Turn to any page of the recently published, two-volume, folio-size Catalog of the Cotsen Children's Library: The Nineteenth Century  -- say, page 24 of volume II -- and the bibliographical detail accompanying each entry and illustration are case studies in thoroughness. In my case, page 24 reveals a charming, full-page, illustration of Theodore Léfèvre's Bébé saurait bientôt lire (approx. 1880), a hand-colored wood engraving frontispiece for an elementary reader.

This project didn't come together overnight; for over twenty years, a team of dedicated librarians and staff at the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University have been fastidiously compiling a complete catalogue of that library's research material. To put it mildly, this has been no small undertaking. Out of the nearly 100,000 items donated by Princeton alumnus ('50) and Neutrogena executive Lloyd Cotsen, 23,000 non-circulating items spanning the 15th through the 20th century and written in thirty languages will ultimately be included in the multi-volume compendium.

Included in the Nineteenth Century are descriptions of 6,370 children's books in the library's holdings and 270 full-color illustrations. Titles were selected for this publication based on their illustrations or their representation of a particular style or development. As the focus is on the 19th century, work by well-known illustrators like Charles Perrault and Kate Greenaway figure prominently, as do examples of then-revolutionary printing and illustrating techniques.

These lavender, gilt-stamped cloth volumes are arranged alphabetically, with each entry given meticulous bibliographic detail. The pair is being sold through Oak Knoll Press for $250. Nineteenth Century joins the Cotsen's earlier two-volume catalogue, published in 2000 and 2003, chronicling the library's 20th-century holdings. A final, two-volume project is in the works that will examine the Cotsen's children's books dating from the 1400s through 1801.

Among some of the treasures in the Cotsen's holdings include picture letters by Beatrix Potter, incunables, drawings by Edward Lear, and even an early-Coptic schoolbook. Though the Cotsen collection is non-circulating, the library hosts an array of impressive virtual exhibitions using its holdings. 

In case you missed it on CBS Sunday Morning earlier this week, Kentucky's Larkspur Press was profiled, showing owner Gray Zeitz lovingly making books by hand on a 1915 hand-press. Larkspur prints and binds editions of 300-500, some for famous KY authors like Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason.  

As reported this morning by Shelf Awareness, soon after the segment aired Frankfort's Capital Gallery of Contemporary Art, run by artist Ellen Glasgow, was inundated with orders, posting on Facebook: "Folks! We are overwhelmed with the response to the CBS Sunday Morning story! At this time we do not have an online shop... BUT if you call (502) 223-2649 and leave a message, Ellen will get you taken care of!!" Another bookseller, Kelly Estep of Carmichael's Bookstores in Louisville also reported having received 200 orders for Larkspur Press books after the CBS piece ran.

What heartening news for private presses around the country! Plus a nice s/o to the American Academy of Bookbinding in Telluride, Colorado. Watch here:


 

British booksellers Deborah Coltham and Laura Massey (a previous entry in our Bright Young Booksellers series) have collaborated on a milestone rare book catalogue issued last week: A Hunger of the Mind: Four Centuries of Women and Science. The catalogue highlights women's connections with STEM fields over four centuries, containing high-points by such luminaries as Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, and Rachel Carson, as well as a wide variety of selections from lesser-known women who weren't households names but made important contributions to their field. Popular science writers, eductators, translators, entrepreneurs, explorers, and activists round out the catalogue.

The catalogue's title is from a quotation by astronomer Maria Mitchell (19th c): "We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing."

We love how well this mirrors the theme of the catalogue, showing that the same sentiments which drive male scientists - curiosity and wonder - apply equally to women, said Coltham in a press release.

Our goal for this catalogue is to show that women have always been involved in scientific enterprises, often despite great obstacles, and this hidden history is now being uncovered by pioneering historians, librarians, and book collectors, continued Coltham.

Massey added, 

The history of science is frequently presented as a story of men and a handful of really remarkable women. That's simply not the case, as this catalogue demonstrates. Even when women weren't allowed into the ranks of professional researchers, they found other ways to participate, for instance by writing popular science books or collecting specimens.

