over at TEXT!, Adam Smyth on "Thinking."

- Ward Library at Peterhouse, Cambridge hosts "Thomas Gray: An Anniversary Exhibition through 13 December." There is also an online version.

- From the BL Medieval Manuscripts blog, "The Floreffe Bible on exhibition."

- Kurt Zimmerman has posted a memorial to Bill Barlow, who died on 21 October. See also Terry Belanger's tribute, which is on the RBS site.

- The 42nd Annual Conference on Book Trade History, "The Humours of Book Collecting," will be held 26–27 November.

- The new issue of Parenthesis contained interviews with the first four winners of the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize.

- Coming up on 18 November, the University of Kentucky's King Library Press hosts, "Print/Reprint: A Roundtable Discussion of Print Technologies as Material Evidence." Free on Zoom, but registration is required.

- Pardon the logrolling, but I am quite excited to report that Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections has acquired an 1859 third octavo edition of Audubon's Birds of America.

Upcoming Auctions

- The Henry Fitz Jr. Archive of Photographic History and American Historical Ephemera & Photography at Hindman on 15 November.

- The Lewis Gilbert Film Script and Production Archive at Bellmans on 16 November.

- Travel, Photographs, Maps, and Natural History at Sotheby's London ends on 17 November.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 18 November.

- Rare Books with Science, Medicine & Natural History at PBA Galleries on 18 November.

- The Constitution of the United States at Sotheby's New York on 18 November.

- The World of Hergé at Artcurial on 20 November.

Links & Auctions

- The Virtual Ephemera Fair runs through 8 p.m. EDT today (15 August). Coming up next on 1–2 September is the New York City Virtual Book and Ephemera Fair.

- The planned in-person New York fair for September has been cancelled, with a new planned date of April 2022.

- I missed this Atlas Obscura piece last November, looks like: Jeffrey Arlo Brown on "How German Librarians Finally Caught an Elusive Book Thief."

- Over at Penn Today, a look at the Penn Libraries' participation in a multi-institution project to digitize materials documenting early medical education.

- A very happy tenth birthday to The Collation, the excellent Folger blog. They've got a neat "by the numbers" post to celebrate. And also from them this week "Book History, Manuscript Studies, and Navigating Special Collections During COVID-19."

- On the University of Glasgow archives and special collections blog, "The Foulis Brothers Book Receipts Project: how much can an invoice tell us?"

- The St Andrews special collections blog continues their series on the recent USTC conference on gender and the book trades.

- From the Columbia University rare books blog, "Two ancient papyrus fragments and their very modern reunion." 

- Madison Rootenberg Schwartz is in the "Bright Young Booksellers" spotlight this week.

- The NYPL has acquired a collection of Russian zines.

- Newly published by Quaritch, Arthur Freeman's Historical Forgery in Romanophobe Britain: Robert Ware's Irish Fictions Revisited.

- CNBC will be airing an episode of "Super Heists" this week focusing on the 2004 Transylvania University Library thefts.

Upcoming Auctions

- LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History at Swann Galleries on 19 August.

- Apple and Steve Jobs at RR Auction on 19 August.

- Americana – Travel & Exploration – Space – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 19 August.

- American Historical Ephemera & Photography at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers on 20 August.

Links & Auctions

- May's Rare Book Monthly articles include Bruce McKinney's note on plans for an ABAA book fair in New York in September, Michael Stillman on rare books and NFTs.

- The London Library has posted some recent research into their mid-nineteenth-century charging records, revealing some titles borrowed by Charles Darwin.

- The Middle Temple Library has a new provenance mystery for us this month.

- Two pieces about the UCT fire: Shamil Jeppie's "Fire and the Sword" and Janine Dunlop's "'Hopefully, it's all been digitised ...'"

- On the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog, "Macy's Sells Birds of America."

- From Byrony Pillath on the NLS blog, "Bookplates in the National Library: Who owned books in 18th and 19th century Scotland?"

- Also on the NLS blog, "Henry Mackenzie and The Man of Feeling."

- On the Oak Knoll blog, a Q&A with Reid Byers about his new book The Private Library.

- From Keith Houston, a deep dive into the $*&#)$ grawlix.

- The trading app rally is going to try and sell 80,000 "shares" of a 1776 broadside Declaration of Independence for $25 each.

Reviews

- The Women's Print History Project; review by Leah Orr in SHARP News.

- Susan Stewart's The Ruins Lesson and Jessica Maier's The Eternal City; review by Anthony Grafton in the LRB.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 6 May. 

- From the Curious to the Extraordinary at Chiswick Auctions on 6 May.

- K2 Judaica Sale: Rare Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Graphic & Ceremonial Arts at Kestenbaum & Company on 6 May.

Links & Auctions

- The California Virtual Book Fair is coming up on 4–6 March. See also their lineup of special programs for this year's fair.

- Not to be missed the online version of Mīharo Wonder: 100 Years of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

- From Mike Widener, "Printers' devices from law books," highlighting devices found in the Yale Law Library's rare book collections (more than 330 examples now up in their Flickr).

- From Adam Smyth, "Pronting Errors."

- The HRC's rescheduled Pforzheimer Lecture by Sarah Neville will now be held on 11 March.

- Over on the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Illuminated Canon Tables."

- Eve Kahn writes for the Grolier Club blog, "A Bibliophile Went Shopping, Or Maybe Not."

- From the Princeton Graphics Arts Collection blog, an "Index to Princeton's Audubon Birds."

