A cool $2 million worth of rare William Shakespeare volumes has been given to UCLA. There are 72 books, including a 1685 fourth folio of the Bard’s works. They’ll be stored at the university’s Clark Library. The books, published between 1479 and 1731, belonged to Paul Chrzanowski, a leading physicist.
The Boston Globe reports Harvard has acquired the manuscripts and papers of John Updike, who studied at the university in the 1950s. It won’t have come cheap.
Lined up, the entire archive stretches 380 linear feet. It spans 1,500 books, including Updike’s collection of his own work, published in foreign languages and English, as well as books Updike reviewed – with his pencil marks underlining the text, making notes in the margins, or bracketing a particularly well-turned phrase.
The papers also include photographs, files of brochures and fliers used in his research, sample dust-jacket designs, and letters from such literary figures as Kurt Vonnegut and Joyce Carol Oates, as well as from fans.
Within minutes of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall winning the Booker Prize last night in London, we saw a flurry of sales of collectible copies. Signed and first editions quickly sold. This morning a couple of signed copies remain on the site.
