Manuscript Digest – November 2015 – This complimentary e-digest, launched in 2012, covers significant acquisitions and sales, manuscripts lost and found, rare books and ephemera, document conservation, replevin activity, and more. 

IN THE NEWS

Raiders of the Lost Verse
Live Science, October 2, 2015
“The Epic of Gilgamesh” is billed as the world’s oldest story. Now it’s making headlines, with a new chapter and a tale of scholars and smugglers.

A Discovery of Biblical Proportions
Christian Science Monitor, October 15, 2015
A scholar has found what may be the earliest known draft of the King James Bible. What else is hiding in plain sight? Funny you should ask.

The Myth Buster of DC’s St. John’s Church
Washington Post, October 20, 2015
When historians go digging in the archives, they can really spoil a docent’s spiel. Learn what we don’t know about the “church of the presidents.”

Mapping a Mystery of Chicago History
Crain’s Chicago Business, October 6, 2015
How did an 1835 map of Chicago end up in a north suburban estate sale? A clue may lie in another question: how did it survive the Chicago fire?

Secrets of the City: Inside New York’s Archives
Daily News, October 24, 2015
The woman who bought a chunk of Brooklyn in 1645. Wall Street’s first African American millionaire. Municipal records capture history’s twists.

LSD’s Paper Trail
Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2015
Sandoz didn’t want the archive of its most (in)famous drug. So who’s looking after it? A Swiss dairy farmer. It’s been a long, strange trip.

Recipe for an Archive
New York Times, October 29, 2015
Food historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton has spent half a century building a database of historic cookbooks. What’s her secret sauce?

The Case of Harvard Law’s Digital Decisions
New York Times, October 28, 2015
At Harvard Law, librarians are slicing the spines off books and sending 40 million pages through a high-speed scanner. Find out what’s at stake.
• More on Harvard’s Free the Law project >>

The Domesday Book and the ‘Digital Dark Age’
The Telegraph, October 11, 2015
Is 21st-century knowledge doomed to a “digital dark age”? The Domesday Project reveals a scary scenario.

You Kid! $2 Junk Store Find Worth $5 Million
Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2015
A while back, a California junk store sold a photo for $2. Turns out it’s the “Holy Grail of Western Americana”: a picture of …

EVENTS

Boston Rare Book Week
November 11–15 >>
• Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, November 13–15 >>
• Boston Book, Print and Ephemera Show, November 14 >>

This Book Belongs To… Provenance Marks and Book Ownership Through the Centuries
Ends December 8
University of Pennsylvania Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, 3420 Walnut St., Philadelphia
Free

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Ends January 3, 2016, closed Mondays
Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles
Free >>

Armenia: Masterpieces from an Enduring Culture
Ends February 28, 2016; closed holidays
Bodleian Libraries, Broad Street, Oxford, UK
Free