Links & Auctions

- Mary Hamilton French writes for the NEDCC blog about her recent work to conserve a fifteenth-century manuscript Vitae Augustini from the BPL collections. A really excellent and beautifully illustrated walk through the process.

- News that the Honresfield Library will be sold at Sotheby's across three auctions (see the introduction to the first part, scheduled to be sold in July) prompted much coverage: see Alison Flood's piece in the Guardian and Jennifer Schuessler's in the NYT. A followup piece by Alison Flood for the Guardian reports on the immediate calls from the Brontë Society and others for the collection to be kept intact and made publicly available for research. See also Francesca Collins' post for the Museums Association.

- Stephen Hawking's Cambridge papers and personal memorabilia have been acquired for the British nation, and will be housed at the Cambridge University Library and the Science Museum.

- Hobby Lobby has sued Dirk Obbink to recover some of the $7 million reportedly paid for ancient gospel fragments which Obbink allegedly had stolen. See also the official complaint.

- The National Library of Scotland has acquired a sixteenth-century Perthshire manuscript, the "Chronicle of Foringall."

- Candida Moss has a roundup of some recent book thefts from libraries in the Daily Beast.

- Chiara Betti writes for the St John's College blog about the collection of some 750 copper plates given by Richard Rawlinson to the Bodleian Library. This is an introductory post about a new project to really study this collection for the first time, which promises to be extremely useful!

- From Aaron Pratt, "Paper Pitfalls."

- Notre Dame's Hesburgh Library has acquired a rare early Civil War lithograph of Jefferson Davis metamorphosed into a donkey.

- The Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog has a roundup of their Pandemic-Times webinars, and also a new post on "Typographic Necrology."

- From Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "A New Leaf from the Pontigny Copy of Florus & Didymus" and "Otto Ege's 12th-Century Italian Gospel Lectionary."

- Heather Wolfe writes for The Collation, "Malicious Teaseling: Or, how a simple reference question got complicated."

- Over on the Bodleian blog, "A Pirate's Life?"

- The Franz Kafka collection held by the National Library of Israel is now online in digital form.

- From Adam Smyth at TEXT!, "Family Bibles."

- The Middle Temple Library has another provenance mystery for this month.

Upcoming Auctions

- Music: Books & Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 8 June.

- Early Printing, Americana (Printed and Manuscript) at New England Book Auctions on 8 June.

- TCM Presents ... Mavericks at Bonhams Los Angeles on 8 June.

- Travel Books, Maps & Atlases at Forum Auctions on 9 June.

- Rare Books Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions on 9–10 June.

- Americana – Zamorano 80 – Travel – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 10 June.

- Bibliothèque Théâtrale du Comte Emmanuel D'André – Livres at Manuscrits at Binoche et Giquello on 11 June.

- Summer Auction at Arader Galleries on 12 June.

Links & Auctions

- Reminder that the Western States Book & Paper Fair is coming up 29 April–1 May.

- Entries for the 2021 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest are now being accepted, and entries for the 2021 Honey & Wax Prize are due on 1 June.

- The BBC reports on new research which attempts to identify scribal hands in the Great Isaiah Scroll. See also the original paper in PLoS ONE.

- There was terrible news from Cape Town this week, where a wildfire destroyed the University of Cape Town's Jagger Reading Room. The full extent of the damage to collections is not yet confirmed, but some rare and unique materials are known to have been lost. 

- An excerpt from Ross King's The Bookseller of Florence was in LitHub this week.

- Now online at Lost Manuscripts, Neil Ker's catalogue of pastedowns found in Oxford bindings (PoxBo).

- From Roger Wieck on the Morgan blog, "Master of Catherine of Cleves: Acquisition of a Previously Unknown Illumination."

- APHA has launched a YouTube channel.

- Rebecca Rego Barry notes a copy of Wharton's Ethan Frome inscribed by the author to her butler, Alfred White, currently offered for sale by Carpe Librum. The description reports that no other signed copies of this book are known.

- Lauren Hewes reports a very neat AAS acquisition: an 1858 set of foldable brass bookmarks!

- Swann Galleries will offer a selection of deaccessioned duplicates from the Letterform Archive on 12 May.

- Doyle has some books from William Safire's library in several of their upcoming sales. Rebecca Rego Barry notes some highlights.

- From Giuseppe Bruno-Chomin for the JHIBlog, "Italian 'Secrets,' Forgery(?), and a Pearly Obsession."

- A copy of Eikon Basilike is in the Early Modern Female Book Ownership spotlight this week.

Upcoming Auctions

- Collection of a Connoisseur: History in Manuscript, Part 2 at Sotheby's London ends on 27 April.

- Books, Manuscripts, Photographs: From the Middle Ages to the Moon at Christie's London ends on 28 April.

- Two Autograph Collections at Lion Heart Autographs on 28 April. 

- Atlas, Cartes & Livres de Voyage at ALDE on 29 April.

- Antiquarian and Modern Literature and Illustrated Books at Forum Auctions on 29 April.

- Rare Books, Autographs & Maps at Doyle on 29 April.

