In 1859, the Pennsylvania-born Dr. James Curtis Hepburn went to Japan as a medical missionary. He returned a lexicographer.

No stranger to foreign travel, Hepburn had already spent five years as missionary in Singapore and China. He also tried a medical practice in New York City for several years, but ultimately lived in Japan for 25 years, where he established a clinic and a school in Yokohama. Aside from these achievements, Hepburn also created, in 1867, the first modern Japanese-English dictionary. The dictionary took him nearly eight years to complete, with the assistance of Japanese journalist and scholar Kishida Gink?. It became the standard bilingual reference book, and Hepburn's name became attached to the system of romanization he pioneered in the dictionary. What linguists call the "Hepburn romanization" is still regarded as the best system for the transcription of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet.

A first edition of his historic dictionary, in its original cloth binding, will be on offer this Saturday at the Boston Book, Print & Ephemera Show from Archway Books. The price is $3,750.

Image Courtesy of Archway Books. 

It's here: Rare Book Week Boston. So all week on the blog we'll be highlighting items from the book fairs, auction, or events going on this week and weekend.

For today's installment, we take a page from our fall issue feature on collecting cookbooks and highlight the manuscript recipe book of actress and author Fanny Kemble. It will be on offer from Rabelais Books at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair beginning Friday evening.

Kemble (1809-1893) was a very popular English-born stage actress. She married American Pierce Butler in 1834, and they subsequently moved to his Georgia plantation and had two children. But the marriage didn't last, due in large part to their differing views about slavery. Kemble's Journal of A Residence on A Georgian Plantation, a raw chronicle of plantation life written during her early married years, was published in 1863.   

This recipe book was compiled in Kemble's later years, when she was living in Philadelphia. The clothbound "blank book" was published in 1870, and it contains 146 recipes written mostly in Kemble's hand, for dishes like "Maryland Corn Cakes," "Moonshine Biscuits," and "Calves Feet Jelly." There is also a laid-in, recipe-related letter from Kemble to her eldest daughter, Sarah Butler Wister (wife of Dr. Owen Jones Wister, and mother of novelist Owen Wister).

As an artifact of culinary, literary, or women's history, this item is very special. The price is $25,000.

Image Courtesy of Rabelais Books.

A young printmaker in the RAD workshop (Photo courtesy of RAW Art and Grace Whitlock.)

Funding for children's art programs has been on a well-documented decline for years now, but private and nonprofit programs remain bright beacons in the dark, offering hands-on programs that foster creativity and self-expression to those in greatest need. One such enterprise, RAW Art Works, located in the former industrial city of Lynn, Massachusetts, has used art to bring stability and opportunity to the community for over a quarter-century. When RAW first opened its doors in 1988, the staff worked primarily with incarcerated minors, harnessing the healing power of art as a kind of catharsis. Now the nonprofit encompasses two buildings in the heart of downtown Lynn, and welcomes over 1,200 children a year, ranging in age from seven to seventeen.
 
In 2013, executive director Kit Jenkins spoke with donors about how to celebrate RAW's 25th anniversary. "We focused on what our community needed from us," said Jenkins earlier this week. "I mentioned this to [proprietors of Boston-based Bromer Bookssellers] Anne and David Bromer, longstanding donors to our program, and Anne wondered how I felt about a letterpress. I hadn't thought of it before, but it was a perfect suggestion." At its core, RAW is art therapy, and in recent years the mission added a spoken word component to the lineup. "We saw this overwhelming need for better, clearer verbal expression," Jenkins continued. "These kids spend so much time texting that it negatively impacts their writing patterns, so we developed the Art of Words program where children incorporate writing into their art installations and film projects."


Working together yields great results. (Photo courtesy of RAW Art and Grace Whitlock.)

Storytelling is indeed at the heart of any artistic endeavor, and the writing component elevates the entire program at RAW. Incorporating a letterpress sounded great, but tipping the scales at over 1,000 pounds, these machines aren't exactly portable, and RAW didn't have enough space at the time. However, in a moment of total serendipity, the organization acquired the building adjacent to its original location, which included a fully-finished 2,000 square foot basement. "We set the print shop down there," Jenkins said. Now, in addition to all the necessary printing accoutrements, the shop houses two fully-functional Vandercook presses, one hailing from a Maine establishment, and the other from Western Massachusetts.

