Links & Auctions (and an Update)

Update, of particular relevance to the many of you who get these posts via email: Feedburner, which has managed the email subscriptions for this blog for I don't know how long, is going away next month (don't get me started, I'm still mad that Google Reader went away and that happened in 2013). Anyway, I've transitioned the email subscriptions over to follow.it, so you should just keep getting emails as usual (though they may start looking slightly different). You can also set up different bells and whistles, if you prefer. With any luck at all, the transition will be relatively seamless.

-Coming up on 22 June, the Bookplate Society hosts a Zoom talk by Anthony Pincott, "Ex-Libris Art & Provenance: The Fascination of Bookplates." Register at the link.

- Over at Bijzondere Collecties, "Gauffering the Edges," an excellent look at gauffering.

- Heritage Auctions had a very interesting roundtable discussion prior to the sale of the forged Oath of a Freeman last week. I learned some things about the Hofmann forgeries I hadn't known before. The forged oath sold for $52,500 last week (and I'd be very interested to know the buyer if they wish to reveal themselves!).

- From Swann Galleries, the first part of "For Love of the King: the Wild Story of a Forged Wilde Story."

- Rebecca Rego Barry has the summer 2021 books on books roundup over at the Fine Books Blog.

Upcoming Auctions

- Guerre de 1870–1871 (Aristophil 41) at Aguttes on 14 June.

- Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 15 June.

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 16 June.

- Private Press, Children's & Illustrated Books and Modern First Editions at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 17 June.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams New York on 17 June.

- Fine Books & Autographs at Swann Galleries on 17 June.

- Books in All Fields – Americana – Maps at PBA Galleries on 17 June.

- Rare Antiquarian and Illustrated Books at Donald Heald Auctions on 19 June.

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

- Some great book history seminar series and book talks are happening virtually this fall: the Five College Book History Seminar, Penn's Workshop in the History of Material Texts, and the AAS' PHBAC Virtual Book Talks.

- Kathryn James offers up some Quarantine Reading: Learn to Read Secretary Hand.

- From Henry Widener for the OLL Blog, "Tracing John Locke's path to the Oliveira Lima Library."

- At Early Modern Female Book Ownership this week, the full-page bookplate of Elizabeth Percival.

- On the JHI "In Theory" podcast, Simon Brown interviews Anthony Grafton about Grafton's new book Inky Fingers.

- New! Eighteenth-Century Borrowing from the University of Glasgow.

- Jennifer Farrell will give the APHA Lieberman Lecture on 2 October, "The City is my Religion: A Typographic Memoir." Register here.

- From the Leiden University Special Collections blog, Lavinia Maddaluno on some unpublished draft letters from a Swiss mathematician to Isaac Newton on matters alchemical.

- Devon Eastland writes for the Swann Galleries blog on "Early Printed Books: Old Tombstones."

- Over on the University of St. Andrews Special Collections blog, a Walter Scott letter to George Chalmers from the Marseille Middleton Holloway autograph albums.

- RBSC at Notre Dame highlights a facsimile early modern book they've been making for use in an exhibition.

- From Not Even Past, Aaron Pratt's "Technology in Paper: Interactive Design in Early Printed Books."

- At the Emory University Scholar Blog, Kelin Michael posts on "Illuminating Medieval and Renaissance Materials at Rose Library."

- Also from Emory, news that the Rose Library has acquired the papers of Black Panther Party activist Kathleen Cleaver. 

- September's Rare Book Monthly articles include Bruce McKinney's short interview with David Lesser. 

Reviews

- Richard Ovenden's Burning the Books; review by Christopher Howse in the Telegraph.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Documents on the Independence of Mexico, the First Empire and the First Republic at Morton Subastas on 8 September.

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents, Spanish Books & Manuscripts, The David Wilson Library of Natural History (Part II) at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 9–10 September.

- Comics & Comics Art Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions on 10–13 September.

- PBA Platinum: Rare Books, Manuscripts & Art at PBA Galleries on 10 September.

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

- Getman's Virtual Book & Paper Fair for July opens at noon on Tuesday, 7 June. And the Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair goes virtual - it will be held 11–13 September.

- Ashley Cataldo from AAS is in the "Bright Young Librarians" spotlight this week.

- Yale's Beinecke Library has acquired the incredible Frederick Douglass collection of Dr. Walter Evans (I am in the middle of David Blight's wonderful biography of Douglass at the moment, which makes clear just how important this collection is). See also Michael Morand's announcement for Yale.

- A biblio-deal alert: A. Franklin Parks' William Parks: The Colonial Printer in the Transatlantic World of the Eighteenth Century (Penn State University Press) is available at $7.95 from Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller (the list price was $84.95). It looks like they've also got Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad's The History of the Book in 100 Books for $7.95 too, which is also a very good deal.

- Over at Philobiblon, the 2020 Bind-o-Rama, of fish-skin bindings!

- There's a new "Crocodile Mystery" from the Folger this week.

- Rick Stattler has a new basic collector's guide to the Declaration of Independence for Swann.

- Over on the Grolier Club blog, Meghan Constantinou writes about a "Fifteenth-Century Manuscript Wrapper on a Rare Incunable" in the club's library.

