Links & Auctions

- The American Philosophical Society has identified a paper copy of the Stone Declaration of Independence facsimile among their holdings.

- Nick Dall writes for the Guardian with more about losses at the University of Cape Town in the April fires, including a collection of rare historical photographs housed in the Department of Biological Sciences. 

- Over at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "The St. Albans Bible," with a brief followup post.

- And from the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Prefacing the Psalms," and a caption competition!

- On the Peter Harrington blog, "Behind the Books: Collecting Chinese books with Matt Wills."

- If ever wondered how the Daily Mail would cover the T.J. Wise forgeries, wonder no more.

- Rare Book School's summer lecture series is underway.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Decorative Graphics at Dorotheum on 28 June.

- American Historical Ephemera and Photography at Cowan's Auctions ends on 28 June.

- Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes (1-288) at Ader on 29 June.

- Lettres et Manuscrits & Bibliothèque Victor Segalen at ALDE on 29 June.

- Highlights from the Medical Library of the late James Tait Goodrich, Part III at Bonhams New York ends on 29 June.

- Fine Books & Ephemera at New England Book Auctions on 29 June.

- Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes (289-494) at Ader on 30 June.

- Fine Books & Works on Paper at Chiswick Auctions on 30 June.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books at University Archives on 30 June.

- The Curtis Studio at Bonhams Los Angeles on 30 June.

- Céline, 1961-2021 at ALDE on 1 July.

- Charles Carroll's copy of the Stone facsimile Declaration of Independence at Freeman's on 1 July.

- Manuscrits & Livres Anciens et Modernes at Ader on 2 July.

Links & Auctions

- The forged Oath of a Freeman sold at Heritage Auctions last week was acquired by Kenneth and Shirley Rendell for donation to the Grolier Club as part of the Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting. Excellent news for the future study and research potential of this piece.

- A UK consortium of libraries and museums will try to raise £15 million to keep the Honresfield Library from auction, and the first sale at Sotheby's scheduled for next month has already been postponed. See Alison Flood's report in the Guardian, and Jennifer Schuessler's in the NYTimes.

- The Letterlocking research group gets a nicely-illustrated writeup in BBC Future by Richard Fisher.

- Anna Burgess writes for the Harvard Gazette on the recently-completed Colonial North America at Harvard Library digitization project, which now includes more than 700,000 pages of material.

- On the digitization front, the Clements Library has recently digitized three collections relating to slavery and abolition.

- Over on the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Medieval Killer Rabbits: When Bunnies Strike Back."

- Coming up next month, "500 Years of Mexican Books: Colonial Book Bibliography in Indigenous Languages."

- Anna Willi's Manual of Roman Everyday Writing: Writing Equipment is available open-access via LatinNow. There's also a PDF.

- Elaine Treharne's recent talk "Uncertainty in Manuscript Technologies and the Potential of Computational Tools" is now available on YouTube, as is Alex Hidalgo's RBS lecture "The Book as Archive."

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Literature at Doyle on 22 June.

- Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs at Lyon & Turnbull on 23 June.

- Éditions Originales Littéraires du XIXe au XXIe Siècle at ALDE on 24 June.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts and Photographs at Bonhams London on 24 June.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 24 June.

 - Illustration Art at Swann Galleries on 24 June.

- Antiquarian Books with Manuscripts and Food & Drink at PBA Galleries on 24 June.

- Livres et Manuscrits de Cervantès à Houllebecq at Sotheby's Paris ends on 25 June.

- American Historical Ephemera & Photography at Cowan's on 25 June.

- The Gentleman's Library & Bindery at Addison & Sarova on 26 June.

- Rare Books, Antiquarian Maps, and Manuscripts at Second Story Books on 26 June.

- Bookworm Auction at Addison & Sarova on 27 June.

Links & Auctions (and an Update)

Update, of particular relevance to the many of you who get these posts via email: Feedburner, which has managed the email subscriptions for this blog for I don't know how long, is going away next month (don't get me started, I'm still mad that Google Reader went away and that happened in 2013). Anyway, I've transitioned the email subscriptions over to follow.it, so you should just keep getting emails as usual (though they may start looking slightly different). You can also set up different bells and whistles, if you prefer. With any luck at all, the transition will be relatively seamless.

