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.

Auction Preview: October

- On 6 October, PBA Galleries will sell Fine Literature & Books in All Fields, in 406 lots. The expected high spot is a (somewhat restored) first edition Leaves of Grass with an (unconnected) postcard written by Whitman (est. $60,000-90,000). A Jessie Bayes illuminated manuscript of two Shelley poems is estimated at $25,000-35,000, while a first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz could fetch $20,000-30,000.

- Also on 6 October, Bloomsbury holds a Bibliophile Sale, in 413 lots.

- At Bonhams on 10 October, Fine Books and Manuscripts, in 271 lots. A 1776 John Adams letter to William Cooper about the construction of Navy vessels rates a $50,000-80,000 estimate, while a first edition of McKenney and Hall is estimated at $40,000-60,000. A copy of the leaf book A Noble Fragment with the original Gutenberg Bible leaf is estimated at $30,000-50,000. Rating the same estimate is a suite of Robert Furber's 1730 Twelve Months of Flowers. A Nuremberg Chronicle could sell for $20,000-30,000. A second edition of William Wood's New Englands Prospect (1635) rates the same estimate.

- Swann has a sale of Early Printed, Medical and Scientific Books on 17 October, in 304 lots.

- Bonhams will sell The Robert H. and Donna L. Jackson Collection Part I: 19th Century Literature on 18 October, in 251 lots. Expected top sellers include an autograph manuscript leaf of The Pickwick Papers ($70,000-100,000); a rare complete copy of Trollope's Ralph the Heir in parts ($50,000-80,000); a first edition Middlemarch in parts ($50,000-70,000); complete sets of Pickwick Papers and David Copperfield in parts ($30,000-50,000); a copy of Audubon's Quadrupeds in the original parts ($45,000-55,000); and George Eliot's brother's copy of her Scenes of Clerical Life ($20,000-30,000).

- Sotheby's has just one book sale this month, but it's a whopper. The Library of an English Bibliophile, Part II (my report on Part I is here) comprises 155 lots, eight of which are estimated at more than $100,000. The Shakespeare First Folio, not surprisingly, rates the top estimate, at $600,000-700,000 (a Third Folio could fetch $350,000-400,000). A particularly lovely first edition of Joyce's Ulysses with presentation inscriptions by publisher Sylvia Beach could sell for $450,000-500,000, while a first printing of Poe's Tales (1845) rates a $200,000-250,000 estimate (The Raven and Other Poems, published the same year, is estimated at $140,000-180,000). Joyce's Dubliners could sell for $150,000-200,000. A first printing of The Great Gatsby in a second-state dust jacket is estimated at $150,000-180,000, and a first issue Leaves of Grass could reach $140,000-160,000. That's just a teaser of all the goodies in this sale, which one hopes will realize some really impressive figures (it certainly has the potential to).

- Also on 20 October, Bloomsbury sells Books from the Library of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, in 171 lots. The expected high spot is Johannes Kip's Nouveau Theatre de Grand Bretagne (1713-1728), in three volumes (est. £30,000-40,000).

- PBA Galleries will sell Nevada, California & Americana: The Library of Clint Maish, with additions, on 20 October. No preview yet available.

Links & Reviews

- Duke University Libraries received its largest gift ever this week, $13.6 million from university trustee David Rubenstein, managing director of The Carlyle Group. The donation will support the Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections library.

- Over at Past is Present, Doris O'Keefe highlights some really fascinating early 19th-century government documents.

- The Boston Athenaeum announced this week that it will digitize a selection of its extensive Confederate imprints collection.

- The recent launch of Old Bailey Online, a searchable database of the Old Bailey's criminal trials from 1674-1913, garnered some coverage this week in the NYTimes.

- New from Penn, the Seymour de Ricci Bibliotheca Britannica Manuscripta Digitized Archive, some 60,000 digitized research cards for de Ricci's unfinished census of pre-1800 manuscripts in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

- J.L. Bell notes the release of the Bostonian Society's new iPhone app, Mapping Revolutionary Boston (a fantastic idea).

