Fabulous Fore-Edge Paintings with Wendy Wasman
2024-08-22 19:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by NOBS (Northeast Ohio Bibliophilic Society)
Thursday, August 22, 7-8:30pm
What are fore-edge paintings? Join NOBS Board member and Loganberry Books rare books specialist Wendy Wasman to learn all about fore-edge paintings. You’ll see some amazing examples of these hidden treasures!
We will meet at Loganberry Books at 7:00 PM or, if you prefer, you may join us virtually via Zoom. For the link, contact Loganberry Books: books@logan.com

American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail
2024-08-26 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California
In popular mythology, the Overland Trail is typically a triumphant tale, with plucky easterners crossing the Plains in caravans of covered wagons. But not everyone reached Oregon and California. Some 6,600 migrants perished along the way and were buried where they fell, often on Indigenous land. As historian Sarah Keyes illuminates, their graves ultimately became the seeds of U.S. expansion.
By the 1850s, cholera epidemics, ordinary diseases, and violence had remade the Trail into an American burial ground that imbued migrant deaths with symbolic power. In subsequent decades, U.S. officials and citizens leveraged Trail graves to claim Native ground. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples pointed to their own sacred burial grounds to dispute these same claims and maintain their land. These efforts built on anti-removal campaigns of the 1820s and 30s, which had established the link between death and territorial claims on which the significance of the Overland Trail came to rest.
In placing death at the center of the history of the Overland Trail, American Burial Ground offers a sweeping and long overdue reinterpretation of this historic touchstone. In this telling, westward migration was a harrowing journey weighed down by the demands of caring for the sick and dying. From a tale of triumph comes one of struggle, defined as much by Indigenous peoples’ actions as it was by white expansion. And, finally, from a migration to the Pacific emerges instead a trail of graves. Graves that ultimately undergirded Native dispossession.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Sarah Keyes, author, historian, and assistant professor of history, University of Nevada, Reno.
Click here to REGISTER for the Virtual Presentation on Zoom

FABS Living With Books Zoom Group
2024-08-27 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
The FABS Living With Books Zoom Group, hosted by Reid Byers, invites you to their lively monthly discussion of home libraries, with all their pleasures and paraphernalia. Recent discussions have included cataloging, lighting, photographing books, bookmarks, and much more. This month: best library shelving vs. actual shelving; dual-purpose bookrooms.
NOTE change of time; this group will now meet at 7:00pm EST instead of 7:30pm.
To get on the list and receive links, contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.orgfurf

FABS Handpress: John Bidwell on the 1795 English Translation of Paul et Virginie
2024-09-09 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
The FABS Handpress Group will host a presentation by John Bidwell, Curator Emeritus at the Morgan Library & Museum. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s Paul et Virginie was a bestseller during the Romantic era. One of its bibliographers counted 269 editions published between 1789 and 1962. Bidwell will describe the 1795 first edition of the English translation by Helen Maria Williams, a book that has stumped the bibliographers because it appeared without an imprint. The paper, type, illustrations, and bindings – even the flyleaves in his copy – provide evidence for attributing it to the English Press in Paris, operated by the notorious radical John Hurford Stone. Here, a close scrutiny of handpress books can explain why Stone concealed his name and how he exported books to England even though it was at war with France.
After Q&A, we’ll have open mic for New Acquisitions (broadly construed)!
(September 9; contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org)

