Joyce reminds us that it's the anniversary of the famed Fortsas Auction, one of the great biblio-hoaxes of all time. The Special Collections department at the University of Delaware has a good write-up about the hoax as well as a list of resources. In short, during the summer of 1840, many European bookdealers received a printed catalogue announcing the sale of the library of the mysterious "Count Fortsas," a collector with a taste for the unique: his library "consisted entirely of books of which he held the only known copies. If the Count learned of the existence of even one other copy of a book in his collection, that title was immediately purged from his library."
When the booksellers converged on the small Belgian town of Binche for the 10 August auction, they learned that the whole thing was an elaborate ruse dreamed up by former military man and famed jokester Renier Hubert Ghislain Chalon.
Good fun.
[Update: For more, see my 2008 post, "Fortsas Lives!"
Friday, August 10, 2007
CA Man Arrested in Book Thefts
Back in late February I noted the theft of some 400 rare books (as well as some antiques) from the estate of retired Harvard professor William Ernest Hocking. Now, the AP reports the arrest of Jay Miller, a 36-year old resident of Berkeley, CA. Miller "was arrested last month at a storage facility in Richmond, CA, by local police and FBI agents in connection with the thefts. He was turned over to the FBI on a federal warrant for interstate transportation of stolen property. The state warrant was on burglary charges." He's currently in custody pending extradition to NH.
Some of the stolen items were apparently recovered at the storage facility, but "Madison Police Chief John Pickering said still missing are 175 books and the card catalog to the family library, as well as some statues and an antique clock." Pickering says they have some further leads which they're following up.
"Pickering said that Miller, who used to run a book business in California, had been an acquaintance of the family at the estate. 'He knew the comings and goings of the family during the winter and he took the opportunity to strike when nobody was there,' Pickering said. 'He was almost like part of the family at one point, many years ago.'"
Well, I guess now we'll get to see how New Hampshire metes out justice to book thieves. I'm glad so much has been recovered, and hope that more of the items will make their way home soon.
Some of the stolen items were apparently recovered at the storage facility, but "Madison Police Chief John Pickering said still missing are 175 books and the card catalog to the family library, as well as some statues and an antique clock." Pickering says they have some further leads which they're following up.
"Pickering said that Miller, who used to run a book business in California, had been an acquaintance of the family at the estate. 'He knew the comings and goings of the family during the winter and he took the opportunity to strike when nobody was there,' Pickering said. 'He was almost like part of the family at one point, many years ago.'"
Well, I guess now we'll get to see how New Hampshire metes out justice to book thieves. I'm glad so much has been recovered, and hope that more of the items will make their way home soon.
Iraq National Library Occupied
The Guardian reports that some twenty Iraqi security forces "seized" the Iraq National Library building at gunpoint yesterday. Library director Saad Eskander "said the soldiers, who said they had occupied the building to defend Shia worshippers heading to the shrine of Khadimiya, about 15 miles away, had positioned themselves on the roof of the library. They had already started to dismantle the main gate, and had smashed doors and windows inside the main building, he said."
Eskander fears the presence of the security forces will prompt attacks: "They have turned our national archive into a military target. Tomorrow or the day after, the extremists will attack the Iraqi forces there. The reckless actions of the Iraqi forces and the US military, who appear to condone the operation, will put the staff and library and archival collections in real danger." Eskander told the AP that US troops had "forcibly entered" the building on Monday.
The paper could not get a comment from the UK or US military operations on the apparent seizure of the library building.
Eskander is entirely correct. The library building and grounds must be off-limits as a base for military operations, in order to prevent reprisal attacks on it and other cultural institutions. We saw in the destruction at Sarajevo what happens when libraries become targets of attack, and after the looting in 2003 Iraq's library is having a hard enough time trying to recover. Eskander's made a brilliant go of it, and I hope his powers of persuasion hold out now.
[h/t Book Patrol]
Eskander fears the presence of the security forces will prompt attacks: "They have turned our national archive into a military target. Tomorrow or the day after, the extremists will attack the Iraqi forces there. The reckless actions of the Iraqi forces and the US military, who appear to condone the operation, will put the staff and library and archival collections in real danger." Eskander told the AP that US troops had "forcibly entered" the building on Monday.
The paper could not get a comment from the UK or US military operations on the apparent seizure of the library building.
Eskander is entirely correct. The library building and grounds must be off-limits as a base for military operations, in order to prevent reprisal attacks on it and other cultural institutions. We saw in the destruction at Sarajevo what happens when libraries become targets of attack, and after the looting in 2003 Iraq's library is having a hard enough time trying to recover. Eskander's made a brilliant go of it, and I hope his powers of persuasion hold out now.
[h/t Book Patrol]
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Book Review: "Amazing Rare Things"
I'm a sucker for natural history illustration, so I couldn't miss a new book out from Yale, Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery. Highlighting paintings held in the Royal Collections, the book features beautifully-reproduced artwork by Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian and Mark Catesby, as well as a selection of those works collected by Cassiano dal Pozzo for his "paper museum." Each section includes an essay on the artist's background and his/her works; these are good introductions to the illustrators and complement the chosen illustrations well.
