At the start of this year’s Holy Week a terrible blaze engulfed Notre-Dame. As I watched the spire of the cathedral fall, I wondered how destructive smoke and flames have often been to books throughout history. Vulnerable older editions from the 16th, 15th and even 13th centuries must have survived the misfortunes brought about by poor conditions and destructions such as those caused by fires. How many old, unique manuscripts has humanity lost through the centuries because of natural or man-made disasters? The destruction of an original manuscript created before the invention of the printing press is truly an invaluable loss to humanity’s evolution.

Arguably, the most richly illuminated Hebrew manuscript from Renaissance Italy is the Rothschild Miscellany, which is housed in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum. Commissioned by Moses ben Jekuthiel ha-Kohen, the Miscellany, consists of approximately 950 beautifully ornamented and illustrated pages, embellished with three different types of gold – burnished gold, flat gold and powdered gold. It contains a collection of more than 70 books and treatises, ranging from the Biblical books of Psalms, Proverbs and Job, Halahic and Aggadic compilations, to philosophical, historical, homiletical books of the Middle Ages, and Isaac Solomon Abi Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni.

The illustrations portray biblical scenes, numerous religious practices and customs regarding prayer and life cycle events in the Jewish tradition, likely to have been the product of craftsmen trained by some of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. The manuscript carries the name of Rothschild, because it had been in the possession of the Rothschild family from generation to generation. During World War II, it was stolen, to be later returned to the owners by Dr. Alexander Marx, librarian of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. The Rothschild family donated the manuscript to the Bezalel National Art Museum in Jerusalem in 1957. In 1964, Bezalel was incorporated into the new Israel Museum, where the Miscellany has been housed and exhibited ever since.

Rothschild Miscellany life cycle events in the Jewish tradition

The London publisher, “Facsimile Editions,” in cooperation with the Israel Museum, produced a facsimile of the Rothschild Miscellany in a limited edition of 550 copies. Every copy is bound in wooden boards, covered in Morocco goatskin with the three different types of gold, and faithfully copied by hand. The copies were quickly picked up by collectors and institutions leaving only single leaves available for sale at prices over $100 each.

Among the Grande Roue de Paris Ferris wheel, Russian nesting dolls, diesel engines, talking films, escalators, and the telegraphone, another remarkable medieval manuscript, the Lombard Haggadah, was on display at the Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition. That was the last time that the manuscript was on public display, observable to the 50 million or so visitors of the expo. 119 years later, the manuscript is on private display at the Les Enluminures Gallery in New York, (RSVP required).

Lombard Haggadah serving bunch of maror (bitter herbs)

The Haggadah, with seventy-five watercolor paintings created in the circle of the famous artist Giovannino de’ Grassi (d. 1398), in Milan, in the late fourteenth century, commemorates the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, and their transition from slavery to freedom. It survives as the earliest stand-alone Italian Haggadah. The manuscript was owned by a French family who exhibited at the Exposition Universelle and later, in 1927, sold it in London to Zalman Schocken, a noted collector of Hebrew manuscripts. The book has remained in private hands since then. One of only three illustrated manuscripts, Haggadot remains in private hands, and is also for sale — for an undisclosed ‘mid to upper seven-figure sum’.

The main ritual of Passover is the Seder, the ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday and occurs on the first night of the holiday. The festive meal is accompanied with the re-telling of the Exodus through stories and song and the consumption of ritual foods, such as matzah and maror (bitter herbs). The Seder’s rituals and other readings are outlined in the Haggadah. Les Enluminures and its founder Dr. Sandra Hindman have organized several events to accompany the exhibition of this Haggadah, which will remain on view until 20 April. The events include a gallery talk and a conference on the subject of Haggadot in the Middle Ages. Please visit the press release for more information.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

Issued in the aftermath of the Council of Trent (1545-63), the Index of Forbidden Books maintained by the Inquisition became an obstacle to the circulation of books and ideas in Europe and its colonies well into the 20^th century – it is only in 1966 that the Catholic Church formally abolished it. Among the famous victims of censorship was of course Galileo, whose Dialogue on the Great World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632) was to remain in the index until 1824. Less known is the fact that medieval science could also catch the attention of the Sacred Congregation of the Index. A good example here is the Latin [H]ortus Sanitatis (Garden of Health), the first comprehensive natural history encyclopedia, published by Jacobus Meydenbach in Mainz (Germany) in 1491 ˗˗ and not to be confused with the “smaller Ortus”, an herbal printed in the same city with a text in German (Gart der Gesundheit) by Peter Schöffer (Gutenberg’s former partner) in 1485.

The book contains four treatises (tractati): De Herbis (for the most part, a reprint of Johannes de Cuba’s book on curative plants, 1484); De Animalibus (on terrestrial creatures); De Avibus (on flying creatures); De Piscibus (on sea creatures); De Lapidibus (on gems, stones, and minerals); plus, a short essay on the color and smell of urine (De Urinis). As one would expect, the text is a compilation of earlier sources, such as the pseudo-Dioscorides, Claudius Galen, Auycen (Avicenna), or Albertus Magnus. Most of the 1,066 (!) chapters of the first edition are headed with a woodcut:  illustrations make this book a must-have for bibliophiles. Some universities, like Cambridge (Inc.3.A.1.8 [37]) own an exemplar that was entirely hand-colored.

Cornell’s copy (Hist. Sci. RS79 H81+) is incomplete: the hand-made initials are missing, and only one woodcut, representing Adam and Eve under the Tree of Life, was enlivened with some color: there is some golden yellow applied on the forbidden fruits [ill. 1]. Indeed, the unnamed fruit of the Garden of Eden became “an apple” for Christians under the influence of the story of the golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides.[1] What it lacks in color, the copy in Ithaca makes up for with precious information about the control of “science” in 17^th century Spain.

[Ill. 1]

Expurgo este libro conforme el nuebo indiçe y expurgatorio

del año de mil y seiscientos y treinta y tres por comision de los santos

inquisidores y lo firmo en Toledo p. 2 de mayo de el dicho año. Signed [Simone?]