Manuscript Mondays: Artist Paul Kane – From Field Notes to Book
2024-09-09 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Manuscript Society
From Field Notes to Book:
Editing for Publication Three Stages of Artist Paul Kane’s Western Travel Narrative, 1845–1848
Manuscript Mondays – Free – Live Webinar
Special Date – Monday, September 9, 2024
8:00 PM Eastern
Presenter: Dr. Ian S. MacLaren
Artist Paul Kane (1810–1871) traveled by canoe and boat from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean in the mid-1840s. His aim was to sketch Native Americans in Wisconsin and Oregon territories and in lands controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company. An uneducated artist, Kane wrote in inimitable spelling both field notes and portrait and landscape logs.
Transcribing and publishing them for the first time, Ian MacLaren has chosen also to present with them both his transcription of a draft manuscript for Kane’s eventual book, written in two hands, neither of them the artist’s, and a facsimile of the first edition of Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America, which Longmans published in London in February 1859. MacLaren will discuss how he reached decisions about the presentation of these three stages of the Kane narrative in his recently released four-volume work, Paul Kane’s Travels in Indigenous North America: Writings and Art, Life and Times (2024). Plus a Q&A.
Presenter: Ian S. MacLaren
Ian S. MacLaren taught in the History and Classics, and English and Film Studies departments at the University of Alberta for more than thirty years. His recently published four-volume book Paul Kane’s Travels in Indigenous North America: Writings and Art, Life and Times aims to contribute to ethno-history, book history, fur-trade history, and art history. Recent publications by MacLaren pertain to Kane and to Captain Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Other areas of scholarly interest include: The histories of national parks, Arctic exploration, and the early literature of North America in English.
To Register
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/9317214157507/WN_fB-_M1jeQYKPsEbHZIaPsw
[You will receive an email confirming registration]

Nora Davies on Crymes and Rhymes: The Broadside Ballad and the Celebrity Criminal
2024-09-13 12:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club
When/Where: FRI 9/13/2024 12:00PM CT/1:00PM ET. Zoom presentation is free and open to all. Preregistration required via website. ULCC live attendance–Zoom presentation and optional lunch ($35) following. Reservations required by 12PM CT 9/11/24. Seating limit is 24.
Would you like to attend? Click here to register.

EVENT DETAILS:

September Midday Program

What better way to spend Friday the 13th than in the company of printers, prevaricators, peddlers, and penny broadsides?
In early modern London, where newspapers were a sevenpence luxury, broadsides were the affordable single-sheet news source for the masses. They specialized in singing the praises of criminals who could capture the public’s imagination through a bold prison break, a brazen break-in, a terrifying and deadly encounter, and a tearful repentance in the shadow of the gallows. The modern newsroom adage that if it bleeds it leads draws its inspiration from these tales … as did (and do) a host of novels and detective stories.
Join us as Nora Davies recounts the story in a generously illustrated program. Nora will be coming to us from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. As a digital asset specialist Davies provides instruction on copyright, cataloging, image research, editing, and more. Worry not, Chicagoans, Nora’s Midwest bona fides include an English degree from nearby Beloit College and an MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Cozy up to Zoom and be transported to the crowded, noisy streets of London. But don’t worry about pickpockets or cutpurses … we’ll keep your reservation safe!
Live attendance and optional lunch
View Zoom program on eighth floor, Steel Room, Union League Club. Presentation begins at 12:00 PM CT. Optional lunch immediately following in the fourth floor Rendezvous. $35 includes non-alcoholic beverage, a cup of soup, and your choice of sandwich, salad, or hot entree, tax, and tip.
Zoom presentation is free and open to all.
Zoom begins at 12:00PM CT/1:00 PM ET. Preregistration required via website.

FABS Bindings Zoom Group
2024-09-16 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
The Bindings Interest Group hosts discussions and presentations that share collections and information on bookbindings of all periods. Topics include, but are not limited to, history, design and aesthetics, innovation, materials and craft techniques. You are welcome to join us! To get on the mailing list contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

Spencer Stuart: "Members Needed: Sustainable Futures for Bibliophilic Societies.”
2024-09-17 19:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Baltimore Bibliophiles
Please join us on Tuesday, September 17, at 7:00 pm EDT/4:00pm EDT (via ZOOM) when Collections Advisor Spencer W. Stuart shares insights and common challenges from recent organizational audits for Bibliophilic societies as well as other cultural organizations worldwide.
The COVID Pandemic was an extremely disruptive period for non-profit cultural organizations. Some pivoted to online offerings and expanded their audiences, while others recoiled due to a pre-COVID lack of long-term planning. Emerging from this, many Societies still have major issues to address in order to attract new members, maintain their financial commitment and foster their volunteer support.
Through this talk, we will explore what is currently required to carry out this process and the potential outcomes it can generate for an organization seeking to both maintain current membership and grow long-term.
This program is not being recorded! So come prepared to listen and learn – and take copious notes!
To receive a link please contact
Binnie Syril Braunstein
The Baltimore Bibliophiles
BSBGC@aol.com
443-519-6366
www.BaltimoreBibliophiles.org

