Links & Reviews

Before I hunker down in the snowstorm for "Do Nothing But Read Day," here are this week's links and reviews.

- From the Eye blog, an interesting look at early book design.

- In Forbes, a look at forged modern first editions and the eBay world that allows them to persist. Offers some good, reasonable advice for those who'd collect them, too.

- Some fantastic images from the Nuremberg Chronicle, courtesy of BibliOdyssey.

- In the NYTimes, Margo Rabb writes on book thefts at independent bookstores.

- A fire at the Dean Heritage Centre in Soudley, Gloucestershire caused damage to some of the museum's archives, rare books and artifacts.

- Cornell University will partner with the Internet Archive to make available 80,000 already-scanned out-of-copyright works. [h/t Book Patrol]

- Paul Collins notes his current New Scientist article, "A History of Walking on Water."

- And on the other digitization front (i.e. Google Books), the ALA, ARL and ACRL sent a letter [PDF] to the Justice Department on 15 December requesting "active supervision of the settlement by the court and the United States."

- Ben Macintyre writes on Dr. Watson in the Times, calling him maybe the most "unfairly overshadowed character in English literature." And the University of Minnesota is highlighting its major Holmes collection with some multimedia goodies.

- From McSweeney's, "Letters to Santa Written by Shakespeare Characters."

Reviews

- David Nokes' Samuel Johnson and a new edition of Sir John Hawkins' The Life of Samuel Johnson: reviewed by Henry Power in the TLS.

- Amanda Vickery's Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England: reviewed by Andrea Wulf in the NYTimes.

- Peter Ackroyd's The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling: reviewed by Steven Livingston in the Washington Post.

- Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna: reviewed by Jane Shilling in the Telegraph.

- Thomas Mallon's Yours Truly: A History of People and Their Letters: reviewed by Richard Eder in the Boston Globe.

- Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall: reviewed by Karen Heller in the Inquirer.

Book Review: "The Lost Chalice"

Vernon Silver's The Lost Chalice (William Morrow, 2009) is a riveting account of the longstanding saga of the famous Euphronios Krater. Following up the excellent 2006 book by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, The Medici Conspiracy (reviewed here) Silver extends that account by bringing the krater back to Italy (it was returned to Italy in January 2008) and by interviewing not only convicted smuggler/dealer Giacomo Medici himself, but also several others closely involved in the case (including the only surviving member of the tomb-robbing party who excavated the krater in 1971).

Silver's interest extend beyond the krater, though, and encompass other Euphronios works, including a kylix (or chalice) which was probably looted from the same area as the krater at around the same time. Silver tracks this piece, and several others, through the sordid underbelly of the illicit antiquities trade as they made their way around the globe, in and out of Swiss warehouses, the auction houses of London, the museums of America, and private collections hither and yon.

This is the sort of book I love: a non-fiction subject which reads like a thriller. Silver's talked to all the people he should have, and worked his way through innumerable court filings and documents - he's done his homework, and it shows. It's books like this, as well as the continued legal pressure on collectors (both private and institutional) and dealers which will eventually put an end to the trade in looted artifacts. Of course, until then, the great stories they provide will offer Silver and others the chance to write good books like this one.

After I finished the book this afternoon I started poking around on the author's website and on his blog noticed that two of the major characters in the book (former head of the Met Thomas Hoving and former Met curator Dietrich von Bothmer, who together arranged the 1972 purchase of the krater by the museum) both died recently (Bothmer in October, Hoving just last week). And it'll be interesting to see where the case continues to meander: former Getty curator Marion True and dealer Robert Hecht are still on trial on charges related to the purchase of looted antiquities, and other related investigations are still underway, even after decades. As recently as 2 December, a Corinthian column krater believed to have been handled by Medici was returned to Italy after being seized by authorities in New York (it was scheduled for auction at Christie's). The saga continues.

This Week's Acquisitions

The new goodies of the week:

- Student Notebooks at Colonial Harvard: Manuscripts and Educational Practice, 1650-1740 by Thomas Knoles, Lucia Zaucha Knoles, and Rick Kennedy (AAS, 2003). Raven.

- Paradise Lost and the Rise of the American Republic by Lydia Dittler Schulman (Northeastern University Press, 1992). Raven.

- Journals and Journeymen: A Contribution to the History of Early American Newspapers by Clarence Saunders Brigham (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950). Raven.

- A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings by Laurence Sterne (OUP, 2003). Raven.

- Printing Places: Locations of Book Production & Distribution Since 1500; edited by John Hinks and Catherine Armstrong (Oak Knoll, 2005). Raven.

- A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (Picador, 2006). Harvard Bookstore.

- A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game by Jenny Uglow (FSG, 2009). Publisher.

- Humanism and Libraries: An Essay on the Philosophy of Librarianship by André Cossette (Library Juice Press, 2009). Publisher.

Boston Wins Poe Debate!

Last night's Boston round of the Great Poe Debate went off wonderfully, before a packed Rabb Lecture Hall at the BPL. I snapped this picture of the combatants before the debate began: from left, moderator Charlie Pierce, Boston's Paul Lewis, Philly's Ed Pettit (pictured below making his dramatic entrance in the now-famous "Philly Poe Robe"), and Baltimore's Jeff Jerome.

The group gave opening statements about the relative importance of their city to Poe, then Charlie had some amusing questions for each of the four, they took some audience questions, and summed up their arguments. A good discussion, very meaty but hilarious at the same time. It was, obviously, quite a Boston-centric crowd, but the discussion about Poe and his legacy transcends location, of course. Boston poet laureate Sam Cornish, called in as celebrity judge, said it would be unfair to award a prize, and gave each debater a stuffed raven.

Before the debate, "The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston" exhibit opened in the Cheverus Room on the third floor of the library - that'll be up through the end of March, so do make sure you get up there to see it. It's a well-crafted selection of Poe highlights focusing on his connections with Boston over the course of his life. There's even a Tamerlane, courtesy of Susan Jaffe Tane, a private collector. Don't miss the show!

