- Ten years after fire destroyed the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Germany, the library's copy of Copernicus' De revolutionibus, thought destroyed, has been found amongst the many books still being restored, a process which is expected to continue for another 15 years.
- The Smithsonian Institution has launched a crowdsourced transcription interface, to allow volunteers to help transcribe Civil War diaries, field notebooks, and more. There's a short report in the NYTimes.
- The Folger Library has announced that all images in its Digital Image Collection (currently nearly 80,000 items) are now eligible for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Fantastic news!
- Martin Kemp writes on the threats facing the Warburg Institute Library in the Royal Academy Magazine. More coverage on this front from The Guardian.
- UVA Special Collections has acquired a copy of the rare Tolkien publication Songs for the Philologists.
- Many maps stolen by Peter Bellwood from the National Library of Wales remain missing, Wales Online reports.
- On the Provenance Online Project blog, a look at inscriptions partially trimmed off during rebinding.
- It's all pigeons this week over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie.
- New (to me, anyway): the Centre for the Study of the Book at Oxford is now posting podcasts of its discussion series.
- Ravi Somaiya profiles Harper's Magazine publisher John R. MacArthur.
- Emory University has launched Readux, a collection of digitized books from their libraries.
- Joshua Holm reviews and recommends Meredith McGill's article "Copyright and Intellectual Property: The State of the Discipline" in Book History 15.
- Michael Blanding talked to David Holahan from the Hartford Courant about his book The Map Thief.
- Anna Da Silva writes about a spat between Anthony Panizzi and the Royal Society for the Society's Repository blog.
- Maurice Sedgwick writes in The Guardian about "What makes Gormenghast a masterpiece?"
- A book cull at the Boston Public Library has hit the news with a report in the Boston Globe. Administrators are, reportedly, "disposing" of 180,000 "little-used volumes" based on circulation statistics.
- Nalo Hopkinson, a professor of Creative Writing at UC Riverside, has posted about concerns over the future of the university's famed science fiction collection.
Reviews
- Adrian Goldsworthy's Augustus; review by Nicholas Shakespeare in The Telegraph.
- Hampton Sides' In the Kingdom of Ice; review by Robert R. Harris in the NYTimes.
- Peter Snow's When Britain Burned the White House; review by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Links & Reviews
- ILAB has issued an official letter of protest to the Italian Ministries of Culture and Justice over their investigations into de Caro's thefts from the Girolamini and other libraries. This follows the arrest of Danish bookseller Christian Westergaard over books matching titles stolen from the libraries (but all recovered and in German police custody since 2012) and the cancellation of a Bloomsbury/Philobiblon auction in Rome on suspicion that books scheduled to be sold there might have been stolen (none proved to have been removed from libraries). The full letter is very much worth a read.
- Over at The Collation, Goran Proot explores the use of "vv" for "w" in 17th-century title pages.
- Lisa Fagin Davis reports on manuscripts in Alabama and Georgia, and comments on the recent discovery that the now-broken Beauvais Missal was once in the possession of William Randolph Hearst.
- Another bookstore I've always wanted to visit is closing, I'm very sorry to say: Seattle's Wessel & Lieberman is shutting its doors soon.
- A library card signed by Elvis Presley when he was in seventh grade is going up for auction later this month at Graceland.
- Judge Richard Posner, ordering the Conan Doyle estate to pay Leslie Klinger's legal fees, slammed as extortion the practice of certain literary estates charging license fees.
- British Airways is planning to add audio versions of eleven Shakespeare plays to its inflight entertainment options.
- The Brontë parsonage at Haworth has purchased a script from the first film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, made in the 1920s and shot in the Haworth area. No copy of the film itself is known to exist.
- As part of their second sale from the library of Franklin Brooke-Hitching on 30 September, Sotheby's will sell a number of books and other artifacts from the 1914 Shackleton expedition.
- Over at The Junto, a list of forthcoming books on early American topics.
- The diploma of the first African-American student to attend Harvard, Richard Greener (also the father of Belle da Costa Greene) sold for $12,500 this week at a Chicago auction.
- Bookbinding scholar Anthony Hobson died in early July; read an obituary by Nicolas Barker in The Independent.
- Daryl Green of the University of St. Andrews is featured in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" interview series.
- Historians have authenticated an inscription in an 1854 book on race as being written by Abraham Lincoln.
- The State Library of Massachusetts has digitized the manuscript of William Bradford's autograph manuscript for Of Plimouth Plantation, now available here. The interface leaves rather a great deal to be desired, I must say, but I suppose better something than nothing.
- Donald Kerr posted on ExLibris-L about a new census he's compiling, of the 1913 work La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France by Paul Cendrars with artwork by Sonia Delaunay-Terk. Contact him if you have any information about copies of this work.
Reviews
- Edward Dolnick's The Rush; review by Walter Borneman in the NYTimes.
- Michael Schmidt's The Novel: A Biography; review by John Sutherland in the NYTimes.
- Lev Grossman's The Magician's Land; reviews by Sarah Lyall in the NYTimes and Gwenda Bond in the LATimes.
- Helen Rappaport's Four Sisters; review by Natasha Randall in the TLS.
- Over at The Collation, Goran Proot explores the use of "vv" for "w" in 17th-century title pages.
- Lisa Fagin Davis reports on manuscripts in Alabama and Georgia, and comments on the recent discovery that the now-broken Beauvais Missal was once in the possession of William Randolph Hearst.
- Another bookstore I've always wanted to visit is closing, I'm very sorry to say: Seattle's Wessel & Lieberman is shutting its doors soon.
- A library card signed by Elvis Presley when he was in seventh grade is going up for auction later this month at Graceland.
- Judge Richard Posner, ordering the Conan Doyle estate to pay Leslie Klinger's legal fees, slammed as extortion the practice of certain literary estates charging license fees.
- British Airways is planning to add audio versions of eleven Shakespeare plays to its inflight entertainment options.
- The Brontë parsonage at Haworth has purchased a script from the first film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, made in the 1920s and shot in the Haworth area. No copy of the film itself is known to exist.
- As part of their second sale from the library of Franklin Brooke-Hitching on 30 September, Sotheby's will sell a number of books and other artifacts from the 1914 Shackleton expedition.
- Over at The Junto, a list of forthcoming books on early American topics.
- The diploma of the first African-American student to attend Harvard, Richard Greener (also the father of Belle da Costa Greene) sold for $12,500 this week at a Chicago auction.
- Bookbinding scholar Anthony Hobson died in early July; read an obituary by Nicolas Barker in The Independent.
- Daryl Green of the University of St. Andrews is featured in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" interview series.
- Historians have authenticated an inscription in an 1854 book on race as being written by Abraham Lincoln.
- The State Library of Massachusetts has digitized the manuscript of William Bradford's autograph manuscript for Of Plimouth Plantation, now available here. The interface leaves rather a great deal to be desired, I must say, but I suppose better something than nothing.
- Donald Kerr posted on ExLibris-L about a new census he's compiling, of the 1913 work La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France by Paul Cendrars with artwork by Sonia Delaunay-Terk. Contact him if you have any information about copies of this work.
Reviews
- Edward Dolnick's The Rush; review by Walter Borneman in the NYTimes.
- Michael Schmidt's The Novel: A Biography; review by John Sutherland in the NYTimes.
- Lev Grossman's The Magician's Land; reviews by Sarah Lyall in the NYTimes and Gwenda Bond in the LATimes.
- Helen Rappaport's Four Sisters; review by Natasha Randall in the TLS.
Sunday, August 03, 2014
Links & Reviews
Another Rare Book School season has come to a close, so here's a catchup post of links and reviews I missed over the last couple weeks:
- Many congratulations to the American Antiquarian Society, which was honored with a National Humanities Medal this week for "safeguarding the American story."
- The Provenance Online Project blog has launched, with some excellent first posts.
- David Whitesell writes on the Notes from Under Grounds blog about UVA Special Collections' acquisition this spring of 19th-century American and English books in original dust jackets. The 700 titles in 829 volumes are, David writes, "the largest such holding ever documented."
- From Sarah Werner at The Collation, 10mo!
- The Boston Athenaeum has announced that Elizabeth E. Barker will be the next Stanford Calderwood Director.
- HiLobrow has begun a series on contributors' favorite typefaces, including, so far, Matthew Battles on Aldine Italic and Sherri Wasserman on Toronto Subway.
- A two-parter at medievalfragments: Portable Medieval Manuscripts and Giant Medieval Manuscripts.
- Speaking of RBS, Rick Ring blogged about his experiences this week in "Teaching the History of the Book" over at The Bibliophile's Lair.
- Michael Paulson writes in the NYTimes on efforts by historian James Fenimore Cooper, Jr. and Congregational Library executive director Margaret Bendroth to preserve New England church records.
- The Folger Shakespeare Library launched Folgerpedia this week, a wiki designed to be an "infinitely updateable, constantly growing encyclopedia of all thing Folger and of interest to the Folger community."
- During renovations of UVA's Rotunda, masons discovered pieces of the original dome, destroyed in the 1895 fire.
- In Intelligent Life, Charles McCann writes about Roald Dahl in the "Notes on a Voice" column.
- Mike Widener notes a new installment in Mark Weiner's series of short videos about rare law books. Weiner writes that in "Water, Paper, Law," "an eighteenth-century Italian legal treatise about water inspires some thoughts about law, rare books, and the passage of time."
- There's an interview with John Ferling about the American Revolution on the OUP Blog.
- The Scholars' Lab crew launched Neatline 2.3 this week.
- Lenny Bruce's papers have been acquired by Brandeis University.
- Will Noel talked to FB&C's Nate Pedersen for the "Bright Young Librarians" series.
- Houghton Library reference assistant Leah Lefkowitz posted about an Elizabeth I letter in the library's collections.
- Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy talked to Tom Cutterham for The Junto about his book The Men Who Lost America.
Reviews
- Lev Grossman's The Magician's Land; review by Edan Lepucki in the NYTimes.
