The art of paper marbling is not lost to Jemma Lewis, a young professional marbler based in rural Wiltshire, UK. Her small family business (her father assists) opened in April of 2009, after she spent eight months in specialized training following a seven-year apprenticeship at local bookbinders, Chivers-Period. Previously Lewis had studied textiles, but at Chivers, she said, "I became interested in antique books and the beautiful marbled papers that bookbinders used as endpapers."

Lewis provides her wares to bookbinders, publishers, artists, interior designers, fashion designers, and furniture restorers. Her website showcases more than fifty hand-marbled papers in traditional designs, such as the one seen below. She also offers bespoke designs for specific projects and a matching service in which she reproduces historic designs for repair work.

Her specialty "one-off" art marbled papers, like the one seen here called "Meadow," are amazing. They can be used for bookbinding, of course, or they can be framed as is. She has a Flickr page showing some of her other designs.

All images courtesy of Jemma Lewis Marbling & Design. 

In case you're not yet tired of your favorite classic novels getting twisted into genre mash-ups, the Independent reported earlier today that a British publisher is set to release erotic versions of literary classics. 

The publishing house, burdened with the name "Total-E-Bound," is an "erotic romance" publisher in London. They will begin their new series, dubbed "Clandestine Classics" on July 30th by releasing erotic eBook versions of "Pride and Prejudice," "Northanger Abbey," "Sherlock Holmes," and "Jane Eyre."

The news release follows in the wake of the phenomenal success of "Fifty Shades of Grey," by E L James, which has become the fastest selling book of 2012 in Britain.  That book, which the British press keeps amusingly referring to as "mommy porn," has launched a surge of interest in erotica.  Publishers are clamoring over each other to swim in its wake.

The proprietor of Total-E-Bound said to the Independent, "We're not rewriting the classics. We're keeping the original prose and the author's voice. We're not changing any of that."

"But we want to enhance the novels by adding the 'missing' scenes for readers to enjoy."

Because subtlety and implication are so unsatisfying, we can now read about the "explosive sex" between Jane and Mr. Rochester and "bondage sessions" between Heathcliff and Catherine.

In this blogger's opinion, if you want to read erotica, then read erotica.  There is plenty of good erotica on the market.  In fact, here is an excellent list from the Guardian of good erotica.  And if you want to collect erotica, then start by reading Stephen Gertz's excellent overview of terms in his blog post here.

But let's leave the classics alone.

As we've reported here (and here), Larry McMurtry is gearing up for the book auction of the century. Next month book collectors of all stripes will descend on Archer City, Texas, for the two-day event, where festivities include 1,400 shelf-lot sales, a BBQ, a movie screening, and the sale of the McMurtry 100, a hand-selected collection of titles chosen by McMurtry to "prep the bidders." Not all are rare or expensive, some are just favorites.

In that special group are: a signed 1933 illustrated edition of Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; an 1810 edition of Robert Southey's Curse of Kehama; a London edition of Thomas Wolfe's The Web and the Rock; Rulka Langer's 1942 book, The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt; and Elmore Leonard's The Bounty Hunters, in dust-wrapper. Swinburne, Trollope, and James appear more than once, but it is certainly an eclectic catalogue.  

In describing how the McMurtry 100 took shape, auctioneer Michael Addison has written that McMurtry offered to select the titles to get bidders interested in the larger auction:

"Why don't I just pick out around 100 books to sell individually just as a sampling for the bidders of the types of books we have in the shelf-lots" McMurtry says.

Nodding in agreement, I reply, "Well, you've been a book-scout for 50 years, so people will know that any books that you pick out are rare or unusual...."

"I'll pick out few for you to play with" he says with a grin.

Thirty minutes later, I see a stack of books on the table of building #2, and I begin to lot them individually. After numbering them, I walk over to Booked Up building #1 where I find Mr. McMurtry and say, "Well, there are 90 books there. I'm going to call them 'The McMurtry 90' -- how about that?"

"You want me to find 10 more? Let me find 10 more and make it an even 100," McMurtry says.

I reply, "Even better. A nice round number."

It only took him a few moments to put another 10 books on the table in the other building, and the "McMurtry 100" was complete. 

Catalogue Review: Peter Harrington 84

Peter Harrington's newest catalogue contains "Seventy-Five Fine Books," some of which are the highest of high spots: a King James Bible (second folio edition) dating from 1611-1613 (£150,000), a Second Folio of Shakespeare (£385,000), and the editio princeps of the writings attributed to Homer (£175,000).

But my tastes are slightly less imposing. I'm fascinated by the first edition, book issue, of Street Life in London, "a work which pioneered the genre of photojournalism," published in 1877-1878 (£15,000).  And, as for beauty, it would be hard to top the three-volume set of Malory's King Arthur illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley (£45,000). The binding by Cedric Chivers is stunning; says the catalogue, "The romantic, lush watercolour illustrations on the covers and the illuminated lettering pieces on the spines perfectly complement Beardsley's famous and masterly illustrations to this classic work."