[Ill. 2]

Censorship on a large scale in the Iberian Peninsula began in 1558 with a royal decree banning the introduction of all foreign books in Spanish translation. Later, it extended to all kinds of books, but it was particularly aggressive in its denunciation of Spanish literature, unorthodox theologians and philosophers such as Erasmus, as well as humorous writers such as Juan Huarte de San Juan.[2] The papacy’s plan to have local inquisitors publish their own Index of Forbidden and Expurgated Books was not as successful as anticipated. Only Spain and Portugal published their own expurgatory Indices after 1600. The first Spanish Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgatorum was printed in 1612 in Madrid, under the auspices of Inquisitor-General Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, Archbishop of Toledo. Several editions followed in later decades, authorized by the inquisitors Zapata (1632), Sotomayor (1640 and 1667) and Marín (1707), respectively. From only 72 pages in 1559 and almost 300 for the double-Index of 1583-1584, the Novus Index of 1632 [not 1633, ill. 3] ended up containing over a thousand pages.[3] As José Pardo Tomás says, “these Indices clearly delineate the shape of print culture that was considered outside the reach of Spanish readers. They serve to frame censorship.”[4]

[Ill. 3]

I did not find the Hortus Sanitatis in the Index as such. Yet, it would not be the first time that a book contains the testimony of a specific type of a local censoring activity in the form of expurgations and crossed-out passages. The cleric who expurgated the Hortus Sanitatis may or may not have reported his activity. It is only in 1634 that the Central Council of the Inquisition sent an edict to all the regional tribunals, calling for reports on each book seized or banned from libraries.[5]

In Cornell’s copy, all the twenty or so censored passages are located in the treatise De Lapidibus. They concern alchemy, or the magical use of rare stones. For example, the censor barred the passage about diamonds that says, “Dicunt magi, quod [lapis] valet contra hostes et insaniam, et indomitas bestias… contra venena et incursions fantasmatum et incuborum” [ill. 4]. For our censor, only dodgy magicians may claim that diamonds offer protection against ghosts and evil spirits. Similarly, alabaster is decidedly not a good protection against poison, neither is it of any help during legal proceedings. The reader is prevented from reading  that lapis Aquila (the eagle stone) guards us against magic spells; that one may use the celidonis stone, allegedly found in the womb of swallows, cures insanity (contra insaniam), if properly placed under one’s left armpit (sub sinistra assela); or that topaz, when placed in the marital bed, favors concordia and sexual reproduction. Why would the Inquisition be annoyed here? After all, nothing is censored in passages about seemingly more disturbing anomalies and monsters, such as sirens, flying dragons, the monacus marinus (half-fish, half-monk), or the draconpedes (half human, half-snake) [ill. 5]. The image of a woman eating living toads is a case in point. Censorship overlooked it, as if this was compatible with religious orthodoxy. Maybe it was perceived as some kind of innocuous fantasy. By contrast, “Alchemy was one of the sept ars demonials [sic], for the aid of Satan was necessary to the transmutation of metals, and the Philosopher’s Stone”.[6]

[Ill. 4]

[Ill. 5]

On the other hand, it was somewhat difficult to distinguish between chemistry and alchemy.[7] After 1247, Roger Bacon, one of the greatest authorities of the Middle Ages, became fascinated with the Secretum Secretorum, a translation from a manuscript in Arabic which pretended to reveal the most profound and hidden teachings of Aristotle, aka “the Philosopher”.  Bacon explained that a new medicine, based on the knowledge of “special” stones, and combined with alchemy and astrology, could provide a regimen for health, and teaches how to prolong human life. In the same spirit, but with much more scientific credibility, a half-century later, Arnau de Villanova [ill. 6] produced a manuscript titled De conservatione juventutis et retardatione senectutis (On the Conservation of Youth and the Retarding of Old Age, 1309). In 1299, the tribunal of the Inquisition in Paris arrested him for his writings about the Antichrist, but released him almost immediately because of his powerful connections. A former professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier, the Catalan doctor would soon cure three popes in Avignon. The Spanish Inquisition was less lenient: for example, in 1305, the Inquisitor in Valencia forbade the possession or the reading of any of Villanova’s books. One cannot fail to notice, however, that, “the Writ of Condemnation [by] the Council of Tarragon in 1316 was directed specifically against these theological works. His scientific works were not condemned. On the contrary, they remained extremely important documents and were collected, copied, edited, printed, excerpted, and embellished over the succeeding centuries.”[8]

It looks like alchemy became a greater concern later, in the 17^th century – also the main period for witch-hunts across Europe.[9] Based on the archives of the Inquisition, José Pardo Tomás established that the Spanish Inquisition’s relative control of science reached its peak between 1583 and 1683, with more than two hundred scientific books seized and declared heretical. “Medicine was the area most affected, owing to the prohibition of German medical doctors, solely on the ground of their Protestantism. Next came astrology and alchemy, censored for their delving into the occult or for opposition to orthodox Aristotelianism”[10]. The Church reacted to the growing success of the Swiss physician and alchemist Theophrastus von Hohenheim, aka Paracelsus (1593-1541), who considered himself the disciple of Spanish alchemists such as Villanova and Ramón Llull. “After 1565… an increasing number of physicians, alchemists, and mystics, generally united under the name of “Paracelsianism”, started to publish works on Paracelsus’s doctrines. This movement rapidly spread throughout Europe and, by 1600, Paracelsus had gained followers in Spain, England, Denmark, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Low Countries, and in Italy… The interest of the Congregation for the Index in Paracelsus may thus be seen as a response to his forceful presence on the intellectual stage.”[11] In 1632, Pierre-Jean Fabre of Castelnaudary drew bold parallels between the chemical operations of alchemy and transubstantiation in his Alchymista Christianus (Toulouse: Apud Petrum Bosc, bibliopolam. M. DC. XXXII). Strangely enough, only the works of Geber (Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān, 721-815) appeared as such in the 1588 list of books completely prohibited by the tribunal of Toledo. In most places, the Church forbade the reading of Paracelsus after 1599. No trace of Fabre, whose books may not have been imported and made available in Spain. Based on the sole Index librorum prohibitorum and expurgatorum, alchemy was not at the center of preoccupations.[12]