FABS 19th Century Zoom Group
2024-09-19 19:30, 2024-10-17 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
19th Century Group (third Thursday of the month). Congenial conversation on all things 19th-century and bookish. You are welcome! To join the list contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Brendan Dooley on Renaissance Transmission of News
2024-09-20 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club

Join the Grolier Club for this live webcast via Zoom. Brendan Dooley, professor of Renaissance Studies, College of Arts, University College Cork, will lecture on one of the Renaissance’s great forgotten inventions: regular public transmission of written news. Although exchanging information of general interest regarding daily occurrences has been a feature of European societies for as long as historical memory extends, an influential Renaissance novelty was the creation of specific writing genres (manuscript and print) for telling about the news each week. Drivers of this development, apart from sheer curiosity, included state officials seeking opportunities, merchants seeking markets, and writers seeking jobs. Traditional settings for news conversations, in homes, at court, and in public squares, were thus supplied with topics originating not only from local occurrences but from far away, not only from books, pamphlets, and private letters but also from periodical news sheets covering major events of the day, with significant effects on widespread ways of thinking and behaving. Dooley’s examples will show how Renaissance news evolved from manuscript newsletters into printed newspapers, with long-term consequences still keenly felt.
This program will be live webcast and registrants will receive a Zoom link two days before the event.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-brendan-dooley-on-renaissance-transmission-of-news-tickets-999611122777?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite
If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.
Support
We appreciate your interest in the Grolier Club’s programming on the art and history of the book. For more than 130 years we have offered our exhibitions and lectures to the public, free of charge. If you have enjoyed these offerings, and would like to support that tradition, and help ensure that it continues, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Grolier Club.

In Person: Book Club of Washington 2024 Emory Award
2024-09-22 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of Washington
FABS members are invited to join the BCW for this in-person event Sept 22, 2:00pm PDT
RSVP required.
Tanya Patton, Elise Severe, and Deb Fortner from Dayton, Washington are receiving the 2024 Emory Award for their leadership in saving the Dayton Memorial Library in Columbia County, Washington. Without their actions, Dayton could have become the first library in the US to be shut down because of book challenges.
Last year’s fight was the second time Tanya Patton, former chair of the Dayton Library Board, has helped save the library. Patton also led the 2005 campaign to create the rural library district that restructured the library’s funding model so it could remain open and continue serving the community.
Deb Fortner is a wheat-farmer in Columbia County who worked alongside Patton to save the Dayton Library and build community support for the library in the face of 2023’s dissolution challenge.
Elise Severe founded Neighbors United for Progress, the political action organization that sued to stop the library dissolution measure from going on the November ballot. Severe was also one of the two named plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The group attempting to shut down the library chose to pursue dissolution because library staff refused to remove over one hundred books relating to gender, sexuality, and race from the children’s and young adult collections. Columbia County Superior Court Commissioner Julie Karl explained the stakes in her ruling against the dissolution ballot measure. “The city and county would lose a valuable resource that would disproportionately affect the poorest members of this community that depend on this library,” she said.
The American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom’s 2023 report documented 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources, with public libraries coming under greater attack than ever before. The number of book titles targeted at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, and book challenges at public libraries now account for about 46% of all book challenges. Finally, the ALA’s 2023 report documented the highest number of challenged book titles they have ever recorded. Titles representing the voices of LGBTQ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those censorship attempts.
Preserving public access to books has rarely been more urgent. In the face of historic levels of attempted censorship, more communities across the country – and across Washington state — will need to stand up and fight for books and for libraries. By presenting this award, The Book Club of Washington affirms that it stands with them.

FABS Living With Books Zoom Group
2024-09-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
This congenial group explores all the pleasures and challenges of home libraries: Acquisition; History of Collecting; Cataloging and Photographing of collection materials; Home libraries; Book furniture; Conservation and Storage, etc. You are welcome to join us!
Topics for September:
Flat Storage in the Library.
(art, manuscripts, other documents)

Storage for your Ornamenta Bibliotheca
(other collections – coins, music, statues,
chess sets, beatles, stamps, etc)
To get on the list, contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org).

