President George Washington racks up $300,000 late fee for two Manhattan library books

He may have never told a lie, but George Washington apparently had no problem stiffing a Manhattan library on two books.

Two centuries ago, the nation's first President borrowed two tomes from the New York Society Library on E. 79th St. and never returned them, racking up an inflation-adjusted $300,000 late fee.



But Washington can rest easy.

"We're not actively pursuing the overdue fines," quipped head librarian Mark Bartlett. "But we would be very happy if we were able to get the books back."

Washington's dastardly deed went unknown for almost 150 years.

Then in 1934, a dusty, beaten-up ledger was discovered in a trash heap in the library's basement.

On its tan pages were the names of all of the people who had borrowed books from the city's oldest library between July 1789 and April 1792.

At the time, the city was the nation's capital and the library - then located at Wall and Broad Sts. - was the only one in town.

Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay all borrowed books, the ledger shows.

They returned them, too.

The library's boldest bold-faced name wasn't as cooperative.

On Oct. 5, 1789, Washington borrowed the "Law of Nations," a treatise on international relations, and Vol. 12 of the "Commons Debates," which contained transcripts of debates from Britain's House of Commons.

Beside the names of the books, the librarian wrote on the ledger only, "President."

The entry, written with a quill pen, contains no return date.

The books were due by Nov. 2, 1789, and have been accruing a fine of a few pennies per day ever since.

This week, Bartlett and his staff became even more convinced the books were filched when librarian Matthew Haugen stumbled upon the long lost 14-volume collection of the "Commons Debates."

Sure enough, Vol. 12 was missing.

"It's hard to know what could have happened," Bartlett said. "There are as many questions for us as there are answers."

British Library acquires "uniquely visual" archive of writer and illustrator Mervyn Peake

The British Library has acquired the archive of the writer and artist, Mervyn Peake, including manuscripts of plays, novels and illustrations and personal correspondence.
Arriving at the Library in 28 containers, curators have been presented with a vast collection which reflects Peake's creative endeavours across an astonishing variety of media and forms.
Included are 39 autograph Gormenghast notebooks – the novel for which Peake won the Heinemann Prize for Literature in 1951 – as well as the complete set of original drawings for Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland.



Complete illustration of the Jabberwocky from Alice through the Looking Glass (1945). Peake Estate
Lesser-known short stories, war poems, radio plays and nonsense also feature in a display curators are describing as a "uniquely visual" archive, that sheds light on the way Peake moved easily between visual and written mediums.
"Mervyn Peake occupies an almost unique position as a creative artist equally gifted in literature and art," explains Rachel Foss, the British Library's Curator of Modern Literary Manuscripts.
"The acquisition of his complete archive now allows researchers to view Peake's life and work as an integrated, organic whole, and to understand the way his creative endeavours were balanced across an extraordinary interplay of text and image."
For Peake, writing and drawing were interchangeable. Many of his characters were visualised through lively sketches which were then woven into his gothic narratives. The result is a unique interaction of text and images.

Notebooks with Peakes draft for the Gormenghast novels (1940s). Peake Estate
In his introduction to the 1949 Grey Walls Press publication of his drawings, Peake wrote that the problem of the artist is “to discover his language…out of such drawings and hundreds more my own language will develop."
His illustrations for Carroll's stories exemplify his belief that the purpose of illustration is to invest another dimension into the text, not simply to act as an aesthetic accompaniment to it.
Further highlights of the archive include two poetry notebooks – again packed with sketches – typescripts of short stories, juvenilia and a swathe of lively correspondence taking in literary and artistic figures ranging from CS Lewis and Dylan Thomas to Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles.

Peake's frontispiece for Gormenghast. © Peake Estate
Correspondence with his wife, Maeve Gilmore, comprises postcards and letters including nine from Germany when he was commissioned as a war artist by The Leader magazine, observing war-crimes trials in Germany, and entering the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The £410,000 acquisition, which has been party funded by The Art Fund, comes on the back of some high profile acquisitions for the Library including John Berger, Angela Carter, and Ted Hughes. It has been welcomed by the Peake Estate as being in accordance with the late author's wishes.
"The decision vindicates my mother's unswerving belief in her husband's art," said Peake's son, Sebastian.
"My mother always felt strongly that this artistic eclecticism should one day be shared with the nation." Peake Jnr also took the opportunity to thank his father for "a wonderful legacy", his mother for "her dedication to promoting it" and the British Library for "making her wish come true".
Once catalogued, the treasure trove of research material is expected to be made accessible to researchers in early 2011.

The Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition

A WINDOW on the world of academic research and how it reflects the world we live in is being opened up in the city centre next week as part of an event called the Curious Festival organised by the University of Sheffield.
The Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition, on show in a shop window on the Moor from Monday, will invite people to consider their own lives and how they use the space around them.

The unique display is based on the 17th century idea of using a cabinet to exhibit personal collections. It will showcase research from the university looking at how people live in and use different spaces such as homes, gardens and public spaces and how they personalise them.
The display will include a snapshot of research into a variety of topics such as the relationship between builders and architects and the way they communicate in order to get the best possible result.

Other themes are the role of men in the home during the 18th century compared with the role they play in modern life and the use of literacy in material objects around the house

Also explored are reasons people decide on a natural burial and the various ways in which Soviet people furnished prefabricated flats which were built to solve an acute housing problem in the former Soviet Union
The idea of using a glass-fronted cabinet as a way to learn about the world goes back to the 16th and 17th centuries when men began displaying their collections of often odd and unusual objects in custom-made cabinets.

Their collections showed the curiosity of the owners and, like material libraries, they also allowed others to learn about new and unfamiliar things.

The exhibition, which has been produced with designer Nick Bax from Humanstudio, will invite passers-by to stop for a moment and think about their own collections and displays. Visitors to the exhibition are then encouraged to share their thoughts on an online blog.

Susan Reid, co-curator of the exhibition from the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, said: "Cabinets of Curiosity brought diverse knowledge into a single compact space – almost like a miniature university.

"Much has changed since the 16th century but most of us have somewhere in our homes - a glass-fronted cabinet, a mantelpiece, or some other place - where we collect and display things that are meaningful or precious to us.

"The aim of the cabinet exhibition is to give shoppers in central Sheffield a chance to window shop on the research and learning that goes on in the University and to think about how it relates to their own everyday lives.

"The display will ask questions such as what sits on your mantelpiece, why do some people choose to be buried in natural burial grounds, how do things around the home help children to read and does Dad have his special chair?

"The exhibition will demonstrate how we can all learn from everyday material things and find out more about what it means to be human."
The Cabinet of Curiosities, on view in the small kiosk near British Home Stores for two weeks, is just part of a line-up of the strange and unusual in the worlds of performance, vision and sound.

The Curious Festival has been organised by the university's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, home to the Schools English and Modern Languages and Linguistics, and the Departments of Music, History, Archaeology, Biblical Studies and Philosophy.

It will showcase some of the work and activities that take place there and the impact it has on the cultural life of the city, the region and further afield.

Other events include workshops in ectro-acoustic music, Taiwanese traditional wind and percussion workshop and tango, evenings of film, poetry and performance.

There will be a new physical theatre piece in the new performance space in a disused factory in Attercliffe and a reconstruction of an Iron Age smelting furnace in Weston Park.

In the field of music will be an evening of piano and readings, Nocturne: The Romantic Life of Frédéric Chopin, and performances by folk musicians from the Czech Republic.
Most events are free but may have restricted numbers. For a full list of events, and information on how to register interest, visit http://www.shef.ac.uk/curious/index.html

A shopfront on the Moor is being used by the University of Sheffield to look at the spaces we live in, reports Ian Soutar

Curious Festival graphics represent sound, performance and visuals

First edition of The Jungle Book inscribed by Rudyard Kipling discovered

An inscribed first edition of The Jungle Book has been discovered at the former home of one of Rudyard Kipling’s daughters.

The inscription is to the author’s first daughter, Josephine, who died of pneumonia at the age of 6. The book was found in the library of Wimpole Hall, near Cambridge, where Kipling’s second daughter, Elsie, lived between 1938 and 1976.

The National Trust, which owns the property, said that staff cataloguing the library found the book.

Kipling dedicated the book to Josephine when it was published in 1894. The inscription, which reads “This book belongs to Josephine Kipling, for whom it was written by her father, May 1894” is unsigned but the handwriting has been identified as Kipling’s.

The book is on display at Wimpole Hall.




