This year's Boston Book Fair certainly appeared to be a resounding success, and it was a real pleasure to have the chance to see so many friends and readers of the blog while enjoying the great variety of books on offer at the Fair. It was, of course, also a treat for me to be back in Boston and visit old stomping grounds (including the Brattle and Raven for books).
- It was on the train up to Boston that I learned that the Google Books decision had finally been handed down, and was basically a complete victory for Google on fair use grounds. Read Judge Denny Chin's decision, or read a rundown at Techdirt. Jessamyn West rounded up some excellent links on the decision as well, and there's yet another link collection here. Nathan Raab wrote for Forbes about the impact this decision, suggesting that it will further drive down the prices of used books (I'm not sure I entirely agree).
- Sotheby's will sell the Bay Psalm Book on Tuesday at 7 p.m. EST in New York. See the catalog for a full account of the sale (you'll also be able to watch the sale via that link). Jill Lepore has an op/ed in the NYTimes about the sale today. Harvard has had their copy out for display through 14 December. Richard Davies attended one of the displays of the book in Seattle, and wrote about the experience. Earlier this month James Barron previewed the sale for the NYTimes, with comments from (now former) Old South Church historian Jeff Makholm. Over at Rare Books Digest, speculation on who might buy the Bay Psalm book this week (they suggest it may well be billionaire collector Steve Green).
- In Standpoint, H.R. Woudhuysen writes about the Senate House "Folio Fiasco" and the lessons it offers for librarians. It's an excellent piece; read the whole thing.
- Barry Landau's accomplice Jason Savedoff was released from prison earlier this month, after serving a year of his sentence.
- Over at Plougshares, an interview with Leah Price in their "People of the Book" series.
- In honor of the three-hundredth anniversary of Laurence Sterne's birthday, Karen Harvey posts on the OUP blog about the manuscript history of Tristram Shandy.
- Whitney Trettien discusses her work on a prototype of a digital facsimile "edition" of a Little Gidding Harmony.
- Columbia University has acquired the archive of Granary Books.
- An 18th-century Haggadah up for auction next week could fetch up to £500,000.
- The Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive was officially opened at the Library of Congress on 12 November.
- Harvard's Colonial North America project involves digitizing a great deal of manuscript material from across the Harvard library system, reports the Harvard Gazette.
- Making the rounds this weekend, a horrifying post at Tech Technologies documenting the 2010 sale and subsequent dispersal of a Book of Hours by an eBay seller who's been taking the manuscript apart and selling it piecemeal. Scott Gwara passed along a link to Erik Drigsdahl's running list of dismembered manuscripts seen on eBay in recent years.
- The NYPL has acquired Tom Wolfe's papers for $2.15 million.
- Charles Dornan Davis, best known for his role as a major forger of Texas documents, died on 30 September, Everett Wilkie reported on Ex-Libris. See Tom Taylor's book Texfake for a full account of these forgeries; there's also a 1989 New York Times Magazine piece on the events.
- Jenny Lowe posted some updates to the Girolamini theft scandal this week: the Italian culture ministry has brought the church and library complex under the regional network of cultural institutions. The ministry has also pledged €10 to restore the site. Herbert Schauer, of the Munich auction house Zisska & Schauer, was extradited to Italy earlier this month. Trials for the conspirators have been postponed yet again. And ALAI president Fabrizio Govi has called on the Italian government to release a list of the stolen books (which may not be possible given that such a list doesn't seem to exist). Govi adds: "apparently the Italian authorities are not concerned with the production of the forgeries that De Caro has disseminated throughout the antiquarian book marketplace, especially in the United States. Our worry is that, if nobody will investigate further in this field, we will never know who physically produced those forged books, how many are still circulating, and, last but not least, how they were manufactured, in order that we might be better able to recognize them in the future. The apparent disinterest in investigating this process brings up the frightening prospect that these forgeries might continue to proliferate and appear on the market long after the authorities are no longer interested in the stolen books themselves."
- To mark the publication of the three-volume History of Oxford University Press, there were a series of interesting posts by Ian Gadd on the OUP blog: "Before Caxton? Claiming Oxford as England's first printing city", "When did Oxford University Press begin?" They also posted a slideshow of OUP-related images.
- Over at Booktryst, a profile of British type-cutter Richard Austin.
- Just over a year ago I linked to a report that scholars had identified the authors of marginalia in a 1635 Mercator Atlas at the JCB as John and Virginia Ferrar. Now Ferrar Papers editor David Ransome weighs in, suggesting that the writing is not that of Virginia at all, but merely several varieties of John's own handwriting.
- The National Book Awards for 2013 were announced this week.
- Eleanor Catton talked with the NYTimes about her Booker Prize-winning novel The Luminaries.
- New from the Department of Labor: Books that Shaped Work in America.
- Mary Norris blogged about a round of literary "Jeopardy!" at the launch of Tom Nissley's endlessly interested new book A Reader's Book of Days.
Reviews
- Doris Kearns Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit; review by Michiko Kakutani in the NYTimes.
- Arlette Farge's The Allure of the Archives; review by Michael Moore in the LA Review of Books.
- Richard Holmes' Falling Upwards; review by Paul Elie in the NYTimes.
- Nicholas Basbanes' On Paper; review by Peter Lewis at Barnes & Noble Review.
- Denise Spellberg's Thomas Jefferson's Qu'ran; review by Kirk Davis Swinehart in the NYTimes.
- Graham Robb's Discovery of Middle Earth; reviews by Ian Morris in the NYTimes and Wendy Smith in the LATimes.
- Owen Matthews' Glorious Misadventures; review by William Grimes in the NYTimes.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Links & Reviews
- Over at Slate, you an watch an 18-minute silent movie from 1925 about the making of the OED.
- The Internet Archive's San Francisco scanning center was badly damaged by a fire; there were no injuries or loss of material being scanned, though much equipment was destroyed. They're asking for donations to help them recover.
- Amazon brought belly laughs to indie booksellers all over the country this week when they announced that they planned to allow indies to sell Kindles. Melville House collected some of the best responses.
- Eric Kwakkel asks "Where are the scriptoria?" in medieval images.
- The Appendix has launched a new blog series called Magic Lantern, in which they will spotlight a particularly singular image. The inaugural example is an 1870s Japanese woodblock print of Audubon opening a box of his watercolors which had been eaten to pieces by rats.
- From Notabilia, a nice example of a paper ream wrapper being used as a component of pasteboard.
- Anna Baddeley profiled The Public Domain Review in The Guardian this week.
- The November AEMonthly is out; it includes a short piece on the resignation of the Senate House librarian over that attempted sale of Shakespeare Folios.
- Scott Brown of Eureka Books announced his purchase of the remaining stock of Serendipity Books in Berkeley, amounting to some 100,000 items. Much of this will be sold off at bargain sales over the next few weeks.
- ARCA CEO Lynda Albertson has a very thorough essay on the many questions raised by the discovery of a "lost horde" of Nazi-confiscated art.
- The McGregor Fund has pledged $245,000 to allow select materials from the Tracy W. McGregor Library for digitization and online presentation. The grant will also allow for metadata enhancements and other improvements.
- Jordan Goffin, Special Collections Librarian at Providence Public Library, is highlighted in the Bright Young Librarians series over at FB&C.
- Millions of documents from Bletchley Park are to be digitized and made available online.
- As we wait for the Bay Psalm Book sale later this month, the BL's Head of Hispanic Studies points out that there was a press at Mexico City nearly a century earlier and highlights some of the earliest printing in the Americas. And over on the Sotheby's blog, a very worthwhile post on "Printing the Bay Psalm Book."
- The NYTimes published a roundup of authors' views on how the internet has changed storytelling.
- Raymond Scott confessed to the theft of the Durham University First Folio shortly before he was acquitted of the charge, according to a report in the Sunday Sun tabloid. The confession is to be detailed in a book by Mike Kelly, Shakespeare & Love, scheduled for publication later this month (and, it should be noted, Scott told Kelly in a subsequent text message that he was just joking).
- The record for the longest book domino chain was recently broken at the Antwerp Book Fair. Video here.
- The library school program at Southern Connecticut State University has lost its ALA accreditation.
- Nick Basbanes talked to Jackie Atkins about On Paper for The Philadelphia Junto.
Reviews
- Simon Winchester's The Men Who United The States; review by Stephen Mihm in the NYTimes.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Joanna Scutts in the WaPo.
- Keith Houston's Shady Characters; review by Jon Day in the Telegraph.
- Doris Kearns Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit; review by Heather Cox Richardson in the WaPo.
- Tom Standage's Writing on the Wall; review by Frank Rose in the NYTimes.
- The Internet Archive's San Francisco scanning center was badly damaged by a fire; there were no injuries or loss of material being scanned, though much equipment was destroyed. They're asking for donations to help them recover.
- Amazon brought belly laughs to indie booksellers all over the country this week when they announced that they planned to allow indies to sell Kindles. Melville House collected some of the best responses.
- Eric Kwakkel asks "Where are the scriptoria?" in medieval images.
- The Appendix has launched a new blog series called Magic Lantern, in which they will spotlight a particularly singular image. The inaugural example is an 1870s Japanese woodblock print of Audubon opening a box of his watercolors which had been eaten to pieces by rats.
- From Notabilia, a nice example of a paper ream wrapper being used as a component of pasteboard.
- Anna Baddeley profiled The Public Domain Review in The Guardian this week.
- The November AEMonthly is out; it includes a short piece on the resignation of the Senate House librarian over that attempted sale of Shakespeare Folios.
- Scott Brown of Eureka Books announced his purchase of the remaining stock of Serendipity Books in Berkeley, amounting to some 100,000 items. Much of this will be sold off at bargain sales over the next few weeks.
- ARCA CEO Lynda Albertson has a very thorough essay on the many questions raised by the discovery of a "lost horde" of Nazi-confiscated art.
- The McGregor Fund has pledged $245,000 to allow select materials from the Tracy W. McGregor Library for digitization and online presentation. The grant will also allow for metadata enhancements and other improvements.
- Jordan Goffin, Special Collections Librarian at Providence Public Library, is highlighted in the Bright Young Librarians series over at FB&C.
- Millions of documents from Bletchley Park are to be digitized and made available online.
- As we wait for the Bay Psalm Book sale later this month, the BL's Head of Hispanic Studies points out that there was a press at Mexico City nearly a century earlier and highlights some of the earliest printing in the Americas. And over on the Sotheby's blog, a very worthwhile post on "Printing the Bay Psalm Book."
- The NYTimes published a roundup of authors' views on how the internet has changed storytelling.
- Raymond Scott confessed to the theft of the Durham University First Folio shortly before he was acquitted of the charge, according to a report in the Sunday Sun tabloid. The confession is to be detailed in a book by Mike Kelly, Shakespeare & Love, scheduled for publication later this month (and, it should be noted, Scott told Kelly in a subsequent text message that he was just joking).
- The record for the longest book domino chain was recently broken at the Antwerp Book Fair. Video here.