David Attenborough contributed the introduction to the book, noting that for all the different purposes behind the creation of natural history art, "there is a common denominator that links all these artists. It is the profound joy felt by all who observe the natural world with a sustained and devoted intensity." Attenborough also intersperses short comments amongst the essays and plates; these you can almost hear him reading in that distinctive voice of his.
A lovely book, one which I shall browse often.
David Attenborough contributed the introduction to the book, noting that for all the different purposes behind the creation of natural history art, "there is a common denominator that links all these artists. It is the profound joy felt by all who observe the natural world with a sustained and devoted intensity." Attenborough also intersperses short comments amongst the essays and plates; these you can almost hear him reading in that distinctive voice of his.
A lovely book, one which I shall browse often.
Dilemma of the Day
My current commute-book is Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey, the Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World by Holley Bishop. Somewhat overly casual style and silly subtitle notwithstanding (a rant for another day), the book looked interesting, and I was enjoying it fairly well ... until the bottom of page 36, when Bishop, discussing the arrival of honeybees in North America via the English settlers, writes "Native North Americans at the time had never seen bees or honey and had no words for them. John Elliot [sic], the New England Puritan pastor who was translating the Bible into native dialects for the Algonquian and Cherokee tribes ..." (my italics).
The misspelling of Eliot's name I would have been able to deal with, but Bishop's inclusion of Cherokee among Eliot's translation projects is completely outrageous. Eliot worked in the mid-1600s (his translation of the Bible into the Natick dialect of Algonquian was published in complete form in 1663, and is something I've recently been researching). It wasn't until 1824 that efforts to create a Cherokee translation were even begun (and a full version of the entire Bible in Cherokee wasn't published until 1965). Not to mention the fact that Eliot, a New Englander as Bishop notes, was hardly in the correct region of the country for missionizing to the Cherokee even if he'd wanted to.
So, my dilemma: is this error of sufficient gravity that I won't be able to take any of the rest of the book at all seriously? I recognize fully the nit-pickiness of this, but such a blatant and frankly ridiculous error is quite troubling. I think I'm resolved to give it another chapter or two and see if I can manage, but it might be a tough go.
The misspelling of Eliot's name I would have been able to deal with, but Bishop's inclusion of Cherokee among Eliot's translation projects is completely outrageous. Eliot worked in the mid-1600s (his translation of the Bible into the Natick dialect of Algonquian was published in complete form in 1663, and is something I've recently been researching). It wasn't until 1824 that efforts to create a Cherokee translation were even begun (and a full version of the entire Bible in Cherokee wasn't published until 1965). Not to mention the fact that Eliot, a New Englander as Bishop notes, was hardly in the correct region of the country for missionizing to the Cherokee even if he'd wanted to.
So, my dilemma: is this error of sufficient gravity that I won't be able to take any of the rest of the book at all seriously? I recognize fully the nit-pickiness of this, but such a blatant and frankly ridiculous error is quite troubling. I think I'm resolved to give it another chapter or two and see if I can manage, but it might be a tough go.
(Some) Buck Heirs Reach Accord
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports today on the ongoing dispute among heirs of author Pearl Buck over ownership of the recently-rediscovered typescript of The Good Earth. Yesterday, members of Buck's family and representatives of Pearl S. Buck International announced they'd agreed - after telling their lawyers to butt out - that the children would retain ownership of the document and another 100 boxed of items, but that they could be archivally-stored and displayed at the nonprofit's headquarters. But we knew that. What about the claim put forth by the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in WV?
Edgar Walsh, Buck's 70-year old son, told the Inquirer "he was unfamiliar with the West Virginia claim but hoped to talk with representatives there and reach a settlement." The chairman of the birthplace foundation said she didn't mind the typescript being displayed in Pennsylvania while its ultimate ownership is being decided, but gave no indication that the birthplace's claim would be abandoned.
Edgar Walsh, Buck's 70-year old son, told the Inquirer "he was unfamiliar with the West Virginia claim but hoped to talk with representatives there and reach a settlement." The chairman of the birthplace foundation said she didn't mind the typescript being displayed in Pennsylvania while its ultimate ownership is being decided, but gave no indication that the birthplace's claim would be abandoned.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Diaries of "female Pepys" Will Stay in UK
Way back in December I noted the effort by the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester to stop the export of a collection of diaries and letters written by Mary Hamilton (1756-1816), tutor to the daughters of King George III. An American library purchased the 4,200+ pages of material at auction last year, but a temporary export ban was put in place which allowed Rylands to raise £145,000 and purchase the archive, the Manchester Evening News reports.
Archivist Elizabeth Gow says of the collection's author "She was incredibly well connected and really part of the elite at the time. There are letters which she has written to the princesses. There is also correspondence with literary women of the time and she takes a gossipy tone, making humorous remarks about Samuel Johnson. It will take a long time to categorise everything that's here but it will be of immense use to people interested in society, politics, literature and royalty during this period."
Also see the University of Manchester press release, which includes a quote from Bill Simpson, the director of the John Rylands Library: "The export of important literary archives, such as the papers of Mary Hamilton, impoverishes the nation's heritage. When the Culture Secretary halted the export of the Mary Hamilton archive, we gladly accepted the challenge of raising the funds to purchase it. We are grateful to our funders, without whose support this major acquisition would not have been possible."
