Kevin Mac Donnell on the History of Collecting Mark Twain
2025-03-26 18:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
In connection with the public exhibition: A First-Class Fool: Mark Twain and Humor, from the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane, which runs in the ground-floor Exhibition Hall from January 15 – April 5, 2025, Kevin Mac Donnell will speak on the history of Mark Twain collecting, beginning in the 1880s down to the present day. He will highlight the major collectors, including two who communicated directly with Twain himself, and talk about how various books, letters, and manuscripts entered the market (or did not). He will also discuss how Twain collecting trends have evolved, and speculate on where Twain collecting might be headed.
This is a Virtual Lecture available on YouTube. Register to receive a link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-kevin-mac-donnell-on-mark-twain-collecting-tickets-1259663430229?aff=ebdsoporgprofile
About the Exhibition
A First-Class Fool: Mark Twain and Humor examines the humorist Samuel Clemens, who crafted the great “Mark Twain” persona. Twain identified as a “first-class fool,” capturing his dual literary role as a simple, folksy author and speaker on the one hand, and an intelligent, cultured, and nuanced literary craftsman on the other. Twain worked carefully to construct his public persona, and his legacy continues to influence humorists to the present day. With more than 120 works drawn from the private collection of Susan Jaffe Tane, A First-Class Fool presents first and rare editions of Twain’s published works, including presentation copies, first periodical appearances, and uncommon variants; books from Twain’s library and other personal effects; autograph letters and manuscripts; photographs; and a wide variety of ephemera. Many of these items are displayed for the first time in this exhibition. An accompanying book, published by the Grolier Club, features scholarly essays edited by Kevin MacDonnell.

NOBS Akron Antiquarian Book Fair March 28 and 29
2025-03-28 17:00 - 2025-03-29 16:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by NOBS
Akron Antiquarian Book & Paper Show
March 28th, Preview 5 – 8pm, $25.00
March 29th, 10 -4pm, $5.00

The 39th Akron Antiquarian Book and Paper Show will be held March 28-29, 2025
Preview: Friday, March 28, 2025, 5:00 – 8:00 PM
Tickets: $25, includes two drink tickets, hors d’oeuvres, and entertainment.
Purchase tickets here. You may also purchase tickets at the door.
***
Saturday, March 29, 2025, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Admission: $5.00 at the door/free for NOBS members.
Join NOBS
Venue:
The John S. Knight Center, 77 E Mill St, Akron, OH 44308
Dealer Information:
Letter
Contract
Questions?
Email Wendy: wwwasman@yahoo.com
Call Ellie: (216) 231-0001

FABS Handpress Zoom: Douglas Brown on Isaiah Thomas
2025-04-14 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
In the Cover of Darkness: Three Works from the Press of Isaiah Thomas.
This year represents the 250th Anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. While our nation celebrates that momentous event, few will be celebrating another significant event that happened three days earlier. On April 16, 1775, Revolutionary patriot and printer Isaiah Thomas snuck his printing press out of Boston and into Worcester in the middle of the night to avoid British confiscation. It remains there to this day. Thomas would later go on to found the American Antiquarian Society, which remains in Worcester today, and is one of our nation’s most cherished treasures. Early Americana Collector (and AAS Councillor) Doug Brown will share three fascinating items from his collection, all relating to Thomas, as a way to tell this important story. These items include an issue of Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy from 1774, a first edition of his book, The History of Printing in America,inscribed to a co-founder of AAS, and Thomas’s book plate, which was designed by Paul Revere. These items will also be part of a new member Grolier Club exhibit later this Spring.
Douglas S. Brown is a seasoned executive with over thirty-five years of senior leadership experience in law, medicine and government. He currently is a partner at Manatt Health, a multidisciplinary, integrated professional services firm. Doug collects antiquarian books and manuscripts of early America, and his entry Fighting for The Crown Jewel: America, 1735-1775, was selected as the winner of the 2024 Ticknor Society Book Collecting Prize. He is a member of the Grolier Club and the American Antiquarian Society, and currently serves on the AAS Council.
To receive links and announcements from the FABS Handpress Group, contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

