Hours of Catherine of Cleves, in LatinIlluminated by the Master of Catherine of ClevesThe Netherlands, Utrecht, ca. 1440(Images courtesy of Faksimile Verlag Luzern.) The first page of Catherine's prayer book foreshadows her troubled marriage. Her coat of arms as the Duchess of Guelder is centered beneath the Virgin Mary. Traditionally, her husband's crest would be illustrated atop her coat of arms. But Catherine defiantly places an Ox-- the symbol of The House of Cleves--above the emblem. Catherine is pictured praying from her Book of Hours at lower left. Her ancestors' coats of arms decorate the corners of the pages.It's every...
The Ballad of No Book Stores on the Streets of Laredo
Moonrise over Laredo, Texas as the sun sets over its book trade.Recent events in Laredo, Texas have compelled Tex Rex, King of the Singing Cowboys, to step out of retirement from his home on the range and croon the ballad of sad book-café about a big American city now scandalously - incredibly - without a single book shop; unbelievable but true.As I walked out on the streets of LaredoAs I walked out on Laredo one dayI spied an old book shop all shuttered and closed downShuttered and closed down all night and all day.I see by this closing that books...
Skirts In Dust Jackets: Indie Women, Wayward Wives, Soiled Damsels, Sassy Lassies, and Hard-Boiled Dames
Meherin, Elenore. "Sandy." Gosset & Dunlap, 1926."She defied life's Conventions in her search for THRILLS!"Photoplay edition.Women on the move, on the make, on the day shift, on the night shift, on their feet, on their backs, on the go, on their way, onward and upward.Sometimes a rare book catalog is organized like a library exhibition, the dealer/cataloger as curator to a wide variety of books that when grouped together tell a compelling story.West, Mae. The Constant Sinner (Babe Gordon). Macaulay, 1931.4th printing, first with ths title and dust jacket.The story of a dope-dealing prostitute who has anaffair with a black...
Famous Authors Drawn, Not Quartered
Martin Droeshout's 1623 Engraving Of William Shakespeare.The purpose of any portrait is to capture the essence of the subject. To somehow convey in a single image not just the outward appearance of the sitter, but his soul. But if the subject is a great writer, does that task become impossible? Poet Ben Jonson thought so, and maybe the curators at Princeton University's Firestone Library do, too.Those curators have just opened a new exhibit of 100 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, marble sculptures, and plaster death masks, depicting literary giants. The title of the gallery show is: The Author's Portrait. But the...
The World’s Largest Private Collection of Rare Books on Haiti
Later edition of one of the strangest, God-awful books on Haiti ever written.In 1983, Robert Corbett, a philosophy professor at Webster University, and his wife, Jane, visited Haiti for the first time to do service work. By 2007, he had amassed a collection of 2600 books and 5000 journal articles on Haiti.He is currently in the process of selling the collection in its entirety.I asked Bob to share with Book Patrol readers his thoughts about the collection in general, Haiti, and his book collecting strategy.BP: What made you decide to start the collection?I started the library in 1983 after the...