- On NPR this week Robert Siegel talked to Hugh Thomas about his new book The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America.

- A document thought at one time to be an autobiography by Butch Cassidy was revealed this week to be not that, although it's still not clear just what it is.

- An Abraham Lincoln letter was returned to the National Archives this week; it'd been "removed" from the collections at an unknown date.

- From 8vo, photos and a writeup of what looks like a fabulous visit to Hay-on-Wye (I'm more than a little jealous!).

- In today's NYTimes, David Streitfeld looks at the growth industry of pay-for-review schemes.

- The Harbour Bookshop in Dartmouth, England is likely to close next month after more than 60 years in operation. It was founded by Christopher Robin Milne.

- The first statue of Charles Dickens [in England - see comment] is planned for Guildhall Square, Portsmouth; it's to be installed by next year to celebrate the bicentennial of the author's birth.

Reviews

- Willard Sterne Randall's Ethan Allen; reviews by James Zug in the Boston Globe and François Furstenberg in Slate.

- Charles C. Mann's 1493; review by Ian Morris in the NYTimes.

- Hugh Thomas' Golden Empire; review by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo.

LEA Updates

Some more recent updates/additions/&c. to the Libraries of Early America:

- I've added a collection of books shipped over to New England with an early group of Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers in April, 1629. We don't know what became of these books (most of which were chosen by Rev. Samuel Skelton), but it's an interesting little grouping.

- The Internet Archive scanners at BPL have been going hog-wild with John Adams books lately - I've added links to the digital versions of more than fifty volumes in the last couple days alone. For any record that has a "Digital Version" link (like this one), you can click through and read John Adams' copy of the book.

- I'm continuing to add medical books to the library of Dr. John Jeffries - a bit of a slog (I'm through 12 pages of the 40-page catalog) but it's progressing.

Auction Report: Bonhams (and an Adams pamphlet)

The big story, if not the biggest seller, out of the Bonhams New York sale of Books, Maps and Manuscripts on 15 December was Charles Dickens' toothpick, which sold for $9,150. Full results of the sale are here, and other highlights include:

- A fourth folio Shakespeare (1685), which made $103,700.

- A very rare pre-publication presentation copy (in a really nice binding) of a John Adams work, Letters ([London, 1786]), a collection of letters between Adams and Dr. Henrik Calkoen. This copy was presented to Adams' cousin, Ward Nicholas Boylston. It sold for $109,800.

Interestingly, there are not very many copies of this pamphlet at all, and since there were a couple different issues, it's not clear exactly how many of this particular version there are. Here's what it looks like to me: there's one here at MHS (a presentation copy to Adams' brother-in-law Richard Cranch, and obtained for us by Jeremy Belknap through a trade with Cranch); two at the Boston Athenaeum (one with the bookplate of Adams' grandson Charles Francis, the other in the Washington collection, sent to him by Benjamin Lincoln in 1788 - the record for that one is here), one at Princeton, and one in the British Library. The Washington copy is bound with other pamphlets; the Princeton copy is in marbled paper wraps, and ours at MHS was rebound in the 1960s. ESTC lists another at the American Antiquarian Society, but I don't find it in their online catalog.

An Independence Day Hodgepodge

It's become something of a tradition around here that I post a collection of Independence Day-related links: in 2007 I highlighted some digitized images of relevant documents (that post is now slightly out of date but the URLs still work), and in 2008 I put together a hodgepodge similar to this one.

- A new issue of Common-place is up: it features several articles on Thomas Paine's reputation then and now.

- In the NYTimes, historian John Gilbert McCurdy examines the bachelor founders. Among them, at least for a time, were Delaware's Caesar Rodney, North Carolina's Joseph Hewes, and Massachusetts' Elbridge Gerry (Gerry married in 1786). McCurdy is the author of Citizen Bachelors: Manhood and the Creation of the United States. In yesterday's Times, lawyer Adam Freedman noted the English roots of our founding document, and historian Kathleen DuVal reminded us of the different political systems deployed by the Indians and Spanish residents of North America.

