- From the new issue of Common-place, a great piece by Endrina Tay on the sale of Jefferson's library to Congress in 1815.
- New York City police have released photos of a suspect in the theft of two books from PRPH Books back in April.
- Daniel Akst reports for the WSJ about an MIT/Georgia Tech research effort to use electromagnetic waves (terahertz radiation) to "read" stacked pages: the technique could potentially have uses in analyzing ancient manuscripts, &c.
- Leah Grandy writes for Borealia about the increasing need for training in basic cursive paleography.
- NYPL's Rose Main Reading Room will reopen on 5 October after being closed for more than two years for repairs and restoration.
- Carla Hayden was sworn in this week as Librarian of Congress. You can watch the ceremony here via C-SPAN. Nicholas Fandos reported for the NYTimes on Hayden's remarks at the event, and read an interview Hayden gave to USA Today.
Reviews
- John Dickerson's Whistlestop; review by Molly Ball in the NYTimes. The podcast is excellent, and I'm looking forward to reading the book.
- Richard Kluger's Indelible Ink; review by Bill Keller in the NYTimes.
- Keith Houston's The Book; review by Clea Simon in the Boston Globe.
- Robert Gottlieb's Avid Reader; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Mary Sarah Bilder's Madison's Hand; review by Stuart Leibiger in Common-place.
- Boston's joint "Beyond Words" exhibition of illuminated manuscripts; review by Barrymore Laurence Scherer in the WSJ.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Tests have reportedly authenticated the Grolier Codex as a genuine 13th-century Maya codex.
- The NEDCC has posted about its work on the preparations for the upcoming cross-institutional exhibition of illuminated manuscripts in Boston.
- Over at Past is Present, a new list of recent articles and books by members of the AAS community.
- And via the ABAA, a roundup of recent bookseller catalogs.
- Thirty-five porters and three auctioneers employed by French auction house Hotel Drouot have been sentenced for the theft of numerous artifacts over several years.
- A four-page portion of the manuscript of Napoleon's "novella" will be sold at Bonhams New York on 21 September.
- From the First Impressions blog, some interesting finds in the Exeter Book revealed by multi-spectral imaging.
- Adam Hooks and Dan De Simone talk about the First Folio's rise to the status of cultural icon in a Folger "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast.
- UVA Today profiles John Unsworth, new university librarian and dean of libraries.
- Alexandra Kiely has a short piece on the Fortsas hoax for the Biblio.com blog.
- The winners of the 2016 National Collegiate Book Collecting awards have been announced.
- Artdaily.org reports on Forum Auctions' "new type of finance deal to help a collector acquire an £850,000 Shakespeare First Folio."
- Sarah Larimer reports for the Washington Post on UNH library cataloger Robert Morin, who left an estate of $4 million to the university.
- The 2017 Boston Book Fair will be held on 10–12 November.
Reviews
- "Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will," at the Morgan Library; review by William Grimes in the NYTimes.
- Ruth Scurr's John Aubrey: My Own Life; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Anthony Gottlieb's The Dream of Enlightenment; review by Michael Wood in the NYTimes.
- James Gleick's Time Travel; review by Rosalind Williams in the WaPo.
- Alan Taylor's American Revolutions; reviews by Gordon S. Wood in the NYTimes and Eric Herschthal in Slate.
- Brian Vickers' The One King Lear; review by Holger S. Syme in the LARB. Wow.
- The NEDCC has posted about its work on the preparations for the upcoming cross-institutional exhibition of illuminated manuscripts in Boston.
- Over at Past is Present, a new list of recent articles and books by members of the AAS community.
- And via the ABAA, a roundup of recent bookseller catalogs.
- Thirty-five porters and three auctioneers employed by French auction house Hotel Drouot have been sentenced for the theft of numerous artifacts over several years.
- A four-page portion of the manuscript of Napoleon's "novella" will be sold at Bonhams New York on 21 September.
- From the First Impressions blog, some interesting finds in the Exeter Book revealed by multi-spectral imaging.
- Adam Hooks and Dan De Simone talk about the First Folio's rise to the status of cultural icon in a Folger "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast.
- UVA Today profiles John Unsworth, new university librarian and dean of libraries.
- Alexandra Kiely has a short piece on the Fortsas hoax for the Biblio.com blog.
- The winners of the 2016 National Collegiate Book Collecting awards have been announced.
- Artdaily.org reports on Forum Auctions' "new type of finance deal to help a collector acquire an £850,000 Shakespeare First Folio."
- Sarah Larimer reports for the Washington Post on UNH library cataloger Robert Morin, who left an estate of $4 million to the university.
- The 2017 Boston Book Fair will be held on 10–12 November.
Reviews
- "Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will," at the Morgan Library; review by William Grimes in the NYTimes.
- Ruth Scurr's John Aubrey: My Own Life; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Anthony Gottlieb's The Dream of Enlightenment; review by Michael Wood in the NYTimes.
- James Gleick's Time Travel; review by Rosalind Williams in the WaPo.
- Alan Taylor's American Revolutions; reviews by Gordon S. Wood in the NYTimes and Eric Herschthal in Slate.
- Brian Vickers' The One King Lear; review by Holger S. Syme in the LARB. Wow.
Sunday, September 04, 2016
Links & Reviews
- In the Yale Alumni Magazine, Judith Schiff has a short piece on Yale's early years and the "battle of the books" between Saybrook and New Haven when the college decided to relocate.
- Carla Hayden will be sworn in as Librarian of Congress on 14 September.
- The September Rare Book Monthly is up: features include a Bruce McKinney interview with Tom Lecky, now of Riverrun Books; Susan Halas talked to Ken Lopez and asked him to update his 1999 analysis of book collecting and the book trade; and (most interestingly!) Bruce McKinney's account of a recent personal acquisition of a 160-page manuscript volume containing records of an Ulster County, New York membership library from 1810 to 1823.
- The Library of Congress has added some 15,000 pages of scanned newspapers from New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC during the early national period.
- Pew released a new report on "book reading."
- The AAS fall public programs schedule is out: great lineup!
- At the Royal Society's Repository blog, Joanna Corden writes about how the Great Fire of London (350 years ago last week) affected the Society.
- David Mason has more in the Guardian about a 1993 theft from his shop in which a small archive of letters relating to an Ernest Hemingway boxing match was stolen.
- Karen Langley highlights the rare book collections of the State Library of Pennsylvania for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Reviews
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by Ben Allen at Public Books.
- Ross King's Mad Enchantment; review by Philip Kennicott in the WaPo.
- Nisi Shawl's Everfair; review by Elizabeth Hand in the WaPo.
- Sean Wilentz's The Politicians and the Egalitarians; review by Mickey Edwards in the LATimes.
- Keith Houston's The Book; review by Henry Hitchings in the WSJ.
- Anne Trubek's The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting; review by Scott McLemee in Inside Higher Ed.
- Carla Hayden will be sworn in as Librarian of Congress on 14 September.
- The September Rare Book Monthly is up: features include a Bruce McKinney interview with Tom Lecky, now of Riverrun Books; Susan Halas talked to Ken Lopez and asked him to update his 1999 analysis of book collecting and the book trade; and (most interestingly!) Bruce McKinney's account of a recent personal acquisition of a 160-page manuscript volume containing records of an Ulster County, New York membership library from 1810 to 1823.
- The Library of Congress has added some 15,000 pages of scanned newspapers from New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC during the early national period.
- Pew released a new report on "book reading."
- The AAS fall public programs schedule is out: great lineup!
- At the Royal Society's Repository blog, Joanna Corden writes about how the Great Fire of London (350 years ago last week) affected the Society.
- David Mason has more in the Guardian about a 1993 theft from his shop in which a small archive of letters relating to an Ernest Hemingway boxing match was stolen.
- Karen Langley highlights the rare book collections of the State Library of Pennsylvania for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Reviews
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by Ben Allen at Public Books.
- Ross King's Mad Enchantment; review by Philip Kennicott in the WaPo.
- Nisi Shawl's Everfair; review by Elizabeth Hand in the WaPo.
- Sean Wilentz's The Politicians and the Egalitarians; review by Mickey Edwards in the LATimes.
- Keith Houston's The Book; review by Henry Hitchings in the WSJ.
- Anne Trubek's The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting; review by Scott McLemee in Inside Higher Ed.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Links & Reviews
- The Echoes from the Vault blog is beginning a series on Victorian cloth bindings.
- Ever wondered about the differences between "uncut," "unopened," and "untrimmed"? Erin Blake's got you covered at The Collation.
- The fall Book History Seminar at Yale, "Inevitabilities of the Book," is coming up on 9–10 September. Looks like a great lineup.
- Jane Raisch writes for the JHIBlog on "The Hellenism of Early Print."
- A manuscript account by Granville Sharp of an important 1781 slave ship massacre has been identified in the British Library.
- The New Haven Register reports on the impending reopening of the Beinecke Library.
- The William Blake Gallery will open in October in San Francisco.
- The Bookhunter on Safari posts about publisher W.J. Adams, "the almost wholly forgotten man behind the story of Bradshaw's Railway Guides."
- Phillip Lopate writes for the American Scholar about the process and pain of selling his papers to Yale.
- From John Schulman, "An Antiquarian's Guide to the Election."
- Charlotte Howsam's dissertation on medieval book fastenings is now available via medievalists.net.
- Lauren Young writes about the "library wars of the ancient world" for Atlas Obscura.
- In the New Yorker's "Daily Shouts," feature, Janet Manley highlights "Rare Books for sale, excellent condition."
- Penguin Classics is publishing a collection of ancient Egyptian writings in English for the first time.
- Keith Houston has a short feature for the BBC, "The mysterious ancient origins of the book."
Reviews
- John Dixon's The Enlightenment of Cadwallader Colden; review by Christopher Minty at The Junto.
