- The AAS has launched a great new web exhibit: From English to Algonquian: Early New England Translations.
- Adam Hooks has added a new post at Anchora, "Shakespeare's Beehive 2.0." Take the time and read the whole thing.
- Coming up at the Bodleian Library at the end of May, a conference on "Mesoamerican Manuscripts: New Scientific Approaches and Interpretations."
- Jennifer Schuessler reports for the NYTimes on this year's Folger First Folio Road Show, dropping in on the Folio currently visiting South Dakota.
- The Oakland Tribune has a brief update on the case of the rare books stolen from North Oakland following the California Antiquarian Book Fair in February. A reward remains unclaimed and the books remain unrecovered.
- New York's Strand Bookstore is profiled in the "Interview with a Bookstore" series.
- Adrienne Lafrance writes for the Atlantic about a new project to figure out a way to preserve and visualize historic machine-programmed theater lighting designs.
- Peter Dobrin, reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has an update on the legal feud between the Maurice Sendak estate and the Rosenbach. The library has asked a Connecticut court to remove the estate's executors and compel the estate to turn over books from Sendak's collection to the Rosenbach. The new court proceedings follow a failed settlement attempt in January.
- Over at The Collation, Erin Blake writes about the Folger's current effort to systematically update call numbers to match the second edition of STC.
- Simon Beattie has turned up another fascinating biblio-curiosity: a guide for Soviet librarians on how to write catalog cards.
- John Dugdale writes for the Guardian about the recent run of "rediscovered" manuscripts, highlighting Michael Scammel's NYRB piece about Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, the original German manuscript of which was identified last year in a Zurich library.
- New from the NYPL, the Photographers' Identities Catalog, containing biographical data on more than "115,000 photographers, studios, manufacturers, dealers, and others involved in the production of photographs."
- Scholars are condemning plans by the trustees of the venerable Society of Antiquaries to reduce staff at the Society's library from 3.5 full-time positions to three part-time positions.
- Since it's making the rounds, I post this Telegraph slideshow of "the most valuable rare books in existence" only as a PSA to stay away from it, since it's chock-full of baloney.
Reviews
- Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart; review by Elizabeth Toohey in the CSM.
- Abby Smith Rumsey's When We Are No More; review by Nicholas Carr in the WaPo.
- Frank Cioffi's One Day in the Life of the English Language; review by Mary Norris in the TLS.
- Piers Paul Read's Scarpia; review by Allan Massie in the WSJ.
- Iain Pears' Arcadia; review by Scott Bradfield in the NYTimes.
- Several new books on Samuel Pepys, including Kate Loveman's Samuel Pepys and His Books; review by Arnold Hunt in the TLS.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Rare Book Week NYC is coming up soon! Book fairs, auctions, and exhibits galore.
- The Chemical Heritage Foundation has purchased Isaac Newton's manuscript copy of an alchemical treatise by George Starkey; the document also contains a record of one of Newton's own alchemical experiments. CHF curator James Voelkel says that digital images of the manuscript will soon be available via The Chymistry of Isaac Newton.
- The British Library has launched Discovering Literature: Shakespeare, a collection of articles, digitized materials from the library's collections, &c. Coverage from the Guardian.
- Hugh Schofield writes for the BBC Magazine about the Aristophil ponzi scheme.
- Eric Kwakkel's talk at the University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, "Commercial Books Before Gutenberg," is now available for your listening pleasure (and there are lots of other good lectures available there too).
- The BBC reports on the Mapping Paper in Medieval England project, based at Cambridge.
- The Jewish Theological Seminary's Geniza Collection will be deposited at the Princeton University Library until the fall of 2019, when the JTS's renovated rare book room opens.
- Charlton Heston's collection of Shakespeariana (including two 17th-century quartos), plus a number of movie props and other materials, will be sold at Bonhams Los Angeles this week.
- Books on early American topics swept the Bancroft Prizes this year.
- Christie's London will sell copies of all four Shakespeare folios on 25 May; the First Folio is reportedly an unrecorded copy.
- On the Houghton Library Modern Books and Manuscripts blog, Ryan Wheeler highlights some books bequeathed to Houghton by Thomas Carlyle.
- Texas A&M has acquired an early map of Texas and related documents once in the collections of surveyor James M. Manning.
- The typescript of a history of superstition written at least in part by H.P. Lovecraft (under commission by Harry Houdini!) has been found, and will be sold by Chicago's Potter & Potter auction house on 9 April.
- From Exeter Working Papers in Book History, "Sir Walter Scott and the Parisian pirates: a bibliographical paddle in murky waters."
- The NYPL announced that digitization has been completed on a number of fascinating early American manuscript collections, including the papers and receipt book of printer Hugh Gaine.
- A volume of Grimm's fairy tales signed by Anne Frank will be sold at Swann on 5 May.
- The Diagram prize for oddest book title has been awarded to Too Naked for the Nazis.
Reviews
- Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart; reviews by Deborah Friedell in the NYTimes and Jonathan Rose in the WSJ.
- Elaine Showalter's The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe; review by Rebecca Steinitz in the Boston Globe.
- John Aubrey's Brief Lives, edited by Kate Bennett; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
- The Chemical Heritage Foundation has purchased Isaac Newton's manuscript copy of an alchemical treatise by George Starkey; the document also contains a record of one of Newton's own alchemical experiments. CHF curator James Voelkel says that digital images of the manuscript will soon be available via The Chymistry of Isaac Newton.
- The British Library has launched Discovering Literature: Shakespeare, a collection of articles, digitized materials from the library's collections, &c. Coverage from the Guardian.
- Hugh Schofield writes for the BBC Magazine about the Aristophil ponzi scheme.
- Eric Kwakkel's talk at the University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, "Commercial Books Before Gutenberg," is now available for your listening pleasure (and there are lots of other good lectures available there too).
- The BBC reports on the Mapping Paper in Medieval England project, based at Cambridge.
- The Jewish Theological Seminary's Geniza Collection will be deposited at the Princeton University Library until the fall of 2019, when the JTS's renovated rare book room opens.
- Charlton Heston's collection of Shakespeariana (including two 17th-century quartos), plus a number of movie props and other materials, will be sold at Bonhams Los Angeles this week.
- Books on early American topics swept the Bancroft Prizes this year.
- Christie's London will sell copies of all four Shakespeare folios on 25 May; the First Folio is reportedly an unrecorded copy.
- On the Houghton Library Modern Books and Manuscripts blog, Ryan Wheeler highlights some books bequeathed to Houghton by Thomas Carlyle.
- Texas A&M has acquired an early map of Texas and related documents once in the collections of surveyor James M. Manning.
- The typescript of a history of superstition written at least in part by H.P. Lovecraft (under commission by Harry Houdini!) has been found, and will be sold by Chicago's Potter & Potter auction house on 9 April.
- From Exeter Working Papers in Book History, "Sir Walter Scott and the Parisian pirates: a bibliographical paddle in murky waters."
- The NYPL announced that digitization has been completed on a number of fascinating early American manuscript collections, including the papers and receipt book of printer Hugh Gaine.
- A volume of Grimm's fairy tales signed by Anne Frank will be sold at Swann on 5 May.
- The Diagram prize for oddest book title has been awarded to Too Naked for the Nazis.
Reviews
- Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart; reviews by Deborah Friedell in the NYTimes and Jonathan Rose in the WSJ.
- Elaine Showalter's The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe; review by Rebecca Steinitz in the Boston Globe.
- John Aubrey's Brief Lives, edited by Kate Bennett; review by Ruth Scurr in the TLS.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Rosenbach Lectures are coming up this week in Philadelphia.
- Cambridge University Library is celebrating its 600th anniversary with a physical and online exhibition, "Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World." Sarah Knapton writes in the Telegraph about the show, focusing on Isaac Newton's copy of his Principia. Maev Kennedy covers the exhibit for the Guardian.
- Two Tel Aviv men have been indicted on charges of burglary, breaking and entering, conspiracy, and trespassing after they broke into the Rambam Library in Tel Aviv and stole 17th-century rabbinical manuscripts.
- The NYTimes editorial board weighs in on the ongoing budgetary battle that threatens the future of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln editorial project.
- Folger curator and RBS faculty member Heather Wolfe is profiled in the WSJ for some of her recent paleographical discoveries.
- Geoffrey Giller writes for the Yale Alumni Magazine about some of the copper plates from Audubon's Birds of America, several of which are at Yale's Peabody Museum.
- Anthropomorphic landscapes are the order of the day at Public Domain Review.
- The second portion of Hugh Selbourne's library was sold at Bonhams London this week; in total, the library realized more than £2.6 million.
- Tess Goodman has a post at Inciting Sparks on the creation of authorial personae, highlighting Elizabeth Gaskell and Walt Whitman.
- The new Common-place is up, and it includes Hilary Wyss on "Eighteenth-Century Letter-Writing and Native American Community."
- Also now available, the March 2016 issue of the AAS Almanac.
- Shakespeare's World is highlighted by Charlotte Salley for The American Scholar.
- The National Archives has released images and a transcription of a letter written by Walt Whitman acting as amanuensis for a dying Civil War soldier. More from Michael Ruane in the WaPo.
- The Boston Globe editorial board argues for changes at the BPL as a new leader is sought.
- Jonathan Guthrie, writing in the Financial Times, explains "Why collecting books can be a deep source of pleasure."
- Emory University has acquired W.E.B. DuBois' copy of David Walker's Appeal.
- Antiquarian bookseller Éamonn de Búrca is profiled in the Irish Times.