- Rebecca Rego Barry notes a large collection of bookplates being offered at Swann this week.

- From the Bodleian's Conveyor blog, "Alice in Medieval Oxford."

- Another interesting provenance/marginalia mystery from the Middle Temple Library blog.

- July's Rare Book Monthly articles include Michael Stillman's report on the Schulman/Priore sentencing and a "brief update on the field" from Bruce McKinney.

- The National Library of Scotland has released datasets drawn from the library catalogs of the Advocates Library covering 1692 through 1878.

- Will Hansen is collecting contributions for his second issue of a zine about dreams concerning rare books and special collections.

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams ends on 8 July.

- Livres de la Bibliothèque du Docteur Henri Polaillon: Livres Anciens et de Costumes Militaires at Binoche et Giquello on 9 July.

- Livres de Voyages – Atlas – Cartes at ALDE on 9 July.

- Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books at Swann Galleries on 9 July.

- Fine Art – Photography & Prints – Food & Drink – Illustrated Books at PBA Galleries on 9 July.

Links & Reviews

- Many congratulations to Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian, appointed OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for services to libraries and archives.

- At the MHS blog, Rakashi Chand writes about "Strawberry Fun at the MHS."

- Biblio hosted an interesting roundtable discussion at Firsts: London on "The Evolving State of Internet Bookselling" - audio and a transcript are now available.

- Over at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "A Cryptic Book Label Identified."

- On the Royal Society's blog, "Cash in the archive," about early Chinese printed money in the Society's collections.

- Rebecca Rego Barry posts on the FB&C blog about the range of Whitman exhibitions this summer. I commented to somebody this week that collecting a poster for each of the various Whitman bicentennial exhibitions would make for a pretty interesting little project ...

- Videos from the Grolier Club's 1 June Whitman symposium are also now available on their Vimeo channel.

- New York's Strand Bookstore has been designated a historic landmark, over the objections of the owners.

- Michelle Light has been named director of the Special Collections Directorate at the Library of Congress.

- From the Princeton Graphic Arts blog, a new index to the job work of the Pynson Press (1922–40).

- Katie Wolf writes for the NYPL blog "An Introduction to Mass Digitization and the Brown Brothers Collection."

- From the University of Chicago Library News page, "Discovering Chicago's Rare Books with Elizabeth Frengel."

- The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry has been acquired by the University of Iowa.

- New from Kari Kraus and the UMD Booklab, GotSort, a Python script that will give you a character count for your letterpress printing project. Pretty nifty!

Review

- Mark Purcell's The Country House Library; review by Jeremy Musson in The Art Newspaper.

Upcoming Auctions

- Livres Anciens et du XIXe Siècle at ALDE on 17 June.

- Travel & Sport in Africa from the Library of Arnold 'Jake' Johnson at Doyle (online), ending 18 June.

- Livres et Manuscrits at Sotheby's Paris on 18 June.

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

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents, Early Bibles & The Ladwell Collection of Fine Bird Books: Part II at Dominic Winter on 19 June.

- Modern Literature & First Editions, Children's, Fine Press & Illustrated Books at Dominic Winter on 20 June.

- The Pride Sale at Swann Galleries on 20 June.

- Books, Maps & Manuscripts at Freeman's on 20 June.

Links & Auctions

- Alison Flood writes for the Guardian about the recent identification of a volume of the Libro de los Epítomes, containing summaries of volumes from the great library of Hernando Colón, in the Arnamagnæan Collection in Copenhagen. Another fourteen of the sixteen volumes are at the Biblioteca Colombiana in Seville - one remains missing. See also the announcement from the Arnamagnæan Institute, and the story from the Windsor Star featuring the history professor, Guy Lazare, who made the initial identification.

- Videos from the March ILAB/ABAA/Grolier Club symposium "Who Owned This?" are now available on Vimeo. Highly recommended.

- Also now available on YouTube, Will Noel's Sandars Lectures on "The Medieval Manuscript and its Digital Image."

- Lucas Baumann writes for Sotheby's about the recent repatriation of more than 600 volumes to the Universitäts und Landesbibliothek Bonn (ULB); the books had been offered for consignment from an individual in Belgium. See also Catherine Hickley's report for the Art Newspaper which goes into a bit more detail.

- Over on Past is Present, Lauren Hewes has a great post about AAS receptionist Sally Talbot's work on creating a name list for the Society's collection of loose American bookplates. After nearly five years at it, Sally recently completed her inventory of the personal bookplates, all 21,048 of them! The name list and an Excel file with more info are now available on the AAS website. Thank you, Sally!

- Two dozen EU countries signed a Declaration of Cooperation on 9 April relating to the digitization of cultural heritage materials.

- The HRC has acquired the archive of novelist Rachel Cusk.

- Quite a piece by Aaron Skirboll in the Daily Beast about the later exploits of the man who attempted to steal the Gutenberg Bible from Harvard's Widener Library in 1969.

- The Washington Post has a report on the upcoming major renovations at the Folger Shakespeare Library. See also the Folger's webpage on the project.

