I've updated the blog list at right, removing now-dead links, indicating those that haven't been updated within the last year, and adding a few. As always, if there are blogs, &c. you think I ought to be linking to there, let me know!
- The Telegraph reports today on the 16 July sale at Christie's of a fascinating library collected by multiple generations of English bibliophiles, containing quite a few bibliographic treasures.
- A new Neatline/Omeka presentation of the Declaration of Independence by David McClure launched this week, and it's very much worth a look.
- David Rubenstein has funded a new facsimile of the 1823 Stone facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, to allow one framed copy of be displayed in each U.S. embassy. Seth Kaller, Inc. produced a 24-page booklet to accompany the facsimiles.
- The NYPL displayed a copy of the Declaration in Jefferson's hand this week, drawing more than 10,000 visitors.
- Jennifer Howard reported for the Chronicle this week on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's preparations for a new strategic plan, to be released this summer.
- The NYTimes reported on a punctuation question that has arisen around the text of the Declaration of Independence as presented by NARA. Danielle Allen's full paper on which the article is based is here, and Joe Adelman weighed in.
- Simon Beattie reminds us other things happened during 1776, highlighting a new collection of material printed at Stargard Szczeciński (Poland) to document the celebrations held to welcome Catherine the Great's son, Paul, who visited the town enroute to Berlin where he was to meet a new wife.
- Michael Beschloss wrote about the 1952 transfer of the major American founding documents from the Library of Congress to the new National Archives building.
- Amazon's Jeff Grandinetti spoke to the WSJ about the company's ongoing feud with Hachette; Melville House's Alex Shephard responds.
- The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson are currently available in beta form.
Reviews
- Richard W. Oram and Joseph Nicholson's Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook; review by Peter Steinberg at Sylvia Plath Info.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Edward Cuddihy in the Buffalo News.
- Diana Scarisbrick & Benjamin Zucker's Elihu Yale; review by Martin Rubin in the Washington Times.
- Alex Beam's American Crucifixion; review by Benjamin Moser in the NYTimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Pradeep Sebastian in The Hindu.
- Danielle Allen's Our Declaration; review by Steven B. Smith in the NYTimes.
Sunday, July 06, 2014
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Links & Reviews
Back from an excellent RBMS preconference in the very strange city of Las Vegas. It was a pleasure to see so many old friends and meet so many new ones, and to have a chance to hear from so many about the good work they're doing in their libraries and institutions.
- The Irish Times reports that the oldest known surviving Irish manuscript, known as the First Book of Ussher, will be displayed publicly by Trinity College Dublin for the first time in 2016.
- Mitch Fraas, who I had the great pleasure of meeting in person this week at RBMS, has posted some fascinating findings based on the Americana Exchange lists of top 2013 book and manuscript auction sales, including breakdowns by auction house, century, estimate overperformance, and more.
- From the Harvard Gazette, a story on the conservation of the miniature books created by the Brontë children.
- Over at the Melville House blog, Alex Shephard has an in-depth look at the ongoing Amazon/Hachette feud, and what it means for the publishing industry.
- Continuing the very strange stories coming out of Dublin, All Hallows College is planning to sell art and rare books next month at Sheppard's in Durrow.
- Following the recent confirmation from Houghton Library that a book in its collections was bound in human skin, Paul Needham has written a short essay calling for the binding to be removed and buried.
- Over at The Little Professor, thoughts on deaccessioning from one's personal library.
- SAA president Danna Bell has posted on the SAA blog about "The De-Evolution of the Archives and Archivists List."
- A working manuscript draft of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" sold for $2 million at Sotheby's this week.
- Jennifer Howard reports from the Association of American University Presses' annual meeting for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Retiring UVA historian Sandy Gilliam talked to the Roanoke Times about his long career at UVA.
Reviews
- Horst Bredekamp, Paul Needham et al.'s A Galileo Forgery; review by Massimo Mazzotti in the LA Review of Books. More than a review, though, this is an excellent background piece on the forgeries as well.
- Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling's The Silkworm; review by Harlan Coben in the NYTimes.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Fergus M. Bordewich in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Mitchell's Liberty's Torch; review by Janet Napolitano in the LATimes.
- Kevin Birmingham's The Most Dangerous Book; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Nicola Barker's In the Approaches; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
- Alex Wright's Cataloging the World; review by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Chuck Haga in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; review by Joy Tipping in the Dallas Morning News.
- The Irish Times reports that the oldest known surviving Irish manuscript, known as the First Book of Ussher, will be displayed publicly by Trinity College Dublin for the first time in 2016.
- Mitch Fraas, who I had the great pleasure of meeting in person this week at RBMS, has posted some fascinating findings based on the Americana Exchange lists of top 2013 book and manuscript auction sales, including breakdowns by auction house, century, estimate overperformance, and more.
- From the Harvard Gazette, a story on the conservation of the miniature books created by the Brontë children.
- Over at the Melville House blog, Alex Shephard has an in-depth look at the ongoing Amazon/Hachette feud, and what it means for the publishing industry.
- Continuing the very strange stories coming out of Dublin, All Hallows College is planning to sell art and rare books next month at Sheppard's in Durrow.
- Following the recent confirmation from Houghton Library that a book in its collections was bound in human skin, Paul Needham has written a short essay calling for the binding to be removed and buried.
- Over at The Little Professor, thoughts on deaccessioning from one's personal library.
- SAA president Danna Bell has posted on the SAA blog about "The De-Evolution of the Archives and Archivists List."
- A working manuscript draft of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" sold for $2 million at Sotheby's this week.
- Jennifer Howard reports from the Association of American University Presses' annual meeting for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Retiring UVA historian Sandy Gilliam talked to the Roanoke Times about his long career at UVA.
Reviews
- Horst Bredekamp, Paul Needham et al.'s A Galileo Forgery; review by Massimo Mazzotti in the LA Review of Books. More than a review, though, this is an excellent background piece on the forgeries as well.
- Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling's The Silkworm; review by Harlan Coben in the NYTimes.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Fergus M. Bordewich in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Mitchell's Liberty's Torch; review by Janet Napolitano in the LATimes.
- Kevin Birmingham's The Most Dangerous Book; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Nicola Barker's In the Approaches; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
- Alex Wright's Cataloging the World; review by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Chuck Haga in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; review by Joy Tipping in the Dallas Morning News.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Links & Reviews
I realized that this week marked the 8th anniversary of the first post on this blog; it seems almost remarkable that it's continued so long! The milestone seems particularly fitting since I've been spending more time actually thinking about this blog than I usually do, in preparation for a seminar at RBMS this coming week where I'll be talking about "Publishing for Professional Growth." Given the other excellent folks on the panel (Jessica Pigza, Anne Bahde, Colleen Thiesen, and John Overholt as moderator) it should be a really good discussion, and I'm quite looking forward to it. If you're in Las Vegas for RBMS and want to come, it'll be held from 4-5:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.
- The new ABAA website launched this week, and it's quite impressive!
- A first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass from the Huguette Clark collection fetched $305,000 at Christie's this week, setting a new record for a Whitman work.
- The copy of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest inscribed to his jailer sold at auction this week for £55,000.
- A new exhibition, "Once There Were Billions: Vanished Birds of North America" opens at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on 24 June.
- With the news that a book at Harvard has now been confirmed to be bound in human skin, the BBC Magazine surveys the well-worn ground of anthropodermic bindings.
- Just weeks after the threat to IES comes another one: now the Warburg Institute could be closed and its collections broken up as the University of London seeks to change the 1944 deed of trust which brought the collection to London. A ruling on the terms of the deed could come this fall. This isn't exactly a new danger, though: Anthony Grafton and Jeffrey Hamburger posted an essay on the possible closure over on the NYRB blog way back in 2010.
- The DPLA has received an $81,000 grant from the Whiting Foundation to explore educational possibilities for its collections.
- Colum McCann gets the "By the Book" treatment in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Eisenstein spoke to Thomas Hill for his Library Café podcast. You can listen here.
- The NYPL's Rose Main Reading Room will remain closed for around six months to allow for inspections and repairs to the ceiling after a plaster rosette fell in May.
- Julian Baggini reports in the Financial Times about recent research into the differences between reading on paper and reading on a screen.
- Nathan Raab writes at Forbes about a Lincoln document believed authentic for the last seven decades or so, but now proven to be a forgery.
- Over at The Collation, Deborah J. Leslie writes on throwout plates, bound so that an illustration or table could be viewed while still reading the text.
- The Reading Experience Database bibliography has been updated with a number of new and forthcoming articles.
- Several unpublished Pablo Neruda poems have been found during the cataloging of the poet's manuscripts.
- Dublin police have discovered more than seventy pieces of art, rare books and other objects believed to have been stolen over more than four decades.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Randolph Walerius at Roll Call.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; reviews by Andrew Sean Greer in the NYTimes and Elizabeth Hand in the LATimes.
- The new ABAA website launched this week, and it's quite impressive!
- A first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass from the Huguette Clark collection fetched $305,000 at Christie's this week, setting a new record for a Whitman work.
- The copy of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest inscribed to his jailer sold at auction this week for £55,000.
- A new exhibition, "Once There Were Billions: Vanished Birds of North America" opens at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on 24 June.
- With the news that a book at Harvard has now been confirmed to be bound in human skin, the BBC Magazine surveys the well-worn ground of anthropodermic bindings.
- Just weeks after the threat to IES comes another one: now the Warburg Institute could be closed and its collections broken up as the University of London seeks to change the 1944 deed of trust which brought the collection to London. A ruling on the terms of the deed could come this fall. This isn't exactly a new danger, though: Anthony Grafton and Jeffrey Hamburger posted an essay on the possible closure over on the NYRB blog way back in 2010.
- The DPLA has received an $81,000 grant from the Whiting Foundation to explore educational possibilities for its collections.
- Colum McCann gets the "By the Book" treatment in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Eisenstein spoke to Thomas Hill for his Library Café podcast. You can listen here.
- The NYPL's Rose Main Reading Room will remain closed for around six months to allow for inspections and repairs to the ceiling after a plaster rosette fell in May.
