Coming up this week at Swann Galleries of New York, a large auction of prints, drawings, and lives d'artiste. A major selection of prints and illustrated books of Jean-Emile Laboureur will start the 786-lot sale, followed by all the names you would expect in an auction of prints and drawings: Chagall, Picasso, Manet, Whistler, Pissarro, Renoir, Lautrec, Tissot, Grant Wood, and more. John Steuart Curry's infamous lithograph of John Brown is one to note, not so much for its price (est. $4,000-6,000) as for its beauty. And with so much attention on Edvard Munch these days, surely his Selbstbildnis mit Weinflasche, or, Self-portrait with Wine Glass, 1930 (est. $40,000-60,000) will command a high bid.

But a peruse through the catalogue reveals a handful of lovely literary-minded images worth sharing as well. The first of these is perfect for FB&C readers -- its title is Book Auction.

On 17 July 2011, a nonprofit called Adbusters, who consider themselves "creatives working to change the way information flows", posted this image in a blog entry:


It was the first of many calls to occupy Wall Street, New York. The post contains everything you need to know about the movement: from its slick, arresting imagery, its ability to deliver information and intent in short and sharp bursts ("to separate money from politics"), and its use of social media to aid in the cause. The hashtag (#) refers to Twitter, a social networking website which uses that symbol before any word or phrase to instantly link it with others who have written the same. Hashtags are shorthand for a united front. As I've said elsewhere, when the visual and the political combine in such a provocative way, it's time to start paying attention, and to start collecting.


But it can be hard to install bookshelves on the cutting edge. Maybe they're not meant to be there. Canonical books like the Bible and Shakespeare set standards that cannot possibly be brought to bear upon makeshift cities of tents maintaining their own libraries, newspapers, zines, meeting minutes. Even Walter Benjamin in his Arcades Project considered the collector as a hero of the distant past,  "constructing," as he phrases it, "an alarm clock that rouses the kitsch of the previous century to 'assembly'". But if you're collecting the art and writing of Occupy Wall Street, you don't have a century's head start. It's equal parts speculation, political engagement, and flexibility: it's the closest you can get as a collector to harnessing the tempest with the teapot, chasing tornadoes a la Bill Paxton in Twister. Which brings up a few crucial issues to consider when collecting Occupy, something like a "five W's" to ask yourself when collecting on the fringes:

Who will be included? The movement has generated a large body of writing, by prominent thinkers like Naomi Klein and Slavoj Zizek, but also by unknown authors. I go for both: from the Vice magazine Occupy edition, to limited-run or print-on-demand works like Scott Shafer's Occupy Wall Street Guide to Tax Reform and Economic Recovery. There is also the question of collecting the counter-movement. Will you buy Anti-Occupy propaganda? For all my sins, I don't.

When does the archive begin? According to Adbusters the movement traces its roots back to the Arab Spring, as well as the Spanish indignados. Lots of writers have drawn parallels between the Occupy Movement and the French Situationists of the 1950s-60s. Technically, Zuccotti Park was occupied from 17 September 2011. And I begin with 17 July 2011 - the blog post I mentioned above - and for the Arab Spring I rely only on the good work of Tahrir Documents who are keeping an archive, and providing translation, in ways that I cannot.

Where will you focus? Only on events taking place in Zuccotti park? Or the rest of the US - Oakland, Portland, Philadelphia, etc? Will you go global, just as on the 'Global Day of Protest' (15 October) when protestors in 22 countries marched in solidarity with those in New York? Scope greatly impacts thoroughness, which is a weakness of mine, but I like having things from all over so I don't care.

What will you limit your collecting to, if anything? Libraries acquire a lot of non-book material: I have known swords, scientific instruments, and duck-presses to accompany collections. There are lots of print-related Occupy material that aren't books, like screen-printed t-shirts, buttons, and even "prayer flags." There is Occupy money. And that's not to mention the variety of jewelry including Guy Fawkes earrings and Julian Assange lockets. I don't do jewelry. I'm tempted by the prayer flags, but at this point only have room for paper products.