Anthony Bale: A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages
2024-09-26 18:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Join The Grolier Club as British historian, professor, and author Anthony Bale discusses his new book, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World through Medieval Eyes, with Grolier Club member Gillian Adler. This talk is co-sponsored by Dr. Adler’s new foundation, the New York Medieval Society. Professor Bale will explore a range of sources – maps, travel guides, itemized records, itineraries, pilgrim badges, and more – to illuminate the marvelous real and imagined journeys of medieval travelers. Focusing on medieval pilgrims’ books, he will share with us how these texts were composed, used, and disseminated, often voyaging themselves far and wide. Note: this is a live webcast.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-anthony-bale-on-a-travel-guide-to-the-middle-ages-tickets-995542714057?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite
Grolier Club Members
If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.

William Claspy on Charles Dickens in America
2024-09-26 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by NOBS
Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society invites you to this Zoom event Thurs Sept 26, 7:00-8:30pm EST.
Charles Dickens in America: Bringing to Light a Previously Unrecorded Gem in the Kelvin Smith Library.
William Claspy, team leader for University Archives and Special Collections at the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University, will give a brief overview of the manuscript letters in their library’s collection and then talk in detail about the recent acquisition to their holdings. A previously unpublished letter written by Charles Dickens, which he wrote during his first visit to America in 1842 is now a part of their special collections. Join us for this exciting story of a perilous journey, a grateful passenger, and a letter discovered 180 years later.
To receive the Zoom link contact Wendy Wasman, wendy@logan.com

The White Whale: Moby Dick Illustrated
2024-09-30 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California and The American Trust for the British Library
The White Whale: Moby-Dick Illustrated

Monday, September 30, 2024, 6-7:15 PM (Pacific)
| In-Person and Virtual Presentation

5:30 PM Pacific – Reception
6:00 PM Pacific – Program
At the time of Herman Melville’s death, in 1891, his novels had fallen into obscurity. Moby-Dick, his masterwork published in 1851, was out of print and unread. But in the 1920s, critical reassessments led to a “Melville revival.”
This lecture surveys some of the famous and less well-known illustrated editions, artists’ books, and other visual interpretations, examining their role in establishing the unassailable reputation of Moby-Dick as the great American novel.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Declan Kiely, author, lecturer, and Executive Director of the Grolier Club
** The Windle-Loker Lecture Series on the History of the Illustrated Book **
** Co-presented and co-hosted by the American Trust for the British Library **

Click here to REGISTER for the Virtual Presentation on Zoom

Ann Lindsey on Poisonous Pigments in Books
2024-10-01 18:30 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club

October Evening Program

It is well known that copper arsenic compounds were used as a green pigment in textiles and home furnishings during the 19th century. In 2019, Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, embarked on a study of green cloth covered bindings from the 19th century and continues to lead the way on research regarding copper arsenic compounds in library materials. This presentation will be about the University of Chicago Library’s response to arsenic in books, and will give suggestions about how that can be adapted for smaller collections.
Ann Lindsey has been the Head of Conservation at the University of Chicago Library since 2009. She heads a team of conservation professionals who work to conserve and preserve print collections in all of the Library’s collections. Ann holds a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and an Advanced Certificate in Book and Paper Conservation from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to coming to the University of Chicago Library, Ann was a Conservator at the University of California at Berkeley and at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
Register today. https://caxtonclub.org/event-5874782/Registration
Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.
Portions of this program were underwritten by a bequest of the estate of Peggy Sullivan.