April Oettinger on Goucher's Art & Artifacts Collection, Women's College of Baltimore Museum
2025-04-15 19:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Baltimore Bibliophiles
Join April Oettinger and the Baltimore Bibs for a presentation entitled “Goucher’s Art & Artifacts collection and the Woman’s College of Baltimore Museum.”
For a link, contact Binnie Syril Braunstein, bsbgc@aol.com

FABS 19th Century Zoom Group
2025-04-17 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join us for convivial conversation about all things bookish and 19th century! We meet the third Thursday of the month.
For links and announcements, contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors
2025-04-21 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California
Wildness beats in the heart of California’s urban areas. In Los Angeles, residents are rallying to build one of the largest wildlife crossings in the world because of the plight of one lonely mountain lion named P-22. Porpoises cavort in San Francisco Bay again because of a grassroots effort to clean up a waterway that was once a toxic mess. And on the Facebook campus in Silicon Valley, Mark Zuckerberg and his staff have provided a home for an endearing family of wild gray foxes. Through actions as sweeping as citizen science initiatives and as instantaneous as social media posts, a movement of diverse individuals and communities is taking action to recast nature as an integral part of our everyday lives. When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors explores this evolving dynamic between humans and animals, including remarkable stories like the journey of the wolf OR-7 and how Californians are welcoming wolves back to the state after a ninety-year absence, how park staff and millions of visitors rallied to keep Yosemite’s famed bears wild, and many more tales from across the state. Written by Beth Pratt-Bergstrom of the National Wildlife Federation, these inspiring stories celebrate a new paradigm for wildlife conservation: coexistence.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Beth Pratt, wildlife advocate, author, and California Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation.
To register, click here.

FABS Bindings Zoom Group:
2025-04-21 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
FABS Special Interest Group: Binding
April 21, 2025
7:30pm eastern / 6:30pm midwest / 5:30pm mountain / 4:30pm pacific
BRENDA GALLAGHER :: THE USE OF TYPOGRAPHY IN BESPOKE BINDINGS
Join FABS members interested in Bindings for a Presentation and Discussion
with Brenda Gallagher on using typography as design in fine bindings.
Brenda’s presentation will start the meeting,
with time afterwards for discussion and questions.
This program is on Zoom; it will not be recorded.
~ The FABS Special Interest Group: Binding meets every third Monday of the month ~
To receive links and announcements, contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

FABS Bindings Zoom Group
2025-04-21 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Bindings: 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.
To receive announcements and links, contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

Living With Books FABS Zoom Group
2025-04-22 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join us and host Reid Byers (author of The Private Library) for convivial conversation on the pleasures and challenges of home libraries: acquisition; cataloging and photographing of collection materials; home libraries; book furniture; conservation and storage, etc.
THIS MONTH’s TOPICS: Books we have kept for sentimental reasons, and how to choose art for your library
To receive links and announcements for this group contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

Death of a Bookman: The Publishing Misadventures of Charles Rideal
2025-04-27 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by the Book Club of Washington
The Annual Meeting encompasses a brief business meeting followed by a special presentation. A keepsake created for the occasion will also be featured and light refreshments served. The business portion includes electing officers, approving new board members, and presenting the Monroe Award and student book collecting awards.
This year’s speaker is Dr. Solveig C. Robinson, who will be presenting “Death of a Bookman: The Publishing Misadventures of Charles Rideal”.
In January 1900, the New York Times reported that Charles Rideal, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a “[man] of ideas and enterprise,” had established the Abbey Press to publish “fine and high-class works.” Not quite 30 years later, the paper reported Rideal was dead in federal custody. What had happened?
This talk will trace the publishing misadventures of Rideal (1858–1929), an author and publisher on both sides of the Atlantic. Active in London in the 1890s, he conducted two small publishing houses and served as editor of a range of periodicals, from a leading nursing journal to magazines dedicated to palm-reading and lady bicyclists. And then, under shadowy circumstances, he abandoned London and decamped to New York, where he began to recreate the literary world he had left behind. Initially successful, Rideal’s new life also took a terrible turn, leading to arson, assault, fraud, and ultimately death in prison.
Dr. Solveig C. Robinson is an Associate Professor of English at Pacific Lutheran University and has been the Director of the Publishing & Printing Arts Program at PLU since 2001. She is the author of The Book in Society: An Introduction to Print Culture (2014) and A Serious Occupation: Literary Criticism by Victorian Women Writers (2003) and numerous peer-reviewed and invited articles.
For more information and to register, follow this link: https://www.bookclubofwashington.org/events-1/annual-meeting-with-presentation-by-solveig-c-robinson

Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong
2025-04-28 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California
You might not know the name Tyrus Wong, but you probably know some of the images he created, including scenes from the beloved Disney classic Bambi. Yet when he came to this country as a child, Tyrus was an illegal immigrant locked up in an offshore detention center. How did he go on to a long and prosperous career drawing animation cels, storyboards, and greeting cards that shaped the American imagination?
Background Artist shares the inspiring story of Tyrus Wong’s remarkable 106-year life and showcases his wide array of creative work, from the paintings and fine art prints he made working for Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration to the unique handmade kites he designed and flew on the Santa Monica beach. It tells how he came to the United States as a ten-year-old boy in 1920, at a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act barred him from legal citizenship. Yet it also shows how Wong found American communities that welcomed him and nurtured his artistic talent. Covering everything from his work as a studio sketch artist for Warner Bros. to the best-selling Christmas cards he designed for Hallmark and other greeting card companies, this book celebrates a multi-talented Asian American artist and pioneer.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Karen Fang, film scholar, cultural critic, author, and professor, Department of English, University of Houston.
To register, click here.

Information-Graphic Masterpieces: Designing Data Stories
2025-05-05 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California.
Information graphics transform data into compelling visual narratives, illuminating insights that might otherwise remain hidden. From the earliest printed charts and maps to today’s innovative designs, these visuals bridge art and science, helping us engage with complex phenomena. Often featured within books—whether rare historical volumes or contemporary publications—information graphics elevate how we understand the world around us.
The presentation explores extraordinary examples of these visual tools, spanning from rare Enlightenment works to monumental statistical atlases. Alongside examining their unique aesthetic flourishes, this talk delves into the stories behind their creation and highlights key contributions from California. Many of the discussed publications will be on display for in-person attendees, showcasing the remarkable craftsmanship and vision that bring data to life.
An in-person and virtual presentation by RJ Andrews, author of Info We Trust, series editor of Information Graphic Visionaries, and consulting data storyteller.
To register, click here.

Ian Gadd On A History of the Stationers Company
2025-05-09 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by The Caxton Club
May Midday Program

Join Caxton Club members and Ian Gadd, Professor in English Literature, Bath Spa University, UK, for his talk on the “History of the Stationers Company.”
Well, here comes another of those Johnny-come-lately organizations that seem to pop up now and then. The Worshipful Company of Stationers in the City of London didn’t even get going until 1403 and wasn’t recognized with a royal charter until 1557. Practically yesterday.
Yet somehow this ragtag group of limners, bookbinders, booksellers, and text writers seemed to make a go of it. They came up with this strange idea of a “copyright” and were early adopters of those new fangled moveable types.
Not sure that there’s enough “English literature” produced since the fifteenth century to weave into a bookish tale, but our speaker, Dr. Ian Gadd from Bath Spa University will give it a go in a generously illustrated presentation about the History of the Stationers’ Company — of which he is a freeman.
Though he was educated at Oxford and the University of Edinburgh he speaks enough American to be a faculty member of Virginia’s Rare Book School. He was editor of the first volume of The History of Oxford University Press and is general editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift.
So don’t be stationary! Get moving and register today to join us at the Union League Club or to slip into this hot bubble Bath of a program at the Caxton Zoom Spa. (Towels not provided.)
To register, click here, This is a hybrid event.

