Unique Earp Family Portrait Goes to Auction
earp.jpgOn August 17-18, Holabird-Kagin, the Nevada auction house that specializes in Western Americana, will offer this unique photograph of Wyatt Earp and his family, taken in Dodge City in 1875. Shown here are the legendary lawman with his father, Nicholas, and brothers Morgan, Virgil, James, Warren, and a half brother, Newton. It is, according to the auctioneers, "the only [photographic] record of the male portion of the Earp clan known to exist." The auction estimate is $200,000-300,000.

renobrewing.jpgHolabird-Kagin's 2-day, 1700-lot auction--dubbed the "Hot August Auction"--will be held at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, Nevada. It will be heavy on Nevada history, Old West items, saloon and brothel-related material, railroadiana, mineral and gold samples, coins, and a selection of printed broadsides. One of the particularly handsome broadsides is a full-color sign advertising Reno Brewing Company's Sierra Lager. The lithographic broadside, seen above, depicts the Reno brewery that remained open until 1948. It is estimated to sell for $15,000-25,000.


americana, auction, broadsides, holabird-kagin, old west, railroadiana, saloon ephemera, sierra lager, western americana, wyatt earp
Scandal, Hype, and Making Rare Books: What Books Are You Betting On?

Earlier this week Michael Moynihan ran an article in Tablet Magazine that exposed several glaring problems in a new book by Johan Leher: Imagine: How Creativity Works.

The author had completely made up six quotes and attributed them to Bob Dylan, for example, regarding his song lyrics:
Bob-Dylan-jpg(The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan indeed, via Buzzfeed)
 

The media-driven outrage that erupted shortly after the article was published, whether or not commensurate with the crime, resulted in Lehrer's resignation from his post at The New Yorker and a letter of apology: "When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie, and say things I should not have said".


What happened next is something which I think has a long history in the making of rare books: Lehrer's publishers, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, began posting ads telling booksellers to stop selling copies of Imagine and to return them to the publisher, full shipping costs covered. Today they updated the message to include individual readers who own the book. Imagine is the latest among books whose errors have lead to scandal, recall, or destruction: for the most extreme cases, just look at the history of errata in the Bible. On the one hand Lehrer is going to have trouble moving forward in his career, but on the other hand surviving copies of his book will only gain rarity with age now that they've joined the ranks of recalled books like A Million Little Pieces and How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.

It's true that putting your money on preserving these books, each of which were bestsellers, is a long-term game with many hits and misses, the certainty of which may not even be confirmed in our lifetime. How Opal Mehta Got Kissed... is on both available for around a dollar on abebooks.com, but also safely preserved in at least one special collections library. The coin is in the air and will probably be suspended there for at least a few decades.

The added benefit of this final frontier of collecting, which I'll call biblio-prognosticating to add a little pomp to what is otherwise the bookish equivalent of ambulance chasing, is that it's cheap. Unlike tried-and-true incunabula, Kelmscott Press, or even to an increasing extent punk fanzines, you can start a collection of books inflated by hype and scandal on a relatively small budget.

I would be surprised if the instincts of the book collector didn't lead him or her to do just that every now and then. According to twitter, I'm not half-wrong. As lovers of books our instincts are sharpened, primed even, for opportunities like this:
twitter-1.jpgIt's not a bad choice: especially given what a landmark the Harry Potter Series is in the history of publishing, both in the sheer numbers of production, but also the uniquely high level of security surrounding the publication and sale of each installment (you can find an excellent chapter about the amazing lengths Bloomsbury went to, including GPS tracking devices and on-call militia to take down stolen vans of Book 7 of Harry Potter before his official release in Ted Striphas' Late of Print).

twitter-2.jpgAgain, a smart move given the author's legacy and the general greatness of the work.

All of this begs the question: Which contemporary books do you buy in hopes that they'll obtain value later? Post your answers in the contents!

