Rare Book School Program Celebrates the Embattled Book
By Daniel de Vise, Washington PostPublished: July 28
CHARLOTTESVILLE — Here is a book about handwriting by Palatino, a 16th-century calligrapher for whom a font is named. And here, a folio of Shakespeare’s plays that sold for one English pound in 1632. And here, an exquisitely illustrated, calfskin-bound Horace collection that bankrupted its publisher in 1733.
Welcome to Rare Book School, summer camp for bibliophiles. Tucked in the basement of the cavernous main library at the University of Virginia, the school is an annual five-week homage to the printed page. Or is it an elegy?
The modern book, a bunch of sheets bound together within a cover, has endured for two millennia, surviving the Dark Ages, radio, television and the moving picture.
But now it is threatened by an electronic version of itself. The e-book is projected to outsell the printed book by 2015, according to Publishers Weekly magazine. Borders bookstores have begun liquidation sales. Google intends to scan all the world’s books by the end of the decade.
And now there is a new urgency at Rare Book School, arguably the preeminent center for study of the book as artifact.
Founded at Columbia University in 1983, Rare Book School relocated to Charlottesville in 1992 as a nonprofit affiliate of U-Va. and found a niche as a place for librarians and scholars to decode the story told by the book itself: the ink, the paper, the typeface, the binding, the illustrations, the subtle notations in the margins.
“You have to teach people how to read the object, not just how to read the book,” said Michael Suarez, a Jesuit priest and English literature scholar who left a post at Oxford to run the school two years ago.
Bookbinding and publishing lore once were the province of library schools. But they strayed from that mission over the decades, Suarez said, to follow the gradual migration of information from printed pages to electronic screens. Some have dropped the word “library” from their names.
Rare Book School has gone in the opposite direction, amassing a collection of 80,000 items that range from 7th-century papyrus fragments to manuscripts stored on Reagan-era floppy disks and unreadable on the modern computer.
Unlike most special collections, this one is meant to be handled. Many items are ragged specimens of rare texts — worthless to the collector but priceless to the rare-book student — or multiple copies of comparatively obscure works, enough for every student. For the sake of the books, students are forbidden to enter a classroom with food, drink or pen; notes are taken in pencil.
One bookcase is given over entirely to Harry Castlemon’s Gunboat series, popular juvenile literature from the 1860s that time has forgotten, a collection assembled to illustrate the evolution of publishing in the 19th century. Another case brims with Baedeker’s travel guides, popular with tourists of the early 1900s. And surely no library has more copies of “The Tent on the Beach,” a specimen from the later 1800s that is a minor work of Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier.
Every corridor on the basement campus hums with adoration of the printed book, one of the more successful contrivances of the civilized world: compact and portable, with pages perfectly suited to opposable thumbs and a spine that fits neatly between the knees.
The codex, as the form is known, emerged in the early Christian era, said Amanda Nelson, the school’s program director. “I don’t see how we’re going very far from this,” she said, holding a tome in her hands, “because this is so perfect.”
The school offers 25 weeklong courses every summer, five a week from June through July. Last week’s crop of students included a bookshop owner from Washington state, an English graduate student from New Zealand, a historian for the Mormon Church, a school librarian from Long Beach, Calif., and collegiate librarians from Oxford and Yale.
Six hours of classes each day give way to wine-and-cheese receptions or evening lectures, prompting much worshipful talk of books.
“I riffle the pages with my thumb as I’m reading, and I can’t do that on a Kindle,” Jeremy Dibbell, a young staffer at Rare Books School, said one evening while dining with other staff and faculty.
“I think about getting an iPad, but not for books,” said Michael Winship, an English professor from the University of Texas who teaches during the summer in Charlottesville. He is considered an authority on 19th-century American publishing and teaches “The American Book in the Industrial Era, 1820-1940.”
Albert Derolez, teaching “Introduction to Western Codicology,” is a Belgian scholar who excels in Gothic manuscripts.
Martin Antonetti, teaching “The Printed Book in the West to 1800,” was once librarian of the Grolier Club, the nation’s premier organization for bibliophiles.
“You know the phrase, ‘So-and-so wrote the book on X?’ ” said Elizabeth Ott, a U-Va. doctoral student who works at the school. “That’s often literally the case with Rare Book School professors.”
In class, students take turns operating wooden and iron printing presses and hanging pages to dry. Or they gather round ancient manuscripts for a closer look at this goatskin binding or that woodblock rendering.
Antonetti opens printer Johannes Pine’s 1733 edition of what is known as Pine’s Horace. With engraved copper plates, it was a luxury buy for the 18th-century European aristocrat.
