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Manuscript Society Digest: April – May 2022
Manuscript Digest: April – May 2022 – 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 […] […]
Recent Posts
British General Lucas’ IRA letters
It was during Ireland's battle of Independence. He was captured on June 26, 1920, while fishing on the river Blackwater in Co Cork. General Cuthbert Lucas would "escape" on July 30, 1920. Letters between the husband and wife and Lucas’s secret captivity diary are now digitized. Available online, Thursday, June [...]
Gallatin letter on Slave Trade in 1809
Gallatin 1809 Letter Not long ago, we shared with you the gift of L. Dennis and Susan Shapiro to the Huntington Library. The Shapiro collection includes letters and manuscripts penned by United States presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama. It is particularly rich in primary sources for historians of [...]
Carnegie Library Thefts: Latest Updates
It began in 2017. Became public in 2018. Over 300 books, maps and manuscripts from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, PA were missing. What turned out to be a 25 year venture between two men came to light. Discovered during an insurance audit. We have been sharing information as we [...]
2500 Islamic Manuscripts to be Digitized
Over the next three years, The National Library of Israel is making more than 2,500 rare Islamic manuscripts from its Islam and Middle East Collection freely available online. These manuscripts span the ninth through 20th centuries. The texts feature items from royal Mamluk, Mughal and Ottoman libraries. Also, the online [...]
2020 Maass Research Grant Awarded
For most of us, early medieval books equal illuminated manuscripts. So, we think of the Latin religious texts. Those beautiful prayer books with ornate gold initials and scroll work. Other books did not get these illustrations until the late 13th century. How and why that changed is the focus of [...]
Synthetic Signatures and Automated Autographs?
What is a collector to do? Should we have seen it coming? No more signing of letters? It is not what it seems. For languages that write with characters and is not based on an alphabet that is conducive to cursive there may be a new answer. A computer program [...]
Women of Ancient Rome: Reading & Writing
Evidence continues to surface indicating some women in ancient Rome could read and write. Historically, the belief is that many of the elite men in ancient Rome learned to read and often to write. It was not the domain of women. New research and discoveries challenge that assumption. Educated female [...]