- Michael Dirda has short reviews of several recent books about books in the WaPo.

Upcoming Auctions

- Printed & Manuscript Americana at Swann Galleries on 16 April.

- Rare Books, Autographs & Maps at Doyle New York on 17 April.

- Travel & Exploration – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 18 April.

Links & Reviews

Bibliography Week last week, the California International Antiquarian Book Fair next weekend. There's a preview over on the ABAA blog. Hope to see some of you there!

- Shelly Bradbury reports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that defense attorneys for the librarian and bookseller charged with thefts from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library are asking prosecutors to specify the date on which each of the 321 books was stolen, reportedly to "allow them to consider statute of limitations and alibi defenses."

- A great find at Bristol Central Library: manuscript waste from a copy of the Vulgate Cycle with mentions of Merlin and other Arthurian characters, used in bindings. More from the Guardian.

- Sarah Werner will be speaking at the Columbia Book History Colloquium on 13 February on "Old Books as Digital Objects."

- Kate Ozment has a new Sammelband post, "Roundup of Materials: Teaching Book History."

- Alison Flood for the Guardian: "Hold the front pages: meet the endpaper enthusiasts."

- The Bodleian Library has acquired a fifteenth-century French Gothic book coffer.

- Among February's Rare Book Monthly articles, Michael Stillman analyzes the 2018 auction prices, and Bruce McKinney reports on Christina Geiger's appointment as head of rare books and manuscripts at Christie's New York and on Richard Ramer's fiftieth-anniversary catalog.

- Over on the Library of Congress blog, Carla Hayden talked to Mark Dimunation and John Hessler about the LC's copy of Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius.

- Harvard's Houghton Library has acquired the remainder of John Ashbery's papers, as well as his 5,000-volume library. More in the NYTimes.

- Geraldine Fabrikant profiles Bauman Rare Books for the NYTimes.

- Don Skemer on the Princeton RBSC blog, "Recovering Lost Manuscript Evidence."

- "Errors in Bookplate Design" at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie.

- From Aaron Pratt over on the HRC blog, "Collated & Perfect," on the publication and program series being organized jointly by HRC and the Beinecke.

- The Boston Globe highlights the recent expansion of the Massachusetts State Archives.

- Over on the BBC, "The Library of Forbidden Books."

- At medievalbooks, Erik Kwakkel on "The Oldest Surviving Printed Advertisement in English."

- Miriam Intrator was featured in "Bright Young Librarians."

- The Irish Times reports on the recent digitization by Trinity College Dublin of the fourteenth-century Dublin Apocalypse.

- Pyewacket Books on selling books, but not at book fairs.

- Over on the Penn Special Collections Processing blog, Liz Broadwell on "An Uncommon Proof."

Reviews

- Diane Setterfield's Once Upon a River; review by Laura Miller in the Guardian.

- John Martin Robinson's The Travellers Club; review by A. N. Wilson in the TLS.

Upcoming Auctions

- Travel and Exploration at Bonhams London on 6 February.

- Modern Literature & Illustrated Books (online) at Forum Auctions on 7 February.

- The Book Fair Century: One Hundred Fine Books, Plus Books Sold to Benefit the ABAA Benevolent Fund at PBA Galleries on 7 February.

- Printed Books & Ephemera at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 13 February.

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

Back, after a wonderful trip to Scotland and Iceland followed immediately by a move. I'm taking a break from unpacking (so, so much unpacking) to get caught up here, though I'm sure there are many things I completely lost track of while I was gone. Feel free to let me know what I missed!

- Next Friday and Saturday (6–7 April) will be the Virginia Antiquarian Book Fair, in Richmond. Do visit if you can!

- One of the bookshops I visited in Edinburgh, Golden Hare Books, is featured in the Guardian's "Browse a bookshop" column.

- Pittsburgh-area police are investigating thefts from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and request any assistance. See a PDF list of some items believed stolen. More from Michael Stillman for Rare Books Monthly and from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

- Video of the panel discussion at the New York Book Fair on women and collecting is now available via the ABAA blog.

- Quite a garage find, highlighted in the Fine Books Blog.

- From Francis Morrone in The Hopkins Review, "Bookshop Memories."

- Over at Reading Copy, an interview with Heather O'Donnell and Rebecca Romney. As a reminder, the second Honey & Wax Book Collecting Contest (open to women collectors under 30) is now accepting applications!

- The National Library of New Zealand has received a collection of twenty important books printed between 1472 and 1512.

- From the Princeton Graphic Arts collection blog, "How much did a wood engraving cost in 1862?"

- The Library of Congress is running a webinar series highlighting the Mesoamerican manuscripts in their collections.

- A bookseller has been convicted of stealing a signed copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from Hatchards in December. He was recognized by staff since he had sold items to the shop in the past.

- The University of Edinburgh has acquired a much-annotated copy of Ben Jonson's works, after the UK government instituted an export ban.

- From the University of Rochester, "The myth—and memorabilia—of Seward's Folly."

- Blake Morrison asks in the Guardian, "should an author's dying wishes be obeyed?"

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Cracking a medieval code."