- More from Peter Kidd this week on the dispersal of the collection of Rodolphe Kahn.

- From the Middle Temple Library's provenance mysteries series, a manuscript translation of Senault's De L'Usage des Passions by Henry Carey, Earl of Monmouth, with a list of Italian books appended.

- At Early Modern Female Book Ownership, a 1692 missal in French, with English Catholic provenance.

- The Minute Book of the United Sons of Salem Benevolent Society at the Clements Library has been transcribed!

- Brooke Palmieri will give the Charles W. Mann Lecture in the Book Arts at Penn State on 25 March. Sign up here.

- And coming up on 3 March at the Morgan, "The Women Who Made the Morgan."

- Congratulations to Jessica Camille Jordan, winner of the 2021 California Young Book Collector's Prize.

Review

- Jonathan Senchyne's The Intimacy of Paper in Early and Nineteenth-Century American Literature; review by Tim Sommer for SHARP News.

Upcoming Auctions

- The Collectors' Sale at Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers on 3 March.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books at University Archives on 3 March.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 4 March.

- Fine Art, Photography & Prints at PBA Galleries on 4 March.

- Richard Margolis International Numismatic Library at Kolbe & Fanning on 6 March.

Links & Auctions

- The October Getman's Virtual fair starts on 6 October at noon.

- Everything on Oak Knoll's website is 20–50% off through 5 October.

- Twelve Romanians held responsible for the January 2017 London warehouse theft of rare books were each sentenced to 3–5 years in prison this week.

- Submissions are now being accepted for the 2020 SHARP DeLong Book Prize.

- Rebecca Rego Barry notes that two Audubon letters about his books are coming up for auction this week at Hindman.

- Over on the Leiden Special Collections blog, Doris Jedamski posts about a recent donation of several letters written during an 18th-century voyage to the Dutch East Indies.

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "The Bamberg Book of Relics."

- Among the Rare Book Monthly articles this month, Clarence Wolf offers a "personal history and perspective" of his decades in the book trade, and Michael Stillman has an obituary note for map collector and scholar Dr. Seymour Schwartz.

Upcoming Auctions

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents, Travel, Science & Engineering at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 7 October.

- Maps & Atlases at Forum Auctions on 8 October.

- Selections from the Library of Gerald and Barbara Weiner at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers on 8 October.

- Fine Literature – Science Fiction – Illustrated Books at PBA Galleries on 8 October.

- October Sale at Arader Galleries on 10 October.

Links & Auctions

- Houghton Library's digitization efforts for the 2020–2021 academic year will be focused on a new online collection, "Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation, and Freedom: Primary Sources from Houghton Library." Digital Collections Program Manager Dorothy Berry will lead the project.

- From Simon Beattie, "The first 'blank bookplate'?"

- Rebecca Rego Barry notes a Renaissance-era reliquary pendant made to look like a tiny book, currently offered by Les Enluminures.

- Over on the N-YHS blog, "Clues to the Past: The Taylor-Robert Plan."

- Nate Pedersen talks to Tamar Evangelistia-Dougherty for the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series.

- The prayerbook which belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots sold for £311,250.

- Elizabeth Winkler writes for the New Yorker "How Phillis Wheatley Was Recovered Through History."

- Cornell University Press received an NEH grant to upgrade and enhance its open-access monograph program, in collaboration with Cornell's libraries.

- UVA Press has a 40%-off sale through 1 September.

- The Spencer Museum of Art has mounted a virtual version of their exhibition "Audubon in the Anthropocene."

- Richard S. Newman talks to History New Network about his biography of Richard Allen, Freedom's Prophet.

- Annette Gordon-Reed has been named a University Professor, Harvard's highest faculty honor.

- Mark Royden has been sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to steal a copy of Magna Carta from Salisbury Cathedral in October 2018.

- From Lapham's Quarterly, "How Books Became Cheap."

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Manuscripts: A Summer Miscellany at Sotheby's ends on 4 August.

- William R. Bronson Collection of Ornithological Books at Heritage Auctions on 6 August.

- Americana – Travel & Exploration – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 6 August.

Links & Auctions

- If you need a few minutes' daily respite from <  all this  > I heartily recommend Sandi Toksvig's "Vox Tox" YouTube channel. She's doing a short segment each day from home, usually featuring some interesting bits she's found amongst her books. They are pure delight. I've also been enjoying my school-librarian aunt's readings of childrens' books, and Mary Chapin Carpenter singing songs from her kitchen (both on Facebook). And if ghost stories are your jam, Robert Lloyd Parry has been posting videos of his readings on the Nunkie Films YouTube channel.

- Today is Audubon's birthday, and over on the Library of Congress blog, Ashley Cuffia has some suggestions for "Celebrating John James Audubon with Citizen Science."

- Harvard invites crowdsourced transcription help for the recently-digitized Colonial North America collection. Get started here.

- Lisa Fagin Davis' webinar "Fragments and Fragmentology in the Twenty-First Century" is now available on YouTube.

- Also newly available on YouTube, the 9 March "Feminist Bibliographies" event at UCLA.

- Penn Today highlighted the "American Contact" conference, held virtually this week with pre-circulated video papers and then Zoom discussion sessions. The papers were excellent, and though I didn't get to join as many discussion sessions as I would have liked, those I did see were also great.

- David Pearson guest-posts on the Middle Temple Libraries "Provenance Mysteries" blog about frustrations in provenance research.

