The HMS Bounty was just a small merchant vessel on its way to Tahiti to collect breadfruit. Under the command of the now infamous Captain Bligh, the ship left dock in December of 1787 for its arduous ten-month journey at sea, during which time Bligh demoted his sailing master and replaced him with Fletcher Christian, a move he would surely come to regret. Still, they made it to Tahiti, where the crew stayed for five months. In April of 1789, they left the island and headed for disaster.

It took only a few weeks for the mutiny to foment. Christian and his band of mutineers took the ship (eventually to Pitcairn Island, where they eluded the Royal Navy), and set Bligh and his loyalists adrift in a small boat. Amazingly, Bligh returned his crew to England.

It is, of course, a story that was sensational from the beginning, providing the basis for many books and films. One of the first publications was the printed minutes of the 1792 court-martial of the Bounty mutineers--those the Navy had caught, anyway. Ten men went to trial, of which three were hanged. For a collector of Bounty books and relics, this is undoubtedly a high spot. Bonhams sold one last year for slightly more than $50,000.

Edward R. Leahy is one such Bounty collector. His interest lies in the historical efforts to demonize Bligh, who was often portrayed as tyrannical. "From Bligh's Narrative to the mutineer's court martial transcripts to the spurious Fletcher Christian letters and the authentic and extremely rare Peter Heywood letters, Mr. Leahy has assembled the historical evidence," according to the University of Scranton special collections librarian Michael Knies. "But he has also collected the start of the Mutiny saga in the arts with works like Lord Byron's The Island."

The image seen here of the small boat that Bligh and his crew survived in after the mutiny, from Leahy's 1818 first edition of An Account of the Dangerous Voyage, Performed by Captain Bligh, With a part of the crew of His Majesty's Ship Bounty, in an open boat, over twelve hundred leagues of the Ocean, with an Appendix, In which is contained an Account of the Island of Otaheite (London, Juvenile Library edition). With other selections from Leahy's library, it is currently on display through April 17 at the University of Scranton's Weinberg Library in an exhibit called The Mutiny on the Bounty: A 225-Year Voyage from Fiction to Fact. On April 9, Leahy will present a lecture on the facts and the myths of the Bounty.

Images: Top, courtesy of Bonhams; Bottom, courtesy of the University of Scranton, Weinberg Library.

AVIARY WONDERS INC. ©2014 Kate Samworth. Reproduced with permission from HMH Books for Young Readers.

Hunting, habitat loss and climate change are driving bird species to extinction at a record clip. But what if carrier pigeons could once more take flight, simply by assembling various interchangeable parts?  Debut author-illustrator Kate Samworth explores this imaginative possibility in a book that is by turns funny and unsettling.  Samworth says the inspiration to sketch a bird catalog came after listening to New Orleans residents talk about the eerie lack of birdsounds post-Katrina.   

AVIARY WONDERS INC. ©2014 Kate Samworth. Reproduced with permission from HMH Books for Young Readers.

Modeled after an old-fashioned mail-order catalog, this fantasy avian sales prospectus is the brainchild of logging company magnate Alfred Wallis, who established Aviary Wonders Inc. after noticing that birds vanished shortly after loggers chopped down their homes. The catalog offers an assortment of feathers, bodies, beaks and legs for bird lovers to create a feathered friend to call their very own.  The second half of the catalog is amusingly devoted to assembly, troubleshooting tips, and even includes an order form.  

AVIARY WONDERS INC. ©2014 Kate Samworth. Reproduced with permission from HMH Books for Young Readers.

The 'catalog' is peppered with cheeky advertising banter alongside some very real facts about endangered and extinct species. Samworth's stunning oil paintings are as bright and cheerful as the underlying message of habitat destruction is serious. 

Aviary Wonders Inc. flies solo as one of the most unique books for bird-lovers of all ages, and despite its zany premise, will spur lively environmental and scientific discussions.

"Aviary Wonders Inc. Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual: Renewing the World's Bird Supply since 2031," by Kate Samworth, Clarion Books, $17.99, 32 pages, ages 9-12.

