Manuscript Digest: September – October 2025
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.
Douglass-Lincoln Debate Reopens
Smithsonian Magazine, September/October 2025
What did Frederick Douglass think of Lincoln? A recently rediscovered tranche of letters upends expectations. But the real twist is what Douglass said about Johnson.
Who Saved George Washington?
Smithsonian Magazine, September 16, 2025
The story goes that tailor Hercules Mulligan stopped a plot to kill George Washington. New research suggests Mulligan had help — from an enslaved chocolatier.
FBI Returns (Another) Cortés Manuscript
Mexico News Daily, August 14, 2025
Once again, a stolen document signed by conquistador Hernán Cortés is back in Mexican custody. Case solved? Not quite. The FBI is still searching for more missing pages.
Pearl Harbor Logbook Surfaces
All That’s Interesting, September 16, 2025
It survived Pearl Harbor. But the logbook that recorded the 1941 bombing almost didn’t survive a 1970s cleanup. Salvaged from the trash, it’s finally landed at NARA.
• See it online.
Oz Lyrics Find a New Home
Playbill, August 25, 2025
“Someday I’ll wish upon a star …” The original lyric sketch for “Over the Rainbow” has found there’s no place like the Library of Congress to call home. What came with it.
Mickey Loses the Mantle
Artnet News, August 25, 2025
A Kobe Bryant/Michael Jordan mashup has bested Mickey Mantle for the priciest sports card sold at auction. Why so much? It’s one of one. Just how much? If you have to ask …
Remembering George Raveling
Yahoo! Sports, September 2, 2025
Pioneering coach. The Nike exec who signed Michael Jordan. And the man who saved the podium copy of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Hear Raveling tell the story.
Don’t Chuck That Book Before …
Country Living, September 27, 2025
Sure, shelf space is tight. But don’t be hasty. A rare book specialist gives five tips to sift the gold from the merely old.
• Need more bookcases? These come with history built in.
Which Cookbooks Bring the Sizzle?
Daily Meal, August 26, 2025
When it comes to vintage cookbooks, where is the juice worth the squeeze? A look at titles from The Compleat Housewife (1727) to M. F. K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf (1942).
• Another bite off the vintage cookbook apple
Scholar Rewrites the Book on ‘Kells’
The Guardian, September 26, 2025
Need a break from decoding the Voynich manuscript? Try this. A scholar is challenging the origin of the Book of Kells. If she’s right, do we call it the Book of Pictland?