- California and the West. With Americana – Travel – Maps at PBA Galleries on 29 April.

Links & Auctions

- New and excellent: Book Owners Online, a directory of English book owners, 1610–1715 (with plans to expand). Spearheaded by David Pearson with support from CELL and the Bibliographical Society.

- Registration is now open for the Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair (virtual) on 11–13 September, which will include a series of webinars and an exhibition.

- The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair will also be held online, 12–14 November. Some details are now available.

- Travis McDade has a piece on the Pittsburgh Carnegie Library thefts in the September Smithsonian.

- There were many stories this week about the recent discoveries of books and manuscripts beneath the attic floorboards at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk (most but not entirely having been used as rodent nesting material). See also Matthew Champion's fascinating and well-illustrated Twitter thread on the finds.

- Meanwhile, the National Trust's "restructuring" plans, which would eliminate many curatorial positions, are coming in for much justified derision.

- From Peter Kidd, "Another Hachette-Lehman-Yale Cutting."

- Garrett Scott has launched Antiquarian Bookseller Wiki, beginning with a series of biographical sketches of women active in the antiquarian book trades.

- Over on the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog, "Frances Mary Richardson Currer, Important Early Bibliophile."

- William Harris writes for the FDR Library's blog: "Unpretentious History: Alma Van Curan and the FDR Library Logbooks."

- The AAS' PHBAC has release their fall schedule of virtual events (plus videos of their spring/summer talks, all of which were excellent).

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "How did the Cotton Library grow?"

- Jeffrey Hamburger writes for the Houghton blog, "An 'Old Prayer Book,' Yet not a 'Dull' one: The Liber Ordinarius of Nivelles."

- Many congratulations to the Grosvenor Rare Book Room at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, which recently completed its collection of Kelmscott Press publications!

- From Elizabeth Gettins on the LC blog, a post highlighting the recent digitization of historical title pages submitted for copyright purposes.

- J.L. Bell has begun a series of posts on John Adams' library, including comments from the current Quincy mayor who is apparently going to try and bring the books back to Quincy from Boston ... see "When John Adams Gave Away His Library," "'The most appropriate and useful place for the collection'," and "Looking at John Adams's Things Today," with more to come.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 27 August.

- Vintage Posters at Swann Galleries on 27 August.

- Fine Books with Americana, Travel & Arthur H. Clark Publications at PBA Galleries ends on 27 August.

- Rare Books, Art & Ephemera at Addison & Sarova on 29 August.

Links & Auctions

- CABS 2020 has been cancelled.

- Rebecca Rego Barry summarized this week's ILAB webinar about the effects of COVID-19 on the antiquarian bookselling community for the FB&C blog.

- Brian Cassidy talked to the AbeBooks "Behind the Bookshelves" podcast this week.

- Over on the Beinecke's blog, Michael Morand offers "Some Early Notes on Teaching Online with Special Collections in a Time of Quarantine."

- From Past is Present, Jeff Cooper on "Hidden Histories and the Digitization of New England's Earliest Manuscript Church Records."

- Don't miss the excellent "At Home with Books" catalog put out this week by Heather O'Donnell, Ben Kinmont, Simon Beattie, and Justin Croft.

- Devon Eastland writes about the "long s" for the Swann blog.

- Two new stories this week about the opening of Emily Hale's letters from T.S. Eliot at Princeton: James Parker writes for the Atlantic on "The Secret Cruelty of T.S. Eliot," and Princeton's Daniel Linke writes about the robust security (literal metal bands around the boxes!) used to keep the letters secure until they could be released.

- From Matt Kirschenbaum, "Bibliologistics: The Nature of Books Now, or a Memorable Fancy."

- Mike Widener has a post on the Yale Law Library's rare books blog about "Epidemics and Quarantine in 17th-century Rome."

- Hannah Alpert-Adams has a Medium post about "What the Humanities do in a Crisis."

- Over on the library blog for Catholic University, Henry Granville Widener has a post about Brazilian incunabula.

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Illuminating the Worms Bible."

- From Jay Moschella, "Notes From a Lost Renaissance Library."

- More useful resource compilations, this one on #VastEarlyAmerica from the Omohundro Institute.

- Over on the Met's "In Circulation" blog, Mindell Dubansky offers some "Reminiscences of a Bookbinder."

- From Lisa Fagin Davis, "Fragmentology Under Quarantine." (Also, Lisa's "Breakfast Paleography" threads on Twitter are great, too!)

- At Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "A Collector's Mark Re-Interpreted."

- From the Middle Temple Library blog, another fascinating provenance mystery for us to mull over.

- Over on the Princeton Graphic Arts collection blog, "Museum of the History of the Recorded Word."

- Elizabeth DeBold writes for The Collation on "All the Purposes of a Library: A Piece of Blue Ephemera."

Upcoming Auctions (online)

- Fine Literature featuring a Collection of Rudyard Kipling at Doyle on 15 April.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Potter & Potter on 18 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

- From Georgianna Ziegler, "What were women reading? A dive into the Folger vault."

- A look at a very cool 1663 book on metametrica from the Princeton Graphic Arts collection blog.

