Baron Pierre de Coubertin, half-length portrai...

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, half-length portrait, standing, facing front (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1915 the modern Olympic Games were just nineteen years old, but in that short time, the Games transcended the world's expectations, becoming the crowning international symbol of sport and goodwill.  Still, Pierre de Coubertin, the Game's fifty-two-year old founding father, envisioned something more.  In a letter to a friend that year, Coubertin wrote, "I have not been able to carry out to the end what I wanted to perfect. I believe that a centre of Olympic studies would aid the preservation and progress of my work more than anything else."

 

In the later years of his life, Coubertin would go on to lay the framework for the institution he envisioned.  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Olympic Study Centre in Geneva Switzerland was the culmination of that work.  It has subsequently gone on to include one of the world's finest research libraries dedicated to sport.

 

The modern Olympic Games have always been linked to print in the form of posters, pamphlets, and official game reports.  When asked what they considered to be their finest work on paper, the IOC library says their complete collection of Game reports, especially from early 1896 to 1936, is among their most treasured possessions.  Although the library has a prodigious amount of material about the modern Olympic Games, it also boasts a collection of antiquarian texts such as Girolamo Mercuriale's famous 1577 work on diet and exercise, De Arte Gymnastica.

 

1912-olympics-poster.jpg

Currently, the IOC Olympic Studies Centre Library is undergoing renovations to ensure the long term care of its collections. While that is underway, a digitalization project is being undertaken to provide exactly what Coubertin wanted--the preservation and progress of the Olympic Games.  

If you search the usual online book-hunting websites for "Les Secrets D'une Nage Evolutive" (or "The Secrets of Swimming Development" in English) you won't find a single available copy.  Head over to OCLC and you'll still come up empty-handed.  The elusive swimming manual is a slippery fish.

And yet somehow a copy of that book found its way to Rwanda, the small country in central Africa shattered by a genocide in 1994.

The book ended up in the hands of a high-school teacher in an undeveloped town on the shore of Lake Kivu, who saw a promising young swimmer gliding through the placid lake.

kivu1.jpgThe teacher passed the book on to him.

Now that swimmer, Jackson Niyomugabo, is representing Rwanda at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Niyomugabo revealed in an interview with the AP that he taught himself how to swim competitively by poring over the illustrations in "Les Secrets D'une Nage Evolutive."  Since Niyomugabo can not read French (or English), the illustrations were all the instruction he had to go by.  He would then compare the illustrations with the competitive swimmers he could sometimes watch on the television in the lobby of a local hotel.  Niyomugabo practiced the moves in Lake Kivu whenever he had the opportunity.  And now he is one of the four Rwandans competing in the Summer Games in London.

Niyomugabo's goal is to earn a medal in his event - the 50m freestyle, one of the fastest swimming events held at the Olympics.  He doesn't have much of a chance in that regard - in fact, it would be an incredible feat if he even makes it to the finals.  But for a swimmer without any support - no coach, no training facility, no Olympic-size pools - just getting to the Olympics is an amazing accomplishment.

And it's owed to the circuitous route of survival traveled by a particularly scarce book.

Readers may recall our spring column on Kim Rhode, a 33-year-old Olympian with a penchant for children's books. The California native won a gold medal in skeet shooting at the London Olympics this past weekend, becoming the first US athlete to medal in five consecutive Olympic games.

Her passion for sport is akin to her passion for books. She told us, "I'll definitely continue collecting until the day I die. I think books are becoming obsolete, so I see what I'm doing as preserving history, the heritage of parents reading to their kids. I don't see myself ever getting bored. Collecting is something that's constantly changing. I'm always updating and growing and getting better."

We wonder if Rhode has had a chance to go hunting for her 'holy grail,' a first edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in dust jacket, while she's been in London.
lf.jpgHeritage Auctions snagged a world record for comic art at a Beverly Hills auction last night. Todd McFarlane's 1990 Spider-Man #328 original cover art brought in $657,250 at the vintage comics & comic art sale, beating McFarlane's Spider-Man #1--thought to be the auction's frontrunner--by nearly double.

