Recently in Current Events & Trends Category

It is said Ireland's greatest contribution to the world of arts and culture has been its literature. Always known for a rich oral and storytelling tradition, Ireland transformed into a literate island with the coming of Christianity in 400-500 AD (heralded by St. Patrick himself). Monks were hard at work illuminating Gospel manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells, while the rest of Europe began its descent into the Dark Ages...

Featured this week in ABE's Rare Books Room is Literature from the Emerald Isle just in time for St. Patrick's Day later this week. There's a short feature on Collecting the Irish, from Jonathan Swift to Roddy Doyle, James Joyce to Edna O'Brien. Are you a collector of Celts? Perhaps you'll find a pot of gold waiting for you here. 

Spare an hour or two to browse Harvard's new interactive "Reading" website:

Reading: Harvard Views of Readers, Readership, and Reading History is an online exploration of the intellectual, cultural, and political history of reading as reflected in the historical holdings of the Harvard Libraries. For Internet users worldwide, Reading provides unparalleled digital access to a significant selection of unique source materials--more than 250,000 pages from 1,200 individual items, including 800 published books and 400 manuscript selections.

For a quick wow, click on the Collection Highlights, where you can literally flip through 15 fantastic finds, including Dibdin's Library Companion (1824), The Country Book-Club (1788), or the manuscript charging record from the Harvard library showing which books Henry D. Thoreau checked out from 1836-37.

Said FB&C columnist (and assistant reference librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society) Jeremy Dibbell: "It's really a perfect example of how libraries can use current technology to highlight their collections and make things available at the same time. Really nicely done."

I couldn't agree more.

I had Alice (or maybe more precisely, Johnny Depp) on my mind when I wrote this month's Dear Reader, which I titled "Mad March Hare." But it's not just me. The Alice in Wonderland film (directed by Tim Burton, starring Depp) had its U.S. premiere over the weekend (it's now the #1 movie in America...). So everyone's talking Alice. Print Magazine had four designers storyboard their favorite scenes. The Private Library blog had a guest editorial about Alice. The Folio Club sent out an email about its new deluxe manuscript facsimile. Even the British Library held festivities last month.

Want to join in the Alice madness? Actually, the British Library is the best place to start. You can read about the original manuscript, leaf through it using their "Turning the Pages" software, and go down your own rabbit hole.     

As devoted readers of FB&C will know, I've been following Quirk Classics from its very quirky beginning. Last year, Quirk Books of Philadelphia published a "mash-up" of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which became a New York Times bestseller. I interviewed the mastermind behind that book for the September 2009 issue of FB&C. It was a very cool concept, followed quickly by Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, which was about 25% less engaging its precursor, but still lots of fun. (I say 25 % because in P&P&Z, there was an ratio of 85% classic Austen to 15% "bone-crushing zombie mayhem." The follow-up had 60% real Austen and 40% bloody filler.)

The newest title in the series, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, however, is entirely original, and has entirely failed to capture my imagination. It's meant to be a precursor to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so most of the characters are Austen's, excepting ones like Master Hawksworth, Elizabeth's ninja instructor and love interest. For a young adult audience, this might work. Otherwise, I fear Quirk has taken a grand idea and run it aground.

Still, the jacket art is stunning. And, you've got to hand it to an indie publisher for doing something--anything--to counter the same old corporate publishing nonsense that fills superstore shelves. Their marketing campaigns are themselves worthy of awards. In the case of Dawn of the Dreadfuls, March 3--today--has been declared BlogSplosion 2010. This means that if you click here, you can enter for a chance to win one of fifty Quirk Classics prize packs. They'll also give a preview of two illustrations from the book, due out later this month. Good luck.

In the meantime, I suppose we'll have to wait until June to see if the next mash-up, Android Karenina, redeems the spirit of Quirk Classics.

The Creative Review blogged this week about type designer Seb Lester's designs for Salinger reprints. Lester was commissioned by Hamish Hamilton (part of the Penguin group) to create a set of book covers for Salinger's books: Catcher in the Rye, For Esme With Love and Squalor, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour. Above are Lester's sketches for Catcher. 

"It turns out that JD Salinger had some very basic (and strict) rules about how he wanted his book covers to look. He was adamant that the only copy that should appear on his books was his name and the title of the book. No quotes or plot summary, no author biography. And definitely no marketing blurb. Just the title and his name."

This finished product was approved by the author before his death last month. The typeface, designed by Lester, is known at Hamish Hamilton as 'The Salinger.' Said Lester, "The inline treatment and style of flourishing have echoes of classic typefaces and lettering from the mid-twentieth century period when the books were written."

The four reprints were originally due to be published in June. The pub date has, however, been moved up to March 4. 

With President's Day fast approaching here in the United States, it's no wonder that old George is popping up at auction this week. Yesterday, Arts and the Antiques reported on a fascinating, record-breaking auction of what is believed to be Washington's personal copy of the map of the Battle of Yorktown. Jim Julia of James D. Julia Auctioneers in Fairfield, Maine, said of it, "This is the most exciting thing I have ever handled."


A larger copy of the map exists at the National Archives and was always thought to be Washington's, however, now that this smaller version has come to light, it is assumed that the pocket-sized map was Washington's, while the larger was sent back to the Congress. The small map, which brought in $1 million (without premium), was owned by the family of Tobias Lear, Washington's aide-de-camp.

Heritage Auctions is currently offering (sale 6038, lot 37023) this scarce G. Washington bookplate (now hinged at top of the verso to a mat). Many forgeries and re-strikes have fooled collectors looking for original Washington bookplates, but this is the real deal. Starting bid is $1,500; estimate is $3,000. Absentee bidding ends today at 10:00 p.m. CT. 

