Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - February - 2004 Issue
Winter Sale Catalogue<br>From Oak Knoll Books
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One of the better bibliographies of the great westward migration is Merrill Mattes’ Platte River Road Narratives. A Descriptive Bibliography of Travel Over the Great Central Overland Route to Oregon, California, Utah, Colorado, Montana and Other Western States and Territories, 1812-1866. This bibliography includes 2,082 entries and has an introduction by James Michener. Item 743. $85. Another such bibliography is Henry Wagner and Charles Camp’s The Plains & the Rockies, a Critical Bibliography of Exploration, Adventure and Travel in the American West. 1800-1865. Item 1174. $150.
For those interested in the very beginning of printing, item 547 is Johann Gutenberg and his Bible, A Historical Study by Janet Ing. This covers just about everything known about Gutenberg and his bible, the first book ever printed. $27.50.
Are you interested in book collectors? Here’s a Dictionary of American Book Collectors, covering 365 of the most important American collectors. You might want to be on this list but for the requirement that the collector must have died before December 31, 1984. Item 432. $65.
Croquet, anyone? This may come as a surprise to most Americans, but croquet is a very popular sport throughout much of the world. And, it has maintained its popularity without half-time appearances from Janet Jackson. David Drazen has put together a 528-page bibliography entitled, aptly, Croquet: A Bibliography. Item 398. $99.95.
Here’s a title many in the book business can relate to: The Bankrupt Bookseller, by Will Darling. Since it’s a 1947 title, it can’t be about the impact of internet book sites. Maybe it was about television? Item 259. Fortunately, the price won’t bankrupt you: $25 before discount.
While most of the books in this catalogue tend to be scholarly, here’s one that’s bound to be entertaining. Item 499 is the Prince of Forgers. It retells the story of Vrain-Denis Lucas, who sold over 27,000 forged letters and documents to French collectors during the 19th century. He began his career creating fake letters and the like from famed authors, carefully adapting writing styles, pens and inks to duplicate the appearance of originals. For this, he was justly imprisoned. As time went by, he became ridiculously overconfident, eventually creating fake letters from Mary Magdelene to Lazarus, Cleopatra to Caesar, all in the original French. His customers should have been imprisoned for stupidity. This is the first English translation of an 1870 French original, published by Oak Knoll in 1998. $39.95.
