There are under 50 complete or mostly complete Gutenberg Bibles known to exist today. One of them was a part of William H. Scheide library, that was donated to Princeton in 2015. And it is one of only three books remaining in the original binding.

The Gutenberg Bible from what today is the Scheide Library at Princeton and many other incunables are shown at a new exhibition in the Ellen and Leonard Milberg Gallery. “Gutenberg & After: Europe’s First Printers 1450-1470” showcases many treasures from the era of European first printers. While the cornerstones of the exhibition are the Gutenberg Bible of 1455 and the 1457 Mainz Psalter, it includes many volumes on loan from other collections.

Besides Princeton, books arrived from Cambridge University Library, the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester, the Devonshire Collections in Chatsworth House, Columbia University Library, the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, the Morgan Library & Museum, New York Public Library, the Newberry Library, and the Bridwell Library of Southern Methodist University. Some of the books provided by the English institution have never before been exhibited in the United States, and a number of loans from other US libraries have never before left the walls of the organizations where they are held.

An online version of this exhibition will be made available on dpul.princeton.edu.

Dates: From September 9th through December 15th, 2019. Open daily from noon to 6 p.m.

Address: One Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544-2098 USA

The UK’s National Trust is commentating the centenary of Lord Alexander Peckover’s death, bringing back for display valuable parts of a now dispersed rare book collection, offering a window into the past and a vivid portrait of the collector and his world.

While the National Trust, one of the UK’s largest charities, is mainly devoted to the natural and historic heritage of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland through preserving and maintaining lands and properties, it has recently turned its attention to its sizeable collection of nearly 400,000 thousand books.

As part of that effort, its exhibit at the Peckover House, Lord Peckover’s Lost Library (through November 17th), temporarily gathers under one roof some of the rare books that had once belonged to Lord Alexander Peckover’s library but later passed into the hands of private collectors when his home was acquired by the Trust in 1948. On display are parts of a collection that spanned everything from early medieval manuscripts to lavishly illustrated atlases. Through the items exhibited, the Trust aims to “tell the story” of Lord Peckover, letting the books provide a reflection of a collector and his interests, whether that be the Quacker faith or the collection of ancient manuscripts.    

Along with the Blickling Lake exhibit (see our post for more information), this exhibit represents the growing awareness that rare books can continue to bridge the past and the present when presented in new and meaningful ways. For more information about the exhibit, check out the announcement here, and of course, if you can, don’t forget to check it out in person too! 

In a new contemporary art exhibit at Blickling Estate, the UK’s National Trust offers an exciting argument for the continuing relevance of rare books to our modern life, bringing them into conversation with the contexts that shaped these books and continue into the present.

While the National Trust, one of the UK’s largest charities, is mainly devoted to the natural and historic heritage of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland through preserving and maintaining lands and properties, it has recently turned its attention to its sizeable collection of nearly 400,000 thousand books. Along with more traditional exhibits, such as the one at Lord Peckover’s Estate (about which we posted here, too), it has also begun to use rare books as the inspiration for contemporary art, thereby shining light on the continued relevance of these works to our life. 

The Edge of Things (through October 27th) draws on the Trust’s largest and oldest book collection and interprets rare books in works of art that bring them out of the past and make them continuous with our living heritage, inspiring and shaping encounters that fuel our imagination and lead us through our ever unfolding present. At the exhibit, the Eliot Bible (1663), one of the last remaining examples of written Wampanoag, is placed in an audiovisual encounter with the language as it lives on today in the voices and reflections of the Wampanoag people. Robert Hooke’s Micrographia of Minute Bodies (1665), the first book of its kind in microscopy and famous for its finely detailed drawings of the flea, is brought into a new context in the Orangery at Blickling, where tiny plankton fossils are projected onto the walls, providing the modern audience a newfound appreciation for one of the book’s enduring messages, that beauty and understanding are found through attention to the tiniest of details. 

Check out the National Trust’s write-up here for more information about the exhibit, and if you can, do visit in person! 

Image: National Trust / Rah Petherbridge Photography

We just returned from London and among other things came over to the British Library. One of the things that attracted our attention was a relatively recent exhibition Writing: Making Your Mark.

Below you’ll find a snippet from the official description. Scroll down to see what we thought after visiting the exhibition.

Discover the extraordinary story behind one of humankind’s greatest achievements: through more than 100 objects spanning 5,000 years and seven continents

Follow the remarkable evolution of writing from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs carved in stone and early printed text such as William Caxton’s edition of The Canterbury Tales, to the art of note-taking by some of history’s greatest minds, and onwards to the digital communication tools we use today.