- Julian Baggini reports in the Financial Times about recent research into the differences between reading on paper and reading on a screen.
- Nathan Raab writes at Forbes about a Lincoln document believed authentic for the last seven decades or so, but now proven to be a forgery.
- Over at The Collation, Deborah J. Leslie writes on throwout plates, bound so that an illustration or table could be viewed while still reading the text.
- The Reading Experience Database bibliography has been updated with a number of new and forthcoming articles.
- Several unpublished Pablo Neruda poems have been found during the cataloging of the poet's manuscripts.
- Dublin police have discovered more than seventy pieces of art, rare books and other objects believed to have been stolen over more than four decades.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Randolph Walerius at Roll Call.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; reviews by Andrew Sean Greer in the NYTimes and Elizabeth Hand in the LATimes.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling in favor of HathiTrust. Read Jennifer Howard's Chronicle report, or the full decision.
- The grandson of historian Samuel Eliot Morison appeared in federal court this week, accused of stealing more than thirty boxes of his grandfather's papers from the Naval Historical Center. Samuel L. Morison, 69, faces up to ten years in prison for the theft of government property, and has been banned from visiting libraries and archives without court approval while awaiting trial. Morison was allegedly selling the documents on eBay via a Maryland bookstore. Reports in Reuters and the WaPo (the latter containing much more detail).
- The Beinecke Library has acquired the papers of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.
- Over at TNR, Blaine Greteman writes "It's the End of the Humanities as We Know It ... And I feel fine."
- Sid and Ruth Lapidus have donated $2.5 million, as well as rare books and manuscripts relating to slavery, to the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
- Boston's wonderful Brattle Book Shop is profiled in Rare Books Digest.
- At The Collation, Sarah Werner examines the four states of the Martin Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare.
- Hillary Clinton talked books with the NYTimes this week.
- The LATimes Summer Book Preview is worth a look-through, and over at the TLS reviewers are discussing which books they're looking forward to reading while on vacation.
Reviews
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Barry Alfonso in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- Gustavo Faverón Patriau's The Antiquarian; review by Carmela Ciuraru in the NYTimes.
- The grandson of historian Samuel Eliot Morison appeared in federal court this week, accused of stealing more than thirty boxes of his grandfather's papers from the Naval Historical Center. Samuel L. Morison, 69, faces up to ten years in prison for the theft of government property, and has been banned from visiting libraries and archives without court approval while awaiting trial. Morison was allegedly selling the documents on eBay via a Maryland bookstore. Reports in Reuters and the WaPo (the latter containing much more detail).
- The Beinecke Library has acquired the papers of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.
- Over at TNR, Blaine Greteman writes "It's the End of the Humanities as We Know It ... And I feel fine."
- Sid and Ruth Lapidus have donated $2.5 million, as well as rare books and manuscripts relating to slavery, to the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
- Boston's wonderful Brattle Book Shop is profiled in Rare Books Digest.
- At The Collation, Sarah Werner examines the four states of the Martin Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare.
- Hillary Clinton talked books with the NYTimes this week.
- The LATimes Summer Book Preview is worth a look-through, and over at the TLS reviewers are discussing which books they're looking forward to reading while on vacation.
Reviews
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Barry Alfonso in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- Gustavo Faverón Patriau's The Antiquarian; review by Carmela Ciuraru in the NYTimes.
Sunday, June 08, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The excellent "Authenticity of Print Materials" symposium held at LC back in December is now available as a webcast [Updated with YouTube link, since that's easier to access].
- Tom Hyry has been announced as the new Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library.
- The BBC reports that three FSB agents have been sentenced for the theft of a Gutenberg Bible from Moscow State University: Sergei Vedishchev received a three-year term in a penal colony for theft, and two accomplices received lighter sentences for trying to sell the book to a collector.
- The Independent has more on the large-scale thefts of books and artwork from All Hallows College in Dublin.
- The Rare Book School summer lecture series was announced this week.
- From the Samuelson Clinic at Berkeley, a new "Is it in the Public Domain?" handbook.
- Newly-published is Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook (Rowman & Littlefield), edited by Rich Oram and Joseph Nicholson.
- Tests have confirmed (for all intents and purposes) that a Houghton Library book, Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'ame is actually bound in human skin.
- The NYPL has revealed that its new renovation plans for the Fifth Avenue building and other upgrades will likely cost something on the order of $300 million, while the expected costs of the now-abandoned Central Library Plan had creeped up to more than $500 million. This just days after a falling chunk of plaster closed the Rose Main Reading Room indefinitely.
- Joel Kovarsky is profiled in the Crozet Times about his new book, The True Geography of Our Country: Jefferson's Cartographic Vision.
- From the ABAA Security blog, a robbery at Bay Leaf Books in Newaygo, MI.
- In the Guardian, a fascinating story about an overpainted whale in a 1641 Dutch painting, newly revealed through conservation work.
- Stephen Greenblatt writes about Montaigne's influence on Shakespeare.
Reviews
- Katharine Grant's Sedition; review by Andea Wulf in the NYTimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Michael Washburn in the Boston Globe.
- Tom Hyry has been announced as the new Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library.
- The BBC reports that three FSB agents have been sentenced for the theft of a Gutenberg Bible from Moscow State University: Sergei Vedishchev received a three-year term in a penal colony for theft, and two accomplices received lighter sentences for trying to sell the book to a collector.
- The Independent has more on the large-scale thefts of books and artwork from All Hallows College in Dublin.
- The Rare Book School summer lecture series was announced this week.
- From the Samuelson Clinic at Berkeley, a new "Is it in the Public Domain?" handbook.
- Newly-published is Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook (Rowman & Littlefield), edited by Rich Oram and Joseph Nicholson.
- Tests have confirmed (for all intents and purposes) that a Houghton Library book, Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'ame is actually bound in human skin.
- The NYPL has revealed that its new renovation plans for the Fifth Avenue building and other upgrades will likely cost something on the order of $300 million, while the expected costs of the now-abandoned Central Library Plan had creeped up to more than $500 million. This just days after a falling chunk of plaster closed the Rose Main Reading Room indefinitely.
- Joel Kovarsky is profiled in the Crozet Times about his new book, The True Geography of Our Country: Jefferson's Cartographic Vision.
- From the ABAA Security blog, a robbery at Bay Leaf Books in Newaygo, MI.
- In the Guardian, a fascinating story about an overpainted whale in a 1641 Dutch painting, newly revealed through conservation work.
- Stephen Greenblatt writes about Montaigne's influence on Shakespeare.
Reviews
- Katharine Grant's Sedition; review by Andea Wulf in the NYTimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Michael Washburn in the Boston Globe.
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The Irish Times reports that All Hallows College, Dublin is missing "a sizeable number" of valuable books, manuscripts, and pieces of art, possibly worth as much as €100,000. The small college is planning to cease operations in the near future, and this latest investigation comes just days after the college withdrew a collection of Jackie Kennedy letters from auction.
- At Anchora, Adam Hooks weighs in on the Shakespeare's Beehive business, particularly considering printer Richard Field and the uses made of him by the Beehive authors.
- The June AE Monthly is out, and it features a series on bookselling, booksellers talking about Amazon, and an update on Canadian book thief John Mark Tillman, now reportedly cooperating with police to return some 7,000 stolen artifacts to their rightful homes.
- On NPR, Mark Dimunation discussed his ongoing hunt for the last few titles needed to complete the LC's reconstruction of Jefferson's library.
- From Jerry Morris at Biblio Researching, some good sleuthing into the provenance of one of his books.
- A new list of recent and forthcoming books on early American history is up on the SEA site.
- And over at The Junto, they've announced a summer book club.
- Digital surrogates of more than a thousand manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries have now been added to Penn in Hand.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by Robert K. Landers in the WSJ and David Holahan in the CSM.
- Daniel Levine's Hyde; review by Walter Kirn in the NYTimes.
- James Oakes' The Scorpion's Sting; review by Ira Berlin in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by Garrett Epps in the WaPo.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Eric Foner in the WaPo.
- At Anchora, Adam Hooks weighs in on the Shakespeare's Beehive business, particularly considering printer Richard Field and the uses made of him by the Beehive authors.
- The June AE Monthly is out, and it features a series on bookselling, booksellers talking about Amazon, and an update on Canadian book thief John Mark Tillman, now reportedly cooperating with police to return some 7,000 stolen artifacts to their rightful homes.
- On NPR, Mark Dimunation discussed his ongoing hunt for the last few titles needed to complete the LC's reconstruction of Jefferson's library.
- From Jerry Morris at Biblio Researching, some good sleuthing into the provenance of one of his books.
- A new list of recent and forthcoming books on early American history is up on the SEA site.
- And over at The Junto, they've announced a summer book club.
- Digital surrogates of more than a thousand manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries have now been added to Penn in Hand.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by Robert K. Landers in the WSJ and David Holahan in the CSM.
- Daniel Levine's Hyde; review by Walter Kirn in the NYTimes.
- James Oakes' The Scorpion's Sting; review by Ira Berlin in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by Garrett Epps in the WaPo.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Eric Foner in the WaPo.
Book Review: "Washington Brotherhood"
Rachel Shelden's Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War (UNC Press, 2013) offers a fresh look at Washington society in the decades leading up to the Civil War, concentrating not on the occasional violent outburst but instead on the day-to-day camaraderie and social interactions of elected officials from across the regional and political spectrum. Shelden highlights a number of situations in which personal friendships between legislators had important consequences for the resolution of sectional differences, and argues for the existence of a Washington "bubble" that kept many of those who might have prevented the ultimate break from seeing it coming to the extent that they might have.
The author has done her research well, drawing on a wide range of unpublished papers, boardinghouse directories, Congressional seating charts, and other materials. She stresses the importance of not relying on the record of Congressional debates as the main source for sectional animus, noting that often legislators who were violently critical of their political opponents in public were close personal friends. She ably explains the Young Indians, a small group of Whig congressmen from across the sectional divide (including Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Stephens) who played a key role in the Whig selection of Zachary Taylor as the party's nominee in 1848 and cemented lasting personal bonds and perceptions between its members (for good and ill, as it turned out).