“Pine engraved it and published it and went bankrupt,” Antonetti said. “He published a Pine’s Virgil to recoup his losses, but that was the final nail in his coffin.”
Terry Belanger, an English literature scholar, started Rare Book School as a laboratory on the history of books and printing within Columbia University’s School of Library Service. Over time, the school gained a reputation as a world leader in training librarians and scholars to collect, catalogue and preserve rare books.
With the future of the book itself now in question, the school’s mission seems all the more clear.
“I actually think that the digital is making us much more aware of the form of the printed book. And so I think this is a moment of rare opportunity, rather than a moment of great crisis,” said Suarez, who co-edited the million-word Oxford Companion to the Book. “This whole Gutenberg elegy, death-of-the-book thing — I’m not buying it.”
Edgar Allan Poe Book Decorated by Frida Kahlo at Auction
Source: Paul Fraser Collectibles
The doodles give some interesting insights into the life of the celebrated Mexican artist
A beaten-up copy of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe is expected to sell for over $20,000 at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers in Chicago on August 9.
It is no ordinary used book, however, as it belonged to celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who covered the book with doodles, inscriptions, paint and collaged leaves.
To Frida, the book provided an outlet for her to engage in dialogue with Poe's mysterious and macabre poetry, and the result is one of the most intriguing artist's books to appear on the market.
LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
The most interesting inscription appears at the beginning of the book, where Frida has the written following in crayon: "Pues si, Frida Kahlo, Auxocromo Cromoforo, 1922, 1945, 23, 12, 35, always."
A close reading, offered by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernist expert Luis-Martin Lozano, points directly to Kahlo's relationship with her husband, Diego Rivera:
Frida Kahlo met Rivera in 1922; she wrote in the book in 1945; she met Diego when she was 12 (actually 15, but she claimed she was born in 1910 to appear younger) and he was 35; the 23 refers not only to the years between when Frida wrote in the book and when she met Rivera (1922-1945), but also to their difference in age.
These numbers and connections are coupled with the word 'always' and the symbol for infinity.
Poe book doodled by Frida Kahlo
'Auxocromo Cromoforo', a phrase repeated at the end of selected poems throughout, further alludes to Frida's relationship with Rivera; the phrase first appeared in a poem Frida wrote in her diary, which translates:
"My Diego, Mirror of the Night ... You could be called Auxocromo - the one who takes color. I Cromoforo - the one who gives the color. You are all the combinations of the numbers."
"The inscriptions and collages form an extraordinary record of the artist's creative process," notes Hindman's director of Books and Manuscripts, Mary Williams. "Kahlo's works are exceptionally rare.
On the occasion one does appear at auction, prices quickly exceed $200,000, with the highest price ever fetched being $5.6m in May 2006. "The present collaged work is without precedent at auction," Williams added.
"We expect the artist's book to exceed its presale estimate of $20,000-$30,000."
The book was previously in the collection of Teresa Proenza, Diego River's secretary and close personal friend of Frida Kahlo.
Edgar Allen Poe books are valuable collectibles in their own right of course. One collector whose prized possessions include Poe artefacts is actor Johnny Depp.
Online Catalogues
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Information for Sale 167 - Fine Books and Manuscripts at 1338 West Lake Street
9 Aug 2011 12:00 PM
Contact Information
Mary Williams
Email - marywilliams@lesliehindman.com
This is Not the End of the Book: A Conversation
Source: NationalPost.com by Philip Marchand
Fear not, bookworms and library rats. Two fellow bibliophiles, novelist (The Name of the Rose) and critic Umberto Eco, and playwright and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere, have collaborated on a volume whose title says it all: This is Not the End of the Book: A Conversation Curated by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac.
Eco lays out his argument very early in this “conversation.” (Don’t ask me what “curated” means.) “There is actually very little to say on the subject,” Eco states. “The Internet has returned us to the alphabet … From now on, everyone has to read. In order to read, you need a medium. This medium cannot simply be a computer screen.” The implication of Eco’s logic is clear. E-books have their place in the world of letters, but not necessarily one of total dominance. “One of two things will happen,” Eco continues in his march of logic. “Either the book will continue to be the medium for reading, or its replacement will resemble what the book has always been, even before the invention of the printing press. Alterations to the book-as-
object have modified neither its function nor its grammar for more than 500 years. The book is like the spoon, scissors, the hammer, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved.”
