Emily Dickinson would have been 185 on December 10, and institutions across America have been marking the occasion with various public programs and, of course, poetry readings. But the Emily Dickinson Museum, located in the poet's Amherst, Massachusetts home, takes the cake.


Emily Dickinson. Daguerreotype. ca. 1847 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. (Amherst College Archives & Special Collections)

This year, the museum is holding off on the festivities until December 12 (tomorrow), when the general public is invited to fête the "Belle of Amherst" and tour the recently completed renovation of Dickinson's bedroom. Restoration began in 2013 of the second floor retreat where the poet often found solace and creative inspiration. Cheery, rose-patterned wallpaper that now graces the room is based on original paper fragments found on the property. "Before the restoration, the room was rather stark--white walls, spare furnishings," said Brooke Steinhauser, the museum's program director. "Now, visitors are surprised at the loveliness of the space. I think it changes people's perspective." Boston's North Bennet Street School, a private vocational institution with one of the top woodworking programs in America, sent students Caleb Schultz and Boyd Allen to create exact replicas of Dickinson's writing stand and bureau. The originals are housed in the Emily Dickinson collection at Harvard's Houghton Library. (The Houghton Library blog ran a fascinating story on getting the reproductions just right, which you can read here.)


The Homestead. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Birthday guests are welcome to tour the entire Homestead (as the museum is also known), listen to contemporary poets read their own work composed in Dickinson's bedroom, and even contribute to a "crowd-sourced poem" in honor of the day. No celebration would be complete without cake, and the museum will serve a coconut confection baked according to Dickinson's own handwritten recipe and provided by Amherst's Henion Bakery.

Emily Dickinson's 185th birthday celebration takes place tomorrow, December 12, at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 1 to 4pm. The event is free and open to the general public. For further information, including directions and a list of poets participating the ceremony, visit https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/birthday15

Coming to auction next week is a two-page letter written in December 1836 by a young Abraham Lincoln to Mary S. Owens, the woman some call his first fiancée. It is estimated to sell for $500,000-700,000.

Rumors have long circulated that Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd was unhappy at best, and none of his courtship correspondence to her survives. Nor do letters to Ann Rutledge, another inamorata suggested by Lincoln's biographers. His feelings for Mary Owens, however, are well documented, if not always clear. He met her in New Salem, Illinois, in 1833 when she was visiting her sister. Three years later, during another visit, their relationship was rekindled (strongly encouraged by Owens' sister). Like Lincoln, Owens was a Kentucky native and, by all accounts, quite the intellectual. Soon there was talk of marriage (some historians believe it was all a misunderstanding), and when Lincoln left for the opening session of the new state legislature, he wrote to Owens:

"I have been sick ever since my arrival here, or I should have written sooner. It is but little difference, however, as I have very little even yet to write. And more, the longer I can avoid the mortification of looking in the Post Office for your letter and not finding it, the better. You see I am mad about that old letter yet. I dont like very well to risk you again. I'll try you once more any how."

Then, after discussing politics (in detail), Lincoln concluded:

"Write back as soon as you get this, and if possible say something that will please me for really I have not [been] pleased since I left you. This letter is so dry and [stupid] that I am ashamed to send it, but with my present feelings I can not do any better."

It is not only the earliest of Lincoln's three known letters to Owens, but the only one remaining in private hands, according to Sotheby's. It has remained in the family since Owens died in 1877. The second letter was sold at auction to collector Malcolm Forbes in 1987 and then, in 2002, it was auctioned once again for $779,500 to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History at the New-York Historical Society. The third was given to the Library of Congress.

Image via Sotheby's.

We're happy to share some good news: the Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University has acquired the archives of author, literary critic, and longtime FB&C columnist Nicholas Basbanes, as well as a significant portion of his personal library. In a statement released yesterday, Dr. Francesca Marini, director of Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, said, "We are extremely honored to become the repository for Mr. Basbanes' collection. Throughout the years, his passion for book culture and his advocacy have been very important to institutions that house rare books and special collections." Pictured above are Kevin O'Sullivan, curator of rare books at the Cushing Library, and Nick Basbanes as they cleared the shelves and filled 345 boxes just before Thanksgiving. 

In addition to the research materials related to the writing of his own nine books, the acquisition also counts approximately 800 books inscribed to Basbanes over the course of his career--by the likes of Annie Dillard, John Updike, Joseph Heller, Margaret Atwood, etc. Before focusing on book writing, Basbanes was the book review editor for the Worcester Sunday Telegram and a nationally syndicated literary columnist. There are also a number of literary "firsts" collections, including that of Tennessee Williams, James Agee, William Styron, Toni Morrison, and E. L. Doctorow.

Basbanes has had a longstanding relationship with Texas A&M University Libraries, most recently serving as the guest lecturer for the opening of the Cushing's Hand to Hand exhibition in February. He wrote about A&M as a "major new player in the world of special collections" in FB&C back in 2009, and he plans to devote his spring 2016 column to the experience of documenting and packing his collections.

Image Courtesy of Nick Basbanes. 

The Ernest Hemingway biopic, Papa, which premiered in Boston in November, debuted at the Havana Film Festival this past weekend. Based on an autobiographical script written by Denne Bart Petitclerc, Papa stars Giovanni Ribisi as a journalist who travels to Cuba in the 1950s to meet the writer he idolizes, who is played by Adrian Sparks. Their budding friendship is set against the revolution that is beginning to unsettle the country.   

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Papa is the first Hollywood feature to film on location in Cuba since the 1959 coup. Scenes were shot in Hemingway's home Finca Vigia and other Hemingway hangouts including La Floridita restaurant and Ambos Mundos Hotel. "It was an absolute passion to actually make it in Cuba where everything that is in the script happened, where the finca (farm) is where (Hemingway) lived, where his boat was, all the spots from the Morro castle to Cojimar where he fished," director Bob Yari said.

