Priority applications came in, and it looks like Evidence in Handpress-Era Books, 1450–1830, will be nice and full. BUT, I was willing to raise the cap to fifteen, meaning that I now have a couple of open spots, even without any attrition. Join me in Austin this June!

Fuck this shit.

If you missed Ann Blair’s @ransomcenter.bsky.social Pforzheimer Lecture last night, you can check it out on YouTube: www.youtube.com/live/u16QHaI... I think you’ll agree that it’s both sharp and a lot of fun.

In one hour!

Ben's not wrong.

Tomorrow’s the first day of my grad seminar for @utaustin.bsky.social English, How to Read an Old Book, 1450–1830. Just finished stitching up my syllabuses, which we’ll spend quite a bit of time with—as bibliographical objects—for the first half or so of the term.

For the first time ever, @ransomcenter.bsky.social host @rarebookschool.bsky.social courses this summer, June 7–12: L-165: Literary Manuscripts w/ Stephen Enniss & Megan Barnard (this will be excellent) G-60: Evidence in Handpress-Era Books, 1450–1830 w/ yours truly rarebookschool.org/schedule/

In this article rebooting the @ransomcenter.bsky.social's series on Not Even Past, @utaustin.bsky.social English Ph.D. student Kōan Brink writes about a surprising find in the gutters of a new acquisition: "The Chopped-Up Second Life of a Coverdale Bible." notevenpast.org/primary-sour...

a tiny bit of good news is that we have secured funding to digitize john milton's copy of holinshed's CHRONICLES (1587). the images will form part of MILTON'S LIBRARY, an open-access site featuring the 10 books positively identified as milton's w/ transcriptions/translations of his marginal notes.

New Gutenberg Bible opening @ransomcenter.bsky.social. Partytime excellent.

Inca society kept records by encoding information into knotted cords called khipu. A new analysis of hair woven into these cords suggests this record-keeping was practiced by commoners as well as elites.

Can’t escape DesBib:

As far as I know (and please correct me if I’m wrong!) the only pulp paperback to have been printed with fuzzy textured elements on the cover. #DailyPaperback

Essential viewing.

On my way back to Austin and @ransomcenter.bsky.social after running a seminar on descriptive bibliography @calrbs.bsky.social. Books were collated. Formats were determined—and in some cases deemed undeterminable. Join me next year!

The print-run of my 2025 @calrbs.bsky.social Descriptive Bibliography syllabus is done, with all copies stab-stitched and ready to go. The variants are even crazier than they were last year. How many issues of the edition are there? Variants? What’s an ideal copy? What the hell is the format?

Well that’s a book to keep an eye out for at auction.

As the submission deadline approaches, if anyone who hopes to go to RSA this coming year in San Francisco has a bookish panel they've put together that's in search of a sponsor guaranteeing acceptance, please let me know. Same if you'd like to whip together a panel in the next couple of weeks.

Sorta awake (since 3:00), which is both a win and a loss. Beginning my plane, train, and automobile trip to New Haven for RBMS (and, most importantly, some quality Beinecke time). Hope to see some of you there.

Just changed the opening in the Gutenberg Bible @ransomcenter.bsky.social. Here’s a detail from one of the pages on display. It shows a scrape-and-replace correction to 1 Chronicles (1 Paralipomenon) 1:21. An error, the printed text read, “et de ela ebal.” A scribe got it to “et decla ebal.”

Now is the time to get to know still life artist Clara Peeters, as her only known self-portrait comes to auction! To do so, check out our #IlluminatingWomenArtists series monograph on #ClaraPeeters by Alejandro Vergara-Sharp: www.lundhumphries.com/collections/... news.artnet.com/market/clara...

We’ve acquired a remarkable group of rare medieval manuscripts that reveal new insights into life in Britain & Ireland during the Middle Ages – from religious dialogue to daily urban life. Items include…

At long last, “A24’s Academic Style; or, Coming of Age in an Era of Student Debt” is now out with @jcmsjournal.bsky.social quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/i...

Been thinkin’ about Egyptian obelisks in Rome. #allegyptallthetime

I only wish the worst for LLM advocates and apologists.