Marvel at centuries of human innovation as writing enabled progress and opened doors to expression and art. Items as diverse as James Joyce’s collection of notes for his novel Ulysses and a 60,000-strong petition against Bengali partition, sit alongside Burmese tattooing instruments and a new take on typography by the Russian artist El Lissitzky to illustrate how writing allows us to enact change and make a lasting creative mark of our own.

Our interactive exhibition gives you the chance to reflect on works of genius that wouldn’t exist without the writing traditions of civilisations past. Be dazzled by gold-laden Japanese calligraphy. Study Mozart’s musical flourishes. Pore over Alexander Fleming’s pioneering notebook. Each of these written records carries the history of writing in their every stroke.

Finally, reflect on writing’s future and the role you’ll play in an increasingly digital world. Will we abandon pens and keyboards for voice and video messaging, or continue to carry the traditions of ancient times with us? Consider what sort of writer you are and leave us with some final words of your own.

The overall impression this exhibition had on us was a bit underwhelming. Maybe we didn’t realize its scope, but it seems to be a bit too sketchy. Yes, it gives some understanding of the evolution of writing and the latter systems of transferring information. But compared to things we’ve seen in many other exhibitions dedicated to the history of printing and writing, it seems to be lacking detail.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many marvelous objects exhibited there. If you have a chance to go there and 14 pounds to spare, we would definitely recommend visiting Writing: Making Your Mark. Just don’t get your expectations to become too inflated.

It is an excellent educational exhibition, as well. If you don’t have any knowledge on the history of writing, it will give you a good review from the ancient times, to modern technologies.

Unfortunately, the British Library has ‘no photography’ policy at their exhibitions, so we cannot share with you any of the things shown either at Writing: Making Your Mark, or at any other of the exhibitions working at the moment. However, some of the objects may be available at the digitized web archive of the library. It’s just so much easier to find things if you have a chance to at least take photos of information cards.

Additional Info

• Dates: 26.04.2019 – 27.08.2019
• Full price: £14.00
• Free for members
• Catalog: £40.00 for the hardbound version and something like £26.00 for the softcover version.
• Website: https://www.bl.uk/events/writing-making-your-mark

Top image provided by the British Library. Copyright: Tony Antoniou

The first art book festival organized by the Goethe-Institut Chile is intended to provide the framework for a creative and reflective meeting of the artistic and scientific community around the topic of “Artists’ Books”. Conferences, dialogues, exhibitions and workshops will take place.

On Monday, September 4, and Thursday, September 7, lectures and talks will take place at the Goethe Institute. In addition, an exhibition at the Institute will be open throughout September, with works by Guillermo Deisler, and contemporary works from Germany and Chile.

Program

Monday, 4 September / 7 pm 
Goethe-Institut (Holanda 100, Providencia)
Presentation of the exhibition “Libros de Artista”
– Lecture by Annette Gilbert (simultaneous translation into Spanish)

Wednesday, 6 September / 17 pm 
Campus Creativo Universidad Andrés Bello (Purísima 225, Recoleta)
– Panel discussion with Annette Gilbert and Paulina Varas about the book Publishing as Artistic Practice (Ed. Annette Gilbert).

Thursday, September 7th / 6pm 
Goethe-Institut (Holanda 100, Providencia)
Presentations and public talks.

For more details please check the Goethe-Institut web site.

All events as well as the exhibition are free and open to the public with pre-registration at [email protected] .

The Office of Public Works is delighted to announce the official launch today, 5 April 2017, of ‘Burning Books’ – an exhibition detailing the reproduction of 14 volumes of the Irish Parliamentary Journals dating from the 1700’s which were destroyed during the Irish Civil War in 1922.

In the last decade of the 19th century the book collector and amateur book binder Sir Edward Sullivan was shown a collection of 149 large volumes in exquisite bindings that had been stored, unnoticed, over many years in the Public Records Office in Dublin.  They were in fact the Journals of the Houses of Lords and Commons of the old Irish Parliament, that ceased to exist after the 1800 Act of Union.

Sullivan made rubbings of all 149 volumes and photographed 20, intending to publish a large monograph on the subject.  He did not receive enough financial support for this, but did succeed in publishing a small volume, Decorative Book-Binding in Ireland, which was published in 1914 by the Sette of Odd Volumes in London.