Many thanks to the BPL folks, Paul Lewis and his team, Ed, Jeff and Charlie for their participation last night.

Auction Report: Sotheby's

The English Literature, History, Childrens' Books & Illustrations sale at Sotheby's London today made £997,113. Full results are here. Top sellers:

- E.H. Shepard drawings, the map for Winnie-the-Pooh and a lot of the only two Shepard drawings of heffalumps did well; the former made £49,250, and the latter was the top seller at £55,250.

- An Edmund Dulac watercolor for Sleeping Beauty, "The Castle in the Distance," did more than better the £8,000-12,000 estimate, selling for £51,650; the same price was had for a Rackham oil painting.

- A first edition of Darwin's Origin made £49,250.

- An unpublished William Blake letter (the first Blake letter at auction in more than 15 years) sold for £46,850.

LT Runs with DNBRD

LibraryThing's jumped on the "Do Nothing But Read Day" boat (which I mentioned here last week). I think it's great, and can't wait for Sunday. I've gone ahead and added the "DNBRD2009" tag to the books I'm intending to read that day (see them here), but will add fair warning that they may change between now and then.

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.

Book Review: "Maps and Legends"

I have long found that I tend to like an author's non-fiction or fiction works, but not the other way round (i.e. if I like their novels, their essays/letters bore me, or vice versa). There are some exceptions (Poe, Hornby) but they're uncommon. Michael Chabon is one of the former kind; his novels have just never particularly gotten to me, but his essays, collected by McSweeney's in 2008 as Maps and Legends, I quite enjoyed.

In this collection, most of the pieces from which were previously published elsewhere, Chabon writes about writing, and reading, and life, and how all three go together (or, occasionally, don't). He muses on the state of modern short fiction, and golems, the Yiddish language, comic books, the stories of M.R. James (which I must add to the reading list) the Sherlock Holmes canon, Philip Pullman's works, and much beyond. The language is careful, precise, and spare, and I liked (as I tend to do), reading of the author's thought processes and inspirations in writing (how did that idea come into being, anyway?).

Funny, touching, and diverting. And nicely designed, in that McSweeney's way that is so pleasing to the eye and to the brain.

And Then There's France

As debate continues to simmer in this country about how best to respond to Google's digitization efforts - namely whether or not the Google Book Settlement should be approved in its revised form, and what that will mean for the future of digitization in this country - France has done what the U.S. probably ought to have done five or ten years ago: on Monday President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a pledge of the equivalent of $1.1 billion "toward the computer scanning of French literary works, audiovisual archives and historical documents."

The funding will go toward the creation of what's being described as a "public-private partnership" to digitize French literary materials, and Bruno Racine of the Bibliotheque Nacionale said that whatever arrangements are made could well include Google as a partner. The NYT reports that the French culture minister met last week with Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond.

While I may not agree with how France is paying for this (it's part of a $51 billion package, funded "largely through government borrowing, against the urgings of the European Union and the country’s own audit authority"), I definitely like the idea. A billion dollars would go a long way toward creating and implementing an open-source, open-access digital library (as hinted at by Robert Darnton in his most recent NYRB piece, which I commented on here).

It's Poe-Time in Boston!

"The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston," a new exhibit at the Boston Public Library, will open at 6 p.m. this Thursday, 17 December. At 7 p.m. that evening, the Boston round of the Great Poe Debate will kick off, featuring our good friend Ed "Philly Poe Guy" Pettit, BC professor Paul Lewis (curator of the exhibit) and Jeff Jerome from the Poe House in Baltimore. It'll be moderated by Charlie Pierce.

Paul Lewis does a pre-debate Q&A with Kathleen Burge in the Boston Globe.

If you can't make it to the events on Thursday evening, the exhibit will run through 31 March 2010.

Book Review: "A Monument More Durable Than Brass"

The beautiful exhibition catalog to accompany "A Monument More Durable Than Brass: The Donald & Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson" (at Harvard's Houghton Library this fall, and now at the Grolier Club through 6 February 2010; digital version here) is an excellent complement to the exhibit.

The catalog features well-reproduced photographs and short descriptions of many of the items on display, but even beyond those offers significant essays: Tom Horrocks' useful introduction to the volume, James Engell's "Perdurable Johnson," which examines the lasting legacy and impact of Johnson's writings to the common reader and our continuing fascination with the man and his works, and William Zachs' "The Hydes Collect Johnson," a short but very interesting look at the Hydes as collectors and scholars of Johnson and his circle. Detailed timelines of both the Hyde Collection and of Johnson's own life are helpful, as is a short bibliography following the catalog.

John Overholt's item descriptions capture this series of Hyde Collection highlights perfectly, from Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Johnson to the great man's teapot and his register of books loaned to friends, to fragments from the manuscript of the Dictionary and beyond. It was a delight to re-experience the exhibition through this catalog, and I encourage all who can to go see it in physical form at the Grolier Club.

Book Review: "The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein"

Peter Ackroyd's The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2009) is a retelling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein story through the eyes of the creator himself. While I need to re-read the original to be sure, it seems clear that some license has been taken with the plot of that novel, and with the biographical details of the Shelleys themselves. They appear here, of course, as Ackroyd brings Frankenstein into their orbit and moves him to England where he carries out his "researches."

Ackroyd presents us with the background to Frankenstein's pursuit of the "stuff of life," including his early queries at Oxford and his interests in electricity, galvanism, and other scientific inquiries. His depiction of the workings of the "resurrection men," who find and deliver the bodies Frankenstein uses for his experiments, is delightfully morbid, but the final experiment itself is absolutely repulsive (Ackroyd's creative power is on full display here - the sequence gave me the willies).

The creature itself figures in no small way here, as it pursues Frankenstein in search of revenge and fulfillment. Or, does it? I'll spare the spoilers, but the last few pages will have you thinking deeply about gothic fiction and narrative authority.

