Maurice Sendak, Leonard Marcus and Google's Wild Doodle

 If you saw the Fine Books Facebook page on Monday you may have been enticed to guess who will grace the magazine's summer cover.  A hint to seek out that day's Google Doodle (see below) would have led you to Maurice Sendak, arguably the twentieth century's preeminent illustrator of children's books.   Google created the Doodle because Sendak would have celebrated his 85th birthday on Monday.  (Sendak died last May.)


 Leonard Marcus, a leading authority on children's books and illustrations, has written a story for the summer issue discussing Sendak and his work. Marcus is also the author of Show me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter (Candlewick 2012) and recently edited a catalogue in conjunction with an exhibition of over 200 of Sendak's previously unpublished art and sponsored by the New York Society of Illustrators.


Bill Clinton dubbed Sendak "The King of Dreams" when he awarded him the National Medal of Art in 1996.  The Brooklyn native wrote and illustrated close to 100 titles, including perhaps most notably Where the Wild Things Are. He was awarded a Caldecott Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, among many others throughout his sixty-year career. 


Children of all ages can cite their favorite book. Mine is Dear Mili, an unpublished Wilhelm Grimm tale rediscovered in 1983 and published with Sendak's illustrations in 1988.  The images of death and miracles are wild - abnormally vivid forests, little girls with very large feet, and psychedelic landscapes. I remember reading it as a child, and while the story itself frightened me, I could not stop gazing at those wonderful images and following Mili on her unflinching quest.  In Show me a Story! Marcus asks Sendak about Mili. His response illustrates his complete understanding of children: "...she has the same kind of trudging, hard-working quality that I love in children. They're trudging children; they go and do what they must do."


A little Father's Day tribute regarding Dear Mili: as a prized possession, I have a poster for the book, signed by Sendak, that my father stood in a long line to get at an ABA Convention the year of publication. It's the only time he ever queued up at any book convention to get a poster signed. And since Sendak was only autographing one poster per customer, my doting dad got right back in line and procured another so that my sister and I might each have one.   


Bright Young Things: Lesley Rains
Our series profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers continues today with Lesley Rains of East End Book Exchange (EEBX) in Pittsburgh:

DSCN1947.jpegHow did you get started in rare books? 

In a lot of ways I feel like I'm still in the process of getting started in this business.  But the story has to start somewhere, and for me it was in 2011.   I had just moved back to Pittsburgh a few months earlier.  I was in the midst of making a dramatic career change, leaving behind a doctoral program in history, with little sense of what I would do next.  Around the same time, I noticed that there were hardly any bookstores in the city.  It seemed like an opportunity to do something fun and meaningful, to do something that would resonate with the community.  I started with a small collection of trade paperbacks, mostly classic and contemporary literature. My first substantive and deliberate introduction to the rare book trade was at the 2012 Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS).  

When did you open East End Book Exchange and what do you specialize in? 

I opened East End Book Exchange in July 2011.  EEBX was conceived to be a general interest used bookstore.  We feature books in a number of genres, but we emphasize classic, modern, and contemporary literature, poetry, history, and philosophy.  I want our shop to appeal as much to the avid reader as to the avid collector.  

I know that East End began as a "pop-up bookstore" - could you define that term and tell us some more about that phase of your existence?  

A "pop-up bookstore" or business, is a nomadic business that opens in a location 
temporarily - a day, a month, several months, then closes and reappears at another location at a later date.  It's not unlike booksellers who follow the book fair circuit, except instead of selling at fairs, I was setting up the shop at coffee shops and art galleries around Pittsburgh.  After three months of "popping up",  I settled into a bookstall at the Pittsburgh Public Market, a weekend indoor vendor market.  It's a permanent market, so I didn't have to schlep books in and out every weekend. The bookstall was in operation from October 2011 - October 2012 and I regard it as a self-made internship in bookselling and running my own business.  It was a low-financial risk way of gaining experience in the bookselling business.  I learned so much about building and managing an inventory and maintaining a budget (or attempting to).  During this time we also developed a bit of a following, so when we moved to a storefront, we had an established audience and did not have to start from square one. 

