Click here to read a piece from The New Yorker about ABAA member Larry McMurtry and his shop in Archer City, TX, Booked Up. (And please do ignore the characterization of booksellers as a dying breed…)
Larry McMurtry’s Dying Breed: A Visit to Archer City [New Yorker]
Last week I posted a link to Lorne Bair’s review of his experience as a faculty member for the 2011 Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. This week we have a brief and lovely essay from Zhenya Dzhavgova, a young bookseller who was able to attend CABS because of a scholarship she received from the ABAA’s Elisabeth Woodburn Fund.
Enjoy!
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One of the Best Decisions I Have Ever Made
by Zhenya Dzhavgova
It is Saturday night and the time has finally come – in just a few hours I will be flying out to Colorado to attend the highly acclaimed Antiquarian Book Seminar. Thanks to the generous ABAA scholarship I have won I am able to avoid the hassle of navigating cabs and buses in Denver and get a commuter flight into Colorado Springs. A decision, which later makes me rethink its merits when the little jet starts shaking violently, or as our captain puts it: “And now, Dear Passengers, you are experiencing the slight effects of the lovely air currents we have flowing from the majestic Rockies.” The optimistically called CC Inn greets me with a bright and clean room, sans curtains or any other window cover, but with a lot of hangers, which I later find out other people do not have. I love it.
Sunday night reception starts out a little hushed, until Kevin Johnson stands up and tells us he has a very important dress code announcement to make, which is that it is mandatory for each of us to wear at least a shirt and a pair of pants to lectures. The all-around giggles break the ice and the real fun begins. Early Monday morning my colleagues and I gather in front of the inn and head off to breakfast. I am amazed at the ease and companionship among us – there are no awkward pauses and uncertain looks. Just like that, we have broken the stereotype of stuffy seminar attendants and snobby conference participants. The day goes on in a blur. The amount of information is enormous. Interestingly enough, I do not see any glazed-over eyes and half-asleep faces. Rob Rulon-Miller, Terry Belanger and Dan Gregory impart their priceless experience and knowledge on basic bookselling, conservation and databases, while they frequently have us roaring with laughter. After the delightful Chuck Wagon picnic we all head back to the two little tables in front of the inn. Somebody produces a six-pack of beer and that marks the beginning of nightly gatherings for us and the best business in months for the liquor store across the street. At these small benches, which we eventually come to lovingly call the CC Bar, we stay late into the night, sharing newbie mistakes and successes, rehashing the daily lectures, and forming bonds, most of which I believe will last a lifetime.
In the following days, Nina Musinski, Dan DeSimone, Lorne Bair and the rest of the faculty keep us excited, eager to learn, and mindless of the 4-hour-a-night sleep and the 10-to-12-hour-a-day lectures, which in normal circumstances would probably have us dropping with exhaustion. The feeling that these people genuinely want us to succeed is incredible. The end of the week comes all too soon. By this time, the rumors about the infamous CC Bar extravaganza have prompted a few faculty members to drop by, thus adding to the nightly merriment. Friday night farewell dinner is a bitter-sweet affair for me. I am really sad that the seminar is over, but I am also excited about the future. Some of us have already made important business deals and decisions and others might possibly turn to a different career. Either way, I rest assured that the experience has been life-changing for the participants and the faculty alike.
ABAA member Lorne Bair has just returned from the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, where he is on faculty. He wrote a very enjoyable piece on his experience at this year’s seminar on his blog, which you can read by clicking here.
If you are unfamiliar with the program, it is, as Lorne writes, “a full week of 14-hour days devoted to absolutely nothing other than talk of books.” If you are an antiquarian bookseller and unfamiliar with CABS, then you need to check it out!
“A Game-Changing Education For Aspiring Booksellers” [Lorne Bair Blog]
Butch Cassidy, 1901
Brent Ashworth, a Utah rare book dealer and collector, claimed that he had found a 200 page manuscript proving Butch Cassidy did not die in a 1908 shootout, as historians believed, but lived to old age and penned an autobiography. The manuscript is entitled Bandit Invincible: The Story of Butch Cassidy and was written in 1934. It appears to be an extended version of an unpublished novella of the same title by William T. Phillips.