Mark Purcell, the trust’s libraries curator said: “There are nearly 7,000 books in the Wimpole library and this has been a big project to catalogue them all properly, but as one of the nation’s favourite children’s books of all time, this first edition of The Jungle Book with its rare inscription is very special.”

The curator of Wimpole Hall, Fiona Hall, added: “This inscription is very touching, especially when you consider that Kipling lost not only Josephine, but also his youngest child, John, who died in the Great War. As Kipling’s only remaining child, Elsie would have really treasured this book.”

BBC 2 are seeking the most knowledgeable contestants for Antiques Master Show

BBC Two are seeking contestants for Antiques Master, a new primetime antiques show which aims to find the most knowledgeable amateur antiques expert in the UK.

The show is being made by the same department as Mastermind and will include a mixture of 'Q&A' as well as practical challenges involving actual antiques.

Filming will start at the beginning of May and the deadline for contestant applications is April 16. Auditions will be held across the country over the next few weeks, where applicants’ knowledge will be tested and 32 contestants will be chosen to take part. Applicants must be 18 or over.

For an application form, telephone 0161 244 4160 or email antiquesmaster@bbc.co.uk

• Meanwhile, Peter Schiffer, of Schiffer Publishing, will be in London from April 19-20 at the London Bookfair and is interested in hearing from authors with work in progress or a finished manuscript linked to art, antiques, collectables, design, militaria and aviation.

Anyone with an idea who would like to talk to him about it can contact Victoria Hansen, in the first instance, on 020 8392 8585 or by email at victoria@bushwoodbooks.co.uk

British dealer exposes major theft from American library

A MANUSCRIPTS dealer from Cheltenham has uncovered a major theft of letters from an American university. The case is now being investigated by the FBI.

John Wilson, a long-established dealer and acknowledged expert in autograph letters and historical documents, received an email early last month offering for sale letters from the founding brothers of Methodism, John and Charles Wesley.

Mr Wilson was immediately suspicious as he knew that at least one of the letters from Charles Wesley to the Countess of Huntington was unlikely to be in private hands.

The seller, William John Scott, did not seem to know much about the letters and offered to send ten of them to Mr Wilson for inspection, two of which suffered damage in transit.

In the meantime, Mr Wilson had already undertaken research as to where they might have come from. He contacted officials at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, which holds many important papers relating to the origins of the Methodist church.

Indeed, founded as a Methodist seminary in 1867, Drew is still an official repository for the United Methodist Church itself.

Searching their archives, the university found that more than 20 Wesley letters appeared to be missing. They then contacted the FBI.

It turned out that Scott, a first year undergraduate studying political science at Drew, had worked part-time in the university archives since last October and had been given a key to a storage room containing many rare documents not kept on the open shelves.

When FBI agents conducted a search in Scott’s room on the campus, they discovered a file in his dresser drawer containing six further Wesley letters as well as around ten other documents from the archives. These included letters from five American presidents – Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, William McKinley, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower – as well as other letters from Richard Nixon when he was vice president, Robert F. Kennedy and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, former first Lady of China.

Mr Scott was arrested on March 14 when he was escorted off the bus carrying the university’s lacrosse team.

He subsequently appeared at the United States District Court in Newark and was charged with one count of knowingly stealing an object of cultural heritage. If convicted, he could face as much as ten years in prison. He was granted conditional bail provided he remains in the custody of his parents who live in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.

Back in Britain, Mr Wilson is still in possession of the John Wesley letters and has been informed that they will be collected by the Metropolitan Police on behalf of the FBI. He told ATG that the stolen Wesley letters were worth around £25,000 in total.

Coincidentally, Mr Wilson has recently purchased a legitimate John Wesley letter at auction for £1900.

Auctioneer Railton fined £1000 over birds’ eggs

NORTH East auctioneer Jim Railton has been fined £1000 after being charged over the sale of an Edwardian collection of birds’ eggs.

Mr Railton, who appeared in court for a second time last week following a joint investigation between Northumbria Police and The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), was told by magistrates that he should have known that the sale of any British wild bird egg is illegal regardless of its age.

Mr Railton, 57, an auctioneer of more than 30 years, fell foul of the law when he included an Edwardian oak four-drawer cabinet containing a collection of 54 birds’ eggs (estimate £30-40) at a sale on October 24-25 last year.