- Sarah Minegar is up next in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series.
- From the New Yorker, Daniel Gross on "The Custodian of Forgotten Books."
- Alexander Historical Auctions will sell what's being described as Hitler's own copy of Mein Kampf.
- This week's "On the Media" is all about books, from publishing to theft to industrial bookselling.
- Missed this last month: Greg Cram writes for the NYPL blog on the process they undertook to evaluate the rights status of all those public domain images they released recently.
Reviews
- Anne Boyd Rioux's Constance Fenimore Woolson; review by Wendy Smith in the Boston Globe.
- Elaine Showalter's The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe; review by David Hugh Smith in the CSM.
- Austin Reed's The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict; review by Annette Gordon-Reed in the WaPo.
- Eric Burns' The Golden Lad; review by Del Quentin Weber in the WaPo.
- Vanessa Ogle's The Global Transformation of Time; review by Thomas Meaney in the TLS.
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review in Kirkus Reviews.
- Catherine Lowell's The Madwoman Upstairs; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at FB&C.
- Cambridge University Library is celebrating its 600th anniversary with a physical and online exhibition, "Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World." Sarah Knapton writes in the Telegraph about the show, focusing on Isaac Newton's copy of his Principia. Maev Kennedy covers the exhibit for the Guardian.
- Two Tel Aviv men have been indicted on charges of burglary, breaking and entering, conspiracy, and trespassing after they broke into the Rambam Library in Tel Aviv and stole 17th-century rabbinical manuscripts.
- The NYTimes editorial board weighs in on the ongoing budgetary battle that threatens the future of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln editorial project.
- Folger curator and RBS faculty member Heather Wolfe is profiled in the WSJ for some of her recent paleographical discoveries.
- Geoffrey Giller writes for the Yale Alumni Magazine about some of the copper plates from Audubon's Birds of America, several of which are at Yale's Peabody Museum.
- Anthropomorphic landscapes are the order of the day at Public Domain Review.
- The second portion of Hugh Selbourne's library was sold at Bonhams London this week; in total, the library realized more than £2.6 million.
- Tess Goodman has a post at Inciting Sparks on the creation of authorial personae, highlighting Elizabeth Gaskell and Walt Whitman.
- The new Common-place is up, and it includes Hilary Wyss on "Eighteenth-Century Letter-Writing and Native American Community."
- Also now available, the March 2016 issue of the AAS Almanac.
- Shakespeare's World is highlighted by Charlotte Salley for The American Scholar.
- The National Archives has released images and a transcription of a letter written by Walt Whitman acting as amanuensis for a dying Civil War soldier. More from Michael Ruane in the WaPo.
- The Boston Globe editorial board argues for changes at the BPL as a new leader is sought.
- Jonathan Guthrie, writing in the Financial Times, explains "Why collecting books can be a deep source of pleasure."
- Emory University has acquired W.E.B. DuBois' copy of David Walker's Appeal.
- Antiquarian bookseller Éamonn de Búrca is profiled in the Irish Times.
- Sarah Minegar is up next in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series.
- From the New Yorker, Daniel Gross on "The Custodian of Forgotten Books."
- Alexander Historical Auctions will sell what's being described as Hitler's own copy of Mein Kampf.
- This week's "On the Media" is all about books, from publishing to theft to industrial bookselling.
- Missed this last month: Greg Cram writes for the NYPL blog on the process they undertook to evaluate the rights status of all those public domain images they released recently.
Reviews
- Anne Boyd Rioux's Constance Fenimore Woolson; review by Wendy Smith in the Boston Globe.
- Elaine Showalter's The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe; review by David Hugh Smith in the CSM.
- Austin Reed's The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict; review by Annette Gordon-Reed in the WaPo.
- Eric Burns' The Golden Lad; review by Del Quentin Weber in the WaPo.
- Vanessa Ogle's The Global Transformation of Time; review by Thomas Meaney in the TLS.
- Matthew Kirschenbaum's Track Changes; review in Kirkus Reviews.
- Catherine Lowell's The Madwoman Upstairs; review by Rebecca Rego Barry at FB&C.
Sunday, March 06, 2016
Links & Reviews
I had the great pleasure of representing Rare Book School at the Washington Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend: it's the first time I've been able to attend this fair, and I found it very much worth the visit. There were some excellent books to be found, good crowds on Friday night and all day Saturday, and the fair was organized extremely well. The addition of the Typewriter Rodeo on Saturday afternoon was a nice touch, too.
Prior to the fair I stopped in at the Folger Shakespeare Library for their current exhibition, "Shakespeare, Life of an Icon." If you can go check that out before it closes at the end of this month, take the time and do it: the chances of all the great items included ever being in the same place again seem pretty slim.
- A reward has been offered for information leading to the return of the books stolen from bookseller Lawrence Van De Carr following the California Antiquarian Book Fair.
- The Lindau Gospels is currently on display at the Morgan Library, and in bright light too, so the details of the crazily jeweled binding are readily visible.
- A inscribed copy of Brideshead Revisited sold for £52,500 at the auction of the Duchess of Devonshire's estate.
- The National Library of Scotland has digitized more than 3,000 Scottish chapbooks from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Simon Beattie highlights a German translation of an English novel, the original of which is known only from advertisements, reviews, and a single copy of the first volume of three.
- Teresa Breathnach has a new blog about shipboard printing, which seems like it'll be worth a follow.
- David Whitesell's new exhibition on gothic fiction is now up at UVA: he blogs about the show at Notes from Under Grounds. Another one worth a visit if possible.
- Some 6,000 items from an archive kept by Bob Dylan have been acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa. The deal was brokered by Glenn Horowitz.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish has a great Collation post up about fallen type in handpress-era books.
- Barbara Heritage writes on "New Directions in Bibliography and Critical Hermeneutics" for the JHIBlog.
- Tim O'Neill writes for Slate on a Quora question about what lost ancient works historians would most like to recover.
- Seamus Heaney's papers are now open to researchers at Emory University.
- Claire Voon writes about "blooks" for Hyperallergic.
- Alix Christie has a nice piece remembering Elizabeth Eisenstein for the Seattle Review of Books.
- A judge has agreed that Harper Lee's will can remain sealed.
- The March Rare Book Monthly articles are up: they include Michael Stillman on what AbeBooks is up to lately, a profile of Louis Weinstein (formerly of Heritage Book Shop and now a collector of Hawaiiana), and a quick overview of a sale of items from Charlton Heston's estate, soon going on the block at Bonhams.
- From Emily Rhodes in The Spectator, "A bookseller's guide to book thieves."
- The Hinckley family has donated five rare Mormon books from the library of Gordon Hinckley to BYU.
- Alexis Buchanan writes for Nonprofit Quarterly about severe building issues that threaten the collections at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in Chicago.
- Amazon will open a second brick-and-mortar store in San Diego this summer.
- Diane Dias DeFazio is profiled in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series.
Reviews
- Elaine Showalter's The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe; review by Jill Lepore in the NYTimes.
- Ricky Jay's Matthias Buchinger; review by Jim Ruland in the LATimes.
- Fergus Bordewich's The First Congress; review by Carol Berkin in the NYTimes.
- Stephen Cross' The Fever of 1721; review by Joyce Chaplin in the NYTimes.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look It Up; review by Alberto Manguel in the NYTimes.
- Claire Harman's Charlottë Bronte: A Fiery Heart; review by Michael Upchurch in the Boston Globe.
Prior to the fair I stopped in at the Folger Shakespeare Library for their current exhibition, "Shakespeare, Life of an Icon." If you can go check that out before it closes at the end of this month, take the time and do it: the chances of all the great items included ever being in the same place again seem pretty slim.
- A reward has been offered for information leading to the return of the books stolen from bookseller Lawrence Van De Carr following the California Antiquarian Book Fair.
- The Lindau Gospels is currently on display at the Morgan Library, and in bright light too, so the details of the crazily jeweled binding are readily visible.
- A inscribed copy of Brideshead Revisited sold for £52,500 at the auction of the Duchess of Devonshire's estate.
- The National Library of Scotland has digitized more than 3,000 Scottish chapbooks from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Simon Beattie highlights a German translation of an English novel, the original of which is known only from advertisements, reviews, and a single copy of the first volume of three.
- Teresa Breathnach has a new blog about shipboard printing, which seems like it'll be worth a follow.
- David Whitesell's new exhibition on gothic fiction is now up at UVA: he blogs about the show at Notes from Under Grounds. Another one worth a visit if possible.
- Some 6,000 items from an archive kept by Bob Dylan have been acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa. The deal was brokered by Glenn Horowitz.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish has a great Collation post up about fallen type in handpress-era books.
- Barbara Heritage writes on "New Directions in Bibliography and Critical Hermeneutics" for the JHIBlog.
- Tim O'Neill writes for Slate on a Quora question about what lost ancient works historians would most like to recover.
- Seamus Heaney's papers are now open to researchers at Emory University.
- Claire Voon writes about "blooks" for Hyperallergic.
- Alix Christie has a nice piece remembering Elizabeth Eisenstein for the Seattle Review of Books.
- A judge has agreed that Harper Lee's will can remain sealed.
- The March Rare Book Monthly articles are up: they include Michael Stillman on what AbeBooks is up to lately, a profile of Louis Weinstein (formerly of Heritage Book Shop and now a collector of Hawaiiana), and a quick overview of a sale of items from Charlton Heston's estate, soon going on the block at Bonhams.
- From Emily Rhodes in The Spectator, "A bookseller's guide to book thieves."