Coming up this weekend is the 33rd annual Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, to be held in St. Petersburg's historic coliseum. More than 115 dealers in rare books, manuscripts, maps, prints and ephemera will descend upon the Sunshine State. Some of the highlights include a first edition of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1820), a first edition of Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat (1957), and an inscribed first trade edition of Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon (1987). This year's fair focuses on children's literature, so expect a great selection of Caldecott winners, such as the one shown here from Books Tell You Why. Helen Dean Fish's Animals of the Bible (1937) was the first winner of the award.

For those lucky enough to extend their stay in Florida, the weekend following the book fair offers another bookish event. Patricia Pistner, a member of the Florida Bibliophile Society and the Grolier Club, will give an illustrated talk and exhibit of her miniature books collection. Hosted by the Florida Bibliophile Society and introduced by Maureen E. Mulvihill on Sunday, March 23, at the Seminole Community College Library in St. Petersburg.

What kind of book is dangerous enough to be considered burnable? In medieval London, where the decapitated heads of traitors welcomed visitors to the city, a manuscript prophesizing the king's assassination kindles everyone's interest. Even the esteemed poet Geoffrey Chaucer wants to lay hands on the volume, and he employs his street-smart fellow poet, John Gower, to find it.

Such is the premise of A Burnable Book (William Morrow, $25.99), the stellar debut novel by Bruce Holsinger, a medieval scholar at the University of Virginia. Things really heat up when a beautiful and unknown young woman is murdered in the Moorfields outside of the city walls, the only witness a prostitute hiding in the bushes with a book in her hands given to her by the recently deceased. It is a compelling beginning, and Holsinger proves himself adept at creating colorful main characters and capturing the largely unpleasant sights and smells of London in 1385.

The manuscript, Liber de Mortibus Regum Anglorum, eludes Gower as the maudlyn and her conspirators try to determine its value and its meaning. Bibliophiles will take special note of Gower's book-hunting trip to Oxford, where he spends a week sorting through Richard de Bury's library. "The first thing I noticed about the dark space was the smell: rich, deep, gorgeous. Cardamon, I thought, and cloves and cinnamon--and old parchment, and leather, and boards, and dust." The keeper, Peter de Quincey, tells him the spice is "an excellent preservative of old books."

As the murders mount and Chaucer turns testy, Gower is unsure whom to trust. His estranged son's return to London further upends his life. But as he plumbs the sleazy world of paid mercenaries, rivalrous courtiers, and bishops' bawds, the secrets of the treasonous text reveal deadly ambitions.

The courtly relationships and foreign entanglements of minor characters weigh on the novel's plot at times, but readers need not fret that they'll miss key elements if they can't master each and every one, which is always a concern when a novel has a substantial cast of characters -- and this one features a transvestite who goes by two different names and royals who answer to either their name or their title. Though set in a different country and century, the pitch-perfect historic detail and engrossing mystery of Holsinger's book are reminiscent of Karen Engelmann's 2012 novel, The Stockholm Octavo. (Both feature playing cards too.)

Whether you label it biblio-fiction or historical fiction, The Burnable Book thoroughly exceeds expectations. May this novel be the first of many from Holsinger.

The author is on tour now; check out his website, and you might catch a reading. 

In 1820, John James Audubon proclaimed his intent to paint every species of birds in North America. When the project was completed in 1838, Audubon had documented 506 species.

 

There is, of course, a scientific answer as to how many species of birds there are in North America. If one actually intends to seek them out individually - much less paint them - expect to find far fewer. 

 

The 2008 publication of The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik lent a good bit of credence to the difficulty in actually spotting substantial numbers of bird species. Wikipedia defines a "Big Year" as "an informal competition among birders to see who can see or hear the largest number of species of birds within a single calendar year and within a specific geographical area." The American Birding Association defines that area, which can be loosely described as Audubon's "North America."

 

If Audubon brought the "birds of America" to the few, Roger Peterson's publication of his first field guide for birds in 1934 brought the "birds of America" to the many, or perhaps better said, "the birds of the eastern United States."

 

Nearly 100 years after publication of Birds of America, in 1939, Big Year participant Guy Emerson spotted 497 birds, a few shy of Audubon, albeit in a much shorter time with fewer species left on the planet. But Big Year numbers have continued to climb, to 598 in 1956 to 747 species in 2013, all of which is shy the 914 species recognized by the American Birding Association. No one has come close.