An excellent exploration of social and cultural connections which provide important context to the history of the antebellum period.
The author has done her research well, drawing on a wide range of unpublished papers, boardinghouse directories, Congressional seating charts, and other materials. She stresses the importance of not relying on the record of Congressional debates as the main source for sectional animus, noting that often legislators who were violently critical of their political opponents in public were close personal friends. She ably explains the Young Indians, a small group of Whig congressmen from across the sectional divide (including Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Stephens) who played a key role in the Whig selection of Zachary Taylor as the party's nominee in 1848 and cemented lasting personal bonds and perceptions between its members (for good and ill, as it turned out).
An excellent exploration of social and cultural connections which provide important context to the history of the antebellum period.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The Glasgow School of Art's iconic library designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh was destroyed by a fire this week. You can contribute to a response fund here.
- A plan to close the University of London's Institute of English Studies, outlined here, has been temporarily shelved after a strong scholarly outcry, including more than 3,600 signatures on an online petition.
- Robert Darnton writes in the NYRB about the progress of the DPLA and other projects.
- Brian Cassidy's tenth-anniversary e-catalog, "Mistakes Were Made," is an absolute must-read.
- John Overholt made a fascinating find recently: inked bearer type, which he was then able to identify.
- A book inscribed by Oscar Wilde to prison governor James Nelson as a token of appreciation for giving the author access to reading material could fetch £60,000 when sold at Bonhams in London on 18 June.
- The BL Collection Care blog reports on the recent discovery of a watermark on the rear pastedown of the St. Cuthbert Gospel.
- A.J. O'Shaughnessy has won the 2014 George Washington Book Prize, with its $50,000 purse, for The Men Who Lost America.
- From Aaron Pratt, "Flipping EEBO," a post prompted by a very interesting conversation on Twitter.
- You can now watch the trailer for "Cold Storage," a forthcoming documentary film about the Harvard Depository.
- The Mapping the British Book Trade workshop at Oxford this week made for some lively Twitter chatter, which is documented here.
- At The Collation, Heather Wolfe highlights a wonderful and richly-annotated 1572 dictionary.
- William S. Peterson and Sylvia Holton Peterson have launched a new digital reconstruction of the library of William Morris.
- Caleb Crain responds to the abandonment of the NYPL's Central Library Plan.
- From the Smithsonian Libraries Unbound blog, a look at binding waste found in book spines.
- The NYTimes Bits blog covers the current battle between Amazon and Hachette. Utterly ridiculous for Amazon to be doing this; it just makes them look stupid and petty.
- The HRC has acquired the archive of author Ian McEwan. Along the same vein, see Tim Parks' NYRB essay on author archives.
- Walter Isaacson's NEH Jefferson Lecture "The Intersection of the Humanities and the Sciences" is well worth a read.
- Several books believed to be rebound in decorative cloth by Dorothy Wordsworth were sold for £5,800 at Dreweatts this week.
- The BL's new Romantics and Victorians section of their Discovering Literature website was highlighted in The Guardian.
- Sarah Dry talked to Wired about her new book The Newton Papers.
- John Overholt's put up an animated gif of 19th-century progressive color printing processes.
- Another excellent response to Adam Kirsch's TNR piece on DH (linked in my last post), by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp.
- Colby College's plan to move books out of the stacks is panned in Slate by Rebecca Schuman.
- Larry McMurtry writes on "The Lost Booksellers of New York" in the NYTimes.
- There's an excerpt of Michael Blanding's book on E. Forbes Smiley, The Map Thief, in the Boston Globe Magazine.
- One of my favorite characters, William Jenks, showed up on the AAS blog this week, clothed in books.
- From the University of Melbourne Library Collections blog, "Provenance in Pictures: Tracking the Ownership of Three Early Printed Books."
- Book conservator Samantha Couture is profiled in the Albany Times-Union. Sam does great work, as a few books on my own shelves will attest!
Reviews
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Jim Shelton in the New Haven Register.
- Edward St. Aubyn's Lost for Words; review by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by David Ulin in the LATimes.
- John Leonard's Faithful Laborers; review by Nigel Smith in the TLS.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by David Shribman in the Boston Globe and Carol Berkin in the WaPo.
- The new edition of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf; review by Craig Williamson in the WSJ.
- Sarah Dry's The Newton Papers; review by Laura Snyder in the WSJ.
- Several alternate histories of the American Revolution are reviewed by Paul Aron at Common-place.
- The Morgan Library exhibition "Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection"; review by Edward Rothstein in the NYTimes.
- A plan to close the University of London's Institute of English Studies, outlined here, has been temporarily shelved after a strong scholarly outcry, including more than 3,600 signatures on an online petition.
- Robert Darnton writes in the NYRB about the progress of the DPLA and other projects.
- Brian Cassidy's tenth-anniversary e-catalog, "Mistakes Were Made," is an absolute must-read.
- John Overholt made a fascinating find recently: inked bearer type, which he was then able to identify.
- A book inscribed by Oscar Wilde to prison governor James Nelson as a token of appreciation for giving the author access to reading material could fetch £60,000 when sold at Bonhams in London on 18 June.
- The BL Collection Care blog reports on the recent discovery of a watermark on the rear pastedown of the St. Cuthbert Gospel.
- A.J. O'Shaughnessy has won the 2014 George Washington Book Prize, with its $50,000 purse, for The Men Who Lost America.
- From Aaron Pratt, "Flipping EEBO," a post prompted by a very interesting conversation on Twitter.
- You can now watch the trailer for "Cold Storage," a forthcoming documentary film about the Harvard Depository.
- The Mapping the British Book Trade workshop at Oxford this week made for some lively Twitter chatter, which is documented here.
- At The Collation, Heather Wolfe highlights a wonderful and richly-annotated 1572 dictionary.
- William S. Peterson and Sylvia Holton Peterson have launched a new digital reconstruction of the library of William Morris.
- Caleb Crain responds to the abandonment of the NYPL's Central Library Plan.
- From the Smithsonian Libraries Unbound blog, a look at binding waste found in book spines.
- The NYTimes Bits blog covers the current battle between Amazon and Hachette. Utterly ridiculous for Amazon to be doing this; it just makes them look stupid and petty.
- The HRC has acquired the archive of author Ian McEwan. Along the same vein, see Tim Parks' NYRB essay on author archives.
- Walter Isaacson's NEH Jefferson Lecture "The Intersection of the Humanities and the Sciences" is well worth a read.
- Several books believed to be rebound in decorative cloth by Dorothy Wordsworth were sold for £5,800 at Dreweatts this week.
- The BL's new Romantics and Victorians section of their Discovering Literature website was highlighted in The Guardian.
- Sarah Dry talked to Wired about her new book The Newton Papers.
- John Overholt's put up an animated gif of 19th-century progressive color printing processes.
- Another excellent response to Adam Kirsch's TNR piece on DH (linked in my last post), by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp.
- Colby College's plan to move books out of the stacks is panned in Slate by Rebecca Schuman.
- Larry McMurtry writes on "The Lost Booksellers of New York" in the NYTimes.
- There's an excerpt of Michael Blanding's book on E. Forbes Smiley, The Map Thief, in the Boston Globe Magazine.
- One of my favorite characters, William Jenks, showed up on the AAS blog this week, clothed in books.
- From the University of Melbourne Library Collections blog, "Provenance in Pictures: Tracking the Ownership of Three Early Printed Books."
- Book conservator Samantha Couture is profiled in the Albany Times-Union. Sam does great work, as a few books on my own shelves will attest!
Reviews
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Jim Shelton in the New Haven Register.
- Edward St. Aubyn's Lost for Words; review by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by David Ulin in the LATimes.
- John Leonard's Faithful Laborers; review by Nigel Smith in the TLS.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by David Shribman in the Boston Globe and Carol Berkin in the WaPo.
- The new edition of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf; review by Craig Williamson in the WSJ.
- Sarah Dry's The Newton Papers; review by Laura Snyder in the WSJ.
- Several alternate histories of the American Revolution are reviewed by Paul Aron at Common-place.
- The Morgan Library exhibition "Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection"; review by Edward Rothstein in the NYTimes.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The NYPL's leadership announced this week that they have abandoned their much-panned renovation scheme known as the "Central Library Plan." More coverage from the WSJ and from Scott Sherman at The Nation. Scholar Caleb Crain, who pushed back against the ill-conceived plan from the get-go, weighed in. Much credit to him and to all of the others who worked so diligently to bring about this week's developments.
- MARIAB (Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers) is now SNEAB (Southern New England Antiquarian Booksellers), having added Connecticut booksellers to its remit.
- New from NINES and led by UVA's Andrew Stauffer is Book Traces, which seeks to identify marginalia and inserts in 19th- and early 20th-century volumes in open library stacks. Coverage of the project has appeared in The Atlantic, Hyperallergic, The New Atlantis, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Adam Kirsch's TNR piece "Technology is Taking Over English Departments: The False Promise of Digital Humanities" has spawned a number of valuable rebuttals, including Ted Underwood's "You can't govern reception," Glen Worthey's "Why are such terrible things written about DH? Kirsch v. Kirschenbaum," and Ryan Cordell's "On Ignoring Encoding." Worthey positions Kirsch's piece very aptly against Matt Kirschenbaum's "What is 'Digital Humanities,' and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?," which is absolutely a must-read for anyone with any interest at all in these matters.
- The University of Illinois has launched Project Unica, an initiative to "preserve and share books that exist as sole survivors." The project has now been opened so that other university libraries can share digital copies of their own unique copies.
- At Atlas Obscura, a look at some of the remaining chained libraries.
- From Anne Trubek at Belt magazine, a look inside the famous bibliophilic Rowfant Club.
- The Getty Research Institute has acquired a late 16th-century liber amicorum compiled by Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, military attaché from the Holy Roman Empire to the Ottoman court.
- From The Guardian, a pretty interesting and amusing infographic, "How to tell you're reading a gothic novel."
- In the Chronicle, Marc Parry reports on libraries' use of "discovery tools."