Robinson Jeffers' Tamar and Other Poems: A Centennial Appreciation
2024-10-07 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California

When the California poet Robinson Jeffers published Tamar & Other Poems, his first major collection, in 1924, it struck reviewers as both timeless and powerfully of its moment. James Rory declared that the poems “exhibit the maturity of a remarkable talent,” and the poet Babette Deutsch confessed to feeling as “Keats professed to feel, on looking into Chapman’s Homer.” The centennial of the publication of this landmark of California literature by California’s most significant modern poet offers an occasion to revisit Tamar’s unlikely discovery (aided by, as it happens, the Book Club of California) and to explore how the making of this collection and the story of its publication can help us recover and better understand its importance in its own era, while clarifying and deepening our understanding of its relevance in our own. No figure looms larger in the history of California poetry than Jeffers, and Tamar is the collection that shows us why this is so and why it matters. Please join us, and rediscover Tamar & Other Poems as we celebrate its centennial.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Tim Hunt, author, editor, and founding president of the Robinson Jeffers Association

Register to attend the virtual presentation on Zoom

Manuscript Mondays: Six Steps of Digital Preservation
2024-10-07 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Manuscript Society
Six Steps of Digital Preservation that Every Collector Should Know
Manuscript Mondays – Free, Live Webinar
Monday, October 7, 2024
8:00 PM Eastern
Presenter: Lauren Goodley, MSIS, CA. Digital Archivist, The Wittliff Collections, Texas State University
Many people do digital preservation activities, whether we’ve received training to do so or not. Tools and procedures abound, but how do we make decisions about how best to use these resources? Going back to the basics of archival practice and preservation can help. It can be useful to step back and take stock of one’s digital preservation activities, identify any gaps, and improve work where appropriate. We’ll look at 6 modules developed by the Library of Congress, as decision points and to direct digital preservation actions. These steps are iterative and scalable. Beginners, seasoned digital preservationists, and everyone in between can benefit from a place to start or a boost to their processes.
Lauren Goodley, MSIS, CA
Digital Archivist·The Wittliff Collections, Texas State University
Lauren Goodley earned an MSIS from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a Certified Archivist, and holds a Digital Archives Specialist certificate from the Society of American Archivists. She serves and presents at various local, regional, national, and international organizations. Lauren works at The Wittliff Collections, a collecting literary archives at Texas State University, where she does digital access and preservation for literary, music, and photography collections.
Register:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/5917271160783/WN_jtKjhgUiRMKahvlIqEJORA
(you will receive an email confirming registration)
For the Archive of past Manuscript Mondays

Virtual Symposium: Billy Budd at 100
2024-10-09 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club

Join The Grolier Club for a livestreamed Symposium on Billy Budd in conjunction with Grolierite William Palmer Johnston’s exhibition, Melville’s Billy Budd at 100, running in the Club’s second-floor Gallery through November 9, 2024. The Club will host this symposium on Herman Melville and his novella Billy Budd in the ground-floor Exhibition Hall. Note: this is a live webcast.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-symposium-billy-budd-at-100-tickets-1027575504997?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite
The panel discussion among prominent Melvillians will address Melville’s unfinished masterpiece, each speaker commenting on the centennial exhibition and its implications from his own perspective. There will then follow a discussion on topics including textual history, biographical context during the years of writing the “prose and poem concoction,” the text’s cultural journey in the 20th and 21st centuries, and its adaptations into theater, opera, film and the visual arts, noting areas for future exploration. The moderator for the evening will be Richard Brodhead, who taught English and American literature at Yale for 32 years before becoming president of Duke University. Brodhead’s writings on Melville include Hawthorne, Melville and the Novel, The School of Hawthorne, and New Essays on Moby Dick. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004 and chaired the Academy’s 2013 commission on the humanities. The speakers will be John Bryant, David Greven, and Grolier members G. Thomas Tanselle and Henry Wessells.
Dr. Bryant, Professor Emeritus of English at Hofstra University, is a leading Melville scholar. Founding editor of Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies and director of the Melville Electronic Library, he received the Distinguished Editor Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals in 2015. He has contributed several books and numerous essays on Melville, American literature, and scholarly editing, including Melville and Repose (Oxford) and The Fluid Text (Michigan). He is currently working on the last volume of his three-volume biography, Herman Melville: A Half Known Life (Wiley). Dr. Greven is Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. His books include All the Devils Are Here: American Romanticism and Literary Influence (The University of Virginia Press, 2024) and a study of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Intimate Violence (Oxford University Press, 2017). Tom Tanselle, a Past President of the Grolier Club, is a bibliographical scholar who for many years was the vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and an adjunct professor of English at Columbia University. He was also one of the three primary editors of the fifteen-volume Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville, and he has published many other books. Henry Wessells is a writer and antiquarian bookseller in New York. He is author of A Conversation Larger than the Universe (2018), a catalogue accompanying his member’s exhibition of the same name, The Private Life of Books (2020), and A Melville Census, John Marr & Timoleon (forthcoming, 2025).
Melville’s Billy Budd at 100 commemorates the centenary of the posthumous and first publication of Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd (1924), the story of a young “Handsome Sailor” impressed into the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th century, falsely accused of mutiny, and hanged after a drumhead trial for striking and killing his accuser. The exhibition highlights the composition, preservation, discovery, and ongoing transmission of a singular work of art – a “prose and poem concoction” – left unfinished on Melville’s desk at his death in 1891. Curated by Grolier Club member William Palmer Johnston from his extensive Melville Collection, the exhibition features more than 50 items, including multiple scholarly transcriptions of the Billy Budd manuscript, as well as illustrations, photographs, dust jackets, movie posters, the opera libretto, playbills, a commemorative stamp, unique fine bindings for limited editions, and artwork by Barry Moser. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue published by the Grolier Club.

