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.'

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fans want author's home in Surrey preserved

Fans of the creator of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - are trying to save his boarded-up home in Surrey from being redeveloped.

The future of Grade II-listed Undershaw, at Hindhead, has been in doubt since 2004 when the hotel which occupied the building closed.
It was built by Conan Doyle in the 1890s, but has been owned by a developer for the last six years.

Campaigners want it saved as a single building or turned into a museum.

The house, which overlooks the Devil's Punch Bowl, is in need of repair following a number of failed planning applications.

The latest plan is for it to be extended and divided into three properties.

John Gibson, of the Undershaw Preservation Trust, said: "Conan Doyle lived in this house between the ages of 37 and 47, and really when he left this house I think his best work was behind him.

"He did some of his finest work actually in this house. This house is a microcosm of the age."
Members of the public have until 19 March to comment on the proposal for the property.

Bryant And May Match Makers Of Bow , London

A scarce little booklet called Fun Among The Matches , containing 12 pages illustrated in colour.
It was published by Bryant & May match makers probably in the 1880s . The contents show games and puzzles that could be played with matches . The back cover is an advertisement regarding supporting Home Industries and inside back cover shows a full page illustration of the Fairfield Works at Bow , London .

The company, Bryant and May, was founded with the specific aim of making only Safety Matches .They were influential in fighting against the dreadful disease known as Phossy jaw which was caused by white Phosphorus used in the manufacture of the early matches. They started in 1861, on a dilapidated site in Bow which had once been used for the manufacture of Candles , Crinolene & Rope . This site was gradually expanded as a model factory.

However the public were initially unwilling to buy the more expensive safety matches so they also had to make the traditional Lucifer Matches.
They were the target of the London matchgirls strike of 1888 which was led by Annie Besant, which was part of the suffragette movement and one of the defining moments in trade union history and they won important improvements in working conditions and pay for the mostly female workforce .

Rare etchings by William Blake discovered in railway timetable

In among a box of second-hand books bought from a North London dealer in the late 1970s was a thick international railway timetable.

So boring did this tome appear to be that the seller apparently missed the eight small etchings hidden between the pages — a mistake that, in effect, handed the buyer a small fortune when they were identified three years ago as unique works by the visionary artist and writer William Blake.

Tate galleries have now bought these brilliantly executed and disturbing pictures for £441,000 and will exhibit them at Tate Britain in July.

They are not the sort of images that are likely to be ignored again. In one a naked man screams in horror as flames rage around him. In another a figure with long hair bends over a glowing red pool. Blake’s caption reads: “vegetating in fibres of blood”.

Alison Smith, curator of British Art up to 1900 at Tate Britain, said: “They are the best of what Blake produced [as an artist]. They are only inches across but they are so expressive and powerful that they suck you into this tormented world.”

Partly this visceral effectiveness is due to Blake’s distinctive compositional style, with his tortured subjects “pushed right up against the frame of the picture”, Ms Smith said. Partly it is the terse captions such as the one beneath a picture of a drowning figure that reads “the waters overwhelmed me”, making the experience of looking at it an uncomfortably personal one.

Most of all though it is the strength of the images, dredged from Blake’s imagination, which makes them look strikingly modern when set against the subject matter of his more successful peers, Constable and Turner.

Today Blake is regarded as one of the greatest of British artists but his contemporaries, with few exceptions, either ignored him or dismissed him as a madman.

Born in 1757 he had most success in his lifetime as a commercial engraver of other people’s work. The original writings and artwork that are now held to be proof of his genius were known to only a few. His one shot at fame, a solo exhibition in his brother’s hosiery shop in Soho in 1809, attracted a single critic who dismissed the work as “wretched pictures... the wild effusions of a distempered brain”.

However, Blake always believed that posterity would recognise his greatness and despite a constant struggle for money he remained a prolific chronicler of his own visions and dreams until his death at 69 in 1827. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the dissenters’ graveyard at Bunhill Fields, East London.

Tate’s new acquisitions probably date from the 1790s when Blake’s radical imagination was stirred by the potential of the French Revolution and he had begun to produce the series of illuminated prophetic books for which he is best known, using a secret printing technique that he invented.

