Here are the auctions I'll be watching this week:

On Tuesday, April 16, Printed & Manuscript Americana at Swann Galleries, in 356 lots. Among the expected highlights are a manuscript diary written by William Farrar Smith on the Whiting-Smith expedition from San Antonio to El Paso in 1849 ($30,000-40,000); the first edition of an early work by Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Mexico City, 1677; pictured), also estimated at $30,000-40,000; a copy of a 1614 collection of sermons intended to be delivered in Nahuatl, the first complete copy at auction since the Thomas Phillipps copy was sold in 1986 ($20,000-30,000); and the first law book printed in the Americas (Mexico City, 1563), of which no copy has been recorded at auction for more than eighty years ($15,000-25,000). A lot of more than 340 early American almanacs from Jay Snider's collection is estimated at $12,000-18,000; at the same estimate is a copy of the May 6, 1775 issue of the Virginia Gazette, featuring reports from Lexington and Concord, and a 1529 manuscript decree protecting the Mexican estates of Hernán Cortés.

Other very interesting lots from this sale include a broadside "extra" of the Detroit Daily Advertiser, printed at 9 a.m. on the morning of April 15, 1865 announcing the death of President Lincoln ($5,000-7,000); manuscript notes by a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention of the Constitution ($2,000-3,000); and George Brinley's copy of an 1820 Paris auction catalogue of books relating to North America ($2,000-3,000).

Doyle New York holds a sale of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Wednesday, April 17, in 352 lots. Autograph drafts of the epilogue to Hemingway's The Dangerous Summer (1960) could sell for $30,000-60,000 (see Rebecca's post from last week for more on these), and an imperfect copy of the first edition of Redouté's Les Roses (1817-1824) is estimated at $30,000-50,000. A first edition of Jane Austen's Emma in a contemporary binding rates a $30,000-40,000 estimate. A sub-section of this sale, books from the library of a Maine collector, will be highlighted in the next issue of Fine Books & Collections.

At PBA Galleries on Thursday, April 18, a Travel & Exploration - World History - Cartography sale, in 312 lots. A copy of the Paris Atlas Universel (1757-1758) is estimated at $15,000-25,000, while a copy of the 1621 Padua edition of Ptolemy's Geografia, edited by Giovanni Antonio Magini, could fetch $8,000-12,000. A 1612 Ortelius miniature atlas in a contemporary vellum binding is estimated at $5,000-8,000. A group of seventeen photographs related to Shackleton's Nimrod expedition rates a $3,000-5,000 estimate. Lots 277-312 are being sold without reserve.

Image courtesy of Swann Galleries

Each semester, the Houghton Library at Harvard University hosts a series of workshops on letterpress printing. The last one for the spring term happens today from 3 to 5 p.m.

Participants (Harvard affiliates only) experience just how printing got done from the fifteenth century until hot metal typesetting in the nineteenth century rendered movable type commercially obsolete.

Each two-hour session, hosted by Houghton's printing and graphic arts curator Hope Mayo, explores the history and technology of letterpress printing followed by opportunities to set type into the iron handpress and produce a memento of the visit.

Harvard University has employed a printing press since 1638, when the Reverend Joseph Glover had his personal machine and locksmith-turned-printmaster Stephen Daye shipped from England. Daye would eventually print The Bay Psalm Bible in 1640, the first piece of printing to appear in North America. Though an estimated 1,700 copies of Daye's work were printed, only 11 survive today.

The Houghton Printing Room, meanwhile, took shape in 1938 at the direction of Philip Hofer, the founder of Harvard's Printing and Graphic Arts Collection, who set up the handpress, type, and other equipment in the basement of Lamont Library so that students could understand the mechanics behind printing books like The Bay Psalm.

Today's session is full, but the fall semester will bring with it another opportunity to ink up.

One of several thoughts that occurred to me while reading the immensely enjoyable new book Ungovernable: The Victorian Parent's Guide to Raising Flawless Children was that a collection of Victorian parenting guides could be a fun "new path" (as John Carter might have put it) for beginning book collectors. In this book, author Therese Oneill uses a selection of nineteenth-century advice books to describe child-rearing techniques that surprise and shock, e.g. feeding infants donkey milk is good, but fruit is bad; beating a child with a shoe is recommended, but too much education for girls is not. Oneill keeps it light and tongue-in-cheek, a perfect complement to her first book, Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners.

