Old Books are cool.

I used to sell books a little. I'd go to estate sales and the like and buy books cheap and put them on ebay or amazon and wait. If you know what you're doing, and have a little luck, it can be fairly lucrative I had several books that I paid under $3 for that sold for over $50 and a couple that went over $100. I also had a lot of books that I paid a dollar for that will eventually be donated to goodwill. Knowledge, of course, is the key, and kmowledge is often hard won.

Sometimes luck will do though. When he was 16 Capt. Nathan Harlan of the Indiana National Guard, picked up an old leather bound copy of the Federalist Papers for $7. He bought it, in part, because he was studying the Federalist Papers in school. It tTurned out to be Volume I of the two volume first edition. Facing his second tour in Iraq, he decided to cash it in, thinking he might get $500 for it. He got $80,000. As nice final touch, the auction house, Heritage Auction Galleries is waving its 20% fee in recognition of Capt Harlan's service in Iraq.

Hat tip to Ace of Spades HQ.

Adventures in bibliography

So, as if I don't have enough projects up in the air, I decided to tackle something that has been hovering in the back of my head for about a decade, which is to create a bibliography of medieval texts which have been translated into modern English. I have no idea how a professional bibliographer goes about creating such a bibliography (although I will, I hope, learn in the next few years.) But this is how I started.

First I needed a list of medieval authors. I started at the obvious place: Wikipedia. I entered the first medieval author that came to mind, Bede. I noted that the article is in several categories that will be fruitful to explore later, but see that in the "See also" section there is an article "English historians in the Middle Ages." It contains several lists, which I swipe. That article points to a second article, "List of English chronicles", which I also swipe. After collating the lists together and alphabetizing, I have a list about 100 medieval authors and texts, more than enough to start with.

First up on the list is Adam of Usk, a late 14th and early 15th century cleric, who spent some time around important people. He wrote a chronicle about the stuff he saw. I never heard of him or his chronicle before today. After reading his Wikipedia article, I'm off to find out what I can about English translations. A quick Google search finds me this blog entry, from which I find out that there was a nineteenth century translation and a late twentieth century translation. Next stop, the Library of Congress. Their catalog reveals 4 editions dated 1904, 1980, 1990 and 1997. The middle two are reprints of the 1904 edition, which I discover is the second edition. The 1997 is a new translation. I grab the pertinent information and move on. Swinging back by Google I find that Googlebooks has a preview of the 1997 edition. The preview includes the discussion of the manuscript tradition. It seems that Adam's chronicle survives in a single manuscript. The bulk of the manuscript is in the British Library (Add MS 10104), but at some point the final quire became separated from the manuscript. It wasn't rediscovered until 1885, after the first translation was published. The second edition included the text and translation of the lost quire. This explains why the reprints are of the second edition. Next stop is Worldcat, where I find the publication information for the first edition. I don't find any other English editions. I do find an Italian edition, though, which I ignore. For good measure, I check Bookfinder, but don't find any other editions. I am done with Adam. Repeat 10-20 times a day for ten years, and I might finish this project.

Adam of Usk, fl. 1400. English chronicler.
Thompson, Edward Maunde, Sir, ed. and trans.; Chronicon Adæ de Usk: A.D. 1377-1421 (London: J. Murray, 1876) (N.B. Adam's Chronicle survives in a single copy. The final quire of that copy became separated from the main manuscript at some point. It was not rediscovered until 1885. Thompson's second edition includes this fragment. The second edition, or the Given-Wilson edition are preferred over this edition.)

Thompson, Edward Maunde, Sir, ed. and trans.; Chronicon Adæ de Usk, A. D. 1377-1421, 2nd ed. (London: H. Frowde, 1904) Reprinted: Chronicon Adae de Usk, A.D. 1377-1421 (New York: AMS Press, [1980]): and The Chronicle of Adam of Usk, A.D. 1377-1421 (Felinfach, Lampeter, Dyfed: Llanerch Enterprises, 1990) (with abridged introduction).

Given-Wilson, Chris., ed. and trans.; The Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377-1421 (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)

New Project

So I haven't been doing much blogging recently. This is in part because I have been working on a rather large project.

Anybody who knows me knows that I like to make lists. Not "To Do" lists, but lists of things. One of the things I like to make lists of is books. Since my first daughter was born, I have developed an interest in children's literature. So obviously I had to start making a list of good children's literature.

I've decided to put this list as a web site, in part as an exercise in learning HTML. The first draft is over there. It's ugly, there are massive formatting problems and is incomplete. There probably will be a blog attached to it later.

Last of the trio.

Arthur C. Clarke died this morning, the last of three greats of science fiction. Heinlein died in 1988 when I was in El Paso. Asimov died in 1992, when I was in Norman. It's odd that I know when and where I was when I read of each ones death. Sort of like baby boomers and John Lennon. Between the three, they constituted probably 20% of my reading between the ages of 14 and 25.

Clarke had a great run. Not only some of the best SF novels and short stories of all time, but part of the team that won the Battle of Britain. (Not the guys in the planes, the guys inventing radar.) Worked out the math for the geosynchronous satellite, and popularized the idea of the space elevator. His work with Kubrick on 2001 helped bring SF out of the pulp ghetto, although it is by far his weakest novel. Of the three greats, Clarke was most wide ranging. He could base novels around a big piece of technology (The Fountains of Paradise), yet not have the novel be about the technology. He was the first SF writer to write anything original, or interesting about religion.

He will be missed. RIP Sir Arthur.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

On reading aloud

I have read The Lord of the Rings probably thirty times in my life, about once a year since my mid-teens. About five years ago, I did something different, I read it aloud. April couldn't read the print on the edition we owned, and I found it intolerable that she had never read it before. We also hooked Sophia, who was then only five, at the same time. What I didn't expect was how moving I found portions of the book to be when read aloud. One particular piece was the finale to the "The Ride of the Rohirrim". I finished the chapter and all three of us sat stunned for a minute. Then April said in a small voice, "Wow, boys think different from me." I had read this chapter dozens of time before, silently, yet I had not felt this impact. I do every time now. Try it yourself. Read the following aloud and see if you don't feel a sudden elation, an urge to join ride and slay, and sing as you do so.

Then suddenly Merry felt it at last, beyond a doubt: a change. Wind was in his face! Light was glimmering. Far, far away, in the South the clouds could be dimly seen as remote grey shapes, rolling up, drifting; morning lay beyond them.
But at that same moment there was a flash, as if lightning had sprung from the earth beneath the City. For a searing second it stood dazzling far off in black and white, its topmost tower like a glittering needle; and then as the darkness closed again there came rolling over the field a great boom.
At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had heard a mortal man achieve before:

Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!
Fell deeds awake; fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword day, a red day, ere the sun arises!

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

With that he seized a great horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plains and a thunder in the mountains.

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a green field, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Eomer rode there, the white horsetail of his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first eored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Theoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne upon Snowmane like a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning with a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And the all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

The sound of a human voice, reading the words of a master has powers that words on a page can only give a dim echo.