- Over at Sammelband, "Making the Syllabus Zine."

- Coming up in May at the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the inaugural Summer Institute in Book History & Digital Humanities, on the theme "Acting on the Book."

- The Washington Post reported this week that the Library of Congress also chose not to highlight a photo of the 2017 Women's March in an exhibit because of "anti-Trump messages" appearing in the photograph.

- Tulane University has acquired the Anne Rice archives, with support from Stuart Rose and the Stuart Rose Family Foundation.

- Things don't appear to be quite so devastating as first reports indicated for the collections of the Museum of Chinese in America—still awful, but not a total loss, at the very least. Atlas Obscura ran a report on the first round of retrievals from the building.

- Don't miss the February Rare Book Monthly articles.

Upcoming Auctions

- Paul Destribats: Bibliothèque des avant-gardes, Partie II at Christie's Paris on 4 February.

- Sporting & Travel Books from the Library of Arnold "Jake" Johnson at Doyle (online) on 4 February.

- Rare Books & Manuscripts at the Pasadena Book Fair at PBA Galleries on 6 February.

- Lettres & Manuscrits Autographes at Ader on 6 February.

Links & Auctions

- A fourth stolen Columbus Letter has been recovered and will be returned to the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. This copy is from the Plannck I edition, and had been acquired by the Marciana in 1875. It is believed to have been stolen between 1985 and 1988, and in 2003 was sold to an American collector by an unidentified American bookseller. See the DOJ press release, or coverage in CNN, Delaware Online.

- This week's "Women in the Book Arts" symposium at the Grolier Club is available for streaming on YouTube.

- LitHub has a peek at the trailer for D.W. Young's new documentary "The Booksellers."

- From Lucy Kelsall for the Paul Mellon Centre, "Two bookbindings from the Oppé Library."

- In the Salt Lake Tribune, news that Ken Sanders' open bookshop in downtown Salt Lake City may be forced to close sometime next year due to impending redevelopment of the neighborhood.

- From Elle Hunt in the Guardian, "Dedicated followers: collectors of book inscriptions share their notes."

- An update on the "Rankin Files" over on the NLS blog.

- The collections of the Museum of Chinese in America in New York City are believed to have been destroyed in a fire this week.

- From Peter Kidd, "Unrecognised Brölemann Provenances."

- The National Archives blog has begun a series of posts on unratified constitutional amendments, starting with the very first proposed amendment (which would have changed the number of members of the House).

- David Ferriero posted on his AOTUS Blog "Accepting Responsibility, Working to Rebuild Your Trust" after last weekend's photograph controversy.

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana at Sotheby's New York on 27 January.

- Books & Works on Paper and Autographs & Memorabilia at Chiswick Auctions on 28 January.

- Printed Books, Maps, Documents, The Library of Patricia Milne-Henderson, Bookbinding Tools at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 29 January.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions (online) on 30 January.

- The Collection of Victor Niederhoffer, Part III and Books, Maps & Manuscripts at Freeman's on 30 January.

Links & Auctions

- The Ticknor Society has announced the George and Anna Eliot Ticknor Book Collecting Prize. See the page for full details; the deadline is 15 April 2019.

- Alison Flood writes for the Guardian about the National Trust project to preserve and catalog the Chute family library at The Vyne (with a side of schoolboy marginalia).

- Also from Alison Flood in the Guardian, a previously-unknown manuscript collection of John Donne's poetry has been identified at Melford Hall in Suffolk.

- In Rare Book Monthly for December, Michael Stillman writes on the AbeBooks Revolt, Susan Halas considers what to do with books that don't sell, and Bruce McKinney reports that David Hall of National Book Auctions has been charged with second-degree grand larceny after allegedly failing to pay a consignor.

- In Smithsonian, Zita Cristina Nunes on Howard University librarian Dorothy Porter.

- Manfred Heiting's extensive collection of photobooks was destroyed in the California wildfires; the library had recently been donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, but had not yet been transferred.

- The recently-discovered copy of Poe's Tales in wrappers sold at Skinner for $315,000.

- Over on the APHA blog, "A Linotyper for Life."

- In the HRC magazine, an interview with Alan Gribben about his extensive work on Mark Twain's library.

- Susan Orlean talked about her new book The Library Book for the NYPL podcast.

- Annie Rowlenson is featured in "Bright Young Booksellers."

- On the JHIBlog, Molly Nebiolo on "John Parkinson and the Rise of Botany in the 17th Century."

- A warm welcome to several new ABAA members.

- From Simon Beattie's blog, "Inscribed to Amelia Opie."

- Also on the ABAA blog, a notice of censure, a short announcement about forged LDS material, and a report about a book misdelivered and now missing in London.

- More on the LDS thefts/forgeries from GephardtDaily and the Standard-Examiner.

- J.L. Bell has some notes on the pronunciation of several 18th-century printers' names.

- Elena Weissmann writes about the new Penguin Mini editions of several John Green books for the CSM.

- Former Librarian of Congress James Billington died; see coverage in the NYTimes and on the Fine Books Blog.

