Another whopper of an auction week, as the next round of Aristophil material goes under the hammer.

Sotheby's Dada Data: Books and Boîtes by Marcel Duchamp and Others sale ends on Monday, November 16. The first twenty-eight lots are from the collection of Chilean collector Carlos Alberto Cruz; they include a copy of Duchamps "Box in a Valise" from Series F (1966), the last series issued during Duchamp's lifetime. It is estimated at $150,000–200,000. An out-of-series deluxe copy of Hugnet and Duchamp's La Septième Face du Dé (1936) could sell for $40,000–60,000.

This tranche of Aristophil sales begins on Tuesday, November 17 at Aguttes with a sale of Littérature: Boris Vian et les Maudits (Aristophil 33), in 230 lots. The manuscript of Alfred de Vigny's Les Consultations du Docteur Noir rates the top estimate, at €100,000–150,000. An autograph poem by Rimbaud could sell for €80,000–120,000. The autograph manuscript of Céline's Rigodon and a volume of autograph poems by Paul Verlaine are each estimated at €80,000–100,000.

Also on Tuesday, Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History at Sotheby's London, in 200 lots. A first edition of Description de l'Égypte (1809–1822), in twenty volumes, could fetch £150,000–200,000, while a hand-colored subscriber's copy of Roberts' Holy Land (1842–1849) is estimated at £80,000–120,000. A five-volume set of the Blaeu Theatrum orbis terrarum (1640–1654), in a contemporary Dutch gilt vellum binding, could sell for £50,000–60,000, and a subscriber's copy of T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926) is estimated at £40,000–60,000.

At Swann Galleries on Tuesday, 299 lots of Fine Books & Manuscripts at Swann Galleries. Sharing the top estimate of $30,000–40,000 are a first edition of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811) and a first state copy of Charles Dickens' American Notes, inscribed by Dickens to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

Artcurial holds the next two Aristophil sales on Wednesday, November 18: Histoire Postale: Guerre de 1870–1871 & Aviation (Aristophil 34) and Littérature: Fonds Romain Gary & Littérature du XVIIe au XXe Siècle (Aristophil 35). A collection of plans and documents relating to the construction of Lindbergh's plane "The Spirit of St. Louis" is expected to sell for as much as €200,000–300,000, and estimated at €75,000–100,000 each are a partial manuscript of Saint-Exupéry's Pilote de guerre and a volume of fifty-one original drawings by Saint-Exupéry. In the second sale, two lots share an estimate of €60,000–80,000: a draft manuscript of Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince and the autograph manuscript of Flaubert's Louis XI.

Forum Auctions will sell 299 lots of Selected Books from Rugby School Library on Wednesday. These include a Shakespeare Fourth Folio (1685), estimated at £30,000–50,000; an incomplete Second Folio (1632), which could fetch £20,000–30,000; and another copy of the Second Folio, described as "substantially defective and rather grubby" (£10,000–15,000). A 1468 Sweynheym and Pannartz Lactantius, the second book printed in Rome, with early Cyprus provenance, could sell for £10,000–15,000.

On Thursday, November 19, Druout sells Livres, Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes (Aristophil 36), in 221 lots. An album of autographs, documents, and original drawings of French Revolutionary figures extra-illustrating a copy of the 1830 reissue of Pierre-Nicholas Coste D'Arnobat's Notes sur les hommes de la Revolution could sell for €200,000–300,000. Many items of interest to the Napoleon collector will be up for grabs in this one.

Aguttes sells Histoire (Aristophil 37) on Thursday, in 267 lots. Much more Napoleon-related material here.

At Forum Auctions on Thursday, Fine Books, Manuscripts, and Works on Paper, in 447 lots. Albert Sangorski's 1916 illuminated manuscript of Spenser's Una and the Redcross Knight, in a Rivière & Son binding, could lead the way at £20,000–25,000, and there are a few other Sangorski manuscripts and jewelled bindings. This sale also includes some interesting lots for the railway collector.

The Heritage Auctions Comics and Comic Art sale runs from 19–22 November, and includes 1,799 lots. As of Sunday morning, a copy of Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), featuring the first appearance of Batman, had already been bid up to $912,500. The auction house describes this copy as the best one to come up for sale in a decade.

Rounding out Thursday's sales will be 222 lots of Rare Books & Manuscripts at PBA Galleries. Rating the top estimate there is a 1495 Salamanca edition of Antonio de Nebrija's Introductiones latinae, cum commento, estimated at $10,000–15,000.