We are very fortunate that the National Library of Ireland had Sir Edward’s rubbings, as in 1922, the Public Records Office was destroyed by an explosion and all of the magnificent 149 bindings housed there perished in the flames that engulfed the building.  In 1990 Philip Maddock, a book collector, inspired by images displayed in Maurice Craig’s work ‘Irish Book Bindings 1600-1800’ started to build up a visual database of Irish hand tools used in the book binding process with a view to making a digital reproduction of one of the lost Irish Parliamentary Journals.  This digital reproduction of Commons Journal 1757 was produced in 2006.

Edward Bayntun-Coward, who carried out a review of this digital reproduction, introduced Maddock to Trevor Lloyd, a renowned bookbinder and restorer.  Subsequently, Lloyd made copies of books in Maddock’s collection to gain experience and knowledge as to how to reproduce accurate copies of the Irish Parliamentary Bindings.

Fourteen volumes of the 149 bindings were reproduced and are on display in Dublin Castle from April 3 to September 1, 2017. Also on display are the tools used in the process, as well as examples of 18th century Irish bindings and some of the printed editions of the Lords and Commons Journals in presentation bindings.

It is particularly apt that this fascinating exhibition is being facilitated by the OPW at Dublin Castle where six of the volumes are – through an exceptionally generous gesture on the part of Philip Maddock and the Georgian Society – to remain indefinitely.  It is also noteworthy that the OPW was responsible for the construction of the Public Record Office behind the Four Courts, where the original Parliamentary Bindings rested for so many years.

For further information please contact Ciaran Conroy, OPW Press Office at [email protected]

Photography from the event will be available from Fennell Photography, www.fennell-photography.ie after the event.

This time there was no set book. Instead the Competition had the theme of Myths, Heroes & Legends. Heroic Works catalogue is available in the online shop of Designer Bookbinders.

The prizes were announced on the evening of the 17th July 2017 at the Weston Library of the Bodleian in Oxford. Each of the 25 Distinguished Prizewinners was awarded with a silver and perspex Doric column, designed by Gerry Summers and engraved with the binders name.

Exhibition Touring Dates 2017
Weston Library, Oxford – 18 July – 20 August
Library of Birmingham – 23 August – 28 September
St Bride Foundation, London – 2-14 October (Private View on 2 October)

North Bennet Street School, Boston, USA – 3 November – 22 December (Private View on 2 November)
The Exhibition at this venue will comprise the 28 Prizewinners and 8 USA binders ONLY.

This time there was no set book. Instead the Competition had the theme of Myths, Heroes & Legends. Heroic Works catalogue is available in the online shop of Designer Bookbinders.

The prizes were announced on the evening of the 17th July 2017 at the Weston Library of the Bodleian in Oxford. Each of the 25 Distinguished Prizewinners was awarded with a silver and perspex Doric column, designed by Gerry Summers and engraved with the binders name.

Exhibition Touring Dates 2017
Weston Library, Oxford – 18 July – 20 August
Library of Birmingham – 23 August – 28 September
St Bride Foundation, London – 2-14 October (Private View on 2 October)

North Bennet Street School, Boston, USA – 3 November – 22 December (Private View on 2 November)
The Exhibition at this venue will comprise the 28 Prizewinners and 8 USA binders ONLY.

This time there was no set book. Instead the Competition had the theme of Myths, Heroes & Legends. Heroic Works catalogue is available in the online shop of Designer Bookbinders.

The prizes were announced on the evening of the 17th July 2017 at the Weston Library of the Bodleian in Oxford. Each of the 25 Distinguished Prizewinners was awarded with a silver and perspex Doric column, designed by Gerry Summers and engraved with the binders name.

Exhibition Touring Dates 2017
Weston Library, Oxford – 18 July – 20 August
Library of Birmingham – 23 August – 28 September
St Bride Foundation, London – 2-14 October (Private View on 2 October)

North Bennet Street School, Boston, USA – 3 November – 22 December (Private View on 2 November)
The Exhibition at this venue will comprise the 28 Prizewinners and 8 USA binders ONLY.

This time there was no set book. Instead the Competition had the theme of Myths, Heroes & Legends. Heroic Works catalogue is available in the online shop of Designer Bookbinders.

The prizes were announced on the evening of the 17th July 2017 at the Weston Library of the Bodleian in Oxford. Each of the 25 Distinguished Prizewinners was awarded with a silver and perspex Doric column, designed by Gerry Summers and engraved with the binders name.

Exhibition Touring Dates 2017
Weston Library, Oxford – 18 July – 20 August
Library of Birmingham – 23 August – 28 September
St Bride Foundation, London – 2-14 October (Private View on 2 October)

North Bennet Street School, Boston, USA – 3 November – 22 December (Private View on 2 November)
The Exhibition at this venue will comprise the 28 Prizewinners and 8 USA binders ONLY.