I had trouble getting into the novel at the start, but once the action got going I was hooked, and read through the last 200 pages in a single sitting. Gripping stuff, even if it turns some of our ideas about Frankenstein and his monster on their heads. Good for a nice long winter afternoon.

Book Review: "The Book"

Nicole Howard's The Book: The Life Story of a Technology was first published in 2005 as part of Greenwood Press' Technographies series, and has been re-published this fall in paperback by Johns Hopkins University Press. Defining technology as a "manmade artifact that serves a practical function," Howard points out that "no other technology has had the impact of this invention. Indeed the book is the one technology that has made all the others possible, by recording and storing information and ideas indefinitely in a convenient and readily accessible place" (p. vii-viii). She argues that "by examining the book as a technology, we get the best example of how profoundly information and media technology affect culture and history, and how vital the technology of the book has been to cultural and intellectual change (p. ix).

This book traces the web of technologies involved in the creation and culture of books (illustration, ink, parchment, paper, type, printing, &c., &c.), as well as those involved on the human side (printer, publisher, author, typesetter, librarian, bookseller, &c., &c.), creating a very succinct history of the book that will be quite useful, I suspect, in introductory book history courses as a survey text (or by any bibliophile who wants to know more). At just 150 pages, it's a quick but useful synopsis of the subject. The references could be more frequent (although since in-text citation is used, more frequent references might be rather bothersome) and the reproduction quality of some images used here is not the best (almost comically ironic in a couple of cases, including a very fuzzy image of what is an extremely detailed Dürer woodcut).

Extremely minor quibbles aside, this is a good overview of the book from the days of papyrus scrolls to the 21st century, when books will go through another series of changes, she argues, but will remain in some form "the world's most critical technology" (p. 158).

The bibliography can certainly be put to good use by those who find themselves interested in one aspect or another of what Howard discusses in the text; there's much fodder there for the curious.

Links & Reviews

- Perhaps the most underreported news of the last week-and-a-half or so: over at Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan comments on a change in Google's search protocols to "personalize" search: that is, I might get different results than you do for the same exact search, based on what I've searched for in the past. As Rory Litwin notes, "Read through this and then consider what an inconvenience it is for searchers like us librarians who are searching on many different things for many different reasons. The record of past searches interferes with the results of subsequent searches." (Kinda like when you buy a present on Amazon and then get recommendations for things like that for the rest of time - gah).

- In The Millions series "A Year in Reading," Reif Larsen weighs in with his top books of 2009. And The Independent has a list of the "best biographies" for 2009 (there are links within to the rest of their "best of" lists, too). The Washington Post has its Holiday Guide 2009, their "Book World" section has its own Top 10 list, and Jonathan Yardley offers his own picks.

- News this week that both Kirkus Reviews and Editor & Publisher will cease publication.

- Some librarians at Loyola Marymount University got creative with the NUC this week; I love this!

- Paul Laity interviews Jenny Uglow in the Guardian.

- The BBC and the British Library have agreed to jointly make available some 150 million items from the BL collections, and almost a million hours of BBC radio and t.v. content.

- In the Boston Globe, Katherine Powers writes on Charles Dickens, and they run an NYT piece by Motoko Rich about the delicate question of e-book rights.

- Chris has a selection of bookish gifts for the bibliophile on your list (if you run out of books for them, I guess). And in the NYTimes, David Pogue "unsuggests" B&N's new Nook e-reader.

- Albany's Capital Bookstore is profiled by Paul Grondahl in the Times Union.

- Imogen Russell Williams complains about the "reader guides," "Q&As" and other such fluff following the text in various books.

- Library Juice Press has released André Cossette's Humanism and Libraries: An Essay on the Philosophy of Librarianship (an English translation of this text, originally published in the 1970s).

- Columbia University Library has mounted PDF transcriptions of the Stationers' Company registers, 1554-1640. [h/t Wynkenhimself]

- Two "returns" this week: an Ohio library received a book (Emil Ludwig's Napoleon) this week, along with an anonymous note which read in part "I removed this book from your stacks in 1949 and did not check it out. I apologize. It’s an excellent book and in good condition. ... Carrying guilt for 60 years is a terrible thing." And a WWII vet is returning a photo album taken from Hitler's Berchtesgaden home at the end of the war.

Reviews

Playing around with a new format for these; the hyperlink takes you to the review.

- Robert Darnton's The Case for Books: reviewed by Andreas Hess in Times Higher Education.

- Joel Richard Paul's Unlikely Allies: reviewed by Carolyn See in the Washington Post.

- Woody Holton's Abigail Adams: reviewed by Virginia DeJohn Anderson in the NYTimes.

- John Milton Cooper Jr.'s Woodrow Wilson: reviewed by Beverly Gage in the NYTimes.

- Leanne Shapton's Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry: reviewed by Phil Baker in the Sunday Times. (a little background about this book here).

This Week's Acquisitions

Here's what came this week:

- The Adventurers of Bermuda: A History of the Island From its Discovery until the Dissolution of the Somers Island Company in 1684 by Henry Campbell Wilkinson (Oxford University Press, 1958). Book Dispensary (Ontario, Canada) via AbeBooks.

- Culture Club: The Curious History of the Boston Athenaeum by Katherine Wolff (University of Massachusetts Press, 2009). I'm going to be writing a review of this for Libraries & the Cultural Record (should be out around this time next year).

- Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen (Henry Holt, 2009). Publisher.

- The History of the Boston Athenæum, with Biographical Notices of its Deceased Founders by Josiah Quincy (Cambridge: Metcalf and Company, 1851). Harvard Bookstore (print-on-demand copy). Background research for the Wolff review mentioned above.

- The Alchemaster's Apprentice by Walter Moers (Overlook, 2009). Publisher.

- The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd (Doubleday, 2009). B&N.