Archivist Elizabeth Gow says of the collection's author "She was incredibly well connected and really part of the elite at the time. There are letters which she has written to the princesses. There is also correspondence with literary women of the time and she takes a gossipy tone, making humorous remarks about Samuel Johnson. It will take a long time to categorise everything that's here but it will be of immense use to people interested in society, politics, literature and royalty during this period."
Also see the University of Manchester press release, which includes a quote from Bill Simpson, the director of the John Rylands Library: "The export of important literary archives, such as the papers of Mary Hamilton, impoverishes the nation's heritage. When the Culture Secretary halted the export of the Mary Hamilton archive, we gladly accepted the challenge of raising the funds to purchase it. We are grateful to our funders, without whose support this major acquisition would not have been possible."
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Book Review: "Hubbub"
If you've ever been listed seventeenth-century England as a place you'd most like to time-travel to, I suggest reading this book first. Emily Cockayne's Hubbub: Noise, Filth and Stench in England, 1600-1770 (Yale University Press, 2007) is an absolutely disgusting journey through the streets, homes, markets, beds and privies (or "houses of office," as they were known) of early modern England. And it's utterly fascinating. You may want to shower between chapters, but it's worth it.
Using a wide variety of archival sources, from diaries and letters to fictional narratives to court records, Cockayne has created a compendium of annoyances surely unmatched in historical literature. She recognizes the limitations and inherent biases of her sources (most tend to be male, wealthy, and particularly whiny, or as she puts it in the case of Robert Hooke, a "creepy hypochondrical nerd"), and notes that while some exaggerations of grievances is to be expected, even if that's taken into account, life even for the richest of England's people was no picnic in the park.
In aptly-named chapters which, when recited, sound like a bad parody of Snow White's famous companions (Ugly, Itchy, Mouldy, Noisy, Grotty, Busy, Dirty, Gloomy) Cockayne catalogs the daily nuisances faced by every man, woman and child (these would of couse have been all the worse the further down the social ladder one found oneself). From what we would consider ghastly standards of personal hygiene (the noted diarist John Evelyn resolved on a "Course of yearly washing my head," when he was 33, p. 60) to the common ravages of intestinal parasites, fleas and other pests, to rarely (if ever) washed clothes, bedding and wigs, keeping clean and healthy was well nigh impossible.
Hubbub really does touch on just about every imaginable nuisance: pigs in the street, noisy neighbors, bad lighting, rough or nonexistent paving (in some cities well into the eighteenth century, she notes, each property-owner was responsible for paving the road in front of their building - needless to say, that didn't work out all that well), smoke, piles of rotten detritus everywhere ... I could go on. It gets almost comical (if uncomfortably and skin-crawingly so) at times: I have to admit I laughed out loud at this sentence about Samuel Pepys: "On the morning of 20 October 1660 he stepped into a 'great heap of turds' that had escaped from his neighbour's house of office and found themselves in Pepys's cellar" (pg. 144). Doesn't get much more filthy than that.
The move toward solutions to these various dilemmas forms just a small part of Cockayne's treatment, but she does discuss how cities and towns slowly began enacting paving regulations, zoning rules, rudimentary food inspections and other such salutary measures. What surprised me was how long those things took given the long-standing gripes that were clearly being bandied about.
Cockayne's also done an excellent job of finding images to complement her chapters, although Hogarth admittedly did much of that work for her. The only minor flaw is in the reproduction quality of the artwork; the images are printed quite dark, which makes some of the fine background details she discusses almost impossible to see. Aside from some minor repetitions within the text and a touch too little analysis of her discoveries, Cockayne's Hubbub is really a masterful book. The extensive footnotes and bibliography add much, and once again I've found a few interesting sources I'll want to examine further.
Highly recommended for the non-squeamish.
Using a wide variety of archival sources, from diaries and letters to fictional narratives to court records, Cockayne has created a compendium of annoyances surely unmatched in historical literature. She recognizes the limitations and inherent biases of her sources (most tend to be male, wealthy, and particularly whiny, or as she puts it in the case of Robert Hooke, a "creepy hypochondrical nerd"), and notes that while some exaggerations of grievances is to be expected, even if that's taken into account, life even for the richest of England's people was no picnic in the park.
In aptly-named chapters which, when recited, sound like a bad parody of Snow White's famous companions (Ugly, Itchy, Mouldy, Noisy, Grotty, Busy, Dirty, Gloomy) Cockayne catalogs the daily nuisances faced by every man, woman and child (these would of couse have been all the worse the further down the social ladder one found oneself). From what we would consider ghastly standards of personal hygiene (the noted diarist John Evelyn resolved on a "Course of yearly washing my head," when he was 33, p. 60) to the common ravages of intestinal parasites, fleas and other pests, to rarely (if ever) washed clothes, bedding and wigs, keeping clean and healthy was well nigh impossible.
Hubbub really does touch on just about every imaginable nuisance: pigs in the street, noisy neighbors, bad lighting, rough or nonexistent paving (in some cities well into the eighteenth century, she notes, each property-owner was responsible for paving the road in front of their building - needless to say, that didn't work out all that well), smoke, piles of rotten detritus everywhere ... I could go on. It gets almost comical (if uncomfortably and skin-crawingly so) at times: I have to admit I laughed out loud at this sentence about Samuel Pepys: "On the morning of 20 October 1660 he stepped into a 'great heap of turds' that had escaped from his neighbour's house of office and found themselves in Pepys's cellar" (pg. 144). Doesn't get much more filthy than that.