If those places sound familiar to FB&C readers, it's because we too traveled to "Hemingway's Havana," back in our winter 2015 issue.

Image via IMDb.

As anyone who has read or seen Les Misérables will know, a country's poor are roughly treated and greatly in need of the charity of fellow citizens. Jean Valjean, the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, served a long prison sentence for stealing bread to feed his hungry family. He is changed not by serving time but by the kindness of a bishop who overlooks another theft, which gives Valjean both hope and enough money to amend his life.  

Like Dickens, Hugo was a defender of the destitute. In his last will and testament, he wrote, "I leave 50,000 francs to the poor. I want to be buried in their hearse. I refuse [funeral] orations of all churches. I beg a prayer to all souls."

Elsewhere, on little slips of paper, he petitioned others to be charitable too, writing, "Kindly give 100 francs to the poor of your country," and signing his name. One of these mini-messages, seen here at left, is now being offered for sale by the Raab Collection in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Deaccessioned from a US institution, this autographed manuscript has never before exchanged hands, according to Raab. And, "Although Hugo must have written this sentiment other times, our research discloses just one other ever having reached the market." The price is $3,000.

Image Courtesy of the Raab Collection. 

It's catnip for many bibliophiles: two novels set in a bookstore and featuring cute kitties. Jenny Kalahar is a bookseller and the author of Shelve Under C: A Tale of Used Books and Cats and its sequel, The Find of a Lifetime, from her Turning Pages series. We asked her about her inspiration, her pets, and what she's working on next. 

RRB: I imagine you get a lot of inspiration from your everyday bookselling experiences. How long have you and your husband been booksellers? Do you have a specialty?

JK: Our used bookshops, the customers, and the cats we've fostered have certainly been inspirations for my novels, stories, and poetry. Even though we've never had our own young apprentice--as Kris is in my novels--I based that character's mentoring on the guidance my husband has given me over the years. Patrick opened his first used bookstore at age eighteen, and I met him when he was setting up The Story Shop following his military career. We owned a used & rare bookshop in Michigan and one in Ohio before moving to Indiana where we now sell online from our old schoolhouse home. I've been buying, selling and collecting with him since 1989. Patrick does skillful book restorations, and I handle the online orders and listing. We have a broad selection for sale, with children's fiction, modern literature, music, and theology taking up a large portion of our bookshelves.  

RRB: I guess it goes without saying that you have resident 'bookshop cats'?!

JK: When we had our shop in Ohio, we fostered a few cats at a time from our local shelter and found great homes for more than fifty over the years. Here in Indiana we have seven wonderful cats and a terrific terrier, Weegee.

RRB: How and when did you decide to write a story about them?

JK: Shelve Under C: A Tale of Used Books and Cats began life as a story for very young readers about seventeen years ago. I put it aside and forgot about it, but then uncovered it again a few years ago. It was only about six pages long, but I liked it enough it to write more and more, adding a foster child, Kris, who loves old books and wants to learn from the shop's owners. I first published it in 2012, but then revised and expanded it the next year. My main motivation for writing the novel is the fact that when we fostered cats, and when other businesses in Athens, Ohio, fostered cats and dogs, the local shelter was able to remain nearly kill-free. The business that took over our building still fosters cats. I want to promote the idea of small, un-busy shops as fostering sites, and I want to encourage kids to have a love of reading, book collecting and selling, and book restoration. My novels take a close look at the real daily life of a shop, all told with humor and heart, cat antics and the doings of customers and neighbors as seen from inside a used and rare bookshop.

RRB: Your reviews on Amazon are terrific. Is that what encouraged you to write a second in the series?

JK: Yes, of course! And the reviews are the reason I didn't publish the first sequel I had written. I had veered away from the bookshop and from the core characters, and away from the cats. When I re-read the reviews, I knew that the book I had written as a sequel wasn't what readers would enjoy. Now that The Find of a Lifetime is published, I'm glad that I went back to the bookshop. Bookselling, book-hunting, flea markets, the cats, and even a very rare book find add to the story of the fostered cats and small college town drama and humor. The characters from the first book are fleshed out, and Kris, the apprentice, has an even larger role, learning more about collecting and restoration.

RRB: As an author (and a bookseller) with an obvious interest and love of the book as a physical object, how do you feel about the fact that your books are e-books?

JK: All three of my books are available in softcover and e-book editions. I feel very much that nearly any reading is good reading. Comic books, song lyrics, cereal boxes, and now e-books can all be pathways toward an appreciation of books printed on paper. Or vellum. At first, Shelve Under C was only available as an e-book. If the reviews were awful, I knew I could click my mouse and make it disappear. There's such a timelessness to physical books that it can intimidate an author. The first edition of the first book contains real errors that make me cringe (even the subtitle was wrong!). I don't know if the era of the electronic book will continue to dominate the world of the reader or if hardcovers and softcovers will find more love again, especially with younger readers. But I do believe that collectors will always treasure books that can be held by hand while reading, hugged when finished, and admired on a shelf for a lifetime.

RRB: What are you working on now? Will you continue the series?

JK: I'm writing my fourth book now, a young adult fantasy novel of a peculiar sort that is set in Indiana. And I have a good start on the third in the Turning Pages series, which picks up just a few days after the end of The Find of a Lifetime. I've also started writing a fourth in that series set in the 1980s as a prequel. I would like to find a traditional publisher for the fantasy. A second collection of my nostalgic, fun and unusual poetry--A follow-up to One Mile North of Normal--may be ready next year. An audiobook of Shelve Under C is in production, narrated by actress Beth Bostic. It will be available in January.

Images Courtesy of Jenny Kalahar.