- Over on Notabilia, Eric White on some new finds among the Princeton binding fragments.

- From the Princeton Graphic Arts collection blog, "Lord Temple and His Stolen Stationery."

- Scott Ellwood writes for the Grolier Club blog about eighteenth-century Yorkshire bookseller Isabella "Tibby" Tinkler."

- The Bodleian blog highlights a new catalogue of the papers of post Edward Blunden.

- From Erin Blake at The Collation, "The 'Greco Deco' Folger Shakespeare Library."

- Devin Fitzgerald is in the "Bright Young Librarians" spotlight over on the Fine Books Blog.

- More on the continuing Dirk Obbink fallout over on the ARCA blog.

- From the Cambridge University Libraries Special Collections blog, Sally Kent on "An Earthen Pot of Bones: True Crime in Sutton."

- On the BL's Untold Lives blog, "Solving a Provenance Puzzle: Papers of Henry and Robert Dundas, Viscounts Melville."

- Over on CNN, "Solving the 1,000-year-old mystery of rare blue medieval paint." And here's the Science Advances article.

- The Book Collector has launched a podcast, featuring articles from the journal's archive.

- From Sarah Werner, "Picture Books." I love the subhead: "Pictures. That's it. Just pictures of things so you can rest your brain."

Upcoming Auctions (online)

- From the Curious to the Extraordinary at Chiswick Auctions on 28 April.

- Modern Literature, Childrens', Private Press and Original Illustrations at Forum Auctions on 29 April.

- Literature, Americana, History, Collectible Books at PBA Galleries (timed sale, no reserves) starts ending at 11 a.m. PDT on 30 April.

Links & Auctions

- On the TCD blog, "A Bibliographical Alphabet."

- Via IMLS, "COVID-19 Resources for Libraries and Museums."

- From Sarah Werner, "Blanking out," on what blank pages have to tell us if we look closely enough.

- The Yale University Library's new exhibition "Trial by Media: The Queen Caroline Affair" is now online.

- Robert Oldham writes for the APHA blog on "Restoring a Coisne Stanhope Hand Press."

- Over on the Providence Public Library Special Collections blog, "Archives in the Time of COVID-19."

- Stephen Grant has the second part of his profile of Folger director William Adams Slade at The Collation.

- Over on the Manhattan Rare Book Company's blog, "Beyond the Page: Finally, the Perfect Gift."

- From Swann Galleries, a short piece on the value of manuscript journals.

- Nolin Deloisin-Baum is in the "Bright Young Collectors" spotlight.

- Over on the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, a profile of Humfrey Wanley.

- Anke Timmerman writes about book collecting on a budget, for the FB&C blog.

- The NYSL has posted video of their recent event with Sean D. Moore about his book Slavery & the Making of Early American Library.

- From the Audubon Society's blog, "The Woman Behind The Birds of America," about Juditha Dowd's new biography-in-poems of Lucy Bakewell Audubon.

- More useful things: the BPL's guide to their medieval manuscripts, and Heather Cole's guide to online instruction with primary sources from Brown.

- Released this week, Matt Kirschenbaum's Mellon-funded report "Books.Files: Preservation of Digital Assets in the Contemporary Publishing Industry."

- From the Innerpeffray Library blog, "Meet the Borrower – Thomas Stalker Part I."

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Works on Paper including Autographs and Memorabilia at Chiswick Auctions on 31 March.

- The Alex Raymond Flash Gordon Collection at Profiles in History on 31 March.

- Spring Auction at Alexander Historical Auctions ends on 1 April.

- April Auction at Arader Galleries on 4 April.

Links & Auctions

- David Segal writes for the NYTimes about the ongoing Aristophil scandal. This is the most in-depth account of the case I've seen so far.

- In the March Texas Monthly, "The Legend of John Holmes Jenkins" by Chris O'Connell. Michael Vinson's biography of Jenkins, Bluffing Texas Style, is scheduled for publication in March by the University of Oklahoma Press. I'm very much looking forward to this book ...

- The Chicago Sun Times has an obituary for Kenneth Nebenzahl, famed antiquarian map dealer.

- The Times (paywalled) ran a report on luxury handbags being made which each contain a fragment of a manuscript written by a well-known person (Dickens, Queen Victoria, Casanova, &c.).

- Contextual Alternate's "Drafts of History" project is calling for volunteers to send copies of their local newspapers from 10 March 2020 (in part to replicate a similar attempt made on 10 March 1888). Please join if you can!

- Antiquarian bookseller Barbara Rootenberg was honored at this year's California International Antiquarian Book Fair; an introductory speech given by her granddaughter (and third-generation bookseller) Madison Rootenberg Schwartz is up on the ABAA blog.

- Book Patrol highlights the Prismatic Jane Eyre project, which explores translations of Jane Eyre.

- From Stephen H. Grant for The Collation, "First Folger Director: William Adams Slade, Part I."

- In the "Bright Young Booksellers" spotlight, Will Baker of W. C. Baker Rare Books & Ephemera.

- The Library of Congress has acquired the archive of photographer Shawn Walker, as well as Walker's collection of the Harlem-based Kamoinge Workshop.

- Texas A&M University will host an exhibition this spring and summer, "The Eternal Passion: Nicholas A. Basbanes and the Making of A Gentle Madness." A symposium on 19 March will feature Basbanes, Rebecca Romney, Kurt Zimmerman, and curator Kevin O'Sullivan.