- Robert J. Mayhew's Malthus; review by Justin Fox in the NYTimes.
- Danielle Allen's Our Declaration; review by Gordon S. Wood in the NYRB.
- Paul Sorrentino's Stephen Crane: A Life of Fire; review by Jayne Anne Phillips in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Drew's Washington Journal; review by Maura Casey in the WaPo.
- Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge; review by David Ulin in the LATimes.
- John Dean's The Nixon Defense; review by Carolyn Kellogg in the LATimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; reviews by John H. Kennedy in the Vineyard Gazette and Nick Romeo in The Daily Beast.
- Many congratulations to the American Antiquarian Society, which was honored with a National Humanities Medal this week for "safeguarding the American story."
- The Provenance Online Project blog has launched, with some excellent first posts.
- David Whitesell writes on the Notes from Under Grounds blog about UVA Special Collections' acquisition this spring of 19th-century American and English books in original dust jackets. The 700 titles in 829 volumes are, David writes, "the largest such holding ever documented."
- From Sarah Werner at The Collation, 10mo!
- The Boston Athenaeum has announced that Elizabeth E. Barker will be the next Stanford Calderwood Director.
- HiLobrow has begun a series on contributors' favorite typefaces, including, so far, Matthew Battles on Aldine Italic and Sherri Wasserman on Toronto Subway.
- A two-parter at medievalfragments: Portable Medieval Manuscripts and Giant Medieval Manuscripts.
- Speaking of RBS, Rick Ring blogged about his experiences this week in "Teaching the History of the Book" over at The Bibliophile's Lair.
- Michael Paulson writes in the NYTimes on efforts by historian James Fenimore Cooper, Jr. and Congregational Library executive director Margaret Bendroth to preserve New England church records.
- The Folger Shakespeare Library launched Folgerpedia this week, a wiki designed to be an "infinitely updateable, constantly growing encyclopedia of all thing Folger and of interest to the Folger community."
- During renovations of UVA's Rotunda, masons discovered pieces of the original dome, destroyed in the 1895 fire.
- In Intelligent Life, Charles McCann writes about Roald Dahl in the "Notes on a Voice" column.
- Mike Widener notes a new installment in Mark Weiner's series of short videos about rare law books. Weiner writes that in "Water, Paper, Law," "an eighteenth-century Italian legal treatise about water inspires some thoughts about law, rare books, and the passage of time."
- There's an interview with John Ferling about the American Revolution on the OUP Blog.
- The Scholars' Lab crew launched Neatline 2.3 this week.
- Lenny Bruce's papers have been acquired by Brandeis University.
- Will Noel talked to FB&C's Nate Pedersen for the "Bright Young Librarians" series.
- Houghton Library reference assistant Leah Lefkowitz posted about an Elizabeth I letter in the library's collections.
- Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy talked to Tom Cutterham for The Junto about his book The Men Who Lost America.
Reviews
- Lev Grossman's The Magician's Land; review by Edan Lepucki in the NYTimes.
- Robert J. Mayhew's Malthus; review by Justin Fox in the NYTimes.
- Danielle Allen's Our Declaration; review by Gordon S. Wood in the NYRB.
- Paul Sorrentino's Stephen Crane: A Life of Fire; review by Jayne Anne Phillips in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Drew's Washington Journal; review by Maura Casey in the WaPo.
- Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge; review by David Ulin in the LATimes.
- John Dean's The Nixon Defense; review by Carolyn Kellogg in the LATimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; reviews by John H. Kennedy in the Vineyard Gazette and Nick Romeo in The Daily Beast.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Links & Reviews
- A copy of Lefevre's Recuyell of the Histories of Troye, the first book printed in English, sold for £1,082,000 at Sotheby's this week. The CSM reported on the sale.
- From Sarah Werner at The Collation, an exploration of symbols used as signature marks.
- Rebecca Romney writes on "Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Materials as Meaning."
- More on the Archaeology of Reading in Early Modern Europe project from the CSM and The Guardian.
- In Prospect, Sarah Dry offers an excerpt of her new book The Newton Papers.
- Cambridge University has launched a new online exhibition celebrating the 500th anniversary of Vesalius' birth.
- At Yale Books, an interview with David Knight, author of Voyaging in Strange Seas.
- One of this summer's "catalog campers" at AAS, Samantha Cook, reports on her experiences working with the tremendously important Printers' File.
- The Supreme Court has refused to hear an "emergency petition" from Conan Doyle's literary heirs over a planned book by Leslie Klinger.
- Over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Lew interviews bookplate artist Daniel Mitsui.
- At Notabilia, Stephen Ferguson highlights a copy of Anti-Machiavel containing extensive manuscript annotations from other versions of the text.
Reviews
- Andrew Pettegree's The Invention of News; review by Julianne Werlin in the LA Review of Books.
- Deborah Harkness' The Book of Life; review by Paula L. Woods in the LATimes.
- Lawrence Buell's The Dream of the Great American Novel; review by Sarah Graham in the TLS.
- From Sarah Werner at The Collation, an exploration of symbols used as signature marks.
- Rebecca Romney writes on "Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Materials as Meaning."
- More on the Archaeology of Reading in Early Modern Europe project from the CSM and The Guardian.
- In Prospect, Sarah Dry offers an excerpt of her new book The Newton Papers.
- Cambridge University has launched a new online exhibition celebrating the 500th anniversary of Vesalius' birth.
- At Yale Books, an interview with David Knight, author of Voyaging in Strange Seas.
- One of this summer's "catalog campers" at AAS, Samantha Cook, reports on her experiences working with the tremendously important Printers' File.
- The Supreme Court has refused to hear an "emergency petition" from Conan Doyle's literary heirs over a planned book by Leslie Klinger.
- Over at Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Lew interviews bookplate artist Daniel Mitsui.
- At Notabilia, Stephen Ferguson highlights a copy of Anti-Machiavel containing extensive manuscript annotations from other versions of the text.
Reviews
- Andrew Pettegree's The Invention of News; review by Julianne Werlin in the LA Review of Books.
- Deborah Harkness' The Book of Life; review by Paula L. Woods in the LATimes.
- Lawrence Buell's The Dream of the Great American Novel; review by Sarah Graham in the TLS.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Links & Reviews
- Newly available as free PDFs, DCRM(Books) and DCRM(Serials). DCRM(Graphics) is also available in the same format.
- On the Houghton Library blog, John Overholt writes about the re-acquisition of a set of Addison's works that were acquired by Harvard in the aftermath of the 1764 fire, but later removed as duplicates.
- Patrons have emptied the shelves of a small Devon village library after planned funding cuts threatened to close the library.
- The WaPo reports on the Folger Library's ambitious plan to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016 by exhibiting a First Folio in every U.S. state, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
- New from USGS, Historical Topographic Map Explorer, which I'm looking forward to playing with. Read about it here.
- Rick Gekoski writes for The Guardian on "How to get ahead - or at least stay afloat - in the rare book trade."
- Elizabeth Yale writes at The Atlantic on "The Mortality of Paper."
- From Midwest Arcadia, Susan Donahue Karetsky writes on "Lairesse Meets Bidloo, or, the Case of the Absent Anatomist."
- Jennifer Schuessler reports on several efforts to document early marginalia, including the newly-Mellon-funded project Exploring the Archaeology of Reading. More from JHU here.
- Sarah Werner works on identifying a distinctive leather bookplate at The Collation.
- Over at Notabila, an incunable containing an early leather bookmark with rotating column indicator.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Alec Rogers in the Washington Times.
- Ben Shephard's Headhunters; review by Adam Kuper in the TLS.
- John Paul Steven's Six Amendments; review by Steven Calabresi in the WSJ.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Maxwell Carter in the WSJ.
- On the Houghton Library blog, John Overholt writes about the re-acquisition of a set of Addison's works that were acquired by Harvard in the aftermath of the 1764 fire, but later removed as duplicates.
- Patrons have emptied the shelves of a small Devon village library after planned funding cuts threatened to close the library.
- The WaPo reports on the Folger Library's ambitious plan to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016 by exhibiting a First Folio in every U.S. state, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
- New from USGS, Historical Topographic Map Explorer, which I'm looking forward to playing with. Read about it here.
- Rick Gekoski writes for The Guardian on "How to get ahead - or at least stay afloat - in the rare book trade."
- Elizabeth Yale writes at The Atlantic on "The Mortality of Paper."
- From Midwest Arcadia, Susan Donahue Karetsky writes on "Lairesse Meets Bidloo, or, the Case of the Absent Anatomist."
- Jennifer Schuessler reports on several efforts to document early marginalia, including the newly-Mellon-funded project Exploring the Archaeology of Reading. More from JHU here.
- Sarah Werner works on identifying a distinctive leather bookplate at The Collation.
- Over at Notabila, an incunable containing an early leather bookmark with rotating column indicator.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Alec Rogers in the Washington Times.
- Ben Shephard's Headhunters; review by Adam Kuper in the TLS.
- John Paul Steven's Six Amendments; review by Steven Calabresi in the WSJ.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Maxwell Carter in the WSJ.
Sunday, July 06, 2014
Links & Reviews
I've updated the blog list at right, removing now-dead links, indicating those that haven't been updated within the last year, and adding a few. As always, if there are blogs, &c. you think I ought to be linking to there, let me know!
- The Telegraph reports today on the 16 July sale at Christie's of a fascinating library collected by multiple generations of English bibliophiles, containing quite a few bibliographic treasures.
- A new Neatline/Omeka presentation of the Declaration of Independence by David McClure launched this week, and it's very much worth a look.
- David Rubenstein has funded a new facsimile of the 1823 Stone facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, to allow one framed copy of be displayed in each U.S. embassy. Seth Kaller, Inc. produced a 24-page booklet to accompany the facsimiles.
- The NYPL displayed a copy of the Declaration in Jefferson's hand this week, drawing more than 10,000 visitors.
- Jennifer Howard reported for the Chronicle this week on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's preparations for a new strategic plan, to be released this summer.