- Over at McSweeney's, Peter Krinke has a little fun, offering up a lost John Adams diary entry from 3 July 1776.

- In the WSJ, Rachel Emma Silverman reports that a ciphered letter sent to Jefferson in 1801 by his friend Robert Patterson has been cracked by mathematician Lawren Smithline. And the message? "In Congress, July Fourth, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six. A declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. When in the course of human events ..." In the Jefferson papers at MHS are some of Jefferson's own codes and ciphers, which I find endlessly fascinating.

- Last weekend I mused about what it would be like to take Jefferson's recommended reading list to heart. Tom Edsall from the 19th Century Shop emailed to say that they'd recently released a catalog which features a ready-made collection of books drawn from the Skipwith List (comprising about 90% of the titles included there, in correct editions and period bindings). You can read their description here [PDF - the collection is at pp. 41-42 of the PDF, pp. 78-81 of the catalog]. For $525,000, it could all be yours. It's an absolutely brilliant idea.

- I finally decided last night to start watching the HBO "John Adams" series from last spring. I watched the first two episodes, and enjoyed them very much. With the important caveat that they are not entirely accurate (see John's series of Boston 1775 posts), the series was very well cast, and I enjoyed the episode covering the runup to Independence very much.

Enjoy the Fourth, all.

Take John Adams' words of 3 July 1776 to heart: "But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

"You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. -- I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. -- Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not."

Adams-Jefferson Conference Day 3

The Boston leg of the Adams-Jefferson Libraries conference concluded today, with two panels at the BPL. Richard Ryerson, Keith Thomson and Brian Steele gave papers this morning on "Adams, Jefferson, and Nationalism," and Joanne Freeman commented. In the afternoon there was a panel on "Libraries and the Enlightenment," which featured Frank Shuffelton and Billy Wayson, with comment by Mary Kelley.

The papers today were intentionally provocative, in some ways raised more questions than than answered. They all prompted good discussions. There were some amusing moments: Keith Thomson, in speaking about Jefferson's defense of the Americas against Buffon, commented on the relative warmth of Europe and North America, noting "in fact if Franklin hadn't discovered the Gulf Stream, all of Europe would be quite uninhabitable."

And I think today was probably the only time John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Klingons have been discussed in the same conversation - that came about in a discussion of cosmology and Ryerson's suggestion that Adams believed it quite possible that there was life on other planets. He quoted JA's diary for 25 April 1756: "Astronomers tell us, with good Reason, that not only all the Planets and Satellites in our Solar System, are inhabited, but all the unnumbered Worlds that revolve round the fixt Starrs are inhabited, as well as this Globe of Earth. If this is the Case all Mankind are no more in comparison of the whole rational Creation of God, than a point to the Orbit of Saturn. Perhaps all these different Ranks of Rational Beings have in a greater or less Degree, committed moral Wickedness. If so, I ask a Calvinist, whether he will subscribe to this Alternitive, 'either God almighty must assume the respective shapes of all these different Species, and suffer the Penalties of their Crimes, in their Stead, or else all these Beings must be consigned to everlasting Perdition?'" Hence, would Christ have to appear as a Klingon too for them to be saved? Probably more a thought experiment than anything else, but a very interesting one indeed.

Again, all the papers are available here, and the commenters' remarks are going to be uploaded as well (in addition, which I did not know until today, the panels were taped, and audio files of them will be edited and made available online as well, so I'll certainly note when they go live).

Following the afternoon session we bussed to Quincy to the Adams National Historical Park, to see the house lived in by several generation of Adamses. Since I (for shame) had never been, I figured what better time to go than with a group of big fans? That was a delightful little trip, and a fitting send-off for the conference. The second leg resumes in Charlottesville, VA on Thursday afternoon with a keynote address by former Sen. Gary Hart. I've got to go back to the real world tomorrow so I will miss the second section of the conference, but will look forward to the audio of the discussions and will remember the Boston leg very fondly.