The signed illustration shows Spider-man sparring with the Hulk. It was formerly part of the Shamus Modern Masterworks Collection. Martin Shamus owned a popular comics shop and had the opportunity to obtain many pieces of original comic book art directly from the artists soon after publication in the late eighties and early nineties.

Where do you go to buy books when your country bans them?
 
If you're Chinese, you go to Hong Kong:

hongkong.jpgCNN reported yesterday on an interesting bookselling phenomena: since travel restrictions were lifted in 2003, Chinese readers interested in acquiring books banned by their government head to Hong Kong, where the books can be legally sold.  And in a city where Chinese tourism is booming, this has led to substantial new business opportunities for booksellers.  (Approximately 28.1 million Chinese people visited Hong Kong last year, a figure that doubled over the previous five years).
 
Indeed, some bookstores are making a significant portion of their profits from this trade.  The People's Commune, a bookshop in Hong Kong, reported that a whopping 95% of its customers come from mainland China seeking books on such heavily censored topics as the Tiananmen Square protests and the ongoing Bo Xilai scandal.
 
Book purchasers run the risk of having their books confiscated by customs officials when they return to China.  But it's a risk many are willing to take.  One such customer was quoted by CNN, "As long as it doesn't hurt the fundamental well being of its people, I don't see a reason for the country to ban the information.  After all, we want the country to be better and our lives to be improved."
 
All of this must make for some fascinating book collections in China, involving secretive acquisitions, book smuggling, and repeated avoidance of governmental officials.  Those are some collections I'd like to see.
Once in a while someone asks a fellow bibliophile (or group of bibliophiles) for a list of novels about books and collecting, and that person is then bombarded with a list. Poet's Pub, a British novel originally published in 1935, is one that I don't recall ever coming up in such conversations, so when I read about its recent re-publication by Penguin Classics, I was excited to dive in.

PoetsPub Reprint.jpgPoet's Pub is the charming story of the Pelican Pub in Downish, England, run by middling poet Saturday Keith. His guests are an interesting group of English and American travelers: a professor and his daughter, a retired colonel and his wife, a businessman, and a "harmless" book collector who turns out to have a sinister side ("a folio-sized wolf in calf's clothing"). The author provides comic relief at the expense of bibliophiles (but I laughed anyway), particularly in this passage:

Wesson sat a little distance away, still behind his enormous folio. Wesson had talked old books to Sir Philip Betts, who hated reading; to Jean Forbes, who disliked Wesson; to Sigismund Telfer, who believed only in new books; to Jacquetta Telfer, who preferred maps; to Colonel Waterhouse, who wasn't interested; and to Lady Porlet, who thought it a sin and a shame to pay hundreds of pounds for dusty volumes that nobody read...

The novel evolves into a caper that might well be described as a wittier, less deadly Gosford Park.

PoetsPub.jpgThe new edition features a foreword by librarian and author Nancy Pearl, who felt compelled to revive Eric Linklater's novel for modern readers. Pearl deserves many thanks for that. For years Poet's Pub was out of print, even though it was one of the first ten titles used by Allen Lane to successfully launch the Penguin Books line in 1935. Linklater was shelved alongside an eclectic group, including Andre Maurois, Ernest Hemingway, Susan Ertz, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Beverly Nichols, E.H. Young, Mary Webb, and Compton Mackenzie.
Katherinemansfield.jpgA lost short story by the New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield was uncovered in an archive at Kings College, London.  The story, "A Little Episode," deals with an affair between a socialite and a musician. It was discovered by a graduate student along with several previously unknown children's stories and a collection of aphorisms.

The graduate student, Chris Mourant, found the material while trawling through the archives of the literary magazine ADAM held by Kings College, London.  Mourant revealed the find to Dr. Gerri Kimber, a Mansfield expert, who will be publishing the first complete collection of the author's writings later this year. Kimber was astounded by the find, describing it in an interview with the Guardian as "hugely exciting."

