Panel Discussion on 'Beautiful Books'

The Wheeler Centre has uploaded video of the 2013 Melbourne Rare Book Week opening night panel discussion 'Beautiful Books':

http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/beautiful-books/

'Passionate bibliophiles – including a collector, a designer and a twenty-first-century book-maker – will explore changing perspectives on what makes a book beautiful … and what makes us treasure it long after its shelf life.

With Des Cowley, Rare Printed Collections Manager at the State Library of Victoria, designer W. H. Chong, and booki.sh founder Virginia Murdoch. Hosted by Steve Grimwade.

In the midst of the e-revolution, where we’re as likely to download as to leaf through a book, the idea of the book as an object of beauty is being lost. Or is it?'

Melbourne Rare Book Week ran from 18 to 28 July.

Upcoming Rare Book Auctions - Australia

~ On 27 and 28 May, in three sessions, Australian Book Auctions offers 'Voyages and Travels and other Books and Documents'. The three books bringing the highest estimates are: a large paper copy of Matthew Flinders's A Voyage to Terra Australis (London, 1814), at $80,000 to $100,000 AUD (lot 33); an uncut copy in original boards of James Maria Magra's A Journal of a Voyage Round the World, in His Majesty's Ship Endeavour (London, 1771) with the suppressed Dedication leaf, expected to bring between $120,000 and $160,000 AUD (lot 55); and a first edition of the Second Voyage Round the World (London, 1776), a surreptitious account of Cook's 1772–1775 voyage, bound in red morocco from the Admiralty Office Library, listed at $80,000 to $120,000 AUD (lot 63).

A PDF of the catalogue can be viewed here.

~ The first Sydney Rare Book Auctions sale in their new premises is scheduled for 1 June. More than 400 lots will be on offer, including what is described as a 'clean, bright and crisp' copy of the first complete edition of James De Carle Sowerby and Edward Lear's Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles Drawn from Life (London, 1872), with three plain and 57 hand-coloured plates.

Catalogue not yet available on-line.

Alfred and Isabel Reed Medieval Manuscripts Online

Leaf from a French Book of Hours,
fifteenth century (RMMF19)

It gives me great pleasure to announce that images and descriptions of the Dunedin City Library's holdings of medieval manuscripts from the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection are now available on Flickr:

Profile

http://www.flickr.com/people/dplmedmss/

Collections (7)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dplmedmss/collections/

Sets (71)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dplmedmss/sets

 

The images include a selection from each bound manuscript, and the recto/ verso of each individual leaf and fragment. I did not resize the images, so visitors can get access to the original files.

The site was created with the aim of promoting and providing on-line access to one of New Zealand's largest collections of medieval manuscripts. Collection highlights include: a leaf and bifolium from a ninth-century Bible in Carolingian script (RMMF 1a and 1b), which are among the oldest manuscript leaves in the country; a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the Wycliffe Gospels (MS 6) and a leaf from a Wycliffite Lectionary (RMMF 20) dated to the same time period; a portion of a fourteenth-century Bible (MS 4a), identified by Christopher de Hamel as having been written in the Cistercian Abbey of Byszewo (or Koronowo), near Gdansk, the first manuscript of Polish origin to be identified in New Zealand; leaves from the fourteenth-century 'Bohun Bible' (RMMF 13a and 13b); a fifteenth-century Dutch Book of Hours (MS 12) from the library of Alexander Boswell, 8th Laird of Auchinleck, and a second Dutch Book of Hours (MS 10) brought to New Zealand by Walter B. D. Mantell in 1840, one of the earliest medieval manuscripts to be transported to the colony.

 

I would like to acknowledge and thank Christopher de Hamel, Margaret Manion, and the family of the late Vera F. Vines, for granting permission to reproduce the relevant descriptions in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (London, 1989). This information has been updated to reflect recent scholarship (most notably by de Hamel, Alexandra Barratt, and Richard Gameson). References are provided. I would also like to thank Paul Hayton, former electronic services co-ordinator for Dunedin Public Libraries, and Will Noel for his guidance.