The move toward solutions to these various dilemmas forms just a small part of Cockayne's treatment, but she does discuss how cities and towns slowly began enacting paving regulations, zoning rules, rudimentary food inspections and other such salutary measures. What surprised me was how long those things took given the long-standing gripes that were clearly being bandied about.
Cockayne's also done an excellent job of finding images to complement her chapters, although Hogarth admittedly did much of that work for her. The only minor flaw is in the reproduction quality of the artwork; the images are printed quite dark, which makes some of the fine background details she discusses almost impossible to see. Aside from some minor repetitions within the text and a touch too little analysis of her discoveries, Cockayne's Hubbub is really a masterful book. The extensive footnotes and bibliography add much, and once again I've found a few interesting sources I'll want to examine further.
Highly recommended for the non-squeamish.
Book Review: "Purity of Blood"
The second of Arturo Perez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste novels, Purity of Blood (U.S. edition by G. P. Putnam's, 2006) sees the enigmatic Captain taking on the familiares of the Holy Inquisition after his young ward (the narrator) is captured following an ambush. Sparely-written like its predecessor, Purity of Blood gives the reader just enough details to go on without a single superfluous sentence. Perez-Reverte's description of the Inquisition's power and mindset is brutal, and gripping.
That said, I found the plot of this one rather dull, and the ending was entirely expected. A good, straightforward story, but without the intellectual twists and turns with which Perez-Reverte's earlier works (The Club Dumas, The Seville Communion) sucked me into his world. I will keep reading the Alatriste series, but I'll also keep hoping for something more.
That said, I found the plot of this one rather dull, and the ending was entirely expected. A good, straightforward story, but without the intellectual twists and turns with which Perez-Reverte's earlier works (The Club Dumas, The Seville Communion) sucked me into his world. I will keep reading the Alatriste series, but I'll also keep hoping for something more.
Squabble over Buck Manuscript
Back in June I noted the rediscovery of the long-lost hand-corrected typescript of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth (which prosecutors said had been, ahem, "inappropriately obtained" from Buck's home by an employee back in the '60s). It's been a little over a month, and the battles for control of the manuscript are now in full swing, as Maryclaire Dale reports for the AP.
Pearl S. Buck International, a nonprofit foundation located at Buck's farmhouse in Pennsylvania, has apparently made an agreement with Buck's estate "to display it [the typescript] for several months later this year while the children retained ownership, according to family lawyer Peter Hearn."
Not so fast, says the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Lawyers for the birthplace claim that Buck's manuscripts were all left to that foundation in a 1970 legal affidavit filed two weeks after Buck's death in 1973. In that document, Buck "lists scores of documents she was giving to the birthplace, including " 'The Good Earth' manuscript, the exact location of which is unknown."
Steve Hunter, a lawyer representing the birthplace, says he approached U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan about the document last month, only to find out that the Attorney's office "no longer had it" (the AP article doesn't say, but presumably it's been handed over to the Buck estate).
If the 1970 affidavit holds up, this case seems fairly cut and dry to me, but of course as we know things are not always what they seem. I'll follow up on this as I can.
[h/t GalleyCat]
Pearl S. Buck International, a nonprofit foundation located at Buck's farmhouse in Pennsylvania, has apparently made an agreement with Buck's estate "to display it [the typescript] for several months later this year while the children retained ownership, according to family lawyer Peter Hearn."
Not so fast, says the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Lawyers for the birthplace claim that Buck's manuscripts were all left to that foundation in a 1970 legal affidavit filed two weeks after Buck's death in 1973. In that document, Buck "lists scores of documents she was giving to the birthplace, including " 'The Good Earth' manuscript, the exact location of which is unknown."
Steve Hunter, a lawyer representing the birthplace, says he approached U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan about the document last month, only to find out that the Attorney's office "no longer had it" (the AP article doesn't say, but presumably it's been handed over to the Buck estate).
If the 1970 affidavit holds up, this case seems fairly cut and dry to me, but of course as we know things are not always what they seem. I'll follow up on this as I can.
[h/t GalleyCat]
Waterstone's Polls MPs on Summer Reading
Brit-bookstore Waterstone's has announced the results of its annual survey of parliamentary summer reading habits (Times, BBC); 180 members of the Commons and House of Lords responded. One paper notes of the results "some MPs are such political junkies, it seems, that even when they are away from Parliament they cannot resist reading about themselves and their predecessors."
The top book pick overall was the recent biography of antislavery reformer William Wilberforce by William Hague (former leader of the Tories). Tom Bower's Gordon Brown, Prime Minister came in as the top pick for Tory members, and biographies of Michael Foot and Sir Robert Peel also made the top ten. Former Lib Dem leader Patty Ashdown comes in as the most popular author, with three of his titles making the list (The Ashdown Diaries, Contemporary Conflict Resolution and Swords and Ploughshares: Building Peace in the 21st Century).
Labourites chose Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years as top picks, while Lib Dems said they planned to tuck into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Also making the list: Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Pride & Prejudice, and Vanity Fair.