Auction Report: Various

Probably not surprising given the number of recent sales, I've gotten behind. Some catchup:

- At the Wolfgang A. Herz library sale (Christie's New York, 9 December), the total take was $3,548,687. Ten lots made over $100,000, with the top slot going to a six-volume Blaeu atlas (1649-55) with spectacular contemporary coloring, a beautiful binding, and some great provenance. It sold for $458,500. A copy of the 1513 Ptolemy Geographiae opus novissima traductione e Grecorum archetypis castigatissime pressum made $290,500, and a really lovely first German edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle sold for $206,500. Many other goodies in this sale; full results here.

- At Bloomsbury New York's Capture the Imagination: Original Illustration and Fine Illustrated Books sale (9 December) the top seller was Tom Feeling's original artwork for Soul Looks Back in Wonder, which made $15,000. A preliminary illustration from William Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble sold for $14,000, and an Aubrey Beardsley cover design fetched $9,500. Full results here.

- The Bibliophile sale at Bloomsbury Godalming (10 December) was the place for bargains this week; several items sold for as little as £10. The top seller was Bidloo's Anatomia humani corporis (1685), for £2,100.

- Sotheby's New York's Fine Books and Manuscripts today (11 December) brought in a total of $1,883,250. The top seller was a second edition of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius (Frankfurt, 1610), which made $122,500. A first edition of Johannes Hevelius' Prodromus astronomiae (Danzig, 1690) sold for $86,500. A copy of the first English edition of Jefferson's Notes on Virginia (London, 1787) in original boards made $22,500, and a first impression of Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables set a new record for Montgomery, fetching $37,500.

Scotland's Oldest Book to be Displayed

Some very cool news out of Scotland: the "Celtic Psalter," an 11th-century manuscript believed to have been produced at Iona, and called Scotland's "oldest surviving book*," is set to go on public display for the first time, as part of the "Masterpieces 1" exhibit at Edinburgh University. It has been in the university library's collections since the 17th century.

Rare books librarian Joseph Marshall told The Scotsman "We have had the book for a large part of its recorded history but we have never had a public exhibition room, so it has never been in proper public view before. It's really only been seen by academics and researchers – people who study medieval manuscripts. The great thing about it is we think it is the oldest Scottish book still in Scotland, so it is one of our greatest national treasures, and people haven't really known about it. We are hoping people will recognise it for what it is – one of the most precious documents in the country."

Other items in the "Masterpieces 1" exhibit include the first book printed in a Gaelic language, and what's called the "finest surviving copy" of Scotland's first "substantial printed book" (the Aberdeen Breviary, 1509-10).

* There are other claimants to the "Scotland's oldest book" mantle, so the Celtic Psalter is being qualified as "the oldest Scottish book currently in Scotland."

American Books in 1709

At the New Yorker Book Bench blog, Jill Lepore writes on her "top ten books of 1709" (by which she means books printed in British North America that year, and punts on the tenth spot by giving it to Ben Franklin reasons that are unclear from her post). She gives the top slot to what she calls "the only truly secular publication of the year," Daniel Leeds' American Almanack (printed at New York). Lepore writes that in the mainland British colonies "only thirty-one books were printed (if you discount a handful of broadsheets, proclamations, and volumes of laws)."

Evans' American Bibliography (I:198-205) lists 63 titles published in America in 1709, and in a quick ESTC search, I got 22 non-duplicate titles for New York, 45 for Boston, 2 for New London and 1 for Philadelphia (for a total of 70). Lepore's correct that most of these were short (only five of Evans' 63 contain more than 100 pages), but by including these other figures we get something that looks a little different from how she describes things. Using the Evans titles as a base, this is the subject breakdown I get:

- sermons/other religious publications - 33 (12 of which were by Cotton Mather)

- laws and government proclamations - 20

- almanacs - 5

- speeches and political essays - 3

- periodicals - 1

- grammars - 1

Given this, Lepore's depiction of Leeds' almanac as "the only truly secular publication" is at least a little misleading, and the book listed in the "grammars" category above is the most inexplicable omission from Lepore's list, since it was almost certainly the single most important book published in America that year. That was Ezekiel Cheever's A short introduction to the Latin tongue, for the use of the lower forms in the Latin School. Being the accidence abbridg’d [sic] and compiled in that most easy and accurate method, wherein the famous Mr. Ezekiel Cheever taught; and which he found the most advantageous by seventy years experience (Boston in N.E. : Printed by B. Green, for Benj. Eliot, at his shop under the Town-House, 1709). According to ESTC, it went through some eighteen Boston editions alone through 1784, and was also published in London (1734 and 1738), New York (1749), Salem and Newburyport (both 1785).

Seems to me that this should have rated at least a spot on the list.

Best ... Idea ... Ever

A Wisconsin library school student has proposed that Sunday, 20 December be proclaimed the first annual "Do Nothing But Read Day." The requirements:

"- you must read more than one book (they can be short, and short stories count!)

- comfy clothing (jammies preferable)

- no shoes (slippers are ok)

- mugs of beverages and snacks"

She says "blankies" and "sleepy cat(s)" are optional.

Sounds pretty good to me!

Auction Report: Sotheby's

Two sales at Sotheby's London today:

In the morning was the Western Manuscripts sale (previewed here), which took in £1,704,739 total. More than half of that went to the miniature, showing silver mining in Bohemia, which formed the frontis of an illuminated manuscript choirbook (lost since the 1920s and probably not exhibited publicly since the Middle Ages, est. £200,000-300,000). It more than doubled its estimate, making £612,450. The illuminated copy of the gospels in Greek from the 12th century (illuminated late in the 14th), made £289,250, and the pre-Wycliffe English translation of the Psalms by Richard Rolle, once owned by Thomas Phillipps sold for £217,250 (better than tripling the estimate). Full results here.

The afternoon session was Music and Continental Books and Manuscripts, which took in £1,160,350. Top sellers were the manuscript of Anton Bruckner's motet "Christus Factus Est," which fetched £61,250. A Beethoven letter to Karl Holz sold for £58,850, and a 35-volume set of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie (1751-1780), made £49,250. Full results here.