- At The Binder's Ticket, "Bookplates or book labels?"

- Daniel Richter posts for the Huntington Library blog on "John Ogilby's English Restoration Fantasy."

- A bit on Isaiah Thomas' library (now on LibraryThing) from yours truly as Past is Present.

- Isabel Planton is featured in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series. Ditto Rebecca Baumann.

- Katarzyna Lecky writes for The Collation on "The Strange and Practical Beauty of Small-Format Herbals."

- Rich Rennicks has posted a number of links to coverage of this year's New York Antiquarian Book Fair. The NYTimes focused on fashion.

- Rebecca Romney covers book curses for Mental Floss.

- Kurt Zimmerman notes the publication of John R. Payne's Great Catalogues by Master Booksellers.

- The Guardian reported on the sale of various Sylvia Plath items at Bonhams last month. Peter Steinberg has a full rundown of the auction, and some additional analysis.

- The April Rare Book Monthly includes Bruce McKinney's "Enigma, Seeking a Eureka," about a tantalizing French manuscript (do help with that if you can!).

- At Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, another fascinating provenance hunt, this time with some cuttings from the collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

- From Adam Schachter, "Adventures of an Absent-Minded Treasure Hunter."

- The Guardian highlights some of the great Tolkien material on show as part of the major Bodleian exhibition.

- I missed the Clements Library post about "Battle Estrays" in February, so I'm grateful to J.L. Bell for noting it as he digs into one of the examples cited.

Reviews

- Lucy Mangan's Bookworm; review by Kathryn Hughes in the Guardian.

- Julia Miller's Meeting by Accident; review by Barbara Adams Hebard for BookArtsWeb.

- Jo Nesbø's Hogarth Shakespeare Macbeth; review by Alexander Larman in the Guardian.

- Daniel Kalder's The Infernal Library; review by Ernest Hilbert is in the WaPo.

Upcoming Auctions

- Antique Scientific Instruments, Globes and Cameras at Dorotheum on 4 April.

- Fine & Rare Books at PBA Galleries on 5 April.

- Entertainment Memorabilia at Potter & Potter on 7 April.

Links & Reviews

- From Vayos Liapis at the OUP blog: "The real thing: the thrills of inauthentic literature."

- Erin Blake writes for The Collation about an ~1857 photographic facsimile, one of the first made of an entire book.

- A walking stick once owned by Sir Walter Scott will be on the auction block this week.

- The Godmersham Lost Sheep Society is on the hunt for books containing the bookplate(s) of Montagu George Knight.

- The first issue of Thresholds, a new "experiment in digital publishing," is out.

- A crowdfunding effort is underway to digitize and make available the slide collection of Christopher Clarkson.

- Danuta Kean reports for the Guardian on the latest Voynich Manuscript theory.

- Echoes from the Vault marked the 330th anniversary of the publication of Newton's Principia.

- The Library of Congress has posted video of an April talk by Wayne Wiegand, "How Long, O Lord, Do We Roam in the Wilderness? A History of School Librarianship."

- From FB&C, "The Lost Libraries of London," by A. N. Devers.

- An 1812 Jane Austen letter parodying a recent novel will be sold at auction this week.

- Mississippi State University has acquired a large collection related to Lincoln and the Civil War.

- The JTA highlights Amsterdam's Livraria Ets Haim, described as "the world's oldest functioning Jewish library."

- Some recent finds from a study of Cornell's illuminated manuscripts using XRF technology are featured in the Cornell Chronicle.

- New from the Massachusetts Historical Society, and freely available as an e-book, "The Future of History."

- Also from MHS, a new fundraising campaign to support transcription and digitization of John Quincy Adams' diaries.

- From the NYTimes Upshot blog, "The Word Choices That Explain Why Jane Austen Endures."

- Over on the Scholars' Lab blog, James Ascher posts on "Transcribing Typography with Markdown."

- Forgot this last week: a photo claimed to be of Jesse James has surfaced, and will be sold at auction on August.

Reviews

- William Hogeland's Autumn of the Black Snake; review by Tom Cutterham at The Junto.

- Rebecca Brannon's From Revolution to Revolution; review by Christopher Minty at The Junto.

- Abigail Williams' The Social Life of Books; review by Ernest Hilbert in the WaPo.

Upcoming Auctions

- English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustrations, including The Garrett Herman Collection: The Age of Darwin at Sotheby's London on 11 July.

- Valuable Books and Manuscripts at Christie's London on 12 July.

- Art & Illustration - Fine Children's Literature at PBA Galleries on 13 July.

Links & Reviews

- Two theft notices from the ABAA: a Thomas Jefferson autograph note and a 1610 folio volume, A Display of Heraldry.

- NEH Chairman William Adams resigned from his post last week. The agency is targeted for elimination under the president's FY18 budget (call your representatives). See their FAQ on where things go from here.

- On the proposed budget cuts (which reach far beyond NEH), see Bethany Nowviskie's post to a Digital Library Federation list.

- Alcoholics Anonymous has filed suit for the return of the printers' copy of the organization's "Big Book," scheduled to be sold at auction on 8 June by Profiles in History. The annotated typescript was previously sold at auction in 2004 and 2007.