- Forrest Leo's The Gentleman; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Emma Smith's Shakespeare's First Folio; review by Jonathan Rose in the WSJ.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Links & Reviews
- George Eberhart writes for American Libraries about a panel at last week's IFLA congress on library theft and security.
- Brooke Palmieri has been appointed editor and Michael Russem designer of APHA's journal, Printing History. Look forward to seeing the fruits of their labors!
- A research team has confirmed that the Codex Selden, housed at the Bodleian Library, is a palimpsest, containing earlier characters beneath the 16th-century text. The before-and-after images here are pretty stunning. More.
- Wayne Wiegand has been named distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center, to support his work on a book covering the history of American public school libraries.
- Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Manuscripts) is now available. Congratulations to all those involved!
- Fiona McDonald writes for the BBC about several long-hidden libraries.
- John Fea talks to Jonathan Yeager about Yeager's new book Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture.
- Forthcoming from the Book Club of California, The Noblest Roman: A History of the Centaur Types of Bruce Rogers.
- Jason Rovito has been appointed Director of Fine Books and Manuscripts at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers.
- Hannah Stahl has the latest in a series of posts about imaginary creatures in maps for the Library of Congress' Worlds Revealed blog.
- Rutgers University has received an NEH grant to digitize some 100,000 pages of New Jersey newspapers published between 1836 and 1922 and not currently available in digital form.
- Barnes & Noble CEO Ronald Boire was sacked this week, after just a year on the job.
- Atlas Obscura highlights the NYPL's new storage facility beneath Bryant Park.
- John Lancaster posts for the Houghton Library blog about an important recent acquisition (a 1485 Aquinas) and his work to find the other volume from the set.
- In the LARB, Melissa Dinsman interviews Richard Grusin about digital humanities.
- Coming soon at Penn, an exhibition and publication, Reactions: Medieval/Modern, which "explores the many and varied ways that people have reacted to, and acted upon, manuscripts from the Middle Ages up to today."
- Emily Dourish gets the "Bright Young Librarians" treatment on the Fine Books blog.
- Richard Davies posts for the AbeBooks blog offering a cautionary tale about potentially valuable copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
- Virginia university librarians have sent a letter to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee urging caution about any potential changes to Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Act.
- Cameron Hunt McNabb writes for Slate on the origins of the ellipsis.
- Alexandra Walker posts for the Bodleian Library's blog about conservation work undertaken on a recent collection of Mabel Fitzgerald materials.
- Spanish facsimile publishing firm Siloe will produce 898 "exact replicas" of the Voynich manuscript, which will sell for more than £6,000 apiece. Note that Yale University Press will also be publishing a facsimile edition this year, accompanied by essays by Raymond Clemens and Deborah Harkness.
Reviews
- John Fea's The Bible Cause; review by D.G. Hart in the WSJ.
- Irina Reyn's The Imperial Wife; review by Shannon Reed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- Brooke Palmieri has been appointed editor and Michael Russem designer of APHA's journal, Printing History. Look forward to seeing the fruits of their labors!
- A research team has confirmed that the Codex Selden, housed at the Bodleian Library, is a palimpsest, containing earlier characters beneath the 16th-century text. The before-and-after images here are pretty stunning. More.
- Wayne Wiegand has been named distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center, to support his work on a book covering the history of American public school libraries.
- Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Manuscripts) is now available. Congratulations to all those involved!
- Fiona McDonald writes for the BBC about several long-hidden libraries.
- John Fea talks to Jonathan Yeager about Yeager's new book Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture.
- Forthcoming from the Book Club of California, The Noblest Roman: A History of the Centaur Types of Bruce Rogers.
- Jason Rovito has been appointed Director of Fine Books and Manuscripts at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers.
- Hannah Stahl has the latest in a series of posts about imaginary creatures in maps for the Library of Congress' Worlds Revealed blog.
- Rutgers University has received an NEH grant to digitize some 100,000 pages of New Jersey newspapers published between 1836 and 1922 and not currently available in digital form.
- Barnes & Noble CEO Ronald Boire was sacked this week, after just a year on the job.
- Atlas Obscura highlights the NYPL's new storage facility beneath Bryant Park.
- John Lancaster posts for the Houghton Library blog about an important recent acquisition (a 1485 Aquinas) and his work to find the other volume from the set.
- In the LARB, Melissa Dinsman interviews Richard Grusin about digital humanities.
- Coming soon at Penn, an exhibition and publication, Reactions: Medieval/Modern, which "explores the many and varied ways that people have reacted to, and acted upon, manuscripts from the Middle Ages up to today."
- Emily Dourish gets the "Bright Young Librarians" treatment on the Fine Books blog.
- Richard Davies posts for the AbeBooks blog offering a cautionary tale about potentially valuable copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
- Virginia university librarians have sent a letter to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee urging caution about any potential changes to Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Act.
- Cameron Hunt McNabb writes for Slate on the origins of the ellipsis.
- Alexandra Walker posts for the Bodleian Library's blog about conservation work undertaken on a recent collection of Mabel Fitzgerald materials.
- Spanish facsimile publishing firm Siloe will produce 898 "exact replicas" of the Voynich manuscript, which will sell for more than £6,000 apiece. Note that Yale University Press will also be publishing a facsimile edition this year, accompanied by essays by Raymond Clemens and Deborah Harkness.
Reviews
- John Fea's The Bible Cause; review by D.G. Hart in the WSJ.
- Irina Reyn's The Imperial Wife; review by Shannon Reed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Rebecca Rego Barry writes for the Guardian about a bird book which once belonged to the "Birdman of Alcatraz" which will go on the auction block at Christie's in September (as part of their "Out of the Ordinary" sale, which always contains some fantastic things).
- MarÃa Palacio posts for the Jesuit Libraries Provenance Project about working with an 1836 manuscript library catalog of a Jesuit seminar in Missouri.
- A new report on digitizing orphan works is now available via Harvard's DASH portal.
- At meh.com, a history of intentionally blank pages, featuring Sarah Werner, Joe Howley, and others.
- The very long legal battle over Franz Kafka's manuscripts has ended, with Israel's supreme court ruling that Max Brod's heirs must turn over the manuscripts to the National Library of Israel.
- Last week I linked to a report that a box of rare comics had been stolen from the Tampa Bay Comic Con. The Tampa Bay Times updated this week that the dealer, Rick Whitelock, received a phone call on Monday from an anonymous man saying he had accidentally packed up the box with his materials from the show and would return them, but refusing to give his name or contact information. All's well that end's well, though: on Wednesday, the box arrived.
- Tom Kiser of Vivarium Books is profiled as part of the FB&C "Bright Young Booksellers" series.
- Peter Harrington staff have chosen their favorite items from the firm's Summer Catalogue.
- Paul Dingman posts at The Collation about how the transcriptions submitted as part of the Early Modern Manuscripts Online project will be aggregated and verified.
- The Harry Ransom Center is seeking a Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Printed Books and Manuscripts.
- Elaine Long posts on the Shakespeare's World blog about finding references to paper used in early modern cooking.
- Nearly 400 books donated to an English village after an American plane crashed there during WWII have been removed from the village library and destroyed.
Reviews
- Carols M. N. Eire's Reformations; reviewed by Michael Massing in the NYTimes.
- Winifred Gallagher's How the Post Office Shaped America; review by Emily Cataneo in the CSM.
- Richard Zacks' Chasing the Last Laugh; review by Debra Bruno in the WaPo.
- MarÃa Palacio posts for the Jesuit Libraries Provenance Project about working with an 1836 manuscript library catalog of a Jesuit seminar in Missouri.
- A new report on digitizing orphan works is now available via Harvard's DASH portal.
- At meh.com, a history of intentionally blank pages, featuring Sarah Werner, Joe Howley, and others.
- The very long legal battle over Franz Kafka's manuscripts has ended, with Israel's supreme court ruling that Max Brod's heirs must turn over the manuscripts to the National Library of Israel.
- Last week I linked to a report that a box of rare comics had been stolen from the Tampa Bay Comic Con. The Tampa Bay Times updated this week that the dealer, Rick Whitelock, received a phone call on Monday from an anonymous man saying he had accidentally packed up the box with his materials from the show and would return them, but refusing to give his name or contact information. All's well that end's well, though: on Wednesday, the box arrived.
- Tom Kiser of Vivarium Books is profiled as part of the FB&C "Bright Young Booksellers" series.
- Peter Harrington staff have chosen their favorite items from the firm's Summer Catalogue.
- Paul Dingman posts at The Collation about how the transcriptions submitted as part of the Early Modern Manuscripts Online project will be aggregated and verified.
- The Harry Ransom Center is seeking a Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Printed Books and Manuscripts.
- Elaine Long posts on the Shakespeare's World blog about finding references to paper used in early modern cooking.
- Nearly 400 books donated to an English village after an American plane crashed there during WWII have been removed from the village library and destroyed.
Reviews
- Carols M. N. Eire's Reformations; reviewed by Michael Massing in the NYTimes.
- Winifred Gallagher's How the Post Office Shaped America; review by Emily Cataneo in the CSM.
- Richard Zacks' Chasing the Last Laugh; review by Debra Bruno in the WaPo.
Sunday, August 07, 2016
Links & Reviews
- The August Rare Book Monthly is up: it includes a piece by Bruce McKinney asking several booksellers to answer the question "Looking back five and ahead five years, where have you come from, where are you now, and where will you be?" Michael Stillman also writes up the theft of William Wordsworth's prayer book from a Grasmere church.
- Anthony Tedeschi posts about Melbourne Rare Book Week at the Fine Books Blog.
- For his "Booking It" series this week, Keith Houston makes a woodcut.
- Jane Eagan of the Oxford Conservation Consortium writes about a 17th-century ream wrapper used in a binding.