- The NYTimes reported on a punctuation question that has arisen around the text of the Declaration of Independence as presented by NARA. Danielle Allen's full paper on which the article is based is here, and Joe Adelman weighed in.
- Simon Beattie reminds us other things happened during 1776, highlighting a new collection of material printed at Stargard Szczeciński (Poland) to document the celebrations held to welcome Catherine the Great's son, Paul, who visited the town enroute to Berlin where he was to meet a new wife.
- Michael Beschloss wrote about the 1952 transfer of the major American founding documents from the Library of Congress to the new National Archives building.
- Amazon's Jeff Grandinetti spoke to the WSJ about the company's ongoing feud with Hachette; Melville House's Alex Shephard responds.
- The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson are currently available in beta form.
Reviews
- Richard W. Oram and Joseph Nicholson's Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook; review by Peter Steinberg at Sylvia Plath Info.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Edward Cuddihy in the Buffalo News.
- Diana Scarisbrick & Benjamin Zucker's Elihu Yale; review by Martin Rubin in the Washington Times.
- Alex Beam's American Crucifixion; review by Benjamin Moser in the NYTimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Pradeep Sebastian in The Hindu.
- Danielle Allen's Our Declaration; review by Steven B. Smith in the NYTimes.
- The Telegraph reports today on the 16 July sale at Christie's of a fascinating library collected by multiple generations of English bibliophiles, containing quite a few bibliographic treasures.
- A new Neatline/Omeka presentation of the Declaration of Independence by David McClure launched this week, and it's very much worth a look.
- David Rubenstein has funded a new facsimile of the 1823 Stone facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, to allow one framed copy of be displayed in each U.S. embassy. Seth Kaller, Inc. produced a 24-page booklet to accompany the facsimiles.
- The NYPL displayed a copy of the Declaration in Jefferson's hand this week, drawing more than 10,000 visitors.
- Jennifer Howard reported for the Chronicle this week on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's preparations for a new strategic plan, to be released this summer.
- The NYTimes reported on a punctuation question that has arisen around the text of the Declaration of Independence as presented by NARA. Danielle Allen's full paper on which the article is based is here, and Joe Adelman weighed in.
- Simon Beattie reminds us other things happened during 1776, highlighting a new collection of material printed at Stargard Szczeciński (Poland) to document the celebrations held to welcome Catherine the Great's son, Paul, who visited the town enroute to Berlin where he was to meet a new wife.
- Michael Beschloss wrote about the 1952 transfer of the major American founding documents from the Library of Congress to the new National Archives building.
- Amazon's Jeff Grandinetti spoke to the WSJ about the company's ongoing feud with Hachette; Melville House's Alex Shephard responds.
- The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson are currently available in beta form.
Reviews
- Richard W. Oram and Joseph Nicholson's Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook; review by Peter Steinberg at Sylvia Plath Info.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Edward Cuddihy in the Buffalo News.
- Diana Scarisbrick & Benjamin Zucker's Elihu Yale; review by Martin Rubin in the Washington Times.
- Alex Beam's American Crucifixion; review by Benjamin Moser in the NYTimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Pradeep Sebastian in The Hindu.
- Danielle Allen's Our Declaration; review by Steven B. Smith in the NYTimes.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Links & Reviews
Back from an excellent RBMS preconference in the very strange city of Las Vegas. It was a pleasure to see so many old friends and meet so many new ones, and to have a chance to hear from so many about the good work they're doing in their libraries and institutions.
- The Irish Times reports that the oldest known surviving Irish manuscript, known as the First Book of Ussher, will be displayed publicly by Trinity College Dublin for the first time in 2016.
- Mitch Fraas, who I had the great pleasure of meeting in person this week at RBMS, has posted some fascinating findings based on the Americana Exchange lists of top 2013 book and manuscript auction sales, including breakdowns by auction house, century, estimate overperformance, and more.
- From the Harvard Gazette, a story on the conservation of the miniature books created by the Brontë children.
- Over at the Melville House blog, Alex Shephard has an in-depth look at the ongoing Amazon/Hachette feud, and what it means for the publishing industry.
- Continuing the very strange stories coming out of Dublin, All Hallows College is planning to sell art and rare books next month at Sheppard's in Durrow.
- Following the recent confirmation from Houghton Library that a book in its collections was bound in human skin, Paul Needham has written a short essay calling for the binding to be removed and buried.
- Over at The Little Professor, thoughts on deaccessioning from one's personal library.
- SAA president Danna Bell has posted on the SAA blog about "The De-Evolution of the Archives and Archivists List."
- A working manuscript draft of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" sold for $2 million at Sotheby's this week.
- Jennifer Howard reports from the Association of American University Presses' annual meeting for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Retiring UVA historian Sandy Gilliam talked to the Roanoke Times about his long career at UVA.
Reviews
- Horst Bredekamp, Paul Needham et al.'s A Galileo Forgery; review by Massimo Mazzotti in the LA Review of Books. More than a review, though, this is an excellent background piece on the forgeries as well.
- Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling's The Silkworm; review by Harlan Coben in the NYTimes.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Fergus M. Bordewich in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Mitchell's Liberty's Torch; review by Janet Napolitano in the LATimes.
- Kevin Birmingham's The Most Dangerous Book; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Nicola Barker's In the Approaches; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
- Alex Wright's Cataloging the World; review by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Chuck Haga in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; review by Joy Tipping in the Dallas Morning News.
- The Irish Times reports that the oldest known surviving Irish manuscript, known as the First Book of Ussher, will be displayed publicly by Trinity College Dublin for the first time in 2016.
- Mitch Fraas, who I had the great pleasure of meeting in person this week at RBMS, has posted some fascinating findings based on the Americana Exchange lists of top 2013 book and manuscript auction sales, including breakdowns by auction house, century, estimate overperformance, and more.
- From the Harvard Gazette, a story on the conservation of the miniature books created by the Brontë children.
- Over at the Melville House blog, Alex Shephard has an in-depth look at the ongoing Amazon/Hachette feud, and what it means for the publishing industry.
- Continuing the very strange stories coming out of Dublin, All Hallows College is planning to sell art and rare books next month at Sheppard's in Durrow.
- Following the recent confirmation from Houghton Library that a book in its collections was bound in human skin, Paul Needham has written a short essay calling for the binding to be removed and buried.
- Over at The Little Professor, thoughts on deaccessioning from one's personal library.
- SAA president Danna Bell has posted on the SAA blog about "The De-Evolution of the Archives and Archivists List."
- A working manuscript draft of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" sold for $2 million at Sotheby's this week.
- Jennifer Howard reports from the Association of American University Presses' annual meeting for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Retiring UVA historian Sandy Gilliam talked to the Roanoke Times about his long career at UVA.
Reviews
- Horst Bredekamp, Paul Needham et al.'s A Galileo Forgery; review by Massimo Mazzotti in the LA Review of Books. More than a review, though, this is an excellent background piece on the forgeries as well.
- Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling's The Silkworm; review by Harlan Coben in the NYTimes.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Fergus M. Bordewich in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Mitchell's Liberty's Torch; review by Janet Napolitano in the LATimes.
- Kevin Birmingham's The Most Dangerous Book; review by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes.
- Nicola Barker's In the Approaches; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
- Alex Wright's Cataloging the World; review by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Chuck Haga in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; review by Joy Tipping in the Dallas Morning News.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Links & Reviews
I realized that this week marked the 8th anniversary of the first post on this blog; it seems almost remarkable that it's continued so long! The milestone seems particularly fitting since I've been spending more time actually thinking about this blog than I usually do, in preparation for a seminar at RBMS this coming week where I'll be talking about "Publishing for Professional Growth." Given the other excellent folks on the panel (Jessica Pigza, Anne Bahde, Colleen Thiesen, and John Overholt as moderator) it should be a really good discussion, and I'm quite looking forward to it. If you're in Las Vegas for RBMS and want to come, it'll be held from 4-5:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.
- The new ABAA website launched this week, and it's quite impressive!
- A first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass from the Huguette Clark collection fetched $305,000 at Christie's this week, setting a new record for a Whitman work.
- The copy of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest inscribed to his jailer sold at auction this week for £55,000.
- A new exhibition, "Once There Were Billions: Vanished Birds of North America" opens at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on 24 June.
- With the news that a book at Harvard has now been confirmed to be bound in human skin, the BBC Magazine surveys the well-worn ground of anthropodermic bindings.
- Just weeks after the threat to IES comes another one: now the Warburg Institute could be closed and its collections broken up as the University of London seeks to change the 1944 deed of trust which brought the collection to London. A ruling on the terms of the deed could come this fall. This isn't exactly a new danger, though: Anthony Grafton and Jeffrey Hamburger posted an essay on the possible closure over on the NYRB blog way back in 2010.
- The DPLA has received an $81,000 grant from the Whiting Foundation to explore educational possibilities for its collections.
- Colum McCann gets the "By the Book" treatment in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Eisenstein spoke to Thomas Hill for his Library Café podcast. You can listen here.
- The NYPL's Rose Main Reading Room will remain closed for around six months to allow for inspections and repairs to the ceiling after a plaster rosette fell in May.
- Julian Baggini reports in the Financial Times about recent research into the differences between reading on paper and reading on a screen.
- Nathan Raab writes at Forbes about a Lincoln document believed authentic for the last seven decades or so, but now proven to be a forgery.
- Over at The Collation, Deborah J. Leslie writes on throwout plates, bound so that an illustration or table could be viewed while still reading the text.
- The Reading Experience Database bibliography has been updated with a number of new and forthcoming articles.
- Several unpublished Pablo Neruda poems have been found during the cataloging of the poet's manuscripts.
- Dublin police have discovered more than seventy pieces of art, rare books and other objects believed to have been stolen over more than four decades.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Randolph Walerius at Roll Call.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; reviews by Andrew Sean Greer in the NYTimes and Elizabeth Hand in the LATimes.
- The new ABAA website launched this week, and it's quite impressive!
