Manuscript Digest –March 2019– 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

About Time
Time, February 21, 2019
Over 56 years, a collector from Caracas has amassed 1,500 signed covers of Time magazine. How times, “Time,” and collecting have changed since he began.
• Cruising for autographs with Judd Apatow

What the Dickens
Times Literary Supplement, February 19, 2019
Letters now at the Houghton Library reveal Charles Dickens’s plans to put his wife in a lunatic asylum while he took up with an actress. What would Little Nell say?

Late Bloomer
Atlas Obscura, February 5, 2019
In the 1820s Nancy Anne Kingsbury Wollstonecraft — Mary Shelley’s aunt — decamped to Cuba and created a compendium of native flora. At last she’s getting her day in the sun.

The Ms-ing Manifesto
New York Times, February 9, 2019
At the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, 100-plus signers put their names to a women’s rights manifesto. Where did it go? Obama’s former chief tech officer is on the hunt.

The Archive of History Bends
Politico Magazine, February 25, 2019
Seems as if the Obama center archives is going all digital. A former DOD speechwriter reminds us why the lack of hard copies makes life harder for historians.

Magna Carta’s MASH Unit
The Guardian, February 3, 2019
Last year a man went at a copy of Magna Carta with a hammer. Recently, a conservation specialist and an archivist surveyed the damage.

What’s up at Mount Vernon
Fine Books & Collections, February 13, 2019
The Bright Young Librarians series visits the Washington Library at Mount Vernon. Learn about its collections and exhibitions. And about that rat’s nest …
• More “bright young” profiles

‘Dear Los Angeles’
NPR, February 5, 2019
Love it or loathe it, a lot of people have had a lot to say about LA. A new book collects the best from five centuries of diaries and letters. Where opinion lands on La-La Land.

Seuss on the Loose
CBS News, February 28, 2019
No more horsing around. The unpublished manuscript for “Dr. Seuss’s Horse Museum” will be trotted out this fall. Get a peek before it hits bookstalls.

Good for What Ales You
New York Times, February 21, 2019
Angelica root. Gentian. Crème de fleur. A Minneapolis distillery is taking a page from medieval apothecaries to brew a new — or is that old? — line of cocktails.

Making a Book

A rare book shop made a bet on Vegas. Did it pay off? > Ka-ching!

Book Clearance

Keep or toss? Rare Book Monthly‘s take on Marie Kondo-mania.
> Check it out