On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, Guernsey's will auction the World War I poster collection of Colonel Edward H. McCrahon, a Brooklyn-born soldier so passionate about the Allied cause that he joined the French Army as an ambulance driver before his enlistment once America entered the war. McCrahon became enamored of the patriotic posters produced during wartime by the likes of James Montgomery Flagg, Theophile Steinlen, Ludwig Hohlwein, and Howard Christy and spent the next sixteen years collecting what is, according to the auction house, "the most extensive collection of war posters known to exist." Roughly half of the 2,000-piece collection was produced in the U.S. Here is a sampling:

USA Bonds by Joseph Christian Leyendecker, estimated at $2,000-3,000.

Division for Foreign Born Women by Howard Walker, estimated at $2,000-3,000.

How Much Will You Lend to the Boys Who Are Giving All by Franklin Booth, estimated at $2,000-3,000.

Scholars at Cambridge University have uncovered an alternate ending to Austrian dramatist and novelist Arthur Schnitzler's 1925 novella Traumnovelle or Dream Story. The erotically charged story - one of the most risque published in European fiction by the early 20th century - was later adapted into the film "Eyes Wide Shut" by Stanley Kubrick in 1999. It follows the psychological transformation of a Viennese doctor who attends an orgy after his wife confesses to sexual fantasies involving another man.

Deborah Lutz's The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (W.W. Norton, $27.95) landed on FB&C's list of "8 Beach Reads for Bibliophiles."    

As Paula Byrne did with The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, published in 2013, Lutz shapes her narrative not as a 'cradle to grave' biography of the Brontës, but instead targets nine objects that reveal, through facts and extracts from the sisters' fiction, something meaningful about their lives and passions. For example, Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell, all obsessive scribblers and crafters, used whatever paper scraps they had on hand to create tiny manuscript books. Lutz writes, "these children wanted to be bookmakers." Their little magazines were not only communal play, but creative rehearsal for future novels. Branwell's walking stick is the focus of a chapter on the Brontës' "near-daily" engagement with their physical environment, the Yorkshire moors, and Emily's wild side. An engraved brass dog collar, a seemingly unlikely artifact to mine in a literary biography, provides the fodder for an enlightening chapter on the family's pets, the "cult of the pet" in Victorian England, and bizarre incidents of dognapping at the time. Desks, sewing "workboxes," mourning jewelry made with hair--Lutz allows her research to bloom from each object in such an engaging and intelligent way that one hopes this archeological approach to biography, akin to material culture, flourishes.   

What other titles made our list? Check out our summer issue, which will begin arriving in mailboxes and at bookshops next week.

At Swann Galleries' June 17 sale, this first edition of Agatha Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) set an auction record when it sold to a dealer for $7,250. And it's not even her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), or her best known--of her 66 detective novels, either And Then There Were None (1940) or Murder on the Orient Express (1934) might best stake that claim. But Murder in Mesopotamia is a "Poirot" novel, referring to the character Hercule Poirot, who debuted in The Mysterious Affair at Styles and went on to appear in 33 novels, numerous short stories, and a long-running British television drama.

To read more about the Queen of Crime, check out antiquarian bookseller Vic Zoschak's recent blog post, "Agatha Christie: Unrivaled, Record-Breaking Crime Novelist."

Image: Courtesy of Swann Galleries. 

On June 30, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts, will open A Renaissance Man: The Art of Fred Marcellino. Faithful readers of FB&C will recall our 2012 feature on Marcellino, a book jacket designer turned children's book author and illustrator. The Carle's exhibit will showcase 90 pieces that span Marcellino's career, from early works of Abstract Expressionism and album covers to the sketches he finished just before his death in 2001.

Marcellino's most famous book covers include Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist. Having acquainted myself with Marcellino's style, I picked up a copy of Tobias Wolff's Back in the World, correctly guessing that he had designed its jacket, featuring a cool, blue, empty swimming pool with a bicycle parked at the bottom. (Original art for the jackets Marcellino designed has been spotted at auction, too.)

In special focus at the Carle exhibit will be the original art for Puss in Boots (1990; seen above), Marcellino's first attempt at picture book illustration, which won a Caldecott Honor. He went on to illustrate Hans Christian Andersen's The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1992) and E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan (2000). He also wrote and illustrated I, Crocodile (1999).  

A Renaissance Man will be up through October 25.

Illustration © 1990 by Fred Marcellino. Courtesy of the Eric Carle Picture Book Museum. 

Italian artist Bruno Munari (1907-1998) made significant contributions to advancements in graphic design, photography, painting, and even teaching, and is recognized throughout the art world as a pioneer in modern visual expression. Munari spent much of his seventy-year career on book design and illustration, employing various bindings, materials and typesetting techniques, to the point that Pablo Picasso even called him "the Leonardo of our time".