Grolier Club Members
If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.

Charles Johanningsmeier on Tauchnitz Editions
2024-10-11 12:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club
EVENT DETAILS:

October Midday Program

“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.” – Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
Leipzig. Tauchnitz. These names probably don’t leap to mind when you consider the history of popularizing American and British culture abroad. Yet one – a city – and the other – a family of German printers and publishers – played a role in doing just that.
Tauchnitz and Leipzig were the reason that in the mid-1920s, at an outdoor cafe in Paris, you might see a young Parisian forgetting to affect ennui while engrossed in Zane Grey’s The Thundering Herd … in English.
An innovator in publishing softcover, or paperbound, books, Tauchnitz produced books in English for distribution beyond US and UK borders. The publisher was popular with American and British authors, because Tauchnitz arranged to pay royalties – unlike publishers who pirated works for distribution beyond the reach of American and UK copyright law.
Join Caxtonian Charles Johanningsmeier as he reveals the fascinating tale of the rise and fall of the all-too-tempting-to-collect Tauchnitz editions. He will be joining us from the University of Nebraska, Omaha, where he occupies the Issacson Chair as Professor of English.
Tune in via Zoom or enjoy an afternoon out at the Union League Club, where we’ll watch the program on a big, plenty loud flat screen TV and then adjourn to enjoy a sumptuous array of luncheon choices. A cup or a bowl of soup, salads, sandwiches made to order, tempting special entrees … all generously portioned. A great value in food and food for thought!
Live attendance and optional lunch
View Zoom program on eighth floor, Steel Room, Union League Club. Presentation begins at 12:00 PM CT. Optional lunch immediately following in the fourth floor Rendezvous. $35 includes non-alcoholic beverage, a cup of soup, and your choice of sandwich, salad, or hot entree, tax, and tip.
Zoom presentation is free and open to all.
Zoom begins at 12:00PM CT/1:00 PM ET. Preregistration required via website.
Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

Creatures of Commerce: Animal Advertising Ephemera from the Bruce Shyer Collection
2024-10-14 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California

Humans have been fascinated by animal imagery since the prehistoric era when cavemen painted images of animals on walls to symbolically capture their prey and to record their observations. With the advent of the printing press, animal imagery was used as a symbol for the press itself. For example, the great fifteenth century printer Aldus Manutius employed the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor as his printer’s mark.
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, companies prolifically utilized animal imagery to promote products and services. Advertisers often used animal images to link an animal’s desired characteristics to their products.
On view are hundreds of examples of animal advertising primarily printed in the nineteenth century, including trade cards, menus, box tops, bookmarks, greeting cards, brochures, table tents, metamorphic cards, original art, and celluloid novelties.
Of course, Dorothy’s “lions and tigers and bears” are represented. But, a tower of giraffes, a parade of elephants, a pandemonium of parrots, a parliament of owls, a pounce of cats, an army of frogs, a barrel of monkeys, and more also appear.
Exhibition opening with remarks by Bruce Shyer, collector, curator, and past president of the Ephemera Society of America
** This is an in-person event at the Book Club in San Francisco and streamed on Zoom. The exhibition will be on view through February 14, 2025

