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Japanese, 19th century Miniature Album Photo: Randy Batista                                                                                                                                                                        

Sometimes the best gifts come in tiny packages. Now through November 2018, the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida will be exhibiting over one hundred tiny treasures from the Harn's Asian art collection in celebration of the five-year anniversary of the opening of its David A. Cofrin Asian Art Wing.


Curator Jason Steuber decided over four years ago that the show would investigate what he feels is the overlooked topic of miniatures across Asian art. "Small things are prevalent in our daily lives in many forms, and the exhibition serves as a reminder that art comes in all shapes and sizes," he explained. Miniatures rarely show up in museum displays because of the unique challenges they pose regarding audience engagement and access. A small album of dainty paintings requires a deft curatorial hand to craft a pint-size diorama, and figuring how to best display these miniatures takes patience and creativity. Steuber and his team constructed small stands and new wall cases to show the miniatures at eye level. A gallery book filled with detailed photographs invites closer inspection.

                                                                                                                                                                             

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Japanese, 19th century Miniature Album Photo: Randy Batista


Some of the highlights of the show include an album of landscapes and fore-edge paintings by Chinese eighteenth-century landscape painter Ming Zhong, a painting of a reclining nude rendered on 3 x 4 ? in. envelope by Japanese artist Yoshida Yoshio (1870-1956), and Shibata Zeshin's (1807-1891) miniature album of twelve lacquer paintings on paper. The largest miniatures clock in at nearly ten by six inches, while the tiniest of the items nestles comfortably in the palm of one's hand.


With some of the miniatures dating to the Neolithic period (3,000 BCE), it's clear that humans have had a longstanding fascination with shrunken treasures. "I often admire the beauty of my books, the craftsmanship of the artists and artisans who created them, and I'm awed by their history," said notable miniature collector Pat Pistner regarding her Japanese Hyakumant? Dh?r?ni (770CE), one of the oldest examples of block printed text on miniature scrolls. Indeed, collectors prize miniatures for their exquisite beauty, scale, and exacting detail--in miniature, books and artwork permit the eye to focus on components otherwise overlooked, fully embracing the old adage of "less is more."


Admission to the museum is free. For more information, call 352-392-9826 or visit www.harn.ufl.edu.

51HD42ydBvL.jpgBookfinder.com, an online price comparison tool for books, releases an annual list of its most searched for out-of-print books. The 2016 list was just unveiled, and this year's winner for "most sought after book" was... Westworld by Michael Crichton.


This surprise winner in a spot typically reserved for Madonna's Sex book was entirely due to the HBO revival of the show last year. For the uninitiated, Westworld began its life as a 1973 film, starring Yul Brynner, about a Western-themed amusement park populated by androids. Last year, HBO turned that concept into a 10-part television series. The original 1973 film was scripted by Michael Crichton, who also authored Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, and a host of other bestselling novels. In 1974, a companion book to the Westworld film was published, featuring the script as well as an introduction from Crichton and photographs from the set. (The book is not a novelization of Westworld, probably to the disappointment of its purchasers.) The huge popularity of HBO's revival led to the spike in demand for this long out-of-print movie companion book. Prices today begin at $125.


The perennially popular Sex by Madonna came in at number two last year. Other standouts from the eclectic 2016 list are a permaculture manual, two books about painting methods, an encyclopedia of quilt patterns, a 1991 investment manual, and Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (also turned into a popular film). 


Image Courtesy of Bookfinder.

For more than five decades, 80-year-old English cartoonist Gerald Scarfe has been at the ready with his pen to comment on the political and cultural scene. His work has appeared in the New Yorker and the Sunday Times, as well as in theatre and film. On April 5, 130 of his originals go to auction at Sotheby's London for the first major sale of his drawings.

From Winston Churchill to Donald Trump, Scarfe has taken a no-holds-barred approach to his art. In a press statement, he commented, "I feel it's the duty of an artist to re-interpret the world and to freshen our stale vision, making us see what we hadn't realised was there. What I'm trying to do is simply to bring out their essential characteristics. I find a particular delight in taking the caricature as far as I can."

Pink Floyd Scarfe Sothebys.pngFor some, Scarfe is easily recognized as the artist (read: genius) behind Pink Floyd's The Wall. According to Rolling Stone magazine, "Scarfe famously began crafting the visual world of The Wall before Pink Floyd began recording the album." Scarfe not only drew illustrations for the 1979 album, he did the animation for the 1982 film version, including the WWII bombing sequence, as well. Several related pieces are among Sotheby's offerings; my favorite, "The Teacher," is pictured above. Its auction estimate is £7,000-9,000 ($8,750-11,250).