- By this time, if you haven't heard about the 21 April announcement from booksellers George Koppelman and Daniel Wechsler that they've found what they believe to be a dictionary annotated by Shakespeare, you've been sleeping quite well indeed! Their site on the book is Shakespeare's Beehive. Garrett Scott rounded up very nearly all of the news reports and posts (skeptical and otherwise) on the topic, so I'm not going to repeat that process - but do go read through the links he's collected. I've spent a decent amount of time looking at the images of the volume (and have asked for an image of the front pastedown and flyleaf, to no avail thus far), and am unconvinced that the book was Shakespeare's, but it's certainly a notable volume and one very much deserving of thorough study.
- A 1482 printed Torah sold at Christie's Paris this week for $3.8 million.
- Over at Public Domain Review, Mike Jay writes on John Robison and his "exposé" of the Illuminati in "Darkness Over All."
- Also at PDR, Nicholas Humphrey writes on animal trials of the medieval period.
- From bookseller Lorne Blair, a great story of finding the right home for Andrew Jackson's family Bible.
- Peter Suber, director of Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication, writes on takedown notices Harvard received from mega-publisher Elsevier.
- From the UK National Archives blog, Jo Pugh asks if something in an archive can ever be "discovered." A good discussion of the question, actually.
- From the Department of Utterly Ridiculous, the Ohio Historical Society will officially change its name to the Ohio History Connection after surveys reportedly showed that people found the words "historical" and "society" to be "too exclusive and antiquated." Sigh.
- In the same vein, Mireille Silcoff's piece in the New York Times Magazine on physical books "becoming sexy" as furniture/decoration.
- Kembrew McLeod writes at The Atlantic about the great hoaxer George Psalmanazar.
- The Milwaukee Public Library is considering the sale or long-term loan of the iconic painting "The Bookworm," by Carl Spitzweg. An offer of $400,000 has been received for the piece, donated to the library in 1972 by René Von Schleintz. Over at Book Trade Ephemera, more on the use(s) of this painting in various ephemeral forms.
- Via Bethany Nowviskie on Twitter, a Neatline representation of Sterne's Sentimental Journey.
- The University of Chicago libraries offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who could identify a shorthand script used to annotate a 1504 edition of Homer's Odyssey. Less than a week passed before the prize was claimed by Daniele Metilli, an Italian computer engineer.
- From Erin Blake at The Collation, an exploration of the displaying of variant titles in catalog records, with a call for comments from catalog users.
- In case you missed it: the BSA awarded its 2014 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize for outstanding scholarship in the bibliography of American history and literature to Joseph J. Felcone for his Printing in New Jersey, 1754-1800: A Descriptive Bibliography (AAS, 2013).
- There's a new (and very useful) index to APHA's Printing History.
- Carolyn Kellogg reports on a new, hi-tech quest to discover the bones of Cervantes in the Convent of las Trinidades Descalzas in Madrid. A more in-depth story from Fiona Govan in the Telegraph.
- In The Guardian, Paul Laity writes on the history of Penguin's Pelican imprint.
- At The Junto, Sara Georgini rounds up some newly-released or forthcoming titles on early American history for your summer reading pleasure.
- Also at The Junto, Jonathan Wilson on colonial commencement ceremonies.
- In Slate's series on design, Michael Agresta writes on library design in "What Will Become of the Library?"
- Jonathan Green uses Eric White's census of incunable print runs to produce some distribution graphs.
- While I'm not sure the name was the best choice, I'm interested to see that the Navy is going to offer its sailors a Navy eReader Device (NeRD), filled with e-books (but with no means of adding more, as the whole thing comes preloaded).
Reviews
- Lynne Cheney's James Madison: A Life Reconsidered; review by Gordon S. Wood in the NYTimes.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams: American Visionary; review by Robert W. Merry in the NYTimes.
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Virginia DeJohn Anderson in the NYTimes.
- Stephen H. Grant's Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Daniel Brown's The Poetry of Victorian Scientists; review by Angelique Richardson in the TLS.
- Russell Shorto's Amsterdam; review by Philipp Blom in the TLS.
- Jonathan Israel's Revolutionary Ideas; review by Ruth Scurr in the WSJ.
- John Drury's Music at Midnight; review by Barton Swaim in the WSJ.
- Bruce Holsinger's A Burnable Book; review by Stephanie Downes in the Sydney Morning Herald.
- Stuart Bennett's Lord Moira's Echo; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
- MARIAB (Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers) is now SNEAB (Southern New England Antiquarian Booksellers), having added Connecticut booksellers to its remit.
- New from NINES and led by UVA's Andrew Stauffer is Book Traces, which seeks to identify marginalia and inserts in 19th- and early 20th-century volumes in open library stacks. Coverage of the project has appeared in The Atlantic, Hyperallergic, The New Atlantis, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Adam Kirsch's TNR piece "Technology is Taking Over English Departments: The False Promise of Digital Humanities" has spawned a number of valuable rebuttals, including Ted Underwood's "You can't govern reception," Glen Worthey's "Why are such terrible things written about DH? Kirsch v. Kirschenbaum," and Ryan Cordell's "On Ignoring Encoding." Worthey positions Kirsch's piece very aptly against Matt Kirschenbaum's "What is 'Digital Humanities,' and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?," which is absolutely a must-read for anyone with any interest at all in these matters.
- The University of Illinois has launched Project Unica, an initiative to "preserve and share books that exist as sole survivors." The project has now been opened so that other university libraries can share digital copies of their own unique copies.
- At Atlas Obscura, a look at some of the remaining chained libraries.
- From Anne Trubek at Belt magazine, a look inside the famous bibliophilic Rowfant Club.
- The Getty Research Institute has acquired a late 16th-century liber amicorum compiled by Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, military attaché from the Holy Roman Empire to the Ottoman court.
- From The Guardian, a pretty interesting and amusing infographic, "How to tell you're reading a gothic novel."
- In the Chronicle, Marc Parry reports on libraries' use of "discovery tools."
- By this time, if you haven't heard about the 21 April announcement from booksellers George Koppelman and Daniel Wechsler that they've found what they believe to be a dictionary annotated by Shakespeare, you've been sleeping quite well indeed! Their site on the book is Shakespeare's Beehive. Garrett Scott rounded up very nearly all of the news reports and posts (skeptical and otherwise) on the topic, so I'm not going to repeat that process - but do go read through the links he's collected. I've spent a decent amount of time looking at the images of the volume (and have asked for an image of the front pastedown and flyleaf, to no avail thus far), and am unconvinced that the book was Shakespeare's, but it's certainly a notable volume and one very much deserving of thorough study.
- A 1482 printed Torah sold at Christie's Paris this week for $3.8 million.
- Over at Public Domain Review, Mike Jay writes on John Robison and his "exposé" of the Illuminati in "Darkness Over All."
- Also at PDR, Nicholas Humphrey writes on animal trials of the medieval period.
- From bookseller Lorne Blair, a great story of finding the right home for Andrew Jackson's family Bible.
- Peter Suber, director of Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication, writes on takedown notices Harvard received from mega-publisher Elsevier.
- From the UK National Archives blog, Jo Pugh asks if something in an archive can ever be "discovered." A good discussion of the question, actually.
- From the Department of Utterly Ridiculous, the Ohio Historical Society will officially change its name to the Ohio History Connection after surveys reportedly showed that people found the words "historical" and "society" to be "too exclusive and antiquated." Sigh.
- In the same vein, Mireille Silcoff's piece in the New York Times Magazine on physical books "becoming sexy" as furniture/decoration.
- Kembrew McLeod writes at The Atlantic about the great hoaxer George Psalmanazar.
- The Milwaukee Public Library is considering the sale or long-term loan of the iconic painting "The Bookworm," by Carl Spitzweg. An offer of $400,000 has been received for the piece, donated to the library in 1972 by René Von Schleintz. Over at Book Trade Ephemera, more on the use(s) of this painting in various ephemeral forms.
- Via Bethany Nowviskie on Twitter, a Neatline representation of Sterne's Sentimental Journey.
- The University of Chicago libraries offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who could identify a shorthand script used to annotate a 1504 edition of Homer's Odyssey. Less than a week passed before the prize was claimed by Daniele Metilli, an Italian computer engineer.
- From Erin Blake at The Collation, an exploration of the displaying of variant titles in catalog records, with a call for comments from catalog users.
- In case you missed it: the BSA awarded its 2014 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize for outstanding scholarship in the bibliography of American history and literature to Joseph J. Felcone for his Printing in New Jersey, 1754-1800: A Descriptive Bibliography (AAS, 2013).
- There's a new (and very useful) index to APHA's Printing History.
- Carolyn Kellogg reports on a new, hi-tech quest to discover the bones of Cervantes in the Convent of las Trinidades Descalzas in Madrid. A more in-depth story from Fiona Govan in the Telegraph.
- In The Guardian, Paul Laity writes on the history of Penguin's Pelican imprint.
- At The Junto, Sara Georgini rounds up some newly-released or forthcoming titles on early American history for your summer reading pleasure.
- Also at The Junto, Jonathan Wilson on colonial commencement ceremonies.
- In Slate's series on design, Michael Agresta writes on library design in "What Will Become of the Library?"
- Jonathan Green uses Eric White's census of incunable print runs to produce some distribution graphs.
- While I'm not sure the name was the best choice, I'm interested to see that the Navy is going to offer its sailors a Navy eReader Device (NeRD), filled with e-books (but with no means of adding more, as the whole thing comes preloaded).
Reviews
- Lynne Cheney's James Madison: A Life Reconsidered; review by Gordon S. Wood in the NYTimes.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams: American Visionary; review by Robert W. Merry in the NYTimes.
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Virginia DeJohn Anderson in the NYTimes.
- Stephen H. Grant's Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Daniel Brown's The Poetry of Victorian Scientists; review by Angelique Richardson in the TLS.
- Russell Shorto's Amsterdam; review by Philipp Blom in the TLS.
- Jonathan Israel's Revolutionary Ideas; review by Ruth Scurr in the WSJ.
- John Drury's Music at Midnight; review by Barton Swaim in the WSJ.
- Bruce Holsinger's A Burnable Book; review by Stephanie Downes in the Sydney Morning Herald.
