Manuscript Digest – November 2017 – This complimentary e-digest, launched in 2012, covers significant acquisitions and sales, manuscripts lost and found, rare books and ephemera, document conservation, and more.

In the News

The Assassination Files
CNN, October 28, 2017
Poison pills for Castro. A death threat on Oswald. Tit for tat from Nam. What newly released documents do — and don’t — tell us about the JFK assassination.
• Where to find the files
• A reader’s guide from Politico

Einstein’s Tips on Bliss
NPR, October 25, 2017
Want the secret of happiness? Take a tip from Albert Einstein. He once gave his guide to life as a tip to a courier. It just sold at auction, and the price will make you smile.

State of Pay
The Real Deal, October 20, 2017
Back in 1995, Donald Trump sketched the Empire State Building for a charity auction. It fetched less than $100. What would it bring today? Funny you should ask.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Daily Beast, October 21, 2017
Emory U. just took delivery of nine letters from a young Barack Obama to his girlfriend. Cringe-worthy? Sure. But to one writer, they say a lot about the art of the love letter.

Code of Secrecy
Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2017
Elizebeth Friedman was a code breaker. She smashed rings of gangsters and Nazis. Then she was erased from history. How a dive into the archives brought back an American hero.

Without a Prayer (Book)
Atlas Obscura, October 25, 2017
In 1909 the Luneborch Prayer Book checked in at Baltimore’s Peabody Library. By the 1970s, the 500-year-old manuscript was gone. No trace. Then one day a package arrived.

Channel Crossing
The Telegraph, October 25, 2017
For 300 years, the jewel-encrusted Book of Hours was a British holding. Now the Louvre has launched a crowdfunding campaign to repatriate it. Will it take French leave?

Dylan in Tulsa? OK …
Washington Post, October 12, 2017
Bob Dylan was born in Minnesota. He came to fame in Greenwich Village. So what is his archive doing in Tulsa? The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Game On
New York Times, October 27, 2017
For one collector, Topps trading cards were the ticket to a lifetime love affair. How sports memorabilia turned into a big-money game and why it keeps scoring more fans.

Preservation’s Next Generation
Chaska Herald, October 19, 2017
A small-town high school student read how St. John’s University is rescuing books from war-ravaged Timbuktu. It gave him an idea for saving books closer to home.

> Charge! U. S. Grant papers go online at the Library of Congress.

> Spooky!  Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein notebooks: read them if you dare.