Upcoming Auctions

- Music, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts and Continental Books at Sotheby's London on 4 December.

- Albert Einstein: The God Letter and Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts Including Americana at Christie's New York on 4 December.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts including the World of Hilary Knight and History of Science and Technology, including Space Technology at Bonhams New York on 5 December.

- Rare Autographs, Books, and Relics at University Archives on 5 December.

- Illustration Art at Swann Galleries on 6 December.

Links & Reviews

Note: there will be a pause in new posts for the remainder of the month; I'll be back in April with a hefty backlog of links to share, I'm sure!

- Coming up next Sunday morning (11 March) in New York, "Collections and Women: A Panel Discussion" at the Park Avenue Armory. Sponsored by the ABAA Women's Initiative.

- The Newberry has released a new policy relating to use of images from its collections.

- An except from Alexander Bevilacqua's The Republic of Arabic Letters is up on Literary Hub.

- Andrew Dickson goes "Inside the OED" for the Guardian.

- New exhibition at Yale Law School's Lillian Goldman Law Library: "Law Books Bright and Beautiful."

- Roberta Mazza writes for HyperAllergic about the illegal trade in papyrus fragments.

- From Yale News, word that another round of scientific tests is being carried out on the Vinland Map (and that Ray Clemens is editing a book about the map).

- Via Rebecca Romney's Book Curious newsletter this week, "The Papermaker" on Vimeo is well worth a watch.

- From Lisa Fagin Davis, "Fragmentarium: A Model for Digital Fragmentology."

- Kurt Zimmerman has made up a bit of a biblio-quiz about bookselling and collecting.

- Over at Rare Books Digest, a primer on bookplates and book-labels.

- Anne Marie Roos writes for the Huntington's blog about her recent research there into the life of Martin Folkes.

- Emory University has acquired a collection of Harper Lee letters. And from the NYTimes, "Harper Lee's Will, Unsealed, Only Adds More Mystery To Her Life."

- Eric White writes for the Notabilia blog about Princeton's copy of the first separate printed edition of Virgil's Bucolica.

- From Kate Ozment at Sammelband, "Teaching Ephemera: Pamphlet Binding."

- Susan Blickhan posts some background info and explanation about the BPL's crowdsourced transcription project for anti-slavery manuscripts.

- Pradeep Sebastian writes for The Hindu about the delightful biblio-mystery The Nijmegen Proof.

- Rare books at the California State Library were damaged this week when water came through the roof into the stacks.

- Crosscut profiles University of Washington special collections library Sandra Kroupa.

- Brodie Waddell has compiled a list of free online paleography resources (&c.).

Reviews

- Three recent biblio-fiction novels reviewed by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.

- John Y. Cole's America's Greatest Library; review by Ernest Hilbert in the WaPo.

Upcoming Auctions

- Printed Books, Maps & Caricatures at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 7 March.

- Rare Books Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions (in New York) on 7 March.

- Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books at Swann Galleries on 8 March.

- Fine Judaica at Kestenbaum & Company on 8 March.

- Fine Literature & Fine Books at PBA Galleries on 8 March.

- Photography: The First 150 Years at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 9 March.

- Extraordinary Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams New York on 9 March.

- The David and Janice Frent Collection of Political & Presidential Americana, Part 2 at Heritage Auctions on 10 March.

- 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings at Swann Galleries on 13 March.

- The Political Cartoon Collection of Jeffrey Archer at Sotheby's London on 14 March.

- Western Americana & Texana at Heritage Auctions on 17 March.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts Including Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes at Bonhams London on 21 March.

- Autographs at Swann Galleries on 22 March.

- Americana - Travel & Exploration - World History - Cartography at PBA Galleries on 22 March.

- Fine Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 22 March.

- Rare Books & Paper at Addison & Sarova on 24 March.

- Books, Maps & Manuscripts at Freeman's on 28 March.

- Printed & Manuscript African-Americana at Swann Galleries on 29 March.

Links & Reviews

- Over on the Smithsonian's Unbound blog, a really excellent post about the marginalia in a 1491 copy of Pliny's Naturalis Historia.

- Police have released some CCTV footage and appealed for information relating to the theft of rare books from a Norfolk bookshop's warehouse on 9 January. More.

- For "The Biblio File," Nigel Beale talked to David Esslemont about the Gregynog and Solmentes presses.

- Laura Wasowicz writes for Past is Present about her "Thirty Years Adventure with the McLoughlin Brothers" (see also the current Grolier Club exhibition, which I'm looking forward to viewing later this week).

- At The Collation, Abbie Weinberg looks at early book reviews in the Philosophical Transactions.

- A 1523 Hebrew-Latin grammar was returned to the Jewish Museum in Prague after its most recent owner agreed to withdraw it from auction. The volume had belonged to Prague's Jewish community prior to World War II. The anonymous owner, identified as a scholar in Jerusalem, said was returning the book because not to do so would be "an active continuity of those terrible thefts committed against Jewish property and cultural treasures perpetrated by the German Nazis."

- The first volume of George Washington's copy of the Massachusetts Magazine (1789) will be offered for sale on 27 January.

