MetaFilter posts tagged with rarebooks

The Black Tulip of American Literature

Horace Rumpole — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:06:31 -0800

In 1827, a first-time author paid to have a small number of copies of his book Tamerlane and Other Poems, by a Bostonian printed. When Edgar Allan Poe later reprinted the book under his own name, he apologized for its poor quality, but the first edition has become one of the most sought after rarities in book collecting. This week, one of the two copies in private hands sold for $662,500, but you can flip through this one for free.

Treasures unburied

Horace Rumpole — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:42:30 -0800

Libraries' Surprising Special Collections. Since Smithsonian apparently doesn't quite get how the internet works, I've rounded up the web pages for these collections: Griswold Chess Collection, Cleveland Public Library. Fore-edge paintings, Boston Public Library (my favorite) Arabic Papyrus, Parchment, and Paper, University of Utah. (Try the "browse" drop-down menu.) Tober Forgery Collection, University of Delaware. Nurse Romance Novel Covers, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. (Awesome!) Arents Collection on Tobacco, New York Public Library. (Click on "Collection contents, then "Tobacco, its History and Associations") Severson Collection of WWI Avaiation, Saint Paul Public Library. (Nothing here, unfortunately.) Judaica Sound Archive, Florida Atlantic University.

Where billionaires shop to build their libraries

nímwunnan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:50:08 -0800

Jay Walker's Library was just profiled by Wired [via], but they failed to mention where many of those books came from. Big players like Maggs, Simon Finch and the Baumans still compose most of the rare book world. (Heritage is gone but Michael Sharp got four of their employees.) They're all excellent places to shop if you're building an Überlibrary, but, if you're Jay Walker, you start with Phillip J. Pirages. I had the pleasure of working for Phil for about two years starting in 2000. I won't go into detail, but I owed my job to Mr. Walker's insatiable appetite for books. Having heard so much about the Walker library as it was being built, I was thrilled to see the photos in the Wired piece. (I even recognized some of the books.) The rare book world is small, peculiar, and, besides the intrusion of the internet, probably operates in much the same way as it always has. Reputation and specialized knowledge matter. Phil's small firm, located in charmingly rural McMinnville, OR, is known to be as trustworthy and considerate as they get (despite my time there, ha ha) and regularly produces massive, meticulously-researched catalogues so full of charming anectdotes and useful bibliography that they sometimes end up for sale on eBay. Don't let the web 1.0 look of their site fool you (remember this is the rare book world) -- they are one of the big players now. I won't go into business arrangements, but it's well known now that Mr. Walker worked more closely with Phil than any other dealer to build that amazing library. As Phil used to say when he outbid one of the Big Guys, "Not bad for a farmboy from Iowa." I doubt that I'll ever again work for someone as honest and fair as Phil. If you have a chance to visit the New York, California, or Seattle Book Fairs, do yourself a favor and stop by Phil's booth. It should be easy to find, as it usually sparkles. Yeah, most of the stuff is phenomenally expensive, but he'll treat you well regardless of how much money you have, and even the cheap stuff is pretty great. Say hi for me.

400 digitized rare books

peacay — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 08:21:16 -0800

The Rare Book Room presents about 400 of the world's greatest books from a variety of libraries in high resolution format. For some samples, check out: Apianus (Astronomicum Caesareum); Blake (Songs of Innocence and Experience); Braccelli (Bizzarie di Varie Figure); Catesby (The Natural History of Carolina...); Dürer (De Symmetria...); Colonna (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili). And on and on. The interface is great (use arrow far left at top for larger page image) but there's a slight browser resize in FFox. A couple of author names are placeholders for future uploads it seems. [via]

Silk Roads

tellurian — Mon, 01 May 2006 20:57:08 -0800

The Digital Silk Roads Project continues to grow apace with more additions from the Toyo Bunko rare books archive. Now available online, among others, are Les grottes de Touen-Houang, The Thousand Buddhas and several German books, including Chotscho. Unfortunately, all of the high resolution images are greyscale. [related]

BibliOdyssey

OmieWise — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:06:39 -0800

BibliOdyssey is a new and spectacular compendium of the printed image. From detailed posts on Rare Books of the Japanese Diet Library to a look at some strange illustrations for The Master and the Margarita, the site has a broad range and an eclectic composition authorized by the quality of the posts. Other highlights include Micrographia, a mysterious Astronomické České, the prints of Jacques Callot, and images from Sydney Parkinson's journal of his explorations of New Zealand and Australia. Be sure to look through the archives.

Missouri Botanical Gardens Rare Books/Illustrations

peacay — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 09:41:12 -0800

Missouri Botanical Gardens Rare Books: The Illustrated Garden
This collection contains seventy seven 18th and 19th century botanical books and these are just a small sample of the 3000+ beautiful illustrations contained within. (via)

Volumes That I Prize Above My Dukedom

yankeefog — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 02:47:14 -0800

Page through the entire first quarto of Hamlet , or the second quarto of King Lear, or any one of dozens of other precious rare editions of Shakespeare, courtesy of the British Library. Clicking on a page brings up a bigger view of the page, which is handy for taking a closer look at lines like "To be or not to be, I, there's the point". There's also some brief background on the various editions.

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

LeeJay — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:08:43 -0800

Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library's online collection of digital images - over 90,000 of them. A vast labyrinth of high resolution digital images and photo negatives from thousands of rare books and manuscripts. Search by keyword to access scans sorted by category. Find one you like and click on the call number to bring up all images from that title. Searching for "illustrations" brings up 31 pages of scans from hundreds of titles. Examine 16th century mechanical illustrations by Georg Agricola, two full pages of photo negatives from William Blake's Jerusalem, a collection of artwork demonstrating knightly protocol ("medieval" is another keyword search yielding a bonanza of good stuff), and so much more. The interface leaves something to be desired but the sheer amount of works available for viewing makes it all worth it.

Literary Fantastic

LeeJay — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 08:16:04 -0800

The Fantastic in Art and Fiction. The Cornell Institute for Digital Collections presents an online image-bank that "provides a visual resource for the study of the Fantastic or of the supernatural in fiction and in art" from the danse macabre to medical oddities to creatures straight out of Hell (and Heaven). The university's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has put together a captivating little collection of the marvelous, the mysterious and the magical. You can search through all the images at once or search by book title. (Some images may be slightly NSFW.)

Rare Books

plep — Sun, 03 Oct 2004 09:24:33 -0800

Rare Books. Links to virtual exhibitions, 1991-present.

Visible Traces: Rare Books and Special Collections from the National Library of China

plep — Thu, 29 Jan 2004 09:51:44 -0800

Visible Traces: Rare Books and Special Collections from the National Library of China. Rare books, maps and other texts, viewable online in this exhibition at askasia.org.

dayvin — Fri, 30 Nov 2001 20:32:43 -0800

At Yale, A Theft Of Historic Proportions "A college student is accused of abusing his position at Yale University's rare books library to steal more than $1.5 million in one-of-a-kind historic signatures and other items — then selling them on the Internet."