ICYMI: the #Shax2025 plenary papers are available online! Watch this year's three brilliant papers on the SAA Youtube channel, linked here and in our bio: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mux...

Love the semi-colon, but editors I have—especially for public-facing things like exhibition labels—almost always nuke them in favor of hard stops. Gotta trust people to figure ‘em out, re-normalize.

If you missed my sniffly @nvshakespeare.bsky.social talk on author attribution in early English playbooks—both print and manuscript!—last month, a recording is available online: newvariorumshakespeare.org/news/ You can find it by scrolling down to the April 2, 2025 news item about my visit.

Hallelujah—a new beta version of the ESTC (English Short Title Catalogue) is now hosted by CERL: datb.cerl.org/estc

OMG!! The ESTC is back!!!! datb.cerl.org/estc/

This otherwise unremarkable—and kinda shabby—copy of the Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica w/ Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and The Garden of Cyrus (1659) happens to be the one formerly at Penshurst, home of the Sidneys.

There are 16hrs left to support Lives & Literacy in Ancient Egypt, a historic exhibition @ransomcenter.bsky.social in 2026. We're teaming up @thejohnrylands.bsky.social—w/ help from the Manchester Museum—to explore the cultural landscape of the Greco-Roman era through papyri, art, and artifacts.

This German broadside from 1605—by Heinrich Ulrich— illustrates the papal conclave that elected Camillo Borghese that May. He became Pope Paul V. (@ransomcenter.bsky.social Popular Imagery Collection 285)

CED content is my kind of content.

Nick’s classes are always a highlight of my year!

Austin and other Central Texas heads—keep an eye out for House Education Committee hearing, show up, and submit written testimony against this nightmare legislation, which among other things would hurt the education that students receive.

A set of the first four editions of William Shakespeare's collected works is expected to sell for up to 4.5 million pounds ($6 million) at auction next month.

@valeriewayne.bsky.social, it's great to see you on here. And I /think/ I saw you on the list of folks tuning in to my wacky @nvshakespeare.bsky.social talk on Zoom last week—thanks a ton. Means a lot.

Really appreciated the opportunity to tie some strands of research I've been pursuing over the last several years for the @nvshakespeare.bsky.social and @tamu.bsky.social communities. And, more importantly, getting to meet and re-meet so many great people—faculty, grad students—in College Station.

Putting the finishing touches on my talk and PowerPoint for today's @nvshakespeare.bsky.social seminar. (If the end is chattier and less polished than the beginning, you now know why.) Am on at 1:00PM CDT. You can find a Zoom link here: newvariorumshakespeare.org/news/

Good to see this in the news: www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Booking my travel for the upcoming RBMS conference in New Haven. Hope to see a bunch of you there in June.

Snagged another Berlemont edition that was printed in the dumbest format. If you know, you know.

This'll be fun. Most of my work on playbooks focuses on bookselling and collecting, but in my NVS talk I'll consider the evidence we have for playwrights selling their own plays to publishers and its implications for how we read plays.

Curse ye Meroz!

Reading a particularly apposite Civil War sermon this morning, Stephen Marshall’s Meroz Cursed (1642). Taking Judges 5:23 as his text—Curse ye Meroz!—Marshall rebukes those who stand by and tolerate the King’s tyranny, those who refuse to stand up in defense of the good. Was preached > 60 times.

Can’t wait to read this paperback novel about witchcraft in 16th-century Scotland—Jay Williams, The Witches—that I just picked up. Hope it’s sufficiently ridiculous.

Check out this (only moderately embarrassing) video of me showing off the @ransomcenter.bsky.social’s small but mighty collection of hornbooks. Stick around to the end to see an exciting new acquisition. (And tell me if you’ve seen another like it.) youtu.be/PyPu3Vum1lQ?...

Damn—sucker went for $105,000 hammer. If I did my math right, that's $132,300 with premium.

H O R N B O O K C O A S T E R S! |||| #ChildrensLiterature #ChildrensBooks #KidLit #BookHistory #SpecColls #RareBooks #WordsAndWonder #RansomCenter 🗃️📜📚