Kimber believes the Mansfield story sheds light on a difficult phase in the author's life.  Like the protagonist in "A Little Episode," Mansfield fell in love with a musician.  He abandoned her when he found out that she was pregnant.  Mansfield then married a music teacher, only to leave him the same day and attempt to return to the musician, who refused to take Mansfield back. The sad little affair was elevated to tragedy when Mansfield's baby was stillborn.

"A Little Episode," along with the three children's stories, will be included in the upcoming "Collected Fiction of Katherina Mansfield," edited by Kimber, which will be released this fall from Edinburgh University Press.

Mansfield (1888 - 1923) is primarily remembered for her stories "The Garden Party," "The Daughters of the Late Colonel," and "The Fly." She was born and raised in New Zealand, but came to Great Britain at age 19, where she befriended other Modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf.  Mansfield died prematurely at 34, a victim of tuberculosis.


It can be cliche to call someone a Renaissance Man, but in the case of antiquarian bookseller Ed Nudelman, it is apt. Book collectors and dealers will recognize the name Nudelman Rare Books, an ABAA antiquarian shop since 1983 that specializes in English and American literature, especially the Pre-Raphaelite period. But what you may not know is that Ed Nudelman is a recently retired cancer research scientist, who wrote more than sixty research papers. He is also a published bibliographer and a poet. That kind of productivity, in two (or three) such distinct fields at the same time, is hard for many of us to imagine. So I thought I'd pick his brain about it.

RRB: You started your career as a cancer research scientist. How long were you doing that before you began thinking about books? How long were you a collector before you became a dealer?

6_EDN.jpgEd Nudelman in his home office.


EN: I received my degree in biochemistry from the University of Washington in 1976 and immediately began my first formal appointment at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. The Institute is well known for having pioneered bone marrow transplant intervention for some of the then fatal leukemic cancers. I immediately became interested in cancer research and have been working as a scientist in various laboratories and biotech companies ever since.  

It was in the summer of 1979 that I bought my first rare book, an illustrated edition of one of the Scribner's Classics, by Robert Louis Stevenson entitled A Child's Garden of Verses. This was during a foray into an antique shop with my soon-to-be wife, Susan, and the model of her going toward the antique pottery and armoires and me going toward the dusty stacks of old books was set into place. But it wasn't until I noticed that the book was illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith that I became infatuated with that illustrator and more or less obsessed with trying to find all of her books. This eventually occurred, and it was said by many that I was personally responsible for inflating the price of Smith's first editions in the 1980s. I later sold the entire collection along with original paintings to the Chicago Public Library, but before that occurred, Pelican published my first book, Jessie Willcox Smith, A Bibliography, which has turned out to be the definitive bibliography on her illustrations in books, posters, calendars, magazines, etc.

I was a collector for probably two years before I became a dealer. However, like many of my colleagues, I managed to keep a small collection fairly intact for many years, only selling duplicate copies. At that time I was interested in late nineteenth-century American Illustrators, fine bindings, 1890s, and the Arts and Crafts Movement, and my collecting interests continued to evolve around chiefly the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the 1890s.

RRB: How did you juggle a career in science with a career in bookselling?

EN: It never seemed like juggling to me. I think many scientists become interested in the arts, or at least obtain an appreciation for things appealing to their less 'exercised' right side of the brain. For me, after coming home from a difficult day in the lab mixing chemicals, incubating solutions, and in general becoming more and more frustrated analyzing data, there was something unusually rewarding about finding a package and knowing inside it lurked something beautiful (and mysterious): a rare book I'd never seen or held before.  

5_EDN.jpgA selection of Nudelman's books.


RRB: Your focus as a collector and a dealer is Pre-Raphaelites, the 1890s, and writers of the Arts/Crafts period. To me, an obvious question is, why not medical books?

EN: They did interest me for a while early on, but not passionately; medical books never appealed to me from an aesthetic point of view. And I think I was looking for respite from the rigorous, linear aspects of my career in the science world. So, as alluded to above, my passion for the aesthetic quality of books as objects, fine bindings, wood-engraved illustrations from the 1850s, hand-colored plates... these kinds of things appealed to me early on and continue to fuel my interest and drive. But in our bookshop, we have branched into many other areas such as Natural History, Important Literature, Fine Bindings, and Jugendstil Children's Books.