Naturally the choices have prompted a bad pun or two: the BBC's story leads with "Labour MPs are questioning the existence of God - but the Tories are more worried about the existence of Gord, a survey suggests."
It would be interesting to see a similar survey for U.S. politicians, but I'm afraid the results would probably be too embarrassing to share.
The top book pick overall was the recent biography of antislavery reformer William Wilberforce by William Hague (former leader of the Tories). Tom Bower's Gordon Brown, Prime Minister came in as the top pick for Tory members, and biographies of Michael Foot and Sir Robert Peel also made the top ten. Former Lib Dem leader Patty Ashdown comes in as the most popular author, with three of his titles making the list (The Ashdown Diaries, Contemporary Conflict Resolution and Swords and Ploughshares: Building Peace in the 21st Century).
Labourites chose Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years as top picks, while Lib Dems said they planned to tuck into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Also making the list: Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Pride & Prejudice, and Vanity Fair.
Naturally the choices have prompted a bad pun or two: the BBC's story leads with "Labour MPs are questioning the existence of God - but the Tories are more worried about the existence of Gord, a survey suggests."
It would be interesting to see a similar survey for U.S. politicians, but I'm afraid the results would probably be too embarrassing to share.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Anybody Have $395,000?
ephemera notes that Jack Hamilton of rarebookman.com is looking to sell the entire contents of his Williamsburg, VA shop - furniture, books, reference collection, signs, ephemera, &c. He'd like to sell everything en bloc, so if you've got $395,000 (and a fleet of transport vehicles), it could all be yours!
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Book Review: "Mr. Timothy"
Have you ever wondered what becomes of Tiny Tim after his well-known benediction at the end of A Christmas Carol? If so, Louis Bayard provides one possible answer in his Mr. Timothy (2003). Here is Timothy Cratchit in his early twenties, left with a limp, an unwelcome continued dependence on his overly-beneficent and fading "Uncle N." (Ebenezer Scrooge, of course), and strange visitations from his departed father. He earns his keep by providing reading lessons to a brothel-keeper, and assisting in the occasional late-night body-dredging operation. Such is his life, at least, until he is drawn into a frightening web of mystery, intrigue and child-murder.
Bayard assumes Dickens' mantle with creditable ability, bringing the dark, unpleasant corners of Victorian London into sharp focus. Mr. Timothy emerges as a complicated character, troubled still by the melodramatic role he felt forced into by his well-meaning father. Additional characters, from the inimitable street-rat sidekick Colin ("the Melodious") to savage former policeman Willie Rebbeck who serves as the main villain of the tale, to the declining Uncle N., are well-drawn and developed to almost a Dickensian level.
A good, suspenseful, mystery with an unmatched backstory.
Bayard assumes Dickens' mantle with creditable ability, bringing the dark, unpleasant corners of Victorian London into sharp focus. Mr. Timothy emerges as a complicated character, troubled still by the melodramatic role he felt forced into by his well-meaning father. Additional characters, from the inimitable street-rat sidekick Colin ("the Melodious") to savage former policeman Willie Rebbeck who serves as the main villain of the tale, to the declining Uncle N., are well-drawn and developed to almost a Dickensian level.
A good, suspenseful, mystery with an unmatched backstory.
NYT Covers Bad Arolsen Archive
In today's NYTimes, Mark Landler writes on the recent public opening of the Holocaust Archive at Bad Arolsen, Germany (first discussed here). The article notes that even beyond the opening of the archive, digital copies of major portions of the records (ten million records!) held there will be transferred to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and to Yad Vashem in Israel.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
A Saturday Night Miscellany
I had other blog-post plans for tonight, but I've been thesising all afternoon and don't have much more typing in me for today.
- Paul Collins reports that the strange 1886 novel Don Miff (which Collins wrote about here) is now available in digital form. Paul: "Don Miff is… well, first let me state that I am reasonably sure that I am correct when I say that Don Miff is the only nineteenth-century novel that is addressed to a tenth-generation descendant living in the twenty-third century." Need any more be said?
- Over at Bookplate Junkie, Lew's got a teaser about some gorgeous watercolor bookplates (more on which tomorrow, he says), and a mysterious bookseller's label that does indeed cry out for explanation.
- From tomorrow's NYTimes Book Review, Adam Goodheart reviews Adrian Tinniswood's The Verneys, and Ligaya Mishan reviews Nicholas Christopher's The Bestiary.
- The Little Professor comments on "library quirks", always a fun topic.
- Paul Collins reports that the strange 1886 novel Don Miff (which Collins wrote about here) is now available in digital form. Paul: "Don Miff is… well, first let me state that I am reasonably sure that I am correct when I say that Don Miff is the only nineteenth-century novel that is addressed to a tenth-generation descendant living in the twenty-third century." Need any more be said?
- Over at Bookplate Junkie, Lew's got a teaser about some gorgeous watercolor bookplates (more on which tomorrow, he says), and a mysterious bookseller's label that does indeed cry out for explanation.
- From tomorrow's NYTimes Book Review, Adam Goodheart reviews Adrian Tinniswood's The Verneys, and Ligaya Mishan reviews Nicholas Christopher's The Bestiary.