- Honey & Wax Booksellers have announced a new book-collecting prize open to women book collectors in the U.S. under 30 years old.

- Aaron Pratt has been appointed the new Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center.

- Carla Giaimo writes for Atlas Obscura on "The Lost Typefaces of W.A. Dwiggins."

- Rob Rulon-Miller provides an overview of this summer's Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar.

- Elizabeth Savage posted a new update to her census of early modern frisket sheets (project homepage) and has a post at The Conveyor about a recent related find.

- Rare Book School's summer lecture schedule is out.

-Book curses on the BL's medieval manuscripts blog.

- Kate Mitas has begun a series on archival cataloging for booksellers.

- A new exhibition at the National Library of New Zealand, He Tohu, highlights three important founding documents in the country's history.

- From James Ascher on the UVA Scholars' Lab blog, "Visualizing Paper Evidence Using Digital Reproductions."

- At Echoes from the Vault, a look at some interesting finds from the St Andrews Burgh records.

- Mary Bendel-Simso talked to The Academic Minute about her work using digital newspaper archives to find early American detective fiction.

- At Notes from Under Grounds, Nora Benedict Frye posts about her current UVA Special Collections exhibition on Borges and bibliography.

- Rebecca Mead reports on the recent identification of a "lost" Edith Wharton play.

- Will Gore writes for the Spectator on "Why rare books are thriving in the digital age."

- Danuta Kean reports for the Guardian about Peter Steinberg and Gail Crowther's recent identification of unpublished Sylvia Plath poems found by examining a sheet of carbon paper in Plath's papers at the Lilly Library.

- Miranda Cooper writes for Tablet Magazine about "500 Years of Treasures from Oxford," an exhibition now on display at the Center for Jewish History.

- Tom Hyry highlights the current Houghton Library exhibition, "Open House 75: Houghton Staff Select."

- A few early bookplates from Princeton's collections are featured on the Graphic Arts blog.

- At Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, notes on an NYPL breviary fragment.

- Abbie Weinberg marked the 400th birthday of Elias Ashmole with a Collation post.

- Thirty-three books stolen from Jewish communities were donated to the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Warsaw last week.

Book Reviews

- Charlie English's The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu; review by Justin Marozzi in the Spectator.

- Holger Hoock's Scars of Independence; review by Jane Kamensky in the NYTimes.

- James Barron's The One-Cent Magenta; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at the Fine Books Blog.

- John Grisham's Camino Island; review by Jocelyn McClurg in USA Today (apparently it's about rare book and manuscript collecting ... )

- Beth Underdown's The Witchfinder's Sister; review by Helen Castor in the NYTimes.

- Rüdiger Safranski's Goethe: Life as a Work of Art; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.

- Stephen Fry's new audiobook edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories; review by Simon Callow in the NYTimes.

Upcoming Auctions

- The Richard Beagle Collection of Angling and Sporting Books, Part I on 1 June at PBA Galleries.

- Arader Galleries Summer 2017 Sale on 3 June.

- Books and Ephemera at National Book Auctions on 3 June.

Links & Reviews

- This week's Sotheby's sale of a remarkable collection of Hamilton manuscripts garnered a NYTimes report and a Fine Books Blog post by Rebecca Rego Barry.

- The BPL has digitized their copy of Moxon's Mechanick Exercises (1683).

- Over at Literary Hub, Rebecca Rego Barry previewed the sale of some important pieces of Doubleday publishing history at Doyle this week.

- A "Book History Unbound" section has been added to the SHARP website, as a space for Book History contributors to post additional materials.

- ILAB released a warning this week about a book circulating with a forged Darwin inscription.

- The California International Antiquarian Book Fair celebrates fifty years this February; I'm looking forward to attending for the first time!

- Early American bookplates are the order of the day on the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog.

- A new digital collation tool is now available for download.

- Bruce Springsteen's archive is going to Monmouth University.

- The Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at the University of Wisconsin Madison will host what looks like a fascinating conference in September, "BH and DH: Book History and Digital Humanities." See the page for the call for papers, &c.

- The new journal Libraries: Culture, History, and Society is now accepting submissions for the second issue.

- Nancy Campbell writes on the "Beauty of Books" for the TLS.

- On the OUP blog, James Cortada asks how map reading has changed over the past several centuries.

- A new podcast from AAS features interviews with AAS research fellows.

- A Watertown, NY woman was arrested after attempting to steal rare books from the Flower Public Library in Watertown.

- From Michiko Kakutani, "Obama's Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books," as well as the transcript of the interview for the piece.

Reviews

- A new translation of Dumas' The Red Sphinx; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.

- Ruth Franklin's Shirley Jackson and Miles Hyman's recent graphic adaptation of "The Lottery"; review by Emilie Bickerton in the TLS.

- Kevin Dann's Expect Great Things; review by John Kaag in the NYTimes.

Upcoming Auctions

- Alexander Hamilton: An Important Family Archive of Letters and Manuscripts at Sotheby's New York, 18 January

- Books, Art and Ephemera: Whaling, Horror, 16th Century, &c. at National Book Auctions, 21 January

Links & Reviews

- Joseph Berger's NYTimes report "A Secret Jew, the New World, a Lost Book: Mystery Solved," on the identification of manuscript stolen from the National Archives of Mexico, is not to be missed.

