Manuscript Digest: July – August 2024 – This complimentary e-digest, now published bi-monthly, covers significant acquisitions and sales, manuscripts lost and found, rare books and ephemera, document conservation, and more news in this digest.

In the News

The Price of Freedom
Hobby Listings, June 26, 2024
A Declaration of Independence copy has fetched the most ever publicly paid for a broadside not printed by Dunlap. Why the price? It may be the lone privately held survivor of its kind.

Washington’s Big Tent
Smithsonian Magazine, July 25, 2024
The fabric scrap was light on provenance. But a collector saw it at a Goodwill auction and took a chance. Smart. It was part of George Washington’s wartime dining tent. Where it is now.

Shakespeare’s Grand (Re)Opening
Washingtonian, June 18, 2024
After an $80 million expansion, the Folger Shakespeare Library is back in business, with two new exhibition halls to showcase all those First Folios and more. Take a look inside.
• What’s on show for its (re)inaugural exhibition

Climate Science in the Archives
Fine Books & Collections, Summer 2024
To understand today’s climate, scientists are looking to the past. How? Turns out old-school botanists, farmers, and sailors took good notes — and the notes are in the archives.

Historic Sale for Crosby-Schøyen Codex
Penta, June 11, 2024
The oldest book in private hands is a Coptic codex dating back 1,800 years, the work of a single scribe. The codex just topped £3 million at auction. No word on a cut for the scribe.

Auction Prices and Surprises
Lit Hub, June 28, 2024
Pop quiz! What was top on the block: The rarest book in American lit (Tamerlane)? A rare Sherlock Holmes manuscript? Or cover art for a book about a boy wizard? One guess.
• But William Blake burned brightest of all
• Who owns Tamerlane — and who doesn’t

Electrifying Result for Frankenstein
Newser, July 2, 2024
Only three first editions of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are known. The only one not held at the New York Public Library has sold for a monster price, nearly triple its estimate.

A Shock on the Block for Sondheim
Slate, June 21, 2024
The estimate for Stephen Sondheim’s thesauruses was $300. For the go-to guides of the guy who rhymed “person’s personality is personable” with “matador coercin’ a bull”? No…

Medieval Manuscript Matchup
Artnet News, July 17, 2024
When the Getty acquired images from the Hours of Louis XII, curators thought one of the illuminations looked incomplete. They were right. And now they’ve filled the gap.

Poison Thrill
The Spokesman-Review | Washington Post, July 27, 2024
The green pigment in certain old book bindings is like a film noir femme fatale — beautiful but deadly. The secret of its vibrant color? Arsenic. But for some collectors, that’s the thrill.
• The psychology of collecting
• Read The Urge to Collect free

FROM OUR BLOG

New Tool: Auction and Book Sales Archive

Earlier this year, BIBLIO acquired the rights to the database of American Book Prices Current. For decades the data was under the stewardship of the late Kathy Leab, a longtime member of the Manuscript Society. Now it’s part of BIBLIO’s newly launched Auction & Book Sales Archive. Think auction dates, hammer prices, bibliographical references, going back 50 years, with updates added as auctions close. (h/t Fine Books & Collections)

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