- The Little Professor comments on "library quirks", always a fun topic.
Book Review: "Ghostwalk"
Rebecca Stott's first novel, Ghostwalk (the debut book from Spiegel & Grau, a new imprint from Random House) is meant to be a 'literary thriller,' theoretically blending some historical mystery with a modern solution. In this case, a series of mysterious murders in seventeenth-century Cambridge appear to be recurring in 2002, just as narrator Lydia Brooke is ghostwriting the last two concluding chapters of a book which claims to solve the earlier killings.
Stott, a fine historian, should have stuck to writing history. As a novel, this book just doesn't work. I did manage to get through it after threatening repeatedly to stop reading after each of the first ten chapters or so, but I think it was almost entirely pure curiousity about how much worse the novel could get that kept me going. The writing improves as the book progresses (the first several chapters are incredibly choppy), but the abrupt, mid-chapters shifts into second person ("you did this," "then you said" &c.) continue throughout.
This book stretched my believability to its breaking point: it didn't take long for me to be sick of the perceived supernatural elements, the 'voices from the grave,' and the intervening, angry ghosts (spirits, whatever) of Cambridge past. The characters are superficial and frankly all a bit too weird for comfort, and Stott's strange literary rip-offs were eye-rollingly silly (Sergeant Cuff, taken directly from Collins' The Moonstone being the example that comes immediately to mind). Finally, Stott's 'twist' manufactured to connect the killings is not only the exact one you'd expect by about page 75, but is also just barely pulled off.
The most interesting portions of this book were the draft sections of the near-finished scholarly manuscript (the one Lydia's ghostwriting) that Stott threw in as background. She ought to have written that book instead.
Stott, a fine historian, should have stuck to writing history. As a novel, this book just doesn't work. I did manage to get through it after threatening repeatedly to stop reading after each of the first ten chapters or so, but I think it was almost entirely pure curiousity about how much worse the novel could get that kept me going. The writing improves as the book progresses (the first several chapters are incredibly choppy), but the abrupt, mid-chapters shifts into second person ("you did this," "then you said" &c.) continue throughout.
This book stretched my believability to its breaking point: it didn't take long for me to be sick of the perceived supernatural elements, the 'voices from the grave,' and the intervening, angry ghosts (spirits, whatever) of Cambridge past. The characters are superficial and frankly all a bit too weird for comfort, and Stott's strange literary rip-offs were eye-rollingly silly (Sergeant Cuff, taken directly from Collins' The Moonstone being the example that comes immediately to mind). Finally, Stott's 'twist' manufactured to connect the killings is not only the exact one you'd expect by about page 75, but is also just barely pulled off.
The most interesting portions of this book were the draft sections of the near-finished scholarly manuscript (the one Lydia's ghostwriting) that Stott threw in as background. She ought to have written that book instead.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Loads of Links
I've got a bumper crop of things I've been saving up to pass along, so without further ado:
- Off the Shelf reports on Scholastic's announcement yesterday that 11.5 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were sold in the first ten days of release, 8.3 million in the first day alone. And that's just in the U.S.
- Scott Brown notes a piece from the Publisher's Lunch newsletter reporting that Allison Bartlett's book The Man Who Loved Books: The True Story of a Rare Book Thief, a Book Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession, about thief John Charles Gilkey, will be published by Riverhead. Scott's even dredged up a 2006 article by Bartlett about the Gilkey case, which is well worth a read.
- Paper Cuts has some 'stray questions' for author Eric Schlosser, who says he's working on a book about the U.S. prison system.
- From Rare Book Review, news that Shakespeare's Globe and the British Library are teaming up to produce facsimile reprints of individual Shakespeare plays as they appeared in the First Folio; the initial offerings are Othello, The Merchant of Venice and Love's Labour's Lost.
- Travis comments on the Yale Alumni Magazine article I mentioned the other day; he makes a point I'd forgotten, that the article says Smiley will serve five years in prison when in reality he's scheduled to be released in January, 2010.
- Reading Copy announces the ten largest July sales on AbeBooks; at the top was a signed copy of the first American edition of Einstein's Relativity for $12,500.
- From AHA Today, word that the National Archives has made a non-exclusive deal with Amazon subsidiary CustomFlix to produce DVDs of select historic films and newsreels from NARA's holdings. The DVDs, produced on demand from copies stored at CustomFlix, will retail for $19.99. NARA will receive a digital "preservation copy" of each film.
- At Critical Mass, librarian K.G. Schneider writes about the survival of small press journals in a digital environment. It's a good essay, in which she notes "it's one thing to promote access to electronic information as a common good and quite another to insist that a discipline's needs are well-met by replacing a well-known, beloved form with an incomplete, disembodied, fletcherized stream of 'information.'" Quite so.
- Over at Book Patrol, Michael points out some spooky books.
- Joyce points out a YouTube video in which bookbinder Peter Goodwin comments on brittle book syndrome.
- Forrest has the third installment of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
- Andrew Ferguson was on NPR recently discussing Land of Lincoln.
- Bookride examines the collectibility of Richard Burton's 1855 book Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah.
- Off the Shelf reports on Scholastic's announcement yesterday that 11.5 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were sold in the first ten days of release, 8.3 million in the first day alone. And that's just in the U.S.
