Coming to auction this week at PBA Galleries in San Francisco is a stunning selection of. This sale, part II, will focus on “California & the Way Thither”; part I of the Heckrotte collection, held on October 29, was,, its “best-ever auction, with a total of $1,549,816 in sales, and three lots topping the $100,000 figure.” So, all eyes are on California, and for good reason. Take a gander: Lot 17: (1857-1859), including this striking (and “very desirable”) “Map Illustrating the General Geological features of the Country West of the Mississippi River. Robertshaw Rs3110 Digital Programmable Thermostat Manual. ” The estimate is $3,000-5,000. Lot 86: “,” a lithograph map on blue wove paper, issued as a pictorial lettersheet.

The estimate is $5,000-8,000. Lot 90:,” a hand-colored, lithographed map with decorative borders. This is the 1864 first edition of Bancroft’s “influential” pocket map.

The estimate is $3,000-5,000. Lot 107: “,” a lightly hand-colored lithographed map. This is the “first state of this rare map,” according to PBA. The estimate is $5,000-8,000.

Lot 197: “,” c. This color lithograph depicts “a mountainous and topographically captivating view of California.” The estimate is $1,000-1,500. When I received my copy of Bibliotheca Fictiva, impressively produced by Quaritch, and began reading through it, one of my first thoughts was that I might just as well give up the ghost on my own meagre collection of forgery-related material: the thought of building a collection that could rival this is daunting to the extreme. There can be no contest, but there needn’t be; I’ve neither the time, resources, nor inclination to collect as comprehensively as the Freemans have done, and there’s plenty of good material out there to fill the small niche I’m interested in, anyway. Once I’d gotten over that initial, overwhelmed state and really dug into this volume, I found it immensely interesting and useful. As Arthur Freeman notes in his preface, the collection was more than five decades in the making, eventually with an eye toward the composition of “a comprehensive history of literary and historical forgery, as a genre or tradition from antiquity to the near-present” (xi) which did not come to fruition. In 2011 the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University began to acquire the collection, and this volume covers it to that time, with some of the additions made since.

The “intimidating” outlines of the library, Freeman acknowledges, are “to some extent arbitrary and even personal” (xi): it covers “the entire range of literary forgery, that is to say the forgery of texts, whether historical, religious, philological, or ‘creatively’ artistic, in all languages and countries of the civilized Western world, from c. 400 BC to the end of the twentieth century” (xii).

But not just the original texts: also their “first and ongoing exposures (or obstinate endorsements), in whatever printed editions seemed most significant (along with manuscripts and correspondence when applicable), with a special emphasis, inevitable for us, on evocative annotated and association copies” (xii). No small task, indeed.

Freeman introduces the collection with an eighty-page overview, broken into eleven sections (Classical and Judeo-Christian Forgery to the Fall of Rome; Medieval Forgery, Religious and Secular; Renaissance Forgery, to 1600; Seventeenth-Century Forgery; Eighteenth-Century British Forgery; Nineteenth-Century British and American Forgery; France After 1700; German, Austrian, and Dutch Forgery; Italy and Spain; Central Europe, Russia, and Greece; and The Twentieth Century). In each he briefly surveys the collection’s holdings in that area, so these eleven sections taken together--given the wide scope of the library and the breadth of its holdings--can fairly effectively serve as a de facto introduction to the genre. While there are a whole lot of names, dates, and titles packed in here, Freeman manages to keep things moving nicely. The meat of Bibliotheca Fictiva is what Freeman has termed “The Handlist,” a catalog of the collection as it stood at the time of acquisition by Johns Hopkins. Items retained by the Freemans are noted (these include, Freeman reports, duplicates, modern reference books, certain association items, and collections related to the Fortsas hoax and the Guglielmo Libri thefts). In the introductory headnote to the Handlist Freeman outlines several areas in which the Bibliotheca Fictiva complements existing holdings at Hopkins (including the Book of Mormon).