- Stuart Bennett's Lord Moira's Echo; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Links & Reviews
Sorry, I got behind there for a few weeks. Time to play some serious catchup.
- The Pforzheimer Collection at NYPL has made a remarkable acquisition: a copy of Shelley's first book of verse, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810). A total of four copies are known, and the newly-acquired NYPL copy is in original boards, with untrimmed pages. The title page is inscribed "Thos Medwin / a present from / one of the authors", there are manuscript corrections to printer's errors in the text, possibly in Shelley's hand, and pencilled notes ascribing authorship to various poems as well.
- Harvard Law School has released the results of testing done on a binding long-believed to have been made of human skin. The binding proved to be [drum roll please ...] sheepskin. That didn't stop another flurry of stories about anthropodermic binding, though.
- In The Paris Review, Graciela Mochkofsky on the theft and return of a stolen Borges first edition ... with a twist. Lots of background on some major theft cases from the last few years, as well.
- Hear Anne Blair deliver the inaugural John Rylands Research Institute Lecture, "Script, Type, and Byte - Manuscripts after Gutenberg (reflections on technological continuities)" (link at bottom to download the audio).
- In Time, Katy Steinmetz interviews lexicographer and slang historian Jonathon Green.
- Jennifer Howard reports on the first birthday of the DPLA for the Chronicle.
- The Getty Museum announced that it is returning a 12th-century Byzantine illuminated New Testament to the Holy Monastery of Dionysou in Greece, from which the manuscript was stolen before 1960.
- In the Washington Independent Review of Books, a profile of the Library Company of Philadelphia's retiring director John C. Van Horne.
- At The Collation, printer's waste as endleaves, with many good images and context from Sarah Werner.
- Tests on a papyrus fragment containing the words "Jesus said to them 'My wife...'" indicate that it can be dated to the fourth-eighth centuries, but skeptics continue to doubt its authenticity or significance.
- The OED has launched another public appeal, this time for a book quoted in Alice Morse Earle's 1902 book Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday as "Mathematick Rules by I.N. Gentn, 1646."
- Simon Worrall has a piece in the BBC Magazine on the appeal of the Voynich Manuscript.
- Nick Basbanes is selling his collection of inscribed first editions.
- New from the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series, an interview with Sarah Burke Cahalan, a friend and library school class mate of mine!
- The Indiana Historical Society's copy of Audubon's Birds of America sold for a total of $3,525,000 at Sotheby's New York on 1 April. The copy of Quadrupeds made $245,000. IHS president and CEO John Herbst called it a "great day." The buyers have been identified only as a husband and wife "with the means to do the restoration needed for that set ...".
- Rebecca Rego Barry has an excellent rundown of the New York Book Fair, which was, as usual, a grand experience. It was fantastic to see so many friends and so many amazing books.
- Via Nick Basbanes on Twitter, Michael Rosenwald's 6 April WaPo article on the way online reading may change other forms of reading.
- Over at The Junto, an interview with Michael Jarvis, author of the Junto March Madness 2014 champion title In the Eye of All Trade (a book that has proven extremely useful to me in my own research, so I was delighted at its win!).
- From the Special Collections Processing at Penn blog, a look at H. Buxton Forman's bookplate, which bears an oddly apt caption.
- At Notabilia, a presentation copy from Abraham Ortelius to Francesco Soranzo, a Venetian nobleman who served as ambassador to Spain and a strong friend to Ortelius.
- The 8 April sale of Treasures from the Caren Archive: How History Unfolds on Paper realized $1.3 million. Eric Caren is still looking for a buyer for a collection of 200,000 additional items.
- Goran Proot explores a 1629 book purportedly published in Antwerp, discussing the various layout elements which suggest that the book likely originated in Italy instead.
- A new blog to follow: Manutius in Manchester.
- There's an excellent interview with E.O. Wilson in the WSJ. Read all the way to the end.
- On 20 May, Sotheby's London will try again to sell the manuscript of Rachmaninoff's second symphony, this time with an estimate of £1-1.5 million. In 2004 a planned sale was called off after the relatives of the composer claimed ownership. The manuscript was later sold to the Tabor Foundation and deposited at the British Library.
- The 2014 update to the Directory of Institutions in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings has been posted.
Reviews
- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's Plato at the Googleplex; review by Anthony Gottlieb in the NYTimes.
- Svante Paabo's Neanderthal Man; review by Carl Zimmer in the NYTimes.
- Justin Cartwright's Lion Heart; review by Katherine A. Powers in the WaPo.
- Helena Attlee's The Land Where Lemons Grow; review by Helena Attlee in the TLS.
- David G. Hackett's That Religion in Which All Men Agree; review by Seth Perry in The Junto.
- Justin Roberts' Slavery and the Enlightenment in the British Atlantic; review by David Richardson at H-Albion.
- AMC's show "Turn"; review by Carolyn Eastman in Perspectives on History.
- The Pforzheimer Collection at NYPL has made a remarkable acquisition: a copy of Shelley's first book of verse, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810). A total of four copies are known, and the newly-acquired NYPL copy is in original boards, with untrimmed pages. The title page is inscribed "Thos Medwin / a present from / one of the authors", there are manuscript corrections to printer's errors in the text, possibly in Shelley's hand, and pencilled notes ascribing authorship to various poems as well.
- Harvard Law School has released the results of testing done on a binding long-believed to have been made of human skin. The binding proved to be [drum roll please ...] sheepskin. That didn't stop another flurry of stories about anthropodermic binding, though.
- In The Paris Review, Graciela Mochkofsky on the theft and return of a stolen Borges first edition ... with a twist. Lots of background on some major theft cases from the last few years, as well.
- Hear Anne Blair deliver the inaugural John Rylands Research Institute Lecture, "Script, Type, and Byte - Manuscripts after Gutenberg (reflections on technological continuities)" (link at bottom to download the audio).
- In Time, Katy Steinmetz interviews lexicographer and slang historian Jonathon Green.
- Jennifer Howard reports on the first birthday of the DPLA for the Chronicle.
- The Getty Museum announced that it is returning a 12th-century Byzantine illuminated New Testament to the Holy Monastery of Dionysou in Greece, from which the manuscript was stolen before 1960.
- In the Washington Independent Review of Books, a profile of the Library Company of Philadelphia's retiring director John C. Van Horne.
- At The Collation, printer's waste as endleaves, with many good images and context from Sarah Werner.
- Tests on a papyrus fragment containing the words "Jesus said to them 'My wife...'" indicate that it can be dated to the fourth-eighth centuries, but skeptics continue to doubt its authenticity or significance.
- The OED has launched another public appeal, this time for a book quoted in Alice Morse Earle's 1902 book Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday as "Mathematick Rules by I.N. Gentn, 1646."
- Simon Worrall has a piece in the BBC Magazine on the appeal of the Voynich Manuscript.
- Nick Basbanes is selling his collection of inscribed first editions.
- New from the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series, an interview with Sarah Burke Cahalan, a friend and library school class mate of mine!
- The Indiana Historical Society's copy of Audubon's Birds of America sold for a total of $3,525,000 at Sotheby's New York on 1 April. The copy of Quadrupeds made $245,000. IHS president and CEO John Herbst called it a "great day." The buyers have been identified only as a husband and wife "with the means to do the restoration needed for that set ...".
- Rebecca Rego Barry has an excellent rundown of the New York Book Fair, which was, as usual, a grand experience. It was fantastic to see so many friends and so many amazing books.
- Via Nick Basbanes on Twitter, Michael Rosenwald's 6 April WaPo article on the way online reading may change other forms of reading.
- Over at The Junto, an interview with Michael Jarvis, author of the Junto March Madness 2014 champion title In the Eye of All Trade (a book that has proven extremely useful to me in my own research, so I was delighted at its win!).
- From the Special Collections Processing at Penn blog, a look at H. Buxton Forman's bookplate, which bears an oddly apt caption.
- At Notabilia, a presentation copy from Abraham Ortelius to Francesco Soranzo, a Venetian nobleman who served as ambassador to Spain and a strong friend to Ortelius.
- The 8 April sale of Treasures from the Caren Archive: How History Unfolds on Paper realized $1.3 million. Eric Caren is still looking for a buyer for a collection of 200,000 additional items.
- Goran Proot explores a 1629 book purportedly published in Antwerp, discussing the various layout elements which suggest that the book likely originated in Italy instead.
- A new blog to follow: Manutius in Manchester.
- There's an excellent interview with E.O. Wilson in the WSJ. Read all the way to the end.
- On 20 May, Sotheby's London will try again to sell the manuscript of Rachmaninoff's second symphony, this time with an estimate of £1-1.5 million. In 2004 a planned sale was called off after the relatives of the composer claimed ownership. The manuscript was later sold to the Tabor Foundation and deposited at the British Library.
- The 2014 update to the Directory of Institutions in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings has been posted.
Reviews
- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's Plato at the Googleplex; review by Anthony Gottlieb in the NYTimes.
- Svante Paabo's Neanderthal Man; review by Carl Zimmer in the NYTimes.
- Justin Cartwright's Lion Heart; review by Katherine A. Powers in the WaPo.
- Helena Attlee's The Land Where Lemons Grow; review by Helena Attlee in the TLS.
- David G. Hackett's That Religion in Which All Men Agree; review by Seth Perry in The Junto.
- Justin Roberts' Slavery and the Enlightenment in the British Atlantic; review by David Richardson at H-Albion.
- AMC's show "Turn"; review by Carolyn Eastman in Perspectives on History.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Links & Reviews
- Reminder: lots of big events coming up in New York this week during Rare Book Week, including the sale at Sotheby's on Tuesday of the Indiana Historical Society's copies of Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds.
- More books from the Mendham Collection will be sold at Sotheby's on 20 May as part of their Music & Continental Books & Manuscripts sale. These will include the first edition of Wyclif's works (Worms, 1525), as well as a unique Venetian incunable. As Clive Field remarked in a listserv post this week, "This year is therefore likely to see the complete dismemberment by the Law Society of one of the country's most important religious libraries formed in the nineteenth century, the cataloguing of which the British Library funded."