The catalogue is currently available as a PDF on both booksellers' websites, (visit Coltham here and Massey here), with paper copies to be issued in the coming weeks

Rockwell Kent was on my mind owing to our new spring issue's feature story about the time when Rockwell Kent, Rex Stout, and Egmont Arens teamed up to publish Casanova's memoir in the states, where it was still banned. So I was perhaps pre-disposed to notice Ken Lopez's display of a Rockwell Kent archive, at the ABAA fair on Friday, that included Kent's own copy of the unbound sheets of Candide, a project he undertook after Casanova. And then, at the NYC Book & Ephemera Fair (the "Satellite Fair") on Saturday, I spied a manuscript about Casanova written by Arthur Symons, who wrote the introduction for the Kent-Stout-Arens edition of 1925. The Old New York Book Shop in Atlanta, Georgia, was offering it for $3,000. How's that for bibliophilic serendipity?

Back at the Armory, there was another reminder of our current issue: Verona's Bibliopathos was showing the tattoo bookbindings of Aarom von Hemmersbach. Aarom's bindings (which sold, I'm happy to report) are created using an innovative tattooing technique -- he's a tattoo artist in Winnipeg, Canada, after all.Over at Whitmore Rare Books, I was drawn in by the pretty binding on Evenings with the Stars (1924). I learned that the author, Mary Proctor, a Columbia-educated scientist, brought astronomy to the masses with hundreds of articles and lectures on the night sky. It was priced at $2,750.

Two things I noted at the ABAA fair this year: new stuff and (some) affordable prices. By "new stuff," I mean I didn't see twenty copies of the first edition of Malamud's The Natural as I have in past years. In the inexpensive and cool, but not-in-my-collecting-scope category, was Vietnam Nurse, a pulp romance from 1966 written under a pseudonym by poet Fanny Howe, offered by Brian Cassidy, Bookseller for $125.

While others eyed Gutenberg's Mainz Catholicon (c.1469) at Liber Antiquus, my personal favorite of theirs was a first edition of Monstrorum historia (1642), "the first treatise on teratology, the study of deformities and monsters." A large, illustrated folio, it was bewitching. Price: $25,000. 

At $1.5 million, Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps had the showstopper, though: an archive of drawings and blueprints for the Statue of Liberty from ?tablissements Eiffel, 1880-1883.  

Two final favorites: At the ABAA fair, Battledore had Kate Greenaway's lovely memorial ring, an 18-karat gold and hair-work piece, and, at the Satellite Show, Brenner's Books had an advanced reader's edition of the The Blackboard Jungle (1954) by Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain. That title is special to me because I worked with Hunter on a reprint edition of The Blackboard Jungle a few years before his death in 2005.

We--the husband and I--also picked up two decorated publishers' bindings at this fair, one from Mosher Books, another from Austin Abbey Rare Books.

A busy week coming up in the salerooms:

Today at Bonhams New York, 405 lots from the Medical & Scientific Library of W. Bruce Fye. I'll have more on this sale in the next print issue, but some expected highlights include an important association copy of the first edition of Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1543), from the library of Augsburg physician Achilles Pirmin Gasser ($300,000-500,000); a second edition of Vesalius (1555), estimated at $30,000-40,000; and a first issue of Hooke's Micrographia ($30,000-40,000). More from Rebecca's post last week.

The second part of Fye's library, consisting of 749 lots, will be sold in an online auction starting on Tuesday, March 12 and extending through March 21.

Bonhams New York will also hold a sale of Extraordinary Books and Manuscripts on Tuesday. A huge range of fascinating lots in this one, from the Estelle Doheny copy of Leaves of Grass, which is signed by Whitman and was used as his working copy ($200,000-300,000) to an Apple-1 motherboard ($100,000-150,000). Isaac Newton's copy of John Greaves' Pyramidographia (1646) could sell for $50,000-70,000, while a collection of Harper Lee drawings and letters is estimated at $20,000-30,000. There are any number of lots in this sale that I would be very unsurprised to see far exceed expectations, so it will be fascinating to see what happens.

Doyle New York's online sale of Travel & Sport in India from the Library of Arnold "Jake" Johnson (336 lots) ends on Wednesday, March 14, as does Bonhams' online auction of Treasures from the Eric C. Caren Collection (266 lots).

On Friday, March 15, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers sells a portion of the Adventure & Exploration Library of Steve Fossett, in 296 lots. A copy of the first London edition of Lewis & Clark's Travels (1814) is estimated at $6,000-8,000, and a first edition of James Bruce's Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1790), could sell for $3,000-5,000.