- Heather Wolfe's recent Shakespeare discoveries are highlighted in The Guardian.

- The Grolier Club is hosting a mini-symposium on Wednesday, 11 January, "The World of Bookplates," drawing on their current exhibition, "Bookplates at the Grolier Club."

- Alex Shashkevich writes for the Stanford News website about a recent collaborative initiative to get students using materials from the university's special collections and archives.

- Among the Rare Book Monthly pieces for January are the annual look at the top 500 auction prices for works on paper (2016), Bruce McKinney on Sven Becker's appointment as head of books and manuscripts at Christie's New York, and Michael Stillman on the badly-done California law governing the sale of signed materials.

- Speaking of AB 1570, there's a Change.org petition up now urging its repeal, which had more than 800 signatures as of this morning.

- The BPL has started a new blog series in unique items in their collections, and I'd missed a pre-Christmas post from Jay Moschella about the BPL's important Americana purchases at the 1896 sale of the library of S.L.M. Barlow.

- Georgianna Ziegler notes a beautiful new Folger acquisition: a tiny manuscript presented to the eldest son of James I in 1607 by calligrapher Esther Inglis.

- Kirk Johnson highlights the work of bookbinder Donald Vass, who has worked for the King County Public Library system for more than a quarter-century.

- New and with all kinds of interesting things to be found, Early Modern Typography.

- This year marks the 75th anniversary of the opening of Harvard's Houghton Library.

- Rick Rojas reports for the NYTimes on the big move for a large collection of New York City court archives.

- Pradeep Sebastian surveys 2016's books about books for The Hindu.

- The British Library has returned a book from its collections after determining that it was stolen from an earlier owner by the Nazis.

- Jay Sylvestre of the University of Miami gets the "Bright Young Librarians" treatment at the Fine Books Blog.

- The Kelmscott Chaucer census blog notes that two copies have recently found new institutional homes.

- Two librarians in Florida have been suspended for apparently falsifying circulation records by creating fake patron accounts. Reportedly they did this to avoid the books being "automatically culled," but it poses a problem since the libraries receive some funding based on circulation.

Reviews

- Robert Parkinson's The Common Cause; review by Annette Gordon-Reed in the NYRB.

- Lawrence Bergreen's Casanova; review by Anthony Gottlieb in the NYTimes.

- Dava Sobel's The Glass Universe; review by Eileen Pollack in the WaPo.

- David Silverman's Thundersticks; review by Casey Sanchez in the LATimes.

- Alison Bradford and Joyce Chaplin's The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus; review by Mark Micale in the TLS.

Upcoming Auctions

- Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photography at Lyon & Turnbull, 11 January

- Rare Medicine & Science: Inventory of Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books (with additions) at PBA Galleries, 12 January

Links & Reviews

- Over at the Houghton Library blog, "Footprints of a Bibliographical Ghost."

- An ivory cup-and-ball toy from the family of Jane Austen will be sold at Sotheby's London on Tuesday.

- The Harry Ransom Center has acquired some 180 books from the library of Gabriel García Márquez.

- From Heather Wolfe at The Collation, a look at scissor impressions left behind in early modern books.

 - The NARA blog had a really fascinating post this week about how the Archives responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

- The Times ran an obituary of Martin Stone this week.

- A new exhibition at the National Library of Scotland features early photographically-illustrated books relating to Scotland.

- Abby Schoolman gets the "Bright Young Booksellers" spotlight this week.

- The BPL's Collections of Distinction blog highlights a ~1460 Strasbourg bible from the BPL collections, recently conserved and digitized.

- Swann sold two uncolored plates from Audubon's Birds of America this week.

- Lew Jaffe's post this week at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie includes a query from another bookplate collector who is seeking dated English bookplates from particular years.

- The team working on building a replica common press at RIT has posted an update on their progress.

- Janice Hansen posts about examples of "mummy printing" (it's not what you think) in the UNC Chapel Hill rare book collections.

- Rebecca Romney offers a primer (treasure map?) on collecting books about pirates.

- R. M. Healey looks back at Bishop Richard de Bury (of Philobiblon fame) at Jot101.

- The Princeton Graphic Arts blog explores a rare print showing the interior of Paris's famed Lemercier lithography firm.

- Danuta Kean reports for the Guardian on what has been a truly terrible year for library funding in the UK.

- Kurt at American Book Collecting highlights a few of the association copies of Rosenbach's Unpublishable Memoirs from his collection.

- Jane Rickard writes for the Huntington Library's blog about evidence of early readership in Ben Jonson's Works.

- The Archives Hub team has posted a basic outline of their updated interface.

Reviews

- Elaine Scarry's Naming Thy Name; review by Matthew Harrison in the LARB.

- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by Tim Groenland in the Dublin Review of Books.

- Yale's new edition of the Voynich Manuscript; review by Toby Lester in the WSJ.