-Coming up on 22 June, the Bookplate Society hosts a Zoom talk by Anthony Pincott, "Ex-Libris Art & Provenance: The Fascination of Bookplates." Register at the link.

- Over at Bijzondere Collecties, "Gauffering the Edges," an excellent look at gauffering.

- Heritage Auctions had a very interesting roundtable discussion prior to the sale of the forged Oath of a Freeman last week. I learned some things about the Hofmann forgeries I hadn't known before. The forged oath sold for $52,500 last week (and I'd be very interested to know the buyer if they wish to reveal themselves!).

- From Swann Galleries, the first part of "For Love of the King: the Wild Story of a Forged Wilde Story."

- Rebecca Rego Barry has the summer 2021 books on books roundup over at the Fine Books Blog.

Upcoming Auctions

- Guerre de 1870–1871 (Aristophil 41) at Aguttes on 14 June.

- Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 15 June.

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 16 June.

- Private Press, Children's & Illustrated Books and Modern First Editions at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 17 June.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams New York on 17 June.

- Fine Books & Autographs at Swann Galleries on 17 June.

- Books in All Fields – Americana – Maps at PBA Galleries on 17 June.

- Rare Antiquarian and Illustrated Books at Donald Heald Auctions on 19 June.

Links & Auctions

- Mary Hamilton French writes for the NEDCC blog about her recent work to conserve a fifteenth-century manuscript Vitae Augustini from the BPL collections. A really excellent and beautifully illustrated walk through the process.

- News that the Honresfield Library will be sold at Sotheby's across three auctions (see the introduction to the first part, scheduled to be sold in July) prompted much coverage: see Alison Flood's piece in the Guardian and Jennifer Schuessler's in the NYT. A followup piece by Alison Flood for the Guardian reports on the immediate calls from the Brontë Society and others for the collection to be kept intact and made publicly available for research. See also Francesca Collins' post for the Museums Association.

- Stephen Hawking's Cambridge papers and personal memorabilia have been acquired for the British nation, and will be housed at the Cambridge University Library and the Science Museum.

- Hobby Lobby has sued Dirk Obbink to recover some of the $7 million reportedly paid for ancient gospel fragments which Obbink allegedly had stolen. See also the official complaint.

- The National Library of Scotland has acquired a sixteenth-century Perthshire manuscript, the "Chronicle of Foringall."

- Candida Moss has a roundup of some recent book thefts from libraries in the Daily Beast.

- Chiara Betti writes for the St John's College blog about the collection of some 750 copper plates given by Richard Rawlinson to the Bodleian Library. This is an introductory post about a new project to really study this collection for the first time, which promises to be extremely useful!

- From Aaron Pratt, "Paper Pitfalls."

- Notre Dame's Hesburgh Library has acquired a rare early Civil War lithograph of Jefferson Davis metamorphosed into a donkey.

- The Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog has a roundup of their Pandemic-Times webinars, and also a new post on "Typographic Necrology."

- From Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "A New Leaf from the Pontigny Copy of Florus & Didymus" and "Otto Ege's 12th-Century Italian Gospel Lectionary."

- Heather Wolfe writes for The Collation, "Malicious Teaseling: Or, how a simple reference question got complicated."

- Over on the Bodleian blog, "A Pirate's Life?"

- The Franz Kafka collection held by the National Library of Israel is now online in digital form.

- From Adam Smyth at TEXT!, "Family Bibles."

- The Middle Temple Library has another provenance mystery for this month.

Upcoming Auctions

- Music: Books & Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 8 June.

- Early Printing, Americana (Printed and Manuscript) at New England Book Auctions on 8 June.

- TCM Presents ... Mavericks at Bonhams Los Angeles on 8 June.

- Travel Books, Maps & Atlases at Forum Auctions on 9 June.

- Rare Books Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions on 9–10 June.

- Americana – Zamorano 80 – Travel – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 10 June.

- Bibliothèque Théâtrale du Comte Emmanuel D'André – Livres at Manuscrits at Binoche et Giquello on 11 June.

- Summer Auction at Arader Galleries on 12 June.

Links & Auctions

- Heritage Auctions will sell Mark Hofmann's forgery of the Freeman's Oath in their 9–10 June Rare Books Signature Auction.