But I digress. Throughout Ungovernable, and then collected in the bibliography at the end, Oneill points out her source material, thus creating a good starter list for a collection in this subject. Here are some she mentions:

John S.C. Abbott's The Mother at Home, or The Principles of Maternal Duty, Familiarly Illustrated (New York: Harper, 1855). (The 1852 edition pictured here courtesy of the Internet Archive.)

Thomas Bull's The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease (New York: Appleton, 1849).

A Few Suggestions to Mothers on the Management of Their Children by "A. Mother" [pseud.] (London: Churchill, 1884).

Theodore Dwight's The Father's Book ... (Boston: Merriam, 1835).

Depending upon condition and edition, these are books that can be found in the three-figure range, ideal for budding collectors.

That said, Oneill's book would make a great Mother's Day gift, even if the mother you're buying it for has no interest at all in book collecting.

 

Our Bright Young Booksellers series continues today with Eric Albritton of Ed's Editions in Columbia, South Carolina:

How did you get started in rare books?

In the summer of 1960, Ernest Hemingway was in Madrid writing an epilogue to a series of articles he had completed for Life magazine on Antonio Ordonez and Luis Miguel Dominguin, the top matadors of the 1959 bullfighting season. The three-part series was titled "The Dangerous Summer" and published in September, 1960. He wrote the epilogue in order to bring "the careers of the two matadors up to date." Less than a year later, Hemingway was dead.

Now three manuscript drafts of that epilogue are headed to auction in New York on April 17, billed as "the final published words of Hemingway," according to the auctioneer. In book form, The Dangerous Summer appeared posthumously in 1985 and is considered Hemingway's final book.

The manuscripts were last seen at auction in 1995, and to quote Doyle's catalogue: "Such manuscripts are extremely rare at auction." In this lot, estimated at $30,000-60,000, the winning bidder will nab not only the three drafts but a signed note recording translations, two telegrams, and the three original issues of Life magazine where "The Dangerous Summer" first ran.

A trio of sales I'll be keeping an eye on this week:

On Wednesday, April 10, Dominic Winter Auctioneers holds a sale of Printed Books & Maps; Travel & Exploration; Geology & Charles Darwin, in 556 lots. A collection of letters from Charles Darwin to his land agent John Higgins rates the top estimate, at £15,000-20,000. Other interesting lots include a complete copy of the Encyclopaedia Londinensis (1810-1829) at £6,000-8,000; a 1636 Mercator Atlas Minor (£5,000-8,000); and a complete run of the Transactions of the Geological Society (1811-1856), estimated at £4,000-6,000. The top estimated fossil is a Tyrannosaurus vertebra, at £1,000-1,500.

Also at Dominic Winter, on Thursday, April 11, Vintage Cameras & Photographs; Autographs, Stamps & Ephemera; Bookbinding Equipment & Accessories, in 457 lots. The first seventy lots here include book presses, binding tools, bookcloth, and paper, some of which comes from the workshops of Derek Starkey and John Frederick Cuthbert MBE, the former senior conservator at the Guildhall Library. But it is the Cottingley Fairies photograph lots that are expected to draw the most attention at this sale. These include an original contact print of "Frances and the Fairy Ring" (£10,000-12,000; pictured) and a set of "copyright" prints of all five of the photographs made around 1920 (£10,000-15,000), all from the collection of Frances Wright's daughter Christine Lynch. An original contact print of "The Fairy Bower" is estimated at £5,000-7,000, and one of "Fairy with a Posy" could fetch £3,000-5,000. 

And on Friday, April 12 at ALDE in Paris, Atlas - Cartes - Livres de Voyages, in 217 lots. Estimated at ??40,000-50,000 is a copy of David Roberts' The Holy Land (1842-1849) in four volumes. Three lots are each estimated at ??15,000-20,000: Jean Houël's Voyage pittoresque des isles de Sicile, de Malte et de Lipari (1782-1787); Richard de Saint-Non's Voyage pittoresque ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile (1781-1786); and Jacques Le Hay's Recueil de cent estampes représentant différentes Nations du Levant (1715).