The Handlist is organized into thirteen sections--roughly corresponding to the eleven above--next by forger or topic, and finally by date (the index will be of great use). Some 1,676 entries follow, often with annotations as to their provenance, some with descriptions of the binding, and most with a short explanation of their significance. Reading right through these entries, or at least for any particular area you have an interest in, will be well worth it: even setting aside from the scope, the library includes some truly remarkable material. There’s the (unique?) single-sheet prospectus for the Irelands’ Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments, with Samuel Ireland’s manuscript addition offering a subscription refund to doubters; or there’s Hugh Trevor-Roper’s annotated review copy of Morton Smith’s The Secret Gospel; or John Carter’s own copy of Enquiry, with a letter from Pollard dated “the day after publication,” calling the book “too much of a curate’s egg.” It takes sixty pages to document the vast sub-collection of materials relating to John Payne Collier’s life and works. From the vile (Protocols of the Elders of Zion) to the ridiculous, they’re here, and this volume is one anyone with even the slightest interest in the topic will want to have and refer to often.

The Freemans’ laudable decision to transfer the Bibliotheca Fictiva collection to Hopkins has prompted the publication of additional, complementary texts. The proceedings of a 2012 conference, “Literary Forgery and Patriotic Mythology in Europe, 1450-1800” will soon be published, and a lovely catalog of a Sheridan Libraries exhibition, Fakes, Lies, and Forgeries was released in 2014. As Winston Tabb notes in his Foreword, it is through “exhibitions and publications like this one, which share the fascinating hidden histories of fakes and forgeries throughout the ages and inspire future generations to explore them further” (iv) that we can acknowledge and thank the Freemans for providing the fruits of their long collecting labors to the scholarly community.

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In his introduction, Earle Havens, the catalog’s editor, outlines how the decision was taken not only to bring the collection to Baltimore, but also to keep it together, allowing for use, promotion, and study of collection as a whole, not simply as disparate items divorced from their context. He builds a good case for the relevance and usefulness of studying forgeries and their creators as a key component of the historical and cultural record: “to treat forgery as a mode, and at times even an expressive art, of literature” (vii). Along with a checklist of the exhibition, five interpretive essays are included. Earle Havens’ “Catastrophe?

Species and Genres of Literary and Historical Forgery” offers a broad overview of scholarly treatments of forgeries over time and a gallop through the “species of forgery” to be found in the Bibliotheca Fictiva, while Neil Weijer explores how one might grapple with historical forgeries (that is, forgeries of historical documents) when both “history” and “forgery” are pretty tough terms to pin down, “if all historical writing is essentially fiction?” (43). Walter Stephens provides an excellent overview of Annius of Viterbo’s works and their afterlives, and Janet E.

Gomez treats the distinction between “literature” and “literary forgery” using the Ireland Shakespeare forgeries, the Alberti Tasso forgeries, and Psalmanazar’s Formosa as case studies. Finally, John Hoffmann delves into the nastiness, tackling the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well other 19th- and 20th-century racist productions about miscegenation and the like. His conclusion is a fitting one for the whole book and for the topic: “The most important fact for a forger to keep in mind is the prejudice of his audience, and forgers play upon the public’s credulity by indulging unquestioned assumptions. Forgeries make illusions seem real, but most important, they bring about real effects” (112). Steamy Miami hosted the this past week, culminating this weekend with a street fair--with an antiquarian row, I might add--and a packed schedule of author lectures, readings, and signings. I was lucky to be there promoting my first book,, during an hour-long event called “Stories of Books: Cultural Explorations” with Andrea Mays, author of, and James Grissom, author of. I also had the chance to see a couple of other terrific presentations.

FB&C readers will recognize the name Marvin Sackner, co-founder the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, the largest collection of typewriter art and concrete poetry in the world, who is featured in our. Marvin, seen here at left, spoke about how he and his wife, Ruth, began collecting “typed artpoe” in the 1960s and how it turned into the beautiful new book,.

A riveting session on Civil War Stories included a talk by James L. Swanson, collector of Lincolniana and author of. He described how useful artifacts are to him while he is writing--he owns, by the by, a lock of Lincoln’s hair and a shred of the blood-stained shawl worn by actress Laura Keene on the night of the president’s assassination. My trip to Miami wasn’t complete without a visit to indie bookseller (the flagship site in neighboring Coral Gables), a vibrant shop with an incredible selection of art books.

