Saturday, September 20, 2008

This Week's Acquisitions

A visit to the Brattle after last week's post, plus a long jaunt through the Cambridge shops today, caused some trouble (there were a few good buys to be had at Raven). Among the visits I made today was to see James and Devon Gray on Arrow Street near Harvard Square; I had a long, pleasant chat about books and book-things with Devon, and really enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere and the chance to look through their beautiful stock (I restrained myself there, although I was sorely tempted by a gorgeous copy of Nehemiah Grew's Musæum regalis societatis: or a catalogue and description of the natural and artificial rarities belonging to the Royal Society, and preserved at Gresham Colledge).

Here's what I ended up with:

- William Godwin as Novelist by B.J. Tysdahl (Athlone Press, 1981). Brattle.

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Cabot Bibliography: With an Introductory Essay on the Careers of the Cabots Based upon an Independent Examination of the Sources of Information by George Parker Winship (Burt Franklin Reprint, 1967). Brattle.

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The Founding of Harvard College by Samuel Eliot Morison (Harvard University Press, 1995). Brattle.

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Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey (Knopf, 2008). Brattle.

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The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead, 2008). Book cart.

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Cotton Mather: A Bibliography of His Works (3v.) by Thomas J. Holmes (Crofton Publishing, 1974). Colophon Book Shop.

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Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life by Charles C. Calhoun (Beacon Press, 2004). Raven.

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Heyday by Kurt Andersen (Random House, 2008). Signed copy. Raven.

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The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft; edited by Claudia L. Johnson (Cambridge University Press, 2002). Raven.

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Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes by Richard Watson (David R. Godine, 2007). Raven.

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Purchasing Identity in the Atlantic World : Massachusetts Merchants, 1670-1780 by Phyllis Whitman Hunter (Cornell University Press, 2001). Raven.