Umberto Eco, Italian Author
Now that what little to say on the subject has been said, we can savour what this particular book is really about, the spectacle of two European intellectuals exchanging aperçus. Here are the fruits of a lifetime of reading, stockpiled and readily available to both speakers. At one point, Carriere directs our attention to forgotten French baroque poets. Eco responds with a reference to neglected Italian baroque poets. They move on.
What really drives the conversation, however, is the subject of their book collections. “Not counting my collection of legends and fairy tales, I own perhaps 2,000 ancient books, out of a total of 30,000 or 40,000,” Carriere says. “I have 50,000 books in my various homes,” Eco comments. “I also have 1,200 rare titles.” Both men maintain they are interested in previous owners of their books. “I love owning books that have belonged to others before me,” Carriere says. Eco concurs. “I own some books whose value comes not so much from their content or the rarity of the edition as from the traces left on them by an unknown reader, who has underlined the text, sometimes in different colours, or written notes in the margin.”
Eco’s collection is more focused than Carriere’s. It is a “collection dedicated to the occult and mistaken sciences.” It contains works, for example, by the misinformed astronomer Ptolemy but not by the rightly informed astronomer Galileo. “I am fascinated by error, by bad faith and idiocy,” Eco tells us. He loves the man who wrote a book about the dangers of toothpicks, and another author who produced a volume “about the value of being beaten with a stick, providing a list of famous artists and writers who had benefitted from this practice, from Boileau to Voltaire to Mozart.” He adores the hygienist who recommended, in his treatise, the practice of walking backwards. Eco does not tell us how many of these books he actually owns, or how much he would pay for a first edition in mint condition.
Eco and Carriere exchange insider information about book collecting. You can find the occasional bargain, Eco says. “In America, a book in Latin won’t interest the collectors even if it’s terribly rare, because they don’t read foreign languages, and definitely not Latin.” A Mark Twain first edition is what excites them. De Tonnac asks each man about his dream find. Eco’s response is conventional: “I’d like to dig up and keep, selfishly, a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the first book ever printed,” he says. Carriere opts for the discovery of “an unknown Mayan codex.”
A more interesting question, posed by de Tonnac, is whether “an unknown masterpiece might still be discovered.” Eco’s response is similar to the comments of the late critic Hugh Kenner. Kenner pointed out that if a copy of the Iliad turned up for the first time today it would arouse an archeological curiosity but little more. Eco agrees. “A masterpiece isn’t a masterpiece until it is well known and has absorbed all the interpretations to which it has given rise, which in turn make it what it is,” he says. “An unknown masterpiece hasn’t had enough readers, or readings, or interpretations.” Shakespeare, in contrast, is getting richer all the time. Disagreeable though it is to admit this, the anti-Western canon agitators have a point — literary masterpieces don’t simply drop from the heavens, or emerge from the brain of an inspired individual. Fate and politics play their roles.
The conversation in this book is full of interesting and sometimes heartening tidbits. “We are living in the first era in any civilization to have so many bookshops, so many beautiful, light-filled bookshops to wander around in, flicking through books,” Eco assures us. It is also salutary to be reminded that the preservation of cultural memory is an ongoing, urgent task. We assume that the contents of libraries and archives are being digitized, for example, without loss of significant printed material. This is not so. Carriere says that a truck arrives at the National Archives in Paris every day, “to take away a heap of old papers that are to be thrown out.”
Of the two conversationalists, I prefer Eco. Carriere is a little bit too cozy with the eminent. “I sometimes visit second-hand bookshops with my friend, the wonderful author and well-known bookseller Gerard Oberle,” he will state, or he will refer to, “My friend, the great Brazilian collector Jose Mindlin,” or he will find occasion to recall scenes with his good friends Luis Buñuel or Jorge Luis Borges or Jean-Luc Godard. I know it is hard for a top drawer French intellectual to avoid this, and I may simply be jealous. But I also notice that when a banality or an outright piece of misinformation pops up, it always comes from Carriere. You would never have Eco stating, for example, that the Gnostic Gospel According to Thomas is “a verbatim account of the words of Jesus,” or repeating an even hoarier canard, that St. Paul was “the real inventor of Christianity.”
Still, Carriere helps Eco keep the conversational ball in the air and free from any taint of theoretical jargon. Three cheers for these two hardy veterans of the cultural industry.
[Top]The World’s 6 Coolest-Looking Bookstores
Selexyz Dominicanen Bookstore
#1 Selexyz Dominicanen
Maastricht, Netherlands
It’s tough running an independent bookstore. To make such a business successful it helps having God on your side.