But you've recently opened a brick-and-mortar shop, right? How's that going? Do you prefer having a stationary shop?

Yes, the response to the bookstall had been so positive, coupled with a common lament about the dearth of bookshops in Pittsburgh, that in November 2012, we moved to a storefront in the city's Bloomfield neighborhood (which, together with a number of other neighborhoods comprises the city's East End, hence the name).  It has been going really well so far.  The response from the community, and the local literary community in particular, has been universally positive.  The shop has its slow days, to be sure, but there have been plenty of very good days as well.  Nothing offends me more as when someone states that they don't believe another bricks-and-mortar bookstore could survive in Pittsburgh.  There are so many good readers and booklovers in our town.  This isn't to say that the success of a bookstore is a given, but I do believe that a wellcurated bookshop that engages its community has to have more than a fighting chance.  

I do prefer having a stationary shop.  It has been the most fun growing our inventory and cultivating our identity as a bookshop.  We moved from an 80 square foot stall to a 1600 sq. ft. shop (and we opened within three weeks of that move), so we had to get big quickly.  It's been a rewarding challenge balancing the need for more books while staying true to our identity as a bookshop.  I enjoy the hustle and bustle that comes with running an open shop.  I like creating the space, setting the hours, and working with local writers and artists to host public readings.  Being a fixed place has allowed us to become more of a community bookstore.  In addition to the hosting literary events, we also host local artists for monthly (or so) art shows and  we work with a local vintage furniture dealer to outfit the shop with comfortable and attractive furniture.  Works by local authors, as well as the art and furniture, are all sold on consignment, so it gives people a lot of different reasons to come to our shop, and ultimately buy books.   Retail businesses have to be multifaceted, but never to the point where the furniture and art crowds out the books.  I like managing all of these dimensions of our shop in the service of bookselling.   To put all of this another way, I like being my own boss and exhilarating/terrifying/just plain fun roller-coaster ride that comes with that.  

What do you love about the book trade?

I love how this business is so incessantly stimulating.  Whether book-scouting and the sense being on a treasure hunt, or the writing catalogue descriptions and crafting narratives, there is rarely a mundane moment.  There is always something to learn, always ways to improve.  I have also found that I have been able to utilize a lot of the research, writing, and analytical thinking skills that I developed while in grad school, which is satisfying and helps me to feel like less of a novice.  

The sense of community among booksellers is astonishing and deeply moving.  
Everyone is so incredibly helpful and kind.  Living in Pittsburgh, I've been fortunate to get to know two mentor-friends: John Schulman of Caliban Books and Luke Lozier of Bibliopolis, as well as assorted local writers, who have been crucial to the growth of EEBX.  I can state emphatically that EEBX would not be where it is without John and Luke.  Luke, in fact, was the one who told me about CABS and encouraged me to attend.  CABS 2012 blew me away.  David Anthem and Gabe Konrad (two recent BYTs) thoroughly and colorfully described the experience.  I knew going into the week that I was going to learn a lot about books; I had no idea that I was going to make lifelong friendships.  I'm still in awe of that week and the people that I met.    

Favorite rare book (or ephemera) that you've handled?

Two items come to mind.  First is the Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping (Buckeye Publishing Company: 1877).  I found it at an estate sale and assumed it was just another old cookbook, but I like cookbooks, so I picked it up.  When I got researching it, I found it had a much richer history, namely that it is one of the original church-lady cookbooks.  It was such a sensation when it was published that the second edition includes recipes submitted by Lucy Webb Hayes, then the First Lady of the United States.  The second is Fontainebleau: En Relief par les Anaglphyes, which contains a pair of 3D glasses from 1941.   Both of these books are memorable for the work that went into figuring out what they were. 

What do you personally collect?

I don't personally collect, although down the road I would like to.  For now, all of my collecting time, energy, and money are focused on the needs of the shop, my customers, and clients.  

Thoughts on the present state and/or future of the rare book trade?