In general, it is difficult to know how strong the Spanish Inquisition’s grip on readers really was anyway. Sometimes, the main goal of censorship was to raise money: Henry Charles Lea mentions that, “in 1604 [the tribunal in] Toledo imposed a penance of 3000 ducats on Giraldo Paris, a German of Madrid, guilty of sundry heretical propositions, including the assertion that St. Job was an alchemist.”[13] The Indices contain many curious omissions. The authors of the 1632 version of the Index simply forgot to include Galileo [ill. 7]… Besides, according to Henry Kamen, there is no evidence that the Church would raid bookstores or purge, let alone burn, entire book collections. The catalog for the sale of the private library of a nobleman in Madrid in 1651 contains 200 works listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.[14] Another historian writes that, “science was actually one of the cultural products that censorship affected the least, despite the fact that the earlier historiography of Spanish science had portrayed a sixteenth-century Spain firmly closed to science. First editions of practically all books printed on medicine, alchemy, astronomy, and botany were in royal [libraries] (for example, El Escorial) or [in] private libraries.”[15]

[Ill. 6]

Still, there are fascinating examples of local censorship, as in Cornell’s expurgated copy of the 1471 Hortus Sanitatis. A Spanish “inquisitor” crossed-out and blackened several sentences in the early 1630s, to prevent anyone to read them. The intentions of the censor are unclear, however. By erasing entire passages about the magical virtue of stones, he (voluntarily or involuntarily) acted like a defender of scientific and legal rigor against pseudo-science and superstition.

[1]^{A student probably added the drawn penis.}

[2]^{Frederick A. de Armas, Don Quixote among the Saracens: A Clash of Civilizations and Literary Genres, University of Toronto Press, 2011.}

[3]^{Robin Vose, “Introduction to Inquisition censorship documents.” Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. University of Notre Dame, 2010. Online resource.}

[4] ^{José Pardo Tomás, Ciencia y censura: la inquisición española y los libros científicos en los siglos XVI y XVII, Editorial CSIC – CSIC Press, 1991, p. 49.}

[5] ^{David Goodman, “Intellectual Life under the Spanish Inquisition: A Continuing Historical Controversy”, in History, Vol. 90, No. 3 (299), 2005, p. 385.}

[6] ^{Charles Henry Lea, History of the Inquisition in Spain, Macmillan, 1887, vol. 3, p. 136.}

[7] ^{A book by Pierre-Jean Fabre (1588-1658), a medical doctor and practicing alchemist trained in Montpellier, and printed in Toulouse in 1628, bears the following title: Myrothecivm spagyricvm, sive, Pharmacopoea chymica occvltis natvrae arcanis, ex Hermeticorum medicorum scriniis depromptis abunde illustrata. Cornell Library, Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts, History of Science QD25 .F33.}

[8] ^{Juanita Daly, “Arnald of Vilanova: Physician and Prophet”, Essays in Medieval Studies, Loyola University, 2011. The alchemical writings ascribed to Villanova and reprinted several times between 1504 and 1686 are not authentic.}

[9] ^{Witch-hunts were less important in Spain than in other countries after the early 1500s: the last massacre occurred in 1507 in Calahorra (province of La Rioja), where thirty alleged witches were strangled and burned. The fear of witches coming en masse from the Basque country following brutal persecutions by the French prompted the Inquisition to led a massive investigation in Navarre between 1609 and 1614, but the ecclesiastical judge Salazar expressed skepticism, and recommended in his report that all defendants should be pardoned because innocent of serious crimes. Secular courts continue to press for greater severity everywhere in Spain but as Joseph Pérez notes, “Out of 307 witch trials that transpired in the regions of Cuenca and Toledo during the Spanish Inquisition, no death sentences were ever given to witches by the Inquisitors” (The Spanish Inquisition: A History, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005, p. 82.)}

[10] ^{David Goodman, op. cit. The issue of “orthodox Aristotelianism” is a complicated one.}

[11] ^{de Vries & Leen Spruit, “Paracelsus and Roman censorship – Johannes Faber’s 1616 report in context”, Intellectual History Review, 28:2, 225-254, 2018. Most editions of Paracelsus were printed in the Protestant cities of Basel or Strasburg.}

[12] ^{Gebri arabis philosophi ac alchimistae acvtissimi. De alchemia traditio summae perfectionis in duos libros divisa. ítem: Líber investigationis magisterii eiusdem (Argentorati [Strasburg]: Zetner, 1598) in Libros prohibidos por el Consejo Supremo y el Tribunal de Corte, Toledo, 1588.}

[13] ^{Charles Henry Lea, op. cit., vol. 2, gives as his source MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, Tom. I.}

[14] ^{Henry Kammen, The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision, Yale University Press, 1997 p. 117-119 and 315.}

[15]^{Miguel López Pérez, “Spanish Paracelsus Revisited and Decontaminated”, Azogue, 7, 2010-2013, p. 344.}

Laurent FERRI

Curator of the pre-1800 Collections

Kroch Library (Cornell University), Division of rare Books and Manuscripts

My acknowledgments to Professor Simone Pinet for her help.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

In 1986, the co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AI laboratory’s, cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, (1927-2016), published The Society of Mind.  The book describes a theory which attempts to explain how what we call intelligence, could be a product of the interaction of non-intelligent parts. He proposed that each mind is made of many small processes which can only do thoughtless, simple things. Intelligence, he said, is the result of joining these parts with multi cross-connections in societies of tangled webs. Minsky concluded that much of the brain’s power stems from merely the messy ways these processes are interconnected.

The book’s primary accomplishment was to put information  into terms written for the general public, to explain  the functions of the synapses (junctions between two nerve cells, consisting of a minute gap across which impulses pass by diffusion of a neurotransmitters); and neurotransmitters (chemical messengers which transmit signals across a chemical synapses). These basic units of the organization of the nervous system, were represented by individual cellular elements, which Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz, (1836-1921), christened as “neurons” in 1891. It was, however, through the work conducted by Spanish neuroscientist, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, (1852-1934), by which the unsurpassed discovery of the independent functionality of neurons within the nervous system was made possible.