At least one patron, his friend Ozias Humphrey, commissioned Blake to produce separate prints of his favourite illustrations from these books. Humphrey’s collection of 23 prints is known today as Copy A of the Small Book of Designs and held at the British Museum.

Six of the eight etchings were first seen in The First Book of Urizen. One is from the mythological poem The Book of Thel and the other is from the revolutionary prose work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake finished the prints with pen and ink and hand-coloured them by layering tempera on watercolour, to create what Ms Smith describes as “unique and fully realised works of art”.

After Blake’s death this set of eight were among works given by his widow, Catherine, to the artist Frederick Tatham. Their whereabouts was then unknown until the anonymous second-hand book buyer brought them to Tate for authentication in 2007.

Nicholas Serota, the director of Tate, said: “This was an extraordinary find, and I am delighted we have been able to acquire it for the nation.”

US scholars, conservators and scientists collaborate to prove that a 14th-century manuscript is a skilled fake

A clever bit of detective work by US scholars and scientists has proven that one of the jewels of the University of Chicago’s manuscript collection is, in fact, a skilled late 19th- or early 20th-century forgery.

Although speculation as to the authenticity of the Archaic Mark codex has been rife for more than 60 years, prior to this definitive research many believed it was an early record (possibly as early as the 14th century) of the Gospel of Mark and the closest of any extant manuscript to the world’s oldest Greek Bible—the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus.



The earliest record of Archaic Mark dates to 1917 when it was listed among the possessions of recently deceased Athenian antiquities dealer and collector John Askitopoulos. In September of 1935, Askitopoulos’s nephew, Gregory Vlastos, contacted University of Chicago biblical scholar Edgar Goodspeed asking if the school wished to purchase the manuscript. The 44-page codex, measuring 11.5 x 8.5cm, was acquired by the university in 1937 for an undisclosed sum.

The ongoing debate as to the codex’s authenticity re-ignited in 2006 with its digitisation, giving international experts an opportunity to examine the work closely for the first time. Beginning in 2007, Margaret Mitchell, Alice Schreyer and Judith Dartt from the university collaborated with research microscopist Joseph Barabe from the Illinois-based lab McCrone Associates, and manuscript conservator Abigail Quandt from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, to perform a cross-discipline, in-depth analysis of the codex.

Barabe conducted a material and elemental analysis on Archaic Mark which involved the use of a wide variety of techniques including x-ray diffraction, raman spectroscopy, polarised light, x-ray spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. He was particularly interested in determining whether the codex had undergone an earlier restoration which would account for the presence of various “modern” shades of blue including synthetic ultramarine blue—a material not available until the 1820s. He found no evidence of a prior restoration and most importantly determined that the white colour used contained the pigment lithopone which was not available until 1874, thereby setting an 1874 terminus post quem date for the codex. Carbon dating was used to determine that the canvas dates from the mid 16th century.

Quandt, who has worked on other well-known forged manuscripts including the Archimedes Palimpsest and various pieces by the so-called Spanish Forger, confirmed some of Barabe’s findings during her reconstruction of the forger’s technique. She noticed several inconsistencies with authentic Byzantine manuscripts including that the forger appears to have painted the miniatures and then added the text—an unusual practice for the medieval scribes. She also noted the amateurish binding and obvious attempt to add age to the edges of the manuscript with the sloppy application of a brownish liquid to create a faux charring effect.

Mitchell, a biblical scholar, undertook the task of analysing the text and found it to include the same errors contained in an edition of the Greek New Testament published by Philipp Buttmann in 1856. This led her to conclude that the creator of the Archaic Mark used Buttmann’s text as a guide for his forgery. “I’ve been asked repeatedly if I’m disappointed that the work is a forgery. I’m not. There is no longer a question mark after the date of the manuscript and that is tremendously satisfying,” said Mitchell.

The university intends to preserve the codex and encourage its use for further research into the forger’s techniques. “Those who study forgeries may be the largest beneficiaries of our scholarship,” said Mitchell.

A detailed record of the project is slated for publication in this month’s Novum Testamentum journal.

The Klencke Atlas Largest book in the world goes on show for the first time

It takes six people to lift it and has been recorded as the largest book in the world, yet the splendid Klencke Atlas, presented to Charles II on his restoration and now 350 years old, has never been publicly displayed with its pages open. That glaring omission is to be rectified, it was announced by the British Library today, when it will be displayed as one of the stars of its big summer exhibition about maps.