Though the barometer may suggest otherwise, one of the telltale signs of spring in New York is the annual arrival of Rare Book Week, going on now through March 12. Besides the various pearls for sale among the well-stocked stacks at the three book and ephemera fairs, holding court around Manhattan are a slew of shows and exhibitions dedicated to celebrating the people and things of the book world. One that serious bibliophiles should not miss is the Grolier Club's exhibition of Pat Pistner's miniature bindings and books, now on view in the second floor gallery.   

The 275-item installation--a misleading number, given that some items, like the 42-volume set of Sherlock Holmes mysteries is counted as one piece--spans the history of texts written on a diminutive scale. A miniature Babylonian cuneiform tablet accounting "plucked" sheep dating from approximately 2340 BCE shares space with sumptuous illuminated Books of Hours and contemporary artists' books by Timothy Ely and Nancy Gifford. From an archive that currently includes 4,000 items, the Naples, Florida-based bibliophile whittled down her selections to those she said best represented the considerable historical scope of her collection.

   
"Collecting is so personal," Pistner told a group during a Wednesday lunchtime tour of the exhibition, which she led along with co-curator Jan Storm van Leeuwen. "Some people focus on one element, but I've chosen to take a much broader view, with the goal of collecting the best possible examples of miniature bindings from across history."

Out of so many tiny treasures bound in gold, silver, and other precious elements, can Pistner possibly have a favorite? "I love all of them, but these are perhaps my most prized," she said, gesturing to a case containing 16th-century miniatures from France and Italy. She graciously posed for a photograph holding up a liturgical miniature called the Enchiridion p[re] clare ecclesie Sarum, a 1528 tome hailing from the collection of Charles Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Parma. The text dates to the 16th century, but the binding was by Pierre Marcellin Lortic, a 19th-century binder.

Another, less dramatic (but no less significant) prize sits in a wall case in the hallway: a miniature printing of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Issued in 1862, the unassuming single-section pamphlet in tan paper is Lincoln's preliminary proclamation freeing the slaves and the first printing in book form of the text. In a hurried effort to spread the word, 50,000 copies of this mini were distributed by Union soldiers to African Americans as they marched through the South. "Not many remain in existence," Pistner explained. This one, like nearly every other item in the exhibition, is an exquisite example, all a reminder of the major role miniature books play in understanding the history of the written word.

"A Matter of Size," is on view now through May 19. Free lunchtime exhibition tours led by the curator will be held on April 24 at 1 pm and May 18 at 3 pm. No reservations necessary. The accompanying 476-page, fully-illustrated catalogue ($95, Oak Knoll) is a meticulously compiled resource that covers the breadth of Pistner's collection as well as its place in the bibliosphere. 

As readers of this blog will recall, antiquarian medical books are a particular interest of mine, so it was great fun to browse the catalogue of Bonhams' upcoming auction of the medical and scientific library of Dr. W. Bruce Fye. (I also listened to an engaging lecture Fye gave last year in which he talks at length about book collecting and bibliomania. He donated about 15,000 volumes to the Mayo Clinic, and still has thousands left to divest.) Next week's sale will offer up 351 items; there are too many superlatives to feature fully -- Darwin, Descartes, Curie, Cushing, Hooke, Nightingale, Pasteur, Rush -- so I have limited myself to just eight highlights.

How did you get started in rare books?

Erik: I answered a help wanted ad in the back of the Village Voice. This was in the late 90s. I had done bookish jobs in NYC for ten years after college: assistant to a literary agent, admin work for a book packager, retrospective card catalog conversion at the Butler Library at Columbia University, and most saliently, sales clerk at the old St. Mark's Bookshop in the East Village. I was about to turn 30 and was ready to sink my teeth into something. Bauman Rare Books, which was based out of Philadelphia, happened to be expanding their New York presence just then with their Madison Avenue location. I went in for an interview, and ended up working there 14 years, first as a sales associate, then as a manager. It was my school.