Upcoming Auctions

- English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustrations at Sotheby's London, 13 December

- Rare Books, Early Photographs, Manuscripts, Maps and Paintings at Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers (Dublin), 13 December

- Printed Books, Maps, and Documents at Dominic Winter Auctioneers (Cirencester), 14 December

- Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts, including Americana at Christie's New York, 14 December

- Books, Photographs and Other Works on Paper at Bloomsbury, 15 December

- Americana, Travel & Exploration, World History and Cartography at PBA Galleries, 15 December

- Important Judaica at Sotheby's New York, 15 December

- Fine and Valuable Books at Bibliopathos (Milan), 15 December

- Bibliothèque d'un amateur at Pierre Bergé & Associes (Paris), 16 December

Links & Reviews

A warning: timing on these posts may be wonky for the next month or so, as I've got a heavy travel schedule; I'll try to keep up with things and will post when I can.

- Oak Knoll Fest XIX this past weekend seemed a grand success: excellent panel discussions and lectures, a very well-attended fine press showcase, and some unbeatable sales at Oak Knoll Books. I know I'm not alone in looking forward to the next one!

- The Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair is coming up this weekend, and the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair will be held from 28 to 30 October.

- The ABAA reports the theft of "a number of maps and prints focused on Arctic Exploration, Ethnography, and Circumpolar Navigation" from Juneau, Alaska.

- Christopher de Hamel's Guardian piece about the potential identification of a psalter as once belonging to St. Thomas Becket is a must-read.

- From Eureka Books, a good rundown of the consequences of a new California law governing the sale of autographed books and artwork.

- Jay Moschella writes for the BPL's Collections of Distinction blog about a forged Shakespeare signature. Also see his previous post on the 1598 Richard II quarto.

- From Don Skemer at Princeton, an overview of the library's holdings of William Henry Ireland's Shakespeare forgeries.

- John Lancaster posted on ExLibris on behalf of Elly Cockx-Indestege, who is looking for books from the collection of the 8th Duke of Arenberg. See the post for images of the relevant provenance marks.

- There's a survey (open until 1 November) asking "What I Did Not Learn in Library School" - if it applies, you might consider helping out the researchers. See this post for more details.

- A new exhibition at Trinity College's Watkinson Library celebrates the library's 150th anniversary.

- The catalog of Yale Law Library's current exhibition, "Representing the Law in the Most Serene Republic: Images of Authority from Renaissance Venice" is now available as a PDF, and a selection of photos from the show are up on Flickr.

- Sotheby's posts about a Lewis Carroll manuscript coming up for sale later this month which includes a list of friends the author intended to receive copies of his 1890 work The Nursery of Alice.

- October's Rare Books Monthly articles are up: they include a profile of bookseller Kurt Sanftleben.

- Lew Jaffe has posted a number of interesting bookplates he's willing to exchange for others not currently represented in his collection.

- AbeBooks.com has introduced a new "Collections" section, themed lists curated by member booksellers.

- See a video about the University of Iowa Center for the Book's attempt to make 2,000 sheets of chancery paper in a single day

- Rich Rennicks posts for The New Antiquarian about the "wordless novels" of Lynd Ward.

- Over at The Junto, Joe Adelman proposes a massive but very useful resource on how the Bible was used and interpreted in early America.

- A major Poe exhibition opens this week at John Hopkins' Peabody Library.

- Sarah Werner posts on "researching while unaffiliated."

- Heywood Hill is running a Library Lifetime Prize Draw: tell them the book that has meant the most to you, and you could win a book a month, for life!

- Christie's profiles Glenn Horowitz.

- Christopher Minty talks to Carolle Morini of the Boston Athenaeum at The Junto.

- For their "Mystery Monday" post, the folks at the Provenance Online Project have a monogram bookplate for us to puzzle out.

- Lisa Fagin Davis posts on Manuscript Road Trip about the ongoing Beyond Words exhibition in Boston. More on this on the Fine Books Blog.

- There's a Vandercook SP-20 that could be yours ... and Josef Beery has developed a new tabletop letterpress, the Book Beetle (see the video).

- A new exhibition at the V&A explores David Garrick as a book collector.

Reviews

- Krista Halverson's Shakespeare and Company, Paris; review in The Economist.

- Elizabeth Yale's Sociable Knowledge; review by Katherine Walker for the British Society for Literature and Science.

- Ruth Franklin's Shirley Jackson; reviews by Elaine Showalter in the WaPo and Scott Bradfield in the LATimes.

- Mark Kurlansky's Paper and Keith Houston's The Book; review by Dennis Duncan in the TLS.

Links & Reviews

- Bookseller John Crichton of the Brick Row Book Shop is profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle. The shop marked its hundredth birthday in early December.

- Sotheby's sale of material from the Valmadonna Trust collection realized more than $14.9 million, setting a record for an auction of Judaica. The Bomberg Talmud alone fetched $9.3 million, and was sold to Stephan Loewentheil, reportedly on behalf of collector Leon Black.

- The Morgan Library & Museum announced that they acquired from the Pirie sale the large-paper copy of Orlando Furioso (1591).

- Peter Brantley writes for Publishers Weekly about how James Billington's retirement should be a "wake-up call" for librarians.