- The Hinckley family has donated five rare Mormon books from the library of Gordon Hinckley to BYU.
- Alexis Buchanan writes for Nonprofit Quarterly about severe building issues that threaten the collections at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in Chicago.
- Amazon will open a second brick-and-mortar store in San Diego this summer.
- Diane Dias DeFazio is profiled in the FB&C "Bright Young Librarians" series.
Reviews
- Elaine Showalter's The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe; review by Jill Lepore in the NYTimes.
- Ricky Jay's Matthias Buchinger; review by Jim Ruland in the LATimes.
- Fergus Bordewich's The First Congress; review by Carol Berkin in the NYTimes.
- Stephen Cross' The Fever of 1721; review by Joyce Chaplin in the NYTimes.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look It Up; review by Alberto Manguel in the NYTimes.
- Claire Harman's Charlottë Bronte: A Fiery Heart; review by Michael Upchurch in the Boston Globe.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Links & Reviews
- President Obama announced this week that he will nominate Carla Hayden as the next Librarian of Congress, to near-universal acclaim. Hayden must now be confirmed by the Senate.
- A new exhibition, "Shakespeare by the Book: Four Centuries of Printing, Editing, and Publishing" is now open at the Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections Library at UVA. I went to the opening on Friday night, and do encourage anyone in the area to come by and give the exhibit a look.
- Legal disputes over a cache of documents created by the Korean National Association in the early 20th century have ended in a settlement: USC will conserve and digitize the material, with the originals going to Korea until a proper facility can be constructed for their long-term storage.
- A great post by Susan Martin at The Beehive about the sleuthing it took to identify the author of a manuscript diary recently acquired by MHS. Well done!
- The Huntington Library has acquired by gift the Lawrence D. and Betty Jeanne Longo Collection on Reproductive Biology, a large collection of books, manuscripts, pamphlets, &c. related to the history of human reproduction.
- Eric Kwakkel's new post, "Dirty Old Books," surveys what signs of use on medieval manuscripts tell us about how these documents were used.
- Heather Wolfe explores the knotty question of textual variants in William Henry Ireland's forged Shakespeare documents.
- Keith Houston's forthcoming The Book: A Cover to Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time (W.W. Norton) is now available for pre-order.
- The Library of Congress has digitized the Rosa Parks papers currently on loan to LC from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
- Voting is now open for "Oddest Book Title of the Year 2015" contest.
- At Atlas Obscura, Natalie Zarrelli takes a look at lighthouse libraries.
- Christopher Minty talked to Ted O'Reilly of the N-YHS about the work done to process the N-YHS' institutional archives.
- Budget cuts are expected to hit the National Library of Australia extremely hard, according to a report in the Canberra Times.
- Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein died on 31 January: this week obituaries appeared in both the New York Times and the Washington Post.
- Don't miss Rebecca Romney's excellent post memorializing Umberto Eco.
Reviews
- Manisha Sinha's The Slave's Cause; review by Ira Berlin in the NYTimes.
- Alison Weir's The Lost Tudor Princess; review by Philippa Gregory in the WaPo.
- Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart; reviews by Laurie Stone in the WaPo and Julia M. Klein in the LATimes.
- A whole slew of recent Tolkien-related books; review by Roz Kaveney in the TLS.
- William Egginton's The Man Who Invented Fiction; review by David Wootton in the WSJ.
- Eric Burns' The Golden Lad; review by Roger Lowenstein in the WSJ.
- A new exhibition, "Shakespeare by the Book: Four Centuries of Printing, Editing, and Publishing" is now open at the Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections Library at UVA. I went to the opening on Friday night, and do encourage anyone in the area to come by and give the exhibit a look.
- Legal disputes over a cache of documents created by the Korean National Association in the early 20th century have ended in a settlement: USC will conserve and digitize the material, with the originals going to Korea until a proper facility can be constructed for their long-term storage.
- A great post by Susan Martin at The Beehive about the sleuthing it took to identify the author of a manuscript diary recently acquired by MHS. Well done!
- The Huntington Library has acquired by gift the Lawrence D. and Betty Jeanne Longo Collection on Reproductive Biology, a large collection of books, manuscripts, pamphlets, &c. related to the history of human reproduction.
- Eric Kwakkel's new post, "Dirty Old Books," surveys what signs of use on medieval manuscripts tell us about how these documents were used.
- Heather Wolfe explores the knotty question of textual variants in William Henry Ireland's forged Shakespeare documents.
- Keith Houston's forthcoming The Book: A Cover to Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time (W.W. Norton) is now available for pre-order.
- The Library of Congress has digitized the Rosa Parks papers currently on loan to LC from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
- Voting is now open for "Oddest Book Title of the Year 2015" contest.
- At Atlas Obscura, Natalie Zarrelli takes a look at lighthouse libraries.
- Christopher Minty talked to Ted O'Reilly of the N-YHS about the work done to process the N-YHS' institutional archives.
- Budget cuts are expected to hit the National Library of Australia extremely hard, according to a report in the Canberra Times.
- Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein died on 31 January: this week obituaries appeared in both the New York Times and the Washington Post.
- Don't miss Rebecca Romney's excellent post memorializing Umberto Eco.
Reviews
- Manisha Sinha's The Slave's Cause; review by Ira Berlin in the NYTimes.
- Alison Weir's The Lost Tudor Princess; review by Philippa Gregory in the WaPo.
- Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart; reviews by Laurie Stone in the WaPo and Julia M. Klein in the LATimes.
- A whole slew of recent Tolkien-related books; review by Roz Kaveney in the TLS.
- William Egginton's The Man Who Invented Fiction; review by David Wootton in the WSJ.
- Eric Burns' The Golden Lad; review by Roger Lowenstein in the WSJ.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Links & Reviews
- A bookseller's van containing 400 rare books worth some $350,000 was stolen from Oakland, CA following last weekend's California Book Fair. Alerts went out very quickly via the ABAA and other groups, and one man was quickly arrested after trying to sell several of the books at Moe's Books of Berkeley, CA. There's a lengthy report in Berkeleyside about the case. The van (2008 silver Ford Econoline with Illinois license plate E-914968) and most of the books are still missing, as is another man who got away from Moe's. The Oakland Tribune also has a report. Here's hoping the rest of the books can be recovered safely and soon.
- A large collection of material culled from John Updike's trash was up for sale at Boston's RR Auctions, but it appears not to have sold (see this Atlantic piece from August 2014 for more on the collection). At the same sale, a Mario Puzo archive fetched $625,000.
- The Scottish National Library has purchased a 14th-century breviary traced to Sweetheart Abbey (in Dumfriesshire). The manuscript's location had been unknown since it appeared in the 1715 catalog of Ralph Thoresby; it was sold at auction last year in Vienna to an American dealer, but subsequently offered to the National Library, which managed to raise £70,000 to make the acquisition.
- The Redwood Library and Athenaeum has acquired a collection of British architecture books and building manuals from antiquarian bookseller Charles Wood.
- There's a new group blog about humanities research, written by Ph.D. students at the University of Edinburgh: Inciting Sparks. Adding this to my reading list.
- Some books from the collection of Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, will be sold at Sotheby's London on 2 March.
- A large contingent of scholars have signed a letter to the NYRB protesting the decision of Boston University to admit no new doctoral students to BU's Editorial Institute.
- Abby Smith Rumsey talked to Arielle Pardes for Vice about her new book When We Are No More: How Digital Memory is Shaping our Future.
- The Bolton Library, a collection of some 12,000 early printed books, manuscripts, maps, and prints, will be transferred to the University of Limerick, where the material can be properly conserved, stored, and researched.
- Registration is now open for a conference this June at King's College, Cambridge: "Mania and Imagination: Perils and pleasures of the private collector, present and future." Looks like a great lineup of speakers!
- Whitney Trettien has announced the creation of a new hybrid print/digital zine, Pounce, as well as a collaborative digital journal, thresholds.
- Via John Overholt on Twitter: the Joel Barlow papers at Houghton Library have now been digitized.
- A paperback copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience donated to Oxfam by Radiohead's Thom Yorke (and found to contain Yorke's handwritten lyrics for the song "Airbag") will be sold at auction, with proceeds going to the Syrian relief effort.
- Quite a lot of coverage this week of the "discovery" of two J.R.R. Tolkien poems in a 1936 school annual. See the NYTimes and the Guardian.
- Umberto Eco died on Friday at the age of 84. See the NYTimes obituary.
Reviews
- The Essential Goethe, edited by Matthew Bell; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look It Up; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- A large collection of material culled from John Updike's trash was up for sale at Boston's RR Auctions, but it appears not to have sold (see this Atlantic piece from August 2014 for more on the collection). At the same sale, a Mario Puzo archive fetched $625,000.
- The Scottish National Library has purchased a 14th-century breviary traced to Sweetheart Abbey (in Dumfriesshire). The manuscript's location had been unknown since it appeared in the 1715 catalog of Ralph Thoresby; it was sold at auction last year in Vienna to an American dealer, but subsequently offered to the National Library, which managed to raise £70,000 to make the acquisition.
- The Redwood Library and Athenaeum has acquired a collection of British architecture books and building manuals from antiquarian bookseller Charles Wood.
- There's a new group blog about humanities research, written by Ph.D. students at the University of Edinburgh: Inciting Sparks. Adding this to my reading list.
- Some books from the collection of Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, will be sold at Sotheby's London on 2 March.
- A large contingent of scholars have signed a letter to the NYRB protesting the decision of Boston University to admit no new doctoral students to BU's Editorial Institute.