Jess: It's my mom's fault. She's a photographer and designer who ran an offset press for artist's books, first in Chicago and then in Philadelphia, so I was introduced to the idea of "the book as an object" pretty early. I landed my first bookish job at the old Left Bank Books, on 8th Avenue, as I was pursuing my BFA at The Cooper Union. The Left Bank employees used to come into the coffee shop I worked at next door. The manager was complaining about interviewing prospective employees, so I convinced him to hire me and call it a day...somehow that worked. It was my first introduction to the world of bookselling, and it quickly became clear to me that I should stay in it.

Tell us a bit about the history of Left Bank Books. When did you take over? What do you currently specialize in?

Left Bank Books began as a neighborhood used bookshop in Greenwich Village in the early 90s (first as Book Leaves, then Left Bank around 2005, with the first of several changes in ownership). For a variety of reasons, it was forced to close in 2016. We met while working there, which we each did for a year, and like everyone else in the neighborhood were really sad to see it go. We kept in touch, and a year later decided to revive it. We had some ideas about inventory selection and digital marketing we believed would make the business more up-to-date and viable. We started as an online shop, specializing in literature and the arts, with an emphasis on used and rare books we felt spoke to the culture in a fresh, sometimes irreverent way; we built a better website than previously, and established a social media presence. We also did fairs, which Left Bank hadn't done before. Sometime after that we began talking seriously about an open shop, but only recently did it become a realistic possibility for us. Things have moved quickly - we expect to re-open in late March in our new Village location at 41 Perry Street. The shop - about half the size of the old space at roughly 250 square feet - will showcase an eclectic selection from the 20th and 21st centuries (and occasionally earlier), encompassing literature, art, film, photography, fashion, architecture, design, music, theater, dance, children's books, and New York City. We look forward to reimagining what a small, well-curated neighborhood bookshop can be, and in time expect to host events and exhibits. We want to be a destination for seasoned collectors, emerging enthusiasts, and curious newcomers the world over.

 How do you split your roles at Left Bank?

Erik: We both do a little of everything. With my deeper background in the trade I tend to do more of the traditional "bookman" things, like buying and cataloging, while Jess handles the design and digital side, but really we meet in the middle and teach each other along the way.

What do you love about the book trade?

Erik: First and foremost the books, and the opportunity every day to see things I've never seen before, as well as old favorites. I love buying, which satisfies most of the urges I might have as a collector, and going where people live to do so. You get fascinating insights interacting with people compelled by a particular set of circumstances to sell books. Sometimes you're a peripheral figure walking into a scene of residual distress, in the case of a death in the family, for instance, or a divorce or bankruptcy. In those instances I try to provide calm, professional assistance in cleaning up a little bit of the aftermath. Other times, as when you're dealing with an older collector deaccessioning, it's an opportunity to be a willing and eager listener to stories that might not otherwise be heard.

Jess: I agree with Erik (and every other person in the trade); I love the books. I love the daily possibility of seeing, holding, and learning about new material. Looking at new books affords, even encourages, micro-obsessions that eventually culminate in more new books.  

Describe a typical day for you:

Our days right now are all about L-brackets, and the right hardware for suspending plexi shelves, and figuring out the wattage on LED bulbs, and getting up to speed on our point-of-sale system and how the damn thing is going to interface with our database, and a million other tiresome but crucial details.

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

Erik: Working at BRB I was privileged to be able to handle a high volume of amazing highspots: Shakespeare folios and quartos, early Americana, major works in the sciences, inscribed Joyces and Hemingways and Fitzgeralds. My favorite thing, though, or one of them at least, I didn't strictly speaking handle (or did, for a total of like 30 seconds). It was a presentation copy of Zola's 1885 novel Germinal inscribed to Guy de Maupassant, one French Naturalist to another, being offered for sale. I made a regrettably low offer and quickly saw it walk out the door. I haven't forgotten it since, or the lesson.

Jess: In the basement of The Cooper Union is The Herb Lubalin Center of Design & Typography, definitely a hidden gem at the school. The core collection is an extensive archive of Lubalin's work, including original drawings and design paste-ups (pre-digital artifacts for someone who had grown up with Apple). They have a copy of New York Is... (1959), a collection of photographs Robert Frank took for the New York Times, mostly for promotions to drum up the paper's ad sales. They also had the original proofs for the ads, using the photo Frank took the year before The Americans published. It was a right book/right place/right time situation; I had just graduated art school, I was about to start my first job in journalism and was trying to figure out how to stay in the book trade.  

What do you personally collect?