Register to attend the virtual presentation on Zoom

FABS Handpress Era: John Peckham's Perspectiva Communis + Open Mic for 16th Century
2024-10-14 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
David DiLaura will speak on “John Peckham’s Perspectiva Communis: An example of the transition from manuscript to the handpress.”
In the half-century after the appearance of moveable type printing in the Latin West, many important, widely used texts on natural philosophy appeared in print. Written in about 1270, Peckham’s Perspectiva Communis was the most widely used optics text in medieval Europe. First printed at Milan in 1482, its rich manuscript tradition and early printed editions show the nature of this transition and the challenges it presented, particularly regarding figures and diagrams.
After Q&A we will have OPEN MIC for 16th century books. Show us yours!
To join this mailing list contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Virtual Tour and Curator Q&A for Billy Budd at 100 Exhibition
2024-10-17 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Curator William Palmer Johnston leads a prerecorded tour of his exhibition “Melville’s Billy Budd at 100” followed by a live online Q&A.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-tour-and-curator-qa-for-billy-budd-at-100-exhibition-tickets-1027617320067?aff=erelpanelorg
Melville’s Billy Budd at 100 commemorates the centenary of the posthumous and first publication of Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd (1924), the story of a young “Handsome Sailor” impressed into the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th century, falsely accused of mutiny, and hanged after a drumhead trial for striking and killing his accuser. The exhibition highlights the composition, preservation, discovery, and ongoing transmission of a singular work of art – a “prose and poem concoction” – left unfinished on Melville’s desk at his death in 1891. Curated by Grolier Club member William Palmer Johnston from his extensive Melville Collection, the exhibition features more than 50 items, including multiple scholarly transcriptions of the Billy Budd manuscript, as well as illustrations, photographs, dust jackets, movie posters, the opera libretto, playbills, a commemorative stamp, unique fine bindings for limited editions, and artwork by Barry Moser. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue published by the Grolier Club and a symposium on Oct 9, 2024 that is being livestreamed.

The Sugar King of California
2024-10-21 17:00 - 18:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California

Claus Spreckels (1828–1908) emigrated from his homeland of Germany to the United States with only seventy-five cents in his pocket, built a sugar empire, and became one of the richest Americans in history alongside John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates. Migrating to San Francisco after the gold rush, Spreckels built the largest sugar beet factory of its kind in the United States. When Spreckels gave America its first sugar cube, he became the “Sugar King.”
A kingpin in the development of the Hawai‘i-California sugarcane industry, Spreckels wielded a clenched fist over Hawai‘i’s economy for nearly two decades after occupying a position of unrivaled power and political influence with the Hawaiian monarchy, while also advancing major technology developments on the islands. The Sugar King’s legacy continued as the Spreckels family developed large portions of California, building and breaking monopolies in agriculture, shipping, railroading, finance, real estate, horse breeding, utilities, streetcars, and water infrastructure, and building entire towns and cities from infrastructure to superstructure.
Harshly criticized by his enemies for ruthless business tactics but loved by his employees, Claus Spreckels was unapologetic in his quest for wealth, asserting “Spreckels’s success is California’s success.” But there’s always a cost for single-minded determination; the legendary family quarrels even included a murder charge. Spreckels’s biography is one of business triumph and tragedy, a portrait of a family torn apart by money, jealousy, and ego.
A virtual presentation by Sandra E. Bonura, author, lecturer, and historian