- The library school program at Southern Connecticut State University has lost its ALA accreditation.
- Nick Basbanes talked to Jackie Atkins about On Paper for The Philadelphia Junto.
Reviews
- Simon Winchester's The Men Who United The States; review by Stephen Mihm in the NYTimes.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Joanna Scutts in the WaPo.
- Keith Houston's Shady Characters; review by Jon Day in the Telegraph.
- Doris Kearns Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit; review by Heather Cox Richardson in the WaPo.
- Tom Standage's Writing on the Wall; review by Frank Rose in the NYTimes.
Sunday, November 03, 2013
Book Review: "Bland Beginning"
Why yes, yes there is a mystery novel based on the T.J. Wise forgeries. Julian Symons' Bland Beginning (or as it is sometimes titled, Bland Beginnings), first published in 1949, is a schlock-filled romp (think P.G. Wodehouse plus Agatha Christie, but not all that well written). But it's full of interesting details about the Wise forgeries and Carter and Pollard's enquiries into them, making it absolutely worth the few hours it takes to read it.
Friday, November 01, 2013
Links & Reviews
One of these days I will catch up and get back to a regular schedule ...
- There was an appeal hearing this week in the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust case; Kenneth Crews of Columbia attended and has posted his notes.
- From the BBC, a "Living Online" report from the Folger Shakespeare Library on its digitization plans and strategies.
- Our friend George Psalmanazar is profiled by Benjamin Breen in The Appendix (drawn from his JEMH article here).
- There's a new CLIR report, Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories. Naturally the report is web-only, but it's available for free download here.
- The Albion iron hand press used by William Morris to print the Kelmscott Chaucer will be sold at Christie's New York on 6 December, with an estimate of $100,000-150,000.
- Dan De Simone has been announced as the next Eric Weinmann Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
- Newly digitized at Penn, a 1785 mss. inventory of Nicola Rossi's collection of early printed books and manuscripts. See also the later printed version [via Mitch Fraas].
- At the Centre for Material Texts blog, Jason Scott-Warren writes about his hunt for the 850 books of Elizabethan reader William Neile.
- Paul Collins' next book will be Blood & Ivy: The True Story of Money, Murder & the Trial That Shocked Harvard, about the Parkman-Webster murder. It'll be published by Norton and out in 2016.
- The DPLA has announced a million-dollar grant program from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to train public librarians in digitization, metadata creation, and digital technologies.
- Joseph Thomas recently wrote a fascinating piece for Slate on why his biography of Shel Silverstein may never see print.
- At Forbes, Tim Worstall on how Barnes & Noble is suddenly Amazon's biggest roadblock when it comes to getting the books they're publishing in front of readers.
- Nick Basbanes talked about his new book On Paper with Britannica editor Gregory McNamee, with Publishers Weekly's Michael M. Jones (here), and on the Diane Rehm Show (here).
- Nigel Beale has posted an interview with Bill Reese on collecting and selling books.
- In The New Yorker, Annette Gordon-Reed discusses the new "12 Years a Slave" movie and slave narratives as historical evidence.
- A Chicago man who discovered papers related to Richard T. Greener (the first black graduate of Harvard) told a Chicago newspaper that he would "roast and burn" the papers if Harvard didn't offer more money for them.
- The Getty Research Institute has released another 5,400 artwork images into its Open Content Program (bringing the total up to 10,000+).
- The Guardian is running a series of essays on "The 100 Best Novels," which so far have been very much worth reading.
- SHARP seeks editors for Book History.
- Peter Kirwan, an editor for a new volume titled Collaborative Plays by William Shakespeare & Others, writes very cogently about what the volume is designed to do and present.
- Houghton Library curator John Overholt recently appeared on the "You're the Expert" podcast, which makes for highly entertaining listening.
- Robert Darnton discussed "the future of books" with Memphis Flyer reporter Leonard Gill.
- New at Houghton, Kepler's Ad Rerum Coelestium Amatores Universos, the rarest of Kepler's works (just four copies are known).
- APHA has launched a blog on its new homepage. Recommended (even if it does not, at the moment, appear to be RSS-able, which is a bummer, and on which I will be happy to be corrected if someone can send me the feed URL Update: feed is at http://printinghistory.org/feed/).
- There's a new (and quite nice) version of the USTC site. More from Jim Hinck here.
- From Mitch Fraas at Mapping Books, an early look at mapping library markings from looted books.
- Denise Spellberg talked to NPR recently about her book Thomas Jefferson's Qu'ran.
- Keith Houston, whose book Shady Characters I enjoyed very much this fall, has announced that he's now at work on The Book: A Cover to Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time (to be published by Norton in 2015).
- At Medieval Fragments, a few treasure bindings to feast your eyes upon.
- The University of Melbourne has purchased the literary archives of Germaine Greer for ~$3 million, with proceeds going to rainforest restoration efforts.
- New at AAS, the only(?) issue of The Franklin, an early Washington periodical flop.
- From Jordan Goffin at Notes for Bibliophiles, an excellent reminder that, as he writes, "rare materials require the use of all five senses."
- Rebecca Rego Barry highlights the publication of An Inspiration to All Who Enter: Fifty Works from Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale University Press).
- The University of Illinois has acquired the literary archives of Gwendolyn Brooks.
- At Manuscript Road Trip, a consideration of Otto Ege and his biblioclasm.
- Irene O'Daly writes on images of medieval scribes at work over at Medieval Fragments.
- From the Bright Young Librarians series, Meghan Constantinou of the Grolier Club and Jordan Goffin of the Providence Public Library.
- Over at Typefoundry, James Mosley explores the history of @.
- New at Exeter Working Papers in Book History, a series of posts outlining the library contents of Sabine Baring-Gould.
- There was an appeal hearing this week in the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust case; Kenneth Crews of Columbia attended and has posted his notes.
- From the BBC, a "Living Online" report from the Folger Shakespeare Library on its digitization plans and strategies.
- Our friend George Psalmanazar is profiled by Benjamin Breen in The Appendix (drawn from his JEMH article here).
- There's a new CLIR report, Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories. Naturally the report is web-only, but it's available for free download here.
- The Albion iron hand press used by William Morris to print the Kelmscott Chaucer will be sold at Christie's New York on 6 December, with an estimate of $100,000-150,000.
- Dan De Simone has been announced as the next Eric Weinmann Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
- Newly digitized at Penn, a 1785 mss. inventory of Nicola Rossi's collection of early printed books and manuscripts. See also the later printed version [via Mitch Fraas].
- At the Centre for Material Texts blog, Jason Scott-Warren writes about his hunt for the 850 books of Elizabethan reader William Neile.
- Paul Collins' next book will be Blood & Ivy: The True Story of Money, Murder & the Trial That Shocked Harvard, about the Parkman-Webster murder. It'll be published by Norton and out in 2016.
- The DPLA has announced a million-dollar grant program from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to train public librarians in digitization, metadata creation, and digital technologies.
- Joseph Thomas recently wrote a fascinating piece for Slate on why his biography of Shel Silverstein may never see print.
- At Forbes, Tim Worstall on how Barnes & Noble is suddenly Amazon's biggest roadblock when it comes to getting the books they're publishing in front of readers.
- Nick Basbanes talked about his new book On Paper with Britannica editor Gregory McNamee, with Publishers Weekly's Michael M. Jones (here), and on the Diane Rehm Show (here).
- Nigel Beale has posted an interview with Bill Reese on collecting and selling books.
- In The New Yorker, Annette Gordon-Reed discusses the new "12 Years a Slave" movie and slave narratives as historical evidence.
- A Chicago man who discovered papers related to Richard T. Greener (the first black graduate of Harvard) told a Chicago newspaper that he would "roast and burn" the papers if Harvard didn't offer more money for them.
- The Getty Research Institute has released another 5,400 artwork images into its Open Content Program (bringing the total up to 10,000+).
- The Guardian is running a series of essays on "The 100 Best Novels," which so far have been very much worth reading.
- SHARP seeks editors for Book History.
- Peter Kirwan, an editor for a new volume titled Collaborative Plays by William Shakespeare & Others, writes very cogently about what the volume is designed to do and present.
- Houghton Library curator John Overholt recently appeared on the "You're the Expert" podcast, which makes for highly entertaining listening.
- Robert Darnton discussed "the future of books" with Memphis Flyer reporter Leonard Gill.
- New at Houghton, Kepler's Ad Rerum Coelestium Amatores Universos, the rarest of Kepler's works (just four copies are known).
- APHA has launched a blog on its new homepage. Recommended (
- There's a new (and quite nice) version of the USTC site. More from Jim Hinck here.
- From Mitch Fraas at Mapping Books, an early look at mapping library markings from looted books.
- Denise Spellberg talked to NPR recently about her book Thomas Jefferson's Qu'ran.
- Keith Houston, whose book Shady Characters I enjoyed very much this fall, has announced that he's now at work on The Book: A Cover to Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time (to be published by Norton in 2015).
- At Medieval Fragments, a few treasure bindings to feast your eyes upon.
- The University of Melbourne has purchased the literary archives of Germaine Greer for ~$3 million, with proceeds going to rainforest restoration efforts.
- New at AAS, the only(?) issue of The Franklin, an early Washington periodical flop.
- From Jordan Goffin at Notes for Bibliophiles, an excellent reminder that, as he writes, "rare materials require the use of all five senses."
- Rebecca Rego Barry highlights the publication of An Inspiration to All Who Enter: Fifty Works from Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale University Press).
- The University of Illinois has acquired the literary archives of Gwendolyn Brooks.
- At Manuscript Road Trip, a consideration of Otto Ege and his biblioclasm.
- Irene O'Daly writes on images of medieval scribes at work over at Medieval Fragments.
- From the Bright Young Librarians series, Meghan Constantinou of the Grolier Club and Jordan Goffin of the Providence Public Library.
- Over at Typefoundry, James Mosley explores the history of @.
- New at Exeter Working Papers in Book History, a series of posts outlining the library contents of Sabine Baring-Gould.
- Jennifer Schuessler covered the launch of the Emily Dickinson Archive, including a look at the continuing tensions between Amherst and Harvard over the Dickinson materials in their collections. More on that from Sarah Schweitzer in the Boston Globe.
- McGill University has launched an exhibit to display select items from the J. Patrick Lee Collection of Voltaire, newly acquired by the university library.
- At Booktryst, a look at the manuscript of George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, going on the block at Christie's on 14 November.
- In The New Yorker, Paul Collins examines what may be some early Poe works through the lens of computer-based textual analysis.
- Reading Copy asked booksellers Bill Reese and Allen Stypeck for their predictions about the Bay Psalm Book sale on 26 November. In a later post, Richard Davies asks "Who Will Buy the Bay Psalm Book?"
- At Booktryst, a look at the manuscript of George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, going on the block at Christie's on 14 November.
- In The New Yorker, Paul Collins examines what may be some early Poe works through the lens of computer-based textual analysis.