There will be two more Aristophil sales on Friday, November 20, both of music-related items: Musique (Aristophil 38) at Ader and Musique (Aristophil 39) at Aguttes. The first includes 137 lots, including the manuscript of the first version of a scene from the last act of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (€300,000–350,000) and a fragment from a Bach cantata (€100,000–120,000). The Aguttes sale of 220 lots includes an unpublished Bizet manuscript of his orchestration for the opera David Rizzio (estimated at €40,000–50,000).

On Saturday, November 21, Addison & Sarova will sell Rare Books & Ephemera, in 244 lots.

Rounding out the Aristophil sales is a 158-lot auction of Histoire Postale: Guerre de 1870–1871 (Aristophil 40) at Aguttes on Tuesday, November 24. A collection of fifteen letters sent out from the Siege of Paris in the diplomatic bags of the American ambassador rates the top estimate, at €70,000–80,000.

In honor of the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, which is being held virtually today and tomorrow, we’re taking a wistful look back at last year’s fair via Lux Mentis Booksellers, which always does a quick video tour of its book fair highlights.

Don’t miss out on the free virtual book fair events this weekend — listed & linked here.

Arts funding in the UK has had a torrid time over the last decade and the coronavirus-related lockdowns (the second came into force earlier this month) are driving many organizations to the point of collapse. Among those aiming to safeguard its future is London's St. Bride Library (which we featured back in summer 2017 in A.N. Devers' "Lost Libraries of London"). Just off the country’s former newspaper hub in Fleet Street, St. Bride celebrates its 125th anniversary on November 20 and has set up a crowdfunding campaign to ensure its continued existence.

Originally a library for the surrounding printing and publishing industry, it has a huge collection of print-related books, collections (including Edward Johnston’s designs for the London Underground), as well as physical artifacts such as woodblocks, punches, and of course an incredible amount of type.

The danger to St. Bride is very real – it closed in the summer of 2015 because of funding problems but happily reopened later that year and since then has built up an impressive reputation for talks, exhibitions, and performances/concerts in the theatre housed in its atmospheric Grade II buildings. Though it does have permanent staff, St. Bride relies on a team of dedicated volunteers. It currently has around 65,000 visitors a year but receives no core funding from the government, relying instead for 90 percent of its income from venue hire, and the rest from fundraising.

It also offers regular letterpress courses which have become hugely popular. I took one of them a couple of years ago and enjoyed it immensely. It inspired me to buy my own small printing press (an 8 x 5 Adana) and start producing my own printed material after 50 years of enjoying other people’s.

Funds from the campaign will go towards the upkeep of the library as well as special events and projects over the anniversary year, including the digitization of its collections which would improve access to its holdings for an international audience.

More details at the crowdfunding page at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/st-bride-library-125th-anniversary

Page Mill Press of San Francisco will be publishing a trade edition of Barry Moser's illustrated Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the first of three autobiographies written in 1845 by the escaped slave turned orator. Launched in 2019 by former HarperCollins editor Roy M. Carlisle, the publishing house focuses on "transpersonal studies through innovative research to tackle the most challenging contemporary issues of modern living and global concerns." The firm's first slate of books, including Moser's, are currently in production.

More than 170 fabric and textile sample books, mostly French, spanning the early nineteenth century through the 1940s, head to auction at Tennants in North Yorkshire, England, next week. The current owner amassed them over three decades, using them for reference and inspiration. According to the auctioneer, “The collection charts the history of design, fashion and the European textile industry through a period of extraordinary growth and change.”

And I thought last week was busy! It's a veritable deluge of sales this week:

On Wednesday and Thursday, 11–12 November, Dominic Winter Auctioneers will sell 600 lots of Printed Books, Maps & Autographs, Lord Nelson, Scottish Topography, The David Smith Print Collection. Rating the top estimate at £8,000–10,000 is a March 13, 1939 letter from Edward, Duke of Windsor to the newspaper editor Lord Beaverbrook, quibbling about recent coverage of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The 1605 edition of Plotemy's Geographiae published at Amsterdam by Claesz and Hondius could sell for £5,000–8,000, and a November, 1797 Horatio Nelson letter to the mayor of Norwich is estimated at £4,000–6,000. A good variety of interesting items throughout this sale.

Also ending on Wednesday, the James Bond: A Collection of Books and Manuscripts, The Property of a Gentleman at Sotheby's London. Rebecca Rego Barry has covered this one for CrimeReads, so do have a look at her post over there.

