Poster For Best Picture Nominee The Philadelphia Story (1940).(All Images Courtesy Of Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences, Magaret Herrick Library.)As already reported here by Book Patrol's Stephen J. Gertz, the theme of the upcoming 43rd California International Antiquarian Book Fair is From Author To Oscar®. To be held February 12-14 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, the largest rare book fair in the world is "focusing on the symbiotic relationship between books and film." Since most of the Best Picture Academy Award®-winning films are based on literary works, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts...
Dreadful E-Books Offered Gratis By British Library
One of the Most Popular Penny Dreadfuls, Starring Dick Turpin, Highwayman. (Circa 1866.)It's a red-hot, red letter day for Amazon Kindle owners. The British Library has announced that 65,000 rare 19th century literary first editions will be offered as free downloads to owners of the device beginning in Spring of 2010. Thanks to a joint venture with Microsoft, the no-cost titles will reproduce the original type-face and illustrations from such classic works as Charles Dickens's Bleak House, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.While having an electronic facsimile of a valuable first edition is a...
$100 Million Photo Archive Goes To Lone Star Library
The Ultimate Hipsters of 1965: Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, and Chuck Wein.(Photo by Burt Glinn. All Images From Magnum Photo.)The Magnum Photo Collection, 185,000 photographic prints insured for $100 million, is a treasure trove of images the likes of which will never be seen again. Purchased by billionaire computer company chairman Michael Dell on February 2, 2010, the photos preserve many of the most memorable moments of the 20th century. From the Allied forces landing on the beaches of Normandy, to Martin Luther King delivering his "I Have A Dream" speech, to touchstone pop culture images of James Dean and...
Murder, Mutilation, and Rats: Portrait Of An Archive And Library
A Keeper of London's Secret History: The Entrance To The National Portrait Gallery.A sensational shooting, vandalism by a hatchet-wielding suffragette, and an all-out war on rats. These are some of the surprising events revealed in the newly cataloged archive of the United Kingdom's National Portrait Gallery. In February 2010, the gallery made public previously secret files covering the 150 year history of its Heinz Archive and Library. The gallery has simultaneously begun a digitization program to create an online, searchable database of those records. Archivist Charlotte Brunskill said: "There are some fascinating stories in our archives and we are making...
Dark Days In The City Of Light
Paris, 1910 At The Onset Of The Flood. (All Images Courtesy Of Bibliotheque Historique de la ville de Paris.)One of the world's most uniquely beautiful cities is nearly destroyed by a catastrophic natural disaster. Images of entire neighborhoods under water, desperate residents struggling to survive, and landmark buildings swimming in swirling water hit newspapers around the globe. Sounds like New Orleans under seige by Hurricane Katrina, doesn't it? But this description also fits Paris in January 1910. The Bibliotheque Historique de la ville de Paris has opened a new exhibit of over 200 photographs, postcards, maps, and newspapers documenting a...