- Abby Smith Rumsey talked to Arielle Pardes for Vice about her new book When We Are No More: How Digital Memory is Shaping our Future.
- The Bolton Library, a collection of some 12,000 early printed books, manuscripts, maps, and prints, will be transferred to the University of Limerick, where the material can be properly conserved, stored, and researched.
- Registration is now open for a conference this June at King's College, Cambridge: "Mania and Imagination: Perils and pleasures of the private collector, present and future." Looks like a great lineup of speakers!
- Whitney Trettien has announced the creation of a new hybrid print/digital zine, Pounce, as well as a collaborative digital journal, thresholds.
- Via John Overholt on Twitter: the Joel Barlow papers at Houghton Library have now been digitized.
- A paperback copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience donated to Oxfam by Radiohead's Thom Yorke (and found to contain Yorke's handwritten lyrics for the song "Airbag") will be sold at auction, with proceeds going to the Syrian relief effort.
- Quite a lot of coverage this week of the "discovery" of two J.R.R. Tolkien poems in a 1936 school annual. See the NYTimes and the Guardian.
- Umberto Eco died on Friday at the age of 84. See the NYTimes obituary.
Reviews
- The Essential Goethe, edited by Matthew Bell; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Jack Lynch's You Could Look It Up; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Links & Reviews
- It's not often that vellum makes headlines anymore, but it has recently done so: after an announcement last week that the British government had determined that the practice of printing laws on vellum would be ended in April (which got coverage in the NYTimes) word today that the decision may be reversed, with the Cabinet Office offering to pick up the £80,000 annual tab.
- DCRM(C)—that is, Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Cartographic)—for all your map-cataloging needs, is now available as a free PDF.
- Over at The Culture-ist, Ryan Bradley goes on a bookstore tour of Boston.
- From Cabinet, Geoff Manaugh writes on the 2003 case of a book thief who snuck into the locked library of a monastery using a long-forgotten secret passage he found on a floor plan. More from Atlas Obscura.
- Audio recordings of Anthony Grafton's Sandars Lectures, delivered in January, are now available.
- Alison Flood reports for the Guardian about a recent translation of early textbooks used to teach Latin to Greek speakers.
- At the Chapel Hill Rare Book Blog, Liz Ott with the first in a series on their current Wordsworth exhibition (which sounds like it must be fantastic, given the great new collection!).
- At JHIBlog, Brooke Palmieri writes on John Dee's library and the current exhibition on same at the Royal College of Physicians.
- Alison Booth has been appointed academic director of the Scholars' Lab at UVA.
- Hampshire College has received a $1.2 million Mellon grant to "reinvent" the college's library.
- Laura Massey at Alembic Rare Books has posted a primer on "How to start collecting rare books."
Reviews
- "The Private Jefferson" exhibition at the Massachusetts Historical Society; review by Mark Feeney in the Boston Globe.
- Brian Copenhaver's The Book of Magic; review by Diane Purkiss in the TLS.
- DCRM(C)—that is, Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Cartographic)—for all your map-cataloging needs, is now available as a free PDF.
- Over at The Culture-ist, Ryan Bradley goes on a bookstore tour of Boston.
- From Cabinet, Geoff Manaugh writes on the 2003 case of a book thief who snuck into the locked library of a monastery using a long-forgotten secret passage he found on a floor plan. More from Atlas Obscura.
- Audio recordings of Anthony Grafton's Sandars Lectures, delivered in January, are now available.
- Alison Flood reports for the Guardian about a recent translation of early textbooks used to teach Latin to Greek speakers.
- At the Chapel Hill Rare Book Blog, Liz Ott with the first in a series on their current Wordsworth exhibition (which sounds like it must be fantastic, given the great new collection!).
- At JHIBlog, Brooke Palmieri writes on John Dee's library and the current exhibition on same at the Royal College of Physicians.
- Alison Booth has been appointed academic director of the Scholars' Lab at UVA.
- Hampshire College has received a $1.2 million Mellon grant to "reinvent" the college's library.
- Laura Massey at Alembic Rare Books has posted a primer on "How to start collecting rare books."
Reviews
- "The Private Jefferson" exhibition at the Massachusetts Historical Society; review by Mark Feeney in the Boston Globe.
- Brian Copenhaver's The Book of Magic; review by Diane Purkiss in the TLS.
Sunday, February 07, 2016
Links & Reviews
- Andrew Shannon, 51, has gone on trial for the unlawful possession of books stolen from Carton House in County Kildare, Ireland. The books were found to be missing after being put in storage during renovations on the house. Shannon, who maintained that he had purchased the books, was found guilty on Tuesday and will be sentenced in April. Shannon was already in jail, serving time for vandalizing a valuable Monet painting in 2012; in 2011 he was convicted of handling stolen property involving a number of stolen maps.
- The Independent reports that a French court is struggling to find a single buyer for the massive collection of books and manuscripts owned by the Aristophil Group. See the call for buyers.
- Carolyn Kellogg covers the Huntington Library's acquisition of Paul Theroux's papers for the LATimes.
- Writing for Slate, Lydia Pyne has a very interesting piece on the Snead & Company bookshelves that populated many an American library for much of the twentieth century.
- The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired the Livre des fais de Jacques de Lalaing, a 16th-century secular illuminated manuscript.
- The records of the Bibliographical Society of America have been processed and are now available for research at the Grolier Club.
- Newly-launched, French Renaissance Paleography, featuring more than 100 manuscripts along with transcription tools, &c.
- Lots of coverage this week in the British media about Lady Isabella Hertford's use of birds clipped from Audubon's Birds of America to augment her drawing room wallpaper (note: this happened soon after the book was published, not recently).
- The University of Toronto Scarborough has purchased a collection of more than 10,000 Chinese restaurant menus.
- A 19th-century library record has been returned to Scotland's Innerpeffray Library after being found tucked into a secondhand book.
- The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a woman filing for bankruptcy can keep her first edition Book of Mormon and will not be required to sell it to pay creditors. Anna Robinson says she found the book while cleaning a library storage area in 2003, and that the director told her she could keep whatever books she found. [Shakes head incredulously].
- February's Rare Book Monthly is out, including a report on the lawsuit over books stolen from NYPL, a recap of the Pirie sale, and more.
- From Daniel Grant in the Observer, "The Rarefied World of Book Collecting Is Not a Dying Art."
- Reading Sheffield launched recently: it's a collection of interviews with readers born between 1919 and 1942, with much background and context. I encourage a look-round.
- J.L. Bell covers the lawsuit over the Franklin & Hall manuscript over at Boston 1775.
- Sarah Lyall profiles London bookshop Heywood Hill for the NYTimes' T Magazine.
- At Echoes from the Vault, Carina Müller writes about cataloging the John Sturgeon Mackay's collection of mathematical books.
Reviews
- "Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren't" (Grolier Club exhibition); reviews by Jennifer Schuessler in the NYTimes and Rebecca Rego Barry in the Guardian.
- Iain Pears' Arcadia; review by Steve Donoghue in the WaPo.
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; review by Bill Ruehlmann in the Virginian-Pilot.
- The Independent reports that a French court is struggling to find a single buyer for the massive collection of books and manuscripts owned by the Aristophil Group. See the call for buyers.
- Carolyn Kellogg covers the Huntington Library's acquisition of Paul Theroux's papers for the LATimes.
- Writing for Slate, Lydia Pyne has a very interesting piece on the Snead & Company bookshelves that populated many an American library for much of the twentieth century.
- The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired the Livre des fais de Jacques de Lalaing, a 16th-century secular illuminated manuscript.
- The records of the Bibliographical Society of America have been processed and are now available for research at the Grolier Club.
- Newly-launched, French Renaissance Paleography, featuring more than 100 manuscripts along with transcription tools, &c.
- Lots of coverage this week in the British media about Lady Isabella Hertford's use of birds clipped from Audubon's Birds of America to augment her drawing room wallpaper (note: this happened soon after the book was published, not recently).
- The University of Toronto Scarborough has purchased a collection of more than 10,000 Chinese restaurant menus.
- A 19th-century library record has been returned to Scotland's Innerpeffray Library after being found tucked into a secondhand book.
- The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a woman filing for bankruptcy can keep her first edition Book of Mormon and will not be required to sell it to pay creditors. Anna Robinson says she found the book while cleaning a library storage area in 2003, and that the director told her she could keep whatever books she found. [Shakes head incredulously].
- February's Rare Book Monthly is out, including a report on the lawsuit over books stolen from NYPL, a recap of the Pirie sale, and more.
- From Daniel Grant in the Observer, "The Rarefied World of Book Collecting Is Not a Dying Art."
- Reading Sheffield launched recently: it's a collection of interviews with readers born between 1919 and 1942, with much background and context. I encourage a look-round.
- J.L. Bell covers the lawsuit over the Franklin & Hall manuscript over at Boston 1775.
- Sarah Lyall profiles London bookshop Heywood Hill for the NYTimes' T Magazine.
- At Echoes from the Vault, Carina Müller writes about cataloging the John Sturgeon Mackay's collection of mathematical books.
Reviews
- "Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren't" (Grolier Club exhibition); reviews by Jennifer Schuessler in the NYTimes and Rebecca Rego Barry in the Guardian.
- Iain Pears' Arcadia; review by Steve Donoghue in the WaPo.
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; review by Bill Ruehlmann in the Virginian-Pilot.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Links & Reviews
- The Massachusetts Historical Society marks the 225th anniversary of its establishment today. May it ever prosper!