I am really excited about the current state of the rare book trade.  There are a lot of booksellers meeting the challenges of bookselling head on and doing really interesting and exciting work.  At CABS I met Adam Davis of Division Leap and Heather O'Donnell of Honey and Wax Books, both of whom who have successfully created niches for themselves in the rare book trade and are also finding new audiences in their larger communities.  I think that going forward, new booksellers will have to pursue both of those avenues.  While I rely heavily on social media to promote the shop, I know that it is also necessary to study the book trade's history and traditions, issue catalogues, and attend fairs.  All should be utilized in order to create new booksellers and new book collectors. 

Any upcoming fairs or catalogues?

I just completed my first short list and I am working on the follow-up.  I don't have any fairs planned for this year, but my goal to attend the Ann Arbor Book Fair and other regional fairs next year.  I am also working on my IOBA membership.
Solving the Lincoln Problem

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A poor early 19th-century Kentuckian boy splits logs from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. If he splits sixty-five logs every half hour and then takes a five-minute break, what is the likelihood that his math homework will wind up in Harvard University's Houghton Rare Book Library? If that boy was Abraham Lincoln, up until several months ago the odds were good. Now they're certain. 

 

Two professors at Illinois State University have confirmed that a sheet of arithmetic problems and solutions belonging to the Houghton Library was written by our sixteenth president sometime between his eleventh and seventeenth birthdays. Exercises on the page are simple. One asks, "If 4 men in 5 days eat 7 lb. of bread, how much will be sufficient for 16 men in 15 days?" Sources confirm that most of the problems were solved correctly.

 

Houghton's leaf left the Lincoln family a year after the President was assassinated in 1865. Lincoln's stepmother, Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, gave the leaf to Lincoln's former law partner, William Henry Herndon. Herndon was collecting Lincoln material for what would become the biography Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, which was published nearly two and a half decades after he was given the leaf. Over the next half century, the validity of the leaf's origin was lost.

 

By the time it was donated to the Houghton Library in 1954, it was only a curiosity, but now no longer. The leaf has been confirmed as belonging to a set of ten other known Lincoln arithmetic pages. Together, they form the earliest known Lincoln manuscript in existence.



Photo Credit: Houghton Rare Book Library

 



Illinois State University, Sarah Bush Lincoln, William Herndon, abraham lincoln, houghton library, manuscript
Object History
Two new books take the study of American material culture to the masses by highlighting the country's iconic objects--a fragment of Plymouth rock, a presidential button, a soldier's footlocker--and using them to brief readers on an historical event. Souvenir Nation by William L. Bird, Jr. (Princeton Architectural Press, $24.95) and The Civil War in 50 Objects by Harold Holzer (Viking, $36), both recently published, offer fine essays and color illustrations meant for the armchair historian in all of us. It comes as no surprise that reading each of these books is like taking a stroll through a great museum -- Holzer's book focuses on the collection of the New-York Historical Society, while Bird's book examines the relics in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. (A related exhibit opens at the Smithsonian Castle in August.) Need I mention how perfect they are for Father's Day?
 
Souvenir Nation.jpgSouvenir Nation: Relics, Keepsakes, and Curios shows off items preserved in the Smithsonian but often gathered or collected by laymen. Bird, curator at the NMAH, prompts us to think about the idea of souvenirs, not so much in the way of plastic knick-knacks we pick up at landmarks these days, but the ones chipped from monuments and clipped from heads in years past. Here are a few of the neat items you'll find here: a piece of George Washington's mahogany coffin, railroad conductors' punch cards, and actress Laura Keene's bloodstained cuff worn at Ford's Theater. As always, I enjoy the format of Princeton Architectural Press books. This trim red, white, and blue hardcover resembles a history textbook, if textbooks were a bit groovier. The endpapers are decorated with patriotic stars, and the book even contains two ribbons (red and blue) for placeholders.  

CivilWar50.jpgThe Civil War in 50 Objects has a narrower focus and yet is a heftier read. Holzer, a Fellow at the N-YHS, offers a more narrative approach, allotting each artifact--iron slave shackles, a draft wheel for drawing names, a Confederate cipher key--a mini-chapter instead of a page. The bookish among us will be glad to note the number of items that fall under the rubric of 'print culture' represented by broadsides, prints, letters, newspapers, watercolor drawings by prisoners, a pocket diary of a private from NY, a bible used at a "colored orphan asylum," c. 1863, the First Dixie reader, and lastly, a manuscript of the thirteenth amendment. Illustrated with fine color reproductions, this book is a collection of treasures for anyone interested in Civil War history.   