The RSPB received a tip-off from a member of the public and passed the details to Northumbria Police who sent two officers to the Old Narrowgate Salerooms in Alnwick to confiscate the cabinet during the viewing. They returned the following day to arrest Mr Railton who was subsequently charged with two counts under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981. Specifically these were offering or exposing for sale wild birds’ eggs and (via the publication of a catalogue) advertising wild birds’ eggs for sale. The maximum penalty for selling wild birds’ eggs is up to six months imprisonment and/or a fine of £5000 per offence (the presence of 54 eggs in this cabinet could count as 54 offences).

Following a brief appearance at Alnwick Magistrates Court on March 10 when the case was adjourned, Mr Railton chose to plead guilty to the charges on his return on Wednesday, March 31 (just days before Easter, this was undoubtedly a story with a seasonal theme).

Christopher Brown, defending, said: “The court can recognise this is a technical breach of the law, and therefore an absolute discharge could be an adequate marking of this matter.”

James Long, prosecuting, successfully argued that as an experienced auctioneer, Mr Railton should have been aware of the law.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act makes no exception for the age of any wild bird’s egg entered into the stream of commerce, but chairman of the bench Terry Broughton clearly took the circumstances of this case into account in his summary, and this appeared to have an impact on sentencing: “As an auctioneer you should have known, and ignorance of the law is never a defence. However, the eggs were of some antiquity and you did not seek to buy them yourself.”

The magnitude of the fine was not in the same league as those imposed on previous occasions. Mr Broughton awarded a £1500 fine (plus £70 costs and a £15 victim’s surcharge), a sum reduced to £1000 because of Mr Railton’s willing cooperation in the case.

Four years ago Colin Peeke-Vout, the proprietor of Willingham Auctions in Cambridgeshire, was fined £6000 after offering for sale 69 wild birds’ eggs from a collection formed in the 1960s.

Mr Railton, who was not called to speak during the hearing, told representatives of the national media assembled outside the court that he remained dissatisfied: “It seems very harsh. I was expecting – and the general public was expecting – an absolute discharge. When this gets in the public domain, people will be very surprised.”

Further national media coverage of the sentencing illustrated just how much the case had caught the public’s interest.

To highlight what he sees as an anomaly in the law, Mr Railton went on to cite the observation made by ATG when the case was first reported in March: “I can sell a stuffed golden eagle, but if that eagle happens to have an egg in the case with it, it is illegal.”

James Leonard, investigations officer at the RSPB who had worked on this case, told ATG that the law had been written this way because there is no accepted way to determine the age of a bird’s egg. With reference to the Railton case, he said no irrefutable evidence had been offered to indicate the age of the eggs, although many were displayed alongside late 19th or early 20th century handwritten labels. “It is possible to forge data to suggest eggs are older than they actually are,” he said.

But, ultimately, Mr Leonard said the date of the eggs made no difference to the case against Mr Railton and he disagreed with the argument made by Mr Railton and others that a caution at the time of the sale last year might have been a better way to deal with the matter that has become a cause célèbre.

“This has not been a witch hunt,” he said. “The decision to prosecute was taken by the police in accordance with the Wildlife Crime Cautioning Guidelines. He [Mr Railton] is a person of professional responsibility.” Mr Leonard added that the fine imposed by the court, while inconsistent with previous sentencing, had affirmed the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service to bring the case.

The eggs and their oak cabinet, that Mr Railton asked to show the court (a request he was denied), will now be returned to the vendor. During their investigation, Northumbria Police had also interviewed Mark Goff, an NHS executive who had inherited the cabinet and its specimens from his mother, but he did not face any charges.

Mr Railton told ATG he was considering an appeal. He is hopeful that one of his many supporters in the legal profession who have offered their services for free may be willing to take up the case and challenge the law on his behalf.

But for now it is business as usual: Railton’s sale in Alnwick on April 10 includes the residual contents of Newton Hall, Newton on the Moor.

