Happy Birthday Mr. Poe!

You can have a look at my last year’s post on Edgar Allan Poe, 201 today. 

Poe is again in the news, as a new portrait has recently come to light, and one that depicts him without his usual dour, mournful look, busy at work:

 

See the full story at the Boston Globe and the Canadian Press online.  The image  is expected to bring $30,000- $50,000 at auction.

And on another Poe note, the mysterious visitor to Poe’s grave in Baltimore, who has appeared without fail since 1949, did not show last night [perhaps because the Poe Museum curator and a group of people were laying in wait all night?]

Happy New Year!

 

Wishing book lovers everywhere a
safe, warm & peaceful New Year!

A Confession…

Well, I could lay the blame on my husband [or maybe even Santa?] - he did it without my really asking, though I may have been musing one day about the advantages of a kindle and ebooks for traveling times.  So there it was sitting under the Christmas tree, in its Amazon box, a KINDLE and its cover…  I confess it loud and clear – I, lover of BOOKS, a bookseller of collectible BOOKS, an avid collector of BOOKS and the resulting ever-ongoing need for more BOOKshelves, proponent of READING, a librarian and Library Trustee who believes that BOOKS can change lives – I am all these things, but now also the proud owner of a KINDLE…  though I also confess it is still in its box – with no time to figure out yet another technological piece of equipment, just having gotten an iphone and still struggling with that user manual, also mostly a matter of time.  I am working on a talk on carriages in Jane Austen’s time, and heaven forbid, I am using BOOKS for research!  [though one must confess again the use of several Google BOOKS for this reading adventure...]

 

So I feel better telling everyone about this new shift in my life – there is an article from yesterday’s Guardian announcing that Amazon’s e-book sales have overtaken the real thing this holiday season – how this plays out with publishers and authors, I have yet to fully understand - the average book today costs at least $24.99 – but you can get it for your kindle for $9.99.  Then there is the Barnes & Noble Nook, which is on backorder until February because sales vastly surpassed their expectations.

So, as my lovely little gift sits in its box waiting for a moment for me to figure it out, I have been musing again [this time to myself] about how many books I listen to on tape, how many books I read on the computer because it is the only way to access the information without an expensive trip to the British Library, how all this technology has only opened a much wider world of the book to me and everyone else, that perhaps this latest addition will only enhance reading and knowledge and not undermine the future of the book as we know it.  How many books will I get on my Kindle that I would not have actually BOUGHT ? – I think there will be many – time will tell … and travel will be so much easier now that airlines forbid bags full of weighty books [books or shoes has been my latest dilemma...] - but alas! what about all the BOOKS I will buy when traveling from wandering into used book stores??

So,  am I just trying to justify this new toy, or is it just another reading adventure, and I will still need to build new bookshelves?  And the tactile / senses piece?  I do hear that there is a book spray you can buy to enhance the air around you with that smell of a real book, just in case…  [now will that be moldy-basement or Granny's-attic?!]

A Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

From Bygone Books

A Christmas Tree of Books

From the New Yorker:

“A Christmas Carol”

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol remains one of everyone’s favorite holiday reads, even after the 165 years since it was published.  I wrote a previous post on the publication history here  – so I do repeat myself about my childhood memory of watching the 1951 Alastair Sim movie adaptation on a VERY small B&W television [I am dating myself here!] – I can still hear those dragging chains of Jacob Marley’s ghost haunting the mind of the miserly Scrooge.  It was a scary, yet heart-warming show for a small child to see – and I think it has shaped my life in unseen ways.  There were a number of other movie adaptations through the years [go to IMDB to peruse them all - under a Christmas Carol, Scrooge, etc!] – but it was this first encounter that stays with me.  Sort of like Miracle on 34th Street – no matter how many new movies are made, it is really only the Maureen O’Hara / John Payne / Natalie Wood version that shines.

[But I digress - this reminds me of my book group that try as we may to talk about the BOOK, we always end up talking about the MOVIE...]

A Christmas Carol was first published on December 19, 1843 – you can read all this in my previous post,  but today I just wanted to add that the Morgan Library & Museum has the manuscript on display [until January 10, 2010].  I was at the Morgan to see the current Jane Austen exhibit but also was anxious to see this special Dickens treat on display.   I confess my heart skipped several beats looking into the case that houses the manuscript – here was Dickens’s own handwriting, his corrections, elaborate cross-outs, a speedy re-working of his imagination, and the words ”Tiny Tim will die…”  And again, I realize how much a part of our culture is this story…

[John Leech, Mr. Fezziwig's Ball (detail), original watercolor illustration for Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol, first edition, 1843. Purchased by J.P. Morgan Jr., 1934; PML 30615]

From the Morgan website:

Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Mr. Fezziwig, Bob Cratchit, the Ghost of Christmas Past—in the age of film and television these characters from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol are universally familiar. The story has been told as a stage musical, a serious dramatic film, and a modern comedy. 

But, in the end, it all comes back to a magical book written by Dickens in a six-week flurry of activity in late 1843. Greeted with universal acclaim at the time of publication, A Christmas Carol might rightfully be called an “instant masterpiece.” William Makepeace Thackeray called it a “national benefit” and an American factory owner gave his workers an extra day’s holiday when he had finished reading it.