- No surprise to most readers of this blog, but Michael Rosenwald reports for the Washington Post on the "resurgence" of used bookstores.

- The BBC reports on the new details emerging about the early Koranic fragments identified at Birmingham University earlier this year.

- Over at The New Antiquarian, a poetic ode to the current Grolier Club exhibition by Terry Belanger.

- The Shakespeare exhibits are starting: the HRC's, "Shakespeare in Print and Performance," is up through 29 May. See a preview.

- Along the same lines, Heather Wolfe announces one of the Folger's many initiatives for 2016: Shakespeare Documented, "the largest and most authoritative resource for learning about primary sources that document the life and career of William Shakespeare."

- In the Guardian's "book to share" column, Robert Freeman highlights Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer.

- At Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Guillermo Moran shows the process of making a mezzotint bookplate.

Reviews

- Page Smith's (posthumous) Tragic Encounters and Michael McDonnell's Masters of Empire; review by David Treuer in the LATimes.

- David Wootton's The Invention of Science; review by Matthew Price in the Boston Globe.

Links & Reviews

- The book collection of Robert S Pirie will be sold at Sotheby's in December. David Redden calls it "the greatest private collection put together since World War II." This is going to be quite a sale to watch.

- Librarian of Congress James Billington announced this week that his retirement will take effect on 30 September, not on 1 January as previously stated. Deputy Librarian of Congress David Mao will serve as acting Librarian until Billington's successor is confirmed by the Senate.

- A federal judge ruled this week that "Happy Birthday" is in the public domain. Read the full decision. Warner/Chappell has not yet indicated whether they will appeal. For background, see Paul Collins' 2011 Slate piece on the copyright status of this song.

- APHA is developing a History of Printing Timeline and they have asked for comments and suggestions.

- Making the rounds this week, Alexandra Alter's NYTimes report "The Plot Twist: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far From Dead."

- The National Library of Scotland has announced plans to digitize a third of its 24 million items available digitally in the next ten years.

- Literary Hub has a great feature called "Interview with a Bookstore" - this week they talked to the staff at Cambridge's Harvard Book Store.

- The Society of American Archivists has released a comment on the Copyright Office's pilot program for mass digitization projects.

- A major exhibition on the library of John Dee will be on display at the Royal College of Physicians in London from January to July 2016.

- UVA Today profiled book conservator Eliza Gilligan this week, focusing on her work with a book from Landon Carter's library.

- Daniel Crouch Rare Books has donated a 1926 embroidered map made by the Disabled Soldiers Embroidery Industry to the Bodleian Library.

- Megan Cook writes about her work at an RBS course in Philadelphia this summer, where she explored a 16th-century heraldic manuscript and "shows how open access to digital images of early books can facilitate new answers to old questions."

- The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library has received a $4 million grant from the Arcadia Fund to support HMML's cataloging, archiving, and digitization efforts. Teams from the museum have been engaged in digital preservation in Syria, Iraq, and Mali in recent years.

- Not in the least unconnected, the e-book subscription service Oyster will close early next year.

- Eve Kahn reports for the NYTimes on MIT conservator Jana Dambrogio's work on "letterlocking."

- In Smithsonian, Alexander Stille reports on the 2013 discovery of a trove of what are perhaps the oldest identified papyri, which are providing much new information about the construction of the pyramids.

- The Folger Shakespeare Library has joined the Provenance Online Project, with the first batch of images comprising more than 350 women's provenance marks identified by Georgianna Ziegler.

- Lew Jaffe posts about a few new bookplate acquisitions, including one fantastic new name label (of Gardner Winslow of Pomfret, VT) with a nice manuscript addition.

- William Blake's Felpham cottage has been saved for the British nation after a fundraising campaign: the Blake Society was able to purchase the house for £495,000.

- Claire M.L. Bourne has a guest post at The Collation about a great sammelband from the Folger collections.

- Princeton has acquired a copy of William James Stillman's 1870 photographic book The Acropolisy of Athens. Stillman's an old favorite of mine; he and I share an alma mater, Union College.

- Speaking of bookplates, some 2,000 from James Goode's collection will be sold at Heritage Auctions in New York in early November.

- Osama S.M. Amin writes about a fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh acquired in 2011 by the Sulaymaniyah Museum in Iraq. It, along with other clay tablets, are believed to have been illegally excavated from southern Iraq - the museum purchased them as part of an initiative to intercept smuggled antiquities before they could be removed from the country.

- Houghton Library has acquired a collection of more than 3,000 items related to "major conflicts and transformative events of the 20th century" from the José María Castañé Foundation.

Reviews

- Andrea Wulf's The Invention of Nature; review by Colin Thubron in the NYTimes.

- Andrea Mays' The Millionaire and the Bard; review by Nick Romeo in the Daily Beast.

- Paul Kingsnorth's The Wake; review by Laird Hunt in the LATimes.

- Elsa Hart's Jade Dragon Mountain; review by Denise Hassanzade Ajiri in the CSM.

- The Morgan Library & Museum's exhibit "Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars"; review by Charles McGrath in the NYTimes.