Civil War, Harold Holzer, Jr., National Museum of American History, New-York Historical Society, Princeton Architectural Press, Smithsonian Institution, Souvenir Nation, William L. Bird, americana, material culture, print culture
Meet Norway's Latest Bestseller: The Bible
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A surprising bit of news surfaced last week in Norway: a new Norwegian translation of the Bible outpaced titles such as "Fifty Shades of Grey" to become the number one bestseller in the country.  This in a country where approximately 75% of the population is thought to be atheist, where just last year the government passed a constitutional amendement officially severing all ties with the Church of Norway, and where a meager 1% of its population of 5 million attend church on a regular basis.

The cultural resonance of the Bible has clearly yet to be usurped, even in increasingly secularized countries like Norway.

The success of the new translation has been attributed to renewed Norwegian interest in their cultural history in the face of recent immigration increases and a successful and innovative marketing campaign for the new translation conducted by the Church of Norway. Church officials marketed the new Bible with borrowed tactics from popular fiction campaigns, including releasing "teaser" stories from the Bible ahead of time.

The Bible was first translated into Norwegian - specifically Old Norse - at the end of the 13th century when parts of the Old Testament were paraphrased in a collection of manuscripts entitled Stjorn.  



Written and Bound by William Faulkner
N09066-247_web.jpg.thumb.385.385.pngIt may be that William Faulkner's Nobel Prize and related manuscript will realize a higher price tomorrow at Sotheby's, but it is this modest booklet that should perhaps share the spotlight. Vision in Spring is a unique typewritten book--written, bound, and signed by the revered American author. Discovered by one of his descendants last summer, it is the only known copy of this early book of poetry--previously known only in a photocopy that became the basis for a 1984 publication. Faulkner made this book in 1921 for the woman who would later become his wife, Estelle Oldham Franklin, and after his death, it remained with her until her death in 1972. It had been missing and presumed lost since then. An autograph manuscript comprising three poems in Faulkner's hand, a drawing, and two snapshots of him are also tucked in. The Sotheby's cataloguer calls this book "the most important discovery of Faulkner's work to surface in the past few decades." The estimate is $100,000-150,000.

Image via Sotheby's.
Faulkner manuscript, Nobel Prize, Sotheby's, Vision in Spring, William Faulkner, rare book
Hickory, Dickory, Dock

Hickory by Palmer Brown; The New York Review of Children's Books, $14.95, 56 pages, ages 5-8. 

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(c) The New York Review of Children's Books 


Inspired by the classic nursery rhyme, Palmer Brown's mouse adventure starts out in a cozy grandfather clock. Aside from the occasional mousetrap, life is good for Hickory, Dickory and Dock. Hickory, the eldest, decides to strike out on his own.  Upon moving to the nearby meadow, he settles into a comfortable, if lonely, existence. Soon a cheery grasshopper named Hop bounds into Hickory's life, and the unlikely duo revel in the bounty of the summer meadow. 

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(c) The New York Review of Children's Books 


When the air turns crisp, Hop alerts her companion that soon she will meet her end - in terms that a small child might not quite grasp - and Hickory embarks on a mission to save his companion from her demise.  The pair head south, hopeful that they may outwit Mother Nature. Soon enough, Hickory realizes that some things are immutable, and that acceptance marks the end of a touching and emotional story of friendship. 

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(c) The New York Review of Children's Books 


Brown's colorful drawings pepper the book, depicting a miniature world wrought large. Younger readers will enjoy picking out the tiniest of details - a match next to a flowerpot, Hickory's crutches thrown into the grass - and budding botanists will adore the illustrations of seasonally appropriate plants and flowers.


Originally published in 1978, Hickory was recently reissued by The New York Review of Children's Books.  All five of Brown's books for children are in print.  

