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For Book Collectors:
The No. 44 Society—Book Collecting Contest—Book Valuations
The No. 44 Society
In 2006, The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois established a book collectors’ club for acquisitive book lovers who have a book collection or would like to begin one.
Inspired by the fine collection of American wit and humor, including broad Twain holdings, at the University of Illinois, The No. 44 Society takes its name from the hero of Mark Twain's last novel, No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger, a fantastical, but little-known Twain story set in a 15th-century print shop. The only requirements for membership are to have read Twain’s novel* and to love books.
The club attracts a lively mixture of undergraduates, graduates, faculty members, and local and regional collectors. Members offer advice to beginning collectors, share tips and tidbits about dealers and collectors, and regale one another with tales of the chase. Members also make formal presentations on their collections.
In short, it is a convivial club for mysterious strangers united by a shared affliction called bibliophilia.
The No. 44 Society meets at 3:00 p.m. on the second Wednesday of the month in The Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Room 346 of the Main Library.
2011/2012 SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS OF THE
NO. 44 SOCIETY,
A CONVIVIAL CONFAB FOR BOOK COLLECTORS
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011, 3:00PM IN RBML
The history of the Bible in English is one of censorship, intrigue, politics, and, ultimately, glory. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the great King James Version (1611), the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois will exhibit some of its rare Bibles to tell the fascinating story of the making of the English Bible and to look at the many books behind the magisterial and influential 1611 English translation of the Bible. The exhibition, “Out of many good ones, one principal good one,” Celebrating the King James Bible at 400, is curated by RBML's director, Valerie Hotchkiss. She will give an introduction and tour to the exhibition.
OCTOBER 12, 2011, 3:00PM IN RBML
Local graphic artist and web designer John Bonadies will talk about his "LetterMPress"
project. Check out the video! The Soybean Press is looking to collaborate with him on some digital projects.
NOVEMBER 9, 2011, 3:00PM IN RBML
Oxford University MS Holkham Misc. 41 contains a collection of prayers written by a late fourteenth-century woman for a group of women readers. We don't know who the anonymous author may have been, who her readers were, who made the manuscript, or even exactly how it came to be in the Oxford University collections. In this talk, Professor Koster will speak about the detective work she has been carrying out to identify the author, her audience, and the trail this prayerbook has taken over the last six centuries, focusing on how a combination of modern bibliographic technology and old-fashioned archival research have been needed to establish its provenance.
DECEMBER 14, 2011, 3:00PM IN RBML
Come join us for a Holiday Cheer Party and book brag. Club members and all in the mood to share new acquisitions or old favorites are invited to bring highlights from their collections to display.
FEBRUARY 8, 2012 AT 3:00PM IN RBML
Andy Boyle, Lecturer in History at Brasenose College, Oxford and Velde Visiting Scholar Awardee from The Rare Book & Manuscript Library for 2011-12, will talk about the poet and historian Samuel Daniel (1562-1619). Andy is spending a year in the United States continuing his census and collation of Daniel's best known work, The Collection of the History of England, from which he hopes to produce a new edition and articles on its history and reception.
MARCH 14, 2012, 3:00 PM IN RBML
Willis Regier, the director of the University of Illinois Press, is also the curator of the first spring exhibition in The Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Wise Animals: Aesop and His Followers. Bill will share with us his interest in the complex history of the Fables, and give us a guided tour of the exhibition.
APRIL 11, 2012, 3:00PM IN RBML
James Akerman, the director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center at the Newberry Library in Chicago, will talk about the history of the atlas. Akerman is editor of Cartographies of Travel and Navigation and coeditor of Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
MAY 9, 2012, 3:00PM IN RBML
Guided Tour of "Crystallography: Defining the Shape of Our Modern World."
Vera Mainz and Greg Girolami, curators of the new RBML exhibition, "Crystallography," will offer a guided tour of the cases, text panels, and mineral samples. Join us and learn how crystallography and an X-ray experiment in 1912 led to the discovery of DNA in 1953.
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