- In The Guardian, Robin Stummer reports on new graffiti found on the pillars of St Mary's church at Lidgate, Suffolk, which may include the carved "signature" of John Lydgate.
- In the NYTimes this week, "Literary City, Bookstore Desert," on the high rents forcing bookstores out of Manhattan.
- Booksellers Brian Cassidy and Dan Dwyer talk books on an episode of "This Old Book," which you can stream here.
- From cataloger Amy Sims at AAS, a post on "Adventures in Cataloging: Some Sleuthing Required" (part one of a series).
- Also continuing a theme, Erin Blake at The Collation covers some tricky library transcription rules.
- Simon Beattie blogged this week about one of the books he'll bringing to the upcoming New York Book Fair: a copy of an 1843 book composed straight into type by the author.
- Trinity College, Cambridge, is posting digital scans of its medieval manuscripts. See the list here.
- In the TLS, Malyn Newitt argues for greater access to the National Trust's libraries.
- Ian Gadd discusses the recently-published History of Oxford University Press with Adam Smyth on the Centre for the Study the Book podcast.
- At medieval fragments, Ramona Venema writes on fingerprints, blood drops, and other "biological clues" found in manuscripts.
Reviews
- The current New-York Historical Society exhibition, Audubon's Aviary: Parts Unknown; review by Henry Nicholls in The Guardian.
- Samuel Fleischaker's What is Enlightenment?; review by James Schmidt at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
- Jonathon Green's Odd Job Man and Language!; review by Nicholas Shakespeare in The Telegraph.
- Joyce Chaplin's Round About the Earth; review by Andrea Wulf in Literary Review.
- Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews; review by Judith Shulevitz in the NYTimes.
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; review by Brenda Wineapple in the NYTimes.
- Louis Bayard's Roosevelt's Beast; review by Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
- More books from the Mendham Collection will be sold at Sotheby's on 20 May as part of their Music & Continental Books & Manuscripts sale. These will include the first edition of Wyclif's works (Worms, 1525), as well as a unique Venetian incunable. As Clive Field remarked in a listserv post this week, "This year is therefore likely to see the complete dismemberment by the Law Society of one of the country's most important religious libraries formed in the nineteenth century, the cataloguing of which the British Library funded."
- In The Guardian, Robin Stummer reports on new graffiti found on the pillars of St Mary's church at Lidgate, Suffolk, which may include the carved "signature" of John Lydgate.
- In the NYTimes this week, "Literary City, Bookstore Desert," on the high rents forcing bookstores out of Manhattan.
- Booksellers Brian Cassidy and Dan Dwyer talk books on an episode of "This Old Book," which you can stream here.
- From cataloger Amy Sims at AAS, a post on "Adventures in Cataloging: Some Sleuthing Required" (part one of a series).
- Also continuing a theme, Erin Blake at The Collation covers some tricky library transcription rules.
- Simon Beattie blogged this week about one of the books he'll bringing to the upcoming New York Book Fair: a copy of an 1843 book composed straight into type by the author.
- Trinity College, Cambridge, is posting digital scans of its medieval manuscripts. See the list here.
- In the TLS, Malyn Newitt argues for greater access to the National Trust's libraries.
- Ian Gadd discusses the recently-published History of Oxford University Press with Adam Smyth on the Centre for the Study the Book podcast.
- At medieval fragments, Ramona Venema writes on fingerprints, blood drops, and other "biological clues" found in manuscripts.
Reviews
- The current New-York Historical Society exhibition, Audubon's Aviary: Parts Unknown; review by Henry Nicholls in The Guardian.
- Samuel Fleischaker's What is Enlightenment?; review by James Schmidt at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
- Jonathon Green's Odd Job Man and Language!; review by Nicholas Shakespeare in The Telegraph.
- Joyce Chaplin's Round About the Earth; review by Andrea Wulf in Literary Review.
- Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews; review by Judith Shulevitz in the NYTimes.
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; review by Brenda Wineapple in the NYTimes.
- Louis Bayard's Roosevelt's Beast; review by Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
Book Review: "A Feathered River Across the Sky"
Joel Greenberg's A Feathered River Across the Sky (Bloomsbury, 2014) is not an easy book to read. There were times when I had to put it down for a little while in favor of something amusing, or just to go outside and listen to the birds sing. Greenberg's book is a heart-wrenching catalog of depredations committed by members of our own species against the passenger pigeon, ultimately resulting in the complete and utter extinction of a species once unrivaled in terms of visible presence on the landscape of much of what is now the United States.
This is not an easy book, but it is an excellent book. Greenberg has meticulously collected and collated accounts of passenger pigeon observations, both when the birds were plentiful and widespread, and when the species had been reduced to just a few individuals, eking out a miserable existence in zoo enclosures, being pelted with sand in an attempt to make them move about. He has brought together a vast array of information on the techniques used to collect, kill, and market these birds, and deploys it to great effect.
The scale and scope of the assault(s) on large nesting assemblages of passenger pigeons in the last third or so of the 19th century are outlined in painful detail, and if you can get through this book without tears welling up in your eyes at the wanton destruction, well, you've done something I couldn't manage. By the time anyone noticed and began to speak in favor of conservationist measures, it was too late, and then the dreadful cycle continued as collectors and scientists sought specimens of the species ... resulting in the hunting down of many remaining wild birds.
Greenberg has also worked diligently to recover accounts of the few captive passenger pigeons who lived slightly longer than their wild brethren, and his account of the life and death of Martha, the last living bird, who died in the Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914, is a lovely tribute.
I'm afraid my notes on this book may make it seem maudlin, or overwrought, and it's not, in the slightest. Greenberg's done a great job of presenting the facts and telling the tales. But it is a sad book, and one that should be very widely read, as it provides a terribly important cautionary lesson. Nearly a hundred years have passed since Martha breathed her last, and while great strides in species protection have been made, there is a very long way to go. We are much the poorer, now, for the loss of this beautiful species that once darkened the continent's skies, as well as for the many others that share its fate. Would that no other book like Greenberg's ever has to be written, but alas that is not likely to be the case, and certainly won't be if we don't absorb its lessons.
Highly recommended, and very deserving of a broad audience.
This is not an easy book, but it is an excellent book. Greenberg has meticulously collected and collated accounts of passenger pigeon observations, both when the birds were plentiful and widespread, and when the species had been reduced to just a few individuals, eking out a miserable existence in zoo enclosures, being pelted with sand in an attempt to make them move about. He has brought together a vast array of information on the techniques used to collect, kill, and market these birds, and deploys it to great effect.
The scale and scope of the assault(s) on large nesting assemblages of passenger pigeons in the last third or so of the 19th century are outlined in painful detail, and if you can get through this book without tears welling up in your eyes at the wanton destruction, well, you've done something I couldn't manage. By the time anyone noticed and began to speak in favor of conservationist measures, it was too late, and then the dreadful cycle continued as collectors and scientists sought specimens of the species ... resulting in the hunting down of many remaining wild birds.
Greenberg has also worked diligently to recover accounts of the few captive passenger pigeons who lived slightly longer than their wild brethren, and his account of the life and death of Martha, the last living bird, who died in the Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914, is a lovely tribute.
I'm afraid my notes on this book may make it seem maudlin, or overwrought, and it's not, in the slightest. Greenberg's done a great job of presenting the facts and telling the tales. But it is a sad book, and one that should be very widely read, as it provides a terribly important cautionary lesson. Nearly a hundred years have passed since Martha breathed her last, and while great strides in species protection have been made, there is a very long way to go. We are much the poorer, now, for the loss of this beautiful species that once darkened the continent's skies, as well as for the many others that share its fate. Would that no other book like Greenberg's ever has to be written, but alas that is not likely to be the case, and certainly won't be if we don't absorb its lessons.
Highly recommended, and very deserving of a broad audience.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Links & Reviews
- Over at The Collation, Sarah Werner shares a great case study of "how a tweet can grow into an amazing scholarly resource."
- The upcoming sale of the exploration library of Franklin Brooke-Hitching at Sotheby's is previewed in the WSJ and the Telegraph.
- From Molly Hardy at AAS, a look at the absolutely fantastic project they're working on to make the Mathew Carey account books available.
- Endrina Tay has a great essay on the Jefferson quote "I cannot live without books" on the Monticello store blog.
- The Catholicon Anglicum, a 1483 Middle English-Latin dictionary, has been purchased by the British Library for £92,500. The UK government had barred the manuscript's export following its sale to an overseas buyer at auction.
- Two photographs may have been identified as from the New York City funeral procession for Abraham Lincoln, the WaPo reports. Key words "may have been," but the case seems fairly good.
- Check this out, from Ben Pauley: Eighteenth-Century Book Tracker, a clearinghouse for information about digital facsimiles of 18th-century works.
- In the NYTimes, archaeologist Douglas Boin writes on provenance concerns raised about the recently-discovered new Sappho fragments.
- Nick Richardson blogs for the LRB on "Translating Lorem Ipsum."
- New at Princeton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's mahogany writing desk and other objects, donated by alumnus Peter N. Heydon.
Reviews
- Steven Moore's The Novel: An Alternative History, 1600-1800; review by Roger Boylan in Boston Review.
- Peter Stark's Astoria; review by Dennis Drabelle in the WaPo.
- Ingrid Rowland's From Pompeii; review by Dan Hofstadter in the WSJ.
- The upcoming sale of the exploration library of Franklin Brooke-Hitching at Sotheby's is previewed in the WSJ and the Telegraph.
- From Molly Hardy at AAS, a look at the absolutely fantastic project they're working on to make the Mathew Carey account books available.
- Endrina Tay has a great essay on the Jefferson quote "I cannot live without books" on the Monticello store blog.
- The Catholicon Anglicum, a 1483 Middle English-Latin dictionary, has been purchased by the British Library for £92,500. The UK government had barred the manuscript's export following its sale to an overseas buyer at auction.
- Two photographs may have been identified as from the New York City funeral procession for Abraham Lincoln, the WaPo reports. Key words "may have been," but the case seems fairly good.
- Check this out, from Ben Pauley: Eighteenth-Century Book Tracker, a clearinghouse for information about digital facsimiles of 18th-century works.