Cajal observed and described these points of contact in which various chemical substances intervene in detail, and, he did it at a time when there were no instruments that allowed the physiological verification of his brilliant deduction. He was fiercely opposed to the idea that the nervous system was made up of a network of continuous elements, as it had been stated by Joseph von Gerlach, (1820-1896), and supported by Camillo Golgi, (1843-1926). For Cajal, it was very clear that nerve cells worked independently in a nervous system in which the current had to follow a certain direction; from the dendrites to the neuron body and from this to the axon, which in turn transmits the impulse to other dendrites of other cells.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal drawings Source: El Instituto Cajal del CSIC

Cajal’s opus ,“Textura del Sistema Nervioso del Hombre y los Vertebrados” (1894-1904), was made available to the international scientific community in a French translation, “Histologie du Système Nerveux de l’Homme et des Vertébrés”, translated by Dr. L. Azoulay, and published in 1911, in 2 volumes by Maloine, Paris. The English translation, by N. and L.W. Swanson, was published in 1994, by Oxford University Press. The book provided the foundation of modern neuroanatomy, with a detailed description of nerve cell organization in the central and peripheral nervous system of numerous animal species, illustrated by Cajal’s renowned drawings. These drawings are still reproduced in neuroscience textbooks today.

The techniques used to create artificial intelligence are inspired by neurons in the human brain, and are known as neural networks. Neural networks power deep learning systems. They are composed of layers of interconnected artificial “neurons” that automatically learn about the features of a specific object based on large amounts of training data. For example, by looking at images of dogs, a neural network can learn about a dog’s features by tweaking the connections between neurons. If it has learned those patterns well, it should be able to look at an image and correctly identify it as a dog.  However, a slight alteration of a few pixels in the adversarial samples, which are created when an AI system is classifying data, may cause a misclassification of the depiction of dogs in the AI system.

Adversarial networks, a technique which incorporates two neural networks with two different goals: one to make accurate classifications, the other altering the samples to trigger misclassifications, is the latest development in machine learning. They provide a way to conduct unsupervised learning, in which a machine could make logical inferences without requiring as much human training data and with a reduction in errors. Last October, Christie’s sold an AI-generated portrait of Edmond De Belamy, for US $432,500, over 43 times its highest pre-sale estimate. The portrait was created from 15,000 portrait images .This portrait was drawn by an algorithm, which was created by Ian J. Goodfellow. He is currently a research scientist in machine learning at Google Brain and the inventor of the AI algorithm named GAN (Generative Adversarial Networks). The 27 ½ x 27 ½ in (700 x 700 mm.), portrait is signed at the bottom right by part of the algorithm code that produced it:

{\displaystyle \min _{\mathcal {G}}\max _{\mathcal {D}}E_{x}\left[\log({\mathcal {D}}(x))\right]+E_{z}\left[\log(1-{\mathcal {D}}({\mathcal {G}}(z)))\right]} {\displaystyle \min _{\mathcal {G}}\max _{\mathcal {D}}E_{x}\left[\log({\mathcal {D}}(x))\right]+E_{z}\left[\log(1-{\mathcal {D}}({\mathcal {G}}(z)))\right]}

AI-generated portrait of Edmond De Belamy Source: Christie’s

This MIT Technology Review report quote:-  “AI’s chief legacy might not be driverless cars or image search or even Alexa’s ability to take orders, but its ability to come up with new ideas to fuel innovation itself,” is already taking shape.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

Two titles written a decade apart:  the first, in the early sixties, at the onset of the sexual revolution, which brought us increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships; and, the other, in the early seventies, during the post-pill and pre-AIDS period. These authors’ writings on the topic of sex in the single girl’s life, are also set apart.  There is a bit of a divide between the life of an “adventuress” artist having an amoral good time night after night, and “a settled in a relationship Cosmo girl,” who accepts that women need, or at least want men.

In 1962, at the age of 40, Helen Gurley Brown wrote her best-seller Sex and the Single Girl, which paved her way to her becoming the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1965.  She went on to publish several other books which include Sex and the Office (1965), Helen Gurley Brown’s Single Girl’s Cookbook (1969), and Sex and the New Single Girl (1970).  Sex and the Single Girl was published in 28 countries, and stayed on the bestseller lists for over a year. The original title was Sex for the Single Girl, and included a section on contraceptive methods which was omitted from the final publication because “it sounded like [it] was advocating sex for all single girls. In 1964 the book inspired the film of the same name starring Natalie Wood. The theme of the book is well presented in the opening lines:

“I married for the first time at 37. I got the man I wanted. It could be construed as something of a miracle considering how old I was and how eligible he was…But I don’t think it’s a miracle that I married my husband. I think I deserved him! For 17 years I worked hard to become the kind of woman who might interest him.”

A shameless devotion to pleasure for pleasure’s sake was presented in 1974 by Eve Babitz at the age of 31, in her part biography, part cultural analysis and part memoir debut book, Eve’s Hollywood, featuring a striking portrait of Babitz in a feather boa, shot by Annie Leibovitz. The iconic L.A. writer and 1970s “It” girl, who  prior to the book  had designed album covers for Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds, was 20 years old when Brown’s  book got released, the age at which she posed naked for an iconic photo playing chess with artist Marcel Duchamp.  Eve’s Hollywood, transitions between Babitz’s adventures and fiction, with references to her various romantic associations with artists, musicians, writers, actors of the time and cultural scene of Los Angeles. The list of real life friends and lovers includes among others: Jim Morrison, Ed Ruscha, Paul Ruscha, Harrison Ford, Steve Martin and Walter Hopps. She took it all in and wrote about it in Eve’s Hollywood:

“Cupid let go with a spear dipped in purple prose, not just an arrow, and then he drew another one, so there were two, one conventionally through my heart and the other through my head. They were both about 8 feet long and two inches thick. They were crude.”

The social significance of both of these books is quite obvious.  Even though they are half of a generation apart, they have reached a level of importance in literature by having helped young women redefine their roles in our society. Unlike Sex and the Single Girl’s immediate success, Eve’s Hollywood did not receive much attention until it was recently re-released by Edwin Frank’s imprint NYRB Classics. In fact, New York Review Books Classics has reissued the first two of Babitz’s nonfiction books — Eve’s Hollywood, and the essay collection, Slow Days, Fast Company. Young fans have also discovered her heady chronicles of the LA party scene of the 70s and 80s in Black Swans and her third title published in 1979 Sex and Rage.

