- More than 1,600 pieces of metal moveable type preliminarily dated to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries have been found during an excavation in Seoul; the sorts contain both Chinese and Hangeul characters.
- One of Charles Carroll's copies of the Stone facsimile Declaration of Independence sold at Freeman's this week for $4.42 million, setting a new record for a Stone facsimile and for an American nineteenth-century printed document.
- Jesse R. Erickson and Sarah Werner have been announced as the new editors of PBSA. Congratulations and best wishes to the new team!
- Over at Books and Borrowing, "Return from Orkney," by Katie Halsey about her trip to Orkney to photograph early library records.
- The Royal Horticultural Society is seeking help finding more information about an Isabella A. Allen who annotated a copy of The English Flora (1830).
- From the Mondays at Beinecke video series available on YouTube, Kristen Herdman on "Ethiopic Manuscripts and Global Books."
- Among the Rare Book Monthly articles for July, Michael Stillman's report on the sale of the Hofmann forged Oath of a Freeman, and Bruce McKinney on "Shifting Gears." And Susan Halas has an update on how Sotheran's has fared during Pandemic Times.
- Scott Ellwood writes for the Grolier Club blog on "Sir Thomas Phillipps's Earliest Catalogue."
- The UK government has placed a temporary export ban on two volumes of process drawings, watercolors, and proofs by John and Elizabeth Gould and Henry Constantine Richter. More from Rebecca Rego Barry on the Fine Books Blog. The albums are valued at £1,287,500.
- Keith Houston has a new "field trip" for Shady Characters, "Roman all over the place."
- Now also available on YouTube, an event from May to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, in which seventeen copies of the 1481 Florence Landino edition of the Divina Commedia were compared in a "large-scale, live, online comparative bibliography" session. Fascinating! There will be a followup discussion on 6 July, for which you can register here. See also the Bodleian's Conveyor blog for more info and background on this project.
- Zubairul Islam is in the "Bright Young Booksellers" spotlight.
- The Middle Temple Library's provenance mystery for June features some very extensive notes in their copy of an early printed history of Scandinavia.
- From me, a new post in the "Changing Hands" provenance blog series, this time about some volumes from Longfellow's library newly transferred to Special Collections from the stacks.
Reviews
- Jewish Treasures from Oxford Libraries, edited by Rebecca Abrams and César Merchán-Hamann; review by Philip Getz for the Jewish Review of Books.
- The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray; review by Heller McAlpin in the CSM.
Upcoming Auctions
- The Roger Martin Collection of Western Manuscripts and Miniatures and other properties at Bloomsbury Auctions on 6 July.