Adams-Jefferson Conference Day 2

It's all Adams and Jefferson all the time for me, at least for the first part of this week. It's remarkably strange to be totally away from the computer for half a day or a full day at a time - makes one realize just how much one relies of it for things. News, email, Google Reader, even Twitter ... trying to catch up with all those things after eight or nine hours away from them is a daunting task. But well worth it today, after an absolutely top-notch full day of panel discussions, tours and other assorted events.

We began this morning at the BPL with a panel discussion on "Adams and Jefferson as Book Collectors," starring Beth Prindle, David Emblidge, and Kevin Hayes (with comments by Marcus McCorison). Each of them briefly recapped their papers (which you can read here), and then we had a wide-ranging discussion about the striking differences between the two men when it came to collecting (TJ was fairly particular, JA not so much), their acquisition habits, their motivations behind building libraries, &c.

Following the panel Beth and a colleague led tours of the BPL's McKim building and of the John Adams Library there at the library, and when the group reconvened at 2 we met at the MHS for a second panel discussion, "Libraries, Law, and Political Philosophy." David Konig, Gregg Lint, and Richard Bernstein each discussed their papers, and Mary Sarah Bilder delivered comments. Another very fascinating discussion ensued, about the ways in which legal thinking and writing shaped and was shaped by TJ, JA and their reading.

At 4 p.m. my colleagues and I made brief introductions to the Adams and Jefferson collections at the MHS (we have the largest Adams papers collection and one of the largest Jefferson collections), and then we unveiled the exhibition, which I think people seemed to enjoy quite well.

Tomorrow, panels on nationalism and the Enlightenment, which promise to be just as enthralling.

What's really remarkable to me about the conference, even beyond the good discussions, is having so many Adams and Jefferson scholars in the same room at the same time. It's a tremendous group of people, all of whom love to talk and share stories and experiences about their time spent studying Jefferson and Adams and their books. Where else could something like this happen? I'm sure I haven't managed to convey the fun of it all, but it's really a delight.

Adams-Jefferson Conference Kickoff

The first event of the John Adams & Thomas Jefferson: Libraries, Leadership and Legacy conference was held tonight: John Carter Brown library director Ted Widmer gave a keynote address titled "People of the Book: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the Koran." Beginning with the fact that both Jefferson and Adams owned copies of the Koran (Jefferson's copy was a 1764 London edition of George Sale's translation; Adams' copy was the first American edition, printed at Springfield, MA in 1806), he discussed both the the particular aspects of their ownership of the book and the general topic of how Islam and the Koran were understood in early America.

A timely discussion, and very well researched. One of the best parts was Widmer's closing anecdote: when he visited the Library of Congress to examine Jefferson's Koran, another researcher was waiting to use it when he finished. It was a Muslim woman from Salt Lake City, who said she had read about Rep. Keith Ellison being sworn in on Jefferson's copy and wanted to see it for herself.

Tomorrow the panel discussions begin, and those promise to be interesting as well.

Links & Reviews

- There's an article in today's Globe about the Adams-Jefferson Libraries conference, which starts tonight at 5 p.m. with a speech by Ted Widmer at the BPL.

- Michael Suarez has been named the new head of Rare Book School, to succeed the retiring Terry Belanger. Suarez is currently J. A. Kavanaugh Professor of English at Fordham University and as Fellow and Tutor in English at Campion Hall, Oxford University, and the co-editor of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 5, 1695-1830, to be published in September, and co-general editor of The Oxford Companion to the Book, expected in January 2010. Congratulations and good luck!

- Laura's got a great look at the topic of her dissertation, the Gildbook of the Barber-Surgeons of York and some other medieval medical texts.

- Ray Bradbury has taken to the barricades in support of library funding in California.

- Rick Ring posted a three-part transcription of Lawrence C. Wroth's 1939 series of articles "The Press in the United States: An Ideal Tercentenary Exhibition." Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. A delightful look at early printing in America.