Bibliographer Interview: Joseph Felcone
Our occasional series featuring interviews with bibliographers continues today with Joseph Felcone of New Jersey, who published the descriptive bibliography Printing in New Jersey 1754 - 1800 last year (2012) with the American Antiquarian Society, with distribution by Oak Knoll Press. The book was designed by Jerry Kelly.

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What drew you to 18th-century printing in New Jersey?  Where did that interest originate?

It's the intersection of my interest in New Jersey history with my interest in early books and particularly the booktrade in early America. I've collected printed New Jerseyana assiduously for forty years. It's the most important collection ever built privately, and it ranks with the half dozen or so leading institutional collections. I've published quite a number of books on both New Jersey history and New Jersey bibliography, so, for me, my collection is both a necessary working library as well as a collection of rare books.

Your book is a "descriptive bibliography." How does that differ from a conventional bibliography?

American imprint bibliographies have traditionally been checklists--chronological lists, of widely varying scholarship, recording everything printed in a particular state or town or produced by an individual printer. In 1974 William Miller raised the bar dramatically with his descriptive bibliography of Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia printing. I've attempted to raise the bar even higher. In addition to full bibliographical apparatus such as collations and expanded pagination and contents statements, I've identified type, paper and watermarks, and contemporary bindings, as well as the copy-specific attributes of every copy located.

What was the hardest part about compiling the bibliography?

The final mile. Turning a massive database, assembled over more than twenty-five years, into a coherent and consistent book. I was very fortunate to have two of the country's finest bibliographers--David Whitesell and Michael Winship--as my readers, in addition to the extraordinary resources of the American Antiquarian Society and particularly its publications department.

How about the most rewarding part?

Discovering previously unrecorded New Jersey printing, chiefly in smaller repositories such as regional historical societies but also in the National Archives of the United Kingdom.

On Oak Knoll's site, it says that you visited 115 libraries as you compiled this bibliography.  Which were your favorites?

I really don't have any favorites. Different libraries offered different rewards. The major scholarly repositories are, with a few exceptions, well catalogued and efficiently run, and most of the rare books curators are old friends. But there are rarely surprises. Smaller repositories are a very mixed bag, but always exciting because you never know what you'll find.

You mentioned your personal New Jersey collection. Are you still adding to it?

A large part of my life over the last forty years has been spent building this collection and researching and cataloguing every book. In 1996 I published a bibliographical catalogue of all the books in the collection from 1698 through 1860, in two volumes, 1,100 pages. Today that same catalogue would be almost twice as large. I add to the collection continually.

What's your next project?

I have one more New Jersey historical book to finish. Then I plan to research and write up the 1861-1900 part of my collection and publish a new catalogue of the entire collection from 1698 through 1900.

$1.2 Million for 7 Books from George Washington's Library
Yesterday Sotheby's New York sold a lot of seven signed books from George Washington's library at Mount Vernon--according to the auctioneer, the largest number of volumes signed by the first president to be seen at auction since 1904. The total price for these seven rarities: $1.2 million.

Sotheby's-Washington.jpgThe lot contained the following books: volume III of Oliver Goldsmith's An History of the Earth (second edition, 1779), bearing Washington's armorial bookplate; volume VII of the same, also with bookplate; Jonathan Swift's The Beauties of Swift (1782) also bearing his engraved armorial bookplate; volume III of Alain-Rene Le Sage's The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane (sixth edition, [1785]) signed; volume IV of the same, also signed; Voyages de M. de Chastellux's dans l'Amerique septentrionale... (1786) in two volumes, signed; and Joseph Priestley's Discourses Relating to the Evidences of Revealed Religion...(1796), signed.

The books were part of a larger 250-lot sale of the Library of a Distinguished American Book Collector that included many literary and historical high spots. The sale realized $4.9 million in total. The top lots include: an association copy of the rare first edition of Thomas Paine's Common Sense for $545,000; a first edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations for $173,000; a fine, unsophisticated first edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species for $209,000; and A Narrative, of the Excursion and Ravages of the King's Troops Under the Command of General Gage on the nineteenth of April, 1775, the first book published in Worcester by patriot-printer, Isaiah Thomas, for $149,000.  

