Beowulf! How many of us remember our school days reading, or at least trying to read, “classics” like Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Shakespeare’s King Lear. Even today, research continues on authorship, writing styles, the meanings of words, syntax and so much more. Beowulf, believed to have been composed around 1000 was first published in […]
Books vanishing into the ether world. Unknown until now. All discovered from a lost volume now found! No, it is not from the world of Harry Potter. The 500 year old Libro de los Epítomes is the catalog for Hernando Colón’s 16th-century collection. His library was to be the biggest in the world. Amazingly the […]
He began collection in 1959. But not the usual letters. They were Time Magazines. He would send them off asking the person to autograph their cover image. His name is Randall Salas. He began at age 17 from Caracas. With over 1500 issues in his collection he has seen many changes in the world and […]
In 1848 women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to consider not only voting rights, but the conditions of women in society at large. The result was the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. The issues were not new. Abigail Adams in a now famous letter to her husband John written […]
In November, 2017, Manuscript Society Member, Stuart Lutz, wrote an article, Can I Deduct that? An Introduction to Appraisals for the society journal, Manuscripts. He included the proposed parameters issued by the IRS. Stuart noted new requirements for appraisers and outlined questions collectors needed to ask of appraisers and the limitations on valuation. For the […]
From 1958 through the remainder of his life, David R. Smith was an integral part in The Manuscript Society. As he told Kevin Segall in a recent interview, “I joined [The Manuscript Society] in 1958. When I was able to begin attending the annual meetings, I was thrilled to find others who were as interested […]
Deadline looming. February 14, 2019 is the final date to submit a complete application for the 2019 Richard Maass Research Grant. The $5,000 grant supports research expenses directly related to use of original manuscripts. This includes travel to manuscript repositories, photocopies, and user fees. Applicants must be graduate students. Doctoral candidates are given preference. The […]
Pedro Corrêa do Lago of Brazil, has collected for over five decades. His collection of autographs is the largest in the world. It surpasses his personal inspiration, John Pierpont Morgan. Richard Hall is a collector, appraisals expert, and adviser on manuscripts to Alex Cooper Auctioneers in Maryland. Both men are aware of the changes that […]
The Manuscript Society News takes readers on a never-ending road trip to member institutions. Next stop: the Iowa Masonic Library and Museums located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This white marble structure is home to one of the largest and most complete libraries of Freemasonry and allied orders in the United States, if not the world. […]
Washington, October 1940; Samuel Houston Johnson; Alice Glass; Big Oil…. Historian Robert de Caro’s article “The Secrets of Lyndon Johnson’s Archives” illuminates the discoveries and challenges found when researching in manuscripts! Remembering his first visit to the Johnson Presidential Library and Archives in Austin, “In front of me was a broad, tall marble staircase. At […]