- A first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass from the Huguette Clark collection fetched $305,000 at Christie's this week, setting a new record for a Whitman work.
- The copy of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest inscribed to his jailer sold at auction this week for £55,000.
- A new exhibition, "Once There Were Billions: Vanished Birds of North America" opens at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on 24 June.
- With the news that a book at Harvard has now been confirmed to be bound in human skin, the BBC Magazine surveys the well-worn ground of anthropodermic bindings.
- Just weeks after the threat to IES comes another one: now the Warburg Institute could be closed and its collections broken up as the University of London seeks to change the 1944 deed of trust which brought the collection to London. A ruling on the terms of the deed could come this fall. This isn't exactly a new danger, though: Anthony Grafton and Jeffrey Hamburger posted an essay on the possible closure over on the NYRB blog way back in 2010.
- The DPLA has received an $81,000 grant from the Whiting Foundation to explore educational possibilities for its collections.
- Colum McCann gets the "By the Book" treatment in the NYTimes.
- Elizabeth Eisenstein spoke to Thomas Hill for his Library Café podcast. You can listen here.
- The NYPL's Rose Main Reading Room will remain closed for around six months to allow for inspections and repairs to the ceiling after a plaster rosette fell in May.
- Julian Baggini reports in the Financial Times about recent research into the differences between reading on paper and reading on a screen.
- Nathan Raab writes at Forbes about a Lincoln document believed authentic for the last seven decades or so, but now proven to be a forgery.
- Over at The Collation, Deborah J. Leslie writes on throwout plates, bound so that an illustration or table could be viewed while still reading the text.
- The Reading Experience Database bibliography has been updated with a number of new and forthcoming articles.
- Several unpublished Pablo Neruda poems have been found during the cataloging of the poet's manuscripts.
- Dublin police have discovered more than seventy pieces of art, rare books and other objects believed to have been stolen over more than four decades.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; review by Randolph Walerius at Roll Call.
- Lauren Owen's The Quick; reviews by Andrew Sean Greer in the NYTimes and Elizabeth Hand in the LATimes.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling in favor of HathiTrust. Read Jennifer Howard's Chronicle report, or the full decision.
- The grandson of historian Samuel Eliot Morison appeared in federal court this week, accused of stealing more than thirty boxes of his grandfather's papers from the Naval Historical Center. Samuel L. Morison, 69, faces up to ten years in prison for the theft of government property, and has been banned from visiting libraries and archives without court approval while awaiting trial. Morison was allegedly selling the documents on eBay via a Maryland bookstore. Reports in Reuters and the WaPo (the latter containing much more detail).
- The Beinecke Library has acquired the papers of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.
- Over at TNR, Blaine Greteman writes "It's the End of the Humanities as We Know It ... And I feel fine."
- Sid and Ruth Lapidus have donated $2.5 million, as well as rare books and manuscripts relating to slavery, to the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
- Boston's wonderful Brattle Book Shop is profiled in Rare Books Digest.
- At The Collation, Sarah Werner examines the four states of the Martin Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare.
- Hillary Clinton talked books with the NYTimes this week.
- The LATimes Summer Book Preview is worth a look-through, and over at the TLS reviewers are discussing which books they're looking forward to reading while on vacation.
Reviews
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Barry Alfonso in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- Gustavo Faverón Patriau's The Antiquarian; review by Carmela Ciuraru in the NYTimes.
- The grandson of historian Samuel Eliot Morison appeared in federal court this week, accused of stealing more than thirty boxes of his grandfather's papers from the Naval Historical Center. Samuel L. Morison, 69, faces up to ten years in prison for the theft of government property, and has been banned from visiting libraries and archives without court approval while awaiting trial. Morison was allegedly selling the documents on eBay via a Maryland bookstore. Reports in Reuters and the WaPo (the latter containing much more detail).
- The Beinecke Library has acquired the papers of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson.
- Over at TNR, Blaine Greteman writes "It's the End of the Humanities as We Know It ... And I feel fine."
- Sid and Ruth Lapidus have donated $2.5 million, as well as rare books and manuscripts relating to slavery, to the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
- Boston's wonderful Brattle Book Shop is profiled in Rare Books Digest.
- At The Collation, Sarah Werner examines the four states of the Martin Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare.
- Hillary Clinton talked books with the NYTimes this week.
- The LATimes Summer Book Preview is worth a look-through, and over at the TLS reviewers are discussing which books they're looking forward to reading while on vacation.
Reviews
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Barry Alfonso in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- Gustavo Faverón Patriau's The Antiquarian; review by Carmela Ciuraru in the NYTimes.
Sunday, June 08, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The excellent "Authenticity of Print Materials" symposium held at LC back in December is now available as a webcast [Updated with YouTube link, since that's easier to access].
- Tom Hyry has been announced as the new Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library.
- The BBC reports that three FSB agents have been sentenced for the theft of a Gutenberg Bible from Moscow State University: Sergei Vedishchev received a three-year term in a penal colony for theft, and two accomplices received lighter sentences for trying to sell the book to a collector.
- The Independent has more on the large-scale thefts of books and artwork from All Hallows College in Dublin.
- The Rare Book School summer lecture series was announced this week.
- From the Samuelson Clinic at Berkeley, a new "Is it in the Public Domain?" handbook.
- Newly-published is Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook (Rowman & Littlefield), edited by Rich Oram and Joseph Nicholson.
- Tests have confirmed (for all intents and purposes) that a Houghton Library book, Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'ame is actually bound in human skin.
- The NYPL has revealed that its new renovation plans for the Fifth Avenue building and other upgrades will likely cost something on the order of $300 million, while the expected costs of the now-abandoned Central Library Plan had creeped up to more than $500 million. This just days after a falling chunk of plaster closed the Rose Main Reading Room indefinitely.
- Joel Kovarsky is profiled in the Crozet Times about his new book, The True Geography of Our Country: Jefferson's Cartographic Vision.
- From the ABAA Security blog, a robbery at Bay Leaf Books in Newaygo, MI.
- In the Guardian, a fascinating story about an overpainted whale in a 1641 Dutch painting, newly revealed through conservation work.
- Stephen Greenblatt writes about Montaigne's influence on Shakespeare.
Reviews
- Katharine Grant's Sedition; review by Andea Wulf in the NYTimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Michael Washburn in the Boston Globe.
- Tom Hyry has been announced as the new Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library.
- The BBC reports that three FSB agents have been sentenced for the theft of a Gutenberg Bible from Moscow State University: Sergei Vedishchev received a three-year term in a penal colony for theft, and two accomplices received lighter sentences for trying to sell the book to a collector.
- The Independent has more on the large-scale thefts of books and artwork from All Hallows College in Dublin.
- The Rare Book School summer lecture series was announced this week.
- From the Samuelson Clinic at Berkeley, a new "Is it in the Public Domain?" handbook.
- Newly-published is Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook (Rowman & Littlefield), edited by Rich Oram and Joseph Nicholson.
- Tests have confirmed (for all intents and purposes) that a Houghton Library book, Arsène Houssaye's Des destinées de l'ame is actually bound in human skin.
- The NYPL has revealed that its new renovation plans for the Fifth Avenue building and other upgrades will likely cost something on the order of $300 million, while the expected costs of the now-abandoned Central Library Plan had creeped up to more than $500 million. This just days after a falling chunk of plaster closed the Rose Main Reading Room indefinitely.
- Joel Kovarsky is profiled in the Crozet Times about his new book, The True Geography of Our Country: Jefferson's Cartographic Vision.
- From the ABAA Security blog, a robbery at Bay Leaf Books in Newaygo, MI.
- In the Guardian, a fascinating story about an overpainted whale in a 1641 Dutch painting, newly revealed through conservation work.
- Stephen Greenblatt writes about Montaigne's influence on Shakespeare.
Reviews
- Katharine Grant's Sedition; review by Andea Wulf in the NYTimes.
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Michael Washburn in the Boston Globe.
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The Irish Times reports that All Hallows College, Dublin is missing "a sizeable number" of valuable books, manuscripts, and pieces of art, possibly worth as much as €100,000. The small college is planning to cease operations in the near future, and this latest investigation comes just days after the college withdrew a collection of Jackie Kennedy letters from auction.
- At Anchora, Adam Hooks weighs in on the Shakespeare's Beehive business, particularly considering printer Richard Field and the uses made of him by the Beehive authors.
- The June AE Monthly is out, and it features a series on bookselling, booksellers talking about Amazon, and an update on Canadian book thief John Mark Tillman, now reportedly cooperating with police to return some 7,000 stolen artifacts to their rightful homes.
- On NPR, Mark Dimunation discussed his ongoing hunt for the last few titles needed to complete the LC's reconstruction of Jefferson's library.
- From Jerry Morris at Biblio Researching, some good sleuthing into the provenance of one of his books.
- A new list of recent and forthcoming books on early American history is up on the SEA site.
- And over at The Junto, they've announced a summer book club.
- Digital surrogates of more than a thousand manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries have now been added to Penn in Hand.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by Robert K. Landers in the WSJ and David Holahan in the CSM.
- Daniel Levine's Hyde; review by Walter Kirn in the NYTimes.
- James Oakes' The Scorpion's Sting; review by Ira Berlin in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by Garrett Epps in the WaPo.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Eric Foner in the WaPo.
- At Anchora, Adam Hooks weighs in on the Shakespeare's Beehive business, particularly considering printer Richard Field and the uses made of him by the Beehive authors.
- The June AE Monthly is out, and it features a series on bookselling, booksellers talking about Amazon, and an update on Canadian book thief John Mark Tillman, now reportedly cooperating with police to return some 7,000 stolen artifacts to their rightful homes.
- On NPR, Mark Dimunation discussed his ongoing hunt for the last few titles needed to complete the LC's reconstruction of Jefferson's library.
- From Jerry Morris at Biblio Researching, some good sleuthing into the provenance of one of his books.
- A new list of recent and forthcoming books on early American history is up on the SEA site.