Selexyz Dominicanen Bookstore
Perhaps that’s what the proprietors of the Selexyz Dominicanen Bookstore were thinking when they decided to house their establishment in a 13th century Dominican cathedral in the center of Maastricht, Holland. Though, in truth, the cathedral hasn’t been a center for worship since Napoleon put the kibosh on services after he invaded Maastricht in 1794. Since then the cathedral has been alternately abandoned, used as a warehouse and turned into what was probably the world’s most sanctified indoor bicycle parking lot.
#1 Selexyz Dominicanen
Despite the fact that the cathedral hadn’t been a working cathedral for more than 200 years, turning the space into a bookstore was an enormous challenge for Selexyz Dominicanen’s architects. A city ordinance required that the cathedral be completely preserved, meaning that no permanent modifications to the building of any sort were allowed!
Selexyz Dominicanen Bookstore
So how do you create a three-story bookstore in a cathedral when you can’t drill any holes into the building or attach anything load-bearing to its walls? Selexyz Dominicanen made ingenious use of free-standing black steel scaffolding. This scaffolding completely supports all the bookshelves and the catwalks to them. The shelves and scaffolding are close to the cathedral’s walls but scaffolding never actually touch them.
Add to that a tasteful use of religious iconography (check out the cross-shaped reading table in the pic, above), a nice cafe located where the church choir once sang, and a slew of inviting nooks and comfy reading areas and the result is a bookstore that’s absolutely divine.
#2 Poplar Kid’s Republic
Beijing
What a cool design concept: Start with an all white bookstore interior—white floors, white ceiling, white walls, white stairs, white bookshelves, white everything—and to that liberally add rainbow splashes of bright color. Stock your shelves with a huge multi-language selection of kid’s books, add reading cubbyholes and padded activity areas, and you have Beijing’s Poplar Kid’s Republic, our favorite children’s bookstore in the world. (Sadly, our previous favorite children’s bookstore, the Cheshire Cat outside of Washington, DC, closed down several years ago—we hope endowing our current favored status upon the Kid’s Republic won’t condemn it to the same fate). Our photo below doesn't really do this huge store justice so check it out yourself next you are in Beijing. Kid’s Republic also has a branch, nearly as cool, in Shanghai.
Poplar Kid’s Republic Bookstore Beijing
#3 Livraria Lello
Porto, Portugal
Think a profitable store can’t be lush, rich and somehow homely? The velvety Livraria Lello in downtown Porto will change your mind. Not so much the art nouveau exterior as the gold-accented interior with its red carpets, stained glass, wood paneling and flowing central stair case. Walking into this bookstore, we had an insatiable urge to light a cigar (and we don’t smoke) because, well, this is the sort of place it seems like one should do that. And, indeed, this is the sort of place where one can do that. Cigars are sold in the Livraria Lello’s upstairs four-table coffee shop along with port, coffee (obviously) and baked goods.
Livraria Lello Bookstore Porto, Portugal
#4 El Ateneo
Buenos Aires
Quiz question: Where and when was the first ever movie with sound shown to a public audience?
The answer: The El Ateneo bookstore, 1929.
Of course, this gorgeous building in central Buenos Aires wasn’t always a bookstore. It started its life in 1919 as the Teatro Grand Splendid; more than 1,000 patrons would fill the theater to watch operas and tango performances. In 1928 this space was converted into a cinema. It has been a bookstore since 2000. Happily, the El Ateneo architects included many homages to the building’s theater days including curtains and stage lighting. There’s also a wonderful cafe up on the “stage.” Add to that plush seating areas and a huge selection of literature and you have what is by far the best bookstore in South America, arguably the most luxurious in the world, and #4 on coolest-looking bookstore list.
El Ateneo Bookstore Buenos Aires
El Ateneo Bookstore Buenos Aires
#5 Shakespeare & Co. Antiquarian Books
Paris
If you’ve seen the movie Before Sunset you’ve seen the inside of the Shakespeare & Co. Antiquarian bookstore—this is where Julie Delpy’s character reunited with Ethan Hawke’s during a book signing.
If you’ve read Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. (and if you haven’t you should) then you are intimately familiar with this bookstore. Time Was Soft There is the lusciously-written memoir of a homeless man who was allowed to sleep overnight in Shakespeare & Co by the store’s communist-leaning owner and then refused to vacate when times turned more capitalist. His bed is still there (see pic, below).
But even if you’ve never seen the Shakespeare & Co. Antiquarian bookstore in the movies, or read about it in books, you’ll step through the store’s doorway and sense that this is the sort of quaint, quirky place that should be in cinema and literature. The isles are piled with books. The writer’s room has a working piano for patrons to play. Poets regularly read their work in one of the back rooms.