The first editions, first printings of these books are very scarce. Signed editions are quite extinct. Sex and the Single Girl was advertised through a large-scale campaign created by Letty Cottin Pogrebin of the book’s publisher, Bernard Geis Associates, and the author’s husband David Brown. Even though this marketing campaign included bookstore appearances and signings, signed first printings are quite scarce. Brown passed away in 2012.

Lacking a big promotional campaign, Eve’s Hollywood did not get much attention initially. Babitz has stopped writing after suffering severe burns in a freak accident in 1997.  Her agent, Erica Spellman Silverman and her younger sister, Mirandi, are working hard to elevate her ranking and preserve her legacy. She is now unwilling to appear in public events, but she is sure to present her exuberant self among the pages of rare first edition.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

Another year is upon us with the usual hoopla about the abnormalities of current times. As 2019 makes its debut, many of the values and beliefs we hold dear are being questioned throughout the world. Truthful facts, science, humanity, diversity and equality are a few on the top of the list. In the US, denying climate science or hating on immigrants, threaten to change what was once viewed as the land of opportunity to people from all corners of the globe.

A mere 50 years, ago American Astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon, the first Concorde test flight was conducted in France, and  the American Boeing 747 jumbo jet was introduced. The Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, the epitome of the American muscle car, reigned the freeways, while Woodstock attracted more than 350,000 rock-n-roll fans for what became the most important concert in the history of music. It was during that same “Summer of Love’, 1969, that members of a cult led by Charles Manson murdered five people at the Benedict Canyon Estate of Roman Polanski.

The year 1969, is also the year that science fiction fans first immersed themselves into the mesmerizing, unexplainable, drugged-up delusion, that Philip K. Dick titled “Ubik”. The author’s description of the book’s theme is as enigmatic and broad as the untamed limits of the human imagination:

“Salvific information penetrating through the ‘walls’ of our world by an entity with personality representing a life – and reality supporting quasi-living force.”

Ubik, juggles notions of reality and expands the limits of imagination, morality and immortality, divine intervention and structural integrity, with consummate skill. It is all about the realization that things are not as they seem – that everything you thought you knew, is wrong. In Ubik, there is not really a wrong that can be counterbalanced by an equal and opposite right: the author substitutes the duality between right and wrong altogether with a single structure that is, for lack of a better word, fuzzy.

While the novel blends a vast spectrum of science fiction concepts, an assessment of the futurological accuracy against present-day reality, is interesting to contemplate. Some of the details in the novel, such as protagonist, Joe Chip, using a machine with which he can “set the dial for low gossip,” resembles our present Social Media concerns and Facebook’s troubles with privacy. Who wouldn’t also think of the internet when reading how easily  technology can track Joe Chip and how much it knows about his personal habits? And how weird is the tenant in the apartment who is forced into an argument with the refrigerator doors?  Alexa, close the refrigerator door and keep temperature at 10ºF. Hmmm.

Apparently, however, the pharmaceutical industry has some catching up to do. Ubik, the substance that, true to its derivation from the Latin “ubique”, is found everywhere in the book, is yet to be produced in our day, in a biotech lab. Ubik appears most often in the form of an aerosol spray; it seems to counter time-regression and save the lives of those to whom it is applied. It could be taken as a divine symbol. It could be more straightforward, since the spray can is after all a phallic symbol, or, some kind of anti-psychedelic: just the thing that will bring Joe back to sobriety and reality. At least the “thing”, that will bring partiers back to sobriety and provide hangover relief this January 1^st, 2019, is available at the local drugstore, in liquid or solid form, and may even be delivered through a high pressure propellant as a spray. Philip K. Dick’s use of aerosol spray prophetically disqualified the misconception that aerosol cans damage the Earth’s ozone layer long before the use of chlorofluorocarbons was banned as an ozone damaging substance. Happy New Year, sci-fi buffs.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

How fortunate native English-speaking booksellers are to have English as their mother tongue! English is the lingua franca of global business. Not surprisingly, the official language of ILAB, (The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers), is English. However, the organization maintains that this stature is shared equally with French; hence the old ILAB motto “Amor librorum nos unit,” translated “The love of books unites us.” British members volunteered a one letter adjustment to the term: “Amor librarum nos unit,” translated “The love of sterling pounds unites us!” A rather comical adjustment, since the European Monetary Union, and the Euro, or even the US dollar, are more appropriate currencies to unify ILAB.

Modern first editions in modern foreign languages are not in as high demand as some of their corresponding English text translations. Abebooks, the premier on-line marketplace for rare books with operations around the world and six international websites, in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, occasionally scores 20th century, foreign-language editions in its top sellers. In fact, a number of foreign language written novels, become more appealing to collectors once translated into English. Why is that? The world has a well-balanced distribution of important authors and volumes across boundaries and nationalities, of course!

It is more difficult to comprehend ideas and concepts if there are no words for them in one’s language. English, unlike Arabic or French, has no official language police to monitor the development of newly invented words added in the vocabulary. The problem is that the actions of the official language bodies tend to lag, as new scientific discoveries are made and new technologies and concepts developed, so that writers in these languages are seemingly put into linguistic straitjackets and time warps. A language that originally disallowed use of words not found in the Koran, does not offer the vernacular vocabulary or the repulsive language to express the “blast-furnace” images that made a novel such as Selby’s “Last Exit to Brooklyn”, a masterpiece in modern literature.

A rare book is worth what a buyer is willing to pay to own it. Naturally, what a buyer is willing to spend on the first edition of a book depends on her wealth. Even though English is only the primary language for about 5 percent (approximately 350 million of the world’s people),  the top 20 wealthiest countries on a per capita income basis are almost all English-speaking or use some other Germanic language, with the exception of France, Japan, and Finland. Franz Kafka, a nonperson in Czechoslovakia during much of the Communist period, wrote in German (considered a ”world” language), and so his work was spared the fate of his Czech-speaking countrymen. Karel Capek, who wrote in Czech, had his work effectively banned during four decades of Communist rule. He received fame when his play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which coined the word “Robot” (deriving it from the Czech “robota”, forced labor), was translated into English in 1923.