Image via Sotheby's.com.
George Washington, George Washington's books, Isaiah Thomas, Mount Vernon, Sotheby's, Thomas Paine, american history, book auction, book collection, book collector, high spots
Bright Young Things: Heather Pisani
Our series profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers continues today with Heather Pisani of Glenn Horowitz in New York:

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How did you get started in rare books?

I began thinking about books as objects early. The elementary school I attended often had author readings, so as a kid I had this wonderful little collection of inscribed children's books from people like Stephen Kellogg and Bernard Waber. It wasn't until later though, during a trip to England as an undergrad at Vassar, that I bought my first "rare" book. It was a nineteenth-century edition of Middlemarch - not actually rare, it turned out... just old. Before I graduated, I was also lucky enough to take a very small, irregularly offered senior seminar on Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts that was co-taught by a Dante scholar and the curator of Special Collections. I wasn't quite sure at that point where I was headed but knew I liked old books and manuscripts. After graduation, I spent two years in the Rare Book Room at the Strand. Then I attended grad school, during which time I interned in the Rare Book Division at the 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue branch of NYPL. For a little while, I was torn about whether I wanted to be in the trade or in a library - both have always had a certain allure for me.??

What is your role at Glenn Horowitz?

I'm the firm's full-time literary archivist. I work with individual rare books and manuscripts but my main job is cataloging complete archives. In a nutshell, I'm dispatched to homes, offices, storage spaces, attics, barns, and - my personal favorite - "work sheds," where I usually get to spend a few days with an author, cataloging drafts, letters, notebooks, diaries, etc. We usually end up sharing a meal or two and discussing their creative process. 

I understand that you've done a lot of traveling on behalf of the firm. Any favorite bookish places you've visited?

I joke that I peaked early! Within my first year I went to Australia to work with John Coetzee. The room where he writes definitely qualifies as a favorite place. ??

What do you love about the book trade?

Probably most things. I think a wonderful aspect of the field is that there's always more to learn, whether about the history of the book itself or the life and work of a particular author. I also appreciate that it's an evolving field right now, not least because of the internet and rise of born digital materials. I'm not sure whether the latter is for better or worse - I struggle to find email printouts as compelling as holograph manuscripts or autograph letters - but at least it's an interesting issue. ??

Favorite rare book (or ephemera) that you've handled?

The answer to this changes constantly. Right now I'd say that Samuel Beckett's undergrad text books rank very high on my list. We had three volumes of French literature from his freshman year, each with his ownership signature - Samuel B. Beckett / Trinity College / Dublin / Michaelmas Term - 1923 - and each copiously annotated. His English translations filled the margins and there were endearing notes to self - like "Learn by heart" - as well as words defined repeatedly, suggesting he had trouble remembering them. I came in to the office on a Saturday to catalogue those. ??

What do you personally collect?

I have a nice group of inscribed books from authors I've worked with. I was collecting 19th-century publishers' bindings for a time. At one point when I was living in Prague I became set on finding the first Czech edition of Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. It was brought out by a Canadian publishing house and is hard to come by, so whenever I see one I buy it. I have two. ??

Thoughts on the present state and/or future of the rare book trade?

I don't think print books are going to vanish. I do think that in a survival-of-the-fittest kind of way the market will only support the best, most desirable copies. Manuscripts and correspondence are a bit trickier. Archives will be comprised of an increasing amount of electronic material, so instead of notebooks and letters we have hard drives, stacks of obsolete discs, email accounts, etc. Born digital material is a quagmire of technological, practical, and intellectual issues that are now being dealt with formally by creators, dealers, and repositories in terms of preservation guidelines and collection policies. 

Any upcoming fairs or catalogues?

We recently published Write a Madder Letter if You Can: the Letters of Jack Kerouac to Ed White - the catalogue is available for $25 and the collection of letters themselves for $1.25 million. We've also been circulating a PDF list of Seamus Heaney Books from the collection of James O'Halloran that will be available as a print catalogue this summer. My colleague Lauren Walsh is putting the finishing touches on a very cool catalogue of the archive of dust-jacket designer Philip Grushkin, also coming out this summer. No fairs, but at the end of June we're moving to a new location that will include a street-level gallery space on 54th Street to open in the fall.