A tip to any public libraries struggling with declining patronage: go digging around in your vault!  The public library in Windsor, Ontario discovered a Bible from 1585 languishing away in its vault earlier this year.  Librarians promptly put the book on display and saw a 40 percent increase in visitors last month. 

The Windsor Star quoted a local patron in its article about the find.  "It's truly an amazing piece of art," said library user John Hilt. "I look at it every time I'm in here. I can't explain the feeling I get from just looking at it. The religious value is unmatched. But the historical value alone is unreal."

It's no secret that children's picture book art and illustration is a growing trend both at auctions and in museums. The cover feature of our fall issue (making its way to your mailbox this week) is about cartoonist, artist, and playwright Jules Feiffer, who illustrated The Phantom Tollbooth fifty years ago and has been focused on children's book illustrations for the last decade or so. It so happens that an exhibit of this part of his artistic life opens later this month at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. The curator, Leonard S. Marcus, a children's book historian who also wrote our cover story, is very interested in this cultural reappraisal of comics art and children's illustration.

In fact, he just curated another exhibit, Storied City: New York in Picture Book Art, which opened yesterday at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, NY. Storied City showcases original art from more than thirty-five picture books and examines the city's iconic landmarks, neighborhoods, parks, and modes of transportation. The featured illustrators include seven Caldecott Medal winners and several artists long associated with The New Yorker magazine.

The current exhibit at the Historic New Orleans Collection showcases "The 18th Star: Treasures from 200 Years of Louisiana Statehood." On display until January 29, 2012, the exhibit highlights keepsakes, mementos, valuable materials and some of the collection's signature holdings. The selections are presented in chronological order featuring political and military history, arts and literature, as well as social change and cultural diversity.

• On 6 October, PBA Galleries will sell Fine Literature & Books in All Fields, in 406 lots. The expected high spot is a (somewhat restored) first edition Leaves of Grass with an (unconnected) postcard written by Whitmane (est. $60,000-90,000). A Jessie Bayesilluminated manuscript of two Shelley poems is estimated at $25,000-35,000, while a first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz could fetch $20,000-30,000.
• At Bonhams on 10 October, Fine Books and Manuscripts, in 271 lots. A 1776 John Adams letter to William Cooper about the construction of Navy vessels rates a $50,000-80,000 estimate, while a first edition of McKenney and Hall is estimated at $40,000-60,000. A copy of the leaf book A Noble Fragment with the original Gutenberg Bible leaf is estimated at $30,000-50,000. Rating the same estimate is a suite of Robert Furber's 1730 Twelve Months of Flowers. A Nuremberg Chronicle could sell for $20,000-30,000. A second edition of William Wood's New Englands Prospect (1635) rates the same estimate.
• Bonhams will sell The Robert H. and Donna L. Jackson Collection Part I: 19th Century Literature on 18 October, in 251 lots. Expected top sellers include an autograph manuscript leafof The Pickwick Papers ($70,000-100,000); a rare complete copy of Trollope's Ralph the Heirin parts ($50,000-80,000); a first edition Middlemarch in parts ($50,000-70,000); complete sets of Pickwick Papers and David Copperfield in parts ($30,000-50,000); a copy of Audubon'sQuadrupeds in the original parts ($45,000-55,000); and George Eliot's brother's copy of herScenes of Clerical Life ($20,000-30,000).
• Sotheby's has just one book sale this month, but it's a whopper. The Library of an English Bibliophile, Part II (my report on Part I is here) comprises 155 lots, eight of which are estimated at more than $100,000. The Shakespeare First Folio, not surprisingly, rates the top estimate, at $600,000-700,000 (a Third Folio could fetch $350,000-400,000). A particularly lovely first edition of Joyce's Ulysses with presentation inscriptions by publisher Sylvia Beach could sell for $450,000-500,000, while a first printing of Poe's Tales (1845) rates a $200,000-250,000 estimate (The Raven and Other Poems, published the same year, is estimated at $140,000-180,000). Joyce's Dubliners could sell for $150,000-200,000. A first printing of The Great Gatsby in a second-state dust jacket is estimated at $150,000-180,000, and a first issue Leaves of Grass could reach $140,000-160,000. That's just a teaser of all the goodies in this sale, which one hopes will realize some really impressive figures (it certainly has the potential to).
• PBA Galleries will sell Nevada, California & Americana: The Library of Clint Maish, with additions, on 20 October. No preview yet available.