Screen Shot 2017-03-29 at 10.11.03 AM.pngThe literary-minded among us will pause over Scarfe's Shakespeare and his Wilde, but get perhaps the biggest laugh over "The Book Signing," which depicts Tony Blair signing copies of his 2010 memoir, A Journey, atop a solider's coffin. Executed in pen, ink, and watercolor, the drawing is estimated at £4,000-6,000 ($5,000-7,500).

Screen Shot 2017-03-29 at 10.15.02 AM.pngAnd, apropos of today's news especially, Scarfe's "Lost in the Brexit Jungle," featuring Theresa May, seems destined for a bidding war. The estimate is £5,000-7,000 ($6,250-8,750).

Images via Sotheby's

rbewithimage.jpgWhile there are only a few days left, if you're in the United Kingdom you may want to swing up to Edinburgh to check out a new festival, "Rare Books Edinburgh," which is coming toward the end of its ten-day run. The festival launched on March 20, bringing together ten institutions and organizations in the celebration of book culture, collecting, and the history of the book. The festival's tent pole was the Edinburgh Book Fair, held this past weekend, but the talks, workshops, and exhibitions continue until March 30.


"The latest figures for hardcover and eBook sales show that books are back, and collectable books in fact never went away', said festival organizer Derek Walker, co-owner of McNaughtan's Bookshop in Edinburgh, and a recent profile in our Bright Young Booksellers series. "This city is lucky to have so many world-class bookshops, libraries, collections, and organizations, and Rare Books Edinburgh is an unparalleled opportunity for locals and visitors to see, learn about, handle, and even buy important, antique, or collectable books and printed material. It will be a veritable feast for book-lovers of all kinds."


Talks suitable for beginners, as well as advanced workshops, are on offer, many of them free and open to the public. A full program, complete with registration information is available on the festival website: www.rarebooksedinburgh.com


Participating institutions include the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library, the Centre for the History of the Book, the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Central Library, Blackwell's Bookshop, and auction house Lyon & Turnbull.




Vaults-768x870.jpegIt was in 1817 that brothers James and John Harper opened a small printing shop in New York City. Among their successes over the past 200 years, HarperCollins pioneered the process of stereotyping; published the first American editions of the Brontë sisters' novels; and championed Martin Luther King, Jr., publishing his Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story in 1958.

To celebrate its anniversary, the long-running book publisher has created an extensive website that encompasses not only the Harper history, but the histories of the companies that have come under its umbrella during the ensuing two centuries, e.g. Collins, Thomas Nelson, Harlequin, Allen & Unwin, Lippincott, etc. The site features an annotated historical timeline, a selection of stories about significant books and authors, and a list of 200 "iconic" titles, including Riders of the Purple Sage, Little House on the Prairie, Ariel, A Christmas Carol, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Moby-Dick.

                                                                                                                         

Melville-Harper-Agreement-1857BW_BG_22_C5_A-768x1055.jpegThe 'Why I Read' section shares quotes from authors around the world about reading, writing, and books that have influenced them. I particularly like T.C. Boyle's take: "I read in the way that I breathe, as a necessity of life. Reading allows me to vanish from the oppressive material world and its eternal electronic hum and find myself in some other place altogether."

One can also poke into the HC archives to read a 1959 letter by Russell Hoban to his editor Ursula Nordstrom upon publication of his Bread and Jam for Frances; appreciate the original artwork for a 1965 edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and see photos from Collins' editorial offices (in Canada) c. 1940s.

                                                                                                                                            

N.B. Through July 21, Columbia University's Butler Library is hosting Harper & Brothers to HarperCollins Publishers: A Bicentennial Exhibition on this very topic.

Images, above: Vaults in the Harper & Brothers offices where stereotyped plates were stored (circa 1855); middle: The original agreement between Herman Melville and Harper & Brothers for Moby-Dick, dated September 12, 1851. Via 200.hc.com.


Our Bright Young Booksellers series continues today with James McBride of William Reese Company in New Haven, Connecticut. 


IMG_1924up.jpgHow did you get started in rare books?


My background is in rare book and special collections librarianship.  I did my library degree at the University of Texas at Austin and also completed a second Master's degree in Book History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.  While I was at Texas, I also worked as a rare book cataloguer for the Harry Ransom Center, working on 16th century Italian, mostly Aldine imprints.  I figured when I returned to the States from Scotland in the fall of 2015, I would continue on that track and find a library position as a Rare Books Cataloguer.  Bill hired me instead, and so here I am in the trade, thoroughly enjoying myself.


What is your role at William Reese Company?


My official title is Americana Cataloguer, or perhaps Americana Associate.  The second is probably more appropriate.  Principally, I do research and write cataloguing for most of our incoming material, but I also carry out many other duties as the need arises -- filling orders, responding to questions and inquiries, answering the phone, purchasing and collecting new materials, making visits to customers, sellers, and institutions, going to book fairs, bidding at auctions, and, of course, trying to sell books.