- Some good coverage this week of Kate McCaffrey's recent research on Anne Boleyn's prayerbook: see the Hever Castle announcement, McCaffrey's research overview, and stories in artnet and Smithsonian.

- From Peter Kidd at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "Otto Ege's Copy of Thomas Aquinas on Peter Lombard's Sentences."

- Over on Books and Borrowing, "A First Look at the University of Edinburgh Library Borrowers' Receipt Books."

- On the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Thomas Becket: Manuscripts Showing the Making of a Saint."

- Oliver B. Pollak writes for the Oak Knoll blog on "Becoming a Bibliophile, 1950–1970."

- Sarah Lindenbaum has a look at a 1633 copy of Henry Isaacson's Saturni Ephemerides for Early Modern Female Book Ownership.

- Jim Green will be on the History of Libraries seminar on 1 June to discuss "Memory, Reason, Imagination: Subject Classification in the 1789 Catalogue of the Library Company of Philadelphia." Free registration here.

- Alex Shepard writes for the New Republic about the ongoing controversy over Philip Roth's literary estate and personal papers.

Upcoming Auctions

- Science: Books & Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 25 May.

- Historic Manuscripts & Rare Books at Skinner ends on 25 May.

- Bibliothèque Cynégétique Jean-Pierre Lemanissier at ALDE ends on 26–27 May.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts, Artwork, Comic Art at University Archives on 26 May.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 27 May.

- Fine Photographs at Swann Galleries on 27 May.

- Literature – Beats & the Counterculture – Illustrated Books at PBA Galleries on 28 May.

Links & Auctions

- There will be a 24 Hour Book and Paper Fair on Getman's Virtual beginning at noon EDT on Wednesday, 19 May. 

- The Grolier Club's new exhibition "100 Books Famous in Typography" has opened for in-person viewing and with an online version.

- Over on the State Library of Victoria blog, "King George's Donation."

- From Mark Dimunation for the LC blog, "Not Gutenberg's Book: Wild Innovations in Handcrafted and Art Books."

- Lucy Kelsall writes on "A Sombre Binding" for the Paul Mellon Centre magazine.

- Coming up from UCLA, a three-part webinar series on "The History of the Chinese Book."

Upcoming Auctions

- Bibliothèque J.-L. et C. Pierron at Binoche et Giquello ends on 18 May.

- 19th & 20th Century Photography, Cameras and Accessories at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 19 May.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 19 May.

- Manuscripts at Heritage Auctions on 19 May.

- Books and Manuscripts at Freeman's on 20 May.

- The Einstein Archives of Ludwik Silberstein at RR Auctions on 20 May.

- Rare Pulps and Collectibles at Heritage Auctions on 20 May.

- Important Numismatic Books at Kolbe & Fanning ends on 22 May.

Links & Auctions

 - Some nice "Parting Words" from Mike Widener on the occasion of his retirement. Best wishes always, Mike!

- Coming up on Tuesday, 11 May, Rebecca Romney, Heather O'Donnell, and all former winners of the Honey & Wax Prize will be on a roundtable as part of the Swann Salon Series, "Owning It: A Roundtable for Young Collectors."

- I recommend keeping an eye on Adam Smyth's Text! newsletter: among his recent posts are "Directions to the binder" and "Bookshelves."

- On the N-YHS blog, "A Pioneering Woman, and a Bibliographic Mystery."

- From the Ransom Center magazine, Eric Colleary on ephemera associated with Henry "Box" Brown.

- Over on the Peter Harrington blog, "How to Handle and Store Rare Books."

- From Seth Kimmel, "What's in a Bookstore?"

- Now freely available, Lisa Fagin Davis' "How Many Glyphs and How Many Scribes? Digital Paleography and the Voynich Manuscript."

Upcoming Auctions

- Livres Rares et Manuscrits at Christie's Paris ends on 10 May. 

- Bibliothèque Littéraire Hubert Heilbronn at Sotheby's Paris on 11 May.

- Fine Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana at Leslie Hindman on 12 May.

- Selections from the Letterform Archive at Swann Galleries on 12 May.

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents, Numismatics: The Patricia Milne-Henderson Collection at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 12–13 May.

- Graphic Design at Swann Galleries on 13 May. 

- Fine Press Books at Leslie Hindman on 13 May.

- Fine Golf Books and Memorabilia at PBA Galleries on 13 May.