- An employee of the National Library of Ireland will face trial over the theft of more than two hundred books from the library's collections. John Nulty has not yet entered a plea. Nulty is accused stealing the books "on various dates from 2004 to 2013."
- A lawsuit to determine rightful ownership of rare bibles and Franklin & Hall Work Book No. 2 continues to move forward: a judge this week determined that the New York Public Library's claim to the books is not barred by the statute of limitations. Read the full decision. For a plain-English report on this update, see Liam O'Brien's post on the Melville House blog.
- New from the Folger et al: Shakespeare Documented, "the largest and most authoritative collection of primary-source materials" documenting Shakespeare's life.
- Sarah Werner has posted a trio of her recent pieces, all of which are very much worth a read.
- Applications for the Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award are due by 16 February. Information here.
- From Jennifer Howard, "The Year of Opening Up the Library."
- It's being billed as a plus, but locals are none too pleased about it: the Silver Buckle Press and its collections will be relocated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries to the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum.
- For the Washington Post, Sarah Kershaw reports on the efforts to save Malian manuscripts from Islamic extremists.
- Part III of the Collation writeup of the Folger's acquisitions at the Pirie sale, covering the manuscripts, is now posted.
- E.C. Schroeder has been reappointed to a second term as director of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library and associate university librarian at Yale.
Book Reviews
- Eleanor Fitzsimons' Wilde's Women; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Deborah Lutz's Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture and The Brontë Cabinet; review by Samantha Ellis in the TLS.
- Christopher Buckley's The Relic Master; review by Aram Bakshian, Jr. in the Washington Times.
- An employee of the National Library of Ireland will face trial over the theft of more than two hundred books from the library's collections. John Nulty has not yet entered a plea. Nulty is accused stealing the books "on various dates from 2004 to 2013."
- A lawsuit to determine rightful ownership of rare bibles and Franklin & Hall Work Book No. 2 continues to move forward: a judge this week determined that the New York Public Library's claim to the books is not barred by the statute of limitations. Read the full decision. For a plain-English report on this update, see Liam O'Brien's post on the Melville House blog.
- New from the Folger et al: Shakespeare Documented, "the largest and most authoritative collection of primary-source materials" documenting Shakespeare's life.
- Sarah Werner has posted a trio of her recent pieces, all of which are very much worth a read.
- Applications for the Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award are due by 16 February. Information here.
- From Jennifer Howard, "The Year of Opening Up the Library."
- It's being billed as a plus, but locals are none too pleased about it: the Silver Buckle Press and its collections will be relocated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries to the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum.
- For the Washington Post, Sarah Kershaw reports on the efforts to save Malian manuscripts from Islamic extremists.
- Part III of the Collation writeup of the Folger's acquisitions at the Pirie sale, covering the manuscripts, is now posted.
- E.C. Schroeder has been reappointed to a second term as director of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library and associate university librarian at Yale.
Book Reviews
- Eleanor Fitzsimons' Wilde's Women; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Deborah Lutz's Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture and The Brontë Cabinet; review by Samantha Ellis in the TLS.
- Christopher Buckley's The Relic Master; review by Aram Bakshian, Jr. in the Washington Times.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Links & Reviews
- The New-York Historical Society's institutional archives are being processed, and a partial finding guide is now available.
- A York County, PA court of common pleas ledger from the 1820s was listed for sale on eBay recently: the York Dispatch has a report on the county's attempt to get the ledger back.
- Anchi Hoh writes for the Library of Congress blog about the recent acquisition of an important 15th-century Arabic manuscript on astronomy and mathematics.
- A rare Ottoman atlas from 1803 has been identified in the collections of the National Library of Norway.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish covers the Folger's acquisitions of printed material and bindings from the Pirie sale for The Collation.
Reviews
- Josh Spero's Second-Hand Stories; review by Nicholas Lezard in the New Statesman.
- Nile Green's The Love of Strangers; review by Anita Anand in the NYTimes.
- Andrea Wulf's The Invention of Nature; review by Eric Herschthal in the CSM.
- Elizabeth Norton's The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Marta Weiss' Julia Margaret Cameron (catalog to accompany a current V&A exhibit); review by Dinah Birch in the TLS.
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; reviews by Richard Davies at AbeBooks' Reading Copy, Amy Henderson in the Weekly Standard, and Jenna Lifhits in the Washington Free Beacon.
- A York County, PA court of common pleas ledger from the 1820s was listed for sale on eBay recently: the York Dispatch has a report on the county's attempt to get the ledger back.
- Anchi Hoh writes for the Library of Congress blog about the recent acquisition of an important 15th-century Arabic manuscript on astronomy and mathematics.
- A rare Ottoman atlas from 1803 has been identified in the collections of the National Library of Norway.
- Caroline Duroselle-Melish covers the Folger's acquisitions of printed material and bindings from the Pirie sale for The Collation.
Reviews
- Josh Spero's Second-Hand Stories; review by Nicholas Lezard in the New Statesman.
- Nile Green's The Love of Strangers; review by Anita Anand in the NYTimes.
- Andrea Wulf's The Invention of Nature; review by Eric Herschthal in the CSM.
- Elizabeth Norton's The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Marta Weiss' Julia Margaret Cameron (catalog to accompany a current V&A exhibit); review by Dinah Birch in the TLS.
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; reviews by Richard Davies at AbeBooks' Reading Copy, Amy Henderson in the Weekly Standard, and Jenna Lifhits in the Washington Free Beacon.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Links & Reviews
Wow, aside from all the conferences this felt at first like it was a somewhat quiet week, but when I started putting this together I realized just how wrong that impression was!
- Missed this announcement in December: Alberto Manguel has been appointed director of the National Library of Argentina.
- The New York Public Library released 180,000+ digitized items as high-resolution downloads, with various changes to the NYPL Digital Collections website intended to "facilitate sharing, research and reuse." This announcement, and rightly so, earned much praise this week. See also good coverage from NPR and the NYTimes.
- A round of eighteen awesome CLIR Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives grants was announced this week: they include a project to digitize the Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive at the HRC, a website to aggregate Philadelphia-area medieval manuscript images, a cross-museum collection of field notes, and much, much more.
- Rebecca Rego Barry was on WAMC this week to talk about Rare Books Uncovered.
- NPR's Susan Stamberg covered the big First Folio Tour for NPR this week.
- Over at Past is Present, an excellent post on the conservation treatment process recently carried out on the AAS's 1709 Bay Psalm Book.
- The Getty is digitizing early books illustrated with photographs from its collections.
- From Erin Schreiner on the NYSL blog, "New York Needs a History of Reading."
- Britta Lokting, writing at Forward, asks "What's Next for Valmadonna Judaica Trove After Record-Shattering Sale?"
- There's a neat new Omeka presentation of 17th-century Newcastle-upon-Tyne bookseller William Corbett's shop.
- Speaking of Bay Psalm Books: Swann has announced that a previously unknown seventh edition (Boston, 1693), with some truly excellent provenance, will be part of their sale on 4 February. See the lot description, with photos. The estimate here, $30,000–40,000, seems a bit low to me ...
- Another Pirie sale acquisition announcement: the State Library Victoria acquired four lots (containing 33 English Civil War pamphlets) for inclusion in their Emmerson collection.
- And over at The Collation, Elizabeth DeBold has the first in a series of posts to highlight the Folger's Pirie sale purchases.
- Tim Martin reports for The Telegraph on the Royal College of Physicians exhibit about John Dee's library.
- Jim Kuhn has been appointed associate director and Hobby Foundation Librarian at the Harry Ransom Center.
- In the NYTimes, William Neuman reports on recent work on Incan khipus, including a recent discovery of several khipus in situ at an Incan storage facility.
- Over at The Alchemy Website, see "A modern alchemical hoax exposed." Extremely odd indeed.
- New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has announced a fairly extensive plan to digitize some 2.8 million boxes of municipal records.
- At LitHub, Samantha Hunt offers up "A Brief History of Books that do not Exist."
- In slightly more annoying news, the Authors Guild announced that they will appeal the Google Books ruling to the Supreme Court.
- Paul Collins was on BBC Radio recently discussing the wonderfully zany book Plotto.
Reviews
- Shaun Greehalgh's A Forger's Tale; review by Jeff Taylor in TNR (more art forgery primer than review, but interesting anyway).
- Kate Loveman's Samuel Pepys and his Books; review by Lena Liapi at Reviews in History.
- Eric Nelson's The Royalist Revolution; review by Heather Schwartz at Common-place.
- Tom Holland's Dynasty; review by Michiko Kakutani in the NYTimes.
- Justin Peters' The Idealist; review by Michael Schaub in the LATimes.
- Scott Hendrix's Martin Luther and Andrew Pettegree's Brand Luther; review by D.G. Hart in the WSJ.
- Missed this announcement in December: Alberto Manguel has been appointed director of the National Library of Argentina.
- The New York Public Library released 180,000+ digitized items as high-resolution downloads, with various changes to the NYPL Digital Collections website intended to "facilitate sharing, research and reuse." This announcement, and rightly so, earned much praise this week. See also good coverage from NPR and the NYTimes.
- A round of eighteen awesome CLIR Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives grants was announced this week: they include a project to digitize the Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive at the HRC, a website to aggregate Philadelphia-area medieval manuscript images, a cross-museum collection of field notes, and much, much more.
- Rebecca Rego Barry was on WAMC this week to talk about Rare Books Uncovered.