What do you love about the book trade?


Working for Reese Co. allows me the luxury of getting to see and to work with amazing material on a daily basis.  Another one of the great things is the variation my job affords me -- there are so many different aspects to working in the trade that it is difficult to get stuck in a rut.  It is also a pleasure to be able to meet and to interact with the fun and interesting characters that populate our world.  And if they're not fun and/or interesting, at least they're probably crazy.


Describe a typical day for you:


Generally, I come in and first deal with orders and inquiries that have come in overnight, and then discuss with my colleagues if we have anything that needs our special attention during the course of the day, which is usually the case.  I can then turn my attention to cataloguing, though this is liberally interspersed with other tasks that land on my desk throughout the day.


Favorite rare book (or ephemera) that you've handled?


One of my favorite books so far would have to be the private first printing of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia.  It was the first really important thing that I was sent out to collect, and I spent the entire drive back to New Haven checking my bag in the passenger seat every five minutes to make sure it hadn't magically disappeared.  I've also gotten to spend some time with a complete set of Edward Curtis' The North American Indian, an impressive thing, to say the least.  More recently, I saw a copy of the first pamphlet printing of the Declaration of Independence, made on July 8, 1776, just a few days after the vote for independence and Dunlap's broadside.


What do you personally collect?


I have a record collection that grows in fits and starts.  Mostly punk albums, with some jazz and rock thrown in, and a few oddities like LPs of the Mr. Rogers songbook and Jazzercise tunes.  In terms of books, I tend toward travel narratives, though recently I've been trying to build up something of a reference collection.


What do you like to do outside of work?


I spend far too much time watching soccer on weekend mornings, and am also a particular and rather long-suffering devotee of the New York Mets.  The only sport in which I still retain some passable skill is skiing, though I don't get to do nearly enough of it.  In other, apparently unaffiliated parts of my brain, I have a thing for old gangster movies and for long train rides.


Thoughts on the present state and/or future of the rare book trade?


It is my fond hope that the good people of the book world continue to buy enough books from us to keep me in a job. 


Any upcoming fairs or catalogues?


We recently put out a catalog of material on Colonial America (#341), as well as two smaller lists on Natural History (Bulletin #45) and Manuscripts (Bulletin #46).  And coming quite soon will be a catalogue focusing on Latin Americana (#342).


Image courtesy of James McBride.
















Coming up this Sunday, March 26 at 9 p.m., Masterpiece presents To Walk Invisible: The Brontë Sisters, written and directed by Sally Wainwright. The two-hour BBC drama traces the lives of the Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë from dutiful daughters into audacious authors. To Walk Invisible was filmed in and around Haworth, the Yorkshire village where the Brontës lived; a replica of their home, the Parsonage, was created for filming on location last year, as A. N. Devers reported in our summer 2016 feature story, "A Breath of Jane Eyre."

To Walk Invisible_24 copy.jpgBased largely on Charlotte's letters--which are artfully read throughout--To Walk Invisible focuses on the three-year period in the mid-1840s when the women decided to move ahead with the publication of their collective poems. The drama's title comes from one of these letters, in which Charlotte writes, "I think if a good fairy were to offer me the choice of a gift, I would say--grant me the power to walk invisible." Their Poems appeared in 1846 (under the male pseudonyms, Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell), closely followed in 1847 by their individual novels--Charlotte's Jane Eyre as a stand-alone, and Emily's Wuthering Heights bundled into three volumes with Anne's Agnes Grey.

                                                                                                                                                                                    In this dramatic retelling of their story, Anne and Branwell are restored to the bigger picture; Anne being the sweetest sibling, Branwell being the wildest. Emily, played by Chloe Pirrie, is matter of fact and unafraid to stand up to her devilish brother. She is also quite wonderful in disrupting a cozy library scene when she accuses Charlotte of reading her poems without permission. Charlotte (Finn Atkins) is more severe than we might imagine her. She is also the mastermind of their literary futures.

Historical dramas too often bait viewers with pretty gowns and lush landscapes, so it's refreshing here to see some realism both in content (Branwell's abusive alcoholism), scenery (from dirty interior walls to muddy outside lanes), and costumes that are plain and true to the people wearing them. The moors are there too, don't worry. Viewer's tip: The tones are hushed in many scenes, so turn up the volume.
   
PBS granted a press preview to Fine Books for this post. Watch a 30-second clip here.

                                                                                                                                                                     An exhibit, To Walk Invisible: From Parsonage to Production, is currently on view at the Parsonage through January 1, 2018.

                                                                                                                                                                     Image: Pictured (from left to right) Emily Brontë (Chloe Pirrie), Anne Brontë (Charlie Murphy), and Charlotte Brontë  (Finn Atkins). Credit: Courtesy of Michael Prince/BBC and MASTERPIECE.