Thanks to Jeffrey Murray and Stephen J. Gertz/Book Patrol for the presidential tips.

 

As if independent bookshop owners aren't getting run over by enough trains already, a planned light rail line may spell the end of the line for Thomas Stransky in St. Paul, Minn. 

Well, we've had some pretty interesting responses to my open request earlier this week for movies that have had something to do with paper, the only stipulation being that they have some basis in fact. For those who need to be brought up to speed on what's going on, here's the link to my column. I will present the films in the order that they arrived.

I heard first from Pradeep Sebastian, a literary columnist in India, who offered the following dozen--count 'em, twelve--first-rate suggestions:

The Hoax (2006), a film about Clifford Irving, and the fake Howard Hughes biography; F For Fake (1974), written, directed, and starring Orson Welles, and based in part on the forgeries of Irving, and others, and available in DVD; Selling Hitler (1991) a made for TV movie based on Robert Harris' book about the faking of a Hitler diary; The Last Station (2009), about Leo Tolstoy's manuscripts and will, and recipient this week of an Academy Award nomination for Christopher Plummer for best actor. Also from Sebastian: Creation (2009), a dramatization of the life of Charles Darwin, featuring his diaries and notebooks as he developed his theory of evolution; Sylvia (2003), starring Gwyneth Paltrow as the tortured poet Sylvia Plath, seen often scribbling in notebooks, tearing up and burning pages; Naked Lunch (1991) William Burroughs, hallucinating over a clattering typewriter, with reams and reams of paper around him; Factotum (2005, based on the life of the hard-living, hard-drinking poet Charles Bukowski; Shattered Glass (2003), based on the fabrications of writer Stephen Glass, published unwittingly in The New Republic; and The Whole Wide World (1995), about pulp fiction writer Robert E.Howard, and the writing of Conan the Barbarian.

As a bonus, Sebastian offered a pair of documentaries: BookWars (2000), about New York City pavement book sellers, and Paperback Dreams (2008), profiling the struggle to survive among independent bookstores.

Arriving about a half-hour after that dazzling list came a terrific suggestion from Benjamin L. Clark in Oklahoma--he has a pretty nifty book blog of his own called exilebibliophile, which I highly recommend--to wit:

Cimarron (1931), winner of six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, based on a novel by Edna Ferber (and winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1929), which was partly inspired by the life of T.B. Ferguson, a cursading Oklahoma newspaper editor, and his wife, Elva.

Next came an email from Eleni Collins, an assistant editor for the Martha's Vineyard Times, who wondered if a couple of movies based on outstanding children's books, Harriet the Spy (1996) and The Mixed Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler (1968), might not create a category in their own right. I love the idea--maybe we can do that next (think Maurice Sendak and Where the Wild Things Are)--but more on point for this particular exercise was her third suggestion, Between the Folds (2009), a television documentary about the world-wide mania for origami that aired in December on PBS, and has just been released in DVD.

A suggestion from reader Mike Gindling advised that a key scene in his favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), has Lawrence writing out an IOU to a shiek in return for help in the taking of an important city. I like that--an IOU is an example of a piece of paper whose value is only as good as the word of the person who gives it.

Just this morning, Joe Fay, manager of rare books at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, offered these beauties:

The Whole Wide World (1996) starring Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio, a biographical account of the relationship between pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard and Novalyne Price Ellis; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), based on the life of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson; The Rum Diary, to be released this year, also inspired by life and career of Thompson.

Fay mentioned a 1988 mini-series starring Stacey Keach as Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway, and cited one documentary in particular as outstanding, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown  (2008), about the science fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft.

Finally, from daughter Nicole, who is weathering out the blizzard in Washington, D.C., a news flash about the release of a documentary with the improbable title of Miracle Banana, a Japanese film with English subtitles, "based on an actual project to make paper from banana trees in Haiti." To prove that this was no joke, she furnished this link.

Honestly, I am lost for words (that never happens with me).  But I do thank one and all for these fabulous films. I promise you, they will be used.

To celebrate the publication of The Folio Society's new edition of The Canterbury Tales, with illustrations by Eric Gill, the company posted a podcast that features UK stage and screen actor Simon Callow reading from the deluxe edition. Limited to 1,980 copies and bound in Nigerian goatskin, this edition is a facsimile of the The Golden Cockerel Press edition of 1929-1931 (an original is on the market at Maggs for about $10,000). Fun Friday viewing!

Here's a blast from the past: Back when Fine Books was called O.P. (short for out of print), we did a story about Lotte Jacobi, a German expatriate photographer who made a living after the Second World War taking author photos for the publishers in New York. One day in 1950, a 31-year-old writer about to have his first book published showed up in her studio. She took about 20 shots of him and moved on to other work. One of the photos ended up on the back of the dust jacket of Catcher in the Rye, a novel that turned into the surprise literary sensation of the year. Within a few months, the author, J. D. Salinger, asked that the picture to be removed, and no author portrait has appeared on any of his books since.

Back in 2004, following a tip that all the photographs from Jacobi's Salinger photo-shoot were at the University of New Hampshire, we obtained sixteen unpublished photographs and permission to publish some of them for what we believe was the first time. We ran eight images in the March/April 2004 issue of OP. I wanted to put one on the cover, but given Salinger's notoriously litigious nature and our meager finances, I chickened out.

While Jacobi never managed to capture Salinger with more than a half-smile, the unpublished photos are much looser than the published version, though the author never looks quite comfortable. One can imagine his disaffected literary creation, Holden Caulfield, whispering in his ear, "What a phony," while Salinger tries to strike a suave 1950s pose.

Scott Brown