 

All in all, Audubon did pretty well. He documented well over half the species in North America in travel conditions that were challenging at best. More importantly, he spent time enough with them to paint them in their habitat.

 

The New-York Historical Society (170 Central Park West, NY) is offering a rare glimpse of Audubon, March 21- May 26, with Audubon's Aviary: Parts Unknown, part two of the highly successful tripartite series, Audubon's Aviary: The Complete Flock. The exhibit "follows Audubon into uncharted territories--geographic, artistic, and scientific--as he encountered and mapped new species and grappled with the disappearing illusion of America's infinite wilderness."

Also, on April 1, Sotheby's NY will auction two Audubon masterworks. The "double-elephant folio" first edition of the Birds of America is one of them, and its consignor, The Indiana Historical Society, hopes it will realize at least $3 million.

 

1838 was - and 2014 continues to be - a Big Year for John James Audubon. His enduring passion for the birds of America keeps this important natural history alive -- and makes us all hopeful for having our own Big Year.

Audubon's Great Blue Heron, on display at the New-York Historical Society, March 21-May 26.

 

Find Books on Biblio.com on Audubon.

Find Books on Biblio.com on Bird Field Guides.

Image reproduced with permission from Sterling Publishers.  ©2014 Linda Beck.

"Goodnight Songs," by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by various illustrators, Sterling Children's books, $17.95, 28 pages, ages 2-5.

For over sixty years, children have drifted to dreamland after reading the quintessential bedtime story Goodnight Moon. Now comes a previously unpublished collection of Margaret Wise Brown's charming lullabies for a new generation of readers.

Amy Gary, the editor of Brown's Estate, introduces the collection by describing her discovery of a treasure trove of manuscripts. Tucked away for decades in a trunk in an attic barn on the author's family farm in Vermont, all but three have never been printed until now.

Also among the hidden treasures were musical scores Brown was composing for a children's record company. An accompanying disk includes songs based on the poems. Emily Gary and Tom Proutt set the poems to music, and managed to capture the effortless imagery of Brown's work. 

A different contributor illustrated each poem and the list reads like a who's-who of award winning artists. Caldecott Honor medalist Melissa Sweet, Coretta Scott King Honor Award winner Sean Qualls, and New York Times Best Illustrated Book winner Carin Berger were among the dozen asked to collaborate on the project.  Brown's innate understanding of what entertains and comforts children will delight everyone who comes across this gem, now and for years to come.   

Founded in 1997, The Legacy Press has quickly become a bastion of scholarly work on the history of the book, and their titles have become collectible in their own right. In today's guest post, bookseller Gabe Konrád interviews Cathleen A. Baker, the founder and driving force behind The Legacy Press.

GK: What was the impetus to start your own publishing house?

CB: While finalizing the manuscript for my first book, By His Own Labor: The Biography of Dard Hunter (Red Hydra Press, 2000), I decided to get an MFA in Book Arts at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, primarily to learn more about letterpress printing, so that I could assist Steve Miller, owner of the Red Hydra Press, in printing the limited edition of that book. And so in 1997 as an MFA student, I established The Legacy Press. At that time, I did an Internet search for the words "Legacy Press" to make sure that there were no other presses by that name out there. While that search was negative, there is now evidence that at least one other concern was using that name then and many more now exist, but mine is the only one that officially includes "The." The first projects issued under this imprint were printed by hand and fulfilled the MFA degree requirements. The out-of-print titles for many of these fledging works are viewable on my website, www.thelegacypress.com. My dream to help print the Dard Hunter book was realized when I served as the "printer's devil" on the project from 1998 to 2000. Aside from the years of researching and writing the book, assisting in the physical endeavor of paging out monotype-set galleys, cutting down and dampening the Twinrocker handmade paper, proofing and checking the pages as they came off the Vandercook No. 4, drying the sheets, and collating and folding the sections was an incredible learning experience.

Having the Dard Hunter book under my belt, I was eager to tackle another ambitious project, this time on my own. My thesis project was Endgrain Designs & Repetitions: The Pattern Papers of John DePol (2000), which I co-authored with John DePol (1913-2004), the celebrated American wood engraver. The friendship that arose from that project was cherished by us both for years afterward, and I continue to keep John's remarkable work available to book-arts practitioners and collectors.