Larry Pointer has been on Butch Cassidy’s trail for 40 years trying to find out what really happened to him. Pointer had found the truncated version of Bandit Invicible in the 1970s and, although it was a fictionalized biography, there were a number of obscure details that led Pointer to believe that William T. Phillips was in fact Butch Cassidy. Pointer got in touch with Phillips’ wife, who denied that Phillips and Cassidy were one and the same, and his son, who was convinced they were. He then had handwriting experts compare Phillips’ penmanship with known letters from Cassidy; they confirmed that the two matched. Moreover, there was a striking resemblance between the two men. Pointer was convinced: Phillips was Butch Cassidy.
One can only imagine Pointer’s excitement when he was contacted by Ashworth about a different manuscript of Bandit Invincible. He began examining additional details offered in the longer manuscript, specifically the names of Cassidy’s associates. Using the Atlas of Prisoners at the Wyoming Territorial Prison, he noticed that a William T. Wilcox was imprisoned the same time as an associate of Cassidy’s. Seeing another ‘William T.’ set off red flags, and when Pointer began looking into Wilcox, he realized that his criminal career “sounded like Bandit Invincible“. After some more digging, Pointer found out that Wilcox was in prison the same time as Cassidy. This verified other information Pointer had been given in the 1970s about Cassidy and Phillips’ association. Finally, Pointer found photos of both William T. Phillips and William T. Wilcox, and realized without a doubt that they were the same man, thus disproving the theory that Phillips was Cassidy.
Neither Pointer nor Ashworth are disheartened by this discovery, however. Ashworth believed that the manuscript still provides evidence that Cassidy survived the shootout in South America and moved to Washington state, where he lived near Phillips. Pointer says, “This is exciting and this is going to lead us forward in new ways that never would have been possible if not for Brent Ashworth’s discovery of the expanded Bandit Invincible. Maybe out somewhere in Washington is an answer, and we sure are going to chase it.”
Whether they aid to prove or disprove a theory, one can’t deny that rare books and manuscripts can take you on a great historical journey!
Butch Cassidy impostor exposed [Deseret News]
Howard S. Mott, Inc. is celebrating its 75th Anniversary!
Howard S. Mott, Inc. was one of the founding firms of the ABAA, joining in 1949 when the association was formed. Proprietor Donald N. Mott took over the family business from his parents, who, as ABAA members have commented, “would be proud of this landmark in the trade.”
In celebration, Howard S. Mott, Inc. is offering Catalogue 260, which is available in print or electronically. If you are interested in receiving one, please click here to email the shop.
Congratulations to Donald and all those at Howard S. Mott, Inc. for reaching this milestone. We wish you another 75 years of success!
A comic book collector and dealer, Gary Colabuono, displayed a number of very rare ashcan comic books last weekend at Chicago’s Comic Con. An ashcan comic is a hand drawn, unfinished version of a comic book that was produced for either legal purposes, such as securing trademarks, or to demonstrate publications for potential advertisers. These comics were then intended to be thrown out, which is how they got their name, and makes them extremely rare. (These ashcan copies would have been produced during the “Golden Age of Comics”, which lasted from the 1930s-1950s). For many comic books, there are only one or two copies known to have survived.
Among the ashcan copies that Gary displayed were Spierman, Superwoman, Superboy and Supergirl comics from the 1930s and 1940s. Gareb Shamus, CEO of Wizard World, the company that puts on Comic Con, noted that “what Gary has is a piece of history that people haven’t seen before…that’s what gets the juices flowing for collectors out there.” Gary agrees that they are “pop-culture relics or artifacts”, but would not comment on the estimated value of his collection.
Rare ‘ashcan’ comic books on display at Chicago Comic Con [Chicago Tribune]
The Victoria & Albert Museum has a neat video on their website that shows the process of creating a hand-printed and hand-bound octavo.
Please click here to watch (Note: there is no audio on the video, only closed captioning).
Did you know that the Folger Shakespeare Library has its own YouTube channel? There’s a variety of interesting videos on there, definitely worth checking out.
Below I’ve included links to two videos I found particularly relevant to our trade. The first is an instructional video on handling rare materials, and the second is a demonstration of how a Renaissance-era printing press works. Enjoy!
Handling Rare Materials
Printing 101
http://youtu.be/lX6e8Q2nc5A
The Rare Book School had some wonderful course offerings this year (as they do every summer!). ABAA member and past President Tom Congalton of Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. was there as instructor for his fourth year, co-teaching Printed Books since 1800: Element of Description and Analysis. He wrote a great blog post reviewing his course and experience. Click here for a very enjoyable read!
New to the rare book world and need to brush up on some important trade related jargon? Check out the ABAA’s abbreviated Glossary of Terms on abaa.org!
From our Missing Books Blog