The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle that Shook America
2025-05-12 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California.
Nora May French and Carrie Sterling arrive at Carmel-by-the-Sea at the turn of the twentieth century with dramatically different ambitions. Nora, a stunning, brilliant, impulsive writer in her early twenties, seeks artistic recognition and Bohemian refuge among the most celebrated counterculturalists of the era. Carrie, long-suffering wife of real estate developer George Sterling, wants the opposite: a semblance of the stability she thought her advantageous marriage would offer, threatened now that her philandering husband has taken to writing poetry.
After her second abortion, Nora finds herself in a desperate situation but is rescued by an invitation to stay with the Sterlings. To Carrie’s dismay, George and the arrestingly beautiful poetess fall instantly into an affair. The ensuing love triangle, which ultimately ends with the deaths of all three, is more than just a wild love story and a fascinating forgotten chapter. It questions why Nora May—in her day a revered poet whose nationally reported suicide gruesomely inspired youths across the country to take their own lives, with her verses in their pockets no less—has been rendered obscure by literary history. It depicts America at a turning point, as the Gilded Age groans in its death throes and young people, particularly women, look toward a brighter, more egalitarian future. In an unfortunately familiar development, this vision proves to be a mirage. But women’s rage at the scam redefines American progressivism forever.
A virtual presentation by Catherine Prendergast, literary scholar, author, and professor emerita, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
To register, click here.

Richard Kopley & Susan Jaffe Tane on Edgar Allan Poe
2025-05-12 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Club member Richard Kopley, Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at Penn State DuBois, and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement and Service Award from the Poe Studies Association, will be in conversation with Grolier Club Council member Susan Jaffe Tane, a preeminent collector of Poe’s writings and artifacts, about his new critical biography, Edgar Allan Poe: A Life”(University of Virginia Press).
This is a Virtual Lecture available on Youtube. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-richard-kopley-susan-jaffe-tane-on-edgar-allan-poe-tickets-1274320199019?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Support
We appreciate your interest in the Grolier Club’s programming on the art and history of the book. For over 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.

FABS 19th Century Zoom Group
2025-05-15 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
oin us for convivial conversation about all things bookish and 19th century! We meet the third Thursday of the month.
For links and announcements, contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

FABS Bindings Zoom Group: Saul Rébora on Binding Morris's Chaucer
2025-05-19 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Sol Rébora: Chaucer and Tomorrow’s Past
Join us for a discussion with binder Sol Rébora about binding William Morris’s Chaucer, highlighting the balance between client expectations, conservation principles and contemporary bookbinding. The presentation will include models, process photos and a video of the finished work along with insights into the philosophy of Tomorrow’s Past.
Bindings: 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.
To receive announcements and links, contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

FABS Living With Books Zoom Group
2025-05-27 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join the FABS Living With Books group for congenial discussion of the challenges and pleasures of home libraries.
To join the list, please contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

From Page to Stage and Back: The Theatrical Adventures of Writer and Illustrator Edward Gorey
2025-06-02 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California.
Edward Gorey’s creations as a book artist are distinctive: sparse, oblique story lines paired with intricate, oblique drawings. Yet even his most ardent fans may not know that the author-illustrator of The Beastly Baby, The Doubtful Guest, and The Curious Sofa also directed these and dozens of unpublished texts on stages from Cape Cod to Los Angeles. Gorey’s comrade-in-arts Carol Verburg helped make it happen. Now, with privileged access to his archives, she’s chronicled her friend’s underground career as a dramatist in The Theatrical Adventures of Edward Gorey. Verburg will talk about some of the hidden gems Gorey transformed from script to manuscript and vice versa, and how his lifelong curiosity about form was shaped by his experiments with collaboration.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Carol J. Verburg, playwright, theatre director, and author.
To register, click here.

2025 Oscar Lewis Awards
2025-06-09 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California.
The Oscar Lewis Awards were established by the Book Club of California in 1994 in honor of Oscar Lewis (1893-1992), author, historian, and club secretary. Join us as we recognize this year’s honorees for their contributions to the Book Arts and to Western History. This is an in-person and virtual event.
To register, click here.