- Simon Beattie highlights an unrecorded variant of Goethe's edition of Ossian.

Upcoming Auctions

- Classic & Contemporary Photographs at Swann Galleries on 25 February.

- A Collection of Edward Gorey at Doyle New York (online) closes on 25 February.

- Travel & Exploration at Bonhams London on 26 February.

- Bibliothèque Georges Pompidou and Éditions Originales du XIXe au XXIe Siècle at ALDE on 26 February.

- Autographs, Books & Relics Include Kerouac Estate & Hemingway at University Archives on 26 February.

- Livres Avant Garde Surréalisme at Binoche et Giquello on 28 February.

- Magic Collection of Jim Rawlins, Part III at Potter & Potter on 29 February.

Links & News

- Kurt Zimmerman found some excellent biblio-association items recently, which he recounts in "Miss Stillwell and F. Richmond: The Recording of Incunabula in America."

- Pierre de Coubertin's "Olympic Manifesto" manuscript sold for $8,806,500 this week, setting a new auction record for sports memorabilia. The buyer has not been announced.

- The copy of Audubon's Birds of America, also at Sotheby's this week, sold for $6,642,400. Barron's reports that the buyer was Graham Arader.

- Over on the Fine Books Blog, Barbara Basbanes Richter on "Books in Movies: Binding for Little Women."

- From Freya Parr in the Guardian, "Browsing the dream" about spending a week managing The Open Book in Wigtown, Scotland.

- The Vatican Library has launched Thematic Pathways on the Web, offering annotations and narratives for manuscripts from their collections.

- Mills College will sell their copy of the Shakespeare First Folio and a Mozart music manuscript to support college functions.

- Jeffrey William Grande has been charged with the trafficking of stolen property after he sold four rare books to a Scottsdale, AZ rare book shop. The books had been stolen from the home of an acquaintance. Grande will appear in court on 13 January.

- From Peter Kidd at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "The Brölemann 'Catalogue A' has Resurfaced," noting the upcoming sale at auction of an important manuscript catalogue of the Brölemann collection (also I begin to suspect the auctioneer's estimate may be a tad under on this one).

- The AP reports on the ongoing sales at Heritage Auctions of Jim Davis' "Garfield" cartoons.

- Rebecca Rego Barry reviews the exhibition of Lisa Baskin's collection now on display at the Grolier Club, "Five Hundred Years of Women's Work."

- There's a new "missing in transit" notice from the ABAA.

- From the Washington State University "Insider," "Searching for La Belle Dame."

- In the HRC Magazine, "The Conservation Behind the Blaeu World Map."

- I was very sorry to hear of the death of bookseller Dan Siegel of M&S Rare Books on 18 December. Obituary. I can't say it any better than Garrett Scott did on Twitter: "I offer the highest praise for a bookselling colleague that I could imagine: He had a great eye for interesting material."

A quiet week in the salerooms coming up. Happy holidays, all! May your stockings be full of good books.

Links, Reviews & Auctions

Wednesday afternoon will see many of us paying close attention to the sale of an excellent, complete copy of Audubon's Birds of America at Sotheby's New York. The set is an early subscriber's copy, belonging to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society from publication until its sale at Sotheby's London in December 1946. Bookseller Charles Traylen purchased the set and sold it in turn to Joseph Verner Reed, Sr. of Greenwich, CT. In 1973 the Birds were bequeathed to Deerfield Academy, which sold them privately in 1985. Five years later the set sold again at Sotheby's London for £1,760,000 to the current consignor. Considering where prices have been recently, and the excellence of this set, the current estimate of $6–8 million seems a good benchmark. See also Selby Kiffer's "John James Audubon & The Double Elephant Folio."

- There are a few good book sales out there that may be of interest to some of you: at Johns Hopkins University Press, everything is 40% off with free media mail shipping using code HHOL; at the University of Massachusetts Press, paperbacks are 30% off with free shipping using code S754; at the University of North Carolina Press, all books are 40% off with free shipping above $75 using code 01HOLIDAY; at Harvard University Press, get 30% off all books using code HOLIDAY19. There are quite a few relevant books about books and book history at each, so ... have fun!

- Over on the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog, a look at a priced and annotated 1818 auction catalog of prints.

- The ABAA put out a theft alert for an inscribed copy of Churchill's My Early Life from an auction house in Derbyshire.

- The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden has received a gift to establish the Shapiro Center for American History and Culture, which will include programming, fellowships, a book prize, and more.

- Applications for the Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award are now available; submissions are due by 20 February 2020.

- From UVA, "The Old Card Catalog: Collaborative Effort Will Preserve Its History." Huge respect to all concerned with this great project.

- Jennifer Howard writes in a recent issue of Humanities on "The Complicated Role of the Modern Public Library."

- Over at Atlas Obscura, Sabrina Imbler on "How the Library of Congress Unrolled a 2,000-year-old Buddhist Scroll."

- From Randi Ragsdale for the HRC, "The Science Behind the Blaeu World Map."

- On the Cambridge University Library Special Collections blog, "The Polonsky Foundation Greek Manuscript Project: The Conservators' Challenge, Part I."

- The ABAA has launched a mentorship program that will match established antiquarian booksellers with those new to the trade.

- Penn has posted a finding guide to their collection of objects useful in teaching book history and material texts courses. I love this idea, and hope to be able to adapt it soon!

Reviews

- Janine Barchas' The Lost Books of Jane Austen; review by John Mullan in the Guardian.