- A box of rare comics has been reported missing from Tampa Bay Comic Con.
- Pradeep Sebastian profiles Simran Thadani for The Hindu.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish explores an eighteenth-century copybook with a Don Quixote engraving (printed on heavy stock) used as the cover.
- Kevin Young has been named Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
- Don Skemer surveys a few of the 200+ commonplace books in Princeton's collections.
- Andrew McGill reports on the state of the Library of Congress-Twitter archive.
- Ted Underwood asks how many texts one has to examine for it to be considered "distant reading."
- Roland Arkell reports for the Antiques Trade Gazette that some of the Aristophil books and manuscripts may soon be back on the market.
- At Techdirt, Mike Masnick reports that there seem to be moves afoot at the Copyright Office to make changes to Section 108 of the Copyright Act, which exempts libraries and archives from certain provisions.
- Michael Dirda picks eleven "hidden gem" books for the summer.
Reviews
- John Strausbaugh's City of Sedition; review by Sam Roberts in the NYTimes.
- Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë; review by Trev Broughton in the TLS.
- Jennifer Schuessler reviews the Folger's new exhibition, "Will and Jane," in the NYTimes.
- Anthony Tedeschi posts about Melbourne Rare Book Week at the Fine Books Blog.
- For his "Booking It" series this week, Keith Houston makes a woodcut.
- Jane Eagan of the Oxford Conservation Consortium writes about a 17th-century ream wrapper used in a binding.
- A box of rare comics has been reported missing from Tampa Bay Comic Con.
- Pradeep Sebastian profiles Simran Thadani for The Hindu.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish explores an eighteenth-century copybook with a Don Quixote engraving (printed on heavy stock) used as the cover.
- Kevin Young has been named Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
- Don Skemer surveys a few of the 200+ commonplace books in Princeton's collections.
- Andrew McGill reports on the state of the Library of Congress-Twitter archive.
- Ted Underwood asks how many texts one has to examine for it to be considered "distant reading."
- Roland Arkell reports for the Antiques Trade Gazette that some of the Aristophil books and manuscripts may soon be back on the market.
- At Techdirt, Mike Masnick reports that there seem to be moves afoot at the Copyright Office to make changes to Section 108 of the Copyright Act, which exempts libraries and archives from certain provisions.
- Michael Dirda picks eleven "hidden gem" books for the summer.
Reviews
- John Strausbaugh's City of Sedition; review by Sam Roberts in the NYTimes.
- Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë; review by Trev Broughton in the TLS.
- Jennifer Schuessler reviews the Folger's new exhibition, "Will and Jane," in the NYTimes.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Rebecca Romney posts about her time at the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS) last week.
- John Nulty, formerly employed by the National Library of Ireland, received a suspended sentence for the theft of rare books worth nearly €200,000 over the course of nine years. Nulty entered a guilty plea on eight of 216 counts of theft. The judge granted the suspended sentence, he said, because nearly all of the books were recovered.
- Ellen Cloyed writes for An Acquired Taste (the blog of Swem Library's Special Collections) about a book inscribed to Horatia Nelson.
- The STCV (Short Title Catalogue Flanders) has released their cataloging manual.
- Joe Helm writes for the Washington Post about (maybe?) the beginnings of a cursive resurgence?
- Had this link saved to include here in May, but missed it at the time: Katrina Martin posts at The Devil's Tale about Duke's collection of early movable books, including some new acquisitions as part of the Lisa Unger Baskin collection.
Reviews
- Anna Keay's The Last Royal Bastard; review by Jeffrey Collins in the WSJ.
- Peter Doran's Breaking Rockefeller; review by John R. Coyne, Jr. in the Washington Times.
- Lillian Sciberras' Shadows in Penumbra; review by Paul Xuereb in the Times of Malta.
- John Nulty, formerly employed by the National Library of Ireland, received a suspended sentence for the theft of rare books worth nearly €200,000 over the course of nine years. Nulty entered a guilty plea on eight of 216 counts of theft. The judge granted the suspended sentence, he said, because nearly all of the books were recovered.
- Ellen Cloyed writes for An Acquired Taste (the blog of Swem Library's Special Collections) about a book inscribed to Horatia Nelson.
- The STCV (Short Title Catalogue Flanders) has released their cataloging manual.
- Joe Helm writes for the Washington Post about (maybe?) the beginnings of a cursive resurgence?
- Had this link saved to include here in May, but missed it at the time: Katrina Martin posts at The Devil's Tale about Duke's collection of early movable books, including some new acquisitions as part of the Lisa Unger Baskin collection.
Reviews
- Anna Keay's The Last Royal Bastard; review by Jeffrey Collins in the WSJ.
- Peter Doran's Breaking Rockefeller; review by John R. Coyne, Jr. in the Washington Times.
- Lillian Sciberras' Shadows in Penumbra; review by Paul Xuereb in the Times of Malta.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Brenda Cronin reports for the Wall Street Journal on the renovation of the Beinecke Library, which is set to reopen this fall.
- Allan Young and Patrick Scott are working on a census of Robert Burns' first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), and they issued a public call for assistance on ExLibris this week. Please help if you can. Project background.
- The Osher Map Library's digitization of maps from its collections is highlighted in the "Future Tense" series at Slate. The piece gets at both the possibilities and shortcomings of digital presentation.
- Rebecca Romney posts about an 1872 self-promotional poster designed by Walt Whitman to drum up sales of his books.
- New to me: a YouTube video of Lisa Baskin talking about her collection, which is now at Duke.
- Heather Wolfe has a Collation post up about how another recent discovery seems to clarify some longstanding questions about several heraldic manuscripts featuring Shakespeare.
- Recent work has revealed a great deal about the provenance of a fragment of the 36-line Bible in the Scheide Library at Princeton.
- The SHARP book awards were announced this week in Paris. Congratulations to the winners!
- A call for individual paper proposals for the Society of Early Americanists' meeting next March in Tulsa is now live, and I do encourage anyone interested to submit. I've been to several of these meetings (though I missed the last one), and have enjoyed them immensely.
- Keith Houston's new book, The Book, comes out next month. On his blog, he recounts a visit to Edinburgh papermaker Chrissie Heughan.
- A Brontë family book containing an early manuscript poem by Charlotte has been purchased by the Brontë Society. More.
- The website for "Beyond Words," a cross-institutional exhibition of medieval manuscripts in Boston, is now live. Along with the exhibitions, there are an impressive number of events coming up this fall.
- There's a report in the Business Tribune that a proposed tax measure in Oregon could spell an end to the venerable Powell's Books.
- The Folger's Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama launched.
- A collection of more than 300 Dick Whittington-related items was bequeathed to London's Guildhall Library.
- Princeton has announced the books and manuscripts acquired at the Pirie sale in December.
- Rare Books Digest has an interview with Sandra Hindman of Les Enluminures.
- Sarah Werner went looking for open digital collections. Here's what she found.
- Jerry Morris has been working on the library of lexicographer Joseph E. Worcester.
- AAS intern Dylan McDonough writes about his work this summer on the AAS Printers' File.
Reviews
- William Egginton's The Man Who Invented Fiction; review by Daniel Hahn in the Guardian.
- Lucy Sussex's Blockbuster; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Geoffrey Cowan's Let the People Rule; review by Thomas Curwen in the LATimes.
- John Guy's Elizabeth; review by Anna Whitelock in the TLS.
- Allan Young and Patrick Scott are working on a census of Robert Burns' first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), and they issued a public call for assistance on ExLibris this week. Please help if you can. Project background.
- The Osher Map Library's digitization of maps from its collections is highlighted in the "Future Tense" series at Slate. The piece gets at both the possibilities and shortcomings of digital presentation.
- Rebecca Romney posts about an 1872 self-promotional poster designed by Walt Whitman to drum up sales of his books.
- New to me: a YouTube video of Lisa Baskin talking about her collection, which is now at Duke.
- Heather Wolfe has a Collation post up about how another recent discovery seems to clarify some longstanding questions about several heraldic manuscripts featuring Shakespeare.
- Recent work has revealed a great deal about the provenance of a fragment of the 36-line Bible in the Scheide Library at Princeton.
- The SHARP book awards were announced this week in Paris. Congratulations to the winners!
- A call for individual paper proposals for the Society of Early Americanists' meeting next March in Tulsa is now live, and I do encourage anyone interested to submit. I've been to several of these meetings (though I missed the last one), and have enjoyed them immensely.
- Keith Houston's new book, The Book, comes out next month. On his blog, he recounts a visit to Edinburgh papermaker Chrissie Heughan.
- A Brontë family book containing an early manuscript poem by Charlotte has been purchased by the Brontë Society. More.
- The website for "Beyond Words," a cross-institutional exhibition of medieval manuscripts in Boston, is now live. Along with the exhibitions, there are an impressive number of events coming up this fall.
- There's a report in the Business Tribune that a proposed tax measure in Oregon could spell an end to the venerable Powell's Books.
- The Folger's Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama launched.
- A collection of more than 300 Dick Whittington-related items was bequeathed to London's Guildhall Library.
- Princeton has announced the books and manuscripts acquired at the Pirie sale in December.
- Rare Books Digest has an interview with Sandra Hindman of Les Enluminures.
- Sarah Werner went looking for open digital collections. Here's what she found.
- Jerry Morris has been working on the library of lexicographer Joseph E. Worcester.
- AAS intern Dylan McDonough writes about his work this summer on the AAS Printers' File.
Reviews
- William Egginton's The Man Who Invented Fiction; review by Daniel Hahn in the Guardian.
- Lucy Sussex's Blockbuster; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Geoffrey Cowan's Let the People Rule; review by Thomas Curwen in the LATimes.