Woman gets prison time for auctioning fake art

A woman who sold $20 million in phony artwork she claimed was by Picasso, Dali and Chagall to thousands of people through a semiweekly televised auction has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Kristine Eubanks, 52, of La Canada Flintridge pleaded guilty in 2007 to conspiracy and tax evasion and was sentenced Monday.
She and her husband, Gerald Sullivan, conducted an art auction show twice a week on DirecTV and The Dish Network from 2002 to 2006.
The couple ran Fine Art Treasures Gallery, which sold fake and forged lithographs, prints and paintings purportedly found at estate liquidations around the world to more than 10,000 victims, U.S. attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek said.
They bought the paintings from suppliers and sometimes signed the forgeries and prints with the artists' names, prosecutors said.
Eubanks forged "certificates of authenticity" for some pieces and provided fake appraisals for jewelry pieces, Mrozek said.
Also, the couple drove up sale prices by having fake bids announced on-air, he said.
U.S. District Judge Gary Feess said their scheme was "audacious in its scope" and blatantly illegal.
Sullivan will be sentenced in May after earlier pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. He faces a maximum sentence of six years in federal prison

Signed Jane Austen novel sells for £325,000

A signed copy of a Jane Austen novel published in 1816 has been bought for £325,000.
The book is a first edition copy of Emma which Austen presented to her friend Anne Sharp, the inspiration for Mrs Weston in the novel.



Jonkers Rare Books in Oxfordshire paid £180,000 for it at auction in 2008.
It is understood that a British collector bought the book, which is one of 12 special 'presentation' copies Austen gave to friends and family.
The book has previously been exhibited in Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco.
The rest of the presentation copies were donated to relatives.
Christian Jonkers, director of Jonkers Rare Books in Henley-on-Thames, said: "We had several clients around the world who were considering this book, but it is pleasing that the book will remain in this country.
"It is unique, considering the whole historical context of the book - the fact that it was given by Austen to her best friend who was a model for one of the principal characters in the novel."

A Guide to Identifying Fake Dust Jackets

First editions, in fine condition, of modern classics such as F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (New York, 1925) or Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (New York/London, 1930) can sell for tens of thousands of pounds. Some collected books rarely appear on the market in genuinely fine condition and, when they do, the premium will be significant. The level of that premium will be determined, almost entirely, on condition.

A small nick on a single page can have a startling affect on value - reducing the price that collectors are prepared to pay by as much as half. The absence of an original dust jacket however can have an even greater effect, knocking as much as 95 per cent off the value of the book.
For instance, in Guide to First Edition Prices, R B Russell estimates a jacketed first edition of The Maltese Falcon at £15,000. The same book, in the same condition, but without a dust jacket is valued at £500.[i] The celebrated book collectors, Allen and Patricia Ahearn, quote the rule of the thumb that the absence of a dust jacket on fiction firsts from the early part of the 20th century reduces the value by 75 per cent.[ii] More recent fiction firsts can generally be considered almost without value to the collector unless in a pristine dust jacket.[iii]

Reputable booksellers from time to time fit jacketless books with facsimiles for genuine and legitimate reasons. Although such copies have no collectable value, they do serve a practical purpose in much the same way as the original jacket would have done - enhancing the appearance of the book, protecting it from dust and damage and possibility increasing its saleability: some collectors may prefer to have a facsimile unless and until they have the opportunity and the means to acquire the real thing.

Reputable booksellers will of course identify facsimiles as such. Here at the Virtual Bookshelf, when fitting facsimile dust jackets, we print "facsimile dust jacket fitted by The Virtual Bookshelf" followed by the year on underside of each one and place a small label with the same message on the inside front flap. Even so, we check with every potential buyer that they are aware that the jacket is a reproduction. Other reputable dealers will have similar practices.

Given the dramatic difference between the prices that can be realised for collectable books with their original dust jacket and those without, it is unsurprising that some unscrupulous individuals will fit fake dust jackets and attempt to pass them off as genuine. Equally, it possible that an honest but inexperienced dealer may legitimately acquire a first edition which has been fitted with a facsimile but may fail to spot it and hence sell it on as the genuine article. However the misrepresentation has come about, the wise book collector will want to determine the status of the dust jacket before making a significant purchase.

The first step should be a visual inspection of the jacket. Carefully remove the jacket from the book and remove any protective sleeve that may have been fitted. Examine the underside closely. A dust jacket that is 50 or more years old is unlikely to be uniformly bright. While looking at the underside, inspect the spine area and edges in particular. Even a few handlings can cause uneven folds or creasing around the spine which can be emphasised by long-term shelving. If the underside looks fresh and crisp or the jacket resists curving over the spine you may be looking at a fake.