The last of Wednesday's sales is at University Archives: Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books, in 289 lots. An 11x14" signed and inscribed photograph of Marilyn Monroe is estimated at $20,000–25,000, while an October, 1796 George Washington letter could sell for $13,000–14,000. A 1786 Pennsylvania land grant signed by Benjamin Franklin is estimated at $8,000–9,000. If you're interested in beginning a collection of books signed by Richard Nixon, you can pick up 37 in one go in this sale: they're estimated at $3,000–5,000.

Thursday, November 12 is going to be a markedly busy day in the salerooms:

ALDE will sell Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes, in 204 lots. 

At Freeman's, Books and Manuscripts, in 230 lots. A late fifteenth-century Book of Hours, use of Rouen, later owned by Charles X of France, is estimated at $40,000–60,000. A copy of the 37-volume Definitive Edition of the works of Mark Twain could sell for $15,000–25,000, while the Centenary Limited Edition of Churchill's works, in 38 volumes, may fetch $8,000–12,000. The same estimate has been assigned to an unsophisticated first issue of A Christmas Carol and the Golden Cockerel Four Gospels.

Skinner's annual Fine Books & Manuscripts sale also ends on Thursday; the 463 lots include Edward Steichen's personal set of the first fifty volumes of Camera Work (1903–1917), deaccessioned from the John Teti Rare Photography Book Collection at the New Hampshire Institute of Art (estimated at $250,000–350,000). From the same collection come the first six volumes of Stieglitz's Camera Notes ($15,000–20,000), and various other photographic publications. Fifteen volumes of Jane Austen's works from the library of Mary Orne Bowditch could sell for $20,000–30,000.

At Heritage Auctions on Thursday, Historical Manuscripts Signature Auction, in 617 lots. A short Beethoven manuscript letter has an opening bid of $30,000, while a 1670 Robert Hooke manuscript written in his capacity as a surveyor after the Great Fire of London starts at $25,000. A copy of the October 9, 1989 issue of Fortune inscribed by Steve Jobs opens at $21,000.

Another of Thursday's sales is the PBA Galleries auction of Vintage Photography, with Books and Monographs, in 441 lots. This sale includes monographs and periodicals, cased and paper prints, albums, portfolios, &c.

On Thursday and Friday, November 12–13, Hindman Auctions sells Fine Books and Manuscripts, in 476 lots. A copy of Audubon's Birds in octavo is estimated at $25,000–35,000, while a first edition in English of Machiavelli's The Prince (London, 1640) rates the same estimate. A limited edition of Paul Éluard's Un poeme dans chaque livre (Paris, 1956), in a fine binding by Pierre-Lucien Martin, could sell for $20,000–30,000, as could a first edition of John Filson's Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke, the first book on Kentucky and the first biography of Daniel Boone. There is also a huge range of Goreyana to be had in this sale.

Round out the week, Livres & Manuscrits at Tessier & Sarrou on Friday, November 13, in 383 lots. 

Forget politics and spend 25 minutes looking at beautiful old books at one of England's oldest schools. From medieval manuscripts to contemporary artists’ books, the Fellows’ Library at Winchester College contains more than 10,000 rare books, including an Ulm Ptolemy and John Eliot's "Indian Bible."

A team of cataloguers, curators, conservators, and imaging specialists at the British Library (BL) has completed a seven-year project to digitize a collection of early maps from its Topographical Collection of King George III, aka “K. Top.”

The K. Top collection encompasses 300+ years, spanning 1500 to 1824, of printed and hand-drawn maps, architectural drawings, and more. The images are available via the BL's digital Flickr Commons collection to support “experimentation and reuse of the Library's data and digital collections in exciting and creative new ways,” according to the BL.

Highlights of newly digitized collection include a manuscript map of New York City presented to the future James II in 1664 (pictured above); the earliest comprehensive land-use map of London from 1800; and James Cook’s large manuscript map of the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, 1763.

Tom Harper, lead curator of antiquarian mapping at the BL, commented, “This is a momentous and intriguing set of early maps and views which provides multiple windows into the world of previous centuries. We’re pleased to have been able to make this outstanding collection available through cataloguing and digitisation and to enable aspects of Britain’s past to be more fully understood.”

Our Bright Young Librarians series continues today with Jasmine Clark, Digital Scholarship Librarian at Temple University in Philadelphia:

What is your role at your institution?