- And over at The Junto, they've announced a summer book club.
- Digital surrogates of more than a thousand manuscripts from the 17th and 18th centuries have now been added to Penn in Hand.
Reviews
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by Robert K. Landers in the WSJ and David Holahan in the CSM.
- Daniel Levine's Hyde; review by Walter Kirn in the NYTimes.
- James Oakes' The Scorpion's Sting; review by Ira Berlin in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by Garrett Epps in the WaPo.
- Michael Korda's Clouds of Glory; review by Eric Foner in the WaPo.
Book Review: "Washington Brotherhood"
Rachel Shelden's Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War (UNC Press, 2013) offers a fresh look at Washington society in the decades leading up to the Civil War, concentrating not on the occasional violent outburst but instead on the day-to-day camaraderie and social interactions of elected officials from across the regional and political spectrum. Shelden highlights a number of situations in which personal friendships between legislators had important consequences for the resolution of sectional differences, and argues for the existence of a Washington "bubble" that kept many of those who might have prevented the ultimate break from seeing it coming to the extent that they might have.
The author has done her research well, drawing on a wide range of unpublished papers, boardinghouse directories, Congressional seating charts, and other materials. She stresses the importance of not relying on the record of Congressional debates as the main source for sectional animus, noting that often legislators who were violently critical of their political opponents in public were close personal friends. She ably explains the Young Indians, a small group of Whig congressmen from across the sectional divide (including Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Stephens) who played a key role in the Whig selection of Zachary Taylor as the party's nominee in 1848 and cemented lasting personal bonds and perceptions between its members (for good and ill, as it turned out).
An excellent exploration of social and cultural connections which provide important context to the history of the antebellum period.
The author has done her research well, drawing on a wide range of unpublished papers, boardinghouse directories, Congressional seating charts, and other materials. She stresses the importance of not relying on the record of Congressional debates as the main source for sectional animus, noting that often legislators who were violently critical of their political opponents in public were close personal friends. She ably explains the Young Indians, a small group of Whig congressmen from across the sectional divide (including Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Stephens) who played a key role in the Whig selection of Zachary Taylor as the party's nominee in 1848 and cemented lasting personal bonds and perceptions between its members (for good and ill, as it turned out).
An excellent exploration of social and cultural connections which provide important context to the history of the antebellum period.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The Glasgow School of Art's iconic library designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh was destroyed by a fire this week. You can contribute to a response fund here.
- A plan to close the University of London's Institute of English Studies, outlined here, has been temporarily shelved after a strong scholarly outcry, including more than 3,600 signatures on an online petition.
- Robert Darnton writes in the NYRB about the progress of the DPLA and other projects.
- Brian Cassidy's tenth-anniversary e-catalog, "Mistakes Were Made," is an absolute must-read.
- John Overholt made a fascinating find recently: inked bearer type, which he was then able to identify.
- A book inscribed by Oscar Wilde to prison governor James Nelson as a token of appreciation for giving the author access to reading material could fetch £60,000 when sold at Bonhams in London on 18 June.
- The BL Collection Care blog reports on the recent discovery of a watermark on the rear pastedown of the St. Cuthbert Gospel.
- A.J. O'Shaughnessy has won the 2014 George Washington Book Prize, with its $50,000 purse, for The Men Who Lost America.
- From Aaron Pratt, "Flipping EEBO," a post prompted by a very interesting conversation on Twitter.
- You can now watch the trailer for "Cold Storage," a forthcoming documentary film about the Harvard Depository.
- The Mapping the British Book Trade workshop at Oxford this week made for some lively Twitter chatter, which is documented here.
- At The Collation, Heather Wolfe highlights a wonderful and richly-annotated 1572 dictionary.
- William S. Peterson and Sylvia Holton Peterson have launched a new digital reconstruction of the library of William Morris.
- Caleb Crain responds to the abandonment of the NYPL's Central Library Plan.
- From the Smithsonian Libraries Unbound blog, a look at binding waste found in book spines.
- The NYTimes Bits blog covers the current battle between Amazon and Hachette. Utterly ridiculous for Amazon to be doing this; it just makes them look stupid and petty.
- The HRC has acquired the archive of author Ian McEwan. Along the same vein, see Tim Parks' NYRB essay on author archives.
- Walter Isaacson's NEH Jefferson Lecture "The Intersection of the Humanities and the Sciences" is well worth a read.
- Several books believed to be rebound in decorative cloth by Dorothy Wordsworth were sold for £5,800 at Dreweatts this week.
- The BL's new Romantics and Victorians section of their Discovering Literature website was highlighted in The Guardian.
- Sarah Dry talked to Wired about her new book The Newton Papers.
- John Overholt's put up an animated gif of 19th-century progressive color printing processes.
- Another excellent response to Adam Kirsch's TNR piece on DH (linked in my last post), by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp.
- Colby College's plan to move books out of the stacks is panned in Slate by Rebecca Schuman.
- Larry McMurtry writes on "The Lost Booksellers of New York" in the NYTimes.
- There's an excerpt of Michael Blanding's book on E. Forbes Smiley, The Map Thief, in the Boston Globe Magazine.
- One of my favorite characters, William Jenks, showed up on the AAS blog this week, clothed in books.
- From the University of Melbourne Library Collections blog, "Provenance in Pictures: Tracking the Ownership of Three Early Printed Books."
- Book conservator Samantha Couture is profiled in the Albany Times-Union. Sam does great work, as a few books on my own shelves will attest!
Reviews
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Jim Shelton in the New Haven Register.
- Edward St. Aubyn's Lost for Words; review by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by David Ulin in the LATimes.
- John Leonard's Faithful Laborers; review by Nigel Smith in the TLS.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by David Shribman in the Boston Globe and Carol Berkin in the WaPo.
- The new edition of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf; review by Craig Williamson in the WSJ.
- Sarah Dry's The Newton Papers; review by Laura Snyder in the WSJ.
- Several alternate histories of the American Revolution are reviewed by Paul Aron at Common-place.
- The Morgan Library exhibition "Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection"; review by Edward Rothstein in the NYTimes.
- A plan to close the University of London's Institute of English Studies, outlined here, has been temporarily shelved after a strong scholarly outcry, including more than 3,600 signatures on an online petition.
- Robert Darnton writes in the NYRB about the progress of the DPLA and other projects.
- Brian Cassidy's tenth-anniversary e-catalog, "Mistakes Were Made," is an absolute must-read.
- John Overholt made a fascinating find recently: inked bearer type, which he was then able to identify.
- A book inscribed by Oscar Wilde to prison governor James Nelson as a token of appreciation for giving the author access to reading material could fetch £60,000 when sold at Bonhams in London on 18 June.
- The BL Collection Care blog reports on the recent discovery of a watermark on the rear pastedown of the St. Cuthbert Gospel.
- A.J. O'Shaughnessy has won the 2014 George Washington Book Prize, with its $50,000 purse, for The Men Who Lost America.
- From Aaron Pratt, "Flipping EEBO," a post prompted by a very interesting conversation on Twitter.
- You can now watch the trailer for "Cold Storage," a forthcoming documentary film about the Harvard Depository.
- The Mapping the British Book Trade workshop at Oxford this week made for some lively Twitter chatter, which is documented here.
- At The Collation, Heather Wolfe highlights a wonderful and richly-annotated 1572 dictionary.
- William S. Peterson and Sylvia Holton Peterson have launched a new digital reconstruction of the library of William Morris.
- Caleb Crain responds to the abandonment of the NYPL's Central Library Plan.
- From the Smithsonian Libraries Unbound blog, a look at binding waste found in book spines.
- The NYTimes Bits blog covers the current battle between Amazon and Hachette. Utterly ridiculous for Amazon to be doing this; it just makes them look stupid and petty.
- The HRC has acquired the archive of author Ian McEwan. Along the same vein, see Tim Parks' NYRB essay on author archives.
- Walter Isaacson's NEH Jefferson Lecture "The Intersection of the Humanities and the Sciences" is well worth a read.
- Several books believed to be rebound in decorative cloth by Dorothy Wordsworth were sold for £5,800 at Dreweatts this week.
- The BL's new Romantics and Victorians section of their Discovering Literature website was highlighted in The Guardian.
- Sarah Dry talked to Wired about her new book The Newton Papers.
- John Overholt's put up an animated gif of 19th-century progressive color printing processes.
- Another excellent response to Adam Kirsch's TNR piece on DH (linked in my last post), by Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp.
- Colby College's plan to move books out of the stacks is panned in Slate by Rebecca Schuman.
- Larry McMurtry writes on "The Lost Booksellers of New York" in the NYTimes.
- There's an excerpt of Michael Blanding's book on E. Forbes Smiley, The Map Thief, in the Boston Globe Magazine.
- One of my favorite characters, William Jenks, showed up on the AAS blog this week, clothed in books.
- From the University of Melbourne Library Collections blog, "Provenance in Pictures: Tracking the Ownership of Three Early Printed Books."
- Book conservator Samantha Couture is profiled in the Albany Times-Union. Sam does great work, as a few books on my own shelves will attest!
Reviews
- Michael Blanding's The Map Thief; review by Jim Shelton in the New Haven Register.
- Edward St. Aubyn's Lost for Words; review by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo.
- Michael Waldman's The Second Amendment; review by David Ulin in the LATimes.
- John Leonard's Faithful Laborers; review by Nigel Smith in the TLS.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams; reviews by David Shribman in the Boston Globe and Carol Berkin in the WaPo.
- The new edition of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf; review by Craig Williamson in the WSJ.
- Sarah Dry's The Newton Papers; review by Laura Snyder in the WSJ.
- Several alternate histories of the American Revolution are reviewed by Paul Aron at Common-place.
- The Morgan Library exhibition "Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection"; review by Edward Rothstein in the NYTimes.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Links & Reviews
- The NYPL's leadership announced this week that they have abandoned their much-panned renovation scheme known as the "Central Library Plan." More coverage from the WSJ and from Scott Sherman at The Nation. Scholar Caleb Crain, who pushed back against the ill-conceived plan from the get-go, weighed in. Much credit to him and to all of the others who worked so diligently to bring about this week's developments.