- Henry Bradshaw is the topic over at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance.

- Rare Stephen King books and typescripts were damaged from flooding from a water main break in Bangor, Maine. Updates after initial recovery efforts revealed that a few of the rarer items were undamaged, which is very good news indeed.

- The Seattle Times has an obituary for bookseller Louis Collins.

- Hobby Lobby have returned more looted artifacts to federal authorities.

Reviews

- The new Penguin Classics edition of the 1818 text of Frankenstein; review by Genevieve Valentine for NPR.

- Robin Sloan's Sourdough; review by Suzy Feay for the Guardian.

- Martin Puchner's The Written World; review by Daisy Dunn in the TLS.

Upcoming Auctions

- Americana - Travel & Exploration - Cartography at PBA Galleries on 25 January.

- Fine Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 25 January.

- Historic Winter Fine Art and Antiques at Case Antiques, Inc. on 27 January (see the Washington book noted above).

- Fine Books & Manuscripts at Potter & Potter on 27 January.

Links & Reviews

- From the "special place in hell" department: a 33-year-old researcher, Antonin DeHays, entered a guilty plea on Thursday to theft of government property, admitting that he stole at least 291 military dog tags and "at least 134 other records" (including "identification cards, personal letters, photographs, a bible, and pieces of downed U.S. aircraft") from the National Archives' public reading room in College Park, Maryland. The thefts occurred over five years, and DeHays sold some of the stolen material on eBay and elsewhere, while retaining some and reportedly giving some as gifts (or, in one instance, trading a Tuskegee Airman's dogtag to a museum for the opportunity to sit inside a Spitfire airplane). DeHays will be sentenced on 4 April; according to the DOJ press release, he faces up to ten years in prison. David Ferriero told the AP "While I am pleased that we are one step closer to justice in this case, I remain shocked and angered that a historian would show such disregard for records and artifacts. As a veteran, I am disgusted that anyone would steal records and artifacts documenting those captured or killed in the service of their nation." He said that reading room policies have been changed in the wake of these thefts.

- American Libraries has an update on some of the catastrophic damage sustained by Caribbean libraries during and in the aftermath of this year's hurricanes.

- The CERL Heritage of the Printed Book Database (HPB) is now freely available for use. See this page for background, technical notes, &c.

- Hyperspectral imaging at the Library of Congress has revealed fourteen lines from a 1780 Alexander Hamilton letter to Elizabeth Schuyler (written prior to their marriage) presumably censored by their son prior to the letter's original publication.

- Atlas Obscura features the tiny "book village" of Hobart, New York - I've got to get over there and visit one of these days!

- A public forum in Salem about the status of the Phillips Library collections got a little heated, as might have been expected. See reports from the Salem News and the Boston Globe.

- You know you want a deep dive into those Jedi texts from the new Star Wars movie [here be spoilers].

- While I very much doubt that the map is actually kept in a "shoe box," a new Minneapolis Star-Tribune piece about the Waldseemüller map auction mentioned last month is worth a read. [Update: John Overholt notes that the piece seems to be describing the library as a shoe box - fair enough!]

- From the Hartford Courant, "University of Texas Wins Tussle with Yale Over Arthur Miller's Papers." Jennifer Schuessler has more on this in the NYTimes.

- I have some questions about this one, but pass it along anyway: Smithsonian reports on some new techniques of "protein analysis" being used on old paper. See also the research paper on which this report is based.

- UVA undergraduate and graduate students are eligible for the BSUVA Book Collecting Contest - the deadline for submission is 12 February.

- The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has extended the $10 million reward for information leading to return of the stolen artwork indefinitely (it was due to expire at the end of 2017).

- Another nice provenance chase over at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance this week.

Reviews

- Edward Brooke-Hitchings' The Phantom Atlas; review by James Keller for the Sante Fe New Mexican.

- Edward Ayers' The Thin Light of Freedom; review by Ronald White in the NYTimes.

- Marion Rankine's Brolliology; review by Shahidha Bari in the TLS.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books, Maps & Manuscripts at Freeman's on 17 January.

- Of Royal and Noble Descent at Sotheby's London on 17 January.

- Fine Printed and Manuscript Americana, including Cartography at Sotheby's New York on 17 January.

- Important Americana at Sotheby's New York from 18–21 January.

- Books and Ephemera at National Book Auctions on 20 January.

Links & Reviews

I hope you've all had a delightful holiday season, and here comes 2018, ready or not.

- A bit more on the Philips Library from the Salem News, and the petition mentioned in my last post continues to garner signatures, with 2,988 as of this morning.

- From Past is Present, a post by Kathleen Major about her work on attempting to identify the authors of anonymous diaries in the AAS collections.

- The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased a 14th-century illuminated Hebrew Bible prior to its scheduled sale at Sotheby's.

- The Library of Congress highlights some of the maps scanned and made available this year.

- The National Library of Scotland has announced the availability of the Peter Sharratt Collection.

- Caleb Crain's "Notes, 2017" is a fascinating commonplace book of the year.

