Current Events & Trends | April 2023 | Alex Johnson

Five Rare Books for Collectors: New York International Antiquarian Book Fair

Whitmore Rare Books

Collection documenting Kerouac’s correspondence with a scholar trying to position his work in the American canon

Highlights from the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair including:

* Collection documenting Kerouac’s correspondence with a scholar trying to position his work in the American canon

Collection of three pieces documenting Jack Kerouac’s engagement with one of the earliest academics to publish on his work. Includes a 2 page Typed Letter Signed and dated April 13, 1961, a 13 page carbon typescript of Granville Jones’ draft of Jack Kerouac andthe American Conscience with Kerouac’s handwritten notes and corrections on four pages, and the transmittal envelope with the author’s Northport,NY address. Unfolding only four years after Kerouac’s novel On the Road, this interaction provides scholars with unique opportunities for considering how and at what rate Kerouac’s views on writing, politics, identity, and culture shifted, how the academy perceived Kerouac and the Beats in theirown time, and the extent to which Kerouac valued scholarly discussion regarding his literary career and creations.

From Whitmore Rare Books

* Manuscript Omer counter in a silver binding

A unique miniature manuscript on vellum containing the blessings recited on each of the 49 days beginning on the second day of Passover up until the day before Shavuot. The Counting of the Omer represents spiritual preparation and anticipation for Shavuot, which celebrates the Israelites' reception of the Torah at Sinai after their escape from Egypt. "Omer" itself refers to the measure of barley offered by the temple priest. It was common practice for Jewish homes to have "omer calendars," either in the form of books or movable mechanisms, so that no one would lose track of the days over the requisite seven-week period. In the present volume, the entries under each day get progressively larger, as the count likewise increases. The days themselves are numerated in Arabic digits, while the count is in Hebrew. Bound in boards covered in pink silk and entirely cased in silver with silver wire decorations reminiscent of the work of the Bezalel School in Jerusalem; their techniques came out of a long tradition of silversmithing in North Africa and Europe, and graduates of the school have gone on to proliferate their own styles and methods of silver work since its founding in 1906. Accented with silver wire hinges and gold endpapers. Both covers display hamsa motifs; one cover shows an overflowing pitcher within one palm, and the other shows two hands.

From Bromer Booksellers

Bromer Booksellers

Manuscript Omer counter in a silver binding

Ian Brabner, Rare Americana

Divine Horsemen: Living Gods of Haiti by Maya Deren

Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps

A Remarkable Japanese Manuscript Map of the World

James Cummins Bookseller

Autograph Letter, signed ("Elizabeth Barrett Browning"), with Autograph Song May's Love

* Divine Horsemen: Living Gods of Haiti by Maya Deren

Inscribed by author, a giant in the history of avant-garde film in America: “For Herb — Simply, Maya.” Herbert Passin was a scholar on contemporary Japan and advisor to two Japanese ministers. First edition, London/New York: Thames & Hudson, (1953).

From Ian Brabner, Rare Americana

* A Remarkable Japanese Manuscript Map of the World

Striking double-hemisphere manuscript map of the world with toponyms written in Russian. The chart also includes the tracks of Captain James' Cook's three voyages. This example is believed to have been copied from a manuscript world map drawn by a shipwrecked Japanese sailor during his captivity in Russia, which came into the hands of the Japanese when the Finnish-Swedish Lieutenant Adam Laxman, acting as an agent of Imperial Russia, visited Japan in Kansei 4 (1792). Laxman was facilitating the homecoming of the shipwrecked Japanese sailor Daikokuya Kōdayū and, in return, demanded a trade treaty between Japan and Russia.

Kōdayū managed to bring a world map with him. This map was likely based on a Russian mother map which in turn was the base map for several Japanese copies known to have been in circulation in the first half of the 19th century. The geographical content of the map suggests that the mother map was likely the work of renowned Russian cartographer Alexander Wilbrecht and made in circa 1788-1790. This example is one of the earliest of these Japanese reproductions, most likely made by the innovative political economical thinker Honda Toshiaki. Toshiaki produced a practically identical map in 1813.

From Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps

* Autograph Letter, signed ("Elizabeth Barrett Browning"), with Autograph Song May's Love
Florence: c. 1848-1861. 2 leaves. Faded, the poem annotated with the number 96 and the letter with "No 200" in a contemporary hand. Browning writes, sending a poem at that point unpublished: "Sir, You ask me for a short unpublished poem, and I send you a very short one – a song. I hope it may not be unsuitable to your purpose, while wishing it were worthier; and I have the honor to remain / Sir, Your obedient servant / Eliizabeth Barrett Browning / Casa Guidi, Florence / June 12" On the verso of one leaf the letter is translated into French, and it's accompanied by another leaf with the poem "May's Love", three quintains, published posthumously in Last Poems (1962).

From James Cummins Bookseller