Madeline Kripke: the gifted in pursuit of the valued
By Bruce McKinney
Two stops from Times Square and a ten minute walk toward the Hudson River brings me to a lovely building to meet Madeline Kripke, an extraordinary woman who lives among her books, manuscripts and ephemera in a frenzied embrace with words and their history. Emotionally charged words in particular have pride of place.
Getting through the front door is an undertaking for open space long ago lost its argument with material and conventional order. Today the printed word in many forms occupies all the expected spaces such as shelves and also every table top and counter. The aisles, such as there are, feel like paths through a rain forest - the accumulation on both sides relentlessly encroaching on the ever-imperiled lanes. The material is not of the ground cover variety either but rather more like pyrocanthus and jonquil. Keeping the paths clear is a joyous job for what competes for space is a burgeoning collection of what was, until a few years ago, difficult to obtain -- an accumulation of the interesting and obscure in the field of historical lexicography: the history of the writing, editing, or compiling of dictionaries and the relevant principles and procedures involved. This is a tornado in a field that is at once obscure and enlightening.
This is the life and obsession of an American original. Madeline is building a collection that has the makings of that rare prize -- the combination of intelligence, timing and money -- bound together by an obsessive commitment to completeness. The timing of the quest is rare: that best moment to drink the Bordeaux.
Now on the early slopes of 60, Madeline some years ago saw the emerging internet opportunity to unearth the detritus that together is the history of words. The opportunity was stunning as the material was often obscure, its significance frequently unappreciated. On the net it was emerging as the gentle pitter-pitter-patter of a summer rain; no thunder and lightening heralding its arrival. Rather it came on the feet of angels, lighter than air, detectible to the aware but understood by very few, the every day volume uncertain but the opportunity extraordinary. The result today is a lovely apartment bursting at the seams, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with the unknown and the uncommon, cheek by jowl with material yet to be opened, stacked in boxes and commanded to sections where fellow members of the categories are, in many cases, parading together for the first time. This is what the collecting of books, manuscripts and ephemera is all about: the gifted in pursuit of the valued.
Thus dictionaries and their related manuscripts and ephemera once assigned to their section are partitioned by category such as army, navy, air force, aviation, trucker, gambler, feminist, Wall Street, cowboy, gay, French, black, and Yiddish to mention only some of the categories of specialized language and subject Madeline has acquired. There are of course others such as dictionaries of various American Indian languages, an entire category of the slang language of Argentina as well as a very large range of the language of crime. If it is a dictionary or its cousin, the gathering of defined words in less formal settings such as in pamphlets, newspapers and magazines, she is interested.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.