- Nicolas Barker's At First, All Went Well ... & Other Brief Lives and The Pirie Library; review by Rebecca Rego Barry on the Fine Books Blog.

Auctions

- Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books at Swann Galleries on 17 December.

- History of Science and Technology at Sotheby's New York on 17 December.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including the Olympic Manifesto at Sotheby's New York on 18 December.

- John James Audubon's The Birds of America at Sotheby's New York on 18 December.

- Americana – Custeriana – Travel & Exploration – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 19 December.

Links & Auctions

- Barbara Basbanes Richter highlights the current exhibition of items from Lisa Baskin's collection at Duke for the Fine Books Blog: see also the excellent online version of the exhibition.

- Over at Echoes from the Vault, Leah Humenuck reports on a brief conservation survey of books in the St. Andrews collections.

- There's a new post on the BL's Endangered Archives blog about the recent digitization of the Barbados Mercury.

- Julie Fisher writes for the Omohundro Institute blog on "Accessing the Past: Why Paleography Skills Still Matter."

- Christoph Irmscher has a new essay for Public Domain Review: "Audubon's Haiti."

- John Williams wrote a short "tour" of the recent New York Antiquarian Book Fair for the NYTimes, which is accompanied by some very nice photographs.

- The Grolier Club has acquired an important collection related to the later (and projected) editions of Jacques-Charles Brunet's Manuel de libraire.

Review

- Margaret Leslie Davis' The Lost Gutenberg; review by Gabino Iglesias for NPR.

Auctions

- Books and Manuscripts & Autographs at Koller Auctions (Zurich) on 26 March.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts, Atlases & Historical Photographs at Bonhams London on 27 March.

- Autographed Documents, Manuscripts, Photos, Books & Relics at University Archives on 27 March.

- Printed & Manuscript African-Americana at Swann Galleries on 28 March.

- Books & Illustrated Art, including Cartoons at Chiswick Auctions on 28 March.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 28 March.

- Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts & Maps at Kestenbaum & Company on 28 March.

- Rare Books and Manuscripts at Addison & Sarova on 30 March.

Links & Reviews

- Isaac Stanley-Becker has a 26 July report on the Carnegie Library thefts for the Washington Post. The 54-page criminal complaint against Priore and Schulman was also made available this week, and Schulman resigned from the ABAA. Defense attorneys for Schulman are attempting to fight prosecution attempts to freeze several bank accounts, according to media reports.

- Curtis Small, Jr. is featured in the "Bright Young Librarians" series on the Fine Books Blog.

- The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist will be the subject of a WBUR/Boston Globe podcast series, "Last Seen," premiering in September.

- From the OUPBlog, "Remembering Joseph Johnson," by John Bugg.

- Barbara Basbanes Richter highlights the current Library Company of Philadelphia exhibition on the painter William Birch.

- An excerpt from Charlotte Higgins' Red Thread: On Mazes and Labyrinths is featured in the Guardian.

- Also in the Guardian this week, Alison Flood reports on a recent find in the Royal Archives by Penn doctoral student Nicholas Foretek: that the Prince Regent bought a copy of Sense & Sensibility two days before it was first publicly advertised.

- New research into Audubon's research methods by E. Bennett Jones is featured on the Beinecke blog. She is looking at "how ... naturalists cited, interpreted, and valued information obtained from Native Americans as well as how they may have falsified and exaggerated these same sources." Will look forward to reading more about this!

Reviews

- Travis McDade's Torn From Their Bindings; review by Rebecca Rego Barry for the Fine Books Blog.

Upcoming Auctions

- Vintage Posters at Swann Galleries on 1 August.

- Comics & Comic Art at Heritage Auctions on 2–4 August.

Links & Reviews

- An obituary for Bill Reese ran in the 15 June NYTimes. The Beinecke Library has also posted a tribute page, as well as a podcast of Bill talking about Audubon's Birds of America which I recommend most highly.

- The Portland Audubon sold at Christie's on Thursday for $9.65 million, the second-highest auction price for a copy of Birds of America.

- In other Audubon news, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported this week that the copy of Birds of America owned by the city's Carnegie Museum of Natural History was sold last fall to a California buyer for $6 million. The sale was facilitated by ... Bill Reese.

- Elizabeth Povoledo reports for the NYTimes on the return to the Vatican of a stolen Columbus Letter. See also the press release from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware. This is the third such restitution in two years (and the second this month).

- The ABAA has posted a "Missing in Transit" notice for a number of autograph letters and a book from Stalin's library.

- The Petau Book of Hours sold at Drouot on Saturday for the equivalent of $5 million.

- Jessica Lester Hester writes for Atlas Obscura on the use of manuscript and printed waste in bookbindings.

- As the film about the 2004 Transylvania University special collections theft arrives in theaters, BJ Gooch, the librarian the thieves assaulted, has spoken about her experience to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

- If you can, be sure to stop by the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at UVA to see the new exhibition "Eminent Miniatures."

- Another week, another Voynich Manuscript theory.

- Alex Johnson writes for the Independent about the library brought along on Scott's Discovery expedition from 1901–1904.

- Really enjoyed the news that the Massachusetts Historical Society has installed a "little free library" on the front steps.

- New from the AAS, an illustrated inventory of the Society's collection of ribbon badges.

- From Caroline Duroselle-Melish at The Collation, "Engraved to Sell."

- David McKitterick has a short post on the Cambridge University Press blog about his new book The Invention of Rare Books.