- MARIAB (Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers) is now SNEAB (Southern New England Antiquarian Booksellers), having added Connecticut booksellers to its remit.
- New from NINES and led by UVA's Andrew Stauffer is Book Traces, which seeks to identify marginalia and inserts in 19th- and early 20th-century volumes in open library stacks. Coverage of the project has appeared in The Atlantic, Hyperallergic, The New Atlantis, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Adam Kirsch's TNR piece "Technology is Taking Over English Departments: The False Promise of Digital Humanities" has spawned a number of valuable rebuttals, including Ted Underwood's "You can't govern reception," Glen Worthey's "Why are such terrible things written about DH? Kirsch v. Kirschenbaum," and Ryan Cordell's "On Ignoring Encoding." Worthey positions Kirsch's piece very aptly against Matt Kirschenbaum's "What is 'Digital Humanities,' and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?," which is absolutely a must-read for anyone with any interest at all in these matters.
- The University of Illinois has launched Project Unica, an initiative to "preserve and share books that exist as sole survivors." The project has now been opened so that other university libraries can share digital copies of their own unique copies.
- At Atlas Obscura, a look at some of the remaining chained libraries.
- From Anne Trubek at Belt magazine, a look inside the famous bibliophilic Rowfant Club.
- The Getty Research Institute has acquired a late 16th-century liber amicorum compiled by Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, military attaché from the Holy Roman Empire to the Ottoman court.
- From The Guardian, a pretty interesting and amusing infographic, "How to tell you're reading a gothic novel."
- In the Chronicle, Marc Parry reports on libraries' use of "discovery tools."
- By this time, if you haven't heard about the 21 April announcement from booksellers George Koppelman and Daniel Wechsler that they've found what they believe to be a dictionary annotated by Shakespeare, you've been sleeping quite well indeed! Their site on the book is Shakespeare's Beehive. Garrett Scott rounded up very nearly all of the news reports and posts (skeptical and otherwise) on the topic, so I'm not going to repeat that process - but do go read through the links he's collected. I've spent a decent amount of time looking at the images of the volume (and have asked for an image of the front pastedown and flyleaf, to no avail thus far), and am unconvinced that the book was Shakespeare's, but it's certainly a notable volume and one very much deserving of thorough study.
- A 1482 printed Torah sold at Christie's Paris this week for $3.8 million.
- Over at Public Domain Review, Mike Jay writes on John Robison and his "exposé" of the Illuminati in "Darkness Over All."
- Also at PDR, Nicholas Humphrey writes on animal trials of the medieval period.
- From bookseller Lorne Blair, a great story of finding the right home for Andrew Jackson's family Bible.
- Peter Suber, director of Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication, writes on takedown notices Harvard received from mega-publisher Elsevier.
- From the UK National Archives blog, Jo Pugh asks if something in an archive can ever be "discovered." A good discussion of the question, actually.
- From the Department of Utterly Ridiculous, the Ohio Historical Society will officially change its name to the Ohio History Connection after surveys reportedly showed that people found the words "historical" and "society" to be "too exclusive and antiquated." Sigh.
- In the same vein, Mireille Silcoff's piece in the New York Times Magazine on physical books "becoming sexy" as furniture/decoration.
- Kembrew McLeod writes at The Atlantic about the great hoaxer George Psalmanazar.
- The Milwaukee Public Library is considering the sale or long-term loan of the iconic painting "The Bookworm," by Carl Spitzweg. An offer of $400,000 has been received for the piece, donated to the library in 1972 by René Von Schleintz. Over at Book Trade Ephemera, more on the use(s) of this painting in various ephemeral forms.
- Via Bethany Nowviskie on Twitter, a Neatline representation of Sterne's Sentimental Journey.
- The University of Chicago libraries offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who could identify a shorthand script used to annotate a 1504 edition of Homer's Odyssey. Less than a week passed before the prize was claimed by Daniele Metilli, an Italian computer engineer.
- From Erin Blake at The Collation, an exploration of the displaying of variant titles in catalog records, with a call for comments from catalog users.
- In case you missed it: the BSA awarded its 2014 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize for outstanding scholarship in the bibliography of American history and literature to Joseph J. Felcone for his Printing in New Jersey, 1754-1800: A Descriptive Bibliography (AAS, 2013).
- There's a new (and very useful) index to APHA's Printing History.
- Carolyn Kellogg reports on a new, hi-tech quest to discover the bones of Cervantes in the Convent of las Trinidades Descalzas in Madrid. A more in-depth story from Fiona Govan in the Telegraph.
- In The Guardian, Paul Laity writes on the history of Penguin's Pelican imprint.
- At The Junto, Sara Georgini rounds up some newly-released or forthcoming titles on early American history for your summer reading pleasure.
- Also at The Junto, Jonathan Wilson on colonial commencement ceremonies.
- In Slate's series on design, Michael Agresta writes on library design in "What Will Become of the Library?"
- Jonathan Green uses Eric White's census of incunable print runs to produce some distribution graphs.
- While I'm not sure the name was the best choice, I'm interested to see that the Navy is going to offer its sailors a Navy eReader Device (NeRD), filled with e-books (but with no means of adding more, as the whole thing comes preloaded).
Reviews
- Lynne Cheney's James Madison: A Life Reconsidered; review by Gordon S. Wood in the NYTimes.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams: American Visionary; review by Robert W. Merry in the NYTimes.
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Virginia DeJohn Anderson in the NYTimes.
- Stephen H. Grant's Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Daniel Brown's The Poetry of Victorian Scientists; review by Angelique Richardson in the TLS.
- Russell Shorto's Amsterdam; review by Philipp Blom in the TLS.
- Jonathan Israel's Revolutionary Ideas; review by Ruth Scurr in the WSJ.
- John Drury's Music at Midnight; review by Barton Swaim in the WSJ.
- Bruce Holsinger's A Burnable Book; review by Stephanie Downes in the Sydney Morning Herald.
- Stuart Bennett's Lord Moira's Echo; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
- MARIAB (Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers) is now SNEAB (Southern New England Antiquarian Booksellers), having added Connecticut booksellers to its remit.
- New from NINES and led by UVA's Andrew Stauffer is Book Traces, which seeks to identify marginalia and inserts in 19th- and early 20th-century volumes in open library stacks. Coverage of the project has appeared in The Atlantic, Hyperallergic, The New Atlantis, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Adam Kirsch's TNR piece "Technology is Taking Over English Departments: The False Promise of Digital Humanities" has spawned a number of valuable rebuttals, including Ted Underwood's "You can't govern reception," Glen Worthey's "Why are such terrible things written about DH? Kirsch v. Kirschenbaum," and Ryan Cordell's "On Ignoring Encoding." Worthey positions Kirsch's piece very aptly against Matt Kirschenbaum's "What is 'Digital Humanities,' and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?," which is absolutely a must-read for anyone with any interest at all in these matters.
- The University of Illinois has launched Project Unica, an initiative to "preserve and share books that exist as sole survivors." The project has now been opened so that other university libraries can share digital copies of their own unique copies.
- At Atlas Obscura, a look at some of the remaining chained libraries.
- From Anne Trubek at Belt magazine, a look inside the famous bibliophilic Rowfant Club.
- The Getty Research Institute has acquired a late 16th-century liber amicorum compiled by Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, military attaché from the Holy Roman Empire to the Ottoman court.
- From The Guardian, a pretty interesting and amusing infographic, "How to tell you're reading a gothic novel."
- In the Chronicle, Marc Parry reports on libraries' use of "discovery tools."
- By this time, if you haven't heard about the 21 April announcement from booksellers George Koppelman and Daniel Wechsler that they've found what they believe to be a dictionary annotated by Shakespeare, you've been sleeping quite well indeed! Their site on the book is Shakespeare's Beehive. Garrett Scott rounded up very nearly all of the news reports and posts (skeptical and otherwise) on the topic, so I'm not going to repeat that process - but do go read through the links he's collected. I've spent a decent amount of time looking at the images of the volume (and have asked for an image of the front pastedown and flyleaf, to no avail thus far), and am unconvinced that the book was Shakespeare's, but it's certainly a notable volume and one very much deserving of thorough study.
- A 1482 printed Torah sold at Christie's Paris this week for $3.8 million.
- Over at Public Domain Review, Mike Jay writes on John Robison and his "exposé" of the Illuminati in "Darkness Over All."
- Also at PDR, Nicholas Humphrey writes on animal trials of the medieval period.
- From bookseller Lorne Blair, a great story of finding the right home for Andrew Jackson's family Bible.
- Peter Suber, director of Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication, writes on takedown notices Harvard received from mega-publisher Elsevier.
- From the UK National Archives blog, Jo Pugh asks if something in an archive can ever be "discovered." A good discussion of the question, actually.
- From the Department of Utterly Ridiculous, the Ohio Historical Society will officially change its name to the Ohio History Connection after surveys reportedly showed that people found the words "historical" and "society" to be "too exclusive and antiquated." Sigh.
- In the same vein, Mireille Silcoff's piece in the New York Times Magazine on physical books "becoming sexy" as furniture/decoration.
- Kembrew McLeod writes at The Atlantic about the great hoaxer George Psalmanazar.
- The Milwaukee Public Library is considering the sale or long-term loan of the iconic painting "The Bookworm," by Carl Spitzweg. An offer of $400,000 has been received for the piece, donated to the library in 1972 by René Von Schleintz. Over at Book Trade Ephemera, more on the use(s) of this painting in various ephemeral forms.
- Via Bethany Nowviskie on Twitter, a Neatline representation of Sterne's Sentimental Journey.
- The University of Chicago libraries offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who could identify a shorthand script used to annotate a 1504 edition of Homer's Odyssey. Less than a week passed before the prize was claimed by Daniele Metilli, an Italian computer engineer.