FABS Handpress: Dr. Eugene Flamm on Martin Lister
2025-06-09 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
June 9: FABS Handpress Era Group will meet at 7:30pm EST on Zoom for an hour of talk about printed items before 1800. Dr. Eugene Flamm will speak on “Putative Provenance: Martin Lister as a Bibliophilic Iterist” regarding a volume perhaps given by Lister to the Earl of Portland, with additional discussion of two Earls of Essex. (Contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org)

FABS Bindings Group: Karen Hanmer on the Biblio Tech models
2025-06-09 19:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
Join us on Zoom for a talk by Karen Hanmer on the Biblio Tech models, reverse-engineered historic and modern binding structures. See them here: https://karenhanmer.com/gallery/p/bibliotech
Note the one-time date change to the second Monday of the month.
To receive a link and join the bindings Zoom group, contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)

Joseph Hone on The Book Forger
2025-06-13 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago)
Sponsored by the Caxton Club.
June Midday Program

Join the Caxton Club and Joseph Hone for his presentation on “The Book Forger.”
Let us clue you in.
Composer Jerome Kern of Showboat and “The Way You Look Tonight” fame was an amazing book collector. And kern is going to figure prominently into the remarkable story you’ll be hearing … but it will be kern not Kern, for the composer in this tale was no musician.
Instead he was every bit a Wise man who conducted a daring swindle that caught eager bibliophiles in a net of fraud and deceit … bibliophiles who included a prominent Caxtonian. Here’s a tantalizing hint: there’s a Ransom note that says Wise materials are being held in Austin, Texas. Talk about footprints — some fourteen feet are involved! Someone did a lot of boxing.
Another scrap of a clue about the forgery: a sonnet is on it.
More riddles than solutions. What we need is a clever Englishman to play Sherlock to our Watson. Ah! We’ve got one: Joseph Hone.
Dr. Hone is a reader in literature and book history at Newcastle University. With degrees from Oxford and Exeter he is much published. The Book Forger is his fourth bofok — and it’s the genuine article.
It’s elementary. If you enjoy true crime stories in which the only red is the blushing of all those who were taken in, and if your appetite was whetted by Tom Danneberg’s terrific review of the The Book Forger in the March/April Caxtonian, then you’ll want to forge ahead and register for this program today!
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.
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.
To register, click here.

Writing about San Francisco in the 1930s
2025-06-16 17:00 - 18:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by The Book Club of California.
Author and historian Robert Cherny is the author of seven monographs, co-author of two monographs and of college-level textbooks in US history and California history, co-editor of two anthologies, and author of some forty articles in journals or anthologies. Nearly all of his published work deals in some way with the post-Civil War history of the western US, and much of it deals with San Francisco and California.
Cherny will discuss how his research agenda changed in the mid-1980s, when he began to focus on the 1930s in San Francisco. That change began when he agreed to write a biography of Harry Bridges, the often controversial leader of what is now the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, a union active in all the Pacific Coast states and British Columbia. He will talk about how this research, and some subsequent extensions, eventually led to several journal articles and four books Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art (2017), Harry Bridges: Labor Radical, Labor Legend (2023), San Francisco Reds: Communists in the Bay Area, 1919-1958 (2024), and The Coit Tower Murals: New Deal Art and Political Controversy in San Francisco (2024). His forthcoming book summarizes the history of San Francisco from the arrival of the first humans to the present.
Cherny will spend a good portion of his lecture on The Coit Tower Murals, beginning with the context, then the artists at work, the murals, and the subsequent controversies about those and other New Deal murals in the city.
A virtual presentation by Robert W. Cherny, author, scholar, professor emeritus of history at San Francisco State University.
To register, click here.

FABS 19th Century Zoom Group
2025-06-19 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
June 19: The FABS 19th Century Zoom Group meets monthly for convivial conversation about all things bookish and 19th century! You are invited. Contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Plain Wrapper Press: A Half-Century of Fine Press Publishing and Printing
2025-06-22 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by the Book Club of Washington.
A special opportunity to learn about the exquisite publications of Plain Wrapper Press Redux from its founder Mark E. Fischer.
To register, click here.