- John Guy's Elizabeth; review by Anna Whitelock in the TLS.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Georgianna Ziegler writes for The Collation about a recent Folger acquisition, a volume which contains what is for now the earliest known reference to a Shakespeare volume in America. I used the photo from the post to make a quick LibraryThing catalog of Edward Dale's books (there are a few still to be added once the book comes off display and we can get images of the titles written in the gutter).
- The UK government has placed a temporary export bar on a jewelled prayer-book once owned by François I of France; British institutions now have the opportunity to raise £8 million to match the price offered by an overseas buyer.
- SHARP's annual conference starts tomorrow in Paris - good luck to all the presenters, and I look forward to the tweets and recaps!
- Also coming up this week (starting tonight) is the annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS): Lisa Baskin will give the keynote address and Don Lindgren is this year's specialty dealer.
- Over American Book Collecting, Kurt Zimmerman listens to Bill Reese's recent Rare Book School lecture (available here, or search "Rare Book School" in your preferred podcast delivery system) and then finds a fascinating association copy on his bookshelves!
- Matthew Kirschenbaum talked to Manuel Portela about Track Changes.
- Dan Cohen has posted an updated take on why we're seeing a decline in e-book sales.
Reviews
- Geoffrey Cowan's Let the People Rule; review by Thomas Curwen in the LATimes.
- Ritchie Robertson's Goethe and The Essential Goethe (ed. Matthew Bell); review by Osman Durrani in the TLS.
- The UK government has placed a temporary export bar on a jewelled prayer-book once owned by François I of France; British institutions now have the opportunity to raise £8 million to match the price offered by an overseas buyer.
- SHARP's annual conference starts tomorrow in Paris - good luck to all the presenters, and I look forward to the tweets and recaps!
- Also coming up this week (starting tonight) is the annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS): Lisa Baskin will give the keynote address and Don Lindgren is this year's specialty dealer.
- Over American Book Collecting, Kurt Zimmerman listens to Bill Reese's recent Rare Book School lecture (available here, or search "Rare Book School" in your preferred podcast delivery system) and then finds a fascinating association copy on his bookshelves!
- Matthew Kirschenbaum talked to Manuel Portela about Track Changes.
- Dan Cohen has posted an updated take on why we're seeing a decline in e-book sales.
Reviews
- Geoffrey Cowan's Let the People Rule; review by Thomas Curwen in the LATimes.
- Ritchie Robertson's Goethe and The Essential Goethe (ed. Matthew Bell); review by Osman Durrani in the TLS.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Stephen Tabor writes for Verso, the Huntington's blog, about a tremendously interesting and exciting new acquisition.
- Rachel Beattie writes for the National Library of Scotland blog about sleuthing out correspondent names in the James Murray Archive.
- James Dawson covers "Mistaikes in Books" over at Rare Books Digest.
- Toronto bookseller David Mason is profiled in the Toronto Star, with a focus on his efforts (thus far unsuccessful) to solve a 1993 theft from his shop. Among the material stolen was a small archive relating to a 1929 boxing match between Ernest Hemingway and Morley Callaghan (for which F. Scott Fitzgerald acted as timekeeper).
- Steven Overly reports for the WaPo about the Vatican's digitization of one of the earliest manuscript versions of Virgil's Georgics and Aeneid, known as the "Virgilius Vaticanus."
- Keith Houston has posted a new miscellany of punctuation-related news at Shady Characters.
- The Boston Globe covered worries about the fate of Boston University's Editorial Institute this week.
- Over at Inciting Sparks, Tess Goodman has a new post, "Pics or It Didn't Happen: On the Objectivity of Photographs."
- Rabia Barkatulla writes for The Bookseller about the challenges inherent in digitizing Arabic books and manuscripts.
- A Thomas Jefferson letter discovered in a family's attic is being offered for $325,000 by the Raab Collection.
- Registration for this fall's APHA conference at the Huntington Library is now open. The theme is "The Black Art & Printers' Devils: The Magic, Mysticism, and Wonders of Printing History."
- More on Heather Wolfe's recent Shakespeare discoveries at Beyond Shakespeare.
- Melbourne's Rare Book Week is coming up from 14–24 July. Check out the full schedule - lots of great events going on!
- Nick Basbanes talked to novelist Matthew Pearl for Fine Books & Collections.
- London's Feminist Library faces eviction after a rent hike.
- Some excellent news from Portland, Maine, where a new independent bookshop will open in the fall.
- Excavation work for the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia has turned up a bunch of printing type.
- A Bible given by Charlotte Brontë to her friend Ellen Nussey will be sold at Sotheby's London this week.
- The London Library was profiled in Londonist.
- Tokyo's Jinbocho, which houses some 160 used and rare bookshops, sounds like a browser's dream!
- Several drawings by Beatrix Potter were found at Melford Hall in Suffolk during conservation works on books from the house library.
Reviews
- Ben H. Winters' Underground Airlines; review by Jennifer Forbus in the CSM.
- Pamela Haag's The Gunning of America; review by Stephen Wertheim in the TLS.
- Stephen Orgel's The Reader in the Book; review by Dustin Illingworth in the LARB.
- Rachel Beattie writes for the National Library of Scotland blog about sleuthing out correspondent names in the James Murray Archive.
- James Dawson covers "Mistaikes in Books" over at Rare Books Digest.
- Toronto bookseller David Mason is profiled in the Toronto Star, with a focus on his efforts (thus far unsuccessful) to solve a 1993 theft from his shop. Among the material stolen was a small archive relating to a 1929 boxing match between Ernest Hemingway and Morley Callaghan (for which F. Scott Fitzgerald acted as timekeeper).
- Steven Overly reports for the WaPo about the Vatican's digitization of one of the earliest manuscript versions of Virgil's Georgics and Aeneid, known as the "Virgilius Vaticanus."
- Keith Houston has posted a new miscellany of punctuation-related news at Shady Characters.
- The Boston Globe covered worries about the fate of Boston University's Editorial Institute this week.
- Over at Inciting Sparks, Tess Goodman has a new post, "Pics or It Didn't Happen: On the Objectivity of Photographs."
- Rabia Barkatulla writes for The Bookseller about the challenges inherent in digitizing Arabic books and manuscripts.
- A Thomas Jefferson letter discovered in a family's attic is being offered for $325,000 by the Raab Collection.
- Registration for this fall's APHA conference at the Huntington Library is now open. The theme is "The Black Art & Printers' Devils: The Magic, Mysticism, and Wonders of Printing History."
- More on Heather Wolfe's recent Shakespeare discoveries at Beyond Shakespeare.
- Melbourne's Rare Book Week is coming up from 14–24 July. Check out the full schedule - lots of great events going on!
- Nick Basbanes talked to novelist Matthew Pearl for Fine Books & Collections.
- London's Feminist Library faces eviction after a rent hike.
- Some excellent news from Portland, Maine, where a new independent bookshop will open in the fall.
- Excavation work for the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia has turned up a bunch of printing type.
- A Bible given by Charlotte Brontë to her friend Ellen Nussey will be sold at Sotheby's London this week.
- The London Library was profiled in Londonist.
- Tokyo's Jinbocho, which houses some 160 used and rare bookshops, sounds like a browser's dream!
- Several drawings by Beatrix Potter were found at Melford Hall in Suffolk during conservation works on books from the house library.
Reviews
- Ben H. Winters' Underground Airlines; review by Jennifer Forbus in the CSM.
- Pamela Haag's The Gunning of America; review by Stephen Wertheim in the TLS.
- Stephen Orgel's The Reader in the Book; review by Dustin Illingworth in the LARB.
Sunday, July 03, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Jennifer Schuessler reports for the New York Times on some excellent new discoveries about Shakespeare and heraldry by Heather Wolfe, curator of manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library. See the documents at Shakespeare Documented.
- On the NYPL blog, Mark Boonshoft highlights Mary Katherine Goddard's January 1777 printing of the Declaration of Independence.
- Video from the Grolier Club symposium "Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren't" is now available via Vimeo.
- There's a binding-related "Crocodile mystery" up at The Collation.
- Paul Heller writes for the Times Argus about the process of debunking the myth that the wooden hand-press at the Vermont Historical Society was the first press in Massachusetts.
- Kathy Major writes at Past is Present about finding a small but important collection of unpublished Richard Henry Lee letters at AAS.
- A first edition Principia will be sold at Christie's on 12 July as part of the excellent Giancarlo Beltrame Library of Scientific Books auction.
- Over at 6sqft, "Life Behind the Stacks: The Secret Apartments of New York Libraries." [Warning: I noticed a couple glaring errors in this piece, so take it with a generous helping of salt].
- Matt Kirschenbaum talked to Robinson Meyer about Track Changes for The Atlantic.
- HathiTrust and the National Federation for the Blind will collaborate to make some 14 million e-books available to blind and print-disabled users.
- Michael Danaher has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Oxford book dealer Adrian Greenwood.
- The 15CBOOKTRADE project has released a video introducing some of the various visualization tools available as 15cV, drawing on the MEI database ("Material Evidence in Incunabula").
Reviews
- Matt Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by Brian Dillon in the Guardian.
- Wendy Warren's New England Bound; review by Christopher L. Brown in the NYTimes.
- Ben H. Winters' Underground Airlines; review by Jon Michaud in the WaPo.
- On the NYPL blog, Mark Boonshoft highlights Mary Katherine Goddard's January 1777 printing of the Declaration of Independence.
- Video from the Grolier Club symposium "Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren't" is now available via Vimeo.
- There's a binding-related "Crocodile mystery" up at The Collation.
- Paul Heller writes for the Times Argus about the process of debunking the myth that the wooden hand-press at the Vermont Historical Society was the first press in Massachusetts.
- Kathy Major writes at Past is Present about finding a small but important collection of unpublished Richard Henry Lee letters at AAS.
- A first edition Principia will be sold at Christie's on 12 July as part of the excellent Giancarlo Beltrame Library of Scientific Books auction.
