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...
A Bibliomaniac Amok
He owes $14,000 in back rent, has $14 to his name, he’s been out of work for two years, his landlord is evicting him, he agrees he should be tossed. He’s got a rare book collection of 3,000 books worth, by his estimate, $1,000,000. What’s wrong with this picture?Irving Leif, 62, the Jersey City citizen whose story hit the Jersey papers the other day, we learn, is a graybeard trust-fund baby. Disbursements to him supplemented his income as Chief Information Officer for the state of New York’s Department of Banking.The chief missed, evidently, the info on banking and money.Anytime a...
Cops Nab "Tome Raider" Two Years On the Lam
William Jacques, the notorious "Tome Raider," was arrested in Selby, North Yorkshire on Christmas Day 2009 after eluding the police for more than two years. He will appear at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court accused of stealing antique horticultural books from the Royal Horticultural Society's London library.The thirteen volumes are said to be worth about £50,000. It is alleged Jacques stole them by signing in to the library under the false name of Mr Santoro and then hiding them under his jacket. "Mr. Santoro" was a new alias; Jacques is also known by the nom de theft, David Fletcher.Jacques, 40,...
The Sex Lives of Civil War Soldiers
Johnny Reb and Billy Yank had a secret life, one that they and their families tried to hide from posterity and Ken Burns.They largely succeeded. Most men left no record of their sexual activities, or if they did, their survivors expurgated or expunged the record through destruction; the reality was a bit too seamy for pure sensibilities, legacies needed to be protected. Reports of wild times and venereal disease were not likely to be appreciated by descendants.Thus the Civil, our most holy, War, ennobled at the time and forevermore as a moral cause by both sides, has been stripped of...
Sisters In Opium: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Louisa May Alcott
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, radiant opium addict.“I am writing such poems - allegorical - philosophical - poetical - ethical - synthetically arranged! I am in a fit of writing - could write all day & night - and long to live by myself for three months in a forest of chestnuts & cedars, in an hourly succession of poetical paragraphs & morphine draughts.” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to her brother, 1843.“Opium - opium - night after night!” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning.“Heaven bless hashish, if dreams end like this!” - Louisa May Alcott, Perilous Play (1869).Of delicate constitution to begin with, Elizabeth...