Another argument is that collectors of fine and rare books consider dust-jackets an indispensable part of the book. More specifically, collectors of first editions would scarcely consider purchasing a volume that had lost its dust-jacket as issued. In Europe during the last century, book covers were published with simple images and plain type, often jacketless, because literary fiction is an easier sell in mainland Europe than in the UK or the US. Publishers there can be less overt in their attempts to grab the attention of customers, while cutting costs at the same time.  Black-and-white German editions or plain wraps in French editions were very common, while the UK and US publishers employed designers to create striking dust covers. The UK book market is more competitive; all the covers in shops have to shout: ‘Buy me!’ In the US, meanwhile, publishers tend to signpost literary fiction more than the UK, because of even stiffer competition.

Still, texts in ancient foreign languages remain in demand. Classics, which are often studied in the original Latin and Greek, with horrific complexities of grammar such as gender, verb-endings, adjectival agreement, subjectives, and so forth, are very scarce in original editions. After all, the most expensive book ever traded is a 72 page journal, The Codex Leicester, with the scientific writings of Leonardo Da Vinci, in Italian.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

When an auction generates astonishing excitement in view of both the quality and quantity of books being offered, the excitement is also reflected in the prices realized. Even if the prices are often unrealistic, for many buyers, the auction remains a remarkable event that is worth the extra expense. High emotions are exactly the ingredients that auction houses are hoping and aiming to arouse. Excessively high bidding, the result of auction fever, is fueled by emotions such as pride, anxiety, desire, determination, stubbornness, and even hatred.

When Henry M. Blackmer II, died in 1988, his family arranged with Sotheby’s one of the most fabulous auctions on the eastern Mediterranean. A collection of 2000 books, pertaining to Greece and the Levant, covering a period from 1475 to 1900.  The bibliography was published in a limited edition catalog of 300 copies entitled: Greece and the Levant. The Catalogue of the Henry Myron Blackmer Collection of Books and Manuscripts. At that time, it was selling for £150 ($225), a copy. It now sells for more than $3000. What made the auction even more impressive than its contents, was the type of bidders it attracted. Besides the usual collectors and dealers drawn to the sale, there were representatives from three countries: Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. Fueled by national pride, the event sold its lots for more than $8,000,000, which was well over its original estimates.

The Rare Book Sale Monitor (RBSM) does not include auction results in computations of its book sales trends. Exceptional price fluctuations caused by emotional factors are difficult to measure and attribute. The historic auction results of a most important item; the Audubon, John James’s The Birds of America; from Original Drawings London: Published by the Author, 1827-1838, provides a great example. While the auction house estimates reflect an expected, gradual increase in the price of the book over time, the actual sale results have been quite erratic. After the record breaking sale in London in 2010, the following two sales, for the exact same copy, jumped from 7.5 to 9.65 million dollars within a six year interval. A very nice appreciation indeed!

It does take a singular auction, however, to feed frenzy and skew price appreciation/depreciation measurement the wrong way. Invariably, the RBSM recorded the appreciation of its genre, author, and artist trends, strictly using on-line and book fair activity for the 2^nd Quarter of 2018.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

Factor #1: Scarcity in supply.

The year was 1965; the war in Vietnam was escalating, the space race was in full swing, and the Rolling Stones were on a world tour. America’s counter-culture movements were embracing drug use, liberal sexuality and obscenity in their writings and works. It was during this year that a novelist by the name of John Williams, published Stoner, a novel that is not about a Bob Dylan fan acting as an executioner, who believes that “everybody must get stoned”. In fact, Dylan’s 1966 song, “Rainy Day Women ♯12 & 35″, with the recurrent chorus, “Everybody must get stoned”, had not been yet released when Stoner hit the bookstands. Despite the contemporaneousness of Stoner’s title to the prevailing culture of the time, the book did not manage to sell more than 2000 first edition copies.

Factor #2: Best seller status

Factor #3: Global interest

The book was reissued in 2003, by Vintage, and in 2006, by New York Review Books Classics, with an introduction by the prominent Irish writer John McGahern. It was not until 2011, when the book delivered sudden success with a new French edition, published by Le Dilettante and translated by Anna Gavalda that alerted other publishers to its possibilities. Since then, it has sold 200,000 copies in Holland and 80,000 in Italy. It has been a bestseller in Israel, and is just beginning to take off in Germany. Though Williams died in 1994, his widow is, happily, now enjoying the worldwide royalties. Rights have now been sold in 21 countries, with Stoner just launched in China.

Factor #4: Book dealer wanted list

Factor #5: Abnormal price increase

In the meantime, the first edition of Stoner that could be bought for less than a few hundred dollars in 2011 is now trading for more than $2000. A price appreciation of roughly 10-fold plus, within such a time frame of merely a few years does not remain unnoticed for too long. Our Rare Book Sale Monitor reported last quarter, that there was a continuation in interest by collectors despite the steep increase. The dynamics that turned the first edition of this title into a scarce commodity were set in motion before the book was picked as Waterstones’ Book of the Year in 2013, and sometime after McGahern had recommended it to the publisher, Robin Robertson in 2003, are still very much alive.

Factor #6: Movie Adaptation

Stoner;  the story of a poor farmer in the early 1900s who becomes a scholar and faces a series of frustrating challenges and disappointments in his chosen career path is in the process of being adapted into film. Directed by Joe Wright with screenplay by Andrew Bovell, and staring Casey Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones, Stoner the movie is expected to be released next year. Because the novel is so beautiful but not well-known, a blockbuster at the Big Screen is bound to generate more demand for the most collectible editions.

Factor #7: Future prospect

What else is left for Stoner to attain in its journey to an even brighter spotlight? Signed editions are selling for over $7,000 but those are really, really scarce. Even though, Modern First editions specialists who know who owns the most collectible copies, have legions of staff digging through catalogs, historical files and publications in the hopes of new discoveries, availability is not likely to change. Pricing the scarce signed editions can be very tricky due to lack of comparable sales. Book dealers rarely, if ever, disclose the prices of the works they sell and Stoner does not have much of a track record in auction activity. Given the limits in supply, continued growth in demand and lack of a precise baseline in valuation, the potential for future price appreciation looks extremely promising.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

In 1977-78 Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., held 3 auction events with the titles Important Modern First Editions and Fine Modern First Editions.  They included the rare book collection of Jonathan Goodwin, one of the greatest collectors of the 20^th century. The 865 lot sale was broken in Part One Sale, (March 29, 1977), Part Two Sale, (October 25, 1977) and Part Three Sale, (April 7, 1978).  His Old Lyme, Connecticut collection included unique inscriptions, presentations, and association copies of the heavy hitters of American literature and achieved the first million-dollar sale in Modern First Edition events.