- News this week that The Papers of Andrew Jackson will be added to the University of Virginia Press's Rotunda project, which offers digital editions of the papers of George Washington, the Adams family, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Dolley Madison, as well as the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. The seven already-published volumes of Jackson papers will soon appear in the digital clearinghouse.

- ALA President Jim Rettig requests feedback on the report [PDF] of the ALA's Special Education Task Force, as well as recent recommendations [PDF] on accreditation. Comments are being accepted via the new Standards Review blog.

- Not really bookish, but a good idea. Via Rabelais Books, word for folks in the Portland, ME area that they'll be able to join an apple CSA this fall: "Each share will include 30-40 varieties of rare, interesting and highly flavored apples over the course of the season with a wide range of uses, appearances, histories and tastes. Each week you will receive a mix of dessert apples (apples meant to be eaten fresh) and culinary apples." This sounds great, and I wish I lived close enough to Portland to take advantage of it!

- On the State Library of Massachusetts blog, special collections librarian Katie Chase writes about archivists and pencils. This post circulated around our department on Friday, since most of us also have our own little pencil quirks (my major ones include that the pencils left out for the readers to use must always be pointy-side up and extremely sharp, and that I pretty much always have to have a mechanical pencil somewhere on my person, since I'm less likely to stab myself with one of those). And I agree entirely with Katie - thumbs way down on electric pencil sharpeners.

- Over at The Millions, C. Max Magee takes a look at the Amazon Alphabet (the auto-fill suggestions that pop up in the search box when you type each letter). Very clever!

- The Guardian notes that the BL has digitized a large collection of 19th-century newspapers. Searches are free, but there is a fee for downloading.

- A copy of the first volume of the first collection edition of the Federalist Papers sold for $80,000 in an online auction this week. It had been purchased for $7 at a flea market nineteen years ago.

- In the Telegraph, Gary Dexter examines the origin of Swift's title Gulliver's Travels.

Reviews

- William E. Cain reviews Jonathan Bate's Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare in the Boston Globe.

- In the WSJ, Aram Bakshian reviews Alex Storozynski's The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution.

- Gina Bellafante reviews The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet in the NYTimes.

Jefferson, Adams, and Books (Oh My!?)

I've a post up at The Beehive on some exciting upcoming events centered around the libraries of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, including the major national conference next week, an MHS exhibit, and the June Object of the Month.

Full disclosure: I had a little something to do with the latter two projects. But I hope you'll enjoy them anyway.

Adams on the Road

As part of the John Adams Unbound traveling exhibition (currently at the Minerva Public Library in Minerva, OH) the Boston Public Library has launched Where in the World is John Adams? to highlight the world travels of their new JA bookmark. Among the places he's visited so far: the Mall of America; Mickies Dairy Bar in Madison, WI; Red Sox spring training in FL; and Jefferson's library at the Library of Congress.

You can also follow the exploits of JA on Facebook or Twitter. Or check out John's April Fool's Day visit to the MHS.

And remember, JA's library is browseable!

Book Review: "Paradise Lost"

On 30 April 1756, 20-year old John Adams wrote in his diary "A hazy, dull Day. Reading Milton. That mans Soul, it seems to me, was distended as wide as Creation. His Powr over the human mind was absolute and unlimited. His Genius was great beyond Conception, and his Learning without Bounds. I can only gaze at him with astonishment, without comprehending the vast Compass of his Capacity."

Sounds about right. I've been enjoying Paradise Lost for several weekends now, in the recent Modern Library edition (William Kerrigan, John Rumrich and Stephen Fallon, eds.). Each Saturday and Sunday morning I went out into the kitchen, away from the computer and other technological gadgetry, to read without distraction. Milton both deserves and demands this treatment, I found: the poem is complicated enough that to try and read it any other way would have been impossible, and it is brilliant enough that I wanted to savor it to the fullest.

