The Society announces the publication of Bookcloth in England and America, 1823-50, by Andrea Krupp (Oak Knoll/The British Library/The Bibliographical Society of America, 2008

This volume offers a new edition of Andrea Krupp's groundbreaking article, which first appeared in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, and includes an expanded "Catalogue of Bookcloth Grains," with illustrations in a larger format and, for the first time, in color. Sue Allen has written the preface for the book.

Ms. Krupp's three-part essay, with several illustrations, covers the introduction of bookcloth and the early decades of its use, discusses bookcloth grain nomenclature and concludes with detailed observations on several cloth grain patterns. The first of three appendices is an information-dense table that lists each grain pattern with date range and frequency and provides cross references to previous nomenclature.

THE SOCIETY ANNOUNCES THE PUBLICATION OF

The Library of Leander van Ess and the Earliest American Collections of Reformation Pamphlets

by Milton McC. Gatch

Reformation pamphlets were among the first rare book acquisitions of American libraries. Gatch traces the remarkable history of the Leander van Ess collection purchased by the Union Theological Seminary in 1838, the first and largest collection of these religious tracts to arrive in America. He notes how they were originally obtained by van Ess, a Catholic priest, translator of the Bible, and a former Benedictine monk, who built an impressive personal collection of books and manuscripts when monastic libraries were being dispersed during the Napoleonic wars. He has also identified a significant group of pamphlets assembled at Wittenberg during the 1520s, Luther’s most creative period. Never before accurately described, the surviving pamphlets from this collection are listed here in the order of van Ess’s own catalogue, with a set of indexes to authors and printers, and with concordances to major bibliographical resources. Gatch reviews the history of Reformation pamphlet collecting in the United States from these earliest efforts up to the beginning of the twentieth century, and reflects on how these primary resources were used (or neglected) by American church historians. An extensive bibliography and a detailed index of the introductory essays are included.