Perhaps it's no surprise that, as a magazine editor, I find the 116-volume run of the Gentleman's Magazine, 1731-1814, uniformly bound in late 18th and early 19th calf with red morocco lettering pieces and marbled endpapers, awe-inspiring (£17,500). So notes the catalogue, "The periodical is inevitably rich in historical interest. Of particular note is an early printing of the American Declaration of Independence (vol. XLVI, August 1776) among much else on the American Revolution..."  

All this, and many others you would expect in a catalogue of this caliber: first editions of Hardy, Stoker, Dickens, Darwin, Wilde, Woolf, Eliot, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Beatrix Potter. If you've never seen the original dust jacket for Lawrence's The Rainbow (I hadn't), here's your chance. If you want to buy it, it will set you back £42,500.

This catalogue is not only beautiful but educational for the book collector, novice or expert. Download it here.

See also our review of Peter Harrington 75 and an interview with bookseller Pom Harrington.

Woody Guthrie was many things: poet, painter, and proletariat.  And in his spare time, he even wrote a song or two.  But the New York Times revealed this week (the week of Guthrie's 100th birthday) that Guthrie was also, unbeknowst to virtually everyone, a novelist.  He wrote one novel, "House of Earth," which languished in a Coney Island closet for many decades.  It will be published next year by a "major New York publisher."

Oh, and Johnny Depp is editing it.

Yep - that Johnny Depp. (With help from author Douglas Brinkley).

The "House of Earth" of the title refers to adobes, the southwestern style of mud-brick house construction utilized by Native Americans for millenia.  Guthrie felt passionately that the sharecrop farmers of Texas, who lived in fragile wooden shacks, should build these "houses of earth" for protection from the elements.  (The elements at the time, it should be noted, included the Dust Bowl). So Guthrie followed Steinbeck's lead and presented his ideas in novel format.

"House of Earth," finished by Guthrie in 1947, is the story of two Texan farmers who struggle against a variety of capitalist forces in their quest to build an adobe house.  Yeah, the pitch for that isn't great, which is possibly why the novel went unpublished for so many years.  But it also includes a graphic sex scene on a hay bale, which was "ahead of its time."

Guthrie showed the first chapter to the musicologist Alan Lomax, who said it was "quite simply the best material I'd ever seen written about that section of the country." Depp and Brinkley have also shown the novel to Guthrie's most famous protege, Bob Dylan, who said "surprised by the genius." 

Next year, we'll all have a chance to judge it for ourselves.

Or if you're particularly antsy, you can pay a visit to Oklahoma where the typescript of the novel is held in the special collections library at the University of Tulsa.

I have long lamented the fact that as an undergraduate, I stepped foot into the special collections area of the university's library only once and that was to interview the director about a budget issue for the student paper. When I later worked in a university library's special collections/archives, I reached out to history professors to promote the use of primary sources among undergrads -- give them a chance to decipher that nineteenth-century handwriting and sift through photos of early campus beauty pageants. It not only enriches the learning process but some of those students are going to walk away with a newfound desire to collect or preserve or perhaps help their alma mater do so at a later date.

Richard J. Ring, head curator and librarian of the Watkinson Library at Trinity College, has taken this idea to a whole new level. Last year, he implemented creative fellowships in special collections for undergraduates. Five students receive a $1,500 stipend for one semester, in which they produce a creative project based on or inspired by materials held in the Watkinson Library. The project can be art, writing, performance, film -- virtually any medium.  

As Ring says in the promotional video they produced to promote the fellowship, "My hope is to set a trend nationally of special collections encouraging their undergraduates to use the collections in creative ways rather than academic ways."

One of last year's fellows composed a piece of original music based on a French manuscript from 1833 that contains songs and hand-drawn illustrations. Another fellow printed a chapbook of poetry, having carved the font out of linoleum blocks.

Take a look at the video -- you'll be inspired by higher education (for once)!
 

Last weekend, news broke about a town in Texas that reclaimed an abandoned Walmart and turned it into a public library.  After moving into the new building, the library saw a 23% increase in new user registration.

What follows is a photo gallery of the Walmart-turned-library in McAllen, Texas, which also won the Interior Design Association's 2012 Library Interior Design Competition. 

All of the photos were taken by Lara Swimmer and are used here with her permission:







Score one for the reclamation of public space from the corporate sphere! 

Perhaps all those empty Borders sitting around the country are next in line...

Independent booksellers are still reacting to the news that they can no longer accept credit card payments directly through their own websites. As of June 22, booksellers who rely on the Missouri-based ChrisLands Inc. to host their web shops were no longer able to process credit card payments online. In a decision handed down by ChrisLands' parent company, AbeBooks, ChrisLands stores are now limited to Google Checkout and PayPal. According to the statement issued by ChrisLands, it is "reviewing what other payment processing options we may be able to include in the future."