Figure-1-set-360x371.pngLast month, Sandra Clark, a Jane Austen collector in Texas, surprised Chawton House, the ancestral home of Austen, by gifting them a complete set of the author's novels that had once been housed in the family library. The Austen set was published in 1833 by Richard Bentley and bears the bookplate of Montagu George Knight, the son of Jane Austen's nephew, Edward Knight. The books are known to have been held in the Chawton House library until at least 1908, however why the books were sold (or to whom) remains a mystery.  The books eventually made their way to south Texas, where they were discovered again by Clark.


The Bentley set of Austen novels are also significant for being the first reprinting of Austen's works after her death. Bentley's decision to publish the books as part of his "Standard Novels" series helped establish Austen's place in the literary canon.


An upcoming exhibition at Chawton House Library entitled "Fickle Fortunes: Jane Austen and Germaine de Staël" will include the set, along with a variety of other first editions, manuscripts, and letters.


Interested readers can learn more about the discovery in a post from Professor Janine Barchas of the University of Texas at Austin and a board member of the North American Friends of Chawton House Library. Barchas recognized the Knight bookplate in Clark's Austen collection and helped facilitate the gift.


[Image from Chawton House]





Bob Dylan manuscripts have trickled into the market in recent years--the pinnacle at auction being the original handwritten lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone," which sold for $2 million at Sotheby's in 2014--and now that he has won the Nobel Prize in literature, that seems unlikely to change.   

Screen Shot 2017-03-20 at 10.17.16 AM.pngCase in point: Coming up at Bonhams New York next week is an early, two-page manuscript of the legendary musician. Written in pencil, this manuscript was originally in the possession of Dylan's Hibbing High School friend, Dale Boutang, and indeed the two poems describe the antics of teenage life in the mid-1950s; one is labeled a "Good Poem," the other a "Bad Poem." With the manuscript comes a silver gelatin print of a young Dylan seated on a motorcyle with a friend (Boutang?) standing alongside.

Last seen at auction eleven years ago, the manuscript is estimated to reach $10,000-15,000.

Image courtesy of Bonhams.

Today is St. Patrick's Day, meaning Irish pubs from Boston to Dublin will be busier than usual and just about everyone will be sporting some sort of good luck charm. However, if the idea of day-drinking and parade-hopping turns you green, there's still a few ways to let your inner Irish spirit free, even from the comfort of your own library. Behold, a bibliophile's guide to St. Patrick's Day:

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Credit John Vernon Lord for Folio Society


1. Ready to meet your goal of finally reading James Joyce's Ulysses? Consider picking up the edition recently published by the Folio Society, which refers to the original 1922 publication. Joyce scholars John O' Hanlon and Danis Rose provide a note regarding the present iteration, and Stacey Herbert discusses the history of Ulysses in print. Award-winning artist John Vernon Lord created 18 color illustrations capturing various episodes in the book, helpfully guiding readers through this 752-page day in the life of Leopold Bloom. Complete with a Gaelic-green slipcase depicting the waves of Dublin Bay, there is perhaps no better way to say ?ire go Brách for bibliophiles today. Available for $195.95 from the Folio Society.

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Plunkett with the flag (University of South Florida) 


2. Over 150,000 Irish Americans fought for the Union in the Civil War, and many of their stories of loyalty and bravery are chronicled in Susannah Ural's The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865 (NYU Press, 2006). Thomas Plunkett was one of these combattants, serving as a color bearer for the Worcester-based 21st Massachusetts Regiment Volunteer Infantry. During the Battle of Fredericksburg a fellow flag-bearer was shot down, so Plunkett picked up the colors and led his unit until cannon fire ripped away his arms. Despite the injury, Plunkett pressed the flag to his chest with the remains of his limbs and held fast until relieved by a fellow soldier. Plunkett survived the war and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery in battle, and the blood-stained flag is now at the Massachusetts State House. 


3. Across the Atlantic, the National Library of Ireland is closed for the holiday, but its permanent exhibition dedicated to poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is free and open to the public during regular business hours and accessible online

                                                                                                                                                                         

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Portrait of young William Butler Yeats by his father, John Butler Yeats (Photo: Wikipedia).

 

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 Oscar Wilde, photographic print on card mount: albumen. (Photo: Wikimedia                                                                                                                         

4. In case you missed "L'impertinent absolu" ("Insolence Incarnate"), the first major French exhibition dedicated to Oscar Wilde at the Petit Palais that closed in January, fear not; now you can own a piece of Wilde's childhood. A hotel built by Wilde's parents is for sale in Ireland. The ten-bedroom oceanfront property in the coastal resort town of Bray was constructed in 1850 by Wilde's parents as a seaside retreat. Upon their death, Wilde inherited the property, but sold it in 1878. Recently converted into a hotel, this piece of literary history could be yours for ??2.2 million.