On June 23rd, Princeton Architectural Press will release the first English-language monograph on Munari's book designs, showcasing the artist's gift for multi-sensory storytelling, with books as his preferred medium. Written by art historian Giorgio Maffei, the book focuses on Munari's work in the publishing industry, which ranged from illustrated books, artists' books, and educational materials full of design and illustration theory. All are part of the mix, and presented in chronological order alongside detailed notes.


In the 1920s, Munari was a major proponent of the futurist movement, exhibiting at various art shows dedicated to this youthful, vibrant movement. Soon enough, he began manipulating how books communicate ideas and can exist as an art form and as a teaching tool. Perhaps the most accessible culmination of his book experiments can found in his works for children. With unusual formats, layouts, and striking images, Munari's books appealed immediately to young readers, and encouraged young, preliterate children to delight in all the ways of engaging with a book, and to discover their own creativity in the process.  Despite reenergizing the world of children's publishing, Munari remained surprisingly humble on his contributions, and in the June-July 1975 edition of Italian art magazine Le Arti said that his work was simply meeting a need: "There is nothing utopian about this; it is just a real social service."




Munari's Books is a visual treat from start to finish; printed and bound in Italy with hot pink wrappers, the book maintains a modern European layout with wide right-hand margins. It is a thorough and glorious examination of this innovative artist, whose work continues to inform multiple domains today.

Munari's Books, by Giorgio Maffei; Princeton Architectural Press, $40.00, 288 pages. (June 23)

Last week, the Library of Congress unveiled its 2015 National Book Festival poster and official blog. Artist Peter de Sève, known for his many New Yorker magazine covers, was chosen to illustrate this year's poster, which features a young girl contorted in several positions on an armchair, completely absorbed by a book. In a press release issued by the Library of Congress, de Sève said the poster was inspired by his two daughters. "They are both voracious readers and, frankly, my heart swells every time I see one of them curled up with a book, which is basically always. More specifically, the girl on the poster is Fia, whom I have found reading in almost every position you see on the poster. For her, reading is practically an Olympic sport."

According to the blog, a record 150 authors have signed on for the Sept. 5 event at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., including Kate DiCamillo, David McCullough, Louise Erdrich, Ishmael Reed, and newly appointed Poet Laureate for 2015-2016, Juan Felipe Herrera. De Sève will also be there to discuss and sign his book, A Sketchy Past: The Art of Peter de Sève.

This is the fifteenth annual book festival hosted by the Library of Congress, and since 2010, its lead benefactor has been philanthropist and book collector David M. Rubenstein.

James Joyce fans partake in annual celebrations on June 16--Bloomsday--and what better place (in the U.S.) to celebrate than at The Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which hosts a weeklong series of events and programs for Ulysses lovers. You can still catch the finale to this year's Bloomsday Festival today at a daylong reading of Joyce's infamous novel, spread across Philadelphia: at Parkway Central Library, from 9:30-11:30 a.m.; in Rittenhouse Square from 12:30-1:30 p.m.; and, finally, on The Rosenbach's steps from 3:30-7:30 p.m.

A related exhibition, Deciphering Ulysses: A Playful Introduction to Joyce's Novel, just opened as well. According to the Rosenbach, "This exhibit offers a playful and interactive introduction to cracking the code of Ulysses ... visitors are invited to learn about the famous novel as they decode Leopold Bloom's clandestine letters, explore his recreated desk drawer, read what the United States Court of Appeals had to say about Joyce's enigmas, and glimpse an early reader's arsenal of maps and charts for understanding the text." The exhibit is on view through September 6.

Image: Reading Ulysses from the steps of The Rosenbach Library. Courtesy of The Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

On June 26, the British Library will host "The Written Heritage of Mankind in Peril: Theft, Retrieval, Sale and Restitution of rare books, maps and manuscripts," a conference focused on the illegal trading of priceless cultural materials. The full-day seminar, open to dealers, librarians, collectors, auction house staff, security experts, and interested others, may be a response in part to the Girolamini Library thefts that rocked the rare book world in 2014 and more recent suggestions that Middle Eastern regimes are profiting from plundered books and antiquities. (A report last week claims that ISIS is selling ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts online.)

Next week's conference includes a panel discussion devoted to the perspective of the rare book trade, featuring Richard Aronowitz-Mercer, head of restitution Europe at Sotheby's, Norbert Donhofer, president of International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, and Stephen Loewentheil, founder and president of 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop in Baltimore. View the full schedule of events here.

The conference's organizers hope that participants and attendees will begin the process of developing solutions to combat global rare book trafficking. A proposed follow-up program in New York in 2016 would then assess progress and continue the effort.