- Fleur Macdonald reports for the BBC on the ongoing analysis of the manuscripts in the library of St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai.

- Corey Kilgannon profiles Carolyn Waters, head librarian at the New York Society Library.

Review

- Giorgio van Straten's In Search of Lost Books; review by Alberto Manguel in the TLS.

Upcoming Auctions

- Five Aristophil sales this week: Beaux-arts, œuvres et correspondances (4) at Aguttes on 18 June; Littérature, écrivains et poètes du XIXe-XXe (5) at Drouot on 19 June; Littérature, écrivains et poètes du XIXe-XXe (6) at Aguttes on 19 June; Musique, de Jean-Sébastien Bach à Boulez (7) at Ader on 20 June; Musique, de Lully à Stravinsky (8) at Aguttes on 20 June.

- Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs at Lyon & Turnbull on 19 June.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts, Atlases & Historical Photographs at Bonhams London on 20 June.

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 20 June.

- Autographed Documents, Manuscripts, Books & Relics at University Archives on 20 June.

- Revolutionary & Presidential Americana from the Collection of William Wheeler III at Swann Galleries on 21 June.

- Modern Literature & First Editions at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 21 June.

Links & Reviews

We lost one of the greats this week. Bill Reese was not just an extraordinary bookman and bookseller, but also an indefatigable supporter of biblio-institutions and causes. I had long been a great admirer and somewhat voracious collector of his catalogs, but I first went up and introduced myself at the 2010 Boston Book Fair, to thank him for his support of the Reese Fellowships at Rare Book School (I had been the recipient that year). Frequently thereafter we were able to chat briefly at various book fairs, something I always looked forward to (usually he shared some very funny anecdote about past book fairs). In 2016 he came and gave a wonderful Rare Book School talk, "Starting Out: My Early Days as a Rare Book Dealer." The next day he joined an RBS class, "Reference Sources for Researching Printed Americana," and talked to the students about his favorite reference sources. I had the great pleasure of sitting in on that session, and will remember it very fondly. Nobody wanted to go to coffee break at the end of that one. My deepest condolences to Bill's family and colleagues, and here's to many more years of great books and great catalogs to come from Temple Street.

There will certainly be more posts to come, but for now, see the ABAA's In Memoriam, Kurt Zimmerman's post at American Book Collecting, and Rare Book School's news post, which contains a list of his other RBS lectures.

- Along with the Portland Audubon coming up this week, Christie's will also offer a proof copy on wove paper (one of just six known) of the Stone facsimile of the Declaration of Independence.

- The National Library of Scotland's collection of early Scottish Gaelic manuscripts has been added to UNESCO's UK Memory of the World register. Sir Robert Cotton's manuscripts at the BL have also been added.

- Erin Blake writes for The Collation about a proof print from the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery.

- Mary Yacovone posts on "The Joy of Bookplates" over on the MHS blog. Also on the Beehive this week, Kate Viens explores the history and origins of the Massachusetts Historical Review.

- The BBC reports on a fascinating "hidden diary" from 1880–1 discovered written on the underside of a parquet floor of a French chateau.

Book Reviews

- Carys Davies' West; review by David Vann in the NYTimes.

- Fiona Sampson's In Search of Mary Shelley; review by Charlotte Gordon in the WaPo.

- Stuart Kells' The Library; review by Steve Donoghue in The National.

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams New York on 12 June.

- Rare Books & Manuscripts at PBA Galleries on 14 June.

- The Portland Audubon, followed by Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana at Christie's New York on 14 June.

Links & Reviews

My goodness, you all have been very busy. Missed a week (I was at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair last weekend) and just look at all the links that piled up!

- Two missing/theft reports: one 1734 cookbook that has gone missing in transit, and two works by Poe and Dickens reported stolen through credit card fraud.

- Missed this from when I was traveling: a judge blocked the sale of a volume of Rhode Island colonial court records on eBay.

- Ben Breen writes about one of my favorite characters for Public Domain Review: good old George Psalmanazar, the "False Formosan."

- Robert Darnton talked to Publishers Weekly about his new book A Literary Tour de France and the current state of the publishing industry.

- You can now submit paper proposals for the APS' "Past, Present, and Future of Libraries" conference, coming up in late September. Deadline is 15 May.

- Now on display at the BL, while the Lindisfarne Gospels has gone off public display for a rest until the autumn, "A Bible fit for a king."

- At Connexion, a report on the French government's blocking the sale of a 12th-century Mont-Saint-Michel manuscript.

- The Library of Congress has released a digital version of its collection of Benjamin Franklin's papers.

- Also from LC, the Japanese Censorship Collection, comprising more than a thousand "marked-up copies of monographs and galley proofs censored by the Japanese government in the 1920s and 1930s."

- Over at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, a bit more on a Cistercian Missal once owned by Otto Ege.

- A New Zealand bookseller has inherited a collection of some 6,000 mountaineering adventure books from a Massachusetts collector; Bill Nye of Adventure Books plans to build an exhibition and research area for the collection in his shop.

- Richard Ovenden writes for the Financial Times: "The Windrush scandal reminds us of the value of archives."

- Simon Beattie highlights what certainly seems to be an 18th-century dust-wrapper (and possibly the earliest documented example?), used to protect a set of unbound plates.

- Alison Flood writes for the Guardian about the discovery of the first known example of a palimpsest text in which a Coptic text of Deuteronomy appears beneath a Qur'an text. It sold at Christie's on Thursday for £596,750.

