Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - November - 2002 Issue

911: Present Tragedy As Future Americana

Daniel DiGia, [Nothing feels safe anymore], 2001 Electrostatic print with porous point pen on paste-ons

Now for the overall assessment. Does the Library of Congress’s exhibit fully capture the spirit or essence of that confusing horrifying apocalyptic day? No, but a full disclosure is due here: I must admit that as a New Yorker who saw the towers burning live, not on T.V., lives in what was the “frozen zone,” knows people who died at the World Trade Center site (my best friend’s aunt was on the first plane to hit the towers), and volunteered for several months for the Red Cross at Ground Zero serving as a relief worker and amateur peer counselor to the rescue workers, I am a hard audience to satisfy in terms of creating an exhibit that coveys the full weight of that awful day. But does the Library of Congress’s exhibit come close to conveying the multidimensional chaos and sadness of the worst terrorist strike on American soil? Yes, as much as any exhibit – especially any digital exhibit – can. The result is simultaneously moving, depressing, uplifting, and as riveting, if you’ll forgive me, as a car crash: once I started clicking on objects included in the exhibit I found myself unable to stop, even when I was immersed to the point of saturation. And perhaps that’s all that’s fair to ask of one of the many projects that exist solely to document this harrowing day, a day whose documents and artifacts will surely be collected by future generations of Americanists.

Rare Book Monthly

  • 19th Century Shop
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    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
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    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
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    Forum Auctions
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    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
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