- Over at 6sqft, "Life Behind the Stacks: The Secret Apartments of New York Libraries." [Warning: I noticed a couple glaring errors in this piece, so take it with a generous helping of salt].
- Matt Kirschenbaum talked to Robinson Meyer about Track Changes for The Atlantic.
- HathiTrust and the National Federation for the Blind will collaborate to make some 14 million e-books available to blind and print-disabled users.
- Michael Danaher has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Oxford book dealer Adrian Greenwood.
- The 15CBOOKTRADE project has released a video introducing some of the various visualization tools available as 15cV, drawing on the MEI database ("Material Evidence in Incunabula").
Reviews
- Matt Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by Brian Dillon in the Guardian.
- Wendy Warren's New England Bound; review by Christopher L. Brown in the NYTimes.
- Ben H. Winters' Underground Airlines; review by Jon Michaud in the WaPo.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Links & Reviews
It was a busy conference week for many, between RBMS (see #rbms16), ALA Annual (see #alaac16) and the Omohundro Institute conference (see #oieahc16). Looks like lots of good content at each!
- Casey Cep highlights Thomas McDade's bibliography The Annals of Murder for the New Yorker Page-Turner blog.
- New from the Huntington Library and partners, "Decoding the Civil War," a crowdsourced project to transcribe and decipher some 16,000 Civil War telegrams. See the Huntington announcement.
- The Lilly Library is the subject of a Smithsonian writeup.
- Over on the NYPL blog, Charles Cuykendall Carter talks to CUNY professor Simon Reader about teaching with a recently-digitized copy of Middlemarch in parts (from the Pforzheimer Collection).
- Bookseller and collector Philip R. Bishop of Mosher Books has launched a new website, The Mosher Press, on the life and works of Thomas Bird Mosher.
- FamilySearch.org will make some digitized genealogical works available via the DPLA interface.
- Ann Patty reports for the WSJ about Latin-language immersion programs.
- Skip Hollandsworth profiles Larry McMurtry for Texas Monthly.
- Elizabeth Yale writes for Aeon about British antiquarianism in "The nature of Britain."
- Alexander Street Press has been acquired by ProQuest.
- Three new incoming university librarians (Valerie Hotchkiss at Vanderbilt, Anne Jarvis at Princeton, and John Unsworth at UVA) are profiled in the Chronicle.
- In the New York Times Magazine, Jenna Wortham explores "How an Archive of the Internet Could Change History."
- In the spring issue of Humanities, the Osher Map Library at the University of Southern Maine gets a feature by Edgar Allen Beem.
- Alex Shephard writes for the New Republic about what happens to the book ecosystem if we lose Barnes & Noble.
Reviews
- Adrian Tinniswood's The Long Weekend; review by Sandra McElwaine in the Washington Times.
- Michael Shelden's Melville in Love; review by Sam Coale in the Providence Journal.
- Naomi Novik's League of Dragons; review by Jason Heller for NPR.
- Casey Cep highlights Thomas McDade's bibliography The Annals of Murder for the New Yorker Page-Turner blog.
- New from the Huntington Library and partners, "Decoding the Civil War," a crowdsourced project to transcribe and decipher some 16,000 Civil War telegrams. See the Huntington announcement.
- The Lilly Library is the subject of a Smithsonian writeup.
- Over on the NYPL blog, Charles Cuykendall Carter talks to CUNY professor Simon Reader about teaching with a recently-digitized copy of Middlemarch in parts (from the Pforzheimer Collection).
- Bookseller and collector Philip R. Bishop of Mosher Books has launched a new website, The Mosher Press, on the life and works of Thomas Bird Mosher.
- FamilySearch.org will make some digitized genealogical works available via the DPLA interface.
- Ann Patty reports for the WSJ about Latin-language immersion programs.
- Skip Hollandsworth profiles Larry McMurtry for Texas Monthly.
- Elizabeth Yale writes for Aeon about British antiquarianism in "The nature of Britain."
- Alexander Street Press has been acquired by ProQuest.
- Three new incoming university librarians (Valerie Hotchkiss at Vanderbilt, Anne Jarvis at Princeton, and John Unsworth at UVA) are profiled in the Chronicle.
- In the New York Times Magazine, Jenna Wortham explores "How an Archive of the Internet Could Change History."
- In the spring issue of Humanities, the Osher Map Library at the University of Southern Maine gets a feature by Edgar Allen Beem.
- Alex Shephard writes for the New Republic about what happens to the book ecosystem if we lose Barnes & Noble.
Reviews
- Adrian Tinniswood's The Long Weekend; review by Sandra McElwaine in the Washington Times.
- Michael Shelden's Melville in Love; review by Sam Coale in the Providence Journal.
- Naomi Novik's League of Dragons; review by Jason Heller for NPR.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Links & Reviews
I realized this week (in the midst of an excellent but all-consuming Rare Book School session) that I made my first post on this blog ten years ago Friday. Hard to believe it's been that long – thank you for reading!
- An 1835 prayerbook owned by William Wordsworth has been stolen from a display case in a Cumbrian church. If anyone has additional identifying details about the volume that would help in securing its return, please let me know.
- Gordon College has abandoned plans to sell off books from the Edward Payson Vining collection.
- Ariel Sabar's Atlantic piece on the "Jesus' Wife" papyrus is a spectacular read.
- The 16 June Books & Manuscripts sale at Christie's realized nearly $2.5 million, but two of the expected high-sellers didn't meet their reserve (the first edition of Alice in Wonderland and the Neal Cassady letter to Kerouac). The top lot proved to be Constitutional Convention delegate James McHenry's manuscript notes from the 30 and 31 May 1787 sessions of the convention ($389,000).
- Author Dan Brown has donated €300,000 to Amsterdam's Ritman Library to help fund the digitization of the library's collections.
- A second selection of books from the library of Pierre Bergé will be sold on 8–9 November at Sotheby's Paris.
- Culture24 highlights ten of the new Roman writing tablets recently discovered in London.
- There's a new beta version of the Universal Short-Title Catalogue (USTC).
- A first edition presentation copy of Das Kapital sold for £218,500 this week.
- Convicted book thief Andrew Shannon received a one-year prison sentence for the theft of 57 rare books from Carton House; he was already serving time for other crimes.
- Not to be missed: "Assertive Cataloguing" at The Bookhunter on Safari.
- From Publisher's Weekly, "As E-book Sales Decline, Digital Fatigue Grows."
- David Leonard has accepted the BPL presidency; may he meet with every success.
- John V. Fleming's "Finding a Good Book" is a useful reminder that there are a whole lot more books out there than those on the current bestseller lists.
- The American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA has permanently closed; its collections, including a large library, will reportedly be transferred to other institutions.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish posts at The Collation on "Investigating a Bull's Head Watermark."
- An archive of William Steig illustrations sold for $187,500 at Sotheby's this week.
Reviews
- Neil Hayward's Lost Among the Birds; review by Peter Lewis in the CSM.
- Denis Boyles' Everything Explained that is Explainable; review by Joseph Epstein in the WSJ.
- An 1835 prayerbook owned by William Wordsworth has been stolen from a display case in a Cumbrian church. If anyone has additional identifying details about the volume that would help in securing its return, please let me know.
- Gordon College has abandoned plans to sell off books from the Edward Payson Vining collection.
- Ariel Sabar's Atlantic piece on the "Jesus' Wife" papyrus is a spectacular read.
- The 16 June Books & Manuscripts sale at Christie's realized nearly $2.5 million, but two of the expected high-sellers didn't meet their reserve (the first edition of Alice in Wonderland and the Neal Cassady letter to Kerouac). The top lot proved to be Constitutional Convention delegate James McHenry's manuscript notes from the 30 and 31 May 1787 sessions of the convention ($389,000).
- Author Dan Brown has donated €300,000 to Amsterdam's Ritman Library to help fund the digitization of the library's collections.
- A second selection of books from the library of Pierre Bergé will be sold on 8–9 November at Sotheby's Paris.
- Culture24 highlights ten of the new Roman writing tablets recently discovered in London.
- There's a new beta version of the Universal Short-Title Catalogue (USTC).
- A first edition presentation copy of Das Kapital sold for £218,500 this week.
- Convicted book thief Andrew Shannon received a one-year prison sentence for the theft of 57 rare books from Carton House; he was already serving time for other crimes.
- Not to be missed: "Assertive Cataloguing" at The Bookhunter on Safari.
- From Publisher's Weekly, "As E-book Sales Decline, Digital Fatigue Grows."
- David Leonard has accepted the BPL presidency; may he meet with every success.
- John V. Fleming's "Finding a Good Book" is a useful reminder that there are a whole lot more books out there than those on the current bestseller lists.
- The American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA has permanently closed; its collections, including a large library, will reportedly be transferred to other institutions.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish posts at The Collation on "Investigating a Bull's Head Watermark."
- An archive of William Steig illustrations sold for $187,500 at Sotheby's this week.
Reviews
- Neil Hayward's Lost Among the Birds; review by Peter Lewis in the CSM.
- Denis Boyles' Everything Explained that is Explainable; review by Joseph Epstein in the WSJ.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Links & Reviews
- David W. Dunlap reports for the NYTimes on the five-decade Times career of Rudolph Stocker, described as "the last printer at The Times working under a guaranteed lifetime contract; the last Times employee who knew how to operate a Linotype casting machine; the last journeyman of the old International Typographical Union and its New York local, No. 6."
- Adam Gopnik writes in the New Yorker about the reading habits of Hamilton and Burr, using the New York Society Library's great City Readers project.
- Smithsonian reports that scientists have deciphered more symbols on the Antikythera Mechanism. The new findings led credence to the theory that the device was used for astrological purposes, and that it made have originated near the island of Rhodes. Results have been published in a special issue of Almagest.