- NPR's Susan Stamberg covered the big First Folio Tour for NPR this week.
- Over at Past is Present, an excellent post on the conservation treatment process recently carried out on the AAS's 1709 Bay Psalm Book.
- The Getty is digitizing early books illustrated with photographs from its collections.
- From Erin Schreiner on the NYSL blog, "New York Needs a History of Reading."
- Britta Lokting, writing at Forward, asks "What's Next for Valmadonna Judaica Trove After Record-Shattering Sale?"
- There's a neat new Omeka presentation of 17th-century Newcastle-upon-Tyne bookseller William Corbett's shop.
- Speaking of Bay Psalm Books: Swann has announced that a previously unknown seventh edition (Boston, 1693), with some truly excellent provenance, will be part of their sale on 4 February. See the lot description, with photos. The estimate here, $30,000–40,000, seems a bit low to me ...
- Another Pirie sale acquisition announcement: the State Library Victoria acquired four lots (containing 33 English Civil War pamphlets) for inclusion in their Emmerson collection.
- And over at The Collation, Elizabeth DeBold has the first in a series of posts to highlight the Folger's Pirie sale purchases.
- Tim Martin reports for The Telegraph on the Royal College of Physicians exhibit about John Dee's library.
- Jim Kuhn has been appointed associate director and Hobby Foundation Librarian at the Harry Ransom Center.
- In the NYTimes, William Neuman reports on recent work on Incan khipus, including a recent discovery of several khipus in situ at an Incan storage facility.
- Over at The Alchemy Website, see "A modern alchemical hoax exposed." Extremely odd indeed.
- New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has announced a fairly extensive plan to digitize some 2.8 million boxes of municipal records.
- At LitHub, Samantha Hunt offers up "A Brief History of Books that do not Exist."
- In slightly more annoying news, the Authors Guild announced that they will appeal the Google Books ruling to the Supreme Court.
- Paul Collins was on BBC Radio recently discussing the wonderfully zany book Plotto.
Reviews
- Shaun Greehalgh's A Forger's Tale; review by Jeff Taylor in TNR (more art forgery primer than review, but interesting anyway).
- Kate Loveman's Samuel Pepys and his Books; review by Lena Liapi at Reviews in History.
- Eric Nelson's The Royalist Revolution; review by Heather Schwartz at Common-place.
- Tom Holland's Dynasty; review by Michiko Kakutani in the NYTimes.
- Justin Peters' The Idealist; review by Michael Schaub in the LATimes.
- Scott Hendrix's Martin Luther and Andrew Pettegree's Brand Luther; review by D.G. Hart in the WSJ.
Sunday, January 03, 2016
Links & Reviews
- The team working on a census of early editions of Vesalius has launched a website about their project. If you can help them, please do!
- BNF Director Bruno Racine talked to The Hindu about the state of libraries and librarianship.
- John Overholt's find of an uncatalogued manuscript map of the New York-New Jersey border is featured in the NYTimes.
- As Sarah Werner pointed out on Twitter this week, the group studying that treasure trove of unopened 17th-century letters has put together a striking website about their work and the letters.
- January's Rare Book Monthly articles are up: they include the annual report on the top 500 auction prices for books and manuscripts from 2015, a writeup on the first Bergé sale, and more.
- The NYTimes reported on the NYPL's erotica collection.
Reviews
- Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle's A Just and Generous Nation; review by David Holahan in the CSM.
- Peter Daly's The Emblem in Early Modern Europe; review by Maureen Mulvihill in Appositions.
- Tom Holland's Dynasty; review by Dennis Drabelle in the WaPo.
- Mary Beard's SPQR; review by Michael D. Schaffer in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
- BNF Director Bruno Racine talked to The Hindu about the state of libraries and librarianship.
- John Overholt's find of an uncatalogued manuscript map of the New York-New Jersey border is featured in the NYTimes.
- As Sarah Werner pointed out on Twitter this week, the group studying that treasure trove of unopened 17th-century letters has put together a striking website about their work and the letters.
- January's Rare Book Monthly articles are up: they include the annual report on the top 500 auction prices for books and manuscripts from 2015, a writeup on the first Bergé sale, and more.
- The NYTimes reported on the NYPL's erotica collection.
Reviews
- Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle's A Just and Generous Nation; review by David Holahan in the CSM.
- Peter Daly's The Emblem in Early Modern Europe; review by Maureen Mulvihill in Appositions.
- Tom Holland's Dynasty; review by Dennis Drabelle in the WaPo.
- Mary Beard's SPQR; review by Michael D. Schaffer in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Year-End Reading Report 2015
Another year's reading comes to a close (though I intentionally didn't start any new books this week so that I could get through the big pile of journals and magazines that had accumulated over the last several months). In 2015 I finished 172 books, including some classics that I'd long intended to read and finally did.
And now, my five favorite fiction and non-fiction reads for 2015 (in no particular order within the lists):
Fiction
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Barsetshire Chronicles by Anthony Trollope
Slade House by David Mitchell
Non-Fiction
Do Not Sell at Any Price by Amanda Petrusich
Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey
Galileo's Idol by Nick Wilding
The Most Disreputable Trade by Tom Bonnell
Winter World by Bernd Heinrich
Happy New Year to you all, and good reading!
Previous year's reports: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006.
And now, my five favorite fiction and non-fiction reads for 2015 (in no particular order within the lists):
Fiction
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Barsetshire Chronicles by Anthony Trollope
Slade House by David Mitchell
Non-Fiction
Do Not Sell at Any Price by Amanda Petrusich
Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey
Galileo's Idol by Nick Wilding
The Most Disreputable Trade by Tom Bonnell
Winter World by Bernd Heinrich
Happy New Year to you all, and good reading!
Previous year's reports: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Links & Reviews
- Bookseller John Crichton of the Brick Row Book Shop is profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle. The shop marked its hundredth birthday in early December.
- Sotheby's sale of material from the Valmadonna Trust collection realized more than $14.9 million, setting a record for an auction of Judaica. The Bomberg Talmud alone fetched $9.3 million, and was sold to Stephan Loewentheil, reportedly on behalf of collector Leon Black.
- The Morgan Library & Museum announced that they acquired from the Pirie sale the large-paper copy of Orlando Furioso (1591).
- Peter Brantley writes for Publishers Weekly about how James Billington's retirement should be a "wake-up call" for librarians.
- No surprise to most readers of this blog, but Michael Rosenwald reports for the Washington Post on the "resurgence" of used bookstores.
- The BBC reports on the new details emerging about the early Koranic fragments identified at Birmingham University earlier this year.
- Over at The New Antiquarian, a poetic ode to the current Grolier Club exhibition by Terry Belanger.
- The Shakespeare exhibits are starting: the HRC's, "Shakespeare in Print and Performance," is up through 29 May. See a preview.
- Along the same lines, Heather Wolfe announces one of the Folger's many initiatives for 2016: Shakespeare Documented, "the largest and most authoritative resource for learning about primary sources that document the life and career of William Shakespeare."
- In the Guardian's "book to share" column, Robert Freeman highlights Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer.
- At Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Guillermo Moran shows the process of making a mezzotint bookplate.
Reviews
- Page Smith's (posthumous) Tragic Encounters and Michael McDonnell's Masters of Empire; review by David Treuer in the LATimes.
- David Wootton's The Invention of Science; review by Matthew Price in the Boston Globe.
- Sotheby's sale of material from the Valmadonna Trust collection realized more than $14.9 million, setting a record for an auction of Judaica. The Bomberg Talmud alone fetched $9.3 million, and was sold to Stephan Loewentheil, reportedly on behalf of collector Leon Black.
- The Morgan Library & Museum announced that they acquired from the Pirie sale the large-paper copy of Orlando Furioso (1591).
- Peter Brantley writes for Publishers Weekly about how James Billington's retirement should be a "wake-up call" for librarians.
- No surprise to most readers of this blog, but Michael Rosenwald reports for the Washington Post on the "resurgence" of used bookstores.
- The BBC reports on the new details emerging about the early Koranic fragments identified at Birmingham University earlier this year.
- Over at The New Antiquarian, a poetic ode to the current Grolier Club exhibition by Terry Belanger.
- The Shakespeare exhibits are starting: the HRC's, "Shakespeare in Print and Performance," is up through 29 May. See a preview.
- Along the same lines, Heather Wolfe announces one of the Folger's many initiatives for 2016: Shakespeare Documented, "the largest and most authoritative resource for learning about primary sources that document the life and career of William Shakespeare."
- In the Guardian's "book to share" column, Robert Freeman highlights Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer.
- At Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, Guillermo Moran shows the process of making a mezzotint bookplate.
Reviews
- Page Smith's (posthumous) Tragic Encounters and Michael McDonnell's Masters of Empire; review by David Treuer in the LATimes.
- David Wootton's The Invention of Science; review by Matthew Price in the Boston Globe.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Links & Reviews
- The second "Virtual Issue" of The Library, containing articles about private libraries, is now available.
- Eric Kwakkel has a great post at Medieval Books about the recent work he and others have been doing to pilot the use of x-rays to reveal manuscript fragments hidden inside bookbindings. More here.
- A new database of early American library charging records, from the Easton (PA) Library Company, is now available at elc.lafayette.edu. The team is still adding records, but this looks like a great start.
- The Sotheby's London sale of 15 December realized £1.6 million. See the full results. The sale included the very interesting archive of Robert Catterson-Smith, a collaborator on the Kelmscott Chaucer.