Collecting Occupy also means familiarizing yourself with some of the newer forms of buying. Kickstarter.com - where you find a project, pledge any amount of money in support of it, and get something in return. Occuprint.org, the collective of artists partially responsible for defining the look of Occupy, has just opened a Kickstarter to fund the production of more artwork. In exchange for pledges they send editions of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, and posters. My means are limited, but I wanted their copy of the Occupy Wall Street Journal (Issue #4), so I went for it.

There is also writing from blogs, and .pdfs downloads to consider. Even if a .pdf is a total non-entity in the world of rare book collecting, we have no way of guessing as to its scarcity in the future. To leave out considerations of digital collections misses the point of Occupy: whether or not it's hauled off by the NYPD, websites remain constant places to regroup. The "We Are The 99 Percent" tumblr is a textual artifact unlike any other, and the Occupy Archive pulls together documents across the globe - to name a few. This is where I began: it's a good way to start because it's like compiling a bibliography for yourself to get a sense of what's out there. More importantly, this is a feature of the movement that most of all separates it from your typical collection: with one foot online and one foot planted firmly in many cities across the world, to complete the picture of the social movement is to consider both on equal terms.

Why does this matter? Major museums are collecting this stuff. Counterculture has been taking up more and more space in institutions as time goes on (even the Riot Grrrl has a home at NYU). If you ask me, the real writing on the wall comes from booksellers: when sellers dating back to the 1850s have a Counterculture Department, when you see sellers with Occupy artwork at the California Book Fair, it's definitive. But that's not even getting to the heart of things, which is evidence enough. Occupy has changed the terms of civic engagement, it's a record of resistance, and grass-roots lobbyism. It's altered the course of mainstream reporting in a huge way, and opened up other possibilities that were unheard of until now.


Many thanks to Brooke Palmieri, a bookseller in London who we recently profiled in our Bright Young Things Series.  Brooke works for Sokol Books and maintains her own blog on bookish things.

Catalogue Review: Jarndyce, The Library of a Dickensian
Written by Ian McKay*

We are going to see and hear a lot of Charles Dickens in this bicentenary year, and on February 7, London booksellers, Jarndyce issued what they describe as "The Dickens Catalogue of the Year."
    Containing amongst its 136 items, inscribed and other first or significant editions, letters and manuscript material, prints that once hung on the staircase wall at Gad's Hill, and assembled by one private collector, this, say Jarndyce, will be the finest collection to be offered in the year in this 200th anniversary year.
    Among those inscribed copies is the 1839 first of Nicholas Nickleby that he gave to the artist Sir David Wilkie, godfather to his close friend and fellow writer, Wilkie Collins.
    Containing a long letter in which Wilkie describes a party that Dickens gave to celebrate the book's publication, this copy in a presentation binding of dark green morocco gilt bears the bookplates of two well known Dickens collectors, the Comte Alain de Suzannet and William E. Self, and was was part of the latter's 2008-09, Christie's New York sales.
    This inscribed Nicholas Nickleby is now priced at £120,000, while a copy of that great rarity, a true 1861, three vol. first of Great Expectations in the original purple cloth and gilt lettered spines, is priced at £50,000.
    An annotated copy of Mrs Gamp, a collection passages condensed from Martin Chuzzlewit that Dickens used on an American reading tour is priced at £85,000. Printed by Ticknor & Fields of Boston, it was presented to and inscribed for H. M.Ticknor on the very last night of the tour in April 1868. This too is an ex-Comte Alain de Suzannet/Self item.
    An 1850 first of David Copperfield inscribed by Dickens to his actor friend John Harley is priced at £120,000 in its period binding of half calf and marbled boards, while manuscript material includes a leaf bearing a section copied eight years later from the book and sent to Edmund Yates, possibly for sale in aid of charity. The latter, featuring an incident from David's engagement to his child-bride, Dora, is priced at £28,000.
    Among the three original portraits of the writer in the sale is a pencil sketch of of the young Dickens seated in a chair, c.1838, by his friend and early collaborator, George Cruikshank, priced at £18,0000.
    If you wish to see this catalogue, it is available from the bookseller for £20, £30 overseas. You can also view a turn-page version online.

*First published in the UK weekly, Antiques Trade Gazette. Reprinted by permission and with our thanks.