That isn't happening fast enough for some dealers. Catherine Petruccione of Old Scrolls Book Shop in Stanley, NY, said, "It seems odd that they are way behind the mark in 'trying' to come up with an alternate solution." She said she also worries that this is a precursor to raising the monthly web-hosting rates. "As it stood, ChrisLands was a pretty good bargain. But with the credit card option disabled, not so much of one anymore." ChrisLands has been touted as an affordable e-commerce solution for indie booksellers.

Carla Wykoff of Bent River Books & Music in Cottonwood, AZ, said, "We are looking into alternatives--there are several--tomfolio, bibliopolis, and our personal favorite, forseeingsolutions." She said the ChrisLands decision sparked an extensive discussion on booksellers' listservs and that "quite a few" booksellers have switched to a new online host.

A California-based bookseller said, "In the first heat of the moment, a LOT of people (including me) threatened to close our ChrisLands sites, but of course that means either giving up our own site or spending quite a lot of money establishing an alternative."

Some booksellers have also raised the idea that this move essentially channels most sales through the AbeBooks marketplace. Ever since AbeBooks acquired ChrisLands in 2008, booksellers have measured the "inherent conflict of interest between ABE's genuine desire to aid independent booksellers and ABE's corporate self-interest in channeling as many transactions as possible through the ABE site," as one dealer put it.

When asked if the new restriction was prompted by Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance regulations, Richard Davies of AbeBooks said he was "unable to comment." He added, "However, the change was not made to channel sales through AbeBooks. ChrisLands continues to operate as an independent subsidiary of AbeBooks."

The Codex Calixtinus, an illuminated 12th century manuscript considered the world's first guidebook, was recovered Tuesday by Spanish police a year after it was stolen from the library of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.  The presumed thief, Manuel Fernandez Castineiras, a disgruntled former employee of the Cathedral, housed the priceless manuscript in a garbage bag in his garage along with a variety of other stolen books from the Cathedral's library and 1.2 million euros in cash.  Spanish authorities arrested Castineiras along with several other people identified as co-conspirators. The Codex reportededly remains in "good condition."

The Codex is considered the crown jewel of the Cathedral's library.  Its theft last year highlighted significant lapses in archive security.  Despite housing the Codex in a reinforced glass case with 24/7 security cameras trained upon it, an investigation after the theft revealed that the cameras were not turned on and the case was probably left unlocked.

The Codex, which consists of sermons, reports of miracles associated with St James, musical pieces, and practical travel advice for pilgrims, was originally compiled around 1150. 

For many centuries, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain has been a famous destination for Catholic pilgrims from around the world.  The cathedral is the presumed burial place of St. James, one of the original Apostles, who is said to have preached Christianity to the early Celtic tribes of the Iberian peninsula.  The Cathedral was built in the 11th century and became a popular pilgrimage site almost immediately upon its completion.  To this day, thousands of religious travelers make the journey to the cathedral on foot via the Way of St James, crossing ancient European pilgrimage paths through the Pyrenees mountains.

By Jeremy Howell

 

In 2010 the   U. S. Mint was given an executive order to create a commemorative coin to honor the 200th anniversary of the writing of the poem that became the "Star-Spangled Banner." The fruition of this project came last month when the Mint unveiled its 2012 Star-Spangled Banner coin set that includes a facsimile of one of Francis Scott Key's drafts of his legendary poem.

A thirty-five-year old Key wrote the future anthem in 1814 following his legendary observation of the Battle of Baltimore. Originally calling his four-stanza poem Defence of Fort McHenry, the work was renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Carr Music Store of Baltimore, Maryland, when it was published as lyrics to the John Stafford Smith composition, "The Anacreontic Song." 

Over the remaining portion of the 19th century, the ballad grew in popularity--especially during the Civil War years when the song became synonymous with the Union. President Herbert Hoover officially declared "The Star-Spangled banner" to be the national anthem of the United States in 1931.

Housed at the Library of Congress, the draft used for the commemorative coin set is one of the earliest of four versions produced by Key between the years of 1840-1842. The only earlier draft is Key's original 1814 manuscript, which is in possession of the Maryland Historical Society. The Mint outsourced the reproduction work to a vendor in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where a limited issue of 50,000 was printed.  Although the sets have only been available since last month they are already being well received.

The Star-Spangled Banner 2012 bicentennial set is not the first U. S. Mint commemorative to feature a reproduction of a historical document. In recent years, the Mint has begun to feature all sorts of reproduced books and documents for its sets. In 2006 the Mint recreated Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac for a silver dollar set, and in 2009, the Gettysburg address was reproduced for a Mint set. As these limited reproductions become included in mint sets more frequently, it seems that in the future what the mint produces will not only be found in coin collections but in manuscript and book collections as well.