I printed Endgrain Designs on my own Vandercook No. 4 in the summer of 2000 from photopolymer plates that I made. The paper I chose--100# Mohawk Superfine Smooth Ultra-White--had the characteristics I wanted for this book of "wood-engravings": dense and slick surface to accept the ink without much hint of impression, bright white color to contrast well with the black ink, opaque and heavyweight enough to limit the amount of show-through. As I took the printed pages off the cylinder to inspect them, I began to notice that what I wanted from this presswork was what I could have obtained if it had been offset-printed on a matte coated paper. That doesn't mean that I regret having letterpress-printed Endgrain Designs because the experience I gained from this project was critical to the conclusion that I reached about printing: that one should decide which materials and techniques are the most appropriate for the text and/or images to be printed. I regard Endgrain Designs as the best-designed and hand-printed book I have been involved in. But during its production, I had the idea that offset-printing could give me the effect that I might seek for a particular kind of book project; I also wondered what it would be like to publish books that did not take so much time at the press and that could be offered at much more affordable prices (Endgrain Designs was priced at $295.00). As a consequence of my MFA experiences, I decided that The Legacy Press would specialize in new, scholarly texts focusing on the printing, paper, and bookbinding arts, that would be well-designed, offset-printed books. Those plans were postponed, however, so that I could finish my PhD in 2004. In spring 2005, I moved back to my home state and to Ann Arbor, where I was fortunate to have a job created for me as Paper Conservator in the University of Michigan Library; I am now Conservation Librarian and Exhibit Conservator.

GK: So what was the first Ann Arbor-based production?

CB: The first offset-printed book that The Legacy Press published was Dorothy Field's wonderfully illustrated essay, Paper and Threshold: The Paradox of Spiritual Connection in Asian Cultures (2007). It was printed in full color in China in order to keep the retail price manageable. I was very pleased with the results, and the book won a national award. A few years ago, while discussing a potential book project with my friend and fellow Ann Arborite, book conservator and bookbinding historian, Julia Miller, she expressed a desire to have her book printed in Michigan in order to support local businesses. To my surprise when investigating the potential of hiring a local printer, I discovered that Ann Arbor has a long history as a "printing" town, and there are a number of respected book manufacturers within a few miles of my home office. Since Elaine Koretsky's Killing Green: An Account of Hand Papermaking in China (2009), all of The Legacy Press books have been printed and bound locally. While this increases the cost/price of books somewhat, it was the right decision, and the added bonus is that I can talk to printing professionals face-to-face.

The year 2010 was a landmark one. Julia Miller's Books Will Speak Plain: A Handbook for Identifying and Describing Historical Bindings was issued a few months after my book was published, From the Hand to the Machine. Nineteenth-Century American Paper and Mediums: Technologies, Materials, and Conservation. Since their publication, both of these books have secured national awards. Beginning with another award-winning title, Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking (2012) by Aimee Lee and the first volume in the series, Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding (2013), edited by Julia Miller, The Legacy Press has published books in full color that are printed locally, and although this decision slightly adds to the cost of books, color is a feature that greatly enhances the topics covered.

GK: Color is a major benefit, as are the DVDs that accompany Books Will Speak Plain and Suave Mechanicals. I love the high-resolution images that you can magnify 400% and really see the most minute details. How did the decision to include DVDs come about?

CB: Julia Miller persuaded me to include a DVD of the over 1,400 images of bindings that she had accumulated over the years, most of which could not be included in the print version of her first book. Because most of the images in that book are in black and white, there were several reasons to include a DVD: (a) to reproduce at relatively low cost all of the bindings in color, (b) to produce a very large number of images, and (c) to be able to zoom in on the bindings. The last advantage has been noted by a few reviewers as a distinct advantage in being able to see details. It is not the same as having the book in your hands, but it must be the next best thing.