Register to attend the virtual presentation on Zoom

Virtual Lecture: How a Grolierite Shaped the Metropolitan Museum of Art
2024-10-21 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Dr. Jonathan Conlin talks about former Grolier Club librarian Henry Watson Kent’s role in shaping The Met into a great cultural institution.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-how-a-grolierite-shaped-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art-tickets-1027694851967?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Join Grolier Club and Thomas J. Watson Library friends online as Dr. Jonathan Conlin gives a livestreamed talk called “‘An Archaic American’? How a Grolierite Helped Make the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Former Grolier Club librarian Henry Watson Kent (1866-1948) was an important figure behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s evolution into one of the world’s greatest cultural institutions. Dr. Jonathan Conlin, author of the newly-published book The Met: A History of a Museum and Its People (Columbia U. Press), will explore how Kent’s “Yankee” pedigree and previous experience at the Slater Memorial Museum (Norwich, CT) shaped his Met career between 1905-1940, particularly his role in creating the museum’s American Wing and Education Department. As John Cotton Dana of Newark Museum and Kent’s Met colleagues recognized, he was an innovator, but also “an archaic American” who occasionally appeared hidebound by tradition and deference to his trustees. (Kent is known as well for inventing the Grolier Club’s idiosyncratic library cataloging system.)
Jonathan Conlin is Professor of Modern History at the University of Southampton. Born in New York, he studied History and Modern Languages at Oxford, before moving to the Courtauld Institute of Art and the University of Cambridge for his Masters and PhD. In 2006 he published the first history of the National Gallery (London), which he recently re-wrote as the Gallery’s official bicentenary history. In 2019 he published an award-winning biography of the art collector, oil magnate and philanthropist Calouste Gulbenkian, Mr Five Per Cent (Profile). His book The Met will be available for sale and signing at the lecture.

FABS Bindings Zoom: Renate Mesmer on the Folger Shakespeare Library
2024-10-21 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Oct 21, 2024. 7:30 Eastern time, 4:30 Pacific time
Renate Mesmer will talk about the Folger’s recent renovation and the challenges and improvements of such an undertaking.
Renate Mesmer, Conservator for the Folger Shakespeare Library will provide an overview of the preparations made for the Folger’s First Folios and other collections before, during, and after a multi-year renovation project. What do you do with a 300,000-item collection when new HVAC systems are installed, new storage shelving is added, and the exhibition space is tripled? After more than four years of closure and renovation, the Folger’s 82 First Folios are now on display for the first time.
To join the mailing list for this group, contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

FABS Zoom: Living With Books
2024-10-22 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
The FABS Living With Books Zoom Group, hosted by Reid Byers, invites you to their lively monthly discussion of home libraries, with all their pleasures and paraphernalia. Recent discussions have included cataloging, lighting, photographing books, bookmarks, and much more.
NOTE change of time; this group will now meet at 7:00pm EST instead of 7:30pm.
To get on the list and receive links, contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

The Forgetters: Greg Sarris with Leslie Carol Roberts
2024-10-24 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California

Greg Sarris—tribal leader, scholar, teacher, and activist—has always kept stories, and storytelling, at the center of his ambitious life’s work. In his latest book, The Forgetters, he goes to the root of storytelling, in a loosely interwoven collection told by two “crow sisters” and inspired by creation myths of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok peoples of Northern California. Called “incandescent” by Publishers Weekly, these are stories that feel both timeless and firmly grounded, both enduring and urgent. Joining Sarris in conversation is author, journalist, and professor Leslie Carol Roberts, founder of the ECOPOESIS Project.
An in-person and virtual conversation with Greg Sarris, tribal leader, scholar, teacher, and activist, and Leslie Carol Roberts, author, journalist, professor, and founder of the ECOPOESIS Project.
** Co-presented and co-hosted by LitQuake

Register to attend the virtual presentation on Zoom

Poisoned Palettes: Exploring the Deadly Beauty of Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum
2024-10-24 19:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Baltimore Bibliophiles
Open to member of FABS Societies
Dear FABS Club members:
I hope many of you will be able to join us on Thursday, October 24, for “Poisoned Palettes: Exploring the Deadly Beauty of Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum.” Our speakers are Lynley Herbert, Head of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Annette Ortiz, Conservation Scientist and Abigail Quandt, Head of Conservation, Books and Paper. Their presentation is a virtual introduction to a major upcoming exhibit at the Walters: If Books Could Kill (December 18, 2024-August 05, 2025.) If Books Could Kill casts light on the hidden dangers of manuscripts within the Walters’ rich collection and reveals the delicate science behind recognizing those toxic materials and handling them safely today. The program on October 24 will highlight the challenges facing these experts on a daily basis. And to have a closer look at those challenges, please visit the exhibit. The exhibit link is: https://thewalters.org/exhibitions/if-books-could-kill/
For the link to the October 24 ZOOM program contact Jennifer Larson info@fabsocieties.org
