Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - November - 2006 Issue
Leaf Books And More From Oak Knoll Books
Leaf from pirated Nuremburg Chronicles with blotted out Pope Joan.
For another important, but not quite so pricey Bible leaf, there is The First American Bible by George Parker Winship. This includes a leaf from the 1663 Eliot Bible, the first Bible printed in America. This Bible was translated into a phonetic Indian language for the natives. There was no need to print Bibles in English in America (there were plenty from England in supply). It would be another century before the first English language Bible would be printed in America. Item 34. $3,500.
Even cheaters sometimes get a leaf book dedicated to them. Item 216 is The Highest Form of Flattery with a Leaf from the 1497 Edition of the Pirated Nuremberg Chronicle Printed at Augsburg. The title is self-explanatory. Printing was less than a half-century old when this pirated edition was published and already they were stealing. This leaf contains four portraits, including one with the image of legendary, likely imaginary, Pope Joan crossed out, as was the norm with most copies of this work. $550.
Item 12 is an atypical leaf book: Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910, by Laura Richards and Maud Howe Elliot. Howe was a noted abolitionist who wrote the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Rather than a leaf from a book, this one has a manuscript leaf from Howe bound in. $300.
Item 115 is not a leaf book, but rather an extraordinarily thorough bibliography. It is a 1998 reprint of the nine-volume Bibliotheque de la Compagnie de Jesus, originally published from 1890-1916. This is a massive bibliography of works by the Jesuits, with something like 150,000 entries. While the Jesuits were a religious order, their works provided some of the earliest views of the "New World" (Americas), Asia, and other places. The Jesuits spread out across the world to bring their message to places not yet visited by other Europeans. They came back with some of the earliest information, especially from North America. This bibliography was prepared by Carlos Sommervogel and Alois De Backer. $1,100.
For a bibliography of a later version of early America, there is Douglas McMurtrie's Oregon Imprints 1847-1870. This, naturally, covers the period when thousands of Americans flocked to Oregon the hard way to find new homes. There are over 600 entries in McMurtrie's 1950 bibliography, including 200+ items for which only one copy could be found, and some which were known to have existed, but for which no copies could be located. Item 116. $55.
Oak Knoll Books is found at www.oakknoll.com, telephone 302-328-7232.