The editorial introduction provided a good and thorough background into aspects of Milton's work, including brief discussions of the poem's publishing history, the author's worldview, the linguistic styles and effects deployed in Paradise List, and the critical controversies the work spawned. Beyond this, the unobtrusive but more than welcome footnotes throughout were very helpful.

I'll spare the plot details, since they are well known (if not to you, try here or here). What most impressed me about Milton's tale was his utterly brilliant use of the English language. The cadence and the rhythm of his words held me in thrall from start to finish; there were times when I couldn't help but read the lines out loud to hear the way the words rolled together, sometimes striking against each other, sometimes merging so gracefully it seemed almost musical. His depictions of the fall of Satan and his minions and their re-emergence in Hell is riveting: the language is beautiful, but the imagery is positively terrifying.

Fully deserving of its reputation. A poem to wonder at, by an author to gaze at with astonishment.

Auction Report: Christie's

Aside from the big Lincoln sale at Christie's yesterday, there were also some big prices realized among the Print and Manuscript Americana lots.

- The Stone Broadside Declaration of Independence on parchment made $698,500; it was sold to a private buyer in the United States. The paper proof went for $68,500.

- An unpublished scientific manuscript by Albert Einstein on unified field theory fetched $230,500. It sold to a book dealer from Europe.

- John Adams' 1813 letter to William Plumer discussing the events of early July 1776 sold for $206,500.

Auction Report: Upcoming

- Bonhams and Butterfields (San Francisco) will hold a Fine Books & Manuscripts sale on 15 February. Highlights include several Isaac Newton manuscripts.

- Bloomsbury London will hold a Bibliophile Sale on 12 February and a sale of Children's Books, Private Press/Limited Editions, Artist Books and Modern Illustrated Books on 26 February. The New York branch will host a Modern Posters and Bibliophile Sale on 25 February.

- Christies will sell Print and Manuscript Americana on 12 February, including a Stone Declaration of Independence on parchment ($400,000-600,000) and a third paper proof of the Stone printing ($70,000-90,000). There's also an 1813 John Adams letter to Gov. William Plumer, in which the former president (not entirely accurately) recounts the events of early July 1776 ($200,000-300,000).

- In a separate sale, also on 12 February, Christies will sell the manuscript of Abraham Lincoln's 1864 election night victory speech, delivered from the White House window. This is estimated at $3-4 million.

Links & Reviews

Before the links and reviews, a note: I've updated the sidebar with a whole bunch of new blogs that I've recently added to my Google Reader, so be sure to stop by and visit them. Among these is one I'm delighted to see: Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. This blog, sponsored and run by staff at Yale's Beinecke Library, is celebrating Johnson's tercentenary by posting one definition a day from Johnson's Dictionary ("words will be taken from the annotated proof copy of the first edition, extra-illustrated with Johnson’s and his helpers' manuscript corrections" at the Beinecke).

- In the Boston Globe today, a feature story about recent trends in library usage, which has skyrocketed with the economic downtown. Seven MA public libraries report circulation increases of 20% or more for June-December 2008. In December alone, the small Groveland public library saw circ increases of a whopping 88% over last year. If there was ever an argument against cutting library funding, here it is. And yet these libraries will almost certainly face more cuts this year, and be expected to provide additional services, for more people, with less money.

- Michael Lieberman notes the publication of the second edition of Library World Records by Godfrey Oswald (McFarland).

- Nick Basbanes comments on the most recent memoir-scandal,

- The Guardian covers the online publication of the letters of Robert Burns, which are being posted in transcribed form. The site lacks context, but there are a number of useful links on the sidebar.

- The Milwaukee Art Museum is currently hosting an exhibit titled "Catesby, Audubon, and the Discovery of a New World." The show runs through 22 March.

- LISNews examines ten major library-related news stories from 2008.

- J.L. Bell points out Ira Stoll's Boston Globe op/ed about the modern relevance of Sam Adams (the man, not the beer).

- Over at BibliOdyssey, spiders!