When the manuscript was returned after printing Dickens arranged for it to be finely bound in red morocco leather and presented it as a gift to his solicitor. It was purchased by Pierpont Morgan in the 1890s. Visitors to The Morgan Library & Museum can view the original manuscript by Dickens in a special presentation in the museum’s famed McKim Building.

The manuscript reveals the author’s method of composition: the pace of writing and revision, apparently contiguous, is rapid and boldly confident. Revisions are inserted for vividness and immediacy of effect. Deleted text is struck out with a cursive and continuous looping movement of the pen, and replaced with more active verbs and fewer words to achieve greater concision. Dickens’s manuscript shows vividly his efforts to create the highest-quality literary work in the shortest possible time.

  

Further reading:

• A sample of Dickens handwriting
• Bygone Books post on A Christmas Carol
• An article at Fine Books & Collections “On Stage with Charles Dickens”
• The Morgan Library & Museum website for more information, an audio discussion of the manuscript and additional links

and just added:  Marley and Me by Morgan Meis at The Smart Set of Drexel University

A Website snafu…

[Note that all is now in proper working order!]

Please note that my Bygone Books website has a malfunction in the shopping cart – if you see something you would like to order, please call me [information is on the website] - I will process the order right away by either charging your card directly or invoicing you through PayPal – my apologies for the inconvenience – this hopefully will be remedied shortly.

Jane Austen on the Block

Two Austen items on the auction block in early December:

Sotheby’s Fine Books and Manuscripts
Sale N08602

11 Dec 09, New York
Exhibition Opens 5 Dec 09

DATE & TIME:  Session 1: Fri, 11 Dec 09, 10:00 AM
                               Session 2: Fri, 11 Dec 09, 2:00 PM

**********************************************

 LOT 75 : AUSTEN, JANE 

10,000—15,000 USD 

Mansfield Park. London: Printed for T. Egerton, 1814.  1^st edition.

3 volumes, 12mo (6⅞ x 10 in.; 750 x 553 mm). Half-titles, paper watermarked 1812; (1): tear to lower right corner of C1, loss of lower right corner of G7; (2): top of title-page cropped, closed tears on H6–7 touching 2 lines of text, loss to lower right margin of O3, lacks terminal blank O4; (3) loss to right margin of B5, loss of right upper corners of I7–8 costing one letter on I8v, lacks advertisement leaf R4 at end. Contemporary half polished calf over marbled boards, ruled in gilt, smooth spines gilt, endpapers and edges plain; joints cracked or starting, head of spines of vols. 1–2 chipped, waist and foot of spine of vol. 3 chipped. Red morocco backed folding case.    

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES:  Gilson A6; Keynes Austen 6; Sadleir 62C

LOT 76 : AUSTEN, JANE 

15,000—20,000 USD 

Emma: A Novel. By the Author of “Pride and Prejudice.” London: Printed for John Murray, 1816.  1^st edition. 

3 volumes, 12mo (6¾ x 4 in.; 172 x 102 mm). Lacks half-titles, light toning; (1): preliminaries and quires N and P foxed, staining in quire G, loss to right margin on H11, short marginal tears on H12 and K1; (2) foxing more pronounced throughout, some staining in quire E, quires M and O browned; (3) neat repairs to long tears on H4 and H6 affecting several lines of text, quire O browned and stained. Contemporary half navy polished calf, ruled in gilt, spines gilt in 6 compartments (2 reserved for red morocco lettering and numbering pieces), endpapers and edges plain; upper hinge of vol. 2 strengthened. Quarter black morocco folding case.    

PROVENANCE:  Cecilia Hawken (ownership inscription on title-pages) — Percival and Elisabeth Merritt (bookplate) 

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES:  Gilson A8; Keynes Austen 8; Sadleir 62d

Jane Austen at the Morgan

The Fine Books & Collections October 2009 issue has an article on Jane Austen to announce the upcoming exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum which will run from November 6, 2009 – March 14, 2010. 

See the full article here and see the Morgan information here [there will be a gallery talk on November 20th at 7 p.m.]  See also my post on this exhibition on my Jane Austen in Vermont blog.

Anonymous 19th-c miniature of Jane Austen - Morgan Library

‘Bound For Success’ ~ Bookbinding Exhibition

The Boston Public Library is hosting “Bound for Success: Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Exhibition”, showcasing a selection of the entries in the 2009 competition:

The 117 bindings on display [first exhibited at the Bodleian Library] show remarkable ingenuity, technical skill, and sophistication. With its impressive range of cultural and geographical differences in the contemporary art of bookbinding, this exhibition offers a fascinating and beautiful overview of the work of 21st-century designer binders.

[from the BPL website] 

The exhibition catalogue, Bound for Success: Catalogue for Designer Bookbinders International Competition 2009, which presents nearly 400 of the contemporary bindings entered, is available for purchase at the  University of Chicago Press and through Amazon.com.

The exhibit runs through December 13, 2009 at the Boston Public Library.  Exhibition dates:

12 June – 1 August 2009                    Bodleian Library, Oxford
18 September – 13 December 2009   Boston Public Library
12 February – 6 March 2010              Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco
19 May – 31 July 2010                       The Grolier Club of New York

For more information, see the Designer Bookbinders website and click here for information on the 2009 international competition.