My current title is Digital Scholarship Librarian at Temple University Libraries’ Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio. As part of my duties, I help students, scholars, and researchers examine ways to integrate digital tools, methods, and technologies into their scholarship. This also includes helping these stakeholders plan their projects, think about accessibility (for disability), and identifying other resources within the library that may be of use to their work.

How did you get started in special collections?

My first job out of high school was as a student worker at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, a member supported library and museum founded in 1814 with collections that focus on 19th to mid-20th century America , particularly focusing on Philadelphia history, arts, and architecture. I worked there for four years doing a range of work that included cataloging, library work, archival processing, museum cataloging, and administrative work. The collections there are amazing and I learned a lot about special collections, how they’re maintained, and organizational leadership and logistics. I eventually ended up taking additional jobs in Temple University’s digitization department and at the Presbyterian Historical Society.

Where did you earn your MLS/advanced degree? 

I earned my MLIS from Drexel University. At Drexel, the library program is housed within the College of Computing and Informatics. As a result, I was able to take courses in database administration, web design, and other information science oriented subjects. I also worked at Drexel’s Metadata Research Center as an assistant curator for Dryad for a time while also managing digital archives at the Presbyterian Historical Society (both were part-time jobs). This is where my interest in digital work really began.

Favorite rare book / ephemera that you've handled?

While working at the Athenaeum, there was a Japanese book whose pages were all made of handmade rice paper with beautiful calligraphy and illustrations. It sold at auction for quite a lot of money, but it was so beautiful and well preserved.

What do you personally collect?

I love decorative cloth bindings, particularly in the Art Nouveau style. I have a couple of books with covers by designers like Margaret Armstrong. When I cataloged, I always added information about the bindings and their designers. Much of my undergraduate research focused on the visual depictions and styles of decorative cloth bindings (Art History degree). I had really heavily flagged copies of Richard Minsky’s three volume set, American Decorated Publishers' Bindings 1872-1929, on my work desk at all times.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I like to attend cultural events. I love the programming at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and try to make it to smaller art and craft shows when possible.

What excites you about special collections librarianship?

I am fascinated by the materials from a material culture standpoint. I love to learn how things were manufactured, marketed, and received. I wrote a whole paper for an undergraduate art history class on the evolution of the depictions of Black Americans on the covers of Uncle Tom’s Cabin from the time it was published in 1852, through the early 20th century. The emphasis was on the shifting attitudes towards Black Americans before and after the Civil War, during Reconstruction, and through the first World War and Great Depression. I also emphasised the increase in readership and availability due to the rise of new manufacturing methods, as well as the rise of leisure culture at the turn of the century.

Thoughts on the future of special collections librarianship?

Plenty! I’m actually working on a virtual reality project now with the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection. I think that there’s a lot of room for exploring new ways of providing digital access to special collections with the rise of COVID-19.

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

For the Hip-Hop lovers out there, the Blockson has the Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection.

Any upcoming exhibitions at your library?

Two of them, though they’re now current:

Black Lives Always Mattered!: Hidden African American Philadelphians of the Twentieth Century Project—A Preview, Co-Curated by Eric Battle

Hip-Hop and Rap in the Blockson Collection

On Election Day, it is especially important to remember that the U.S. is in a constant state of evolution when it comes to voting rights. Contrary to what you might have learned in school, all Americans haven’t been free to vote since winning independence from England. As originally conceived, the U.S. Constitution gave full rights only to white, land-owning men over the age of 21.

New Jersey, however, had different ideas. Its state legislature opened elections to all free property owners, no matter their color or gender. That law was rescinded in 1807, when NJ fell in line with the rest of the nation and restricted suffrage to propertied white men. Black men were denied the vote until after the Civil War, though many were still disenfranchised by poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation for another hundred years. Women waited until 1920, and Native Americans until 1924.  

It is that one sliver of time from George Washington’s reign through Thomas Jefferson’s that the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia focuses on in its new exhibition, When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776-1807. Featuring more than sixty-five manuscripts, works of art, and historical artifacts, the “cheekily titled” exhibition unearths the stories of women and free people of color who lived—and voted—in this more enlightened period. Recently discovered poll lists, such as the one pictured above, which show 163 female voters and four Black male voters, are the primary draw. According to the museum, “Prior to this discovery, little proof of women or people of color voting during this period was known to exist.”

A free, online version of the exhibition is scheduled to launch imminently. The physical exhibition remains open through April 25, 2021.