While "zoomability" is good, this feature is meaningless, however, unless a really good digital image has been taken in the first place. When photographing books, the following are a few suggestions that I give prospective authors: (1) use a white or neutral gray paper or fine cloth/felt, rather than a black, background because the edges of the binding will be more easily read, especially dark-colored bindings; (2) set your camera at the highest, finest image setting in order to capture all of the fine details; (3) because what you want to see in a binding is rarely in two dimensions, you might be better photographing a book using the manual setting (rather than using auto focus) with the f-stop at the highest number, e.g., f-22, to increase the depth of field, bringing more levels into focus; because this will increase the amount of time needed for the light to enter the smaller aperture, you would be advised to use a tripod or copystand rather than hand-holding the camera; (4) rather than lighting the book just with light coming from directly above it, consider adding another light source placed to the left or the top of the book to provide some raking light; this assumes the book is orientated in the way you intend for the viewer to see it, e.g., right side up (if you need to turn the book upside down to photograph it more easily, place the raking light at the right or bottom); (5) if photographing a detail, take that image separately, filling the viewfinder with it; never crop the detail from a much larger image because the resolution will be too low to reproduce except at 100% (the size of the original); (6) you can often set the camera to save images as TIFFs and this format should be kept as your archive copy, but because TIFFs are so large--take up a lot of memory--I convert them to JPEGs so that the design file, either for print or for the DVD, can "hold" more images without slowing the software program down or crashing it.

GK: For those wishing to collect titles from The Legacy Press, the first four titles - One Curve of Sugar, The Story of Blue Betsey, Carmen 1, and Endgrain Designs - are stunning and quite rare on the market, but your "production" books are an excellent place to start for anyone interested in the history of the book. Suave Mechanicals promises to be an amazing series. Do you have a roadmap of how many volumes will follow and a date for the next installment?

CB: Thank you for your nice words about my early efforts at hand-produced books. By the end of October 2013, editor Julia Miller will have read the essays that are intended for volume 2 of Suave Mechanicals, and the book should be published by late summer 2014. Authors of essays for volume 3 have already begun to be identified, and so this series should be ongoing for a few years, at least. In addition to providing important information on often esoteric subjects having to do with the history of bookbinding, Suave Mechanicals also gives first-time researchers the opportunity to publish their work, working with people--Julia and I--who are eager to guide them through the often-intimidating process. My goal is perhaps a bit more self serving: by making publishing more comfortable, I hope to more easily convince prospective The Legacy Press authors to submit book-length manuscripts. There are a significant number of people who are doing incredible research in bookbinding (as well as other areas in the printing, paper, and manuscript arts), but most are reluctant to proceed into the overwhelming world of publishing. The Legacy Press exists, in part, to help those people get their knowledge into print.

GK: This is exciting because, as stated by Deborah Howe in a review of Suave Mechanicals, volume one, on The Bonefolder, it "establishes a new level of scholarly research and invites each one of us to become more astute and insightful when conserving and or observing these rough jewels." This, of course, is entirely true, including chapters on historical repair, votive offerings on Armenian bindings, Colonial blankbooks, American scaleboard bindings, papier-mâché bindings, etc. It seems like the history of the book has been covered already, but this series clearly shows how much more there is to delve into! With Hanji Unfurled, Killing Green, and Paper and Threshold, The Legacy Press has become a specialist in Asian papermaking and use. How did that occur?

CB: I cannot say that that was planned, and the credit has to go to Dorothy Field's wonderful essay about the importance of paper in global cultures, Paper and Threshold. Hers was the first book that The Legacy Press issued as a "trade" edition. Since 2007, the year her book was published, authors from the intimate world of Asian papermaking have recognized that The Legacy Press is sympathetic to the idea of covering subjects that are quite specific, especially works that must be supplemented by a large number of images. With the next TLP book, A Song of Praise for Shifu by Susan Byrd, I have gone a bit outside my layout "rules" to accommodate her unique, poetic vision. This strong relationship between publisher and author is, I think, rare, especially for "trade" books.

GK: If I recall correctly, isn't shifu a type of material woven from thread made of paper?

CB: Yes, that's right. Until reading Susan's book, I had no idea that this craft has been around for centuries, and there are extant examples of clothing that are hundreds of years old. Even though I know that under all but the most adverse conditions such as fire and mold, paper is a remarkably stable and resilient, it is still amazing to me that work clothing worn everyday for many years survives. The most appropriate paper to convert into thread has properties that vary somewhat from paper destined for other more common purposes, and there still exist papermakers who specialize in shifu paper.