- Bill Safire's NYTimes column today is on "media coverage of profanities, expletives, vulgarisms, obscenities, execrations, epithets and imprecations, nouns often lumped together by the Bluenose Generation as coarseness, crudeness, bawdiness, scatology or swearing."

- The Yale Law Library has acquired an 1835 John Marshall letter, in which Marshall writes to Washington biographer James Kirke Paulding about how Washington inspired and encouraged him to undertake a career in public service.

- From my old stomping grounds: the Schenectady Daily Gazette covers some interesting ledgers from Wemp's, a family-run store in Schoharie Crossing which catered to Erie Canal travelers in the mid-19th century.

- At Thingology, I posted some Legacy Library updates and completion notices.

- On Friday's "Talk of the Nation," author Steven Johnson discussed his new book, The Invention of Air (Riverhead). It's an excellent segment, and the book (about Priestley and oxygen, plus the scientist's connections with Franklin, Adams, Jefferson and others) sounds great too.

- Glenn Goldman, founder and longtime owner of the West Hollywood bookshop Book Soup, has died. According to reports, the store is now looking for a buyer to keep it open.

- More then 200,000 items from the collections of the now-closed Gotham Book Mart have been donated to the University of Pennsylvania. An anonymous donor purchased the stock and will turn it over to the university

- An Australian man is searching for the owner of a Christian verse book and a Scotch College prize certificate he says he found in the shallows of the Mooloolah River back in the mid-1990s.

- Freelance writer Sarah Lippincott has an essay in today's LA Times about reading Melville's Omoo and Typee while aboard a cruise ship in the Pacific.

Reviews

- Michael Washburn reviews Paul Maliszewski's Fakers: Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters, and Other Great Pretenders for the Boston Globe.

- In the TLS, Esther Schor reviews Brenda Wineapple's White Heat and Christopher Benfey's A Summer of Hummingbirds.

Auction Report: Sotheby's & Bloomsbury

The results are in from yesterday's Fine Books and Manuscripts sale at Sotheby's New York; the sale, in 247 lots, brought in a total of $3,342,440.

A first English edition of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) made $22,500. A ca. 1773 Jeffreys and Faden imprint of John Mitchell's "Map of the British and French Dominions in North America" beat its estimates soundly, fetching $170,500. Likewise for Henry Popple's 1733-34 "Map of the British Empire in America with the French and Spanish Settlements Adjacent thereto," called the "first large-scale map of British possessions in America." That sold for $104,500.

A copy of Gil Blas from George Washington's library sold for $52,500. A playbill for the performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre on the night of 14 April 1865 made $4,375. A bound collection of three Thomas Paine pamphlets, including the rare first edition of The American Crisis No. 1 ("These are the times that try men's souls") sold for a higher-than-expected $158,500. A Shakespeare Fourth Folio fetched $104,500, as did an 1811 Beethoven letter.

As far as the MassHort books, I haven't calculated the total haul for them, but the 1526 Herball made $86,500, while the Hortus Sanitatis didn't meet its estimate, fetching $98,500. It appears that just thirteen of the twenty-five MassHort lots sold (lots 212-237).

Meanwhile, Bloomsbury New York's 10 December sale of Important Books, Manuscripts, Literature and Americana also went off this week. Results are here. Looks like it was a pretty quiet day over there. A 1520 Apianus world map fetched $50,000. The original typed draft of Aleister Crowley's The Book of Thoth sold for $30,000. A copy of the first publication of Poe's "The Raven" in book form made $19,000, but the unpublished Poe manuscript failed to sell. A trifecta of presidential letters written by Washington, Adams, and Jefferson fetched $32,000, $28,000 and $36,000 respectively. The big seller was a John Jeffreys American Atlas (1776), which made $80,000.

Links & Reviews

Another big week for book news:

- More fallout from the Google settlement: Harvard libraries have decided, settlement notwithstanding, that Google will still not be allowed to scan their in-copyright books. Their concerns center around questions of how accessible the texts will be and what that access will cost. Harvard's news office said the university would re-evaluate its position over time. Google will still be able to scan out-of-copyright texts at Harvard. Seth Finkelstein comments on the agreement in The Guardian, Carolyn Kelly has more reaction at Jacket Copy, and Charlie at Bookfinder.com offers a settlement primer.