- For Penn Today, Peter Stallybrass talks about five books that shaped his teaching.

- Richard Davies from AbeBooks has launched a podcast, "Behind the Bookshelves."

- Over on the Trinity College Dublin blog, "The Fascination of Fore-Edges," by Helen McGinley.

- Kate Bolick writes for the NYTimes Material Culture column on "Who Bought Sylvia Plath's Stuff?" See also Peter Steinberg's post on his experience with the Plath sale.

- There's an update on the very fascinating Prize Papers Project on the National Archives (UK) blog.

- Andrew Keener writes for the HRC magazine about his work there as a research fellow working on bilingual and multilingual works printed in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

- Sarah Hovde surveys a few of the items in the Folger's collection attributed to Shakespeare's spirit.

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, a look at what may be the oldest English writing in the BL's collections.

- The Providence Athenaeum has received a $100,000 anonymous gift to develop the library's special collections.

- Ina Kok has been awarded the 17th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography.

- Rebecca Rego Barry notes the 25 April sale at Doyle of items from the estate of Dr. Leo Hershkowitz, well known as an "archival scavenger." The Ratzer Map sold for $150,000.

- From Laura Kolb at The Collation, "The itemized life: John Kay's notebook."

- Stephen Mielke writes for the HRC magazine on "The archivist's archive: Visions of the future past."

- Barron's previews the 14 June Birds of America sale at Christie's.

- Pradeep Sebastian writes about bibliomysteries in The Hindu.

- A. N. Devers notes on the Fine Books Blog the acquisition by London bookshop Any Amount of Books a large number of file copies from Orion Books.

- Two men have pleaded guilty in Moscow to carrying out a series of rare book thefts from 2001 to 2008.

- Hester Blum quibbles about AMC's "The Terror" for Avidly.

Reviews

- The Multigraph Collective's Interacting with Print; review by Abigail Williams in THE.

- Alex Johnson's Book of Book Lists, Stuart Kells' The Library, and Alberto Manguel's Packing my Library; review by Sarah Laskow at Atlas Obscura.

- Margit J. Smith's The Medieval Girdle Book; review by Nicholas Yeager in The Bonefolder.

- Benjamin Park's American Nationalisms; review by Skye Montgomery at The Junto.

- Alexander Bevilacqua's The Arabic Republic of Letters; review by Jacob Soll in TNR.

- Lynne Murphy's The Prodigal Tongue; review by Lionel Shriver in the TLS.

- Michael Dirda surveys some classic and contemporary creepy tales. This one definitely added a few to my reading list.

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers on 1 May.

- Rare Book & Collectors' Sale at Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers on 2 May.

- Graphic Design at Swann Galleries on 3 May.

- Fine Literature: The Fred Bennett Collection (with additions) at PBA Galleries on 3 May.

- The Original Working Manuscript for the Alcoholics Anonymous 'Big Book' at Profiles in History on 5 May.

Links & Reviews

To start today, two petitions which may be of interest:

- First, Paul Lewis and others have written a letter and online petition to encourage Historic Boston, Inc. to explore the feasibility of turning the Old Corner Bookstore (currently housing a Chipotle) into a museum of Boston's literary history.

- Second, by way of followup to a story noted last week, there is an online petition calling on the Peabody Essex Museum to return the Phillips Library collections to Salem (with nearly 2,200 signatures as of this morning).

- Another excellent idea: in Smithsonian, Colin Dickey offers "A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories." I highly recommend reading some M.R. James this holiday season!

- A neat acquisition by the Princeton Graphic Arts collection, the foundry book for the 21 April 1945 issue of the New Yorker, showing copy edits and proofs for the magazine.

- The Junto celebrates its fifth birthday. Many congratulations to all who have made this excellent blog what it is, and here's to many more years.

- The BBC has a short report on the sale of Richard Adams' library last week.

- There's an update on the Shakespeare's World transcription efforts and how they in turn feed back into the overall EMMO project.

- More than 27,000 images from the Gabriel García Márquez archive are now available via the HRC.

- Katherine Ruffin reviews another APHA panel, on "Printerly Identity, Subversion, and Nation-Building."

- Michael Dirda offers his holiday book recommendations (including a couple from our friends at Oak Knoll Press).

- Erin McCarthy writes for Mental Floss about Audubon's Birds of America (with a particular focus on the furniture built to house copies of the volumes).

- In Smithsonian, Jo Marchant reports on an ongoing study of palimpsest texts at St. Catherine's Monastery. The work so far has "revealed more than 284 erased texts in ten languages, including classical, Christian and Jewish texts dating from the fifth century until the 12th century."

Reviews

- James Delburgo's Collecting the World; review by Suzanna Fischer in the LARB.

- Ursula Le Guin's No Time to Spare; reviews by Michelle Dean in the LATimes and Jason Heller for NPR.

Upcoming Auctions

- The Sherlock Holmes Collection of Daniel Posnansky at Profiles in History on 19 December.

- Important Judaica at Sotheby's New York on 20 December.

Links & Reviews

- Forgot this last week so I'm putting it right at the top: there's a new issue of Common-place up, which is excellent as usual - I want to particularly point out Paul Erickson's piece "The Business of Building Books" and the "To Our Readers" note, which invites comments about the role and future direction of the journal.

- The New-York Historical Society will open a new gallery devoted to Audubon's Birds of America this fall.

- Joe Adelman asks at The Junto, "Did Hamilton Write Too Much For His Own Good?"