- Scott Brown notes a piece from the Publisher's Lunch newsletter reporting that Allison Bartlett's book The Man Who Loved Books: The True Story of a Rare Book Thief, a Book Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession, about thief John Charles Gilkey, will be published by Riverhead. Scott's even dredged up a 2006 article by Bartlett about the Gilkey case, which is well worth a read.
- Paper Cuts has some 'stray questions' for author Eric Schlosser, who says he's working on a book about the U.S. prison system.
- From Rare Book Review, news that Shakespeare's Globe and the British Library are teaming up to produce facsimile reprints of individual Shakespeare plays as they appeared in the First Folio; the initial offerings are Othello, The Merchant of Venice and Love's Labour's Lost.
- Travis comments on the Yale Alumni Magazine article I mentioned the other day; he makes a point I'd forgotten, that the article says Smiley will serve five years in prison when in reality he's scheduled to be released in January, 2010.
- Reading Copy announces the ten largest July sales on AbeBooks; at the top was a signed copy of the first American edition of Einstein's Relativity for $12,500.
- From AHA Today, word that the National Archives has made a non-exclusive deal with Amazon subsidiary CustomFlix to produce DVDs of select historic films and newsreels from NARA's holdings. The DVDs, produced on demand from copies stored at CustomFlix, will retail for $19.99. NARA will receive a digital "preservation copy" of each film.
- At Critical Mass, librarian K.G. Schneider writes about the survival of small press journals in a digital environment. It's a good essay, in which she notes "it's one thing to promote access to electronic information as a common good and quite another to insist that a discipline's needs are well-met by replacing a well-known, beloved form with an incomplete, disembodied, fletcherized stream of 'information.'" Quite so.
- Over at Book Patrol, Michael points out some spooky books.
- Joyce points out a YouTube video in which bookbinder Peter Goodwin comments on brittle book syndrome.
- Forrest has the third installment of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
- Andrew Ferguson was on NPR recently discussing Land of Lincoln.
- Bookride examines the collectibility of Richard Burton's 1855 book Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Book Review: "Republic of Intellect"
A recent lunchtime discussion with Bryan Waterman, author of Republic of Intellect: The Friendly Club of New York City and the Making of American Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) prompted me to fast-track the book, which I purchased earlier this year but hadn't gotten to yet. A well-crafted mixture of historical scholarship and literary criticism, Republic of Intellect examines "the contours of late-Enlightenment intellectual culture that set the terms by which the earliest U.S. literature came into existence" (pg. 4).
In the Friendly Club - a group of approximately ten young professional men who met regularly for conversation and debate in 1790s New York - Waterman finds a fascinating and useful framework for, as he puts it, "understanding the relationships between literary and intellectual cultures" (pg. 6). The Club's members - including Charles Brockden Brown, Elihu Hubbard Smith, William Dunlap, James Kent and others - found themselves at "the generic, geographical, and professional crossroads of American society and at the primary point of entry and exit for transmissions within a transatlantic intellectual culture" (pg. 13).
Waterman's chapters cover much ground, including the great debate over the perceived "Illuminati conspiracy" in the late 1790s, the American reception of the works of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, the role of mixed-sex society and conversation, and the impact of yellow fever epidemics on the Friendly Club's membership and products. I found the Illuminati and Godwin chapters most compelling, but was quite struck overall by Waterman's readings of Charles Brockden Brown's fiction in light of his associations with his fellow Club members: his novels seem more easily explained when these considerations are taken into account.
The Friendly Club offers us something important as well, I think: moderate in politics and skeptical of religious authority and intrusiveness, the Club's members sought to transcend partisan considerations in favor of positive intellectual conversation and the progressive spread of knowledge - an ideal which remains unreached.
Aside from a bit too much literary criticism jargon in some spots, this book is excellent. The extensive and often illuminating endnotes were very useful, and I gleaned about fifteen titles which I've added to my always-growing list of things to read. Those include the edited diaries of two Friendly Club members, E.H. Smith and William Dunlap, and a few novels of Charles Brockden Brown that I wasn't aware of before.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in early American print culture, the late Enlightenment, or literary networks.
In the Friendly Club - a group of approximately ten young professional men who met regularly for conversation and debate in 1790s New York - Waterman finds a fascinating and useful framework for, as he puts it, "understanding the relationships between literary and intellectual cultures" (pg. 6). The Club's members - including Charles Brockden Brown, Elihu Hubbard Smith, William Dunlap, James Kent and others - found themselves at "the generic, geographical, and professional crossroads of American society and at the primary point of entry and exit for transmissions within a transatlantic intellectual culture" (pg. 13).
Waterman's chapters cover much ground, including the great debate over the perceived "Illuminati conspiracy" in the late 1790s, the American reception of the works of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, the role of mixed-sex society and conversation, and the impact of yellow fever epidemics on the Friendly Club's membership and products. I found the Illuminati and Godwin chapters most compelling, but was quite struck overall by Waterman's readings of Charles Brockden Brown's fiction in light of his associations with his fellow Club members: his novels seem more easily explained when these considerations are taken into account.
The Friendly Club offers us something important as well, I think: moderate in politics and skeptical of religious authority and intrusiveness, the Club's members sought to transcend partisan considerations in favor of positive intellectual conversation and the progressive spread of knowledge - an ideal which remains unreached.