Next, inspect the printed surface of the jacket. Look for any apparent creases, chips or tears. Gently and lightly run a very clean finger over the affected area. On an original jacket you will be able to feel any imperfections in the paper. On a fake, although the impression of any damage is likely to have been reproduced, the finish is likely to be smooth. Similarly, examine the outer side for any apparent printing flaws, again running a clean, dry finger over the area. Most printing flaws have one of three causes - an imperfection in the original paper, a variation in the amount of ink applied to a particular area or a foreign body coming between the roller and the paper. In each of these three circumstances you should be able to feel the imperfection as well as see it if the dust jacket is an original.

Few books will survive the shelving and re-shelving that takes place over the years without suffering any indentations to the edges of the jacket, particularly on the lower edge and at the head of the spine, so pay particular attention to these areas. Perfection should be questioned. Exercise particular caution if the jacket appears slightly smaller than the book itself as some disreputable sellers will cut down the edges on fakes to remove the reproduced flaws.

The next step is to look at the book itself. Does it look like a volume that has been protected by a jacket for much of its life? Fading to a cloth spine, or soiled or stained boards suggest that the book has been exposed, especially if there are no markings consistent with such flaws on the jacket itself. Pay careful attention to the upper text block edge. Is it dusty, or dirty, or faded? One might expect the upper edges of the inside of the dust jacket to be similarly affected if the two have always been together. Then look at the ends of the spine of the book. If the spine tips are rubbed or bumped, it is unlikely that spine tips of the dust jacket would be perfect. Inconsistencies between the condition of the book and the jacket should never be taken as conclusive proof of a fake jacket: it may be a genuine jacket from another copy. It is nevertheless a useful indicator.

It is also worth comparing the colouring of the dust jacket to a known original, if one is available. Even the best operators, using professional, well-calibrated scanners, have difficultly in matching colours precisely and in some cases the precise ink colours are no longer available. Colour copies, effectively photographs, are harder to spot through visual comparisons.

On occasion a little research can help. The first step is to ascertain whether the first edition in question was actually issued with a dust jacket. Experts argue over the precise date of the earliest jackets but they are known to have been used as far back as the1830.[iv] Very few books however were issued with dust jackets in the 19th century and surviving examples are extremely rare. Dust jackets were briefly popular in the first decade of the 20th century but the austerity brought on by the first world war made them impractical. Dust jackets did not become commonplace until the inter-war years.

It is also worth checking any relevant points of issue against a reliable reference work. Author bibliographies (usually available from your local library or through the inter-library loan scheme) often give details of original dust jackets as well as the volume itself. For the most collectable books a general reference work such as the Ahearns' Collected Books may suffice.[v] Returning to the example of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, we learn from Collected Books that a first state dust jacket should carry a lower case 'j' in 'jay Gatsby' on the 14th line of the blurb but that on most copies the printer's error has been hand-corrected or over-stamped with a capital 'J'. Such alterations should be easy to see and feel on an original but probably only seen on a fake. Of course, if there's no lower case 'j', you are not looking at a first state jacket at all.

If, after all your inspections and research - and careful quizzing of the seller - you still have doubts, splash out a tenner or so on a hand-held microscope. 30x magnification is more than enough.[vi] Modern day printing tends to shoot - or 'jet'- ink onto paper. Solid areas of 'jetted' ink appear relatively uniform under the microscope. In contrast, the majority of dust jackets from the early part of the 20th century will have be produced by offset lithography which involves pressing the ink onto the surface of the paper, using a certain amount of pressure. As a result the ink is pushed to the edges of the colour area where it gathers more thickly. Single colour areas printed by offset lithography therefore appear to have more strongly defined edges than those produced digitally. Similarly the heavier patches of ink at the edges are less pronounced on later colour copies. Take a few moments to examine some older jackets at home and compare them to modern digital printing and you'll soon get the hang of it.

Jessica Mulley, 2005



[i] Russell, R B. Guide to First Edition Prices 2002/3, 4th edition, Tartarus Press, 2001, p. 181.

[ii] Ahearn, Allen & Ahearn, Patricia. Collected Books: The Guide to Values, 2nd edition, G.P. Putman's Sons, 1997, notes on endpaper.