GK: Going back to your early work, two of the volumes you produced were booklets and the third, Carmen 1, was a French-fold with two papyrus pop-up elements. This item, which quotes Gaius Catullus, is striking in its simplicity, yet the pop-up mechanisms seem terribly difficult to master?

CB: In many respects, I consider this simple project one of my most successful in terms of design and printing. It was a class assignment and we all had to include a pop-up or moveable element in the French-fold format. I looked at a lot of past student works and other examples of pop-ups in the MFA program's collection and the University of Alabama's Special Collections. The mechanism is quite simple and working with papyrus was fun, and the writing on it is the poem-- Carmen--by Catullus in Latin. It is interesting to me to contrast this 4-page project to the 350+ page biography of Dard Hunter that I was involved in. Page for page, the former was much more difficult to get right, and this difference reinforced the idea that a short work, such as a French-fold or a broadside, needs to be "perfect," and that there is no room for "okay" as there seems to be for a longer work, where mistakes are spread out over more paper and are therefore less noticeable and perhaps more forgivable, though one should always strive for perfection. When the reader can take in a short work in a few seconds, what the creator wants to say must be quickly discernible; there should be no fault in word, design, or printing that catches the eye and diminishes its impact.

GK: How were the papyrus fragments produced, given that aged feel?

CB: I bought two sheets of newly made papyrus from a paper distributor, wrote on it, and cut it into pieces. Any patina that it has acquired in the past decade or so is accidental. Since working at the University of Michigan Library, which has the largest collection of ancient papyri in the Western Hemisphere, I now know what truly aged papyrus looks and feels like. The old has often been buried in the desert for centuries, and it is soft, friable, and a decidedly brown color rather than the honey tone of new papyrus.

Bibliography of The Legacy Press, 1997 through October 2013

The Story of Blue Betsey
Cathleen A. Baker (Tuscaloosa, 1997, edition of 30)

One Curve of Sugar
Jennifer Futernick (Tuscaloosa, 1998, edition of 100)

Carmen 1
Gaius Catullus (Tuscaloosa, 1998, edition of 50)

Endgrain Designs & Repetitions: The Pattern Papers of John DePol
Cathleen A. Baker, John DePol (Tuscaloosa, 2000, edition of 130)

"Dashes for a Typographical Stage" John DePol Keepsake
(Tuscaloosa, 2004, edition of 300)
Offset-printed leaflet featuring a number of wood-engraved dashes cut by DePol (1913-2004), most of which were made for The Typophiles's Benjamin Franklin Keepsakes. The original layout was designed by DePol, who signed 80 copies.

Paper and Threshold: The Paradox of Spiritual Connection in Asian Cultures
Dorothy Field (Ann Arbor, 2007)

John DePol Pattern Papers
(Ann Arbor, 2008)
Ten different DePol-designed pattern endpapers that are available by sheet for fine-press binding work. These designs include "branches," "brush," "bulbous," "curls," "pisces," "shells," "stream," "tooth," "triangle," and "whirl." Having exclusive license to publish DePol pattern papers, The Legacy Press also has an additional thirty-four designs available for special order for edition binding.

Killing Green: An Account of Hand Papermaking in China
Elaine Koretsky (Ann Arbor, 2009)

From the Hand to the Machine. Nineteenth-Century American Paper and Mediums: Technologies, Materials, and Conservation
Cathleen A. Baker (Ann Arbor, 2010)

Books Will Speak Plain: A Handbook for Identifying and Describing Historical Bindings
Julia Miller (Ann Arbor, 2010)

Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking
Aimee Lee (Ann Arbor, 2012)

Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding, Volume I
Julia Miller, ed. (Ann Arbor, 2013)

A Song of Praise for Shifu
Susan J. Byrd (Ann Arbor, October 2013)

Our thanks to Cathy Baker for taking time to answer our questions. Gabe Konrád is the owner of Bay Leaf Used & Rare Books in Newaygo, Michigan. He is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, and the Independent Online Booksellers Association.

Images Courtesy of Gabe Konrád.