RRB: How did poetry enter the picture?

EN: Seven years ago my wife and I relocated to New England (just north of Boston) to pursue a biotech business venture. We had been native Seattleites all our lives, and kept our house in Seattle thinking this would be a two-year adventure. I kept my book business going during this time, but didn't show at the California ABAA fairs as I had the previous two decades. One result of the move was that I found I had a little more free time to pursue non-vocational interests. I joined an online writing group and started producing a lot of prose, short-stories and the like. One day I posted a poem I had written in high school and it got more attention than any of my stories. That gave me the impetus to explore writing poetry, publishing in journals, and eventually having two poetry books published (third in manuscript).

RRB: So you've been a scientist, a bookseller, a bibliographer, and a poet. Anything else? Which has been most rewarding?

EN: Well, I play a lot of guitar, instrumental open tunings like John Fahey and Leo Kotke. I like to hang out with our family, which we have in spades. Our three kids have already produced 6 grandkids, and all are under the age of 5! We have a large house and half an acre in North Seattle and everyone convenes here daily, which we love. Having our book business in our home gives me the flexibility now to work in a dedicated fashion, but not one confined by deadlines and time constraints. I love sitting in my office and peering out over our Provencal garden, inhaling the roses and lavender and, believe it or not, working hard at trying to sell rare books!
 

8_EDN.jpgNudelman's Provencal garden.


RRB: What direction are you taking as an antiquarian bookseller these days? What's your prognosis for book collecting in the 21st century?

EN: We have been expanding our business, buying larger collections, paying more attention to auctions and rare book fairs. We have a growing online presence, including a fully active shopping cart website with multiple photos of every book in our stock.

I'm very optimistic about the future for the rare book business. Commodities of historical and authentic artistic and literary merit will always be in demand. Buying and selling rare books in today's internet climate puts a premium on research and placing valuation as true to what the market will accept as one possibly can. Buying is a function of what your clients are looking for, and how you can best provide what is needed in a competitive way. In my view, the internet hasn't leveled the playing field, as some have said, but rather provided more reliable and reproducible metrics on which to base buying and selling. This is the kind of landscape I thrive best in. Therefore, much of my time is spent querying my clientele and researching availability, analyzing all aspects of bibliography, condition, and the uniqueness of an item. I hope this pays off in the long run.
 

Catalogue Review: Voyager Press

Screen shot 2012-07-19 at 8.34.19 PM.pngI have had the pleasure of talking with Voyager's president, Bernhard Lauser, at book fairs in California and New York. So when his new catalogue of manuscript Americana landed in my inbox (in PDF), I was glad to take a look. Lauser, a Vancouver-based bookseller, specializes in travel and exploration, and this catalogue manifests that with unique whaling, trading, and sailing items.

An 1860-1890 archive of mining deeds, gold bullion receipts, and camp photographs from Idaho is a compelling collection ($5,750). Another nugget (pun intended) is a set of two letters and an 50-page manuscript inquest related to an American consul's death on his way to the Klondike Gold Fields in 1898 ($2,250).

I have always been taken by nineteenth-century herbaria/scrapbooks. Here we have one that belonged to Julia T. Buck, an Englishwoman who traveled far and wide collecting plant specimens between 1890-1893 ($975). On a related note, famous naturalist Louis Agassiz appears in a signed carte-de-visite from 1860 accompanied by a letter dated 1921 describing its provenance ($975).

The topic of war is explored through two Revolutionary War journals ($9,750), a rare New Jersey Gazette from August 1778 ($1,750), and an American Civil War "passport" signed by William H. Seward ($575). A 45-page manuscript account of the Austrian military campaign in Mexico in 1867 is a surprising find ($7,500).

Fellow travelers can visit Voyager here and request a catalogue.