[iii] These notes have prepared with modern fiction firsts published between 1920 and 1950 in mind. The presence or otherwise of a dust jacket can have an effect of the value of collectable non-fiction works, but the difference tends to be far less significant - usually in the region of 20 per cent - and therefore a less attractive prospect for fraudsters.

[iv] A copy of Heath's Keepsake from1833 survives with its dust jacket still protecting the fragile watered-silk binding. It is made of plain, buff-coloured paper with the titles overprinted in red.

[v] Ahrean ; Ahrean, Ibid.

The man who loves books too much, John Gilkey the notorious book thief

Notorious thief John Gilkey has built a vast collection of rare works, most of which he will never read and no one will ever see. Why?

Allison Hoover Bartlett introducing her best selling book online

On February 7, 2003, opening day of the San Francisco antiquarian book fair, Ken Sanders warily paced his booth. He was surrounded by some of his treasures, including The Strategy of Peaceinscribed by John F. Kennedy and a first edition of the Book of Mormon. With his long black-and-white beard, thinning ponytail, and ample paunch, Sanders didn't resemble the many bow-tied, blue-blazered dealers at the fair, and he didn't share their anticipatory excitement. Instead, as security chief of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), he was haunted by the fear that John Charles Gilkey, the elusive book thief he'd pursued for three years, the rogue collector who'd just posted bail, might be brazen enough to show up.

Sanders, now 54, watched as collectors drifted from one book dealer to the next, gazed into glass cases, and asked to hold in their hands venerable volumes like William Wordsworth's The Prelude($65,000). They consulted maps of the fair floor, squinted through spectables across booths, and stooped to better run their eyes down the spines of books, eager to locate, say, a signed first edition ofHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or Lewis Carroll's copy of the 1482 edition of Euclid's Elements, one of the great mathematical texts (both of which were for sale that day for $30,000 and $175,000, respectively). They also roamed the aisles hoping to be surprised, because that's what rare book collectors live for, to stumble upon a book whose scarcity or beauty or history or provenance is more seductive than the story printed between its covers.

 It was in the midst of this literary sleuthing that Sanders locked eyes with a man he didn't recognize. "I had the weirdest goddamn feeling," he remembers, "but I couldn't place the guy." So he turned to his daughter, Melissa, to ask if she recalled whether this stranger was perhaps a customer they'd met before, and not Gilkey, as he suspected. But by the time Sanders turned back, the man had vanished.

300-Year-old stash of erotica found hidden in Lake District manor house

A secret hoard of lewd pamphlets written to titillate the common man more than 300 years ago have been discovered in a manor house.
Known as Chapbooks the bodice-ripping yarns were found hidden in the library of Townend House at Troutbeck in the Lake District.
The pamphlets had been shoved behind a collection of straightforward books, presumably to hide them.
Chapbooks - the name derives from 'chapmen' the door-to-door peddlers who sold this type of literature - told racy tales of amorous advances, love and marriage.
The pamphlets were printed on cheap paper so thin that hardly any have survived the ravages of time.
Townend House was owned by a landowning farming family, the Brownes, whose literary collection has been passed to the National Trust.
Emma Wright, who is the Trust custodian at Townend said: 'The Browne book collection goes back through the centuries and proves that rural people had a strong interest in literature.'
'However, as we have gone slowly through the library we have found hidden away these Chapbooks.
'They contain rather saucy even rude tales which were found to be rather amusing by their 18th century readers.'
One tale is called The Crafty Chambermaid's Garland and details the story of a young woman who tricks a man into marrying her.



The Chapbooks were found in the library of Townend House at Troutbeck in the Lake District
Written in 1770 it states: 'The Merchant he softly crept into the room. And on the bedside he sat himself down. Her knees through the counterpane he did embrace. Did Bess in the pillow did hide her sweet face.
'He stript (sic) of his clothes and leaped into bed saying now lovely creature for thy maidenhead. She strug led (sic) and strove and seemed to be shy. He said divine beauty I pray now comply.'
The National Trust has put some of the steamy pages with their illustrations onto digital photo frames with MP3 recordings also available for visitors.
Mrs Wright added: 'The Chapbooks have really caught the imagination. The Brownes were obviously far from straight-laced.'