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Portrait of two young men posed with a crescent moon prop.
Tintype, 5¼ x 4⅜ in.
I have always collected books and other works on paper, so at the age of eighty, despite giving collections to libraries in my zone of affection, my house is pretty full. Idea: collect something not as space consuming as…
Hyakumantō Dhārāni.
Scroll: 2¼ x 20½ in., pagoda: 8¼ x 3¼ in.
The oldest accurately datable, block printed-text on paper is recorded on miniature scrolls, or dhārāni (mantras), that Japanese Empress Shōtoku (718–770) commissioned to express her gratitude for the…
A pair of Indian miniatures.
Watercolor and gold on paper, each 7¼ x 4 in.
I have been collecting Indian miniatures since 1967, when I was introduced to them by my cousin, and then-employer, the bookseller H. P. Kraus. This pair is by far the most personal of the collection.…
I have been collecting Indian miniatures since 1967, when I was introduced to them by my cousin, and then-employer, the bookseller H. P. Kraus. This pair is by far the most personal of the collection.…
Commentarii in prophetias Osee, Ioel, Amos, Michaeae, et Nahum [Bible. Old Testament. Prophets. Commentaries.]
Text manuscript on vellum, in Gothic minuscule.
Provenance: Julian Wolff.
Written by a single scribe in Gothic minuscule: two columns in black ink, rubricated, with marginalia, the Minor Prophets’ texts underlined in red; gatherings end with…
Provenance: Julian Wolff.
Written by a single scribe in Gothic minuscule: two columns in black ink, rubricated, with marginalia, the Minor Prophets’ texts underlined in red; gatherings end with…
Worth Keeping: Selected from The Congregationalist and Boston Recorder, 1870–1879.
I discovered that a critical source for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) was the novel The Salem Belle (1842)—and I also found, through archival work, that the author of this latter book was Ebenezer Wheelwright. I discussed…
The Jewel, or Token of Friendship: A Christmas or New Year’s Present.
Provenance: Signed and dated “Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive Mansion, Albany 1930.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a great book collector, in his early years collected nineteenth-century holiday annuals. He also published limited edition…
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a great book collector, in his early years collected nineteenth-century holiday annuals. He also published limited edition…
Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings.
Binding, striped cloth, 19th c.
One of the rarest items in my collection of American nineteenth-century cloth bindings is this exemplar that combines both stripes and dots. Striped cloth, all of which was imported from England, was the most uncommon…
The English Bible. Containing the Old Testament & the New Translated out of the Original Tongues by Special Command of His Majesty King James the First …., 5 vols.
The Doves Bible is unquestionably the greatest production of what many people believe was the greatest of the English private presses. The result of an emotional and complex partnership between T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker, the Doves Press…
A Curious Heiroglyphick Bible; Or, Select Passages in the Old and New Testament, Represented with Emblematic Figures for the Amusement of Youth.
The Hieroglyphick Bible is one of my favorite children’s books. It dates from 1783, with woodcuts attributed to engraver Thomas Bewick. Hieroglyphic bibles evolved from emblem books, where images or hieroglyphs served as symbols for intellectual…
Katholische Bibel. Das ist die ganze Heilige Schrift alten und neuen Testaments [Catholic Bible. The Scriptures, Old and New Testaments].
On a freezing night in Cambridge, Massachusetts in December 1958, at around 2:00 a.m., I was walking back to my room in Adams House after a feast of delicious scrambled eggs with a buttery, well-toasted English muffin at the Hayes-Bickford, on…