Book Review: "The City of Dreaming Books"

What would happen if you put Jasper Fforde, Douglas Adams, and Nicholas Basbanes in a room and told them to write a book together? Something that resembled Walter Moers' The City of Dreaming Books (Overlook, 2007), perhaps. Moers' book is a mildly creepy, utterly bizarre trek through an alternate universe where books are a way of life (or, for at least one race of the strange beings, the source of life itself).

Our narrator, Optimus Yarnspinner (a dinosaur and aspiring author) travels to Bookholm (the city of books) to seek out the author of a manuscript in his possession. The descriptions of this city are enough to make any good bibliophile drool a little, but dark things lurk beneath the narrow and dangerous streets of Bookholm (and above them, too, as he finds out when mind-control music sends him and hundreds of others into the mad scrum known as "book rage") . Optimus soon finds himself the victim of the nefarious megalomaniac Pfistomel Smyke, who lures him into the endless catacombs beneath the city and maroons him there.

The remainder of the book is given over to Yarnspinner's long stay in the tunnels, where he encounters various dangerous critters, the one-eyed memorization machines known as Booklings (for whom reading is the only source of nourishment), his greatest hero, and a great many fascinating books (including a few sentient ones, some that kill, and a great many of immense value).

Filled with literary allusions, puns, footnotes, and all the devices that fans of books about books will love (plus some exquisite illustrations, also by Moers), it's also something of a biting satire toward all things literary: authors, publishers, booksellers, reviewers and others of their ilk all come in for a little bit of good-natured poking here and there.

While I thought there were a few plot holes, and a few of the characters didn't really do much for me, I enjoyed jumping this romp through Moers' universe. It's awfully nice to suspend belief for a while and descend into the catacombs of a good book.

Belanger on Books

An article featuring a profile of Terry Belanger appeared in the 5 December Chronicle of Higher Education, and can be found in full here (original version here, requires login). It's a very interesting piece, and captures nicely the attitude I think many of us "biblio-folk" have about printed books and their place in a "digital world."

Some of the many useful quotes from the piece: "I see the Web and everything it stands for as being an immense improvement over our old arrangements. It's absurd to sit around sentimentalizing about the decline of the book in the face of the kind of knowledge that the Web now gives us, and the research it allows us to do."

Of course, Belanger notes, digital reproductions won't necessarily do the trick, for future students of book history: "They need their own shot at the past from original materials in the same way that we did. Each generation needs to rediscover the past in its own way, using its own improved technology for that purpose."

The article makes the important point (that can't be made enough, I think, in these days of worry about the future), that "books do certain things well and digital technologies do other things well. The two should coexist without trying to eliminate each other."

Exactly.

Links & Reviews

- On last Saturday's "Weekend Edition," Scott Simon and Paul Collins visited the vault in theFolger Shakespeare Library. Paul adds a bit more at Weekend Stubble. A great segment.

- Mark Leslie Lefebvre writes on print-on-demand technology.

- The new website of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) is now live. Check it out! It includes a thoughtful essay by John Wronoski of Lame Duck Books, "Young Booksellers, Young Books: The Prospects of the American Rare Book Trade."

- The December Fine Books Notes is up.

- Jill Lepore's got an essay in the New Yorker on the history of health care reform in America.

- A new installment of "Dispatches from a Public Librarian" is up at McSweeney's.

- The Royal Society has mounted a website highlighting some of its most "trailblazing" publications. [h/t Ian]

- Archivists at the University of Delaware have located a Thomas Jefferson letter among the recently-acquired archives of the Rockwood Museum. The 1808 letter by Jefferson acknowledges the death of John Dickinson, saying of him "A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us." [h/t TJMonticello]

- A new exhibition at the Houghton Library, "London As It Is," an examination of the "creative process of Thomas Shotter Boys," British artist known for his lithographs of London street life. The exhibit will be in place through April 2010. [h/t Houghton Library Blog]

- Speaking of exhibits, a reminder of the Morgan Library's "William Blake's World: 'A New Heaven Is Begun'" which runs through 3 January 2010, and "A Woman's Wit: Jane Austen's Life and Legacy," which is up through 14 March 2010. The Morgan has also allowed the NYT to mount images of the entire manuscript of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in a neat online presentation.

- News from the University of Chicago that forensic science has proven that the "Archaic Mark," a small 44-page Gospel of Mark, is a late 19th-century hoax rather than an authentic early text. A paper by the scientists involved will be published in an upcoming issue of Novum Testamentum.

- In the TLS, John Barnard asks "Who Killed John Keats?"

- The blog Largeheartedboy is tracking the "Best of" lists for 2009, aggregating them here. [h/t GalleyCat]. Some new lists today include the Boston Globe best fiction and nonfiction for 2009.

- In the NYTimes Magazine, Dr. Lisa Sanders diagnoses Sherlock Holmes, Jeff Bezos answers questions about the Kindle, and Ben Zimmer covers the creation of a new language for James Cameron's upcoming film Avatar.

Reviews

- I had not intended to provide any links to reviews of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue, but Sam Tanenhaus' review in the New Yorker is worth a read.

- Tim Rutten reviews Mark Lamster's Master of Shadows in the LATimes.

- Nicholson Baker reviews Ken Auletta's Googled in the NYTimes. Kinda funny to see Baker going after a writer for making unfair characterizations of his subjects ... but he coins a new term for the pre-Google days, "antegoogluvian" (which I quite like).

- Stuart Kelly reviews Umberto Eco's The Infinity of Lists in The Scotsman.

- In the Washington Post, Carolyn See reviews Jack Lynch's The Lexicographer's Dilemma.

- Michael Dirda reviews Jenny Uglow's A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game in the Washington Post.

Media Coverage of Auction Records

Some of the coverage of yesterday's two sales (summarized here and here):

Reuters notes that the Tamerlane sale broke the record for a 19th-century book of poetry, and the "For Annie" fragment set the new mark for a 19th-century literary manuscript. The AP calls the buyer of the poetry mss. "an American collector."