A chance to make a scientific analysis of the market came in 2004, during the sale of the collection of West Coast book dealer and collector Maurice Neville.  The Maurice F. Neville Collection of Modern Literature, took place at Sotheby’s in New York with Part One Sale, (13 April 2004, 263 lots), Part Two, (16 November 2004, 299 lots) and Part Three, (24 April 2017, 102 lots).  Neville’s collection is certainly the greatest group of Modern Firsts to be sold at auction since Goodwin, and not surprising many of the same titles appear in each. The similarity of the material in these Sotheby’s events, make the comparison a particularly apt one. Both high profile sets, ensured that several predominately active bidders competed in earnest for the same books, (something that does not always happen at auction). Both were staged during periods in which the economy was strong and the mood of the market optimistic.

The following table contains some of the original Goodwin auctioned items that were re-sold during similar events sometime later. Of the 40 titles listed below, 16 were in the Neville sale in 2004. These are the identical copies with the exact same inscriptions. And, unless in some way mishandled, present in the same condition as they appeared 27 years earlier during the Goodwin auctions. The aggregate estimate/actual price for these 16 items at the Goodwin sale was $26,425, (the equivalent of $81,537 inflation adjusted for the periods compared), while at the Neville sale, the hammer price including the buyer’s premium soared to $1,235,350. The rest of titles auctioned at different events held in different years, are showing similar gains. Such multiples may seem abnormal, but they are actually quite ordinary when compared to art, antiques and real estate. Across the sample these average out, even though many of the items fall above a tenfold increase, especially in the case of the more attractive rarities. The focus on high spots is undeniable, with big money being paid for the most desirable books.

In the world of averages and the Rare Book Sales Monitor (RBSM), the Modern First Editions category had quite a strong 1^st Quarter in 2018. It was fueled by some impressive price increases in signed editions by some of the up-and-coming or recently discovered authors such as Michael Shaara, John Williams, Evelyn Waugh and G. K. Chesterton, to name a few. Such deceased authors’ works are often the kind of material that collectors see a value in through some new development. Take for example John Williams’ 1965 novel Stoner. Although the book was not a popular novel when it was first published, selling fewer than 2,000 copies, it was not before French novelist Anna Gavalda, translated Stoner into French, in 2011 that it became Waterstones’ Book of the Year in Britain in 2012, and saw sales to distributors triple. Just at the end of last year it was announced that Joe Wright was set to direct Andrew Bovell’s adapted screenplay, staring Oscar winner Casey Affleck, in the title role of William Stoner.

When collector Jonathan Goodwin picked up the copy of Hemingway’s, presentation copy to Sylvia Beach, entitled, In our time, do you think he had any idea that another collector would be willing to spend $320,600 to own it? Probably not. He did, however, have the vision to identify value when an opportunity presented itself. In 1968, which was after Hemingway’s death, Goodwin bid the winning bids for the uniquely inscribed books presented to Sylvia Beach, the owner of Shakespeare and Company, chief book distributor of the time. An investor by profession and a book collector by hobby, Mr. Goodwin was 63 years old when he decided to sell his collection at the auctions because of illness, and the need to establish a retirement fund. “I am doing better in the book market than the stock market,” he once said. If his health did not deteriorate and had he been able to hold on to his collection for a few more decades, his retirement fund would have been at least ten times bigger.

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012

During the golden age of detective fiction, when classic murder mystery novels were at the peak of popularity, Sir Godfrey Collins, started the Collins Crime Club (1930–94), as an imprint of British book publishers William Collins & Sons.  Until then, the Scottish printing and publishing company found success as a printer of Bibles and other religious and educational books. Collins also published all but the first six of Agatha Christie’s novels; the British editions of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe; Ngaio Marsh’s books starting with Overture to Death; John Rhode, Freeman Wills Crofts, and, Hulbert Footner, among others. When the Club was brought to an end in April of 1994, it had issued a total of 2,025 first editions of crime novels with the highest standard of quality.

Three new crime books were published, by the publisher, on the first Monday of every month, with the exception of the years after World War II, at which time the number of new books being issued dropped dramatically to an all-time low. In 1946, Collins released a mere 16 new books. Orders came through the subscriber newsletter that was sent out every three months, listing the latest books which had been or were in the process of being issued.  After the first few years, the subscriber count reached 20,000 according to Collins, enabling the publication count to remain close to 5,000 per title on average.

Collins early first editions from the 1930’s and 1940’s are quite scarce. Despite the large production volumes and large demand for high quality crime novels during the golden age of detective fiction (predominately the 1920’s and 1930’s), collectors picked up most of what survived in good condition. As a result, the market availability of the Collins Crime Club pre-war first editions in dust-wrappers is now extremely limited. A number of dealers are also eagerly seeking first state copies with the following characteristics:

• Red/orange cloth boards with black lettering
• Always dated, with the exception of “A Policeman at the Door” by Carol Carnac which is not dated.
• Dust-wrappers carry a price of 7/6 or more (second state published with 3/6)
• Exception are the dust-wrappers without a price which are “Colonial First Editions” made available for sale to a number of British colonies during that time.

The following list broken up by author includes the majority of the titles issued prior to 1940 that are in hot pursuit:

Miles Burton : The Hardway Diamonds Mystery (1930), The Secret of High Eldersham (1930), The Three Crimes (1931), The Menace on the Downs (1931), Death of Mr. Gantley (1932), Murder at the Moorings (1932), Fate at the Fair (1933), Tragedy at the Thirteenth Hole (1933), Death at the Crossroads (1933), The Charabanc Mystery (1934), To Catch a Thief (1934), The Devereux Court Mystery (1935), The Milk Churn Murder (1935), Death in the Tunnel (1936), Murder of a Chemist (1936), Where is Barbara Prentice? (1936), Death at the Club (1937),  Murder in Crown Passage (1937),  Death at Low Tide (1938), The Platinum Cat (1938), Death Leaves no Card (1939), Mr. Babbacombe Dies (1939).