- Reading Copy asked booksellers Bill Reese and Allen Stypeck for their predictions about the Bay Psalm Book sale on 26 November. In a later post, Richard Davies asks "Who Will Buy the Bay Psalm Book?"
- Ron Charles highlights the launch of the new Shelley-Godwin Archive. More here from the NYTimes.
Reviews
- Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries; review by Janet Maslin in the NYTimes.
- Alan Jacobs' The Book of Common Prayer; review by Adam Shields at Bookwi.se.
- Alan Jacobs' The Book of Common Prayer; review by Adam Shields at Bookwi.se.
- A. Scott Berg's Wilson; review by Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
- Miles Hollingworth's St. Augustine of Hippo; review by Cole Moreton in the Telegraph.
- Miles Hollingworth's St. Augustine of Hippo; review by Cole Moreton in the Telegraph.
- James WP Campbell's The Library: A World History; review by Clive Aslet in the Telegraph.
- Jeff Greenfield's If Kennedy Lived; reviews by H.W. Brands in the WaPo and John Timpane in the Philly Inquirer.
- Nick Basbanes' On Paper; review by Helen Gallagher in the New York Journal of Books.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Mary Beth Norton in the NYTimes.
- Nick Basbanes' On Paper; review by Helen Gallagher in the New York Journal of Books.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Mary Beth Norton in the NYTimes.
- Richard A. Serrano's Last of the Blue and Gray; review by Scott Martelle in the LATimes.
Sunday, October 06, 2013
Links & Reviews
- Just weeks after a plan to sell four Shakespeare folios was abandoned after a vociferous international outcry, the director of the Senate House libraries, Christopher Pressler, resigned this week. The Telegraph reported that Pressler had "admitted breaching financial rules by not disclosing his relationship with an employee at Bonhams, appointed to oversee the sale."
- A Vermont man has pleaded guilty to the theft of Robert Frost letters and Christmas cards from a desk donated to a White River Junction thrift store. Tim Bernaby has maintained that he took the letters from a trash can rather than from the desk, and he sold them for $25,000. The charge to which he pled guilty, unlawful taking of personal property, carries a $100 fine. A civil suit which will determine the rightful owner of the letters is pending.
- At The Junto, Sara Georgini interviews Molly O'Hagan Hardy, new Digital Humanities Curator at the American Antiquarian Society.
- Speaking of AAS, I was absolutely delighted to get word this week that the AAS Proceedings from 1880 through 2008 are now available on the Society's website. I hope to have more to say about these fairly soon.
- Rebecca Rosen recently visited the Folger Library and has written up a "Brief Tour of the Digital Delights" for The Atlantic.
- From Sue Lonoff de Cuevas at Harper's, a close reading of the Bronte sisters' French homework.
- The Library Company of Philadelphia has acquired Joe Freedman's collection of Philadelphia ephemera, comprising some 900 items.
- New from Heather Wolfe at The Collation, a new scholarly edition of piracy depositions from the Bacon-Townshend collection.
- In the LA Review of Books this week, Daniel Hernandez explores a new theory (offered by bookseller Kevin Mac Donnell, in fact) on the origin of the name "Mark Twain."
- Over at The Public Domain Review, Phillippe Blom argues for Diderot's importance as we mark the tercentenary of the philosopher's birth.
- The Harvard Libraries have started a pilot program to scan key content at the point of accessioning or cataloging. Read about the project here.
- Over at the John Rylands Library blog, a look at marginalia.
- The folks responsible for the great Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project are requesting input from users about additional information you'd like to see as part of the interface.
- Profiled in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series this week, University of Iowa Special Collections Librarian Patrick Olson.
Reviews
- Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things; reviews by Janet Maslin in the NYTimes and Jane Shilling in the Telegraph.
- Mark Cocker and David Tipling's Birds and People; review by Jeremy Mynott in the TLS.
- Roderick Beaton's Byron's War; review by Emily A. Bernhard Jackson in the TLS.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Julia M. Klein in the Boston Globe.
- Denise Spellberg's Thomas Jefferson's Qu'ran; review by R.B. Bernstein at The Daily Beast.
- Dara Horn's A Guide for the Perplexed; review by Saul Austerlitz in the Boston Globe.
- Frank Prochaska's The Memoirs of Walter Bagehot; review by George Selgin in the WSJ.
- Peter Ackroyd's Three Brothers; review by Mark Sanderson in the Telegraph.
- Nick Basbanes' On Paper; review in Kirkus.
- The Morgan Library and Museum's exhibit "Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul"; review by Charles McGrath in the NYTimes.
- A Vermont man has pleaded guilty to the theft of Robert Frost letters and Christmas cards from a desk donated to a White River Junction thrift store. Tim Bernaby has maintained that he took the letters from a trash can rather than from the desk, and he sold them for $25,000. The charge to which he pled guilty, unlawful taking of personal property, carries a $100 fine. A civil suit which will determine the rightful owner of the letters is pending.
- At The Junto, Sara Georgini interviews Molly O'Hagan Hardy, new Digital Humanities Curator at the American Antiquarian Society.
- Speaking of AAS, I was absolutely delighted to get word this week that the AAS Proceedings from 1880 through 2008 are now available on the Society's website. I hope to have more to say about these fairly soon.
- Rebecca Rosen recently visited the Folger Library and has written up a "Brief Tour of the Digital Delights" for The Atlantic.
- From Sue Lonoff de Cuevas at Harper's, a close reading of the Bronte sisters' French homework.
- The Library Company of Philadelphia has acquired Joe Freedman's collection of Philadelphia ephemera, comprising some 900 items.
- New from Heather Wolfe at The Collation, a new scholarly edition of piracy depositions from the Bacon-Townshend collection.
- In the LA Review of Books this week, Daniel Hernandez explores a new theory (offered by bookseller Kevin Mac Donnell, in fact) on the origin of the name "Mark Twain."
- Over at The Public Domain Review, Phillippe Blom argues for Diderot's importance as we mark the tercentenary of the philosopher's birth.
- The Harvard Libraries have started a pilot program to scan key content at the point of accessioning or cataloging. Read about the project here.
- Over at the John Rylands Library blog, a look at marginalia.
- The folks responsible for the great Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project are requesting input from users about additional information you'd like to see as part of the interface.
- Profiled in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series this week, University of Iowa Special Collections Librarian Patrick Olson.
Reviews
- Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things; reviews by Janet Maslin in the NYTimes and Jane Shilling in the Telegraph.
- Mark Cocker and David Tipling's Birds and People; review by Jeremy Mynott in the TLS.
- Roderick Beaton's Byron's War; review by Emily A. Bernhard Jackson in the TLS.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Julia M. Klein in the Boston Globe.
- Denise Spellberg's Thomas Jefferson's Qu'ran; review by R.B. Bernstein at The Daily Beast.
- Dara Horn's A Guide for the Perplexed; review by Saul Austerlitz in the Boston Globe.
- Frank Prochaska's The Memoirs of Walter Bagehot; review by George Selgin in the WSJ.
- Peter Ackroyd's Three Brothers; review by Mark Sanderson in the Telegraph.
- Nick Basbanes' On Paper; review in Kirkus.
- The Morgan Library and Museum's exhibit "Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul"; review by Charles McGrath in the NYTimes.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Links & Reviews
- A decision in the long-running Google Books case may be coming soon, Library Journal reported this week.
- Bethany Nowviskie has posted the text of her talk last week at a University of Illinois symposium on the future of the humanities at state-funded research universities. Read the whole thing.
- Prominent on this week's list of IMLS grant winners was the Folger Library, which has received nearly $500,000 to create a free, searchable database of manuscript transcriptions as well as a virtual community of transcribers.
- The Washington Post had good coverage this week of the grand opening of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.
- A collection of nine early alchemical manuscripts, mostly from the 15th century, has been acquired by the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
- Michael Geist has an intriguing look at Library and Archives Canada's current mass-digitization plan, known as Heritage. Again, read the whole thing.
- The Morgan Library and Museum announced recently that it will digitize and post for use its collection of some 10,000 drawings.
- There's a new exhibit of association copies from the collection of Bryan A. Garner on display at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale.
- A Haggadah written and illuminated by famed scribe Aaron Wolf Herlingen was found recently in a Manchester house. It will be sold at auction in November, and could fetch up to £100,000.
- There's now video up of Jack P. Greene's talk at a recent JCB conference on "1763 and the Re-evaluation of Empire: The View from Britain."
- Over at the LOC blog, Erin Allen profiles the tremendously important Peter Force Library, comprising some 60,000 items.
- At The Junto, Jonathan Wilson writes about "Locating the Literati: Charles Brockden Brown in Philadelphia."
- The Jane Austen ring purchased at auction by Kelly Clarkson will stay in Britain after sufficient funds were raised. It will be displayed at the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire.
- New, and quite possibly a tremendously useful resource as it grows: Geocontexting the Cultural Industries, 1500-1900.
- For Banned Books Week, Simon Beattie highlighted the Phillippiques of Lagrange-Chancel, and the University of Glasgow library blog focused on some copies of Tycho Brahe's works in their collections.
- This year's MacArthur fellows were announced this week.
- Over at Brain Pickings, some unusual techniques of famous writers, from Celia Blue Johnson's Odd Type Writers.
- From the AbeBooks blog this week, a quick look at the most expensive books (and manuscripts) sold.
- Nick Basbanes posted on the FB&C blog this week a question (plus some possible answers) he'd received about his new book On Paper.
- At Notabilia, the shelf-marks of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke.
- The St. Andrews University Library is publishing a six-part collection to mark the six-hundredth anniversary of the university: 600 Years of Book Collecting.
- The February 2014 courses for the Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School have been announced.
- From the UVA Special Collections blog, M.A. student Stephanie Kingsley on a recent bibliographical exploration she conducted using the papers of Virginia author Ellen Glasgow.
Reviews
- Arlette Farge's The Allure of the Archive; review by Jacob Soll in the CHE.
- Andrea Barrett's Archangel; review by Jess Row in the NYTimes.
- Denise A. Spelberg's Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an; review by Seth Perry at The Junto.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Lawrence Principe's The Secrets of Alchemy; review by Nicholas Popper in the TLS.
- Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things; review by Barbara Kingsolver in the NYTimes.
- Bethany Nowviskie has posted the text of her talk last week at a University of Illinois symposium on the future of the humanities at state-funded research universities. Read the whole thing.
- Prominent on this week's list of IMLS grant winners was the Folger Library, which has received nearly $500,000 to create a free, searchable database of manuscript transcriptions as well as a virtual community of transcribers.
- The Washington Post had good coverage this week of the grand opening of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.
- A collection of nine early alchemical manuscripts, mostly from the 15th century, has been acquired by the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
- Michael Geist has an intriguing look at Library and Archives Canada's current mass-digitization plan, known as Heritage. Again, read the whole thing.
- The Morgan Library and Museum announced recently that it will digitize and post for use its collection of some 10,000 drawings.
