Sunday, January 18, 2015

Links & Reviews

- Max Kutner reports for Smithsonian about a new "rapid-capture" digitization process being used at the National Museum of American History.

- Andrea Cawelti blogs about an 1842 music score printed on (very!) glossy paper she found while cataloging a collection of social dance scores at the Houghton Library.

- Goucher College is raising funds to mount an open-access digital surrogate of the 1816 Philadelphia edition of Jane Austen's Emma and "add contextual materials to create an interactive online experience centered on this exceptional edition." See the project website for more.

- UVA professor Karen Parshall volunteered to process an archival collection and has blogged about the experience for Notes from Under Grounds.

- Jennifer Schuessler reports for the NYTimes on the archival find that prompted Eric Foner's forthcoming book, Gateway to Freedom.

- From Heather Wolfe at The Collation, a nifty early modern color guide found in a manuscript heraldic miscellany.

- The surviving children of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are squabbling over ownership of the civil rights leader's personal Bible and Nobel Peace Prize medal. The NYTimes ran a long piece on the dispute this week, and MSNBC has a followup after the judge declined to issue a ruling this week. A trial could begin as early as 16 February.

- The Harvard Library staff news covers James Capobianco's recent Harvard Libraries staff talk about the history of Harvard call numbers. James' slides are also available.

- Paul Collins talked to Nate Pedersen for a Fine Books & Collections interview about his Duel with the Devil (and offers some hope for us Collins Library fans that perhaps more volumes might be forthcoming!)

- The anonymous Edinburgh book sculptor talked with BBC Scotland about her work.

- At the Hakluyt Society blog, Claire Jowett offers a progress report on her efforts to produce a new scholarly edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigation.

- The annual conference of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand will be held 26-27 November 2015, and will focus on "Bibliographical Innovation and the Legacy of Aldus Manutius." They are currently inviting paper proposals for the conference.

- The Boston Globe highlights the BPL's Digital Commonwealth initiative, which assists public libraries with digitization efforts.

- Christopher Cook's note in The Library on a 1650 book order from an Oxford bookseller's wife is now available online.

Reviews

- Phyllis Lee Levin's The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams; review by Steve Donoghue in the Washington Post.

- James Morrow's Galápagos Regained; review by Ron Charles in the Washington Post.

- Eric Nelson's The Royalist Revolution; review by Michael Hattem at The Junto.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Links & Reviews

- Bibliography Week is coming up in New York! There's a schedule of events here, and Bob McCamant has announced the speakers for the APHA meeting.

- The DPLA has published its strategic plan for the next three years.

- FB&C revisits Laura Massey, now of Alembic Books, for their Bright Young Booksellers series.

- There's a pretty excellent new acquisition at UVA's special collections library: an unrecorded copy of the 1701 edition of Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom, bound with the 1689 edition of Meat out of the eater. David Whitesell writes about the bibliographical significance of this copy, and about the conservation treatments required to make it ready for use by researchers.

- The Authors Guild has dropped its suit against HathiTrust.

- Literary forger Lee Israel died on 24 December at the age of 75. The NYTimes ran an obituary.

- Richard Adams spoke with Alison Flood of the Guardian about his writing career.

- The MHS has announced a book prize to honor Rev. Peter Gomes.

- UNC Press has received a $988,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support a platform for the production of digital monographs by university presses.

- Anne Kingston writes for Maclean's about the continued drama at Libraries and Archives Canada. She highlights a new report by the Royal Society of Canada, "The Future Now: Canada's Libraries, Archives, and Public Memory."

- Jeffrey J. Williams writes for the Chronicle about "The New Modesty in Literary Criticism."

- Don't miss Robert Darnton's NYRB post from this week, "Laughter and Terror."

- There's a piece in the Sunday Times about the recovery of some of the Doves Press type (unfortunately the article is behind a paywall). The search team has also posted a short video shot during the search.

Reviews

- Marilyn Johnson's Lives in Ruins; review by John Glassie in the NYTimes.

- Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton; review by Daniel Walker Howe in the WaPo.

- John Oller's American Queen; review by Amanda Vaill in the NYTimes.

- Anita Anand's Sophia; review by Carolyn Kellogg in the LATimes.

- Robert Tombs' The English and Their History; review by Linda Colley in the TLS.

Sunday, January 04, 2015

Links & Reviews

- Americana Exchange has posted their list of the top 500 auction prices paid for books and manuscripts in 2014.

- More details are emerging from the Rosenbach's lawsuit over Maurice Sendak's estate; the value and categorization of some of Sendak's rare books (all supposed to go to the Rosenbach based on his will) is being hotly contested.

- A new book alleges that the Israeli National Library engaged in some decidedly unsavory acquisition practices, according to a report in Haaretz.

- From Sarah Werner, "being a reader, again and still," a lovely personal essay on reading.

- The LATimes reports on contemporary challenges facing bookbinding businesses.

- The first 25,000 texts transcribed as part of the EEBO-TCP Partnership Phase I were released into the public domain in 1 January.

- Danny Heitman writes about E.B. White for the Jan/Feb issue of Humanities.

- John Windle writes for the ABAA blog about a pretty remarkable biblio-find (what he calls a "bibliophilic miracle").

- Over at the AAS blog, a new list of recent publications by AAS members and fellows.

- Also from AAS, Vince Golden writes on the challenges facing would-be printers of Chinese-language newspapers.

Reviews

- Phyllis Lee Levin's The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams; review by Julia M. Klein in the Boston Globe.

- Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton; review by Thomas Bender in the NYTimes.

- John Merriman's Massacre; review by Mary McAuliffe in the WaPo.

- Heather Cox Richardson's To Make Men Free; review by Jonathan Rauch in the NYTimes.

- Richard S. Dunn's A Tale of Two Plantations; review by Greg Gandon in the NYTimes.

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Literary Anniversaries 2015

A few (obviously selected) literary anniversaries coming up in 2015.

50 years ago (1965):

- J.K. Rowling born, 31 July.
- T.S. Eliot dies, 4 January.
- Thornton W. Burgess dies, 5 June.
- W. Somerset Maugham dies, 16 December.
- Frank Herbert's Dune published.
- John le Carré's The Looking-Glass War published.
- Sylvia Plath's Ariel published.

100 years ago (1915):

- Saul Bellow born, 10 June.
- Arthur Miller born, 17 October.
- Rupert Brooke dies, 23 April.
- Widener Library (Harvard) dedicated.
- Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis published.
- John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps published.
- Arthur Conan Doyle's The Valley of Fear published.
- T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock published.
- Alfred A. Knopf publishing house founded.

150 years ago (1865):

- W.B. Yeats born, 13 June.
- Rudyard Kipling born, 30 December.
- Isabella Beeton dies, 6 February.
- Lydia Sigourney dies, 10 June.
- Elizabeth Gaskell dies, 12 November.
- Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland published.

200 years ago (1815):

- Anthony Trollope born, 24 April.
- Ada Lovelace born, 10 December.
- North American Review begins publication.
- Jane Austen's Emma published.

250 years ago (1765):

- Edward Young dies, 5 April.
- Diderot's Encyclopédie completed.
- Johnson and Steevens' edition of Shakespeare's Works published.
- William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England published.

300 years ago (1715):

- John Hawkesworth born (approx.)
- Gilbert Burnet dies, 17 March.
- Nahum Tate dies, 30 July.
- Joseph Addison's Free-Holder published.

350 years ago (1665):

- Jacques Lelong born, 19 April.
- Kenelm Digby dies, 11 June.
- Journal des sçavans and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society begin publication.
- Robert Hooke's Micrographia published.

400 years ago (1615):

- Giambattista della Porta dies, 4 February.
- Part 2 of Cervantes' Don Quixote published.

450 years ago (1565):

- William Rastell dies, 27 August.

500 years ago (1515):

- Roger Ascham born.
- Aldus Manutius dies, 6 February.