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Showing posts from 2014

Autographs from Goodspeed's, June 1932

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At a price to fit any purse... When you thumb through this little catalog from Goodspeed's Boston bookshop, you'll want to load your purse or wallet with wads of cash (no credit cards) and jump in a time machine for a bargain basement shopping spree. Rare and collectible autographs found in letters and other paper items are for sale at prices that seem ridiculously low even for 1932. For example, right on the front cover of this booklet, no less an American icon than George Washington is represented by two signed letters (below) for the measly sum of $200 and $150, respectively. How many zeros would be added to the asking price for the same letters offered for sale today? If the above prices are too rich for your blood, how about 85 bucks for a one-page document signed by Washington... and countersigned by Thomas Jefferson. Eighty-five dollars??? Letters from Presidents Madison and Monroe were evidently not as popular with collectors, as their signatures commande

Bookplate for a Hooper Hooper

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Here is a bookplate with an unusual pairing of the same middle and last names: Samuel Hooper Hooper. The bookplate features a boar's head, which can be found in other family crest or armorial designs. But I'm not sure what the button-like objects are or represent. Samuel Hooper Hooper showed up quickly in an Internet search that landed on a BOSarchitecture.com page featuring a building Hooper once lived in. The site also offers some biographical information on Hooper: "Samuel Hooper Hooper was a real estate investor and investment banker. In later years, he became a wine importer. He organized and led the Boston Assembly society balls for many years, and was a founder and the first president of the Tennis and Raquet Club." His biblio connection? He was a member of "one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries and cultural institutions in the United States:"  The Boston Athenaeum .

Tennyson in the Land of Pecos Bill

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Lord Alfred Tennyson, the great poet laureate of England, never visited America, but his writing was known throughout the land, even in the arid region of Pecos, Texas in 1893 a year after the author died. Only a few decades or so before, Apache and Comanche tribes roamed the area and only a few intrepid pioneers had attempted settlement in that remote part of the state. Thanks to railroad expansion in the 1880s, a bit of civilization came west to Pecos, including Mr. Tennyson, all dressed up in Morocco. I'm not sure what Pecos Bill would have thought about that. Above is the receipt for a $10 Class D membership, whatever that is, good for 10 years in the National Library Association. W.V. Glascock is listed as the agent who sold the membership. Mrs W.T. Monahan is the new member and probably anxious for some fine books to provide a little culture in her home in a desolate region of the West.  In addition to her membership, Mrs. Monahan would also receive a presentat

Everybody's Library in Malta

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Here's one of the smallest pieces of paper in my collection from one of the smallest countries in the world--a cash sale receipt from  Malta .  In Valletta, the capital city of this densely populated Mediterranean country south of Sicily, is (or was) Everybody's Library at 35 Archbishop Street. An apparent sale is recorded on the front side, while the reverse seems to have some tax-related notation. Did the customer buy a Penguin paperback or a book about the penguin? And would "-12-8" be a date? The answers to those questions don't exist. And maybe the book shop doesn't either. Judge for yourself in the photos and link further down. Measuring 3.5 X 4 inches, this receipt, which appears to be at least 60 or 70 years old, is the only paper remnant of this book shop I can find on the Internet. In fact, the only other indication of its existence can be found in several photographs. The first two below are courtesy of Gulja Holland , an artist a

Books of the Southwest: J.F. Collins of Santa Fe

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Books of the Southwest is the title of a 1920s-era catalog from bookseller J.F. Collins of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Given its brevity and size, it's not so much a catalog as it is an advertising brochure for some of the store's stock in the genre of Southwestern literature. Authors Charles F. Lummis, Mary Austin, Will James, and Charles A. Siringo jump out at me, as I've had their books in stock at various times. This 6 X 6.5-inch folded paper is printed on half of one side (the "front") and entirely on the other side (the inside pages). More than 60 titles are listed and one book is featured with a description: Old Santa Fe , by Ralph Emerson Twitchell. Twitchell also has the highest-priced book listed in Collins' catalog-- Leading Facts of New Mexico, 5 Volumes , for $100, a good amount of money for the times. If you wanted to buy the set today, Xochi's Bookstore & Gallery in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico appears to have the only copy