The summer show will feature about 100 maps, considered some of the greatest in the world, with three-quarters of them going on display for the first time.

At the exhibition's core will be wall maps, many of them huge, which tell a story that is much more than geography. Many of them, said the library's head of map collections, Peter Barber: "Hold their own with great works of art."

He added: "This is the first map exhibition of its type because, normally, when you think of maps you think of geography, or measurement or accuracy."

The exhibition aims to challenge people's assumptions about maps and celebrate their magnificence, as demonstrated by the 37 maps in the Klencke Atlas, which was intended as an encyclopaedic summary of the world.

It is almost absurdly huge – 1.75 metres (5ft) tall and 1.9 metres (6ft) wide – and was given to the king by Dutch merchants and placed in his cabinet of curiosities.

"It is going to be quite a spectacle," said Tom Harper, head of antiquarian maps. "Even standing beside it is quite unnerving."

As a contrast, one of the smallest maps in the world, a fingernail-sized German coin from 1773 showing a bird's eye view of Nuremberg, will be exhibited close by.

The exhibition will show how great maps could be as important as great art. Before 1800 – "that's when the rot set in," joked Barber – were you to visit palaces or the homes of the wealthy, maps would have been almost as prominent as paintings or sculptures or tapestries.

They were an important status symbol. Rich men would have a map of the world to show their worldliness; a map of the Holy Land to show their piety; a map of their estate to show their wealth; and a map of their home county or city to show how loyal a citizen they were.

They would also be personalised. For example, a map made in 1582 for Sir Philip Parker of Smallburgh in Norfolk also includes a little Brueghel-esque figure of a man with a monkey on his back: a mocking reference to his recently deceased half-brother Lord Morley, a Catholic and a family embarrassment who "spent his time wandering fairly pointlessly around southern Europe", said Barber. "It is a way of saying 'I'm not like that'."

Barber and Harper have chosen to exhibit maps from more than 4.5m held in the library's collection – the second biggest in the world after the Library of Congress.

Barber said the maps were all made for adornment but "at a deeper level they were made for propaganda. It's all spin. Every map is an exaggeration because you can never 100% capture reality on a reduced surface.

"Up until 1800 people expected maps in these contexts and enjoyed them, but in the course of the 18th century you got the growth of the cult of science, the belief that maps were to do with geography and the only thing that was important was its accuracy."

Barber believes maps are too neglected, particularly by art historians. "In a way we are trying to redress this. The official credo is the only thing that counts about a map is that they are utilitarian objects not really meant for display and that is not the case."

There will also be maps where the propaganda role has been more explicit, such as a Nazi poster produced in Vichy France which shows Churchill as an evil, cigar-chomping sea monster whose attempts to seize Africa and the Middle East were being thwarted by Axis forces, bloodily clipping his tentacles.

Then there are political propaganda posters which use maps – one even features a reference to removing troops from Afghanistan. The cartoons on the posters were used in the election campaign of 1880 and one shows Disraeli as a great hero assassinating "the windbag" Gladstone and maintaining the British link with Ireland. A cannon on the map is a mocking reference to Gladstone's call for soldiers to be withdrawn from Afghanistan.

A pro-Gladstone poster drawn by the same cartoonist has the Liberal leader killing Disraeli with a pen.

Gladstone won the election by a landslide.

Magnificent maps: Power, Propaganda and Art is at the British Library from 30 April to 19 September.

Mystery visitor to Edgar Allan Poe's grave is a no-show

BALTIMORE (AP) — It is what Edgar Allan Poe might have called "a mystery all insoluble": Every year for the past six decades, a shadowy visitor would leave roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on Poe's grave on the anniversary of the writer's birth. This year, no one showed.

Did the mysterious "Poe toaster" meet his own mortal end? Did some kind of ghastly misfortune befall him? Will he be heard from nevermore?

"I'm confused, befuddled," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. "I don't know what's going on."

The visitor's absence this year only deepened the mystery over his identity. One name mentioned as a possibility was that of a Baltimore poet and known prankster who died in his 60s last week. But there is little or no evidence to suggest he was the man.