- In the NYTimes, archaeologist Douglas Boin writes on provenance concerns raised about the recently-discovered new Sappho fragments.
- Nick Richardson blogs for the LRB on "Translating Lorem Ipsum."
- New at Princeton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's mahogany writing desk and other objects, donated by alumnus Peter N. Heydon.
Reviews
- Steven Moore's The Novel: An Alternative History, 1600-1800; review by Roger Boylan in Boston Review.
- Peter Stark's Astoria; review by Dennis Drabelle in the WaPo.
- Ingrid Rowland's From Pompeii; review by Dan Hofstadter in the WSJ.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Links & Reviews
- Houghton Library is hiring a three-month Wikipedian-in-Residence.
- NARA announced this week that its facility in Anchorage, AK will be closed, and "storefront" facilities in Philadelphia and Fort Worth will be consolidated into larger facilities nearby, for a savings of $1.3 million per year.
- The NYPL has received a $6 million gift from a longtime patron.
- The Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge continues its appeal to donors for the £275,000 needed to acquire some 113 negatives of photographs taken by Scott during his 1911 expedition.
- The Junto is reprising last year's fun with a new Junto March Madness bracket, this time of books on early America written since 2000. Voting begins on Monday.
- Over at Notabilia, the book-label of Nicholson's Circulating Library of Cambridge.
- SAA president Danna Bell posts at Off the Record on what seems like a perennial question: "where do archivists belong?"
- Jasper Copping writes in The Telegraph about a new biography of detective Jerome Caminada, who may have been a (partial) inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.
- Now online, Folger Digital Texts.
Reviews
- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; review by Philip Hoare in The Telegraph.
- David Mikics' Slow Reading in a Digital Age; review by Leah Price in the TLS.
- Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews; reviews by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes, Jonathan Rosen in the WSJ, and Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Carol Berkin's Wondrous Beauty: The Life of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte; review by Ellen McCarthy in the WaPo.
- Peter Stark's Astoria; review by Gerard Helferich in the WSJ.
- NARA announced this week that its facility in Anchorage, AK will be closed, and "storefront" facilities in Philadelphia and Fort Worth will be consolidated into larger facilities nearby, for a savings of $1.3 million per year.
- The NYPL has received a $6 million gift from a longtime patron.
- The Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge continues its appeal to donors for the £275,000 needed to acquire some 113 negatives of photographs taken by Scott during his 1911 expedition.
- The Junto is reprising last year's fun with a new Junto March Madness bracket, this time of books on early America written since 2000. Voting begins on Monday.
- Over at Notabilia, the book-label of Nicholson's Circulating Library of Cambridge.
- SAA president Danna Bell posts at Off the Record on what seems like a perennial question: "where do archivists belong?"
- Jasper Copping writes in The Telegraph about a new biography of detective Jerome Caminada, who may have been a (partial) inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.
- Now online, Folger Digital Texts.
Reviews
- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; review by Philip Hoare in The Telegraph.
- David Mikics' Slow Reading in a Digital Age; review by Leah Price in the TLS.
- Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews; reviews by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes, Jonathan Rosen in the WSJ, and Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Carol Berkin's Wondrous Beauty: The Life of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte; review by Ellen McCarthy in the WaPo.
- Peter Stark's Astoria; review by Gerard Helferich in the WSJ.
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Links & Reviews
- Another week, another absolutely astounding book theft story. A report by Kim Ring in the Worcester Telegram highlights the wet noodle of a sentence handed down to Joseph G. Heath of Leicester, MA, who pleaded to "sufficient facts for a guilty finding" in relation to the theft of more than 100 rare books from Becker College's Samuel May, Jr. collection (see this ABAA security blog post for more on the missing items). Heath, a janitor at the college with access to the library, had sold several of the stolen books to a Worcester bookstore, which in turn had tried to sell them to the Leicester Historical Society (this led to the original alert that the books may have been stolen from Becker). Heath also sold 24 books to a Boston bookshop $850, which have since been recovered, and attempted to sell others via Craigslist. Heath was arrested and charged in November 2012. Approximately fifty of the stolen books, worth around $15,000, plus one inscribed to (not by, as indicated in the article) Abraham Lincoln, have not yet been recovered.
Prosecutors had requested that Heath be ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution, but last week a judge ordered Heath to pay a measly $3,000 and sentenced him to three years' probation, which term could be reduced to one year if the restitution is paid. Utterly ridiculous.
- From The Collation, Erin Blake on a 17th-century print that's been pricked for transfer.
- Coming up in early April (unfortunately during the New York Book Fair) at UCLA: "Futures of Book History," which looks like it's going to be a fantastic conference!
- Over at Manuscript Road Trip, Lisa Fagin Davis on "digital fragmentology" and its uses in recreating some of the manuscripts dismembered by Otto Ege in the 1940s.
- There's a Travel Channel clip about the Ireland Shakespeare forgeries, featuring Folger Library curator Heather Wolfe.
- A 15th-century Torah volume will be sold at Christie's Paris on 30 April, and is estimated at 1-1.5 million Euros.
- The University of Rochester has received a $360,000 grant to digitize portions of the Seward Family Archive (a collection near and dear to my heart, so I'm particularly delighted to see this).
- What is considered the world's largest privately-held Holocaust archive, containing more than 20,000 books and some 500,000 documents, has been acquired by the University of Colorado Boulder.
- In Fine Books & Collections, Joel Silver writes on "Collector and Bookseller: A Vanishing Relationship?"
- Over at Harper's, historian Mary Niall Mitchell writes on a particularly amazing copy of Solomon Northrup's Twelve Years a Slave.
- Eric Caren is planning to sell his collection of some 200,000 items en bloc in a private treaty sale.
- The British Library has acquired Philip the Good's manuscript of the Mystère de la Vengeance, one of the finest illuminated manuscripts of any medieval theatrical text. The manuscript was acquired by the British government in lieu of inheritance tax.
Reviews
- Marwa Elshakry's Reading Darwin in Arabic; review by Robert Irwin in the TLS.
- Jessie Childs' God's Traitors; review by Virginia Roundling in the Telegraph.
Prosecutors had requested that Heath be ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution, but last week a judge ordered Heath to pay a measly $3,000 and sentenced him to three years' probation, which term could be reduced to one year if the restitution is paid. Utterly ridiculous.
- From The Collation, Erin Blake on a 17th-century print that's been pricked for transfer.
- Coming up in early April (unfortunately during the New York Book Fair) at UCLA: "Futures of Book History," which looks like it's going to be a fantastic conference!
- Over at Manuscript Road Trip, Lisa Fagin Davis on "digital fragmentology" and its uses in recreating some of the manuscripts dismembered by Otto Ege in the 1940s.
- There's a Travel Channel clip about the Ireland Shakespeare forgeries, featuring Folger Library curator Heather Wolfe.
- A 15th-century Torah volume will be sold at Christie's Paris on 30 April, and is estimated at 1-1.5 million Euros.
- The University of Rochester has received a $360,000 grant to digitize portions of the Seward Family Archive (a collection near and dear to my heart, so I'm particularly delighted to see this).
- What is considered the world's largest privately-held Holocaust archive, containing more than 20,000 books and some 500,000 documents, has been acquired by the University of Colorado Boulder.
- In Fine Books & Collections, Joel Silver writes on "Collector and Bookseller: A Vanishing Relationship?"
- Over at Harper's, historian Mary Niall Mitchell writes on a particularly amazing copy of Solomon Northrup's Twelve Years a Slave.
- Eric Caren is planning to sell his collection of some 200,000 items en bloc in a private treaty sale.
- The British Library has acquired Philip the Good's manuscript of the Mystère de la Vengeance, one of the finest illuminated manuscripts of any medieval theatrical text. The manuscript was acquired by the British government in lieu of inheritance tax.
Reviews
- Marwa Elshakry's Reading Darwin in Arabic; review by Robert Irwin in the TLS.
- Jessie Childs' God's Traitors; review by Virginia Roundling in the Telegraph.
Monday, March 03, 2014
Links & Reviews
- Rebecca Rego Barry writes on the Fine Books Blog about a few of the recent deaccessioning announcements, from the news that more books from the Mendham collection will be sold at Dreweatts on 20 March to the LA Law Library sale this week at Bonhams and the sale of the Indiana Historical Society's Audubons on 1 April.
- Sally McGrane writes over at the New Yorker blog about books looted by the Nazis.
- A collection of Titanic-related material, including the manuscript of a survivor's memoir and correspondence between his family and White Star Line owner J. Bruce Ismay, has been acquired by UPenn.
- An ABAA security alert on thirteen books apparently removed from a shipping case while in transit from California to Vermont.
- The Bibliographical Society has announced the recipients of its 2013-14 research grants.
- From the Bright Young Librarians series, Steven Galbraith from RIT.
- A rare Lord Nelson letter was withdrawn from auction this week, its current owners having decided not to sell for the time being.
- Samuel Beckett manuscripts and the working library of Beckett scholar Stanley Gontarski have been acquired by Trinity College, Dublin.
- In the TLS, Donald Nichol looks back at 300 years of The Rape of the Lock.
- Joanne Freeman's American Revolution course lectures are available on YouTube.
- Jerry Morris at My Sentimental Library highlights some of the books in his reference library.
Reviews
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; review by Drew Gilpin Faut in the NYRB.
- C. P. Snow's The Two Cultures; review by Alan Jacobs in Books & Culture.
- Lisa Gitelman's Paper Knowledge; review by Colin Higgins in THE.
- Marjorie Swann's edition of Walton's The Compleat Angler; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
- Sally McGrane writes over at the New Yorker blog about books looted by the Nazis.
- A collection of Titanic-related material, including the manuscript of a survivor's memoir and correspondence between his family and White Star Line owner J. Bruce Ismay, has been acquired by UPenn.
- An ABAA security alert on thirteen books apparently removed from a shipping case while in transit from California to Vermont.
- The Bibliographical Society has announced the recipients of its 2013-14 research grants.
- From the Bright Young Librarians series, Steven Galbraith from RIT.
- A rare Lord Nelson letter was withdrawn from auction this week, its current owners having decided not to sell for the time being.