- Over at Echoes from the Vault, Caroline Douglas reports on her work researching women in the early history of photography.

- The Boston Public Library has announced a partnership with the Internet Archive to catalog and digitize a large portion of the library's Sound Archives Collection.

- Sarah Laskow has an interesting piece in Atlas Obscura about the "oldest" item in each of twelve libraries.

- The Louvre has launched a crowdfunding campaign to purchase a François I Book of Hours, after a British export ban was allowed to expire.

- From Science News, a debate over the dating of a manuscript which might contain the earliest known use of a zero.

- The National Library of Scotland blog highlights their current exhibition on the 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Reformation. Ditto the Huntington Library.

- Richard Higgins writes for the WaPo on Luther as publishing phenom.

- Simon Beattie's turned up an absolutely wonderful little publication for his Boston Book Fair list - see his post "Fun and games in the British Museum Reading Room."

- Alexandra Alter reports for the NYTimes on a small collection of Harper Lee letters offered at auction; they sold for $12,500.

- Vittoria Traverso writes for Atlas Obscura about the travels of the Luneborch Prayer Book.

- Proposals for the 2018 RBMS conference program are due on 10 November.

- Mentioned this when it was in beta but the main release of a new photo-management program Tropy is now available for download; I'm looking forward to trying this out.

- On the APHA blog, Pam Barrie summarizes a panel at the group's recent conference: "Printing Conflict: The Civil War."

- At Boston1775, J.L. Bell comments on "False Anniversaries for Equiano and Wheatley."

Reviews

- Alan Jacobs' How To Think; review by Dan Cohen on his eponymous blog.

- Richard Beadle's Henry Bradshaw and the Foundations of Codicology; review by James Freeman on the Cambridge University Library Special Collections blog.

- Christopher de Hamel's Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts; reviews by Helen Hazen for The American Scholar and Michael Dirda in the WaPo.

- Christopher Frayling's Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years; review by Zoë Lescaze in the NYTimes.

- Naomi Alderman's The Power; review by Bridget Read in Vogue.

- John Hodgman's Vacationland; review by Charles Thaxton in the WaPo.

- Ed Ayers' The Thin Light of Freedom; review by James Oakes in the WaPo.

- Eric Metaxas' Martin Luther and Brad Gregory's Rebel in the Ranks; review by Andrew Pettegree in the WaPo.

- Philip Pullman's Daemon Voices and The Book of Dust; review by Michael Saler in the TLS.

Upcoming Auctions

- Livres at Manuscrits at Sotheby's Paris on 30 October.

- Important Instruments of Science & Technology at Bonhams London on 31 October.

- The Library of a European Gentleman at Sotheby's London on 2 November.

- Illustrated Books - Childrens' Books - Books in All Fields at PBA Galleries on 2 November.

Links & Reviews

Lots to catch up on; I took some time away from the computer for a while so I'm sure I've missed a few things here - feel free to send them along.

- The LDS Church has paid $35 million for the printer's manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon.

- From the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog, "How many copies of Birds of America does a family need?" and "Havell's Copper."

- At The Collation, "Consuming the New World."

- From Rachael Herrmann at The Junto, "How not to write your first book."

- The BL is asking for crowdsourcing help with its 19th-century playbills.

- Sandra L. Brooke has been appointed Avery Director of the Library at the Huntington Library.

- The winner's of this year's National Collegiate Book Collecting Competition and the inaugural Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize have been announced.

- From the Village Voice, "Keepers of the Secrets."

- The AAS has launched an illustrated inventory of their watch paper collection.

- A first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sold for $81,000.

- John Crichton will deliver the inaugural Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trade in California and the West at the Book Club of California on 30 October.

- From Erin Schreiner at JHIBlog, "You Should Learn Descriptive Bibliography."

- In the TLS, Dimitra Fimi asks "Why build new worlds?"

- Now on display at Yale's Beinecke Library, "Making the Medieval English Manuscript."

- Another Voynich Manuscript "solution" has been proposed.

- Jonathan Senchyne's identification of a George Moses Horton essay at the NYPL is featured in the NYTimes.

- From Jot101, "Fakery, forgery and the fore-edge painter."

- At American Book Collecting, "Book Hunter Bypaths Explored & Exposed."

- The OUP Blog has an excerpt from Kevin Hayes' new book George Washington: A Life in Books.

- Prince Rupert's Drops are the order of the day at The Collation.

- The Library of Congress' collection of James K. Polk papers are now available online.

- The Junto has a Q&A with Coll Thrush about his new book Indigenous London.

- Over at Notes from Under Grounds, a look at early UVA library shelfmarks.

- Emily Yankowitz writes for JHIBlog on "William Plumer and the Politics of History Writing."

Reviews

- A new film on the NYPL, "Ex Libris"; review by Jordan Hoffman in the Guardian.

- Michael Sims' Frankenstein Dreams; review by Genevieve Valentine for NPR.

- Walter Stahr's Stanton; review by David Holahan for the CSM.

- Coll Thrush's Indigenous London; review by Sara Georgini at The Junto.

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Books and Manuscripts Featuring Exploration & Travel at Bonhams New York on 26 September.

- The Vivien Leigh Collection at Sotheby's London on 26 September.

- The Library of John and Suzanne Bonham at Sotheby's London on 26 September.

- The Yeats Family Collection at Sotheby's London on 27 September.

- Printed and Manuscript Americana at Swann Galleries on 28 September.