A standard, letter-size envelope featuring Where The Wild Things Are original art by its sender, Maurice Sendak, has recently surfaced.The envelope (3 1/2 x 6 1/2 in; 90 x 165 mm), postmarked New York Jan 27, 1966, is autograph addressed by Sendak to fellow Caldecott Medal award winner, Nonny Hogrogian, with Sendak's autograph name and return address to the flap. Considering its journey through the United States Postal Service and forty-three year life, it is in miraculous condition.Original artwork by Sendak associated with and near contemporary to the publishing of his classic Where the Wild Things Are is exceedingly rare.The...
Love In Bloomsbury: Our Monthly Look at the London Review of Books Personal Ads
Though another page has torn off the calendar and the autumn leaves are falling, love is still in bloom, and, as usual, the personal ads at the London Review of Books are fecund with possibilities for casual or meaningful fecunding and the pursuit of happiness or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Contact info has been deleted to protect the delightfully guilty:My attempts to find a suitable lover in this column would have been far more successful but for the bureaucratic pettifoggery of the LRB advertising department, the dilatory shenanigans of the British postal service, and the rambunctiousness of my gall bladder....
On the Length of Subtitles in Many Old, Rare and Antiquarian Books,
Or, the Custom of Publishers of olde to Load the title page with a Reader’s Digest condensed version of the Contents so complete that when finished perusing one’s need to Read the Actual Book is obviated and further Exploration Unnecessary; title pages as Cliffs Notes, Advertisements, Promotional material, Infomercials, and other forms of Ballyhoo meant to capture the Prospective Reader’s imagination and Cash at a time when there were no attractive Dust Jackets or other means of Merchandising books, and reading a title page with War and Peace longitude was like going to Wallach’s Music City, choosing a new record,...
My (sort of) Fourteenth-Century Bar Mitzvah
And so it came to pass that on the 27th day of Tishri in the year 5725, young Stephen ben Kenneth ben Edward ben Morris ben Aaron of the House of Gertz (formerly Gershowitz, “Horse Traders to the Czar Since 1826”), who dwelt in the land of Queens in the province of New Judea also known as La Ciudad de Nueva York, reached his majority and was accepted into the congregation as a man because God, blessed be He who bestows savings bonds, apparently figures that when a boy’s sperm squad is mature enough for successful reconnaissance and friendly fire...
Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition Winners for 2009
Designer Bookbinders has announced the winners of its International Bookbinding Competition 2009.Binders from around the world were invited to enter the event, which was organized in conjunction with the Bodleian Library. An exhibition of selected competition entries is being shown alongside the Bodleian’s own exhibition An Artful Craft - Fine and Historic Bookbindings from the Broxbourne Library and Other Collections.Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition 2009 featured two prizes awarded in honor of Sir Paul Getty KBE (1932-2003). Sir Paul Getty was one of the greatest book collectors of his era and was a passionate advocate for the art and craft...