Books & Books was opened 33 years ago by Mitchell Kaplan, not coincidentally the mastermind behind the Miami Book Fair, which celebrated its 32nd anniversary this year. Yesterday, author pulled into the Great Hall in as part of a multi-city book tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of his beloved 1986 -winning picture book,. The author signed books from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m., but the enchantment didn’t end when Van Allsburg left. Children wishing to ride the magical line may do so at Union Station now through January 3. (The rides are organized by Rail Events Inc.).

Fast-tracking throughout the Midwest, the book tour started in Kalamazoo, worked through Grand Rapids (Van Allsburg’s hometown), Cincinnati, Louisville, then Chicago, and will reach its final destination today in Milwaukee. Fans who missed the connection needn’t go off the rails, though: publisher recently released a For the uninitiated, the captivating story starts with a young boy lying in bed, straining to hear Santa’s sleigh, even after being told Santa isn’t real. Instead of a jingling sleigh, a train whistles, and an old-fashioned steamer, the Polar Express, pulls in front of his home. The boy rides the magical locomotive with other pyjama-clad children all the way to the North Pole, visits with Mr. Claus in the flesh, and reaffirms his belief in magic. The book was an instant success, and since 1985, it has sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

Named it one of the Top 100 Picture Books of all time, and in 2004 The Polar Express was adapted into an Oscar-nominated, starring Tom Hanks as the kindly conductor. Copyright 1985,..

My own piece of Polar Express memorabilia has hung on a wall in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house in Massachusetts for twenty-six years. It’s a framed, movie-size poster of the cover, signed by Van Allsburg and dated October 11, 1989. I also remember listening to the book on cassette, narrated by Academy Award-winning actor William Hurt. Even when Christmas was long packed away, my sister and I insisted that the tale be on heavy rotation during the car rides to school, to the point where the audio became fuzzy and crackled. On a whim, I searched for the audio file online, and. I gathered up my six-year-old daughter, and together we listened to the story.

While long-forgotten childhood memories surged to the forefront of my mind, my daughter was enthralled, wrapped up in the narrative, but interrupting periodically to exclaim, “it’s a true story!” and “he met Santa? Lucky!” confirming that the spirit of The Polar Express still rings true, as I’m sure it does for others who believe in the wonder of the holiday season. Published this month from husband-and-wife team Noah Fleisher and Lauren Zittle is a sweet, beautifully illustrated book titled (Krause Publications, $26.99). It surveys children’s literature from 1900 to the present first with brief historical essays on the best books of each era, followed by spreads that highlight major authors, including Seuss, Sendak, Dahl, Carle, Milne, Disney, Rowling, and many more, and peppered with favorites and recommendations. Get ready for a grand tour down Memory Lane! In the introduction, Fleisher, who is by day the public relations director for Heritage Auctions in Dallas, relates how his journey into children’s literature began after the birth of their daughter in 2006. As it is for many families, Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon became the springboard for his love of the genre.

We learn later that a “very rare true first edition” of this title with its dust jacket recently sold for $800 on eBay. While the authors do list prices of editions recently sold at auction, the book is not intended to be a price guide, rather, it is meant, Fleisher writes, “to give you a sense of what you can find out there.” A first edition of Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline’s Christmas?

$168 at PBA Galleries. A first edition (with a fourth-edition jacket) of Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal? $395 on eBay. A second printing of Shel Silverstein’s Falling Up? $531 at Heritage Auctions. Collecting Children’s Books is great fun to peruse--perhaps with child or grandchild on one’s lap--and for anyone interested in beginning a collection in this area, it’s the perfect introduction. Image Courtesy of Noah Fleisher.

In search of something epic? Look no further than booth 319, where is offering a gem of 20th-century publishing: a 1935 (LEC) example of, with etchings. This 365-page volume is number 244 in a run of 1500 numbered copies, and is signed by author and illustrator.

Bound in brown cloth, the book includes Matisse’s stamped in gold on the front cover. The spine, also stamped in gold, features a miniature of the cover design. This is one of the most highly coveted editions published by LEC, the other being a 1934 edition of ’ illustrated and signed. Ulysses, by James Joyce, illustrated by Henri Matisse.