FABS Living With Books Zoom Group
2025-06-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
June 24: Join the FABS Living With Books group and your host Reid Byers for congenial discussion of the challenges and pleasures of home libraries. Contact Jennifer Larson at info@fabsocieties.org

Manuscript Mondays: New York Stories
2025-07-07 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by The Manuscript Society
Manuscript Mondays
New York Stories in Manuscript:
Anthony Janszoon van Salee and Samuel Jones
Monday, July 7, 2025, 8:00 PM Eastern
Free Live Webinar
Presenter: Peter Klarnet
Host: Gerald “Jay” Gaidmore
From its founding in 1625, New York City has always been a place of diverse peoples and opinions. Peter will explore stories of two individuals who exemplify the city’s diversity as revealed through two manuscripts: Anthony Janszoon van Salee (1607-1676), believed to be the first Muslim to settle in what is now the United States, and Samuel Jones (1734-1819) a former Loyalist who was a key figure in New York State’s ratification of the Constitution.
Registration:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2CWgy6DjS-acPFzpRbJUKA
(You will receive an email confirmation of registration.)
Presenter Peter Klarnet is the current Vice President of The Manuscript Society. He has been a trustee since 2018.
Peter joined Christies in 2016 after 20 years of working with manuscript Americana, spending the first portion of his career cataloging for, and later managing, a Connecticut auction house specializing in historical autographs. In 2005 he left that firm to pursue opportunities as a consultant, agent and dealer. Although his primary interests center on early America, especially the American Revolution and Early Republic, Peter has appraised, cataloged and sold a wide range of material from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Since joining Christie’s, Peter has worked with many important collections including the papers of the Marquis de Chastellux, The Private Collection of President and Mrs. Reagan, The Findlay-Wright Papers, the Roger Judd Collection of American Historical Autographs, the Louisiana Purchase Collection of A. J. Tullock, The Collection of Lee Bouvier Radziwill, The Private Collection of William S. Reese, The Birth of Wikipedia, The Papers of Richard N. Goodwin, and most recently, DJ Kool Herc and the Birth of Hip Hop and The Collection of André Leon Talley. Some of Peter’s more prominent auction records include the sale of the Albert Einstein God Letter, bringing $2.89 million—a world record for an Einstein letter at auction; the unique Ionic Original disc of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (£1.48m); and most recently the Arizona Spike: one of four presentation spikes presented at the ceremony marking the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 ($2.22m).

Peter holds a B.A. in History from Antioch College, and a M.A. in History from the University of Delaware with a certificate in museum studies. He has curated several exhibits including a major exhibition at Federal Hall in New York celebrating the bicentennial.

Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America
2025-07-14 18:00 - 19:15 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by the Book Club of California.
Freedom to Discriminate shows the connection between two defining features of modern America that are rarely thought of together: the creation of residential segregation in every city in the country, and of a conservative counter-idea of American freedom in the 1960s – of freedom without regard to the rights of others — that has shifted America more and more to the right ever since.
Both were 20th century inventions, as invented as the airplane. Both were designed to divide Americans. Both were created by a private business organization – the nation’s realtors — to sell homes and maintain their business practices. Like so many innovations, California was at the center of these changes, from the country’s first all-white neighborhood in Berkeley, to realtors’ successful 1964 state constitutional amendment to authorize segregation that shaped the rise of Ronald Reagan.
Confidential documents from leaders of the real estate industry show how they constructed what have become many of our most intractable divides today – not only geographic, but social, economic and ideological. Far from impacting only those it excluded, residential segregation dramatically reshaped the country for all Americans, the neighborhoods where we live, and the beliefs that drive our enormous polarization today. This story shows the power of distinguishing two opposite ideas of American freedom: exclusive freedom that belongs only to yourself and those like you as your private property and that uses the language of libertarianism to enforce community conformity, versus inclusive freedom that belongs to the country as a whole and thus equally to all.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Gene Slater, author and founding principal of CSG Advisors
To register for the online event, click here.

FABS Handpress Group: John Windle and David Levy
2025-07-14 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Sponsored by FABS
FABS Handpress Era Group will meet at 7:30pm EST on Zoom for an hour of talk about printed items before 1800. John Windle will speak on the intriguing topic “Adana to Vandercook” and David Levy will discuss two acquisitions from the latest Ricky Jay sale, dealing with two eighteenth-century pamphlets on Hoyle. Contact Jennifer Larson (info@fabsocieties.org)