And if you can’t get to Paris personally then at least visit the store’s supremely well done website HERE — poking around it is almost as much fun as poking around the store itself.
Shakespeare & Co. Antiquarian Books Paris
Shakespeare & Co. Antiquarian Books Paris
#6 El Péndulo
Mexico City
Originally this post was envisioned as a list of five bookstores. We had to expand it to six in order to squeeze in Polanco branch of El Péndulo. This bookstore isn’t as amazingly stunning or history-filled as the above five selections are. But it is bright, spacious, huge and gloriously plant-filled. Plus the store (and attached cafe) isn’t shy about using air conditioning, which makes El Péndulo a wonderful literary escape on a hot Mexican day.
El Péndulo Bookstore Mexico City
AbeBooks' Top 10 Most Expensive Sales in June 2011
Dune, Frank Herbert, first edition
In June 2011 AbeBooks once again showcased the collectibility of classic science fiction works, as a signed first edition copy of the modern classic Dune by Frank Herbert sold for $7,500. The novel is considered to be Herbert's magnum opus and spawned a series of sequels all set on the desert world of Arrakis, which is the only source of the universe's most valuable material: a melange called "spice" which is required for space travel. This is the highest recorded price paid for a copy of the landmark novel on AbeBooks, but it is also the first time a first edition copy of this quality has been sold with a signature included. Herbert got the idea for the novel while visiting Florence, Oregon and the famous Oregon sand dunes.
Other notable sales include a collection from French Poet Paul Verlaine which was limited to 30 copies and printed on Holland Paper, which is a durable paper suitable for luxury books. This was the only anthology of Verlaine's poetry that was published in the lifetime of the author, with the choice of poems being made by fellow writer Charles Morice (with Verlaine's approval). This copy sold for $6,541. Also interesting was the$5,050 sale of Rosas, a collection of poems, with illustrations in various media showing roses. Poems by Robert Herrick, Thomas More, William Blake and Edmund Waller are included, with other words and arrangements by artist Susan Allix. Making this collection even more remarkable was a double-page original watercolor unique to this volume.
Top 10 Most Expensive Sales in June 2011
1. Dune by Frank Herbert - $7,500
First edition, first printing signature by Herbert on a laid in. This true first edition includes a fine dustjacket with the $5.95 price present on the front flap.
2. Choix de poesies by Paul Verlaine - $6,541
Published in 1891 this is the first edition of Verlaine's collected poems, this copy is one of 30 limited edition copies to be printed on Holland Paper.
3. Lisboa: Cidade triste a alegre by Victor Palla and Costa Martins - $5,137
Published in quatro this volume contains 152 photographs from these renowned photographers
4. Cantigas de Santa Maria by Alfonso X el Sabio - $5,107
A facsimile edition published in 1989 of the thirteenth century religious songs authored by King Alfonso X the Wise.
5. Rosas: Roses Real and Imaginary with bindings by Susan Allix - $5,050
Published in 2009 this contains 14 unnumbered leaves buond in a multi-colored Morocco and embroidered binding by Allix. With nine illustrations of various sorts and in various media showing roses by Allix, one double-page and one an original watercolor unique to this volume. One of ten copies signed by Allix.
6. Buckskin Brigades by L. Ron Hubbard - $5,000
True first edition of the science fiction author's first book, published in 1937. This copy is in fine condition and includes the dustjacket.
7. The American Gardener by John Gardiner and David Hepburn- $5,000
Published in 1804 this is a first edition copy in full leather binding of the first book on American agriculture written by an American agriculturist.
8. The Complete Alphabet Murder Series by Sue Grafton - $4,975
From A to U this is a complete set of Grafton's famous series which began with A is for Alibi in 1982. Each volume is signed, copies in fine dustjackets, all first editions are first American printings. 22 volumes total as a second copy of O is for Outlaw was included as a limited British edition which pre-dated the American.
9. The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney - $4,500
With relief etchings by Claire Van Vliet, this 1984 publication by Janus Press was limited to 150 numbered copies (this #43) printed letterpress on handmade Barcham Green paper and signed by Charles G. Finney and Claire Van Vliet on colophon.
10. La militia romana di Polibio, Tito Livio, e di Dionigi Alicarnasso by Francesco Patrizi - $4,395
The Roman militia is a major study by the Italian philosopher Francesco Patrizi on the ancient Roman army based on his reading of Polybius, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Published in 1583.