- Daniel Grant writes for The Observer on the 22 December sale of material from the Valmadonna Trust Library. And Sotheby's David Redden talked to a local NYC news station about the collection and the auction.
- UNC's purchases at the Pirie sale were announced this week.
- A bill to make the US Copyright Office independent has been introduced in the House.
- New from Oxford, the 15cBOOKTRADE Project offers a whole range of resources and useful tools for the study of early books. An accompanying database, TEXT-inc, was also released this week.
- New from the University of Southampton, The Austen Family Music Books, a digital collection of 18 music albums belonging to Jane Austen's family. See the announcement.
- Mitch Fraas answers the question "What do you do all day?" for Medium.
- At Echoes from the Vault, Briony Aitcheson writes about the identification during cataloging of a previously-unrecorded variant cancel title page for the first edition of The Wealth of Nations.
- Jennifer Maloney and Pia Catton report for the WSJ on the coming "bonanza" of Shakespeare-related events/exhibits/books, &c., to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death in 2016.
- New from The Appendix contributors, Backlist, a selection of curated lists of books.
- Dee Clayman writes for the OUP Blog about the ongoing work on the Herculaneum scrolls. John Seabrook's recent New Yorker piece on the project is also now online.
- Coming up in the fall of 2016, a series of interlinked exhibitions and an international conference in Boston on illuminated manuscripts.
- Over at POP for "Mystery Monday," "Who signed the Newberry Library's First Folio?"
- A rare Kay Nielsen watercolor illustration for a 1924 edition of Hans Christian Andersen stories sold for £32,000 at auction this week.
- Liberty University has received a collection of rare Bibles from Dr. Harold Rawlings.
- Andy Stauffer has a response to Jacob Nadal's column "Silvaculture in the Stacks."
- The Daily News reported this week on the $22 million overhaul of the NYPL's Schomburg Center.
- More from The Collation on the launch of Shakespeare's World.
- In the "Bright Young Librarians" series, Penn's Laura Aydelotte is featured this week.
- Stephen Heyman writes for Slate about the success of the UK bookstore chain Waterstone's and what lessons US bookstores could learn.
- The AP reports on a soon-to-be-published Civil War diary volume separated from its fellows when it was captured by a Union soldier during the conflict.
- The Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded a $2.2 million grant to the Columbia University Libraries for the development of an online portal to the corporation's institutional records.
- A replica "handling copy" of the Gutenberg Bible has been produced for the John Rylands Library.
Reviews
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; reviews by Ben Marks for Collectors Weekly and Kurt Zimmerman at American Book Collecting.
- Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle's A Just and Generous Nation; review by Andrew Delbanco in the NYTimes.
- Andrew Pettegree's Brand Luther; review by Colin Woodard in the NYTimes.
- James Shapiro's The Year of Lear; review by Blake Seitz in the Washington Free Beacon.
- Lisa Moses Leff's The Archive Thief; review by James McAuley in the WaPo.
- Eric Kwakkel has a great post at Medieval Books about the recent work he and others have been doing to pilot the use of x-rays to reveal manuscript fragments hidden inside bookbindings. More here.
- A new database of early American library charging records, from the Easton (PA) Library Company, is now available at elc.lafayette.edu. The team is still adding records, but this looks like a great start.
- The Sotheby's London sale of 15 December realized £1.6 million. See the full results. The sale included the very interesting archive of Robert Catterson-Smith, a collaborator on the Kelmscott Chaucer.
- Daniel Grant writes for The Observer on the 22 December sale of material from the Valmadonna Trust Library. And Sotheby's David Redden talked to a local NYC news station about the collection and the auction.
- UNC's purchases at the Pirie sale were announced this week.
- A bill to make the US Copyright Office independent has been introduced in the House.
- New from Oxford, the 15cBOOKTRADE Project offers a whole range of resources and useful tools for the study of early books. An accompanying database, TEXT-inc, was also released this week.
- New from the University of Southampton, The Austen Family Music Books, a digital collection of 18 music albums belonging to Jane Austen's family. See the announcement.
- Mitch Fraas answers the question "What do you do all day?" for Medium.
- At Echoes from the Vault, Briony Aitcheson writes about the identification during cataloging of a previously-unrecorded variant cancel title page for the first edition of The Wealth of Nations.
- Jennifer Maloney and Pia Catton report for the WSJ on the coming "bonanza" of Shakespeare-related events/exhibits/books, &c., to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death in 2016.
- New from The Appendix contributors, Backlist, a selection of curated lists of books.
- Dee Clayman writes for the OUP Blog about the ongoing work on the Herculaneum scrolls. John Seabrook's recent New Yorker piece on the project is also now online.
- Coming up in the fall of 2016, a series of interlinked exhibitions and an international conference in Boston on illuminated manuscripts.
- Over at POP for "Mystery Monday," "Who signed the Newberry Library's First Folio?"
- A rare Kay Nielsen watercolor illustration for a 1924 edition of Hans Christian Andersen stories sold for £32,000 at auction this week.
- Liberty University has received a collection of rare Bibles from Dr. Harold Rawlings.
- Andy Stauffer has a response to Jacob Nadal's column "Silvaculture in the Stacks."
- The Daily News reported this week on the $22 million overhaul of the NYPL's Schomburg Center.
- More from The Collation on the launch of Shakespeare's World.
- In the "Bright Young Librarians" series, Penn's Laura Aydelotte is featured this week.
- Stephen Heyman writes for Slate about the success of the UK bookstore chain Waterstone's and what lessons US bookstores could learn.
- The AP reports on a soon-to-be-published Civil War diary volume separated from its fellows when it was captured by a Union soldier during the conflict.
- The Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded a $2.2 million grant to the Columbia University Libraries for the development of an online portal to the corporation's institutional records.
- A replica "handling copy" of the Gutenberg Bible has been produced for the John Rylands Library.
Reviews
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; reviews by Ben Marks for Collectors Weekly and Kurt Zimmerman at American Book Collecting.
- Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle's A Just and Generous Nation; review by Andrew Delbanco in the NYTimes.
- Andrew Pettegree's Brand Luther; review by Colin Woodard in the NYTimes.
- James Shapiro's The Year of Lear; review by Blake Seitz in the Washington Free Beacon.
- Lisa Moses Leff's The Archive Thief; review by James McAuley in the WaPo.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Links & Reviews
- Launched this week, Shakespeare's World, a collaboration between the Folger, the OED, and Zooniverse to crowdsource manuscript transcriptions of 17th-century letters and recipes. Nicola Davis reported on the launch for the Guardian.
- For your reference, the entire NUC Pre-1956 (all 754 volumes!) is now available digitally via HathiTrust. The contents list may also be of use.
- Nick Basbanes' collection of research materials and inscribed books have been acquired by Texas A&M University.
- The sale of the first portion of Pierre Bergé's library at Hotel Drouot on Friday realized the equivalent of $12.8 million. More coverage from AFP.
- The results of a survey about allowing self-service photography in reading rooms are well worth a look.
- Karin Scheper, conservator at the University Library Leiden, guest-posts at medievalbooks about the process of deciding whether and how to conserve a damaged book.
- The AAS has acquired a collection of daguerrotypes related to the Thomas P. and David C. Collins firm of Philadelphia.
- Architects have been hired to draw up plans for a new building to house the Lambeth Palace Library.
- Not that all the readers of this blog don't already know the answer, but Howard Jacobson, writing for the BBC Magazine, asks "Is there still any point to collecting books?"
- The AAS' annual report is now available.
- John Sunyer reports for the Financial Times on the Maggs Bros move.
- New to me, anyway, the Centre for Printing History and Culture, a joint initiative between Birmingham City University and the University of Birmingham.
- The UK Intellectual Property Office has stated that faithful reproductions of existing public-domain works should be in the public domain.
Reviews
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; review by Jerry Morris at Contemplations of MoiBibliomaniac.
- John Sedgwick's War of Two; review by Susan Dunn in the NYTimes.
- James Shapiro's The Year of Lear; review by James Smiley in the NYTimes.
- David Wooton's The Invention of Science; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Jane Dawson's John Knox; review by Arnold Hunt in the TLS.
- For your reference, the entire NUC Pre-1956 (all 754 volumes!) is now available digitally via HathiTrust. The contents list may also be of use.
- Nick Basbanes' collection of research materials and inscribed books have been acquired by Texas A&M University.
- The sale of the first portion of Pierre Bergé's library at Hotel Drouot on Friday realized the equivalent of $12.8 million. More coverage from AFP.
- The results of a survey about allowing self-service photography in reading rooms are well worth a look.
- Karin Scheper, conservator at the University Library Leiden, guest-posts at medievalbooks about the process of deciding whether and how to conserve a damaged book.
- The AAS has acquired a collection of daguerrotypes related to the Thomas P. and David C. Collins firm of Philadelphia.
- Architects have been hired to draw up plans for a new building to house the Lambeth Palace Library.
- Not that all the readers of this blog don't already know the answer, but Howard Jacobson, writing for the BBC Magazine, asks "Is there still any point to collecting books?"
- The AAS' annual report is now available.
- John Sunyer reports for the Financial Times on the Maggs Bros move.
- New to me, anyway, the Centre for Printing History and Culture, a joint initiative between Birmingham City University and the University of Birmingham.
- The UK Intellectual Property Office has stated that faithful reproductions of existing public-domain works should be in the public domain.
Reviews
- Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered; review by Jerry Morris at Contemplations of MoiBibliomaniac.
- John Sedgwick's War of Two; review by Susan Dunn in the NYTimes.