- The Guardian is running a fun end-of-year short stories podcast series; the first features Penelope Lively introducing M.R. James' wonderfully creepy "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad," accompanied by Simon Callow's reading of the story.

- Police in Norwich are seeking information about the theft of several books from a delivery van.

- Amelia Hugill-Fontanel's "Mind Your Thorns & Eths," about a visit to bookshops and letterpress outfits in Iceland, has given me a few more things to add to my list of places to go when I'm there in March!

- At NPR, Victoria Schwab says "Just Trust Me: In Praise of Strange Books."

- Try your hand at the Guardian Christmas quiz and their big books quiz of the year.

- The Library of Congress has updated their policy on the Twitter archive. Dan Cohen has a post on "The Significance of the Twitter Archive at the Library of Congress."

- Hoaxter Clifford Irving of Autobiography of Howard Hughes fame died, aged 87. See the NYTimes obit.

- Katherine Skiba profiles Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden for the Chicago Tribune.

- In Signature, Lorraine Berry on "The Sensational Allure of Lost Books in Fiction and Nonfiction."

- Ian Cobain reports for the Guardian on the thousands of documents reported removed from public access at the National Archives (mostly by civil servants, it seems) and not returned.

- Mike Hanlon summarizes some of the end-of-year auction action at New Atlas.

- The Bodleian Library has announced that several previously unseen J.R.R. Tolkien "Father Christmas" letters to his children will be part of a major exhibition opening in May.

Reviews

- A.N. Wilson's Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker; review by Jerry Coyne in the WaPo. Wowsers. This and several other Darwin-related books are reviewed by Claire Pettit in the TLS.

- Christopher de Hamel's Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts; review by Helen Castor in the NYTimes.

- Robert Irwin's Wonders Will Never Cease; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.

- Martin Salisbury's The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920–1970; reviews by Ernest Hilbert in the WaPo and Agatha French in the LATimes.

- Anders Rydell's The Book Thieves; review by Ashley Valanzola in the LARB.

Upcoming Auction

- Books and Ephemera at National Book Auctions on 6 January.

Links & Reviews

- Rebecca Romney has "13 Secrets of Rare Book Dealers" for Mental Floss.

- Noah Sheola's got a great post up on the Houghton blog about the importance of good cataloging.

- The November Rare Book Monthly includes Marc Sena Carrel on "Exiting the Bookseller Business," Michael Stillman on an upcoming auction of an early Declaration of Independence broadside, and a Bruce McKinney note about bookseller William Reese being honored by the AAS this week with the Christopher Columbus Baldwin medal (a well-deserved honor, to be sure).

- Hewlett-Packard's extensive archives were destroyed in the recent California wildfires.

- Cynthia Zarin writes for the New Yorker about "The Original Master of Ghost Stories" (M.R. James, of course).

- The manuscript of John Donne's "Courtier's Library" has been identified in the Westminster Abbey archives.

- Kurt Zimmerman is on "The Hunt for Early American Women Bibliographers" at American Book Collecting.

- MITH has launched Books.Files, a Mellon-funded project to "assess the potential for the archival collection and scholarly study of digital assets associated with today’s trade publishing and bookmaking."

- The Folger has launched Miranda, a new platform for the library's digital content. See the blog post for lots of good background.

- Tim Carmody writes for Kottke.org about "Card catalogs and the secret history of modernity."

- Several more panel overviews from the recent APHA conference in "The Process of Innovation."

- A Titanic letter (one of the last known to be written on the ship) sold at auction this week for £126,000.

- Booktryst will publish a fine-press book celebrating the late Martin Stone.

- A Thomas Bewick sketchbook has been identified and purchased by Bewick collector David Bolam.

Reviews

- Alison Weir's Queens of the Conquest; review by Dan Jones in the WaPo.

- Russell Shorto's Revolution Song; review by Lynne Cheney in the NYTimes.

- Walter Isaacson's Leonardo da Vinci; review by Jennifer Senior in the NYTimes.

- Noah Feldman's The Three Lives of James Madison; review by Susan Dunn in the NYTimes.

- Gordon S. Wood's Friends Divided; review by Richard Brookhiser in the NYTimes.

Upcoming Auctions

- The Library of an English Bibliophile, Part VII at Sotheby's London on 7 November.

- Autographs at Swann Galleries on 7 November.

- Rare Books, Autographs & Maps at Doyle New York on 7 November.

- Fine Golf Books at PBA Galleries on 12 November.

- Fine Books & Manuscripts at Skinner, Inc. on 12 November.

- Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History at Sotheby's London on 14 November.

- 19th & 20th Century Literature at Swann Galleries on 14 November.

- Fine Books, Atlases, Manuscripts, and Photographs at Bonhams London on 15 November.

Links & Reviews

- An important early Latin commentary on the Gospels has been identified in the Cologne Cathedral Library and translated into English for the first time.

- A copy of the Columbus Letter stolen from the Vatican Library and replaced with a fake has been located and returned.

- A fire in the southern Italian city of Cosenza has reportedly destroyed a private museum "housing the collection of the Bilotti Ruggi D'aragona family, described as "the most important library in southern Italy."