- J.L. Bell has an excellent post about further discoveries of factual inaccuracies in HBO's "John Adams" series and the problems they cause. I have to admit, even though I have the DVDs, after Adamspalooza this spring, I'm still Adams'ed out. Maybe this winter I'll finally ease my way back in and watch the series.

- The Houghton Library has received a Masonic membership certificate signed by Prince Hall, an early leader of Boston's African-American community and a founder of black Freemasonry.

- The Globe Theatre will receive a massive collection of Shakespeare texts (including copies of the first, second, third and fourth folios) from the collection of John Wolfson. [h/t RBN]

- Laura's working on a project about medieval bestiaries, which promises to be fascinating!

- The Little Professor has some "proposed descriptions for used books, with translations." Quite good. My favorite might be "Gently used: for target practice, but my aim is really quite poor."

- As the debate over OCLC's new user policies grows, Tim's posted a comparison chart showing how the policy has changed from its first iteration to its current form.

- More on Edwardian martial arts from Paul Collins.

- At Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee asks a group of "academics, editors, and public intellectuals," what one book they would suggest the president-elect read before inauguration day (some of the responses were submitted before Tuesday so both McCain and Obama are included). The results are here. [h/t Paper Cuts]

- Ed's got a Poe cryptogram for you to test your skills on this week.

- From BibliOdyssey, moths.

Reviews

- Ira Stoll's Samuel Adams: A Life is reviewed by Jonathan Karl in the Wall Street Journal. In the same paper, Aram Bakshian reviews Paul Lockhart's The Drillmaster of Valley Forge and Seth Lipsky reviews Matthew Goodman's The Sun and the Moon.

- Gordon Campbell and Thomas Corns' new biography John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought is reviewed in The Telegraph.

- John Demos' The Enemy Within is reviewed by Germaine Greer in The Scotsman.

- Hugh Eakin reviews Sharon Waxman's Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World in the NYTimes.

- In the Washington Post, Stephen Prothero reviews Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates, Tony Horwitz reviews David Hackett Fischer's Champlain's Dream, and Dennis Drabelle reviews Donald Worster's A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir.

Auction Reports: Christie's & Bloomsbury

Christie's New York held a sale of Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana yesterday, which brought in just about $2.5 million. Two of the major expected high spots (the signed, limited Ulysses and a Samuel Beckett collection) failed to sell, but there were some high prices realized:

- An Einstein manuscript diagramming his special theory of relativity sold for $230,500.

- A letter by George Washington written when he was president-elect made $194,500.

- A Kelmscott Chaucer in the original binding fetched $146,500.

- The first edition, first issue of Poe's Tales (1845) made $134,500.

- A John Adams letter from February 1801 (after Adams knew he had lost his bid for re-election) sold for $37,500.

Bloomsbury's Bibliophile Sale was, as I suggested, the place to get a bargain on some interesting if not particularly expensive items. Few lots exceeded the high estimates, and some sold for much less than expected (a 1649 Elzevir for £65, &c.).

Auction Report: Bonham's

Some of the prices realized at today's Bonham's New York Fine Books and Manuscripts sale (including premiums):

- John Adams' copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations went for $36,000; a 1785 J.A. letter also rated a high price, selling for $33,000. The John Quincy Adams letter didn't do quite as well; it went for $600.

- the Franklin & Ross Arctic expedition manuscript diary made $10,200.

- a first edition of William Bligh's account of the Bounty mutiny sold for $13,200.

- an original Charles Schulz Sunday "Peanuts" comic strip fetched $39,000.

- David Roberts' The Holy Land beat the estimates, making $51,000.

- the collection of 34 Thomas Bewick wood blocks sold for $4,800.

- the first edition of Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations went for $78,000, as did the manuscript draft page from Darwin's Descent of Man.