Major Brag, Minor Brags, and Nothing to Brag About
Jumping on the bandwagon of recent brags, I received my "Major brag"
yesterday. For $35. for My Sentimental Library, I acquired a book from the library of "Major" J.R. Abbey, with his bookplate attached. The book, Gabriel Austin's The Grolier Club Iter Italicum, New York,1963, contains a typed gift memo to Abbey from Donald F. Hyde, and is about the Grolier Club tour of Italy in 1962. .........My friend, Sandy Malcolm, suggested that I should ask Gabriel Austin to sign it. Since I collect books by Gabriel Austin, as well as by Mary Hyde and Donald Hyde, that's not a bad idea! For $95, from the same abebooks bookseller, I bought Michael Papantonio's copy of The Grolier Club Tour of Italy: May 1962. Verona, 1962. Papantonio was the joint proprietor of the legendary Seven Gables Bookshop in New York, and was one of the travelers on the Grolier trip to Italy in 1962. Whereas Gabriel Austin's book describes the tour and the eleven libraries visited, this book contains a formal listing of the books exhibited at each library as well as two pamphlets concerning the informal reunion of the Grolier travelers held at H.P. Kraus in New York on October 2,1962. Papantonio's Initials, "M P," and signature are inscribed in pencil on the ffep. For $36 on ebay, I bought another book for My Sentimental Library: a book from the library of Tuskegee Airman, Colonel Harry A. Sheppard. The book, Lasting Valor, Columbus, Mississippi, 1997, is the autobiography of Vernon J. Baker, "the only living Black World War II veteran to earn the Medal of Honor." Baker's prologue is one of the most powerful prologues I have ever read: ".....The rest of us were black Buffalo Soldiers, regarded as too worthless to lead ourselves. The Army decided we needed supervision from white southerners, as if war was plantation work and fighting Germans was picking cotton.......I am haunted by what I cannot remember. Everywhere I go, people ask me to recite the names of those nineteen men I left in the shadow of Castle Aghinolfi.....I cannot." Also on ebay, for $25.38, for my Vol I No 1 Collection, I bought Vol I of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June to November, 1850. A steal! For $9.95 on ebay, I finally acquired Logan Pearsall Smith's first book, Youth of Parnassus, London and New York,1895. For the longest time (twenty years), I couldn't buy a copy of this book for less than $100. My copy is in the variant red cloth binding, but I haven't figured out if it's the British or American edition. It was printed in Glasgow at the University Press by Robert MacLehose. Macmillan is the only publisher listed on the title page. For $9.99, for my Books About Books Collection, I bought an Americana catalogue from the bookstore of that famous bibliophile, Charles P. Everitt. Yeah! Finally, I should mention the book in the "nothing to brag about category." For $79.99 on ebay, I bought a book that was supposedly from the library of Andrew Jackson. There are a slew of question marks surounding this purchase, one of which is "Why the heck did I bid on it anyway?" Research afterwards shows that the inscriptions were not written by the hand of Andrew Jackson. Who wrote them? A servant? A hoaxer? See My Sentimental Library for additional details. Andrew Jackson supposedly purchased this book in Washington D.C. on December 24th,1828. There's a big question mark concerning this date: On December 24th, 1828, Andrew Jackson was in Nashville, Tennessee, burying his wife. C'est la vie! Jerry Morris Welcome to Moi's Books About Books: http://www.tinyurl.com/hib7 My Sentimental Library http://www.picturetrail.com/mylibrary and moislibrary.com http://www.tinyurl.com/hisn |
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