Setting up the print shop was a collaborative effort. John Kristensen of Boston-based Firefly Press  orchestrated the sourcing and installation of the presses, while the Bromers funded the project. "Anne and David are totally committed to RAW," said Jenkins. "We are so grateful to them and that their vision is having such an impact in the lives of these children." As a way of saying thanks, Jenkins and the RAW team christened the new printshop RAD --  Raw+Anne+David -- and kept the name secret until the ribbon-cutting ceremony last November.

Since then, almost 350 of the six hundred children enrolled in RAW programs have taken a turn at the presses. "Most kids love it, others hate it, but that's normal," said Jenkins, who was also named Distinguished Educator of the Year by Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2008. "Printing broadsides, setting type, all that goes into letterpress printing requires patience, focus, and order, and some of our kids are impatient for results! Many, however, find the structured aspect of printing to be immensely therapeutic, because the printshop is the only place where there is structure and order in their lives." Now, when film students or painters want to promote their work, they drop by the print shop and commission broadsides custom-designed by fellow students.

Most of the children in these programs are from Lynn and surrounding environs, places where high crime rates and poverty pose significant roadblocks in their lives. Jenkins says RAWs overarching mission is helping children see beyond their immediate surroundings, that change is possible, and can be found in the arts. "We had a family that was displaced during the recession, and at night they slept in their car in our parking lot. It was the only place they felt safe. These families know that RAW is committed to them, that we're not going anywhere, and that we are here to help." Participants pay nothing for the programs, and Jenkins hopes that donors like the Bromers will continue generously supporting their work. "RAW affects change in children, but we're also changing the community," concluded Jenkins, "and our new print shop is encouraging these children to forge better, brighter futures." That's a big impression.

A handwritten manuscript written and signed by Abraham Lincoln for a 10-year-old boy sold for $2.2 million at Heritage Auctions on Wednesday. The sale price blew through its original $1-million estimate.

In our current issue's "On the Block" column, we aim our spotlight on the collection of Hollywood dialect coach Robert Easton, who died in 2011. Easton was a voracious collector, particularly of books related to language and dialect. Part of his massive collection was sold in July of this year, and the second sale commences this Saturday in Macon, Georgia. One of the major highlights is an incunable--a book printed with moveable type before 1501. This one was actually printed in 1475, in Basel. It is Speculum sapiencie beati Cirilli episcopi..., a medieval book of Latin prose fables by Cyrillus. What makes this edition special, other than the lovely, hand-painted historiated initial seen here, is the fact that no other copy has been recorded at auction since 1933. This one was formerly owned by book collector and American military attaché to the UN, Victor De Guinzbourg, before his widow sold it to Easton. The estimate is $5,000-7,000.  

Image: Speculum sapiencie (1475) bound in twentieth-century vellum. Courtesy of Addison & Sarova. 

Sacré bleu! This first American edition of Moby Dick was owned by Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, who died in Paris in 1971 at the age of 27. The book was reportedly removed from the apartment he shared with his long-term girlfriend Pamela Courson after his death. It has since remained with the Courson family. According to Morrison's biographers, the famous vocalist was an avid reader.  

Sadly lacking Morrison's signature or other sign of his ownership, the book does come with a notarized affidavit relating its rock-and-roll provenance. That may not be enough for many book collectors; indeed the book was already offered at auction earlier this year in New York for an estimated $25,000, but it failed to sell.

Any one of Morrison's legion of fans, however, might be inspired to bid when it goes back on the block at Bloomsbury Auctions in London on November 12, estimated at £7,000-10,000 ($11,000-15,000).

H/T to bookseller Simon Beattie for bringing this to our attention.

Image via Bloomsbury Auctions. 

Coming to auction later this month at Doyle New York is a remarkable collection of designs, sketches, and fabric swatches that reveals the emergence of "The Jackie Look," referring, of course, to the fashionable former first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. It includes, for example, three large-format color drawings of evening gowns--the cream dress she wore on the September 1st, 1961 cover of Life magazine, the pink gown worn at a dinner during a state visit to Canada in February 1961, and the yellow suit and pillbox hat worn during an official state luncheon with French President Charles De Gaulle--each bearing annotations from Mrs. Kennedy, such as "Make sure skirt is not too slinky." 

This unpublished archive was created by Irwin Karabell, assistant and sketch artist to designer Oleg Cassini, for much of the sixties. In 1960, Cassini was named Mrs. Kennedy's official wardrobe designer. He is credited with making A-line dresses, pillbox hats, and Nehru jackets fashionable.

Portions of the archive were exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute's landmark 2001 exhibition, Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years. And now, it is for sale, estimated at $10,000-15,000.