- There's a new exhibit of association copies from the collection of Bryan A. Garner on display at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale.
- A Haggadah written and illuminated by famed scribe Aaron Wolf Herlingen was found recently in a Manchester house. It will be sold at auction in November, and could fetch up to £100,000.
- There's now video up of Jack P. Greene's talk at a recent JCB conference on "1763 and the Re-evaluation of Empire: The View from Britain."
- Over at the LOC blog, Erin Allen profiles the tremendously important Peter Force Library, comprising some 60,000 items.
- At The Junto, Jonathan Wilson writes about "Locating the Literati: Charles Brockden Brown in Philadelphia."
- The Jane Austen ring purchased at auction by Kelly Clarkson will stay in Britain after sufficient funds were raised. It will be displayed at the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire.
- New, and quite possibly a tremendously useful resource as it grows: Geocontexting the Cultural Industries, 1500-1900.
- For Banned Books Week, Simon Beattie highlighted the Phillippiques of Lagrange-Chancel, and the University of Glasgow library blog focused on some copies of Tycho Brahe's works in their collections.
- This year's MacArthur fellows were announced this week.
- Over at Brain Pickings, some unusual techniques of famous writers, from Celia Blue Johnson's Odd Type Writers.
- From the AbeBooks blog this week, a quick look at the most expensive books (and manuscripts) sold.
- Nick Basbanes posted on the FB&C blog this week a question (plus some possible answers) he'd received about his new book On Paper.
- At Notabilia, the shelf-marks of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke.
- The St. Andrews University Library is publishing a six-part collection to mark the six-hundredth anniversary of the university: 600 Years of Book Collecting.
- The February 2014 courses for the Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School have been announced.
- From the UVA Special Collections blog, M.A. student Stephanie Kingsley on a recent bibliographical exploration she conducted using the papers of Virginia author Ellen Glasgow.
Reviews
- Arlette Farge's The Allure of the Archive; review by Jacob Soll in the CHE.
- Andrea Barrett's Archangel; review by Jess Row in the NYTimes.
- Denise A. Spelberg's Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an; review by Seth Perry at The Junto.
- Jill Lepore's Book of Ages; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Lawrence Principe's The Secrets of Alchemy; review by Nicholas Popper in the TLS.
- Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things; review by Barbara Kingsolver in the NYTimes.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Links & Reviews
- Quite a fascinating post from Anthony Tedeschi at Antipodean Footnotes this week, on the discovery of a truly odd printing error in the University of Melbourne copy of the Gesta Romanorum (~1484).
- Some exciting news from Amherst College, where the Frost Library has acquired the Pablo Eisenberg Collection of Native American Literature, described as the most complete collection of Native American literature and history ever assembled.
- Adams Hooks covers a really lovely 16th-century English binding, the only one known to have a printer's device and motton in gilt on both covers (and now at Houghton).
- Heather Cole is profiled in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series this week.
- In the Telegraph, an excerpt from Vybarr Cregan-Reid's new book on George Smith and his (re)discovery of the epic of Gilgamesh.
- University of South Carolina English professor Gregg Hecimovich believes he has identified the author of The Bondwoman's Narrative, an 1850s novel by an enslaved woman.
- At The Steeple Times, twenty questions for bookseller Pom Harrington.
- From Nathan Raab, a Forbes blog post on crowdsourcing technologies and public engagement in history.
- A 1592 compilation of Frankfurt Book Fair catalogues from 1564-1592 goes under the hammer on 1 October.
- With the launch of Oyster this week, Ian Crouch asks "What does it mean to own a book?"
- Over at the John J. Burns Library blog, 17th-century traveler Thomas Gage's The English-American is highlighted.
- In the NYTimes this week, a profile of the Art Loss Register and its leader, Julian Radcliffe.
- Via Dan Cohen on Twitter, a new research paper, "Solving the Orphan Works Problem for the United States."
Reviews
- Andrew Lycett's Wilkie Collins; review by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in the Telegraph.
- A. Scott Berg's Wilson; review by Kevin Baker in the NYTimes.
- Robert O'Kell's Disraeli; review by Daisy Hay in the TLS.
- Melissa Mohr's Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing; review by Colin Burrow in the LRB.
- Anna Whitelock's Elizabeth's Bedfellows; review by Helen Hackett in the TLS.
- Some exciting news from Amherst College, where the Frost Library has acquired the Pablo Eisenberg Collection of Native American Literature, described as the most complete collection of Native American literature and history ever assembled.
- Adams Hooks covers a really lovely 16th-century English binding, the only one known to have a printer's device and motton in gilt on both covers (and now at Houghton).
- Heather Cole is profiled in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series this week.
- In the Telegraph, an excerpt from Vybarr Cregan-Reid's new book on George Smith and his (re)discovery of the epic of Gilgamesh.
- University of South Carolina English professor Gregg Hecimovich believes he has identified the author of The Bondwoman's Narrative, an 1850s novel by an enslaved woman.
- At The Steeple Times, twenty questions for bookseller Pom Harrington.
- From Nathan Raab, a Forbes blog post on crowdsourcing technologies and public engagement in history.
- A 1592 compilation of Frankfurt Book Fair catalogues from 1564-1592 goes under the hammer on 1 October.
- With the launch of Oyster this week, Ian Crouch asks "What does it mean to own a book?"
- Over at the John J. Burns Library blog, 17th-century traveler Thomas Gage's The English-American is highlighted.
- In the NYTimes this week, a profile of the Art Loss Register and its leader, Julian Radcliffe.
- Via Dan Cohen on Twitter, a new research paper, "Solving the Orphan Works Problem for the United States."
Reviews
- Andrew Lycett's Wilkie Collins; review by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in the Telegraph.
- A. Scott Berg's Wilson; review by Kevin Baker in the NYTimes.
- Robert O'Kell's Disraeli; review by Daisy Hay in the TLS.
- Melissa Mohr's Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing; review by Colin Burrow in the LRB.
- Anna Whitelock's Elizabeth's Bedfellows; review by Helen Hackett in the TLS.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Links & Reviews
- Quite an interesting story this week by Dean Beeby about Library and Archives Canada's ultimately successful attempt to obtain the Sherbrooke Collection at auction this spring. Archivists and others say that LAC could probably have managed to purchase the collection at a much more reasonable price had they actually had funds for acquisitions and been able to act more efficiently.
- New: Annotated Books Online, intended as a digital archive of annotated books from the early modern period.
- An upcoming episode of the History Channel show "Treasures Decoded" will be on the Vinland Map. One of those involved, history professor Richard Raiswell, is featured in a recent article on the show, but the article doesn't make clear what if any new information will be revealed.
- In the NYTimes T Magazine this weekend, a profile of author Peter Ackroyd.
- Anthony Tedeschi is highlighted in the "Bright Young Librarians" series over on the FB&C blog.
- New from Oak Knoll, wood engraver Alexander Anderson's 1793-1799 diary, plus Michael Twyman's A History of Chromolithography. And from W.W. Norton, a full-size, facsimile edition of the Bien Audubon.
- A Charlotte Bronte letter sold for £24,000 at an Edinburgh auction, doubling its estimate.
- At Notabilia, distinctive characteristics of Oxford bindings.
- From Booktryst, some thoughts on selling (or buying) books originally published in parts.
- A look at John Carter and his ABC, at American Book Collecting.
Reviews
- A. Scott Berg's Wilson; review by Craig Fehrman in the WSJ.
- Alan Taylor's The Internal Enemy; review by Mark Smith in the WSJ.
- New: Annotated Books Online, intended as a digital archive of annotated books from the early modern period.
- An upcoming episode of the History Channel show "Treasures Decoded" will be on the Vinland Map. One of those involved, history professor Richard Raiswell, is featured in a recent article on the show, but the article doesn't make clear what if any new information will be revealed.
- In the NYTimes T Magazine this weekend, a profile of author Peter Ackroyd.
- Anthony Tedeschi is highlighted in the "Bright Young Librarians" series over on the FB&C blog.
- New from Oak Knoll, wood engraver Alexander Anderson's 1793-1799 diary, plus Michael Twyman's A History of Chromolithography. And from W.W. Norton, a full-size, facsimile edition of the Bien Audubon.
- A Charlotte Bronte letter sold for £24,000 at an Edinburgh auction, doubling its estimate.
- At Notabilia, distinctive characteristics of Oxford bindings.
- From Booktryst, some thoughts on selling (or buying) books originally published in parts.
- A look at John Carter and his ABC, at American Book Collecting.
Reviews
- A. Scott Berg's Wilson; review by Craig Fehrman in the WSJ.
- Alan Taylor's The Internal Enemy; review by Mark Smith in the WSJ.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
About those Folios ...
In all of last week's discussions about the possible sale of the Sterling Folios from the University of London, there wasn't all that much written about the actual books themselves. So, curious, I turned to Anthony James West's First Folio census (OUP, 2003) to see what he has to say about the volumes.
As one might expect, the Sterling Folios have quite a backstory, even if we don't know too much about their early life. The four volumes are uniformly bound, by the English binder James Hayday, in dark blue goatskin (West, I, 117; II, 101), with gilt edges (the First Folio also contains marbling beneath the gilt).
West notes of the First Folio (in a comment which extends to the other three) "The volume is notable both for its early migration to America and for its repatriation." This set of the four folios was purchased by Francis Calley Gray of Boston (1790-1859) around 1836, and was perhaps the first full set of Shakespeare folios to cross the Atlantic. Gray (Harvard, 1809) was the son of prominent Boston merchant William Gray, and went to Russia with John Quincy Adams in 1809 as a private secretary (William Gray also happened to own the ship, the Horace, on which JQA & Co. sailed).
Upon his return to America Gray was admitted to the bar and became a prominent lawyer, orator, poet, and art collector. His 1815 visit with George Ticknor to Thomas Jefferson at Monticello is well known (for a bit on this, see here), and he left an impressive collection of engravings to Harvard (see the catalog), "together with a choice library of works on art, and several valuable illustrated books, among them Rosellini's Monumenti dell' Egitto and Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds of America" (Gray had been one of several donors to Harvard's original copy of Audubon's Birds, and perhaps gave his own copy of a later edition to the Museum of Comparative Zoology).
F.C. Gray's nephew William inherited the set of Folios in 1856, and they were purchased by Miss Mary Edgecombe (sometimes Edgcumbe or Edgecumbe) Blatchford (1838-1902) of Cambridge in 1879. West writes of Miss Blatchford "She was one of the two Americans who in 1901-2 helped Sidney Lee the most in gathering information about American First Folios for his census. He acknowledged her enthusiastic work in the Census introduction (p. 17), and there is ample evidence of it in her correspondence with Lee in the Sir Sidney Lee Collection at the Birthplace Trust Records Office. She mentions in her neatly completed copy of Lee's questionnaire there that she examined her Folio with Justin Winsor" (West, II, 100). Winsor had published, in 1876, his Bibliography of the Original Quartos and Folios of Shakespeare, with Particular Reference to Copies in America.