"Pure praises do not provide a comfortable existence; it is necessary to add something solid, and the best way to praise is to praise with cash-in-hand." (Molière, The Middle Class Gentleman, Act I)

The second catalogue to appear from Librairie Métamorphoses is a tour de force. No surprise, considering that the Parisian firm was founded by Michel Scognamillo, former librarian and confidante to French collector Pierre Bergé, the lifelong business and romantic partner of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

As we countdown to the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing this July, several libraries and museums are setting their sights on lunar topics. 

The Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, is first up with To the Moon: The Science of Apollo, which opened on March 28 and runs through August 30. Works by Galileo, Johannes Hevelius, Robert Hooke, Tobias Mayer, and others will be on view, including the fine paper copy of Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1620; pictured here courtesy of Linda Hall Library) as well as the pirated Frankfurt edition. NASA images, mission reports, technical reports, maps, and other material will round out the exhibition. 

The Houghton Library at Harvard University just announced its exhibition, Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Apollo 11 at Fifty, which will be on view from April 29 to August 3. First editions of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton will be displayed alongside space memorabilia from a private collection that includes artifacts like this silk American flag, carried by Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission, mounted on a special commemorative page signed by Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins in 1969 (Loan, private collection, courtesy of Houghton Library).
 
Later in the season, on July 3, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hosts Apollo's Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography. Featuring 170 images, the exhibition will trace the progress of astronomical photography from newly discovered lunar daguerreotypes from the 1840s to photographs captured during lunar expeditions, such as Neil Armstrong's photograph: Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. Walks on the Surface of the Moon, Apollo 11, July 16-24 1969 (pictured here courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2017). 

Then, on July 14, National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. will unveil By the Light of the Silvery Moon: A Century of Lunar Photographs from the 1850s to Apollo, a select survey of lunar photographs from Warren de la Rue's late 1850s glass stereograph of the full moon to Loewy et Puiseux's 1899 photogravure, Photographie Lunaire Rayonnement de Tycho - Phase Croissante (pictured here courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons' Permanent Fund) to glass stereographs taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin showing close-up views of the lunar surface.

Today our Bright Young Librarians series returns to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville to profile Chris Caldwell:

What is your role at your institution?

I'm the Rare Books and Humanities Librarian at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

How did you get started in special collections?

Indirectly, as a poetry student in San Francisco, prior to my life as a librarian. I spent a lot of time researching and working with poets, learning about poetry culture and underground publishing. Secret Location on the Lower East Side kinds of stuff. I studied the basics of librarianship here at Tennessee in the School of Information Sciences and supplemented heavily with Rare Book School, the Book History Workshop at Texas A&M, Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, and other places. For several years I was the general-duty subject liaison to the Departments of English, Theatre, and the Humanities Center. I occasionally taught with rare materials in that role, but I gradually took on more duties in our special collections department: exhibition curation, collection development, donor relations, etc. From this summer I'll be focusing on rare books almost exclusively. 

Favorite rare book / ephemera that you've handled?

"The last item I handled" is always a safe answer. This morning it is the four issues of Thomas Merton's cheaply produced little magazine Monks Pond, from 1968. This afternoon it will probably be an artist's book that I'm expecting to receive today from a Tennessee creator. Or maybe the 16th century Spanish psalter in manuscript that I'd like to pull for a visiting researcher. I'm very fond of our signed copy of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), which I helped bring to the collection. The role of rare books librarian is wonderfully varied and indulgent.

What do you personally collect?

In my San Francisco years it was poetry chapbooks, but in recent years I'm fond of pre-WWII travel and culture guides to Japan. I've slowed down though, as I get the luxury of collection-building at work. I also like Japanese incense, and feel confident that I have more varieties than anyone by many miles. I like the ephemerality of it.

What do you like to do outside of work?

Family time, mostly. Six times a year I get into the Grand Sumo Tournament from Japan. It's been far too long, but I do enjoy papermaking and working with my small tabletop printing press (Watson's Young America).

What excites you about special collections librarianship?

The visceral "a-ha" moments of students and researchers, followed by a gradual, deeper awareness of how all of this rare materials business fits together in our troubled, wonderful world. That's what keeps us coming in to work, I think. And limited time, staffing, space, and money aside, there are seemingly endless permutations of what one might try pedagogically and outreach-wise. And the free exchange of information with social media, and such, is as refreshing as it is overwhelming. It is heartening to see more early career librarians-in-the-making show an interest in rare materials. There's no shortage of jobs for them if the profession can get the universe in balance staffing-wise and budget-wise, and that is going to take a lot of self-advocacy. There is a lot to be excited about, and much more work to be done, so the joys are greatly valued on this rocky road.

