These two books were printed at the historic Aldine Press in Venice. Founded by Aldus Manutius in 1495, it was among the most prominent and successful printing houses of the time. These works date from the early 1500s and feature the iconic dolphin and anchor printer’s device. Manutius was also the first to use Italic type, which can be seen here on the title page of one of these works.
Images from:
Scenecae Tragoediae. Venetiis : in aedibvs Aldi et Andreae Soceri, 1517.
In hoc volvmine habentvr haec. Cornvcopiae, siue linguæ latinæ co[m]mentarij diligentissime recogniti atq[ue] ex archetypo emendati. Venetiis : in aedibus Aldi, et Andreae Soceri, 1513.
If you are a writer, you have likely grown accustomed to the polite, or even insulting, rejections from publishers or editors. My personal favorite rejection came a few years ago when my agent at the time was told by an editor at a large New York publishing house that he was passing on my book proposal, but he “would gladly buy the book if someone else published it.”
The writing website Lithub recently shared a series of rejections received by renowned authors such as Ursula K. LeGuin. Have a giggle.
From an unnamed editor to Ursula K. Le Guin’s agent, Virginia Kidd, upon receipt of The Left Hand of Darkness:
Dear Miss Kidd,
Ursula K. Le Guin writes extremely well, but I’m sorry to have to say that on the basis of that one highly distinguishing quality alone I cannot make you an offer for the novel. The book is so endlessly complicated by details of reference and information, the interim legends become so much of a nuisance despite their relevance, that the very action of the story seems to be to become hopelessly bogged down and the book, eventually, unreadable. The whole is so dry and airless, so lacking in pace, that whatever drama and excitement the novel might have had is entirely dissipated by what does seem, a great deal of the time, to be extraneous material. My thanks nonetheless for having thought of us. The manuscript of The Left Hand of Darkness is returned herewith. Yours sincerely,
The Editor
21 June, 1968
This unreadable novel was published in 1969 by Ace Books, launching Le Guin to fame, and winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Many years later, Le Guin posted this rejection on her website with a note to aspiring writers: Hang in there!
To the Central Library
Charte von Nordamerica nach den neuesten Bestimmungen und Entdeckungen (1804) was published by Christian Gottlieb Reichard (1758-1837).And as the legend shows, the hand coloring denoted what countries had stake in the lands of North America…
Les Cousins 1959, director Claude Chabrol
As a former teacher, I still worry about the potential deleterious impact of long summer vacations on student development. The infographic below outlines the importance of keeping children engaged in learning, or at least reading, over the summer months. If you have kids in your family, it’s worth the extra effort to encourage them to read. Now is the time for those unexpected book gifts.
The Mondadori Bookstore in Naples’ Vomero District has made it possible to spend the night surrounded by thousands of books. Under the name Mooks Bed & Books, the bookshop has installed two beautiful suites, each furnished with antiques and thousands of books ranging from 18th century antiquarian tomes to contemporary novels. One suite is named for my favorite Italian author, Italo Calvino and one is named after Sigmund Freud. If you are considering a visit to Napoli, check it out here.
With all of the hullabaloo about local literary star Walt Whitman’s 200th anniversary celebrations, I completely missed the fact that it is also the 200th birthday of Herman Melville. To celebrate the anniversary, Chronicle Books has published this splendid pop-up book version of Moby-Dick. This re-telling of the iconic 19th century American novel portrays key moments from the book with lincut artwork. The illustration by Gerard Lo Monaco and Joëlle Jolivert are accompanied by select quotations from the novel and page note offering context to the plot.
Travel Between The Pages 