The AP also notes that Cormac McCarthy has invited the winner of his typewriter to join him for lunch at the Sante Fe Institute, the NM-based nonprofit to which the proceeds from the typewriter sale will be given.

A short Washington Post piece on the Washington letter says that the bidding war came down to two telephone bidders.

This Week's Acquisitions

This is another batch mostly from the print-on-demand machine at Harvard Bookstore, which I'm finding awfully useful.

- Hermsprong; or, Man as He is Not. A novel. In two volumes; by Robert Bage (Dublin: printed by Brett Smith, for P. Wogan, P. Byrne, J. Moore, and J. Rice, 1796). HB.

- Books Fatal to Their Authors by P. H. Ditchfield (London : Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, 1895). HB.

- Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African. To which are prefixed, Memoirs of his Life by Joseph Jekyll (London: Printed for William Sancho, 1803). HB.

- Bermuda Past and Present: A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Somers Islands by Walter Brownell Hayward (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1912). HB.

- An Account of Bermuda, Past and Present. Compiled and Summarised from Numerous Sources, with Original Observations by John Ogilvy (Hamilton, Bermuda: S. Nelmes, 1883). HB.

- Vortigern, an Historical Tragedy, in five acts; ... and Henry the Second, an Historical Drama. Supposed to be written by the author of Vortigern by William Henry Ireland (London : printed for J. Barker; B. White; T. Egerton; and R. Faulder, [1799]). HB.

- John Dunton's Letters from New-England (Boston: [Prince Society], 1867). HB.

- Tamerlane and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (Boston: Calvin F.S. Thomas, 1827). Christie's. [heh - couldn't resist]

- The Library of Isaac Newton by John Harrison (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Amazon.

- The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt (Knopf, 2009). Publisher.

Auction Report: Fine Printed Books &c. @ Christie's

Washington letter sets record, see below!

The afternoon session at Christie's, a sale of Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana, got underway at 2 p.m.

A first edition of Robert Burns' first book, Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, made $52,500. A first edition of Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, in original boards, did better than expected, selling for $20,000. A first edition of John Donne's works (1633) made $30,000, as did Donne's copy of Nicholas Serrario's Rabbini, et herodes. A first edition in book form of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge fetched $21,250 (bettering the estimates of $5,000-7,000). A presentation copy of Hardy's Jude the Obscure also did well, making $35,000. A copy of Thomas de Gray's The Compleat Horse-Man, given by Hawthorne to Melville, made $32,500. A first edition of Hemingway's Three Stories & Ten Poems made $30,000.

The signed limited edition of Ulysses and Nabokov's manuscript index cards for The Original of Laura didn't sell. Cormac McCarthy's typewriter fetched $254,500; a limited edition of Milne's Winnie the Pooh made $32,500. An archive of Georgia O'Keeffe letters made $52,500. A first edition in parts of Thackeray's Vanity Fair made $17,500 (better than the $2,000-3,000 estimate), and a very fine first printing of Thoreau's Walden made $20,000 (doubling its estimate).

An Audubon first octavo Birds of America made $62,500, while the second folio Birds sold for $194,500. The set of Curtis' The North American Indian and the presentation copy of Darwin's Origin each sold for $170,500. A Frederick de Wit atlas made $56,250, and a Joannes Janssonius Atlas novus sold for $86,500. A copy of Ethan Allen's Reason, the only Oracle of Man sold for $21,250, and a broadside from 1 December 1773 relating to what would become the Boston Tea Party made $52,500. The 1823 Stone engraving of the Declaration of Independence didn't sell, but an 1833 reprint made $30,000. A rare c. 1784 Bank of New York broadside did much better than expected, selling for $146,500 (est. $15,000-20,000).

The first two Washington letters, Lots 255 & 256 each sold for $218,500, while the big guns of the day, Washington's letter regarding the ratification of the Constitution, did even better than anticipated, selling for a whopping $3,218,500. That smashes the previous record of $834,500 set in 2002.

The total for the sale was $6,330,138. Quite a day!

Auction Report: William E. Self Library @ Christie's

I previewed it yesterday morning, and here it is: the William E. Self Library sale at Christie's New York, as indicated on the auction house's website.

The sale started off with a bang, as first editions of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, and Emma each did well, selling for $32,500, $52,500, and $104,500 respectively. The latter was in original boards.

A Charlotte Bronte manuscript of two poems made $62,500, and one of her autograph letters fetched $56,250. A first edition Jane Eyre just hit the low end of the estimate at $40,000. Charlotte's own copy of her work Poetry Past and Present made $50,000, and her copies of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (with annotations throughout) sold for $86,500 (on estimates of $40,000-60,000).

Two Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscripts sonnets sold well: the first, "Sonnet VII - Love" made $20,000, and the second "H.S. Boyd - Legacies" sold for $12,500. The first edition of Darwin's Origin sold for $146,500.

The Dickens section was a bit of a downer at first: a presentation copy of the first edition in book form of Sketches by Boz (to Dickens' wife's uncle) didn't sell, nor did a copy in parts or a manuscript leaf from Pickwick Papers, or the Hans Christian Andersen copy of Pickwick. Then things got going: the very rare Oliver Twist in parts made $30,000, and a presentation copy of Nicholas Nickleby to the painter Sir David Wilkie surpassed expectations, making $158,500. One of the eight known pre-publication presentation copies of A Christmas Carol (to Mrs. Eliza Touchet) made a whopping $290,500 (guess somebody was in the Christmas spirit!). Presentation copies of The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain and David Copperfield both did better than expected, making $52,500 and $158,500 respectively. A dedication copy of Bleak House fetched $134,500. Dickens' own copy of the New Testament better than doubled estimates, selling for $13,750. A presentation copy of Our Mutual Friend made $122,500.

A copy of the first published edition of Alice in Wonderland made $21,500, as did a presentation copy to Dodgson's sister of The Hunting of the Snark. A big surprise came with a first edition in part of Eliot's Middlemarch, which was estimated at $4,000-6,000 and made $68,500!