Image from Oak Knoll Books.com. LEC founder and publisher George Macy wanted his edition of Joyce’s work to be illustrated by one of the best artists of the time. He approached Matisse with his request and $5,000.

In the 1930s that sum brought twenty-six full-page illustrations. Matisse was rumored not to have read Joyce’s novel (though he was provided a French translation), and the black-and-white compositions are based on themes pulled from the Greek classic. Readers looking for Matisse’s bold use of color will not find it here. Instead, grand gestures are rendered in strokes of charcoal and pencil, reflecting the artist’s belief that meaning in art could be conveyed through thoughtfully placed lines. Presented with the Limited Editions Press Monthly Letter and prospectus loosely inserted, Ulysses is being offered for $20,000. In 1859, the Pennsylvania-born Dr.

James Curtis Hepburn went to Japan as a medical missionary. He returned a lexicographer. No stranger to foreign travel, Hepburn had already spent five years as missionary in Singapore and China. He also tried a medical practice in New York City for several years, but ultimately lived in Japan for 25 years, where he established a clinic and a school in Yokohama. Aside from these achievements, Hepburn also created, in 1867, the first modern Japanese-English dictionary. The dictionary took him nearly eight years to complete, with the assistance of Japanese journalist and scholar Kishida Ginkō. It became the standard bilingual reference book, and Hepburn’s name became attached to the system of romanization he pioneered in the dictionary.

What linguists call the “Hepburn romanization” is still regarded as the best system for the transcription of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. A first edition of his historic dictionary, in its original cloth binding, will be on offer this Saturday at the from.

The price is $3,750. Image Courtesy of Archway Books. So all week on the blog we’ll be highlighting items from the book fairs, auction, or events going on this week and weekend. For today’s installment, we take a page from our feature on collecting cookbooks and highlight the manuscript recipe book of actress and author Fanny Kemble. It will be on offer from at the beginning Friday evening. Kemble (1809-1893) was a very popular English-born stage actress. She married American Pierce Butler in 1834, and they subsequently moved to his Georgia plantation and had two children.

But the marriage didn’t last, due in large part to their differing views about slavery. Kemble’s Journal of A Residence on A Georgian Plantation, a raw chronicle of plantation life written during her early married years, was published in 1863. This recipe book was compiled in Kemble’s later years, when she was living in Philadelphia. The clothbound “blank book” was published in 1870, and it contains 146 recipes written mostly in Kemble’s hand, for dishes like “Maryland Corn Cakes,” “Moonshine Biscuits,” and “Calves Feet Jelly.” There is also a laid-in, recipe-related letter from Kemble to her eldest daughter, Sarah Butler Wister (wife of Dr. Owen Jones Wister, and mother of novelist Owen Wister). As an artifact of culinary, literary, or women’s history, this item is very special. The price is $25,000.

Image Courtesy of Rabelais Books. A young printmaker in the RAD workshop (Photo courtesy of RAW Art and Grace Whitlock.) Funding for programs has been on a for years now, but private and nonprofit programs remain bright beacons in the dark, offering hands-on programs that foster creativity and self-expression to those in greatest need. One such enterprise,, located in the former industrial city of, has used art to bring stability and opportunity to the community for over a quarter-century. When RAW first opened its doors in 1988, the staff worked primarily with incarcerated minors, harnessing the healing power of art as a kind of catharsis. Now the nonprofit encompasses two buildings in the heart of downtown Lynn, and welcomes over 1,200 children a year, ranging in age from seven to seventeen. In 2013, executive director Kit Jenkins spoke with donors about how to celebrate RAW’s 25th anniversary.

“We focused on what our community needed from us,” said Jenkins earlier this week. “I mentioned this to [proprietors of Boston-based ] Anne and David Bromer, longstanding donors to our program, and Anne wondered how I felt about a letterpress. I hadn’t thought of it before, but it was a perfect suggestion.” At its core, RAW is, and in recent years the mission added a spoken word component to the lineup. “We saw this overwhelming need for better, clearer verbal expression,” Jenkins continued. “These kids spend so much time texting that it negatively impacts their writing patterns, so we developed the Art of Words program where children incorporate writing into their art installations and film projects.” Working together yields great results.