Miss Blatchford was the eldest daughter of Edgecombe Heath Blatchford (1811-1853) and his wife Mary Ann Hubbard (1820-1864). Blatchford, an alumnus of Union College (my own alma mater), was a lawyer by profession, and the Hubbards were a prominent Boston family: Mary Ann's father Samuel was a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Mary Blatchford, who wrote the 1898 childrens' book The Story of Little Jane and Me, was a donor to many Boston-area institutions, held a proprietorship at the Boston Athenaeum (perhaps inherited from her mother), and as previously mentioned was of significant help to Sir Sidney Lee.
From Blatchford or her estate the volumes passed, it seems, to the Massachusetts General Hospital Trust, who arranged for their sale at Sotheby's London on 4 March 1935. As West notes, this re-crossing of the Atlantic did not go unnoticed, with a comment in the TLS that "the sentimentalist will hope that these four folios ill stay." They were purchased for £3,100 by the booksellers Lionel and Philip Robinson, a price mourned in the TLS as "somewhat disappointing," given that First Folios alone had previously sold for rather higher prices (the letterpress on the title page of this First Folio is in facsimile, with the portrait inlaid; the "To the Reader" leaf is also in facsimile).
The Folios were then sold for £3,500 to Sir Louis Sterling (1879-1958), an American-born industrialist memorialized in one death-notice as a "millionaire socialist." The same piece continued "The industrialist-philanthropist amassed a fortune in the phonograph and recording business and became a naturalized Britain [sic] after arriving nearly penniless by cattleboat in 1903. Explaining why he had given away more than $2.8 million in Britain, the man born Louis Saul Sterling in a New York tenement, said: 'I made all my money in this country, so I guess Britain is entitled to it.'"
Sterling was known for his assistance to Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis, received a knighthood in 1937, and endowed the Sterling Library at the University of London in the early 1950s. The library itself was opened by Queen Elizabeth (as the University's Chancellor) in October 1956. For more on Sterling's library, see the collection overview, or this 1939 TLS piece, reprinted on the Senate House site.
See what happens when you start pulling threads? Connections abound: who would have thought this set of four folios would stand just a degree of separation or two away from John Quincy Adams, Union College, and the early days of the British recording industry?
Like all books, the Sterling Library Folios have their own stories to tell us, of the people who made them, bound them, owned them, sold them, and read them. While there are many unanswered questions about these (when were they originally brought together? Who had them bound? Who owned them prior to the 1830s?), we know much of what we do know about them thanks to the good work of Justin Winsor, Sidney Lee, and Anthony James West, assisted by Mary Edgecombe Blatchford and the countless others who helped make their censuses of the Shakespeare Folios possible. Another reminder (here are some more) that these censuses are important scholarly works, worthy of our attention and our assistance whenever possible.
NB: I couldn't find either Lee's or Winsor's Folio censuses online, which seems a shame. Though outdated now and vastly superseded by West's, their texts are still quite interesting, and it would be useful to be able to link to them. Also and as always, additions/clarifications/corrections appreciated!
[Update: Lee's census is in fact online, here. Thanks to Mitch Fraas and Sarah Werner!]
As one might expect, the Sterling Folios have quite a backstory, even if we don't know too much about their early life. The four volumes are uniformly bound, by the English binder James Hayday, in dark blue goatskin (West, I, 117; II, 101), with gilt edges (the First Folio also contains marbling beneath the gilt).
West notes of the First Folio (in a comment which extends to the other three) "The volume is notable both for its early migration to America and for its repatriation." This set of the four folios was purchased by Francis Calley Gray of Boston (1790-1859) around 1836, and was perhaps the first full set of Shakespeare folios to cross the Atlantic. Gray (Harvard, 1809) was the son of prominent Boston merchant William Gray, and went to Russia with John Quincy Adams in 1809 as a private secretary (William Gray also happened to own the ship, the Horace, on which JQA & Co. sailed).
Upon his return to America Gray was admitted to the bar and became a prominent lawyer, orator, poet, and art collector. His 1815 visit with George Ticknor to Thomas Jefferson at Monticello is well known (for a bit on this, see here), and he left an impressive collection of engravings to Harvard (see the catalog), "together with a choice library of works on art, and several valuable illustrated books, among them Rosellini's Monumenti dell' Egitto and Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds of America" (Gray had been one of several donors to Harvard's original copy of Audubon's Birds, and perhaps gave his own copy of a later edition to the Museum of Comparative Zoology).
F.C. Gray's nephew William inherited the set of Folios in 1856, and they were purchased by Miss Mary Edgecombe (sometimes Edgcumbe or Edgecumbe) Blatchford (1838-1902) of Cambridge in 1879. West writes of Miss Blatchford "She was one of the two Americans who in 1901-2 helped Sidney Lee the most in gathering information about American First Folios for his census. He acknowledged her enthusiastic work in the Census introduction (p. 17), and there is ample evidence of it in her correspondence with Lee in the Sir Sidney Lee Collection at the Birthplace Trust Records Office. She mentions in her neatly completed copy of Lee's questionnaire there that she examined her Folio with Justin Winsor" (West, II, 100). Winsor had published, in 1876, his Bibliography of the Original Quartos and Folios of Shakespeare, with Particular Reference to Copies in America.
Miss Blatchford was the eldest daughter of Edgecombe Heath Blatchford (1811-1853) and his wife Mary Ann Hubbard (1820-1864). Blatchford, an alumnus of Union College (my own alma mater), was a lawyer by profession, and the Hubbards were a prominent Boston family: Mary Ann's father Samuel was a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Mary Blatchford, who wrote the 1898 childrens' book The Story of Little Jane and Me, was a donor to many Boston-area institutions, held a proprietorship at the Boston Athenaeum (perhaps inherited from her mother), and as previously mentioned was of significant help to Sir Sidney Lee.
From Blatchford or her estate the volumes passed, it seems, to the Massachusetts General Hospital Trust, who arranged for their sale at Sotheby's London on 4 March 1935. As West notes, this re-crossing of the Atlantic did not go unnoticed, with a comment in the TLS that "the sentimentalist will hope that these four folios ill stay." They were purchased for £3,100 by the booksellers Lionel and Philip Robinson, a price mourned in the TLS as "somewhat disappointing," given that First Folios alone had previously sold for rather higher prices (the letterpress on the title page of this First Folio is in facsimile, with the portrait inlaid; the "To the Reader" leaf is also in facsimile).
The Folios were then sold for £3,500 to Sir Louis Sterling (1879-1958), an American-born industrialist memorialized in one death-notice as a "millionaire socialist." The same piece continued "The industrialist-philanthropist amassed a fortune in the phonograph and recording business and became a naturalized Britain [sic] after arriving nearly penniless by cattleboat in 1903. Explaining why he had given away more than $2.8 million in Britain, the man born Louis Saul Sterling in a New York tenement, said: 'I made all my money in this country, so I guess Britain is entitled to it.'"
Sterling was known for his assistance to Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis, received a knighthood in 1937, and endowed the Sterling Library at the University of London in the early 1950s. The library itself was opened by Queen Elizabeth (as the University's Chancellor) in October 1956. For more on Sterling's library, see the collection overview, or this 1939 TLS piece, reprinted on the Senate House site.
See what happens when you start pulling threads? Connections abound: who would have thought this set of four folios would stand just a degree of separation or two away from John Quincy Adams, Union College, and the early days of the British recording industry?
Like all books, the Sterling Library Folios have their own stories to tell us, of the people who made them, bound them, owned them, sold them, and read them. While there are many unanswered questions about these (when were they originally brought together? Who had them bound? Who owned them prior to the 1830s?), we know much of what we do know about them thanks to the good work of Justin Winsor, Sidney Lee, and Anthony James West, assisted by Mary Edgecombe Blatchford and the countless others who helped make their censuses of the Shakespeare Folios possible. Another reminder (here are some more) that these censuses are important scholarly works, worthy of our attention and our assistance whenever possible.
NB: I couldn't find either Lee's or Winsor's Folio censuses online, which seems a shame. Though outdated now and vastly superseded by West's, their texts are still quite interesting, and it would be useful to be able to link to them. Also and as always, additions/clarifications/corrections appreciated!
[Update: Lee's census is in fact online, here. Thanks to Mitch Fraas and Sarah Werner!]
Monday, September 09, 2013
Book Review: "Shady Characters"
If you enjoyed Keith Houston's New Yorker blog post about punctuation history, or follow his own blog at Shady Characters, I heartily recommend his new book, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, & Other Typographical Marks (forthcoming from W.W. Norton). It's a well-researched and very engagingly-written book filled with fascinating little details about pilcrows and dashes and interrobangs and manicules and other such delightful marks. Houston explores the origins and evolution of these marks, how their uses have changed over time, and dredges up all manner of excellent stories about them.
While the origins of some of these marks are disputed or unknown, Houston thoroughly explores the various options for each, and offers well-reasoned thoughts of his own where there is doubt. And there are more than sixty pages of endnotes, probably more than enough to sate the appetite of even the most fanatic of octothorpe fans.
Recommended.
While the origins of some of these marks are disputed or unknown, Houston thoroughly explores the various options for each, and offers well-reasoned thoughts of his own where there is doubt. And there are more than sixty pages of endnotes, probably more than enough to sate the appetite of even the most fanatic of octothorpe fans.
Recommended.
Sunday, September 08, 2013
Catching up ...
I really will get back to a regular posting schedule, one of these days ... since I've last written I have managed to pack up and move to Charlottesville, and have about half the books unpacked and on their shelves again now (the remainder, which comprise the portions of my library that were still all jumbled together from the last move, are in boxes but on shelves, awaiting my sorting and shelving attentions). And I have started my job at Rare Book School, which promises to be exciting and challenging and wonderful in all kinds of ways. I've been enjoying getting to know Charlottesville in the fall, which is quite a lot different than Charlottesville in the summer, too.
Of course things haven't gone silent in the biblio-universe just because I've been fixated on shelf-locations and organizational schemas and boxes (oh, the boxes). In fact, rather the opposite! So, without further ado, and with apologies again for the long radio silence, here are my collected links and reviews from recent weeks. It is my fervent hope that I'll be able to keep up with these from here on. Wish me luck!
- The big story this week was of course the news that a plan was afoot by which the copies of the four Shakespeare Folios given to the Senate House Libraries, University of London by Sir Louis Sterling in 1956 would be sold at auction (reportedly at Bonhams this November) to fund an endowment designed to fund additional research at the libraries. This news took the book world by storm, and it was most heartening to see the strong, nearly unanimous reaction of shock and dismay.
The news broke with the release of a letter written by Professor Henry Woudhuysen, Rector of Lincoln College, to Senate House Libraries director Christopher Pressler, who had requested Woudhuysen's support for the planned sale. This is, I think, one of the strongest and most impressive responses to such a proposal I've ever read, and I was absolutely delighted to see it. If you haven't yet, you should go read the whole thing. I agree entirely with Ian Gadd's tweet in response to it: "Henry Woudhuysen’s response is comprehensive, magisterial, and unanswerable. This is why bibliography matters."