- James Shapiro's The Year of Lear; review by James Smiley in the NYTimes.
- David Wooton's The Invention of Science; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Jane Dawson's John Knox; review by Arnold Hunt in the TLS.
Sunday, December 06, 2015
Links & Reviews
Attention this week mostly went to the Pirie sale at Sotheby's, which certainly seemed from my Twitter feed to be the most tweeted-about book auction in recent memory. It was great to see so much interest from around the bibliosphere for this important auction. The total as reported by Sotheby's is $14,908,379, though that does not include after-sale purchases.
- Just hours after the sale, the Folger Shakespeare Library posted a list of their acquisitions: thirty on the floor and another eighteen later.
- The National Library of Ireland was the high bidder on a manuscript and subsequent typescript of Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, which made $187,500.
- For once, two pieces of good news about the Boston Public Library: the rare books department has reopened following a mold cleanup, and a map stolen by E. Forbes Smiley (but not one of those he admitted to) was returned to the library after being identified by the BPL's map curator. This raises yet more questions about just how forthcoming Smiley really was and how many more maps he stole are still out there.
- The Boston Globe has a long report on the ongoing debate over the so-called "Gospel of Jesus's Wife."
- December's Rare Book Monthly is out, with a report on the recent Boston fairs by Bruce McKinney, a look ahead at this week's Bergé sale, and a piece by Michael Stillman on Richard Stanley Haugh.
- On the Perne & Ward Libraries blog, Ann Eljenholm Nichols posts about the "Cambridge Fish Scribe," who "consistently 'signed' his work by drawing a fish around the catchword(s) written on the last folio of each quire."
- Eve Kahn reports for the NYTimes on Yale's purchase of the Ege collection of manuscripts and fragments.
- Kent-based bookseller Michael Kemp is selling his large collection of works by Mervyn Peake.
- In the November/December issue of Humanities, Richard Brodhead writes about the origins of the NEH and a way forward for the humanities in "On the Fate and Fortunes of Public Goods."
- Duke archivist Tracy Jackson writes about the very amusing collection of material from the Perkins Library suggestion book from the early 1980s.
- James Everest writes for the Royal Society's Repository blog about Robert Hooke's book collection and how he and other early Royal Society members dealt with the works of Athanasius Kircher.
- Jennifer Schuessler reported for the NYTimes about the (re)discovery of a first state King James Bible at Drew University.
- For fans of M.R. James, there's a BBC radio play, "The Midnight House," available now that bears a strong connection to James' story "The Mezzotint" in some respects. And five James stories are also available now for your listening pleasure.
Reviews
- Taschen's new The Book Cover in the Weimar Republic and the Morgan Library's Graphic Passion; review by Peter Mendelsund in the NYTimes.
- Flora Fraser's The Washingtons; review by Annette Gordon-Reed in the NYTimes.
- Jon Meacham's Destiny and Power; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle's A Just and Generous Nation; review by Howell Raines in the WaPo.
- Antonia Fraser's The Pleasure of Reading, Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered, and Robert Calasso's The Art of the Publisher; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo. Rare Books Uncovered is also reviewed by Pradeep Sebastian in The Hindu.
- The Meaning of the Library, edited by Alice Crawford; review by Alberto Manguel in the TLS.
- Umberto Eco's Numero Zero; review by Terry Eagleton in the TLS.
- Just hours after the sale, the Folger Shakespeare Library posted a list of their acquisitions: thirty on the floor and another eighteen later.
- The National Library of Ireland was the high bidder on a manuscript and subsequent typescript of Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, which made $187,500.
- For once, two pieces of good news about the Boston Public Library: the rare books department has reopened following a mold cleanup, and a map stolen by E. Forbes Smiley (but not one of those he admitted to) was returned to the library after being identified by the BPL's map curator. This raises yet more questions about just how forthcoming Smiley really was and how many more maps he stole are still out there.
- The Boston Globe has a long report on the ongoing debate over the so-called "Gospel of Jesus's Wife."
- December's Rare Book Monthly is out, with a report on the recent Boston fairs by Bruce McKinney, a look ahead at this week's Bergé sale, and a piece by Michael Stillman on Richard Stanley Haugh.
- On the Perne & Ward Libraries blog, Ann Eljenholm Nichols posts about the "Cambridge Fish Scribe," who "consistently 'signed' his work by drawing a fish around the catchword(s) written on the last folio of each quire."
- Eve Kahn reports for the NYTimes on Yale's purchase of the Ege collection of manuscripts and fragments.
- Kent-based bookseller Michael Kemp is selling his large collection of works by Mervyn Peake.
- In the November/December issue of Humanities, Richard Brodhead writes about the origins of the NEH and a way forward for the humanities in "On the Fate and Fortunes of Public Goods."
- Duke archivist Tracy Jackson writes about the very amusing collection of material from the Perkins Library suggestion book from the early 1980s.
- James Everest writes for the Royal Society's Repository blog about Robert Hooke's book collection and how he and other early Royal Society members dealt with the works of Athanasius Kircher.
- Jennifer Schuessler reported for the NYTimes about the (re)discovery of a first state King James Bible at Drew University.
- For fans of M.R. James, there's a BBC radio play, "The Midnight House," available now that bears a strong connection to James' story "The Mezzotint" in some respects. And five James stories are also available now for your listening pleasure.
Reviews
- Taschen's new The Book Cover in the Weimar Republic and the Morgan Library's Graphic Passion; review by Peter Mendelsund in the NYTimes.
- Flora Fraser's The Washingtons; review by Annette Gordon-Reed in the NYTimes.
- Jon Meacham's Destiny and Power; review by Steve Donoghue in the CSM.
- Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle's A Just and Generous Nation; review by Howell Raines in the WaPo.
- Antonia Fraser's The Pleasure of Reading, Rebecca Rego Barry's Rare Books Uncovered, and Robert Calasso's The Art of the Publisher; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo. Rare Books Uncovered is also reviewed by Pradeep Sebastian in The Hindu.
- The Meaning of the Library, edited by Alice Crawford; review by Alberto Manguel in the TLS.
- Umberto Eco's Numero Zero; review by Terry Eagleton in the TLS.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Links & Reviews
- At Spitalfields Life, a peek inside Maggs Brothers Berkeley Square premises before the firm moves to new quarters. Lots of pictures, too.
- The Guardian reports on the upcoming Pierre Bergé library sale (Sotheby's Paris, 11 December).
- Gothamist gets a look inside the NYPL's under-construction Rose Reading Room.
- A University of Aberdeen release highlights manuscript fragments found in a German library which are written in a similar script to the Book of Kells.
- There's a new exhibit up at the National Library of Scotland, "Book Beautiful." It sounds like a good one if you're in that neck of the woods. More from The Scotsman.
- The Kelmscott Chaucer census blog reports on the three (count 'em, three!) copies of the Kelmscott Chaucer coming up for sale in December. Wow, that last one is something.
- There's an essay and slideshow of Judaica broadsides from the Valmadonna Trust collection in Tablet.
- Bloomberg View editorialized on the importance of the next Librarian of Congress, and John Y. Cole has a story in the Library of Congress Magazine about how each librarian has shaped the institution.
- In the NYRB, Bruce Holsinger has a brief piece on the history of writing on parchment.
- Caroline Alexander talks to the WSJ about her new translation of The Iliad.
- Tim Radford reports for the Guardian about a new study into the nature of 13th-century uterine vellum using a new technique.
- The 11th Australasian Rare Books Summer School will be held at the State Library of New South Wales, 1–5 February 2016.
- California bookseller Randall House Rare Books put out a press release on their role in selling the Brontë book with unpublished manuscript material to the Brontë Museum.
- Ann Blair has been named the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard, effective 1 January.
Reviews
- Mary Beard's SPQR; reviews by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes and Peter Lewis in the CSM.
- Stanley L. Quick's Lion in the Bay; review by Philip Kopper in the Washington Times.
- The Guardian reports on the upcoming Pierre Bergé library sale (Sotheby's Paris, 11 December).
- Gothamist gets a look inside the NYPL's under-construction Rose Reading Room.
- A University of Aberdeen release highlights manuscript fragments found in a German library which are written in a similar script to the Book of Kells.
- There's a new exhibit up at the National Library of Scotland, "Book Beautiful." It sounds like a good one if you're in that neck of the woods. More from The Scotsman.
- The Kelmscott Chaucer census blog reports on the three (count 'em, three!) copies of the Kelmscott Chaucer coming up for sale in December. Wow, that last one is something.
- There's an essay and slideshow of Judaica broadsides from the Valmadonna Trust collection in Tablet.
- Bloomberg View editorialized on the importance of the next Librarian of Congress, and John Y. Cole has a story in the Library of Congress Magazine about how each librarian has shaped the institution.
- In the NYRB, Bruce Holsinger has a brief piece on the history of writing on parchment.
- Caroline Alexander talks to the WSJ about her new translation of The Iliad.
- Tim Radford reports for the Guardian about a new study into the nature of 13th-century uterine vellum using a new technique.
- The 11th Australasian Rare Books Summer School will be held at the State Library of New South Wales, 1–5 February 2016.
- California bookseller Randall House Rare Books put out a press release on their role in selling the Brontë book with unpublished manuscript material to the Brontë Museum.
- Ann Blair has been named the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard, effective 1 January.
Reviews
- Mary Beard's SPQR; reviews by Dwight Garner in the NYTimes and Peter Lewis in the CSM.
- Stanley L. Quick's Lion in the Bay; review by Philip Kopper in the Washington Times.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)