- Rebecca Romney has joined the bookselling firm Honey & Wax.
- David Maclay posts at the National Library of Scotland blog about their current exhibition "Monster Making in the Summer of 2016" (drawing on the John Murray archive).
- Jill Bourne has declined the offer to become president of the Boston Public Library, citing personal reasons. The Boston Globe has a report. The BPL's board will meet Tuesday morning to move forward.
- Quartz highlights a century-old stationery store in Japan where you can customize the perfect notebook.
- The Washington Post surveys cruise ship libraries.
- Folget Curatorial Assistant Elizabeth DeBold is profiled in the "Bright Young Librarians" series.
Reviews
- John Guy's Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years; review by Stacey Schiff in the NYTimes.
- Mike Ashley's Adventures in the Strand; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Richard Zacks' Chasing the Last Laugh; review by Debra Bruno in the WaPo.
- A trio of new books on Byron; review by Corin Throsby in the TLS.
- Adam Gopnik writes in the New Yorker about the reading habits of Hamilton and Burr, using the New York Society Library's great City Readers project.
- Smithsonian reports that scientists have deciphered more symbols on the Antikythera Mechanism. The new findings led credence to the theory that the device was used for astrological purposes, and that it made have originated near the island of Rhodes. Results have been published in a special issue of Almagest.
- Rebecca Romney has joined the bookselling firm Honey & Wax.
- David Maclay posts at the National Library of Scotland blog about their current exhibition "Monster Making in the Summer of 2016" (drawing on the John Murray archive).
- Jill Bourne has declined the offer to become president of the Boston Public Library, citing personal reasons. The Boston Globe has a report. The BPL's board will meet Tuesday morning to move forward.
- Quartz highlights a century-old stationery store in Japan where you can customize the perfect notebook.
- The Washington Post surveys cruise ship libraries.
- Folget Curatorial Assistant Elizabeth DeBold is profiled in the "Bright Young Librarians" series.
Reviews
- John Guy's Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years; review by Stacey Schiff in the NYTimes.
- Mike Ashley's Adventures in the Strand; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Richard Zacks' Chasing the Last Laugh; review by Debra Bruno in the WaPo.
- A trio of new books on Byron; review by Corin Throsby in the TLS.
Sunday, June 05, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Some downright incredible archeological finds in London recently, including what is believed to be the earliest reference to the name "London." The cache of 400 wooden writing tablets, some dating back to around 50 CE, were found during construction-related excavations for the new Bloomberg European headquarters building. The wax originally on the tablets is long gone, but researchers have managed to read the "faint scratches" left behind.
- A Darwin letter, stolen twice from the Smithsonian Institution, has been returned. No charges have been filed, as the statute of limitations has expired.
- Dalya Alberge reports for the Guardian on some recent work using x-rays to "read" medieval manuscripts hidden within bindings."Experiments have found a fragment from a 12th-century manuscript that includes excerpts from the work of Bede, the 8th-century monk and scholar. The researchers were even able to disassemble multiple pages that had been pasted on to one another, making the text legible. In one case, they could read each of three medieval pages that had been glued together. Elsewhere, they found two fragments stuck together underneath the cover of a 16th-century binding." Erik Kwakkel posted about this project back in December.
- The June Rare Book Monthly articles are out, including a report by Michael Stillman on the Columbus Letter recently returned to Italy.
- At Manuscript Road Trip, Lisa Fagin Davis explores some manuscript leaves found in Maine, which she describes as an "Otto Ege treasure trove" (and which, happily, have been acquired by Colby College).
- At Past is Present, a quarterly look at books and articles recently published by members of the AAS community.
- Mark Wolverton writes for Nature on digital forensics and BitCurator.
- David Mitchell has joined Margaret Atwood in submitting a manuscript for the wonderful (and tantalizing!) "Future Library" project.
- Kayleigh Betterton reports on the London International Antiquarian Book Fair for The Bookhunter on Safari.
- Princeton has acquired a copy of the second edition of Bodoni's Manual tipografico, called "the specimen book to end all specimen books."
- Michael Rosenwald notices for the Washington Post a number of recent books on paper.
Reviews
- A whole shelf full of recent Shakespeare-related books, including Adam Hooks' Selling Shakespeare; review by James Ryerson in the NYTimes.
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by Lucy Ferriss in the Chronicle.
- Ricky Jay's Matthias Buchinger; review by Teller in the NYTimes.
- Jill Lepore's Joe Gould's Teeth; reviews by Scott W. Berg in the WaPo and Karen Long in the LATimes.
- A Darwin letter, stolen twice from the Smithsonian Institution, has been returned. No charges have been filed, as the statute of limitations has expired.
- Dalya Alberge reports for the Guardian on some recent work using x-rays to "read" medieval manuscripts hidden within bindings."Experiments have found a fragment from a 12th-century manuscript that includes excerpts from the work of Bede, the 8th-century monk and scholar. The researchers were even able to disassemble multiple pages that had been pasted on to one another, making the text legible. In one case, they could read each of three medieval pages that had been glued together. Elsewhere, they found two fragments stuck together underneath the cover of a 16th-century binding." Erik Kwakkel posted about this project back in December.
- The June Rare Book Monthly articles are out, including a report by Michael Stillman on the Columbus Letter recently returned to Italy.
- At Manuscript Road Trip, Lisa Fagin Davis explores some manuscript leaves found in Maine, which she describes as an "Otto Ege treasure trove" (and which, happily, have been acquired by Colby College).
- At Past is Present, a quarterly look at books and articles recently published by members of the AAS community.
- Mark Wolverton writes for Nature on digital forensics and BitCurator.
- David Mitchell has joined Margaret Atwood in submitting a manuscript for the wonderful (and tantalizing!) "Future Library" project.
- Kayleigh Betterton reports on the London International Antiquarian Book Fair for The Bookhunter on Safari.
- Princeton has acquired a copy of the second edition of Bodoni's Manual tipografico, called "the specimen book to end all specimen books."
- Michael Rosenwald notices for the Washington Post a number of recent books on paper.
Reviews
- A whole shelf full of recent Shakespeare-related books, including Adam Hooks' Selling Shakespeare; review by James Ryerson in the NYTimes.
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by Lucy Ferriss in the Chronicle.
- Ricky Jay's Matthias Buchinger; review by Teller in the NYTimes.
- Jill Lepore's Joe Gould's Teeth; reviews by Scott W. Berg in the WaPo and Karen Long in the LATimes.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Emily Wells writes for Past Is Present about the continuing work on transforming the AAS Printers' File into a linked open data resource.
- Over at The Collation, Meaghan Brown posts about assigning genres to early modern plays for the Folger's Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama.
- Barbara Basbanes Richter reports for the Fine Books Blog on the Met's recent symposium on American publishers' bookbindings.
- The Bodleian Library announced their purchases from last December's Pirie sale.
- Denis Joachim's major collection of rare books, art, and photographs will be sold over three days in Melbourne (19–21 June).
- A single buyer purchased all four Shakespeare folios (not, as the Press Association piece says, Shakespeare's "first four books") on the block at Christie's this week, for just under £2.5 million.
- Scott Reyburn reports for the NYTimes on another Christie's sale from this week: that of some thirty medieval manuscripts from the collection of Maurice Burrus.
- In the Dublin Inquirer, Louisa McGrath highlights the manuscript diary of the first Keeper of Marsh's Library.
- A new twist to the adult coloring book trend: Alison Flood writes for the Guardian about the coming republication of a series of 17th-century maps originally issued to accompany Michael Drayton's Poly-Obion.
- T.S. Eliot's rejection letter for Animal Farm has been making the rounds this week: it was among the items selected for the British Library's Discovering Literature: 20th Century online collection.
Reviews
- Denis Boyle's Everything Explained That Is Explainable; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Jill Lepore's Joe Gould's Teeth; review by Karen Long in the LATimes.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look it Up; review by Peter Thoneman in the TLS.
- Julie Fenster's Jefferson's America; review by Karin Altenberg in the WSJ.
- Matt Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by John Gilbey in the THE.
- Over at The Collation, Meaghan Brown posts about assigning genres to early modern plays for the Folger's Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama.
- Barbara Basbanes Richter reports for the Fine Books Blog on the Met's recent symposium on American publishers' bookbindings.
- The Bodleian Library announced their purchases from last December's Pirie sale.
- Denis Joachim's major collection of rare books, art, and photographs will be sold over three days in Melbourne (19–21 June).
- A single buyer purchased all four Shakespeare folios (not, as the Press Association piece says, Shakespeare's "first four books") on the block at Christie's this week, for just under £2.5 million.
- Scott Reyburn reports for the NYTimes on another Christie's sale from this week: that of some thirty medieval manuscripts from the collection of Maurice Burrus.
- In the Dublin Inquirer, Louisa McGrath highlights the manuscript diary of the first Keeper of Marsh's Library.
- A new twist to the adult coloring book trend: Alison Flood writes for the Guardian about the coming republication of a series of 17th-century maps originally issued to accompany Michael Drayton's Poly-Obion.
- T.S. Eliot's rejection letter for Animal Farm has been making the rounds this week: it was among the items selected for the British Library's Discovering Literature: 20th Century online collection.
Reviews
- Denis Boyle's Everything Explained That Is Explainable; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Jill Lepore's Joe Gould's Teeth; review by Karen Long in the LATimes.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look it Up; review by Peter Thoneman in the TLS.
- Julie Fenster's Jefferson's America; review by Karin Altenberg in the WSJ.