(Photo courtesy of RAW Art and Grace Whitlock.) Storytelling is indeed at the heart of any artistic endeavor, and the writing component elevates the entire program at RAW. Программа Для Создания 3d Моделей Из Фотографий. Incorporating a letterpress sounded great, but tipping the scales at over 1,000 pounds, these machines aren’t exactly portable, and RAW didn’t have enough space at the time.

However, in a moment of total serendipity, the organization acquired the building adjacent to its original location, which included a fully-finished 2,000 square foot basement. “We set the print shop down there,” Jenkins said. Now, in addition to all the necessary printing accoutrements, the shop houses two fully-functional Vandercook presses, one hailing from a Maine establishment, and the other from Western Massachusetts. Setting up the print shop was a collaborative effort. John Kristensen of Boston-based orchestrated the sourcing and installation of the presses, while the Bromers funded the project. “Anne and David are totally committed to RAW,” said Jenkins. “We are so grateful to them and that their vision is having such an impact in the lives of these children.” As a way of saying thanks, Jenkins and the RAW team christened the new printshop RAD -- Raw+Anne+David -- and kept the name secret until the ribbon-cutting ceremony last November.

Since then, almost 350 of the six hundred children enrolled in RAW programs have taken a turn at the presses. “Most kids love it, others hate it, but that’s normal,” said Jenkins, who was also named Distinguished Educator of the Year by in 2008. “Printing broadsides, setting type, all that goes into requires patience, focus, and order, and some of our kids are impatient for results! Many, however, find the structured aspect of printing to be immensely therapeutic, because the printshop is the only place where there is structure and order in their lives.” Now, when film students or painters want to promote their work, they drop by the print shop and commission broadsides custom-designed by fellow students. Most of the children in these programs are from Lynn and surrounding environs, places where high crime rates and poverty pose significant roadblocks in their lives. Jenkins says RAWs overarching mission is helping children see beyond their immediate surroundings, that change is possible, and can be found in the arts.

“We had a family that was displaced during the recession, and at night they slept in their car in our parking lot. It was the only place they felt safe. These families know that RAW is committed to them, that we’re not going anywhere, and that we are here to help.” Participants pay nothing for the programs, and Jenkins hopes that donors like the Bromers will continue generously supporting their work. “RAW affects change in children, but we’re also changing the community,” concluded Jenkins, “and our new print shop is encouraging these children to forge better, brighter futures.” That’s a big impression. Lincoln wrote down the final paragraph of his second inaugural speech (“With malice toward none; with charity for all.”) and then signed his name in an autograph book presented to him by Linton Usher, then 10 years old, the son of Lincoln’s Interior Secretary John Usher. Lincoln’s contribution came just a handful of weeks before he was assassinated.

“This is just one of five manuscripts of that particular speech,” said Sandra Palomino, director of rare manuscripts at Heritage Auctions, “so it’s an understatement to call it rare. Lincoln was not one to just scribble a quote for someone. It’s likely that this was written on request.”. Coming to auction later this month at is a remarkable collection of designs, sketches, and fabric swatches that reveals the emergence of “The Jackie Look,” referring, of course, to the fashionable former first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. It includes, for example, three large-format color drawings of evening gowns--the cream dress she wore on the September 1st, 1961 cover of Life magazine, the pink gown worn at a dinner during a state visit to Canada in February 1961, and the yellow suit and pillbox hat worn during an official state luncheon with French President Charles De Gaulle--each bearing annotations from Mrs. Kennedy, such as “Make sure skirt is not too slinky.” This unpublished archive was created by Irwin Karabell, assistant and sketch artist to designer Oleg Cassini, for much of the sixties.

In 1960, Cassini was named Mrs. Kennedy’s official wardrobe designer. He is credited with making A-line dresses, pillbox hats, and Nehru jackets fashionable. Portions of the archive were exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute’s landmark 2001 exhibition, Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years. And now, it is for sale, estimated at $10,000-15,000.