Erik: Any and every edition I can find of books by a handful of writers who for one reason or another have become lodged in my literary value system: Flaubert, Kafka, Isaac Babel, Tanizaki, Rachel Kushner, a few others.

Jess: If there's a theme to my collecting, I'm not sure what it is. It's more a bunch of half-started collections meant to justify buying one or two books I fell in love with. A friend and I started a slightly facetious collection we call "Quick, capitalism is coming!" that includes anything with the wacky aesthetics of Wall Street.

What do you like to do outside of work?

Erik: Read, go to the movies, hear live music, run, eat and drink.

Jess: I just switch to my other career as a digital designer at The Wall Street Journal, so you know, think about what typeface says "what the hell is going on?!".

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

Look at all of the intelligent, energetic and optimistic booksellers you have interviewed for this series. The future of the rare book trade is in good hands, I think we are going to be fine.

Any upcoming fairs or catalogues?

We want to publish a digital catalog in April, once the shop opens, so we can test the versatility of our new set-up. No fairs for us until the Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair in September. But did we mention, we're opening a shop? We are.

A week ago on Tuesday, February 26, Peter Harrington, the distinguished London rare book firm, marked its 50th year by launching In Her Own Words: Works by Exceptional Women, an exhibition of its new catalogue of works by women, a first in the firm's history.

To a bustling crowd of press at a breakfast in the morning, and bibliophiles and collectors in the evening, staff briskly opened glass cabinets in order to show off their favorite items. Put together by Harrington booksellers Theodora Robinson and Emma Walshe, the books and items featured in the exhibition highlight the work of women in a variety of fields, but what brings them together, they note in their introduction, is that "these were women who pushed legal, intellectual, and and physical boundaries." 

The catalogue overflows with signed and presentation copies of women who broke boundaries and ceilings, pursued freedom, civil rights, equality, from Charlotte Perkins GiIman's feminist Utopian novel Herland -- signed to Californian suffragette Alice Locke Park -- to two inscribed works by Dorothy Parker (who left her estate to the NAACP) to renowned screenwriter Frances Marion to great, but overlooked women in science, like Ada Lovelace and Rosalind Franklin, whose contributions are still debated today.

There are also tremendous association copies, including a copy of Sappho given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to his daughter Sara. 

A busier week coming up in the auction world:

 On Tuesday, March 5, Rossini auctions the first sale of books from the collection of Guy Gaulard, in 229 lots.

Heritage Auctions will hold a Rare Books Signature Auction in New York on Wednesday, March 6, including the first selection of books from the Otto Penzler Collection of Mystery Fiction. A copy of the first book edition of The Federalist, with both volumes in original boards, has a reserve of $75,000, as does a cow sculpture designed and painted by Maurice Sendak. Among the Penzler items expected to sell well are first editions of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon, and Donald Yates' copies of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely.

Also on Wednesday, Printed Books, Maps & Documents at Dominic Winter Auctioneers, in 500 lots. Lots 45-117 comprise the first part of the Ladwell Collection of Fine Bird Books.

Sale title notwithstanding, three manuscripts rate the top estimates: a sixteenth-century prayer book with thirty-five miniatures and bound around 1800 in the style of Edwards of Halifax could fetch $20,000-30,000, while a mid-fifteenth century Book of Hours, Use of Rome, on vellum, is estimated at $15,000-20,000. A Dutch Book of Hours, Use of Utrecht, also from the middle part of the fifteenth century, could sell for $8,000-12,000. A copy of the first Ibarra edition of Don Quixote (1780, pictured above), rates the same estimate; it was once in the Kansas City Public Library.  

At PBA Galleries on Thursday, Fine Books: A Biblio-Medley for All Tastes, in 515 lots. Beginning with lot 322 the remainder of the sale is unreserved. The top-estimated lot, returning to the saleroom after first being offered last September, is a copy of Herbert Childs' biography of American physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence, An American Genius (1968). Inscribed by the author and signed by more than forty scientists (among them ten Nobel laureates) and Lawrence family members, the volume is now estimated at $8,000-12,000. A large-paper copy of Sauvan's Picturesque Tour of the Seine (1821), could sell for $4,000-6,000. A printed Quran with hand-painted illuminations is also estimated at $4,000-6,000, as is a copy of the scare Arion Press issue of John Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1984).