Thoughts on the future of special collections librarianship?

It's still a struggle, at times, to break from the old habits and perceptions, silos, standoffishness. To reach our full potential with accessibility and diverse collections we seriously need to increase staffing and think more creatively about curation and outreach. We have a great, and growing, team and we need all the help we can get to keep up with the demands of researchers and students. This is on top of the usual demands to prove our value to the academic community, etc. We see hundreds of students a year and I feel like we cultivate a strong open-door policy with programming, but I still encounter people who are not sure that we are open to them. I'm pushing for more neon arrows to guide people in. The wish for "more" may be a bit of a pipe dream, but enhanced resources would definitely help us to be more proactive than reactive, and hopefully actualize a wiser, more philosophical approach to what we do. But, at this point, how on earth could we increase traffic and happily serve everyone? It's an interesting tension, and one that we need to talk about more efficiently to remedy, I think.

Any unusual or interesting collection at your library you'd like to draw our attention to?

We've not had the luxury of a dedicated rare book librarian in a number of years, so I'm hoping to make plain more of the currents in our rare book collections. We get a lot of wonderful mileage out of the collections that you might expect: Great Smoky Mountains Regional Collection, Cherokee material, Civil War, Tennessee authors, for example. But we also have some wonderful 19th century Victorian material that we received from Patricia Cornwell, an impressive civil rights collection in book and manuscript, a growing collection of artists' books, a great array of medieval facsimiles, and fascinating material on moonshine, witchcraft, and other areas. With more time to focus on rare books, my hope is to promote these more efficiently in the coming days.

Any upcoming exhibitions at your library?

We've recently upgraded our reading room, instruction space, and exhibition space, so we usually have four or five themes on exhibition at once. We take turns curating and my next large exhibition will be in spring of next year, focusing, broadly, on theatre. I'm planning to highlight our John C. Hodges Collection of William Congreve materials from the 17thcentury and the decades of award-winning production work by our Clarence Brown Theatre, especially from the design teams. Imminently, we have our second installment of the Boundless: Artists in the Archives performance, which gets creatives in to special collections to generate original work based on our material. We always have something interesting on, and we work convivially in the dash to get things launched. That sense of camaraderie in the workplace makes a tremendous difference.

[Photo Credit: Chris Caldwell]

Few names bestir the hearts of book collectors and die-hard bibliophiles as much as Shakespeare and Gutenberg. Two new non-fiction books adroitly capitalize on that fact, adding the element of suspense to their narratives. Both are riveting reads, but let's peel back the covers just a bit.

On the heels of his book, The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, published in the U.S. last spring, Stuart Kells now offers Shakespeare's Library: Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature (Counterpoint, $26). In short, the "mystery" is where did Shakespeare's book collection go? Did he own books, and if so, why have we never discovered them? These are questions that sting in the realm of rare books because it's hard to imagine a literary lion without at least one bookcase of coveted titles, and yet none have ever been found containing any evidence of ownership that connects them to the famous poet and playwright -- at least not with any degree of certainty; let's not forget that two antiquarian booksellers announced in 2014 their discovery of a sixteenth-century dictionary that they believe Shakespeare annotated, which Kells touches upon but too slightly.

Locating Shakespeare's missing library is both a personal quest for Kells and his wife, Fiona, and an academic one, and Kells is our congenial tour guide throughout, visiting the various book hunters who have tried and failed to get ahold of the Bard's books. One of the interesting, if unconvincing, theories put forth is that Shakespeare was not such a genius after all. "Versifier, vitalizer, even vulgarizer, he took prior content and made it sing...He acquired, adapted, appropriated, converted, revised, synthesized, improved, borrowed, copied, co-opted, re-used, re-worked, re-packaged, stole." So the Bard was a re-blogger who used up material and spit it out, hardly holding on to the sources long enough to build a personal library.

While The Library sometimes felt wayward in places, Shakespeare's Library ably carries its narrative start to finish. It is sharp and enjoyable.