The Guardian covered the story on Tuesday, as did the Telegraph, and both articles featured strong quotes from scholars against the proposed sale. Director of UCL Library Services Dr Paul Ayris also issued a statement in opposition.
The sale would reportedly have required the permission of the Charity Commission, as it would have violated the terms of the original bequest which brought the Folios to the university in the first place.
Librarians and academics from around the world joined Woudhuysen in opposition, and The Bibliographical Society set up an online petition urging the library administrators to reconsider the sale; it garnered some 2,740 signatures before the library's decision to call off the sale was announced on Thursday evening.
Calling off the sale, University Vice Chancellor Sir Adrian Smith put out a statement announcing "The university has decided to focus its attention on examining alternative ways of investing in the collection. The money raised from any sale would have been used to invest in the future of the library by acquiring major works and archives of English literature." More from the Globe and Mail, including comments from Woudhuysen, who said "We wait to see what they do next. I’m not convinced that we’re out of the woods. There is always the possibility that they will return with another proposition and one would want to look at that quite carefully. They will have learned something from this."
Following Smith's Bibliographical Society president Christine Ferdinand posted a thorough synopsis of the reasons for opposition to the sale.
I've been digging a bit into the provenance of the Sterling Folios, and will have more on that soon. Pretty interesting copies, these!
- New from Lisa Fagin Davis, Manuscript Road Trip, a blog tour of lesser-known manuscript collections in the Lower 48. This will be fun to follow! On the same subject, Medieval Fragments recently posted on manuscripts in American collections.
- In The Nation, Scott Sherman has published a lengthy article on "The Hidden History of New York City's Central Library Plan."
- Ireland's Arts and Heritage minister has called on the Bodleian Library to return the 12th-century Annals of Inisfallen to Ireland, so that the manuscript can be displayed at Killarney House.
- Now at AAS, a personal account book of Boston museum proprietor Moses Kimball.
- The Sarum Missal, lost from the library of St. Paul's in the 19th century, was restored to the collection after it failed to meet estimates at the sale of the Mendham collection and was privately sold back to the cathedral library. Quite a good story on this in the Independent.
- Keith Houston blogs for The New Yorker about some of the punctuation marks described in his new book Shady Characters (which I've just finished reading; it's excellent).
- In my last I noted the arrest of German auction house director Herbert Schauer in relation to the de Caro thefts in Italy; the Telegraph ran an article on this development recently.
- A pre-Raphaelite mural was discovered on a wall at William Morris' Red House, now owned by the National Trust.
- Coming up in December at the Library of Congress, a full-day symposium on "Authenticity," which sounds amazing. I'll be there. Will you?
- There's an article in the new New Yorker about forger/con man Marc Landis, who has given hundreds of artworks and other forged documents to institutions around the country.
- Outgoing HRC director Thomas Staley was profiled recently in the NYTimes.
- From the LARB, William Giraldi's The Writer as Reader: Melville and his Marginalia is well worth a read.
- Three rare books were stolen from Jonkers Rare Books in June: first editions of Wodehouse's The Man Upstairs, Anthony Burgess' Time for a Tiger, and T.H. White's Dear Mr. Nixon. The shop discovered the thefts when a New York bookseller contacted them after having been offered the White book. "The thief is described as being in his fifties, of average height and chubby."
- The longlist for this year's Samuel Johnson Prize is out.
- A big-budget Bronte biopic may be in the works, according to the Telegraph & Argus.
- New: The Dutch in the Caribbean World, c.1670-c.1870, a guide to archival sources on Dutch colonies in the Caribbean as well as a summary of relevant laws and regulations.
- NPR highlighted the DPLA's efforts in a piece on "All Things Considered" recently. And the DPLA has officially moved into their new digs at the BPL.
- From John Overholt at Houghton Library, a look at some recently-digitized materials there.
- Arion Press and Andrew Hoyem are profiled in Harvard Magazine.
- Congratulations to several new members of the ABAA, announced this week.
- In August the Washington Map Society announced via its journal The Portolan, the discovery of what is claimed to be the oldest surviving engraved globe to show the New World. More from the Washington Post. As the Post article points out, there are some serious red flags being thrown about the provenance and ownership of the globe.
Reviews
- Andrea Barrett's Archangel; review by Janet Maslin in the NYTimes.
- Thomas Healy's The Great Dissent; review by Roy Gutterman in the WaPo.
- A. Scott Berg's Wilson; review by Jeff Shesol in the WaPo.
- Joel F. Harrington's The Faithful Executioner; review by Richard J. Evans in the TLS.
- Charlotte Higgins' Under Another Sky; review by Emily Gowers in the TLS.
- Jonathan Lyons' The Society for Useful Knowledge; review by Laura Snyder in the WSJ.
- Nick Basbanes' On Paper; review by Pradeep Sebastian in The Hindu.
Of course things haven't gone silent in the biblio-universe just because I've been fixated on shelf-locations and organizational schemas and boxes (oh, the boxes). In fact, rather the opposite! So, without further ado, and with apologies again for the long radio silence, here are my collected links and reviews from recent weeks. It is my fervent hope that I'll be able to keep up with these from here on. Wish me luck!
- The big story this week was of course the news that a plan was afoot by which the copies of the four Shakespeare Folios given to the Senate House Libraries, University of London by Sir Louis Sterling in 1956 would be sold at auction (reportedly at Bonhams this November) to fund an endowment designed to fund additional research at the libraries. This news took the book world by storm, and it was most heartening to see the strong, nearly unanimous reaction of shock and dismay.
The news broke with the release of a letter written by Professor Henry Woudhuysen, Rector of Lincoln College, to Senate House Libraries director Christopher Pressler, who had requested Woudhuysen's support for the planned sale. This is, I think, one of the strongest and most impressive responses to such a proposal I've ever read, and I was absolutely delighted to see it. If you haven't yet, you should go read the whole thing. I agree entirely with Ian Gadd's tweet in response to it: "Henry Woudhuysen’s response is comprehensive, magisterial, and unanswerable. This is why bibliography matters."
The Guardian covered the story on Tuesday, as did the Telegraph, and both articles featured strong quotes from scholars against the proposed sale. Director of UCL Library Services Dr Paul Ayris also issued a statement in opposition.
The sale would reportedly have required the permission of the Charity Commission, as it would have violated the terms of the original bequest which brought the Folios to the university in the first place.
Librarians and academics from around the world joined Woudhuysen in opposition, and The Bibliographical Society set up an online petition urging the library administrators to reconsider the sale; it garnered some 2,740 signatures before the library's decision to call off the sale was announced on Thursday evening.
Calling off the sale, University Vice Chancellor Sir Adrian Smith put out a statement announcing "The university has decided to focus its attention on examining alternative ways of investing in the collection. The money raised from any sale would have been used to invest in the future of the library by acquiring major works and archives of English literature." More from the Globe and Mail, including comments from Woudhuysen, who said "We wait to see what they do next. I’m not convinced that we’re out of the woods. There is always the possibility that they will return with another proposition and one would want to look at that quite carefully. They will have learned something from this."
Following Smith's Bibliographical Society president Christine Ferdinand posted a thorough synopsis of the reasons for opposition to the sale.
I've been digging a bit into the provenance of the Sterling Folios, and will have more on that soon. Pretty interesting copies, these!
- New from Lisa Fagin Davis, Manuscript Road Trip, a blog tour of lesser-known manuscript collections in the Lower 48. This will be fun to follow! On the same subject, Medieval Fragments recently posted on manuscripts in American collections.
- In The Nation, Scott Sherman has published a lengthy article on "The Hidden History of New York City's Central Library Plan."
- Ireland's Arts and Heritage minister has called on the Bodleian Library to return the 12th-century Annals of Inisfallen to Ireland, so that the manuscript can be displayed at Killarney House.
- Now at AAS, a personal account book of Boston museum proprietor Moses Kimball.
- The Sarum Missal, lost from the library of St. Paul's in the 19th century, was restored to the collection after it failed to meet estimates at the sale of the Mendham collection and was privately sold back to the cathedral library. Quite a good story on this in the Independent.
- Keith Houston blogs for The New Yorker about some of the punctuation marks described in his new book Shady Characters (which I've just finished reading; it's excellent).
- In my last I noted the arrest of German auction house director Herbert Schauer in relation to the de Caro thefts in Italy; the Telegraph ran an article on this development recently.
- A pre-Raphaelite mural was discovered on a wall at William Morris' Red House, now owned by the National Trust.
- Coming up in December at the Library of Congress, a full-day symposium on "Authenticity," which sounds amazing. I'll be there. Will you?
- There's an article in the new New Yorker about forger/con man Marc Landis, who has given hundreds of artworks and other forged documents to institutions around the country.
- Outgoing HRC director Thomas Staley was profiled recently in the NYTimes.
- From the LARB, William Giraldi's The Writer as Reader: Melville and his Marginalia is well worth a read.
- Three rare books were stolen from Jonkers Rare Books in June: first editions of Wodehouse's The Man Upstairs, Anthony Burgess' Time for a Tiger, and T.H. White's Dear Mr. Nixon. The shop discovered the thefts when a New York bookseller contacted them after having been offered the White book. "The thief is described as being in his fifties, of average height and chubby."
- The longlist for this year's Samuel Johnson Prize is out.
- A big-budget Bronte biopic may be in the works, according to the Telegraph & Argus.
- New: The Dutch in the Caribbean World, c.1670-c.1870, a guide to archival sources on Dutch colonies in the Caribbean as well as a summary of relevant laws and regulations.
- NPR highlighted the DPLA's efforts in a piece on "All Things Considered" recently. And the DPLA has officially moved into their new digs at the BPL.
- From John Overholt at Houghton Library, a look at some recently-digitized materials there.
- Arion Press and Andrew Hoyem are profiled in Harvard Magazine.
- Congratulations to several new members of the ABAA, announced this week.
- In August the Washington Map Society announced via its journal The Portolan, the discovery of what is claimed to be the oldest surviving engraved globe to show the New World. More from the Washington Post. As the Post article points out, there are some serious red flags being thrown about the provenance and ownership of the globe.
Reviews
- Andrea Barrett's Archangel; review by Janet Maslin in the NYTimes.
- Thomas Healy's The Great Dissent; review by Roy Gutterman in the WaPo.
- A. Scott Berg's Wilson; review by Jeff Shesol in the WaPo.
- Joel F. Harrington's The Faithful Executioner; review by Richard J. Evans in the TLS.
- Charlotte Higgins' Under Another Sky; review by Emily Gowers in the TLS.
- Jonathan Lyons' The Society for Useful Knowledge; review by Laura Snyder in the WSJ.