- From Erin Blake at The Collation, an exploration of the displaying of variant titles in catalog records, with a call for comments from catalog users.
- In case you missed it: the BSA awarded its 2014 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize for outstanding scholarship in the bibliography of American history and literature to Joseph J. Felcone for his Printing in New Jersey, 1754-1800: A Descriptive Bibliography (AAS, 2013).
- There's a new (and very useful) index to APHA's Printing History.
- Carolyn Kellogg reports on a new, hi-tech quest to discover the bones of Cervantes in the Convent of las Trinidades Descalzas in Madrid. A more in-depth story from Fiona Govan in the Telegraph.
- In The Guardian, Paul Laity writes on the history of Penguin's Pelican imprint.
- At The Junto, Sara Georgini rounds up some newly-released or forthcoming titles on early American history for your summer reading pleasure.
- Also at The Junto, Jonathan Wilson on colonial commencement ceremonies.
- In Slate's series on design, Michael Agresta writes on library design in "What Will Become of the Library?"
- Jonathan Green uses Eric White's census of incunable print runs to produce some distribution graphs.
- While I'm not sure the name was the best choice, I'm interested to see that the Navy is going to offer its sailors a Navy eReader Device (NeRD), filled with e-books (but with no means of adding more, as the whole thing comes preloaded).
Reviews
- Lynne Cheney's James Madison: A Life Reconsidered; review by Gordon S. Wood in the NYTimes.
- Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams: American Visionary; review by Robert W. Merry in the NYTimes.
- Margery Heffron's Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams; review by Virginia DeJohn Anderson in the NYTimes.
- Stephen H. Grant's Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Daniel Brown's The Poetry of Victorian Scientists; review by Angelique Richardson in the TLS.
- Russell Shorto's Amsterdam; review by Philipp Blom in the TLS.
- Jonathan Israel's Revolutionary Ideas; review by Ruth Scurr in the WSJ.
- John Drury's Music at Midnight; review by Barton Swaim in the WSJ.
- Bruce Holsinger's A Burnable Book; review by Stephanie Downes in the Sydney Morning Herald.
- Stuart Bennett's Lord Moira's Echo; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books Blog.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Links & Reviews
Sorry, I got behind there for a few weeks. Time to play some serious catchup.
- The Pforzheimer Collection at NYPL has made a remarkable acquisition: a copy of Shelley's first book of verse, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810). A total of four copies are known, and the newly-acquired NYPL copy is in original boards, with untrimmed pages. The title page is inscribed "Thos Medwin / a present from / one of the authors", there are manuscript corrections to printer's errors in the text, possibly in Shelley's hand, and pencilled notes ascribing authorship to various poems as well.
- Harvard Law School has released the results of testing done on a binding long-believed to have been made of human skin. The binding proved to be [drum roll please ...] sheepskin. That didn't stop another flurry of stories about anthropodermic binding, though.
- In The Paris Review, Graciela Mochkofsky on the theft and return of a stolen Borges first edition ... with a twist. Lots of background on some major theft cases from the last few years, as well.
- Hear Anne Blair deliver the inaugural John Rylands Research Institute Lecture, "Script, Type, and Byte - Manuscripts after Gutenberg (reflections on technological continuities)" (link at bottom to download the audio).
- In Time, Katy Steinmetz interviews lexicographer and slang historian Jonathon Green.
- Jennifer Howard reports on the first birthday of the DPLA for the Chronicle.
- The Getty Museum announced that it is returning a 12th-century Byzantine illuminated New Testament to the Holy Monastery of Dionysou in Greece, from which the manuscript was stolen before 1960.
- In the Washington Independent Review of Books, a profile of the Library Company of Philadelphia's retiring director John C. Van Horne.
- At The Collation, printer's waste as endleaves, with many good images and context from Sarah Werner.
- Tests on a papyrus fragment containing the words "Jesus said to them 'My wife...'" indicate that it can be dated to the fourth-eighth centuries, but skeptics continue to doubt its authenticity or significance.
- The OED has launched another public appeal, this time for a book quoted in Alice Morse Earle's 1902 book Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday as "Mathematick Rules by I.N. Gentn, 1646."
- Simon Worrall has a piece in the BBC Magazine on the appeal of the Voynich Manuscript.
- Nick Basbanes is selling his collection of inscribed first editions.
- New from the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series, an interview with Sarah Burke Cahalan, a friend and library school class mate of mine!
- The Indiana Historical Society's copy of Audubon's Birds of America sold for a total of $3,525,000 at Sotheby's New York on 1 April. The copy of Quadrupeds made $245,000. IHS president and CEO John Herbst called it a "great day." The buyers have been identified only as a husband and wife "with the means to do the restoration needed for that set ...".
- Rebecca Rego Barry has an excellent rundown of the New York Book Fair, which was, as usual, a grand experience. It was fantastic to see so many friends and so many amazing books.
- Via Nick Basbanes on Twitter, Michael Rosenwald's 6 April WaPo article on the way online reading may change other forms of reading.
- Over at The Junto, an interview with Michael Jarvis, author of the Junto March Madness 2014 champion title In the Eye of All Trade (a book that has proven extremely useful to me in my own research, so I was delighted at its win!).
- From the Special Collections Processing at Penn blog, a look at H. Buxton Forman's bookplate, which bears an oddly apt caption.
- At Notabilia, a presentation copy from Abraham Ortelius to Francesco Soranzo, a Venetian nobleman who served as ambassador to Spain and a strong friend to Ortelius.
- The 8 April sale of Treasures from the Caren Archive: How History Unfolds on Paper realized $1.3 million. Eric Caren is still looking for a buyer for a collection of 200,000 additional items.
- Goran Proot explores a 1629 book purportedly published in Antwerp, discussing the various layout elements which suggest that the book likely originated in Italy instead.
- A new blog to follow: Manutius in Manchester.
- There's an excellent interview with E.O. Wilson in the WSJ. Read all the way to the end.
- On 20 May, Sotheby's London will try again to sell the manuscript of Rachmaninoff's second symphony, this time with an estimate of £1-1.5 million. In 2004 a planned sale was called off after the relatives of the composer claimed ownership. The manuscript was later sold to the Tabor Foundation and deposited at the British Library.
- The 2014 update to the Directory of Institutions in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings has been posted.
Reviews
- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's Plato at the Googleplex; review by Anthony Gottlieb in the NYTimes.
- Svante Paabo's Neanderthal Man; review by Carl Zimmer in the NYTimes.
- Justin Cartwright's Lion Heart; review by Katherine A. Powers in the WaPo.
- Helena Attlee's The Land Where Lemons Grow; review by Helena Attlee in the TLS.
- David G. Hackett's That Religion in Which All Men Agree; review by Seth Perry in The Junto.
- Justin Roberts' Slavery and the Enlightenment in the British Atlantic; review by David Richardson at H-Albion.
- AMC's show "Turn"; review by Carolyn Eastman in Perspectives on History.
- The Pforzheimer Collection at NYPL has made a remarkable acquisition: a copy of Shelley's first book of verse, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810). A total of four copies are known, and the newly-acquired NYPL copy is in original boards, with untrimmed pages. The title page is inscribed "Thos Medwin / a present from / one of the authors", there are manuscript corrections to printer's errors in the text, possibly in Shelley's hand, and pencilled notes ascribing authorship to various poems as well.
- Harvard Law School has released the results of testing done on a binding long-believed to have been made of human skin. The binding proved to be [drum roll please ...] sheepskin. That didn't stop another flurry of stories about anthropodermic binding, though.
- In The Paris Review, Graciela Mochkofsky on the theft and return of a stolen Borges first edition ... with a twist. Lots of background on some major theft cases from the last few years, as well.
- Hear Anne Blair deliver the inaugural John Rylands Research Institute Lecture, "Script, Type, and Byte - Manuscripts after Gutenberg (reflections on technological continuities)" (link at bottom to download the audio).
- In Time, Katy Steinmetz interviews lexicographer and slang historian Jonathon Green.
- Jennifer Howard reports on the first birthday of the DPLA for the Chronicle.
- The Getty Museum announced that it is returning a 12th-century Byzantine illuminated New Testament to the Holy Monastery of Dionysou in Greece, from which the manuscript was stolen before 1960.
- In the Washington Independent Review of Books, a profile of the Library Company of Philadelphia's retiring director John C. Van Horne.
- At The Collation, printer's waste as endleaves, with many good images and context from Sarah Werner.
- Tests on a papyrus fragment containing the words "Jesus said to them 'My wife...'" indicate that it can be dated to the fourth-eighth centuries, but skeptics continue to doubt its authenticity or significance.
- The OED has launched another public appeal, this time for a book quoted in Alice Morse Earle's 1902 book Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday as "Mathematick Rules by I.N. Gentn, 1646."
- Simon Worrall has a piece in the BBC Magazine on the appeal of the Voynich Manuscript.
- Nick Basbanes is selling his collection of inscribed first editions.
- New from the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series, an interview with Sarah Burke Cahalan, a friend and library school class mate of mine!
- The Indiana Historical Society's copy of Audubon's Birds of America sold for a total of $3,525,000 at Sotheby's New York on 1 April. The copy of Quadrupeds made $245,000. IHS president and CEO John Herbst called it a "great day." The buyers have been identified only as a husband and wife "with the means to do the restoration needed for that set ...".
- Rebecca Rego Barry has an excellent rundown of the New York Book Fair, which was, as usual, a grand experience. It was fantastic to see so many friends and so many amazing books.
- Via Nick Basbanes on Twitter, Michael Rosenwald's 6 April WaPo article on the way online reading may change other forms of reading.
- Over at The Junto, an interview with Michael Jarvis, author of the Junto March Madness 2014 champion title In the Eye of All Trade (a book that has proven extremely useful to me in my own research, so I was delighted at its win!).
- From the Special Collections Processing at Penn blog, a look at H. Buxton Forman's bookplate, which bears an oddly apt caption.