- Matt Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review by John Gilbey in the THE.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Links & Reviews
Lots of catching up to do: since my last I had the great pleasure and honoring of addressing the annual meeting of the Ticknor Society in Boston on the friendship between Thomas Jefferson and George Ticknor. The annual meeting was held at the Massachusetts Historical Society, where Ticknorites had the opportunity to view the excellent current exhibition, "The Private Jefferson" (which I commend to anyone who can get there to view it before it closes on 26 May). While in Boston I also got to make my semi-annual visits to the Brattle Book Shop and Commonwealth Books, and was able to work in a little research time at MHS (more about that latter soon; I located something I'm quite excited to share). All that plus a laptop meltdown! If I missed anything vital in this catch-up post, please don't hesitate to send it along.
- A copy of the "Plannck II" Columbus Letter donated to the Library of Congress in 2004 was repatriated to Italy this week; it had been stolen from the Riccardiana Library in Florence and replaced with a photographic facsimile. The letter was subsequently sold at Christie's in 1992 (lot description). See: Department of Justice press release; seizure warrant (this makes for fascinating reading - boy would I like to see what's underneath those redaction lines!); Elisabetta Povoledo's NYTimes article. For more: La Repubblica (in Italian); Italian Cultural Ministry statement (in Italian); LATimes. (Thanks to Nick Wilding and others for posting on ExLibris about this story). Volker Schroder also linked to a bookseller's description of the letter from before the 1992 Christie's sale.
- Jill Bourne, city librarian at the San Jose Public Library, will be the new president of the Boston Public Library.
- RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, is now officially fully open-access.
- Erin Blake has a great two-part series at The Collation this week: "Physical description in book cataloging," and "Signature statements in book cataloging."
- Christie's will sell a copy of the true first edition of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland on 16 June. More from the Fine Books Blog. Coming up on the same day, also at Christie's, Neal Cassady's famed letter to Jack Kerouac (more on this from Jennifer Schuessler in the NYTimes).
- Lara Putnam's American Historical Review article "The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast" is currently available via the AHR.
- A 15-year-old's collection of more than 200 Apple computers may become the cornerstone of a planned Maine Technology Museum.
- Jerome McGann's ADE keynote, "Exceptional Measures: The Human Sciences in STEM Worlds," is now available online.
- An 11th-century letter known as the last surviving work of Chinese scholar Zeng Gong has set a new record price for an example of Chinese calligraphy, the BBC reports, selling for $32 million at a Beijing auction. The buyer was film mogul Wang Zhongjun.
- Last month the Princeton History Department hosted what looks like a great two-day conference in honor of Sidney Lapidus: "Fighting Words: Polemical Literature in the Age of Democratic Revolutions."
- Skinner is holding an online auction of fine books and manuscripts, which runs through 26 May.
- Matt Kirschenbaum has a short piece for the Paris Review: "Picturing the literary history of word processing."
- A manuscript Dutch East India Company map of the Java Sea from 1743 is coming up for auction at Swann Galleries.
- Tim Parks' T Magazine piece on the Corsini family archive is very much worth a read.
- In "A Melville Marginalia Mystery," NYPL's Thomas Lannon interviews Dawn Coleman about some erased Melville marginal notations she's been working on sussing out.
- At Smithsonian, Marissa Fessenden offers a brief history of traveling with books.
- Report is a little spotty, but "Ukraine Today" reports that a 1574 volume printed by Ivan Fedorov was stolen from Ukraine's Vernadsay National Library.
- NPR's "Parallels" reports on the ongoing work on the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.
- Mitch Fraas has a post up at Unique at Penn about a volume of government documents possibly once owned by Alexander Hamilton.
- Eric White writes for Princeton's Notabilia blog about the recent discovery that one of Princeton's copies of the 1545 Greek Bible bears the annotations of Martin Chemnitz.
- Digitized copies of the Boston Athenaeum's exhibitions catalogues from 1950 through the present are now available via the Athenaeum's website.
- From Atlas Obscura, Cara Giaimo profiles archaeological linguist Nora White and her work on Ireland's "Ogham" alphabet.
- New to me (and thanks to Tess Goodman for sending it along): a 1969 Paris Review interview with E. B. White.
- Friday, 20 May marked the premiere of a new opera, "The Book Collector." Ernest Hilbert of Bauman Rare Books wrote the libretto.
Reviews
- Bronwen Riley's The Edge of Empire; review by Jan Morris in the NYTimes.
- Nathaniel Philbrick's Valiant Ambition; reviews by David Waldstreicher in the NYTimes and Carol Berkin in the WaPo.
- Mark Kurlansky's Paper; review by Anthony Grafton in the NYTimes.
- Norma Clarke's Brothers of the Quill; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Carla Mulford's Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire and George Goodwin's Benjamin Franklin in London; review by T. H. Breen in the TLS.
- Michael Canfield's Theodore Roosevelt in the Field; review by Peter Coates in the TLS.
- A copy of the "Plannck II" Columbus Letter donated to the Library of Congress in 2004 was repatriated to Italy this week; it had been stolen from the Riccardiana Library in Florence and replaced with a photographic facsimile. The letter was subsequently sold at Christie's in 1992 (lot description). See: Department of Justice press release; seizure warrant (this makes for fascinating reading - boy would I like to see what's underneath those redaction lines!); Elisabetta Povoledo's NYTimes article. For more: La Repubblica (in Italian); Italian Cultural Ministry statement (in Italian); LATimes. (Thanks to Nick Wilding and others for posting on ExLibris about this story). Volker Schroder also linked to a bookseller's description of the letter from before the 1992 Christie's sale.
- Jill Bourne, city librarian at the San Jose Public Library, will be the new president of the Boston Public Library.
- RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, is now officially fully open-access.
- Erin Blake has a great two-part series at The Collation this week: "Physical description in book cataloging," and "Signature statements in book cataloging."
- Christie's will sell a copy of the true first edition of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland on 16 June. More from the Fine Books Blog. Coming up on the same day, also at Christie's, Neal Cassady's famed letter to Jack Kerouac (more on this from Jennifer Schuessler in the NYTimes).
- Lara Putnam's American Historical Review article "The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast" is currently available via the AHR.
- A 15-year-old's collection of more than 200 Apple computers may become the cornerstone of a planned Maine Technology Museum.
- Jerome McGann's ADE keynote, "Exceptional Measures: The Human Sciences in STEM Worlds," is now available online.
- An 11th-century letter known as the last surviving work of Chinese scholar Zeng Gong has set a new record price for an example of Chinese calligraphy, the BBC reports, selling for $32 million at a Beijing auction. The buyer was film mogul Wang Zhongjun.
- Last month the Princeton History Department hosted what looks like a great two-day conference in honor of Sidney Lapidus: "Fighting Words: Polemical Literature in the Age of Democratic Revolutions."
- Skinner is holding an online auction of fine books and manuscripts, which runs through 26 May.
- Matt Kirschenbaum has a short piece for the Paris Review: "Picturing the literary history of word processing."
- A manuscript Dutch East India Company map of the Java Sea from 1743 is coming up for auction at Swann Galleries.
- Tim Parks' T Magazine piece on the Corsini family archive is very much worth a read.
- In "A Melville Marginalia Mystery," NYPL's Thomas Lannon interviews Dawn Coleman about some erased Melville marginal notations she's been working on sussing out.
- At Smithsonian, Marissa Fessenden offers a brief history of traveling with books.
- Report is a little spotty, but "Ukraine Today" reports that a 1574 volume printed by Ivan Fedorov was stolen from Ukraine's Vernadsay National Library.
- NPR's "Parallels" reports on the ongoing work on the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.
- Mitch Fraas has a post up at Unique at Penn about a volume of government documents possibly once owned by Alexander Hamilton.
- Eric White writes for Princeton's Notabilia blog about the recent discovery that one of Princeton's copies of the 1545 Greek Bible bears the annotations of Martin Chemnitz.
- Digitized copies of the Boston Athenaeum's exhibitions catalogues from 1950 through the present are now available via the Athenaeum's website.
- From Atlas Obscura, Cara Giaimo profiles archaeological linguist Nora White and her work on Ireland's "Ogham" alphabet.
- New to me (and thanks to Tess Goodman for sending it along): a 1969 Paris Review interview with E. B. White.
- Friday, 20 May marked the premiere of a new opera, "The Book Collector." Ernest Hilbert of Bauman Rare Books wrote the libretto.
Reviews
- Bronwen Riley's The Edge of Empire; review by Jan Morris in the NYTimes.
- Nathaniel Philbrick's Valiant Ambition; reviews by David Waldstreicher in the NYTimes and Carol Berkin in the WaPo.
- Mark Kurlansky's Paper; review by Anthony Grafton in the NYTimes.
- Norma Clarke's Brothers of the Quill; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Carla Mulford's Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire and George Goodwin's Benjamin Franklin in London; review by T. H. Breen in the TLS.
- Michael Canfield's Theodore Roosevelt in the Field; review by Peter Coates in the TLS.
Sunday, May 08, 2016
Links & Reviews
- The Bodleian Library has acquired the Tolkien-annotated map of Middle Earth found last year.
- An Isaac Newton manuscript on Christianity and faith will be sold at PBA Galleries on 2 June.
- Matthew Kirschenbaum talked to Craig Fehrman of the Boston Globe about his new book Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing.
- John Jay's manuscript copy of "Federalist No. 2" has been identified at the Brooklyn Historical Society (where the staff didn't know this particular manuscript had been considered missing by editors).
- At The Collation, Paul Dingman takes a look at early modern account books.
- Launched this week, Women in Book History, an online bibliography that "lists secondary sources on women's writing and participation in the book trades."
- From Zoe Abrams Rare Books, "Lesson No. 1: Trust Your Instincts."
- Carl Montford writes for the APHA blog about printing from some original Bewick wood engraving blocks.
- A Napoleonic War manuscript diary was discovered amongst a storage cabinet full of unsorted books in a Hobart, Tasmania bookshop.
- Scholars argue about Shakespeare play.
- Via Dave Gary, Forbes is experimenting with putting video ad-players in their print magazine.