- Nick Basbanes' On Paper; review by Pradeep Sebastian in The Hindu.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Links & Reviews
- Another shoe has dropped in the de Caro book theft case: Herbert Schauer, Executive Director of the Munich auction firm Zisska & Schauer, was arrested on 2 August in relation to the ongoing investigation. According to a press release from the auction house, "The Italian authorities had issued a European arrest warrant on the basis of self-exculpatory submissions made by a number of the accused in the Girolamini trials and had forwarded the warrant to the Bavarian authorities."
- Over at Bibliodeviant, Jonathan Kearns has a must-read piece on bookselling in today's world: "Fear and Loathing in Book-ville."
- The contenders for the 16th ILAB Breslauer Prize have been announced.
- Charles Simic posted on the NYRB blog about the loss of used bookstores and what that means for us all.
- Library Journal posted on the upcoming opening of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.
- Via Shannon Supple at the Clog, a look at an extremely-heavily annotated "hybrid book" from the Clark's collections.
- Author Boris Kachka talked to The Awl about his new book Hothouse, a history of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- The summer issue of Common-place is up. Good stuff, as usual.
- Chet Van Duzer talked to Lapham's Quarterly about his new book, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps.
- In the NYTimes, Jennifer Schuessler reports on a Notes and Queries piece by Shakespeare scholar Douglas Bruster possibly furthering the case for Shakespeare's authorship of certain parts of The Spanish Tragedy.
- An anonymous donor has pledged £100,000 to the ongoing effort to keep Jane Austen's ring from passing into the ownership of Kelly Clarkson, who purchased it at auction last year.
- Making the rounds this week was a 1969 Paris Review interview with E.B. White, which is well worth a read.
- Over on the Guardian book blog, Stuart Kelly explores the attractions of Tobias Smollett's Humphry Clinker.
- A post at Notabilia this week highlights the shelf-mark of the library of the Earls of Shaftesbury.
- The Getty Museum launched its Open Content Program this week, making available as a first tranche some 4,600 images of artwork.
- A fire destroyed the Asgar Ali Book Centre in Port of Spain, Trinidad earlier this week.
- The Financial Times reported this week on the BL's plans to digitize its 25,000 medieval manuscripts.
- In other BL-related digitization news, CRL and the BL have agreed to cooperate in the digitization of newspapers from Africa, South Asia, and Latin America into the World Newspaper Archive.
- Historian Pauline Maier died this week. See her NYTimes Obit. I knew Pauline from my time at MHS, and always found her gracious, warm, and wonderfully interesting to talk to. I've enjoyed her books greatly, and she will be much missed. More from Michael Hattem at The Junto, J.L. Bell at Boston 1775, and at The Beehive.
Reviews
- Felix Palma's The Map of Time; review by Miriam Burstein at The Little Professor.
- Boris Kachka's Hothouse; reviews by Maureen Corrigan on NPR; Elisa Schappell on NPR.
- Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season; review by Jane Ciabattari on NPR.
- Brenda Wineapple's Ecstatic Nation; review by David Shribman in the Boston Globe.
... And now, back to the packing!
- Over at Bibliodeviant, Jonathan Kearns has a must-read piece on bookselling in today's world: "Fear and Loathing in Book-ville."
- The contenders for the 16th ILAB Breslauer Prize have been announced.
- Charles Simic posted on the NYRB blog about the loss of used bookstores and what that means for us all.
- Library Journal posted on the upcoming opening of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.
- Via Shannon Supple at the Clog, a look at an extremely-heavily annotated "hybrid book" from the Clark's collections.
- Author Boris Kachka talked to The Awl about his new book Hothouse, a history of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- The summer issue of Common-place is up. Good stuff, as usual.
- Chet Van Duzer talked to Lapham's Quarterly about his new book, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps.
- In the NYTimes, Jennifer Schuessler reports on a Notes and Queries piece by Shakespeare scholar Douglas Bruster possibly furthering the case for Shakespeare's authorship of certain parts of The Spanish Tragedy.
- An anonymous donor has pledged £100,000 to the ongoing effort to keep Jane Austen's ring from passing into the ownership of Kelly Clarkson, who purchased it at auction last year.
- Making the rounds this week was a 1969 Paris Review interview with E.B. White, which is well worth a read.
- Over on the Guardian book blog, Stuart Kelly explores the attractions of Tobias Smollett's Humphry Clinker.
- A post at Notabilia this week highlights the shelf-mark of the library of the Earls of Shaftesbury.
- The Getty Museum launched its Open Content Program this week, making available as a first tranche some 4,600 images of artwork.
- A fire destroyed the Asgar Ali Book Centre in Port of Spain, Trinidad earlier this week.
- The Financial Times reported this week on the BL's plans to digitize its 25,000 medieval manuscripts.
- In other BL-related digitization news, CRL and the BL have agreed to cooperate in the digitization of newspapers from Africa, South Asia, and Latin America into the World Newspaper Archive.
- Historian Pauline Maier died this week. See her NYTimes Obit. I knew Pauline from my time at MHS, and always found her gracious, warm, and wonderfully interesting to talk to. I've enjoyed her books greatly, and she will be much missed. More from Michael Hattem at The Junto, J.L. Bell at Boston 1775, and at The Beehive.
Reviews
- Felix Palma's The Map of Time; review by Miriam Burstein at The Little Professor.
- Boris Kachka's Hothouse; reviews by Maureen Corrigan on NPR; Elisa Schappell on NPR.
- Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season; review by Jane Ciabattari on NPR.
- Brenda Wineapple's Ecstatic Nation; review by David Shribman in the Boston Globe.
... And now, back to the packing!
Big News!
Links and reviews for this week are coming soon, but before I get to that, I have some exciting personal news to share: as of 1 September, I'm headed down to Charlottesville, VA to take up a new position as Director of Communications and Outreach at Rare Book School. I am impatient to get there and embrace the opportunities and challenges that await, and thrilled to be joining Charlottesville's vibrant biblio-community. I've loved spending the summers there for the last few years, and I'm looking forward to being there year-round and helping to further the mission of RBS.
It's all happened fairly quickly: this week I finalized arrangements for an apartment, and at the moment I'm spending most of my time boxing up my books in preparation for the big move. I've filled 70 of U-Haul's "book boxes" (12"x12"x12") so far, with lots more books to go. Wish me luck!
All this means that there's a job opening at LibraryThing, and I'd certainly encourage interested readers to apply if you like. It's a very fun company to work for and to be involved with, and while I will be switching roles, I will certainly continue to be an active LibraryThing member as well as the coordinator of the Legacy Libraries project there (I think I'll probably have rather more time to devote to those things again, in fact).
So, that's the news from here. More updates from the packing/moving front as warranted.
It's all happened fairly quickly: this week I finalized arrangements for an apartment, and at the moment I'm spending most of my time boxing up my books in preparation for the big move. I've filled 70 of U-Haul's "book boxes" (12"x12"x12") so far, with lots more books to go. Wish me luck!
All this means that there's a job opening at LibraryThing, and I'd certainly encourage interested readers to apply if you like. It's a very fun company to work for and to be involved with, and while I will be switching roles, I will certainly continue to be an active LibraryThing member as well as the coordinator of the Legacy Libraries project there (I think I'll probably have rather more time to devote to those things again, in fact).
So, that's the news from here. More updates from the packing/moving front as warranted.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Links & Reviews
Okay, one last gigantic links roundup and then with any luck at all I'll be back to a (slightly-more) regular schedule. I'm back at home now after the summer at Rare Book School, which was wonderful but very busy (hence the lack of posts). I had the great pleasure of taking Jan Storm van Leeuwen's Introduction to the History of Bookbinding course this year, and enjoyed the experience immensely (add it to your list, if it's not on there already). But that was just one of many highlights of the summer.
- Speaking of Rare Book School, Rebecca Rego Barry's "Letter from Rare Book School" is a must-read.
- One of the other students from my RBS class, James Capobianco, has begun posting images of neat bindings from the Houghton collections here.
- Gregory S. Girolami, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, is conducting a census of the first edition of Robert Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661), and is looking for information on extant copies. Contact details are listed on Girolamni's website (and I've written often, I am a huge proponent of book censuses, so I encourage you to help if you can).
- The excellent Community Libraries project has issued a call for papers for three two-day colloquia in 2014 and 2015, which I suspect many readers will be interested in. Please do take a look and distribute widely.
- Via Mitch Fraas, a list of the books Lincoln checked out of the Library of Congress while president.
- Over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Lew Jaffe explores the question of just what is the earliest American bookplate?
- An absolutely stupendous discovery was made this summer in the collections of Houghton Library: cataloger Karen Nipps found eight original 1767 subscription sheets signed by some 650 Bostonians pledging support of a boycott of British goods in response to the Townshend Acts. J.L. Bell comments on the find here.
- The FBI has posted images of 28 rare books and maps stolen by E. Forbes Smiley and not yet returned to their owners. Do you know where these belong?
- There was a well-worth-reading Reed Johnson piece on the Voynich Manuscript in the New Yorker back in July. Paul Romaine's response to the article shouldn't be missed, either. Johnson talked to NPR about the manuscript as well.
- Stephen Moss of The Guardian talked with Arnold (A.D.) Harvey, the man responsible for creating a fictitious meeting between Dickens and Dostoyevsky that was accepted as fact for years (exposed by Eric Naiman in the TLS in April). Fascinating article.
- The criminal conspiracy trial of Marino Massimo de Caro and his co-conspirators has been delayed until October.
- The ABAA blog noted the discovery of a Pearl Buck manuscript novel in a Texas storage locker.
- Ann Blair's 31 January talk at Columbia, "Methods of Collaboration Among Early Modern Humanists," is now available on YouTube.
- The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the McSweeney's archive.
- The John Carter Brown Library has uploaded its 5000th book to the Internet Archive (theirs is one of the best uses of the Archive I've seen).
- Pop star Kelly Clarkson was the winning bidder on the Jane Austen ring which sold last year at auction for better than £150,000, but the British government is seeking to stop the ring's removal from the country. UK buyers have until 30 September to raise the funds to match Clarkson's bid.
- Information on recent thefts of maps, posted on Ex-Libris in July: "The Chicago Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the theft of historical topographical maps from various educational institutions. The maps are mostly from Central and Eastern Europe, including: Poland, Germany, Austria, and western Russia and their scales vary between 1:25,000 to 1:100,000. The maps are considered to be Interwar, meaning they were published between 1919 and 1939. Of particular interest are maps published by the Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny Instytut (Poland). The investigation has also revealed the theft of 19th century Austro-Hungarian topographical maps. The thefts have occurred as far back as 2008 and as recently as the spring of 2013. The FBI would like to identify as many victims as possible, and would like to interview individuals who may have been in contact with the individual or individuals responsible for these thefts. If you have information or believe your institution may have been the victim of a similar theft, please contact Special Agent Luigi Mondini at 312 829-5526 or luigi.mondini@ic.fbi.gov."