Aside from a bit too much literary criticism jargon in some spots, this book is excellent. The extensive and often illuminating endnotes were very useful, and I gleaned about fifteen titles which I've added to my always-growing list of things to read. Those include the edited diaries of two Friendly Club members, E.H. Smith and William Dunlap, and a few novels of Charles Brockden Brown that I wasn't aware of before.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in early American print culture, the late Enlightenment, or literary networks.
"Hooke's Books" at NLM
From Stephen Greenberg, Coordinator of Public Services for the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine:
"The History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, 'Hooke's Books: Books that Influenced or Were Influenced by Robert Hooke's Micrographia.' It is located in display cases in the HMD Reading Room, on the first floor of Building 38, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., through November 1, 2007.
Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was a remarkably versatile man - artist, biologist, physicist, engineer, architect, inventor, and more. However, his crowning glory was Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses, first published 1665. It was a masterpiece - an exquisitely illustrated introduction to the previously unknown microscopic world. This exhibit focuses on Hooke's influences and legacy in print, the pioneering books that stimulated Hooke's research, and the works he left for others - most famously the great Dutch microscopist, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723).
The exhibit features a selection of books from the NLM collection, plus a facsimile of Hooke's own microscope. It is a companion to NLM's latest 'Turning the Pages' production, a digital selection from Micrographia, which can be viewed here."
Micrographia is one of my very favorite books; I have a facsimile reprint, but there's nothing quite like looking at this in the original (the digital version at NLM will give you a good idea of why this book is so exciting). This sounds like a fun and very interesting exhibit, so if you're near Bethesda it might be worth a visit.
"The History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, 'Hooke's Books: Books that Influenced or Were Influenced by Robert Hooke's Micrographia.' It is located in display cases in the HMD Reading Room, on the first floor of Building 38, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., through November 1, 2007.
Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was a remarkably versatile man - artist, biologist, physicist, engineer, architect, inventor, and more. However, his crowning glory was Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses, first published 1665. It was a masterpiece - an exquisitely illustrated introduction to the previously unknown microscopic world. This exhibit focuses on Hooke's influences and legacy in print, the pioneering books that stimulated Hooke's research, and the works he left for others - most famously the great Dutch microscopist, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723).
The exhibit features a selection of books from the NLM collection, plus a facsimile of Hooke's own microscope. It is a companion to NLM's latest 'Turning the Pages' production, a digital selection from Micrographia, which can be viewed here."
Micrographia is one of my very favorite books; I have a facsimile reprint, but there's nothing quite like looking at this in the original (the digital version at NLM will give you a good idea of why this book is so exciting). This sounds like a fun and very interesting exhibit, so if you're near Bethesda it might be worth a visit.
Acquisitions News in Brief
Shelf:Life points out a few biblio-news items:
- Through a provision in British law known as the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, the British Library has received "a pair of unique 15th century East Anglian illuminated manuscripts" in place of inheritance tax. "The Kerdeston Hawking Book was made in the 1430s for Sir Thomas Kerdeston of Norfolk and his wife Elizabeth. It was written by an East Anglian scribe using local dialect spellings and includes six texts on hawking, and preserves the only known copy of two of them." Five leaves from the earlier Kerdeston Hunting Book "include two previously unstudied treatises in Middle English and have two half-page miniatures, one depicting St George and the Dragon flanked by portraits of Sir Thomas and his second wife Phillipa."
- The Indian government paid 18,500 pounds for the seven-page handwritten draft of an article written by Gandhi just nineteen days before his death in 1948, according to News Post India. The article argues for the promotion of a "pluralistic culture" in India. This draft had been set to sell at Christie's, but was pulled when the government provided funds for its purchase from a Swiss collector.
- Southeast Missouri State University's Center for Faulkner Studies has acquired a one-page handwritten Faulkner manuscript, the Kansas City Star reports. The 1933 piece, "Sorority," was donated by 86-year old collector Jane Isbell Haynes of Irvine, CA.
- Through a provision in British law known as the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, the British Library has received "a pair of unique 15th century East Anglian illuminated manuscripts" in place of inheritance tax. "The Kerdeston Hawking Book was made in the 1430s for Sir Thomas Kerdeston of Norfolk and his wife Elizabeth. It was written by an East Anglian scribe using local dialect spellings and includes six texts on hawking, and preserves the only known copy of two of them." Five leaves from the earlier Kerdeston Hunting Book "include two previously unstudied treatises in Middle English and have two half-page miniatures, one depicting St George and the Dragon flanked by portraits of Sir Thomas and his second wife Phillipa."
- The Indian government paid 18,500 pounds for the seven-page handwritten draft of an article written by Gandhi just nineteen days before his death in 1948, according to News Post India. The article argues for the promotion of a "pluralistic culture" in India. This draft had been set to sell at Christie's, but was pulled when the government provided funds for its purchase from a Swiss collector.
- Southeast Missouri State University's Center for Faulkner Studies has acquired a one-page handwritten Faulkner manuscript, the Kansas City Star reports. The 1933 piece, "Sorority," was donated by 86-year old collector Jane Isbell Haynes of Irvine, CA.
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