A first (English) edition of Melville's The Whale sold for $43,750, while a copy of the first American edition (Moby-Dick; or, The Whale) fetched $32,500.

Two early manuscript poems by Poe fetched $362,500 (on estimates of $60,000-80,000!), and then came the moment everyone was waiting for: Lot 155, Poe's Tamerlane and Other Poems, the "black tulip" of American literature. One of twelve known copies, and one of just two not in institutional collections. It made $662,500, not quite reaching the high estimate but setting a record for Poe.

A first edition of Murders in the Rue Morgue did not sell; a first edition of The Raven and Other Poems made $182,500. A manuscript fragment of Poe's essay "The Rationale of Verse" sold for $30,000, but then came the shocker: a manuscript of the first eight stanzas of "For Annie", estimated at $50,000-70,000, sold for $830,500 (breaking the Poe record set just moments before with Tamerlane)! That was followed by a set of the first printings of the first collected edition of Poe's works, which made $80,500 (on an estimate of $3,000-4,000).

After the Poe, a first edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein made $50,000, and a Steinbeck manuscript made $20,000. A first edition of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin didn't sell, and a beautiful first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass ended the sale on a very high note, surpassing estimates of $80,000-120,000 to sell for $218,500.

Impressive performances by the literary greats this morning, for a grand total of $4,896,625 - and stay tuned this afternoon for the Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana sale (previewed here).

Poe Record @ Christie's

The Tamerlane just sold for $662,500 at Christie's, setting a record for Poe. I'm working on a full report on the entire sale and will have it up very shortly.

[Update: Whoa. The manuscript of the first eight stanzas of "For Annie", estimated at $50,000-70,000, just sold for $830,500 (breaking the Poe record set just moments before with Tamerlane)]

Darnton on Google Books Settlement

I've been promising more on Robert Darnton's 17 December NYRB piece "Google and the New Digital Future," and here it is at last. Darnton begins by comparing the original 9 November date by which Google and its allies had to file the revised settlement agreement to historical events of 9 November (the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kristallnacht, the Meiji Restoration, Bonaparte's coup), noting that the comparison was appropriate because the "seemingly small-scale squabble over copyright looked likely to determine the digital future for all of us." He continues by noting that the terms of the settlement "will have a profound effect on the book industry for the forseeable future," and highlights the probable positive and negative consequences of the settlement's approval.

Darnton is quite right to point out that this "case may take years to work its way through the courts. Meanwhile, Google will go on digitizing; and as the legal situation evolves, it may devise further revisions of the settlement (GBS 3.0, GBS 4.0, etc.). The public will have to study all the new versions of the settlement in order to stay informed about the rules of the game while the game is being played. Who ultimately wins is not simply a matter of competition among potential entrepreneurs but an issue of enormous importance to everyone who cares about books, even though the public is reduced to the role of spectator."

Much of the rest of Darnton's essay is devoted to the critiques of the settlement leveled by the French and German governments, which stress what Darnton terms the "higher values represented by their national literatures." The French arguments "emphasized the unique character of the book, 'a product unlike other products' - its power to capture creativity, to enrich civilization, and to promote diversity, which, they claimed, would be compromised by Google's commitment to commercialization." The Germans focused on what they perceived as Google's threats to privacy rights, and both governments "condemned the settlement for sanctioning the 'uncontrolled, autocratic concentration of power in a single corporate entity,' which threatened the 'free exchange of ideas through literature.'" Darnton notes that these arguments and their subsidiaries were made by many other organizations among the plethora of filings submitted to the judge overseeing the agreement.

Darnton also hones in on the ways in which the revised settlement (GBS 2.0) seems to have taken its cues from the concerns outlined by the Department of Justice, but concludes that "GBS 2.0 does not ... differ in essentials from GBS 1.0. It largely ignores the objections of foreign governments" (except that it excludes books not published in the US, UK, Canada and Australia). Going on the reactions of the Open Book Alliance and other opponents to the settlement, Darnton suspects they probably won't be placated by the revisions. I agree.

Finally, Darnton proposes two possible solutions to the legal logjam: one, the more ambitious, would see Congress making a law to settle the big questions: "how to adjust copyright, deal with orphan books, and compensate Google for its investment in digitizing," and by doing so creating a "truly public library" or "national digital library." In the other solution, Darnton proposes that Congress grant the right to digitize out-of-copyright and orphan works to nonprofit groups (he suggests the Internet Archive). He suggests this project, to be spread over 10-20 years, might cost $750 million, and "meanwhile, Google and anyone else would be free to exploit the commercial sector."

The whole question of copyright in general is one I think we (or I, anyway) need to start thinking more about, and I expect I'll be writing about that more in the future. I agree with Darnton that either of these solutions would be entirely appropriate, and that a national investment in creating a carefully-managed and freely-accessible digital library would be entirely worth it. Let's keep talking about it, and not let this proposal fade into oblivion.

As he says, who knows how this is all going to shake out. What's becoming increasingly clear is that we all have a stake in the outcome, and that the disposition of this settlement will have an impact on the ways in which we all use books well into the future. Those of us interested in this issues are going to have to stay tuned and pay attention.

Auction Report: Christie's 12/4 Preview

Two major sales at Christie's New York tomorrow could bring in some pretty spectacular results. Just a very brief preview of the anticipated high spots, and I'll chime in as the hammer comes down tomorrow (or as soon thereafter as I'm able):

First up, at 10 a.m. will be the William E. Self Library of Important English and American Literature. Fourteen lots (of 197) have presale estimates of $100,000 or more.

The expected big seller is Lot 155, one of the twelve (yes, twelve) copies known of Poe's first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (Boston: Calvin F.S. Thomas, 1827). This is one of only two copies still in private hands, and one of seven still in the original wrappers. Known as the "black tulip" of American literature, this copy is expected to fetch between $500,000 and $700,000 tomorrow. The sale description also includes a handy census of known copies.