Our series profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers continues today with Katharina Koch, daughter of Joachim Koch, the proprietor of Books Tell You Why in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina:

BYT Interview Picture.jpgNP: As your father is Joachim Koch, you must've grown up around rare books.  Did you develop an interest in them early in life? Or did it come to you later?

KK: While I always read books as a child and my bookshelf was always full, I would say that my interest in collecting rare books came later.  Then came Christmas 2002: In my stocking I found a scroll of papers packaged in a tube that tennis balls would usually come in. This package contained the beginnings of Books Tell You Why, which was at that point the smallest bookstore in the world.  Little did I know that this Christmas present, a bookstore, would change the rest of our lives.
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NP: What is your role at Books Tell You Why?

KK: I coordinate all of the marketing efforts at Books Tell You Why (although, sometimes they coordinate me). This includes designing and updating print advertisements, helping with newsletters, supporting social media activities on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as organizing six book fairs we currently attend each year. ????

NP: What do you love about the book trade?

KK: What I love most about the book trade is that there is so much to discover.  Whether traveling to book fairs and seeing new places, or cataloguing a pile of books, I am always learning something new and I am constantly exposed to interesting literature.  Oh, and interesting people.  There are so many great people in the trade; I have seen exciting collections, and the people who built these are fascinating.

NP: ??Favorite or most interesting book that you've handled?

KK: After being introduced to Walt Whitman in my AP Language & Composition/American Literature class, I became truly interested in Walt Whitman, his life, and his career. After learning about how Whitman was inspired by human interactions and the magnificence of nature, my classmates and I deeply considered his work and created written analyses on his life. We explored how Leaves of Grass is designed to show the world sensations of humanity through poetry. To write our analyses, we received a packet of documents to reference in our paper, and the first document was a print-out of an Abebooks search showing first editions of Leaves of Grass. I recognized some of the booksellers on the print-out and knowing that I would soon be going to the ABAA California Book Fair, anticipated that a particular bookseller would bring his copy. It was amazing to see a first edition of this book, published in 1854, in an original print run of only 795 copies, being kept in such good condition. With the class experience, I was able to much better understand and see first-hand the cultural significance of such an important piece of American literature.

NP: What do you personally collect?

KK: I personally collect The Night before Christmas titles and Charles van Sandwyk books. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday of the year by far.  When I started collecting books and wanted to collect something I actually enjoyed, I knew it would have to be The Night before Christmas books! Of course, as collecting doesn't come without having the right bibliography, Nancy Marshall's The Night before Christmas: A Descriptive Bibliography is sitting on my shelf.

I also collect Charles van Sandwyk books, which I started after visiting the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair one year. Van Sandwyk, an author and illustrator who divides his time between Canada and Fiji, adorns his hand-sewn works with whimsical fairies and woodland scenes that are reminiscent of Arthur Rackham's work. I fell in love with his works and enjoy collecting them, since they are so charming and magical!  He has a great publisher whom I enjoy working with.
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NP: If you could live inside the pages of any rare book, which would it be?

KK: Living within five minutes of the ocean for most of my life, I have become dependent on the sensation of sand between my toes and life on the seashore. Like Santiago in The Old Man and Sea, I love feeling the warm sun beating down on my head and the salty breeze whipping the hair around my face.  I would love to live inside the pages of this book by Hemingway, watching and learning from the old fisherman who struggles to bring home the giant marlin he has caught out in the middle of the Gulf Stream.

NP: Do you plan to continue in the family business?

KK: My current plans are to attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and study Biology; then we'll see what happens. As many things at Books Tell You Why can be done remotely, I am most definitely going continue working on my marketing and collecting endeavors. As part of that, I am looking forward to doing some book hunting in Scotland and the United Kingdom as well!????

NP: How do you feel about the future of the book trade, being the youngest member of the ABAA?

KK: ????I feel positive about the future of the book trade and do not think that anyone considering starting in the book trade or collecting should be discouraged in any way. While technology such as the Kindle or iPad will constantly be developing and improving, I think that people will always enjoy curating their collections. I think that there is definitely something alluring and satisfying about holding a rare book in your hands, and admiring how well it was made and the work and art that went into its creation.