- Samuel Beckett manuscripts and the working library of Beckett scholar Stanley Gontarski have been acquired by Trinity College, Dublin.
- In the TLS, Donald Nichol looks back at 300 years of The Rape of the Lock.
- Joanne Freeman's American Revolution course lectures are available on YouTube.
- Jerry Morris at My Sentimental Library highlights some of the books in his reference library.
Reviews
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; review by Drew Gilpin Faut in the NYRB.
- C. P. Snow's The Two Cultures; review by Alan Jacobs in Books & Culture.
- Lisa Gitelman's Paper Knowledge; review by Colin Higgins in THE.
- Marjorie Swann's edition of Walton's The Compleat Angler; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Links & Reviews
- That theft case from Vermont I mentioned last week took a surprising turn: Patrick J. Rooney, the accused thief, was found dead in his apartment; the death is being considered a suicide.
- There's a new website to highlight all the good things happening in New York City in early April: rarebookweek.org.
- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Hidden Away," a post on manuscript fragments recently found in the binding of a John Evelyn commonplace book.
- This morning's CBS Sunday Morning highlighted (with video) what may be the last newspaper in America being printed with linotype.
- Ruth Graham has a lengthy piece in the Boston Globe about the lure of the Voynich Manuscript for scholars, outlining some of the recently-unveiled theories (here's another one) and the skepticism which has greeted them.
- Over at The Collation, Heather Wolfe on some early images of family trees, drawn from preparations for an upcoming Folger exhibition.
- From Princeton, a writeup of the recent 100th birthday celebration for William Scheide.
- At Manuscript Road Trip this week, a rundown of three medieval manuscripts stolen from Connecticut College in the 1950s, and still missing.
- Also in the Boston Globe, a profile of the Boston Athenaeum's conservation efforts.
- This year's nominees for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year have been announced.
Reviews
- Timothy Brook's Mr. Selden's Map of China; review by Rana Mitter in the Telegraph.
- Lawrence Buell's The Dream of the Great American Novel; review by Michael Kimmage in TNR.
- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; review by Michael S. Roth in the WaPo.
- There's a new website to highlight all the good things happening in New York City in early April: rarebookweek.org.
- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Hidden Away," a post on manuscript fragments recently found in the binding of a John Evelyn commonplace book.
- This morning's CBS Sunday Morning highlighted (with video) what may be the last newspaper in America being printed with linotype.
- Ruth Graham has a lengthy piece in the Boston Globe about the lure of the Voynich Manuscript for scholars, outlining some of the recently-unveiled theories (here's another one) and the skepticism which has greeted them.
- Over at The Collation, Heather Wolfe on some early images of family trees, drawn from preparations for an upcoming Folger exhibition.
- From Princeton, a writeup of the recent 100th birthday celebration for William Scheide.
- At Manuscript Road Trip this week, a rundown of three medieval manuscripts stolen from Connecticut College in the 1950s, and still missing.
- Also in the Boston Globe, a profile of the Boston Athenaeum's conservation efforts.
- This year's nominees for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year have been announced.
Reviews
- Timothy Brook's Mr. Selden's Map of China; review by Rana Mitter in the Telegraph.
- Lawrence Buell's The Dream of the Great American Novel; review by Michael Kimmage in TNR.
- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; review by Michael S. Roth in the WaPo.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Links & Reviews
- A new theft case out of Vermont: Patrick J. Rooney, 55, of Colchester pleaded not guilty last month to charges that he stole a page from a 1791 volume of early Vermont records from Burlington's Fletcher Free Library and tried to sell it to UVM's Bailey-Howe Library. Following that discovery an investigation revealed that UVM had previously purchased other material from Rooney, including a volume of Chittenden County Road Commissioner records from 1828-1831 which UVM purchased in May 2013 for $625. Last week Rooney was charged with additional counts relating to the newly-discovered thefts, and he failed to appear for his arraignment on Thursday. Court records revealed that Rooney was linked to prior library thefts in 2001, 1994, and 1991. There's a photo of Rooney here, and the Burlington Police Department has posted a list of documents which may be linked. I'll keep an eye on this, but will appreciate any information others have on this story as well.
- Newly-released, the third volume of Galileo's O: A Galileo Forgery. It's available for pre-order on Amazon, but the text is also available online here as PDFs, which is absolutely fantastic to see.
- From David Whitesell on the UVA Special Collections blog Notes from Under Grounds, an excellent post on book (or manuscript) breaking for pleasure or profit.
- The finalists for the George Washington Book Prize have been announced: Alan Taylor's The Internal Enemy, Jeff Pasley's The First Presidential Contest, and Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's The Men Who Lost America. The winner will be announced in May.
- Over in the LATimes, Carolyn Kellogg's "Younger book dealers are diving into the antiquarian trade" is a good read.
- Some excellent news for ESTC: UC Riverside has received a $405,000 Mellon grant to fund upgrades and the addition of collaborative features to ESTC.
- On the AAS blog, Molly O'Hagan Hardy on Evans-TCP and some of its potential uses.
- Richard Ovenden has been appointed Bodley's Librarian. Delightful news!
- Author Naomi Novik recently testified to Congress about copyright and fair use. Her arguments are well worth a read.
- Alexis Coe at Buzzfeed has posted her list of eight book folks "killing it online." All folks you should be paying attention to, for sure.
- New from the College Art Association, a report which suggests we're all probably under-using fair use.
- A new exhibit at the Yale Law Library focuses on the use of Reflectance Transformation Imaging to bring out details on early bindings.
- On the APHA blog, Irene Tichenor on the centenary of the death of Theodore Low De Vinne, which will be marked by a Grolier Club exhibition.
- In the New Yorker, George Packer writes on Amazon and its overall impact on the book world.
- The University of Southern California has been awarded a five-year, $1.9 million Mellon grant to support graduate-level training in digital scholarship.
- Steven Koblik, president of the Huntington Library, has announced that he will retire in 2015.
- Seth Parry asks at The Junto, "Are we all book historians now?"
- Over at Open Culture, Josh Jones on the de Caro Galileo forgeries.
- At The Collation, Heather Wolfe on an excellent example of early modern English writing paper.
- Also at The Collation, Goran Proot on the uses of V and U in 17th-century Flemish book titles, and Sarah Werner on transcription style for early modern texts.
- The folks at the Guardian books blog want to know how many books you read at once.
- A fire in some adjacent disused water towers threatened the British National Archives buildings at Kew, but the flames were extinguished quickly.
- OCLC Research issued a report titled "Does Every Research Library Need a Digital Humanities Center?" Dot Porter responds with "What if we do, in fact, know best?"
Reviews
- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; reviews by Al Gore in the NYTimes and Robert Darwall in the WSJ.
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; reviews by James Oakes in the WaPo Eric Foner in The Nation.
- Rachel Shelden's The Washington Brotherhood; review by Robert Mitchell in the WaPo.
- Tom Zoellner's Train; reviews by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo and Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
- Joshua Zeitz's Lincoln's Boys; review by Scott Martelle in the LATimes.
- Timothy Brook's Mr. Selden's Map of China; review by Lisa Jardine in the Financial Times.
- Newly-released, the third volume of Galileo's O: A Galileo Forgery. It's available for pre-order on Amazon, but the text is also available online here as PDFs, which is absolutely fantastic to see.
- From David Whitesell on the UVA Special Collections blog Notes from Under Grounds, an excellent post on book (or manuscript) breaking for pleasure or profit.
- The finalists for the George Washington Book Prize have been announced: Alan Taylor's The Internal Enemy, Jeff Pasley's The First Presidential Contest, and Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's The Men Who Lost America. The winner will be announced in May.
- Over in the LATimes, Carolyn Kellogg's "Younger book dealers are diving into the antiquarian trade" is a good read.
- Some excellent news for ESTC: UC Riverside has received a $405,000 Mellon grant to fund upgrades and the addition of collaborative features to ESTC.
- On the AAS blog, Molly O'Hagan Hardy on Evans-TCP and some of its potential uses.
- Richard Ovenden has been appointed Bodley's Librarian. Delightful news!
- Author Naomi Novik recently testified to Congress about copyright and fair use. Her arguments are well worth a read.
- Alexis Coe at Buzzfeed has posted her list of eight book folks "killing it online." All folks you should be paying attention to, for sure.
- New from the College Art Association, a report which suggests we're all probably under-using fair use.
- A new exhibit at the Yale Law Library focuses on the use of Reflectance Transformation Imaging to bring out details on early bindings.
- On the APHA blog, Irene Tichenor on the centenary of the death of Theodore Low De Vinne, which will be marked by a Grolier Club exhibition.
- In the New Yorker, George Packer writes on Amazon and its overall impact on the book world.
- The University of Southern California has been awarded a five-year, $1.9 million Mellon grant to support graduate-level training in digital scholarship.
- Steven Koblik, president of the Huntington Library, has announced that he will retire in 2015.
- Seth Parry asks at The Junto, "Are we all book historians now?"
- Over at Open Culture, Josh Jones on the de Caro Galileo forgeries.
- At The Collation, Heather Wolfe on an excellent example of early modern English writing paper.
- Also at The Collation, Goran Proot on the uses of V and U in 17th-century Flemish book titles, and Sarah Werner on transcription style for early modern texts.
- The folks at the Guardian books blog want to know how many books you read at once.
- A fire in some adjacent disused water towers threatened the British National Archives buildings at Kew, but the flames were extinguished quickly.
- OCLC Research issued a report titled "Does Every Research Library Need a Digital Humanities Center?" Dot Porter responds with "What if we do, in fact, know best?"
Reviews
- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; reviews by Al Gore in the NYTimes and Robert Darwall in the WSJ.
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; reviews by James Oakes in the WaPo Eric Foner in The Nation.
- Rachel Shelden's The Washington Brotherhood; review by Robert Mitchell in the WaPo.
- Tom Zoellner's Train; reviews by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo and Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
- Joshua Zeitz's Lincoln's Boys; review by Scott Martelle in the LATimes.
- Timothy Brook's Mr. Selden's Map of China; review by Lisa Jardine in the Financial Times.
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