Latest Posts by playingjane - Page 7

I’ll be honest: I really just picked this book because the cover is amazing.  Although this beautiful, intricately stamped copy of The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs was published in 1870, it looks almost new!

Mezzo Goddess Art Nouveau Psychedelic Gypsy 5x7 Blank Greeting Card

(Saw this linked in an article by @bookriot)

My mom’s friend got me this beautiful bookmark from Mexico

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn

One of twelve volvelles in Trithemius, Polygraphie, 1561. The title written on the fore-edge of this book suggests that it belonged to John Dee. It’s a book about cryptography, and the volvelles are cipher discs used to encoding or decoding text.

The RCP library has the largest known collection of books from John Dee’s library, going on display from January 2016.

<<  Jonny Packham

||October BPC: Just One More Page|| 21. Stories. I own, like, three short story collections at this point. They’re all very photogenic, but it’s been a while since I’ve taken any pictures of this one. Also, birds.

I am very lucky - because this is the person I’m dating right now.

What shall I call you when I am cross? Mrs. Darcy? No! No. You may only call me Mrs. Darcy when you are completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy.

“Book Alchemy” by Jacqueline Rush Lee

I wish there was a way to see which users’ posts you like most often. There are some days when I look at what I’ve liked and it’s predominantly from one poster or another. They are like my Tumblr soulmates in a way. 

New Arrivals: First American Edition of Tolkien’s THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (1954). In the correct first printing dust jacket with the fold-out map of Middle Earth intact.

First volume of what is likely the most significant trilogy of books written in the last century. The first printing in the US was bound from British sheets, only 1,500 copies. A harder book than you might expect in the correct dust jacket, as points changed between the first 10 or so printings, and people are overly-fond of swapping dust jackets from later printings onto first printing books.

Tsk tsk…

On this day in 1937, JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit was published for the first time. Tolkien had been grading papers in the late 1920s or early 1930s (accounts vary), when out of nowhere he scribbled the novel’s opening words “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” on a piece of paper. His inspirations for the book ranged from Norse mythology to Beowulf to William Morris to the Germanic language. Although The Hobbit is frequently classed as children’s literature, Tolkien disagreed with that categorization, saying, “If you’re a youngish man and you don’t want to be made fun of, you say you’re writing for children.” The first edition of The Hobbit differs in small but substantial ways from the second edition. By 1937, Tolkien had started on The Lord of the Rings trilogy with the sinister One Ring as its centerpiece and decided he need to revise the chapter about Bilbo’s encounter with Gollum to be more in line with events in his new books. In the first version of “Riddles in the Dark,” Gollum is a far less treacherous character, who cheerfully wagers his “precious” in the game of riddles he plays with Bilbo. When Gollum goes looking for the Ring and can’t find it, Bilbo having already secretly pocketed it, he is only sorry that he can’t give it to Bilbo for winning the game. He then willingly leads Bilbo out of the cave where they’ve met. In the revised version, of course, Bilbo forfeits his life if he loses the game (Gollum’s suggestion) and despite winning it, is pursued out of the cave by a murderous Gollum, anyway.

Featured here is the first American edition, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1938. In addition to the original version of “Riddles in the Dark,” it contains four color plates of Tolkien’s illustrations and red maps on the end-papers. The Hobbit has not been out of print since its publication 78 years ago. SL JRR Tolkien. The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again. (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1938)

823 T57h1938: http://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/Record/uiu_1212784/Description

150th anniversary edition| Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and illustrated by Salvador Dali.

Just One Word September BPC - 20 - Cheap: beloved vintage editions of Lord of the Rings, found at thrift stores and paperbackswap. 

Kitty feet.

When I picked this up at the library, I had no idea how much Macdonald talks about T.H. White - the last book I read was The Once and Future King! Synchronicity to the max. In the week that I spent with it, H is For Hawk taught me about falconry, T.H. White, bearing grief, and the importance of having mercy on yourself. 

Word of the Day: sub tegmine fagi

adv. From Virgil: under the cover of a beech tree

Image Credit: “Beech Grove I” by Gustav Klimt. Public Domain via WikiArt.

my dad recently launched an indiegogo campaign for his buddysaurus project!

it started out as an inspirational daily webcomic sort of thing but he’s been working on making his ideas into more products

check it out!

Look what I got! The best thing about this edition is not its pretty cover, but the fact that it’s a new and supposedly good translation with almost 200 pages of notes. I have only read tiny bits of Dante, so I’m stoked about finally getting this. || “And so my mind, held high above itself, looked on, intent and still, in wondering awe.“

Shadowplay Eterniday by Joseph Cornell. The materials in this book include hand-dyed and colored goatskin, mixed-media collage, acrylic paint, sand, glass, wood, and metal. Housed in a two-tray drop back box and bound by Mark Cockram

Just finished the first one of this series at someone’s house - now I’m in it for the long haul. 

Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods appreciation post

this book is honestly breathtaking