- New writings by Walt Whitman, a series of men's health columns, were identified by a University of Houston grad student. More from the NYTimes.
- Ted Underwood's "Versions of disciplinary history" is a good overview of the recent and ongoing arguments about "digital humanities." As he writes, "The good thing about DH is, it creates a lively community that crosses disciplinary lines to exchange ideas. The bad thing is, it also creates a community that crosses disciplinary lines to fight pointlessly over the meaning of 'digital humanities'."
- Alison Flood has more the Audubon hoax I mentioned recently, in a Guardian report.
Reviews
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing; review by Josephine Livingstone in TNR.
- J. Gerald Kennedy's Strange Nation; review by Michael Livingston in the WaPo.
- Letters of a Dead Man, edited by Linda B. Parshall; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Martin Seay's The Mirror Thief; review by Michael Magras at BookPage.
- Robert Michael Morrissey's Empire by Collaboration; review by Robert Englebert at Early Canadian History.
- Michael Patrick Lynch's The Internet of Us; review essay by David Weinberger in the LARB.
- An Isaac Newton manuscript on Christianity and faith will be sold at PBA Galleries on 2 June.
- Matthew Kirschenbaum talked to Craig Fehrman of the Boston Globe about his new book Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing.
- John Jay's manuscript copy of "Federalist No. 2" has been identified at the Brooklyn Historical Society (where the staff didn't know this particular manuscript had been considered missing by editors).
- At The Collation, Paul Dingman takes a look at early modern account books.
- Launched this week, Women in Book History, an online bibliography that "lists secondary sources on women's writing and participation in the book trades."
- From Zoe Abrams Rare Books, "Lesson No. 1: Trust Your Instincts."
- Carl Montford writes for the APHA blog about printing from some original Bewick wood engraving blocks.
- A Napoleonic War manuscript diary was discovered amongst a storage cabinet full of unsorted books in a Hobart, Tasmania bookshop.
- Scholars argue about Shakespeare play.
- Via Dave Gary, Forbes is experimenting with putting video ad-players in their print magazine.
- New writings by Walt Whitman, a series of men's health columns, were identified by a University of Houston grad student. More from the NYTimes.
- Ted Underwood's "Versions of disciplinary history" is a good overview of the recent and ongoing arguments about "digital humanities." As he writes, "The good thing about DH is, it creates a lively community that crosses disciplinary lines to exchange ideas. The bad thing is, it also creates a community that crosses disciplinary lines to fight pointlessly over the meaning of 'digital humanities'."
- Alison Flood has more the Audubon hoax I mentioned recently, in a Guardian report.
Reviews
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing; review by Josephine Livingstone in TNR.
- J. Gerald Kennedy's Strange Nation; review by Michael Livingston in the WaPo.
- Letters of a Dead Man, edited by Linda B. Parshall; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Martin Seay's The Mirror Thief; review by Michael Magras at BookPage.
- Robert Michael Morrissey's Empire by Collaboration; review by Robert Englebert at Early Canadian History.
- Michael Patrick Lynch's The Internet of Us; review essay by David Weinberger in the LARB.
Sunday, May 01, 2016
Links & Reviews
The 4th Annual Virginia Antiquarian Book Fair was held this Friday and Saturday at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. If you have a chance to get to this one next year, give it a try: the venue is quite nice, admission is free, and there were some really interesting books and ephemera to be had.
- Rick Ring has edited a selection of Lawrence C. Wroth's "Notes for Bibliophiles" column and the volume is now available from Scott Vile's Ascensius Press.
- Over at medievalbooks, a look at the evolution of several forms of medieval scripts, including an image of a ~1450 advertising sheet for different types of script.
- Folger conservator Austin Planncurley writes for The Collation about creating a replica of John Wilkes Booth's diary for the current Folger exhibit, America's Shakespeare.
- The May Rare Book Monthly is out, with Bruce McKinney's report on the New York Book Fair and an open letter from McKinney to the president/executive producer of the Armory, a piece by Michael Stillman on the ongoing dispute over Maurice Sendak's estate, and a report on a comics book heist in Macon, Georgia.
- The Kislak Center at Penn has issued a call for papers for a March 2017 interdisciplinary conference, "To the Ends of the Earth."
- Jonathan Kearns has posted his look back at the New York shadow shows.
- The Shakespeare's Beehive authors were interviewed for "CBS Sunday Morning" last weekend. The interview also includes comments from Heather Wolfe and Michael Witmore of the Folger, and the news that Koppelman and Wechsler have loaned the volume to the Folger for study.
- Manuscript Road Trip heads to Newfoundland this week to survey the manuscripts at Memorial University in St. John's.
- Liam Moloney writes for the WSJ on the recent renovations to the Vatican's Gallery of Maps.
- The New York Library for the Performing Arts has digitized its collection of Shakespeare prompt-books.
- A new electronic catalog of 15th-century printed books is now available.
- Harvard's Weissman Preservation Center is highlighted in the Harvard Gazette.
- Peter Harrington is exhibiting (and selling) a remarkable collection of Alice in Wonderland-related rare books. Boudicca Fox-Leonard reports for the Telegraph.
- Library of Congress catalogers write about 18th-century medley prints for the Picture This blog.
- British Library conservator Flavio Marzo reports on some 2005 work he did on the 1603 Montaigne volume which is thought to contain a Shakespeare signature.
- Erik Ofgang writes about the Voynich Manuscript for Connecticut magazine, featuring lots of comments from Beinecke curator Ray Clemens.
- From the BBC magazine, Sarah Dunant on the "lost art of reading other people's handwriting."
- A new animated Watership Down adaptation is coming next year from Netflix and the BBC.
- Maybe not bookish, but still terribly cool: workers digging for water lines near Seville found 1,300 pounds of uncirculated Roman coins.
- Bibliophile Paul Ruxin died in mid-April following a tragic accident. See the Chicago Tribune obituary or Jerry Morris' reflections for the Florida Bibliophile Society. I had the great pleasure to hear a talk by Mr. Ruxin at the Boston Public Library in 2007, and enjoyed the experience tremendously. My condolences to his family and to those who knew him.
Reviews
- The exhibition on John Dee's library at the Royal College of Physicians; review by Sara Charles for Reviews in History.
- Joshua Hammer's The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu; review by Ben Macintyre in the NYTimes.
- Peter Onuf and Annette Gordon Reed's Most Blessed of the Patriarchs; review by David O. Stewart in the WaPo.
- Nicholas Guyatt's Bind Us Apart; reviews by Eric Foner in the NYTimes and Mark G. Spencer in the WSJ.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look It Up; review by Micah Mattix in The New Criterion.
- Rick Ring has edited a selection of Lawrence C. Wroth's "Notes for Bibliophiles" column and the volume is now available from Scott Vile's Ascensius Press.
- Over at medievalbooks, a look at the evolution of several forms of medieval scripts, including an image of a ~1450 advertising sheet for different types of script.
- Folger conservator Austin Planncurley writes for The Collation about creating a replica of John Wilkes Booth's diary for the current Folger exhibit, America's Shakespeare.
- The May Rare Book Monthly is out, with Bruce McKinney's report on the New York Book Fair and an open letter from McKinney to the president/executive producer of the Armory, a piece by Michael Stillman on the ongoing dispute over Maurice Sendak's estate, and a report on a comics book heist in Macon, Georgia.
- The Kislak Center at Penn has issued a call for papers for a March 2017 interdisciplinary conference, "To the Ends of the Earth."
- Jonathan Kearns has posted his look back at the New York shadow shows.
- The Shakespeare's Beehive authors were interviewed for "CBS Sunday Morning" last weekend. The interview also includes comments from Heather Wolfe and Michael Witmore of the Folger, and the news that Koppelman and Wechsler have loaned the volume to the Folger for study.
- Manuscript Road Trip heads to Newfoundland this week to survey the manuscripts at Memorial University in St. John's.
- Liam Moloney writes for the WSJ on the recent renovations to the Vatican's Gallery of Maps.
- The New York Library for the Performing Arts has digitized its collection of Shakespeare prompt-books.
- A new electronic catalog of 15th-century printed books is now available.
- Harvard's Weissman Preservation Center is highlighted in the Harvard Gazette.
- Peter Harrington is exhibiting (and selling) a remarkable collection of Alice in Wonderland-related rare books. Boudicca Fox-Leonard reports for the Telegraph.
- Library of Congress catalogers write about 18th-century medley prints for the Picture This blog.
- British Library conservator Flavio Marzo reports on some 2005 work he did on the 1603 Montaigne volume which is thought to contain a Shakespeare signature.
- Erik Ofgang writes about the Voynich Manuscript for Connecticut magazine, featuring lots of comments from Beinecke curator Ray Clemens.
- From the BBC magazine, Sarah Dunant on the "lost art of reading other people's handwriting."
- A new animated Watership Down adaptation is coming next year from Netflix and the BBC.
- Maybe not bookish, but still terribly cool: workers digging for water lines near Seville found 1,300 pounds of uncirculated Roman coins.
- Bibliophile Paul Ruxin died in mid-April following a tragic accident. See the Chicago Tribune obituary or Jerry Morris' reflections for the Florida Bibliophile Society. I had the great pleasure to hear a talk by Mr. Ruxin at the Boston Public Library in 2007, and enjoyed the experience tremendously. My condolences to his family and to those who knew him.
Reviews
- The exhibition on John Dee's library at the Royal College of Physicians; review by Sara Charles for Reviews in History.
- Joshua Hammer's The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu; review by Ben Macintyre in the NYTimes.
- Peter Onuf and Annette Gordon Reed's Most Blessed of the Patriarchs; review by David O. Stewart in the WaPo.
- Nicholas Guyatt's Bind Us Apart; reviews by Eric Foner in the NYTimes and Mark G. Spencer in the WSJ.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look It Up; review by Micah Mattix in The New Criterion.
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