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lludwig · ‎11-02-2006

SATNROSE’S BOOK QUIZ

2. What is the most valuable printed book?

Answer in invisible ink: 2. Was The Gutenberg Bible; now it is the Caxton Canterbury Tales

Note: I think a complete Gutenberg would beat the Canterbury if offered up to auction. However, the Caxton Canterbury is currently the most expensive printed book ever to change hands. 13 million? I forget.....

picture*books · ‎02-06-2015

@lludwig wrote:
753. What is the most valuable modern fiction manuscript and who was the author?

"2007: The Tales of Beedle The Bard

J K Rowling initially wrote and illustrated just seven handmade copies of The Tales of Beedle The Bard. The fictional book of children's fairytales, first mentioned in the final Harry Potter instalment, was bought to life by Rowling as a thank you gift to six people who helped her during the 17 years she worked on Harry Potter. The seventh copy was sold at auction in Sotheby's in 2007 for £1.95m, the highest selling price in history for a modern manuscript, and all proceeds were donated to Lumos, Rowling's charity for children in institutions."

lludwig · ‎02-06-2015

picture*books - Congratulations! You are correct! Although we seem to have different names for the children's charity that the auction proceeds went to, but maybe the name of that charity changed.

The book was published for the general public on 4 December 2008, with the proceeds going to the Children's High Level Group.

"Rowling started writing the book soon after finishing work on the seventh Harry Potter novel.[15] During an interview with her fandom she also stated that she used other books as a source of inspiration for the tales. More specifically, "The Tale of the Three Brothers", the only story included entirely in The Deathly Hallows,[10] was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Pardoner's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales.[16]

Originally The Tales of Beedle the Bard had only been produced in a limited number of seven handmade copies, all handwritten and illustrated by the author herself.[1] The books were bound in brown morocco leather, and decorated with hand-chased silver ornaments and mounted semiprecious stones by silversmith and jeweller Hamilton & Inches of Edinburgh.[17] Each of the silver pieces represents one of the five stories in the book.[18] Rowling also asked that each of the seven copies be embellished using a different semiprecious stone.[19]

Six of these original handwritten copies were uniquely dedicated and given by Rowling to six people who were most involved with the Harry Potter series.[19] The recipients of these copies were not initially identified. Since then, two of these people have been named. One is Barry Cunningham,[20] Rowling's very first editor. Another is Arthur A. Levine,[21] editor for Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter books. Cunningham and Levine had lent their personal copies as part of Beedle the Bard exhibits in December 2008.[20][21]

Rowling also decided to create a seventh handwritten copy (distinguished from the others by its moonstone jewelling) to sell at auction in order to raise funds for The Children's Voice charity campaign."

Source & More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tales_of_Beedle_the_Bard

lludwig · ‎02-14-2015

754. What was the earliest American bookplate? Give date, place, person's name and occupation and what he/she was famous for.

oldbookshopnj · ‎02-14-2015

754. The first American bookplates date from the 1580's.

The first bookplate printed in what is now the United States has been widely attributed to Stephen Daye in 1642, but questions about the type ornaments used for the border have led to the opinion that it was not printed in America, and that the earliest bookplate printed in Massachusetts was for Samuel Philips in 1652.

lludwig · ‎02-16-2015

oldbookshopnj - 754. Congratulations! You are correct about the earliest bookplates being from the 1580s. Once again the Spanish beat the English to the punch. And I'll take your word for it about the oldest bookplate in what is now the US being that of Samuel Philips in 1652.

I had the wrong answer. I thought it was the person you mentioned to whom the oldest American (US or Americas)bookplate is incorrectly and widely attributed. I found that information on Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie. Lew Jaffe reported that Rebecca Rego Barr at The Fine Books Blog had attended the University of Virginia's Rare Book School where the information was given on the Oldest American Bookplate.

"Sources report that the 1642 bookplate of Massachusetts printer Stephen Daye (printer of the Bay Psalm Book) was the first American bookplate."

Lew Jaffe did ask if anyone knew of earlier American ones and in going back and reading the comments from readers I found that indeed there were earlier ones if one does not stay in the box of Anglo-centric thinking. David Szewczyk of Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts said:

"Now about "America." It is being used in a very Anglo-centric way. Libraries, both institutional and private, existed in Spanish America more than 100 years before they did in the English colonies. The earliest bookplates for Mexico, as far as we know (but much research is still needed)are in books that belonged the Jesuit establishments and were a woodcut stamp on pieces of paper that were affixed to pastedowns and other blank areas. Other times the stamp was simply used as a stamp. These date from as early as the 1580s."

Very interesting about the bookplate of Stephen Daye and "type ornaments used for the border have led to the opinion that it was not printed in America." An image of the bookplate accompanies the article.

Source & Image:

http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-oldest-american-bookplate.html

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oldbookshopnj · ‎02-16-2015

I was working from the information in the 1949 article referenced in the link below. I find it somewhat surprising that there has not been something more recently written on it.

http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine_books_blog/2013/08/the-first-american-bookplate-reconsidered.p...

oldbookshopnj · ‎02-16-2015

755. This one is a couple of days late, but still seasonal:

What was the first English-language book on writing Valentine sentiments?

oldbookshopnj · ‎02-17-2015

755. The English Short-Title Catalogue is your friend.

rockmaple · ‎02-22-2015

Lludwig had posted
Re: SATNROSE’S BOOK QUIZ [ Edited ]
in reply to bugler1998
‎01-06-2015 07:02 AM - edited ‎01-06-2015 07:03 AM

bugler1998 - The first question to the book quiz that Satnrose posted on the original book board was:
What is the most valuable book?
I immediately answered "Book of Kells" which was correct according to Satnrose.

However, Hollowayd took issue with a book that will never be auctioned being the answer. Therefore, I decided to skip that question since I was including the answers in invisible ink and the answer had already been up for debate! Not the way I wanted to kick-off the thread!
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I found this on Another Story's Facebook page: (old news but I thought it was interesting.)

https://tcld.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/book-of-kells-now-free-to-view-online/

emmbook · ‎02-22-2015

@oldbookshopnj wrote:
755. This one is a couple of days late, but still seasonal:

What was the first English-language book on writing Valentine sentiments?

755. The Complete Valentine Writer. London: T. Sabine, [1780?] Written by G. Brand, et al.

oldbookshopnj · ‎02-22-2015

Congratulation to emmbook. That was the one I had in mind. Although they seem to have been quite popular in England in the late eighteenth century, it took about 40 years for a Valentine writer to be published in the United States.