A spectacular presentation copy, Lot 51, is also expected to sell well. It's Hans Christian Andersen's copy of Charles Dickens' The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (London: Chapman and Hall, 1845). The estimate is $200,000-300,000.

More Dickens and Poe make up the expected big sellers, along with a first edition of Darwin's Origin (London: Murray, 1859). That, Lot 40, is estimated at $80,000-120,000.

An AP story focuses on the Tamerlane, but touches on other aspects of the sale and of Mr. Self's collection.

In the afternoon session, beginning at 2 p.m., 257 lots of Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts, Including America go on the block. Ten lots are estimated at more than $100,000.

The big seller is expected to be the very last lot of the day. Lot 257, called the "most important George Washington letter ever to come to auction," is a four-page letter of 9 November 1787 by Washington to his nephew Bushrod, in which the future first president makes the case for ratification of the Constitution. The letter has been in the possession of Washington family members. It is expected that this letter could set a record for a Washington letter (set in 2002 with a $834,500 sale).

Other major lots in Friday's sale include:

- Lot 95, the manuscript (on index cards) of Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished novel The Original of Laura, published this fall by Knopf. This is the first Nabokov manuscript ever at auction, and presale estimates are set at $400,000-600,000.

- Lot 222, a Stone engraving on parchment of the Declaration of Independence (1823). Est. $300,000-500,000.

- Lots 255 & 256, two additional George Washington autograph letters (also to Bushrod Washington), each estimated at $200,000-300,000.

- Lot 76, a signed limited edition of Ulysses (Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922), also estimated at $200,000-300,000.

- Lot 164, a copy of the second folio edition of Audubon's Birds of America (New York: Roe Lockwood & Son, 1860). Estimated at $150,000-200,000.

- Lot 174, a complete (20-volume) set of the text of Edward Curtis' The North American Indian ([Cambridge, MA], 1907-1930), along with the scarce prospectus, est. $100,000-150,000.

- And another Darwin: Lot 175, a first edition presentation copy of Origin from Darwin to French zoologist Henri Milne-Edwards. It's also estimated at $100,000-150,000.

Tomorrow promises to be very exciting; these lots are only just the tip of the very interesting iceberg in this pair of sales. Both catalogs are a recommended browse, and stay tuned for updates tomorrow!

Book Review: "Bugs and the Victorians"

J.F.M. Clark's Bugs and the Victorians (Yale University Press, 2009) is a testament to the immense usefulness and potential of interdisciplinary scholarship. Through a close examination of the field of entomology and its practitioners in 19th-century Britain, Clark reveals just how interconnected the practical study of insects was with such far-flung pursuits as political philosophy, theology, agriculture, medicine, economics, and medicine (among others). "As a pluralistic science," Clark writes, "still well within the domain of general culture, nineteenth-century entomology offers a fascinating perspective on the varied social roles of persons engaged in the production and dissemination of science" (p. 244).

To trace the related but separate trends of "secularization, professionalization, discipline formation, and the emergence of the expert" through British entomology over the course of a century or so, Clark frames his chapters around several notable individuals (many of which I confess I'd not heard of before opening his book), including William Kirby and William Spence (authors of the influential Introduction to Entomology), John Lubbock (a friend of Darwin's, who tamed wasps and observed ants), and Eleanor Ormerod (an expert agricultural entomologist who was an early advocate for the use of insecticides in Britain and pushed for the utter extermination of the house sparrow).

With useful synopses and lessons drawn from their careers and publications, Clark puts his subjects to good use in making his broad point: "ideas about insects must be located in a broader cultural history. Ideas about the natural world are products of a particular time and place. They are shaped by moral, political, economic and religious contexts" (p. 2). By incorporating numerous illustrations of newspaper cartoons, title pages, advertisements into the text, Clark makes his point even more clearly.

Forty pages of detailed notes and a 25-page bibliography provide much additional ground for those interested in one aspect or another of this deeply-researched and entirely useful book.

Auction Report: De Orbe Novo Collection @ Bloomsbury

Today's sale of Bruce's McKinney's De Orbe Novo Collection: Exploration in the New World 1492-1625 (previewed by McKinney here) seems to have gone very well. All but 4 of the 81 lots sold, and most were hammered down at least within the estimate range (with many lots surpassing the estimates). Six lots made $100,000 or more:

- Lot 67. Samuel de Champlain, Les Voyages ... (1613). Sold for $650,000 (est. $250,000-350,000).

- Lot 69. Samuel de Champlain, Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France ... (1632, second issue). Sold for $160,000 (est. $70,000-100,000).

- Lot 2. German edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), colored. Sold for $150,000 (est. $100,000-150,000).

- Lot 79. Sir Francis Drake, The World Encompassed (1628). Sold for $150,000 (est. $40,000-60,000).

- Lot 50. Linschoten's Itinerario (1595-6). Sold for $120,000 (est. $100,000-150,000).

- Lot 26. A complete set of las Casas' Indian Tracts. Sold for $110,000 (est. $30,000-50,000).

I'm sure Mr. McKinney will offer details on the sale, so we'll look forward to those.

Baudelaire Sells Big

At a Drouot sale on Tuesday, a signed copy of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs de Mal made a record price, selling for 775,000 Euros ($1.17 million), more than five times its presale estimate. The book was sold along with letters and other items from Baudelaire's library (which sold together fetched more than 4 million Euros). A letter in which Baudelaire discussed an 1845 suicide attempt also set a record, selling for 225,000 Euros.

You can browse the online sale catalog here.

Voynich Manuscript "Decoded"?

Ian tweets out a Slashdot piece on our old friend the Voynich Manuscript (labeled an elaborate hoax in 2007); Edith Sherwood, who has previously suggested that the mss. was written by a young Leonardo da Vinci, now believes that the document "is probably a series of Italian word anagrams written in a fancy embellished script." The examples given are ambiguous, and it isn't at all clear this will hold up (or even if this theory applies to the entire document or just to the herbal sections), but it's another guess in a long string of them!