John James Audubon subject of NEH-funded 'Picturing America' institute at IU Bloomington
One particular problem with looking back at Audbon's writings, [Christoph] Irmscher said, is that although his body of writing was vast initially, his writings were censored by his granddaughter, particularly the journals. "She destroyed some and ended up rewriting others out of a notion of Victorian propriety," he said. Much of the institute will take place at IU's Lilly Library, one of the foremost repositories of rare books and manuscripts in the world and home to unparalleled Audubon resources, among them a pristine set of Audubon's Double Elephant Folio of Birds of America and an early, paper-wrapped edition of the Royal Octavo edition of the same work.
Mapping Manchester exhibition
The University of Manchester's John Rylands Library is displaying a unique collection of Manchester maps in a new exhibition. Mapping Manchester – Cartographic Stories of the City shows material from the University of Manchester, Manchester City Library and Archives, Chetham's Library and the Manchester Geographical Society. The 80 maps featured in the exhibition have been unseen in public for up to 200 years.
NYC Museum Features Bowne Stationers
New York was the center of the letterpress printing industry during the 19th century. Printing offices and "job shops" clustered between Park Row and Fulton Street. Along the north-south streets crossing them were paper suppliers, newspapers, type foundries, book binders, and ink makers. Bowne & Co., Stationers, a part of the South Street Seaport Museum, resembles a typical job shop of the late 1870's. The space would have been rather dim and lit by gas. Printing was done on presses that were powered by a treadle that had to be pumped with the foot. The shop employees had to hand-pick each piece of metal type to hand-set the text.
Lost in Cyberspace
That’s because on June 8 Scripps made the jubilant announcement that it was finalizing an agreement with the Denver Public Library “to ensure responsible stewardship of the storied newspaper’s archives and artifacts.” The library “would assume ownership of the Rocky’s voluminous archives, including all digital and paper newspaper clipping files,” while the Colorado Historical Society would receive “such other artifacts as signs, photographs, special editions, artwork and other information that documents the history of the Rocky.” [John] Temple assumed that “archives” and “digital files” meant that the entire contents of the Rocky’s site would be preserved by the library. But they won’t. Jim Kroll, who as head of the library’s department of western history and genealogy is receiving the Scripps bequest, tells me the library’s going to get “photos that appeared in the paper, photos that are outtakes, PDFs of the newspaper for the past four years, streaming video, some other things I’m not quite sure of yet.”
Hemingway grandson publishes revised version of A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway's classic memoir of his time in Paris in the 1920s, A Moveable Feast, has been reworked by his grandson to give "a much better impression of what he was trying to accomplish". The first version of the posthumous memoir was published in 1964 – three years after the death of its author – edited by Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary. Now his grandson, Seán Hemingway, has edited a new edition, which includes previously unpublished sketches of Hemingway's life in Paris, including moments with his first wife Hadley and his son Jack, irreverent portraits of F Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Madox Ford, and Hemingway's memories of his early attempts at writing. A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition will be published by Scribner in the US next month, with a foreword by Hemingway's only surviving son, Patrick.
A blessing for Obama from the American Jewish community
US President Barack Obama is about to receive a unique gift. Shlomo Perelman, owner of judaism.com, has spent the past six months assembling a prayer scroll for the president, made up of over 3,000 personalized blessings that constituents submitted between December 26 and January 31. The idea came to Perelman after he heard about a gift presented to president-elect Abraham Lincoln by the head of the Jewish community of Chicago in 1861 - an American flag on which tailor Abraham Kohn had embroidered the opening verses of the Book of Joshua, including the words "be strong and of good courage."
Another Gandhi auction, bidders still at wits' end
Thanks to a loophole left by the government after the last auction of Gandhi memorabilia held four months ago in New York, Indian collectors will again be at a disadvantage at the next one due on July 14 in London. For, the reform introduced after the New York controversy is limited to "antiques of an age exceeding 100 years", although none of the available Gandhi belongings is that old. The exclusion of items that may be younger but are of no less "historical interest" will hamper Indian bidders at Sotheby's on July 14 when it will auction the belongings not just of Gandhi but also of Nehru.
Bill of treason found in university archives
Archivists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. have discovered a bill of treason, written on parchment against one William Rogers for taking up arms with William Lyon MacKenzie in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. "In Canadian history the rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada are an important passage in what happened in Canada at that time," the director of archives and research at McMaster University, Carl Spadoni, said Tuesday. "William Lyon MacKenzie organized a number of people, farmers and others, hoping to take over the government ... but the rebellion was quashed."
Russia won't participate in Jewish documents suit
Russia told a U.S. court on Friday that judges have no authority to tell the country how to handle sacred Jewish documents held in its state library that were seized by the Nazi and Soviet armies. The documents are at the center of a lawsuit brought by members of Chabad-Lubavitch, which follows the teachings of Eastern European rabbis and emphasizes the study of the Torah. The group is suing Russia in U.S. court to recover thousands of manuscripts, prayers, lectures and philosophical discourses by leading rabbis dating back to the 18th century.
For the moment | Donatella Versace
Then there is the shopping. I adore Argosy, a bookstore on East 59th Street that sells rare books, prints and maps, and I always go there to stock up on art books.
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