Poe was the American literary master of the macabre, known for poems such as "The Raven" and grisly short stories like "The Tell-Tale Heart," ''The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum." He is also credited with writing the first modern detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." He died in 1849 in Baltimore at age 40 after collapsing in a tavern.

In the history of the Poe toaster, little is certain.

The annual tribute began in 1949 — unless it started earlier, or later. The first printed reference to the tribute can be found that year in The Evening Sun of Baltimore. The newspaper mentioned "an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty bottle (of excellent label)" against the gravestone.

Every year since 1978, Jerome has staked out the grave at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground. Year after year, he said, he and various friends and Poe enthusiasts would watch from inside the Presbyterian church as a figure dressed in black, with a wide-brimmed hat and a white scarf, would leave three roses and cognac and steal away.

There is an alternative tale of the toaster's origins, one that Jerome vehemently disputes. Sam Porpora, the former historian at Westminster Hall, claimed in 2007 that he was the original Poe toaster, saying he came up with the idea in the late 1960s as a publicity stunt. But the details of Porpora's story seemed to change with each telling, and he acknowledged that someone had since made the tradition his own.

In 1993, the visitor began leaving notes, starting with one that read: "The torch will be passed." A note in 1998 indicated the originator of the tradition had died and passed it on to his two sons.

In 2001, as the Baltimore Ravens — named in honor of the bird in Poe's most famous poem — were preparing to face the New York Giants in the Super Bowl, the toaster left a note that praised the Giants and said the Ravens would suffer "a thousand injuries." Then in 2004, amid tense relations between the United States and France over the invasion of Iraq, a note said Poe's grave was "no place for French cognac" and that the liquor was being left "with great reluctance."

Beyond Porpora, no one ever stepped forward to take credit for the tradition. But one name emerged Tuesday as a possible candidate: David Franks, a Baltimore poet and performance artist who died last week.

Franks was a Poe aficionado and an outrageous prankster who dressed with a "19th-century literary flair," said Rafael Alvarez, a friend of Franks and president of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore.

Franks once photocopied his private parts on a Xerox machine at a Social Security office and put the images on display. Decades ago, he posed as a disabled poet in a wheelchair, solicited donations from the crowd, then thanked everyone and got up and walked away.

Jerome said he doubts Franks was the toaster: "I looked at some images of him, and he doesn't look at all like the person we've seen over the years."

Alvarez also said Franks wasn't a sports fan, and "his politics were more French than American."

The toaster's annual appearance has become a pilgrimage for Poe fans, some of whom travel hundreds of miles. About three dozen stood huddled in blankets during the overnight cold Tuesday, hoping to catch a glimpse. At 5:30 a.m., Jerome emerged from the church to announce that the toaster had not arrived.

As the longtime guardian of Poe's legacy in Baltimore and the occupant of a prime viewing spot, Jerome has often had to respond to skeptics who believe he knows the Poe toaster's true identity — or is the toaster himself.

"If I was doing it, that is fraud, pure and simple. I could lose my job," Jerome said.

Jerome said the only thing he has kept secret is a signal — a gesture the toaster has predictably made each year at the grave — that even now he is not willing to reveal.

As for why the visitor didn't show this year, "you've got so many possibilities," Jerome said. "The guy had the flu, accident, too many people."

Jerome said that perhaps the visitor considered last year's elaborate 200th anniversary celebration of Poe's birth an appropriate stopping point.

"People will be asking me, 'Why do you think he stopped?'" Jerome said. "Or did he stop? We don't know if he stopped. He just didn't come this year."

Conservation Book Repair training manual free download

Conservation Book Repair: A training manual by Artemis BonaDea . Download complete manual free from here

Drifs Guide

I have just bought a copy of Drifs book " How To Find A Second Hand Or Antiquarian Bookshop By Drif Field" Looks like its going to be a fun read .

The following comment is from his book which made me smile

" There is an unofficial competition in second hand bookshops to see who can get rid of telephone enquirers the fastest. The outright winner is Derek Nightingale Of Norbiton, who is able to answer the telephone, politely fend off the enquirer and restart his conversation with a genuine customer in under six seconds .
There are some bookshops that can do it faster but they do not do it with as much skill or flair . Some shops even go as far as to pretend they have left the desk to go and search for the book - these are the ones where the owners aspire to being actors ."