- On the Library of Congress blog, a Q&A with aspiring book conservator Riley Thomas.

- Over at Past is Present, "Collaborative Bibliographic Data Production," by Nigel Lepianka and "Unpacking a Digital Library" by Adam Fales.

- The Boston Globe reports on the identification and recent production of a 17th-century play, the manuscript of which was found in the BPL's collections.

- Vanderbilt has acquired the George Clulow and United States Playing Card Co. Gaming Collection.

- The "I am Jack the Ripper" postcard will be offered at auction in October.

Reviews

- John Clayton's Wonderlandscape; review by Dennis Drabelle in the WaPo.

- Laurent Binet's The Seventh Function of Language; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.

- James Delbourgo's Collecting the World; review by John Gallagher in the Irish Times.

Upcoming Auction

- Fine Books in All Fields at PBA Galleries on 31 August.

Links & Reviews

- From Jason Rhody, "How to Fight for Federal Support of Cultural Research and Why It Matters."

- Another round of sales from Pierre Bergé's library was held in Paris on 8–9 November, resulting in total sales of €4.8 million. A Flaubert travel diary attracted much pre-sale attention, including coverage in the Guardian (it sold for nearly €540,000).

- November's Rare Book Monthly articles include a profile of map dealer Barry Ruderman, a tribute to Bob Fleck, and a report on the guilty verdict in Michael Danaher's trial for the murder of bookseller Adrian Greenwood. More on the latter from the BBC.

- Wayne Wiegand writes for Inside Higher Ed about how contemporary LIS "research" has shortchanged libraries.

- Some important job searches: AAS is hiring an Associate Librarian, UVA seeks an Associate University Librarian for Special Collections & Archives, and the BPL is looking for a Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarian.

- Newly launched, EMoBookTrade, which looks quite interesting indeed.

- A task force at MIT has issued a preliminary "Future of Libraries" report, which "contains general recommendations intended to develop 'a global library for a global university,' while strengthening the library system’s relationship with the local academic community and public sphere."

- Vic Zoschak looks back at this year's Boston Book Fair.

- The ABAA's Women in Bookselling Initiative launched in Boston during the fair.

- Rick Russack offers a review of the events around the book fair for Antiques and the Arts Weekly.

- The University of Chicago has digitized 68 Biblical manuscripts from the Edgar J. Goodspeed Manuscript Collection.

- Several major US and UK institutions have agreed to cooperate in the digitization of the papers of George III.

- Watch a talk by Tom Mole, "Scott in Stone: The Scott Monument in the Victorian Pantheon," delivered to the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club.

- A first edition of the first Harry Potter book sold for £35,000 this week.

- Based on some fairly tangled legal reasoning, a Connecticut judge ordered that 252 disputed books from Maurice Sendak's estate will go to the author's estate, with another 88 going to the Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Both sides may appeal. More coverage from Smithsonian and the NYTimes.

- Author Philip Roth is donating his 4,000-volume library to the Newark Public Library.

- Damage to a nearby building from a massive earthquake has closed the National Library of New Zealand for the time being.

- Tom Brokaw's papers and archive will go to the University of Iowa.

- At The Taper, Brandon Butler posts about the recent goings-on at the Copyright Office.

- The Portland Press Herald interviews Don Lindgren of Rabelais.

- One of 145 manuscripts stolen in 1985 from the Biblioteca Passerini-Landi in Piacenza was recovered after being spotted for sale online. More than half of the other manuscripts have also been recovered over the years. More from the BBC.

- Book scout Martin Stone has died. More from Bookride.

- Chicago's Lutheran School of Theology has returned a 9th-century New Testament to the Greek Orthodox Church.

- From Stephanie Kingsley in Perspectives, a "quick study" on book history.

- Rob Koehler writes for the JHIBlog on novel-reading in the early republic.

- Watch a time-lapse video of 52,000 books being reshelved in the NYPL's Rose Main Reading Room.

- Seven volumes missing from the London Library since the 1950s were recently returned after being found during an estate appraisal.

- The Watkinson Library has acquired an 1839 Audubon letter to Robert Havell.

- Stephanie Jamieson writes for the NLS blog about identifying platinotype photographs.

- Bookseller Ken Karmiole has given $100,000 to the Book Club of California to endow a lecture series in the history of the book trade in California and the West.

- Éditions des Saints Pères is publishing a limited facsimile edition of the manuscript of Jane Eyre, with illustrations by Edmund Garrett.

- Gregory Schneider reports for the WaPo about the State Library of Virginia's efforts to collect and scan Civil War documents from family collections across the commonwealth. Wonderful story.

- The director of Moscow's Library of Ukrainian Literature has been put on trial for "inciting ethnic hatred against Russians" (i.e. "disseminating banned literature classed as extremist"). Natalia Sharina is also charged with embezzling library funds; she maintains that all charges are politically motivated.

- The OUP blog features an essay by New Oxford Shakespeare editor Gary Taylor on Shakespeare's collaborators.

- National Geographic reports on Robert Berlo's important collection of more than 12,000 road maps.