Alice Campbell : The Click of the Gate (1932), The Murder of Caroline Bundy (1933), Desire to Kill (1934), Keep Away from the Water! (1935), Death Framed in Silver (1937), Flying Blind (1938), A Door Closed Softly (1939).

Agatha Christie : Murder at the Vicarage (1930), The Sittaford Mystery (1931), Peril at End House (1932), The Thirteen Problems (1932), Lord Edgeware Dies (1933),  Murder on the Orient Express (1934), The Listerdale Mystery (1934), Why didn’t they Ask Evans? (1934), Parker Pyne Investigates (1934), Three Act Tragedy (1935), Death in the Clouds (1935), The ABC Murders (1936), The Hound of Death (1936),  Murder in Mesopotamia (1936), Cards on the Table (1937), Murder in the Mews (1937), Dumb Witness (1937), Death on the Nile (1937), Appointment with Death (1938), Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1939), Murder is Easy (1939), Then Little Niggers (1939).

Roger East : Murder Rehersal (1933), Candidate for Lillies (1934), The Bell is Answered (1934), Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors (1935), Detectives in Gum Boots (1936).

Jefferson Farjeon : The Mystery on the Moor (1930), The House Opposite (1931), Murderer’sTrail (1931), The “Z” Murders (1932), Trunk Call (1932), Ben Sees it Through (1932), The Mystery of the Creek (1933), Dead Man’s Heath (1933), Old Man Mystery (1933), The Windmill Mystery (1934), Sinister Inn (1934), Detective Ben (1936), Holiday at Half Mast (1937), Mystery in White (1937), Darl Lady (1938), End of an Author (1938), Seven Dead (1939), Exit John Horton (1939).

John Ferguson :  Death Comes to Perigord (1931), Night in Glengyle (1933),  The Grouse Moor Mystery (1934), Death of Mr. Dodsley (1937).

Fielding : The Craig Poisoning Mystery (1930), The Wedding Chest Mystery (1930), The Unfold Farm Mystery (1931), Death of John Tate (1932), The Westwood Mystery (1932), The Tall House Mystery (1933), The Cautley Conundrum (1934), The Paper-Chase (1934), Tragedy at Beechcroft (1935), The Case of the Missing Diary (1935), The Case of the Two Pearl Necklaces (1936), Mystery at the Rectory (1936), Scarecrow (1937), BlackCats are Lucky (1937), Murder in Suffolk (1938).

Hulbert Footner : The Viper (1930), The Folded Paper Mystery (1930), Easy to Kill (1931), The Casual Murderer (1932), Dead Man’s Hat (1933), The Ring of Eyes (1933), The Almost Perfect Murder (1933), Murder Runs in the Family (1934), Dangerous Cargo (1934), The New Made Grave (1935), Murder of a Bad Man (1935), The Kidnapping of Madame Storey (1936), The Dark Ships (1937), Tortuous Trails (1937), Murder in the Sun (1938), Death of a Celebrity (1938), The Nation’s Missing Guest (1939), The Murder that had Everything (1939)

Anthony Gilbert : The Case Against Andrew Fane (1931), The Body on the Beam (1932), The Long Shadow (1932), Death in Fancy Dress (1933), The Musical Comedy Crime (1933), An Old Lady Dies (1934), The Man in Button Boots (1934), The Man who was too Clever (1935), Courtier to Death (1936), Murder by Experts (1936), The Man who wasn’t There (1937), Murder has no Tongue (1937), Treason in my Breast (1938), The Clock in the Hatbox (1939), The Bell of Death (1939).

Henry Holt : The Scarlet Messenger (1933), Calling All Cars (1934), Murder at the Bookstall (1934), Tiger of Mayfair (1935), Unknown Terror (1935), There has been Murder (1936), Wanted for Murder (1938), The Whispering Man (1938), The Mystery of the Smiling Doll (1939).

Dale King : Obelists En Route (1934), The Curious Mr. Tarrant (1935), Obelists Fly High (1935), Careless Corpse (1937), Arrogant Alibi (1938).

Vernon Loder : The Essex Murders (1930), Death of an Editor (1931), Red Stain (1931), Death in the Thicket (1932), Death at the Wheel (1933), Suspicion (1933), Murder from Three Angles (1934), Two Dead (1934), Death at the Horse Show (1935), The Case of the Dead Doctor (1935), Ship of Secrets (1936), The Deaf-Mute Murders (1936), The Little Man Murders (1936), Chose your Weapon (1937), The Men with the Double Faces (1937), The Button in the Plate (1938), A Wolf in the Fold (1938), Kill in the Ring (1938).

Philip Macdonald :  The Link (1930), The Noose (1930),  Murder Gone Mad (1931), The Choice (1931),  Mystery at Friar’s Pardon (1931), The Maze an Exercise in Detection (1932).

Virgil Markham : Shock! (1930), The Devil Drives Us (1932), Song of Doom (1932), Inspector Rusby’s Finale (1933), The Dead are Prowling (1934), The Deadly Jest (1935),  Snatch (1936).

John Rhode :  Tragedy on the Line (1931), The Hanging Woman (1931), Mystery at Greycombe Farm (1932), Dead Men at the Folly (1932), The Motor Rally Mystery (1933), The Claverton Mystery (1933), The Venner Crime (1933), The Robthorne Mystery (1934), Poison for One (1934),  Shot at Dawn (1934), The Corpse in the Car (1935), Hendon’s First Case (1935), Mystery at Olympia (1935), Death at Breakfast (1936), In the Face of the Verdict (1936), Death in the Hopfields (1937), Death on the Board (1937), Proceed with Caution (1937), Invisible Weapons (1938), The Bloody Tower (1938), Drop to his Death (1939), Death Pays a Dividend (1939), Death on Sunday (1939).

John Stephen : The Strange Fig (1931), Murder Game (1931), The Chinese Jar Mystery (1934), For the Hangman (1935), The Bell in the Fog (1937), The Corpse and the Lady (1938), Rope Enough (1939).

Copyright © rarebooksdigest.com 2011–2012