Rare Book Week in Melbourne

Kay Craddock's Bookshop
156 Collins St.

Next month sees the launch of the inaugural Melbourne Rare Book Week in conjunction with the biennial University of Melbourne Cultural Treasures Festival and the 39th ANZAAB Antiquarian Book Fair.

Being held from 19 to 29 July, Rare Book Week includes 'a series of informative and entertaining lectures, events and exhibitions celebrating the book and the joy of collecting.... If you are curious about books and what makes them collectable, and fascinated by ephemeral items that capture the spirit of a time, or you are drawn to prints that illustrate our history and maps that reflect the peaks and perils of travel and adventure, then Melbourne is the place to be in July'.

A full list of events, all but one of which are free to attend, is available on the Rare Book Week programme page.

Rare Book School 2013, Dunedin

The eighth Australian and New Zealand Rare Book School is being hosted next year by the Centre for the Book, University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Running from 28 January to 1 February 2013, the three courses on offer are:

The Business of Books in Britain (James Raven)
This course offers broad consideration of developments in historical bibliography and what has become known as ‘the history of the book’ by focusing on the productive transformation of printing, publishing and bookselling in Britain during the last two hundred years or so of the dominance of the manual printing press (full description).

James Raven is Professor of Modern History at the University of Essex. Author of numerous articles and books, he wrote The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade 1450–1850 in 2007, which went on to win the 2008 De Long prize. He and Leslie Howsam have just published an edited collection of essays on trans-Atlantic book history, Books between Europe and the Americas: Connections and Communities, 1620–1860 (2011).

English Paleography, 1500–1700 (Heather Wolfe)
This course provides an intensive introduction to handwriting in early modern England, with a particular emphasis on English secretary hand. Working from digital images, color photocopies, and manuscripts, participants will be trained in the accurate reading and transcription of secretary, italic, and mixed hands (full description).

Heather Wolfe is Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC. Author of numerous articles on early modern manuscripts, she has most recently edited The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary (2007) and The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608: A Facsimile Edition of Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.232 (2007). She has taught paleography several times at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, VA.

Exhibitions: The Art and Practicalities (Donald Kerr and Richard Overell)
This course examines the philosophy behind exhibitions, particularly sourcing ideas and proposals on what to exhibit and when, along with curatorial issues such as selecting items to display, assessing lighting and cabinet sizes, and designing captions and labels, through to making cradles for books, press release writing, and ensuring the narrative is not only told, but suits the audience (full description).

Donald Kerr is Special Collections Librarian at the University of Otago, author of numerous articles, and biographer of Sir George Grey. He is co-director of the University of Otago Centre for the Book and President of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Richard Overell is Rare Books Librarian at Monash University, where he has been the curator of about 100 exhibitions ranging from 'The Restoration' to 'Ephemera'.

Application forms will be available shortly. For a course brochure (PDF), tuition costs, contact details and other information, please visit the Centre for the Book Rare Book School website.

UPDATE: Application forms are now available.

Exhibition Announcement: 'Our Will & Pleasure: Royal Autographs, Letters and Memorabilia of the British Monarchy'

The exhibition 'Our Will & Pleasure: Royal Autographs, Letters and Memorabilia of the British Monarchy' opened last night in the Reed Gallery, Heritage Collections, Dunedin City Library. This is the first exhibition where items from the Reed Autograph Letters & Manuscripts Collection have taken centre stage, and it is timed to coincide with the wider events celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

On display are more than twenty manuscripts with a royal connection ranging in date from a 1704 document signed by Queen Anne, to the signatures of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, from their visit to the Dunedin Public Library in 1954. Some of the items are accompanied by cartes de visite and printed ephemera. Three cases are dedicated to royal tours of New Zealand, from the 1901 visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, to the 1980 visit by the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

Supporting material includes letters and documents by six Prime Ministers from Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, to W. E. Gladstone (writing to Sir Anthony Panizzi). Three early histories of Britain and its monarchs round out the exhibition.

The physical exhibition closes on 19 August. If visiting Dunedin before then, please do call in.