- The second part of Gordon Hollis' "Book Collecting in the United States" series is up on the ABAA blog. Part One.

- Joel Fry, curator at Bartram's Garden, is seeking information on copies of the first edition of John Bartram's Travels (Philadelphia, 1791) for an ongoing census.

- The DPLA's Archival Description Working Group has released a new whitepaper on aggregating and representing archival collections.

- One of the most amusing library blog posts in a long time: "A Raven Named Sir Nevermore?"

Reviews

- The Morgan Library's Charlotte Brontë exhibition; review by Francine Prose in the NYRB.

- Anne Trubek's The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting; review by Lucy Ferriss at Lingua Franca.

- Frances Wilson's Guilty Thing; review by John Sutherland in the NYTimes.

- David Skal's Something in the Blood; review by Jason Zinoman in the NYTimes.

- John Crowley's new edition of The Chemical Wedding by Christian Rosencreutz: A Romance in Eight Days by Johann Valentin Andreae; review by Peter Bebergal for the New Yorker's Page-Turner blog.

- John Simpson's The Word Detective and John McWhorter's Words on the Move; review by Lynne Truss in the NYTimes.

- Colin Dickey's Ghostland; review by Rachel Monroe in the LARB.

Links & Reviews

- As if they needed more bad news: the BPL has temporarily closed its rare book department for an assessment after a "significant mold outbreak."

- Megan Cottrell has a short piece in American Libraries about thwarting book thefts, featuring comments from Travis McDade.

- Nancy Scola reported for Politico that biographer Walter Isaacson "took himself out of the running" to be the next Librarian of Congress. The report includes several other names of folks supposedly under consideration, including Amy Gutmann, John Palfrey, Carla Hayden, Susan Hildreth, Deborah Jacobs, Brewster Kahle, and David Ferriero.

- There's a new Pew Research report about the importance of libraries in American society, which ought to be read by anyone with an interest.

- Roll Call's Bridget Bowman talked to new Library of Congress CIO Bernard A. Barton, Jr. about what he hopes to do at LC.

- Coming up from 12–14 November in Philadelphia, the 8th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age. This year's theme is "Picking up the Pieces," about fragmentation and reconstitution of manuscripts. See the event webpage for full details.

- An iconic Darwin letter about the Bible heads to auction on Monday: Rebecca Rego Barry reports for the Guardian.

- Lambeth Palace Library has purchased the Broughton Missal.

- Robert Darnton has released two of his early books as open-access texts through the Authors Alliance.

- From Past is Present, "Omeka Mania at AAS."

- The Library of Congress has acquired the personal archives of Jerry Lewis.

- WBUR reported this week on the jam-packed state of affairs at the Massachusetts Archives in Boston.

- Also going to the Library of Congress, the papers of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

- Library historian Wayne Wiegand talked to the Daily Tar Heel about his new book Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library.

- Over on the APHA blog, Robert Oldham writes about his attempt to track all extant hand presses in the United States.

- Simon Fraser University has purchased a 1269 manuscript law volume; this is reportedly the first medieval manuscript purchased by the university. [Warning: white glove alert]

- From Heather Wolfe at The Collation, a neat find about early modern printing practices in the notebooks of John Ward, a physician and the vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon.

- An excellent example of bearing type, from the UNC Wilson Special Collections Library's Tumblr. [via John Overholt]

- Typographer Adrian Frutiger died on 10 September; his NYTimes obituary is well worth a read.

- There's a new exhibit at the Harvard Law School Library: "One Text, Sixteen Manuscripts: Magna Carta at the Harvard Law School Library." There's an online companion to the show as well.

- More on the ongoing crisis at the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project from the Illinois Times.

- AAS Fellow Linford Fisher talked to Past is Present about his work on colonial slavery.

- Pauline Schol writes about this year's York Antiquarian Book Seminar (YABS) over at The Bookhunter on Safari.

- The Independent highlights artist Lisa Nilsson's use of "quilled" paper to create vivid anatomical cross-sections.

- Bob McCamant links to a short video on YouTube of Anthony Bourdain visiting Andrew Hoyem's Arion Press.

- The New-York Historical Society has acquired a collection of more than 300 documentary photographs of New York City, taken between 1978 and 2015 by Raymond Germann.

- Up for sale on Tuesday at Bonhams will be Franz Kafka's signed Czech passport.

- Nate Pedersen visited the Innerpeffray Library in Scotland in June, and has posted a short video he took on his trip over on the FB&C blog.

- Currently on display at the Grolier Club, "Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The Translations of Lewis Carroll's Masterpiece."

- Orson Welles' copies of the screenplay for "Citizen Kane" will be sold at a Profiles in History sale on 30 September. Up for grabs are an original first draft, a final draft, and a revised shooting script with Welles' manuscript notes.

- In the TLS, Jonathan Clark suggests that Thomas Paine was not the author of significant portions of The Rights of Man, and offers his own candidate.

Reviews

- Sasha Abramsky's The House of Twenty Thousand Books; review by Toby Lichtig in the TLS.

- Livi Michael's Succession; review by Jean Zimmerman in the NYTimes.