- Two books stolen from the National Library of Sweden by former librarian Anders Burius were returned to the library in late July, after the Baltimore dealer who purchased them at a German auction in 2008 bought them back from the clients to whom he had subsequently sold them.
- The investigation into the 2007 murder of book collector Rolland Comstock remains open, investigators say, even after the recent death of Comstock's ex-wife, found liable for his death in a civil suit. Greene County, MO sheriff Jim Arnott said that charges are still forthcoming related to the case.
- The Onion recently ran an obituary for print.
- From the Cambridge Incunabula Project blog, some unidentified provenance marks discovered in English incunables.
- Mount Vernon and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington purchased the eight volumes from George Washington's library up for sale in June.
- Richard Luscombe reported for the Guardian on the sale of the Harrisburg collection of memorabilia. Normally I'd be completely appalled at a sale like this, but in this particular case, it seems to have been acquired haphazardly and without much thought, so better for the material to find more appropriate homes.
- Over on the Royal Society's blog, Rebecca Easey writes on the "crossroads between science and art," scientific illustration.
- The winners of the 2013 National Collegiate Book Collecting contest have been announced. Congratulations to all!
- From Matthew Green at the Public Domain Review, "The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse."
- There are Q&As with new Folger Director of Digital Access Eric Johnson and Research and Outreach Librarian Melanie Dyer at The Collation. And at Wynken de Worde, Sarah Werner discusses her new role as the Folger's Digital Media Strategist, which sounds tremendously exciting and awesome.
- A Poe manuscript sold for $300,000 at a small Rhode Island auction on 30 July.
- Over at Boston 1775, J.L. Bell takes a look at Alexander Gilles' editing of his copy of Isaac Watts' Psalms and edited out the British bits.
- John K. Hale, co-editor of a new edition of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, reflects on the experience for the OSEO blog.
- At Mapping Books, Mitch Fraas posts about his research into print/book circulation between late 18th-century India and Europe, with some great visualizations. In a separate post, Mitch maps the current locations of 15-century books, with some very surprising results.
- The Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog has a new URL: http://library.law.yale.edu/blogs/rare-books.
- Back in July, the NYTimes covered (somewhat anecdotally, by necessity) Amazon's price-shifting practices.
- I almost can't believe that it's been more than four years now since John Quincy Adams started tweeting. The MHS blog has a look back. Thanks to Nancy Heywood and all the others at MHS who have kept the project going!
- Historian Edmund S. Morgan died in early July at the age of 97. The NYTimes ran a thorough obituary. The Junto ran a weeklong roundtable discussion on Morgan's life and legacy.
- From Res Obscura, a beginner's guide to reading early modern texts.
- The British Library has announced plans to bring together all four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta in 2015, to mark the charter's 800th anniversary.
- The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada are now (save the last three years) freely available online.
- William Blake's cottage in Felpham, West Sussex, is for sale.
- Some interesting background on the linguistic unmasking of J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoo's Calling: WSJ blog, Language Log (Patrick Juola).
- In the Boston Globe this weekend, Christine Woodside writes about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane's intentional crafting of the Little House books to enhance a libertarian political philosophy.
Reviews
- Anthony Pagden's The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters; review by Noel Malcolm in the Telegraph.
- Scott Anderson's Lawrence in Arabia; review by Alex von Tunzelmann in the NYTimes.
- Royce Prouty's Stoker's Manuscript; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
- Robert Wilson's Matthew Brady; reviews by Caleb Crain in the NYTimes; Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Boris Kachka's Hothouse; review by Heller McAlpin in the LATimes.
- Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season; review by Helen Brown in the Telegraph.
- Travis McDade's Thieves of Book Row; review by Stephen J. Gertz at Booktryst.
- Brenda Wineapple's Ecstatic Nation; reviews by Scott Martelle in the LATimes; David Reynolds in the NYTimes.
- Caleb Crain's Necessary Errors; review by Aaron Hamburger in the NYTimes.
- Speaking of Rare Book School, Rebecca Rego Barry's "Letter from Rare Book School" is a must-read.
- One of the other students from my RBS class, James Capobianco, has begun posting images of neat bindings from the Houghton collections here.
- Gregory S. Girolami, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, is conducting a census of the first edition of Robert Boyle's Sceptical Chymist (1661), and is looking for information on extant copies. Contact details are listed on Girolamni's website (and I've written often, I am a huge proponent of book censuses, so I encourage you to help if you can).
- The excellent Community Libraries project has issued a call for papers for three two-day colloquia in 2014 and 2015, which I suspect many readers will be interested in. Please do take a look and distribute widely.
- Via Mitch Fraas, a list of the books Lincoln checked out of the Library of Congress while president.
- Over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Lew Jaffe explores the question of just what is the earliest American bookplate?
- An absolutely stupendous discovery was made this summer in the collections of Houghton Library: cataloger Karen Nipps found eight original 1767 subscription sheets signed by some 650 Bostonians pledging support of a boycott of British goods in response to the Townshend Acts. J.L. Bell comments on the find here.
- The FBI has posted images of 28 rare books and maps stolen by E. Forbes Smiley and not yet returned to their owners. Do you know where these belong?
- There was a well-worth-reading Reed Johnson piece on the Voynich Manuscript in the New Yorker back in July. Paul Romaine's response to the article shouldn't be missed, either. Johnson talked to NPR about the manuscript as well.
- Stephen Moss of The Guardian talked with Arnold (A.D.) Harvey, the man responsible for creating a fictitious meeting between Dickens and Dostoyevsky that was accepted as fact for years (exposed by Eric Naiman in the TLS in April). Fascinating article.
- The criminal conspiracy trial of Marino Massimo de Caro and his co-conspirators has been delayed until October.
- The ABAA blog noted the discovery of a Pearl Buck manuscript novel in a Texas storage locker.
- Ann Blair's 31 January talk at Columbia, "Methods of Collaboration Among Early Modern Humanists," is now available on YouTube.
- The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the McSweeney's archive.
- The John Carter Brown Library has uploaded its 5000th book to the Internet Archive (theirs is one of the best uses of the Archive I've seen).
- Pop star Kelly Clarkson was the winning bidder on the Jane Austen ring which sold last year at auction for better than £150,000, but the British government is seeking to stop the ring's removal from the country. UK buyers have until 30 September to raise the funds to match Clarkson's bid.
- Information on recent thefts of maps, posted on Ex-Libris in July: "The Chicago Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the theft of historical topographical maps from various educational institutions. The maps are mostly from Central and Eastern Europe, including: Poland, Germany, Austria, and western Russia and their scales vary between 1:25,000 to 1:100,000. The maps are considered to be Interwar, meaning they were published between 1919 and 1939. Of particular interest are maps published by the Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny Instytut (Poland). The investigation has also revealed the theft of 19th century Austro-Hungarian topographical maps. The thefts have occurred as far back as 2008 and as recently as the spring of 2013. The FBI would like to identify as many victims as possible, and would like to interview individuals who may have been in contact with the individual or individuals responsible for these thefts. If you have information or believe your institution may have been the victim of a similar theft, please contact Special Agent Luigi Mondini at 312 829-5526 or luigi.mondini@ic.fbi.gov."
- Two books stolen from the National Library of Sweden by former librarian Anders Burius were returned to the library in late July, after the Baltimore dealer who purchased them at a German auction in 2008 bought them back from the clients to whom he had subsequently sold them.
- The investigation into the 2007 murder of book collector Rolland Comstock remains open, investigators say, even after the recent death of Comstock's ex-wife, found liable for his death in a civil suit. Greene County, MO sheriff Jim Arnott said that charges are still forthcoming related to the case.
- The Onion recently ran an obituary for print.
- From the Cambridge Incunabula Project blog, some unidentified provenance marks discovered in English incunables.
- Mount Vernon and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington purchased the eight volumes from George Washington's library up for sale in June.
- Richard Luscombe reported for the Guardian on the sale of the Harrisburg collection of memorabilia. Normally I'd be completely appalled at a sale like this, but in this particular case, it seems to have been acquired haphazardly and without much thought, so better for the material to find more appropriate homes.
- Over on the Royal Society's blog, Rebecca Easey writes on the "crossroads between science and art," scientific illustration.
- The winners of the 2013 National Collegiate Book Collecting contest have been announced. Congratulations to all!
- From Matthew Green at the Public Domain Review, "The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse."
- There are Q&As with new Folger Director of Digital Access Eric Johnson and Research and Outreach Librarian Melanie Dyer at The Collation. And at Wynken de Worde, Sarah Werner discusses her new role as the Folger's Digital Media Strategist, which sounds tremendously exciting and awesome.
- A Poe manuscript sold for $300,000 at a small Rhode Island auction on 30 July.
- Over at Boston 1775, J.L. Bell takes a look at Alexander Gilles' editing of his copy of Isaac Watts' Psalms and edited out the British bits.
- John K. Hale, co-editor of a new edition of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, reflects on the experience for the OSEO blog.
- At Mapping Books, Mitch Fraas posts about his research into print/book circulation between late 18th-century India and Europe, with some great visualizations. In a separate post, Mitch maps the current locations of 15-century books, with some very surprising results.
- The Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog has a new URL: http://library.law.yale.edu/blogs/rare-books.
- Back in July, the NYTimes covered (somewhat anecdotally, by necessity) Amazon's price-shifting practices.
- I almost can't believe that it's been more than four years now since John Quincy Adams started tweeting. The MHS blog has a look back. Thanks to Nancy Heywood and all the others at MHS who have kept the project going!
- Historian Edmund S. Morgan died in early July at the age of 97. The NYTimes ran a thorough obituary. The Junto ran a weeklong roundtable discussion on Morgan's life and legacy.
- From Res Obscura, a beginner's guide to reading early modern texts.
- The British Library has announced plans to bring together all four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta in 2015, to mark the charter's 800th anniversary.
- The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada are now (save the last three years) freely available online.
- William Blake's cottage in Felpham, West Sussex, is for sale.
- Some interesting background on the linguistic unmasking of J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoo's Calling: WSJ blog, Language Log (Patrick Juola).
- In the Boston Globe this weekend, Christine Woodside writes about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane's intentional crafting of the Little House books to enhance a libertarian political philosophy.
Reviews
- Anthony Pagden's The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters; review by Noel Malcolm in the Telegraph.
- Scott Anderson's Lawrence in Arabia; review by Alex von Tunzelmann in the NYTimes.
- Royce Prouty's Stoker's Manuscript; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
- Robert Wilson's Matthew Brady; reviews by Caleb Crain in the NYTimes; Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Boris Kachka's Hothouse; review by Heller McAlpin in the LATimes.
- Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season; review by Helen Brown in the Telegraph.
- Travis McDade's Thieves of Book Row; review by Stephen J. Gertz at Booktryst.
- Brenda Wineapple's Ecstatic Nation; reviews by Scott Martelle in the LATimes; David Reynolds in the NYTimes.
- Caleb Crain's Necessary Errors; review by Aaron Hamburger in the NYTimes.
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