- At Notabilia, a presentation copy from Abraham Ortelius to Francesco Soranzo, a Venetian nobleman who served as ambassador to Spain and a strong friend to Ortelius.
- The 8 April sale of Treasures from the Caren Archive: How History Unfolds on Paper realized $1.3 million. Eric Caren is still looking for a buyer for a collection of 200,000 additional items.
- Goran Proot explores a 1629 book purportedly published in Antwerp, discussing the various layout elements which suggest that the book likely originated in Italy instead.
- A new blog to follow: Manutius in Manchester.
- There's an excellent interview with E.O. Wilson in the WSJ. Read all the way to the end.
- On 20 May, Sotheby's London will try again to sell the manuscript of Rachmaninoff's second symphony, this time with an estimate of £1-1.5 million. In 2004 a planned sale was called off after the relatives of the composer claimed ownership. The manuscript was later sold to the Tabor Foundation and deposited at the British Library.
- The 2014 update to the Directory of Institutions in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings has been posted.
Reviews
- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's Plato at the Googleplex; review by Anthony Gottlieb in the NYTimes.
- Svante Paabo's Neanderthal Man; review by Carl Zimmer in the NYTimes.
- Justin Cartwright's Lion Heart; review by Katherine A. Powers in the WaPo.
- Helena Attlee's The Land Where Lemons Grow; review by Helena Attlee in the TLS.
- David G. Hackett's That Religion in Which All Men Agree; review by Seth Perry in The Junto.
- Justin Roberts' Slavery and the Enlightenment in the British Atlantic; review by David Richardson at H-Albion.
- AMC's show "Turn"; review by Carolyn Eastman in Perspectives on History.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Links & Reviews
- Reminder: lots of big events coming up in New York this week during Rare Book Week, including the sale at Sotheby's on Tuesday of the Indiana Historical Society's copies of Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds.
- More books from the Mendham Collection will be sold at Sotheby's on 20 May as part of their Music & Continental Books & Manuscripts sale. These will include the first edition of Wyclif's works (Worms, 1525), as well as a unique Venetian incunable. As Clive Field remarked in a listserv post this week, "This year is therefore likely to see the complete dismemberment by the Law Society of one of the country's most important religious libraries formed in the nineteenth century, the cataloguing of which the British Library funded."
- In The Guardian, Robin Stummer reports on new graffiti found on the pillars of St Mary's church at Lidgate, Suffolk, which may include the carved "signature" of John Lydgate.
- In the NYTimes this week, "Literary City, Bookstore Desert," on the high rents forcing bookstores out of Manhattan.
- Booksellers Brian Cassidy and Dan Dwyer talk books on an episode of "This Old Book," which you can stream here.
- From cataloger Amy Sims at AAS, a post on "Adventures in Cataloging: Some Sleuthing Required" (part one of a series).
- Also continuing a theme, Erin Blake at The Collation covers some tricky library transcription rules.
- Simon Beattie blogged this week about one of the books he'll bringing to the upcoming New York Book Fair: a copy of an 1843 book composed straight into type by the author.
- Trinity College, Cambridge, is posting digital scans of its medieval manuscripts. See the list here.
- In the TLS, Malyn Newitt argues for greater access to the National Trust's libraries.
- Ian Gadd discusses the recently-published History of Oxford University Press with Adam Smyth on the Centre for the Study the Book podcast.
- At medieval fragments, Ramona Venema writes on fingerprints, blood drops, and other "biological clues" found in manuscripts.
Reviews
- The current New-York Historical Society exhibition, Audubon's Aviary: Parts Unknown; review by Henry Nicholls in The Guardian.
- Samuel Fleischaker's What is Enlightenment?; review by James Schmidt at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
- Jonathon Green's Odd Job Man and Language!; review by Nicholas Shakespeare in The Telegraph.
- Joyce Chaplin's Round About the Earth; review by Andrea Wulf in Literary Review.
- Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews; review by Judith Shulevitz in the NYTimes.
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; review by Brenda Wineapple in the NYTimes.
- Louis Bayard's Roosevelt's Beast; review by Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
- More books from the Mendham Collection will be sold at Sotheby's on 20 May as part of their Music & Continental Books & Manuscripts sale. These will include the first edition of Wyclif's works (Worms, 1525), as well as a unique Venetian incunable. As Clive Field remarked in a listserv post this week, "This year is therefore likely to see the complete dismemberment by the Law Society of one of the country's most important religious libraries formed in the nineteenth century, the cataloguing of which the British Library funded."
- In The Guardian, Robin Stummer reports on new graffiti found on the pillars of St Mary's church at Lidgate, Suffolk, which may include the carved "signature" of John Lydgate.
- In the NYTimes this week, "Literary City, Bookstore Desert," on the high rents forcing bookstores out of Manhattan.
- Booksellers Brian Cassidy and Dan Dwyer talk books on an episode of "This Old Book," which you can stream here.
- From cataloger Amy Sims at AAS, a post on "Adventures in Cataloging: Some Sleuthing Required" (part one of a series).
- Also continuing a theme, Erin Blake at The Collation covers some tricky library transcription rules.
- Simon Beattie blogged this week about one of the books he'll bringing to the upcoming New York Book Fair: a copy of an 1843 book composed straight into type by the author.
- Trinity College, Cambridge, is posting digital scans of its medieval manuscripts. See the list here.
- In the TLS, Malyn Newitt argues for greater access to the National Trust's libraries.
- Ian Gadd discusses the recently-published History of Oxford University Press with Adam Smyth on the Centre for the Study the Book podcast.
- At medieval fragments, Ramona Venema writes on fingerprints, blood drops, and other "biological clues" found in manuscripts.
Reviews
- The current New-York Historical Society exhibition, Audubon's Aviary: Parts Unknown; review by Henry Nicholls in The Guardian.
- Samuel Fleischaker's What is Enlightenment?; review by James Schmidt at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
- Jonathon Green's Odd Job Man and Language!; review by Nicholas Shakespeare in The Telegraph.
- Joyce Chaplin's Round About the Earth; review by Andrea Wulf in Literary Review.
- Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews; review by Judith Shulevitz in the NYTimes.
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; review by Brenda Wineapple in the NYTimes.
- Louis Bayard's Roosevelt's Beast; review by Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
Book Review: "A Feathered River Across the Sky"
Joel Greenberg's A Feathered River Across the Sky (Bloomsbury, 2014) is not an easy book to read. There were times when I had to put it down for a little while in favor of something amusing, or just to go outside and listen to the birds sing. Greenberg's book is a heart-wrenching catalog of depredations committed by members of our own species against the passenger pigeon, ultimately resulting in the complete and utter extinction of a species once unrivaled in terms of visible presence on the landscape of much of what is now the United States.
This is not an easy book, but it is an excellent book. Greenberg has meticulously collected and collated accounts of passenger pigeon observations, both when the birds were plentiful and widespread, and when the species had been reduced to just a few individuals, eking out a miserable existence in zoo enclosures, being pelted with sand in an attempt to make them move about. He has brought together a vast array of information on the techniques used to collect, kill, and market these birds, and deploys it to great effect.
The scale and scope of the assault(s) on large nesting assemblages of passenger pigeons in the last third or so of the 19th century are outlined in painful detail, and if you can get through this book without tears welling up in your eyes at the wanton destruction, well, you've done something I couldn't manage. By the time anyone noticed and began to speak in favor of conservationist measures, it was too late, and then the dreadful cycle continued as collectors and scientists sought specimens of the species ... resulting in the hunting down of many remaining wild birds.
Greenberg has also worked diligently to recover accounts of the few captive passenger pigeons who lived slightly longer than their wild brethren, and his account of the life and death of Martha, the last living bird, who died in the Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914, is a lovely tribute.
I'm afraid my notes on this book may make it seem maudlin, or overwrought, and it's not, in the slightest. Greenberg's done a great job of presenting the facts and telling the tales. But it is a sad book, and one that should be very widely read, as it provides a terribly important cautionary lesson. Nearly a hundred years have passed since Martha breathed her last, and while great strides in species protection have been made, there is a very long way to go. We are much the poorer, now, for the loss of this beautiful species that once darkened the continent's skies, as well as for the many others that share its fate. Would that no other book like Greenberg's ever has to be written, but alas that is not likely to be the case, and certainly won't be if we don't absorb its lessons.
Highly recommended, and very deserving of a broad audience.
This is not an easy book, but it is an excellent book. Greenberg has meticulously collected and collated accounts of passenger pigeon observations, both when the birds were plentiful and widespread, and when the species had been reduced to just a few individuals, eking out a miserable existence in zoo enclosures, being pelted with sand in an attempt to make them move about. He has brought together a vast array of information on the techniques used to collect, kill, and market these birds, and deploys it to great effect.
The scale and scope of the assault(s) on large nesting assemblages of passenger pigeons in the last third or so of the 19th century are outlined in painful detail, and if you can get through this book without tears welling up in your eyes at the wanton destruction, well, you've done something I couldn't manage. By the time anyone noticed and began to speak in favor of conservationist measures, it was too late, and then the dreadful cycle continued as collectors and scientists sought specimens of the species ... resulting in the hunting down of many remaining wild birds.
Greenberg has also worked diligently to recover accounts of the few captive passenger pigeons who lived slightly longer than their wild brethren, and his account of the life and death of Martha, the last living bird, who died in the Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914, is a lovely tribute.
I'm afraid my notes on this book may make it seem maudlin, or overwrought, and it's not, in the slightest. Greenberg's done a great job of presenting the facts and telling the tales. But it is a sad book, and one that should be very widely read, as it provides a terribly important cautionary lesson. Nearly a hundred years have passed since Martha breathed her last, and while great strides in species protection have been made, there is a very long way to go. We are much the poorer, now, for the loss of this beautiful species that once darkened the continent's skies, as well as for the many others that share its fate. Would that no other book like Greenberg's ever has to be written, but alas that is not likely to be the case, and certainly won't be if we don't absorb its lessons.
Highly recommended, and very deserving of a broad audience.
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