A Million Little Pieces, Bob Dylan, Harry Potter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Lehrer, New Yorker, Publishing, Tablet Magazine
Phantoms on the Bookshelves
Phantoms.jpgAre you bibliophile or a reader? Some people will say yes to both, like Jacques Bonnet, author of the Phantoms on the Bookshelves, published in France in 2008 and now available in English (Overlook Press, hardcover, 133 pages, $17.95). Bonnet makes a distinction between the bibliophile--an obsessive collector hunting for rare and beautiful objects--versus the compulsive reader who wants to keep what he has read. Though Bonnet has a library of 40,000 volumes, he tells us, "I do not count myself a real bibliophile."

Of course he is. Bonnet discourses on buying books, reading books, organizing books, annotating books, and lending books (never!). When discussing the future of personal libraries, Bonnet believes that the combination of specialization and digitization will hasten the end of large general collections. He writes, "Bibliophiles will still keep their collections, and libraries devoted to precise topics will survive, but we may be pretty sure that vast and unwieldy personal collections of a few tens of thousands of books are likely to disappear, taking their phantoms with them."

This slim volume is a treat to read, and its Continental flair seemed to this reviewer to bring something fresh to topics already covered brilliantly by Alberto Manguel and others. The introduction by novelist James Salter is a paean to the book and the personal library--you can read part of it at the New Yorker's book blog.
alberto manguel, bibliophiles, collecting books, compulsive reading, jacques bonnet, james salter, overlook press, personal library, phantoms on the bookshelves
Gore Vidal Remembered

Nate Pedersen

Nate Pedersen is a writer in Mankato, Minnesota. His most recent book is Pseudoscience: An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them. His website is natepedersen.com.

GoreVidalVanVechten1.jpgOne of the last "men of letters" of the 20th century passed away yesterday.  Gore Vidal (1925 - 2012) died from pneumonia complications at his home in Hollywood Hills, California.  He was 86 years old.

Vidal was perhaps the last member of a dying 20th century literary tradition: the writer as the man about town.  The versatile intellectual composing essays, novels, and plays, guesting on radio and talk shows, and offering witty asides at prominent social functions.  You'd want to include one of these fellows on your dinner invites.  (Or you would if you lived in a townhouse in Manhattan and were the sort of person to host such things.)  There's something distinctly last century about it all.

Who can take Vidal's place?  We'd need someone with an outdated conception of class -- Vidal was very much a proud part of the "American aristocracy."  We'd need someone urbane and witty, someone willing to make bold, politically incorrect comments in public.  Actually, we'd need someone happy to engage in all out feuds.  Vidal frequently took on other writers ("Capote I truly loathed.  The way you might loathe an animal.")  And he was equally comfortable brawling with presidential candidates (RFK and Gore, for example).  I'm not sure he can be readily replaced.

For collectors, Vidal leaves behind a lengthy and scattered legacy.  You'll need to pick up his novels (of which there were 25), his many essays contributed to a variety of publications (particularly the Nation), his five Broadway plays, and his mysteries written under the pseudonym Edgar Box.  Considering the number of plays and dinner parties and socialite events Vidal attended, you'll also want to keep an eye open for ticket stubs and other ephemera.  I'm not sure a Vidal collection could be complete without a witticism scrawled in pencil across a cocktail napkin.

The Guardian put together a nice retrospective of Vidal's life in pictures here.

And for budding collectors, you can purchase a bibliography of his work from Oak Knoll.
20th century, Capote, Charles Manson, Gore Vidal, Manhattan, Norman Mailer, Vidal, Writer
Sprint for Shakespeare
ShakespareFF.jpgThe Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford has just announced its intention to digitize its first collected edition of the works of William Shakespeare, "to publish our First Folio online for the benefit of everyone." (Since most of us can't afford the $5 million price tag for our very own FF.) The Sprint for Shakespeare Campaign--Olympic language pun surely intended--hopes to go for the gold, i.e., hopes to raise £20,000 ($31,000) for this project. For more information, or to make a donation, check out the Sprint for Shakespeare site. 
bodelian library, first folio, sprint for shakespeare