The Manuscript Society

09/01/2026

Spring into fall with the new edition of the Manuscript Society Digest. You'll find news to peruse of a Declaration of Independence sale, discovery, and mystery. Plus rare book thievery, the original Odyssey, and a striker's gift to his hometown library. http://p0.vresp.com/aQGJax

08/30/2026

St Mary’s church in Chediston, Suffolk, UK, had a rare intact copy of the Paraphrases of Erasmus from 1548. “Rare” because many were destroyed in the time of Mary I. “Had” because it’s been stolen from its locked case. Rare book dealers, keep an eye out.

A reverend says he hopes the "sacred" object will be returned to the rural church.

08/27/2026

How do you handle a papyrus manuscript — and clean it and store it? Ask the experts at the University of Michigan’s Papyrus Conservation Summer Seminar. It’s keeping the craft alive. Now another generation can read the Odyssey text in its original form.

Nine scholars recently attended a seminar at the University of Michigan to learn about conserving papyrus manuscripts.

08/23/2026

So much medieval material is digitized and online. But a look at the physical object can reveal another layer of meaning. Case in point: manuscript fragments found inside the cover of a rebound book from the 14th century. One thing led to another, and …

Researchers say texts from 12th to 15th centuries ‘hint at a culture which has not even been imagined’

08/19/2026

A 1482 first edition of Euclid’s Elements. An 1871 handwritten Japanese Gospel of Matthew. A 1983 copy of Electronic Games, the first joint cover appearance of Mario and Donkey Kong. Book collectors are eclectic. So was the Dallas Antiquarian Book Fair.

Inside the city's growing community of book collectors.

08/19/2026

Nosing around the International Antiquarian Book Fair in Manhattan, an erstwhile New York Times reporter came across a piece of history: the Hiroshima bombing diary of the Ebola Gay copilot. He smelled a story. What he found went far beyond the bombing.

Nosing around a book fair for inspiration, a reporter found a firsthand account of one of humanity’s gravest acts, with traces of a journalist’s hand.

08/15/2026

“The Antiquities of Athens” was the 506th title in the Kiama Public Library of New South Wales. Then in the 1870s, someone checked it out. And out it stayed, until this year. Where had it been all that time? For a good while, it seems, inside a fireplace.

"The Antiquities of Athens" had likely been missing from an Australian library since the 1870s. Staffers say its recovery is "an unlikely story of survival (of the book) and redemption (of the borrower)"

08/13/2026

In 2022 a box landed at a USO office in New York. In it were more than 300 letters from Speedy to Frances. Where did they come from? And how could the USO get them back to the family? For answers, they turned to a reporter, an archivist, and an actor.

Nobody knows who dropped Speedy Weber's correspondence at a USO office in 2022. Researchers have finally tracked down two living relatives who remember him

08/08/2026

Is a restored T206 Honus Wagner baseball card a home run — or a blooper? We’re about to find out.

The 117-year-old T206 Honus Wagner card is still the holy grail of the hobby. Even a completely restored version is valued at $1 million in an important test case for the hobby.

08/05/2026

The Morgan Library & Museum has a collection of more than 1,300 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts spanning 10 centuries. Not near the Morgan? A $2.5 million grant from the Lilly Endowment will help put some of them in reach — virtually at least.

The Morgan Library & Museum has received a $2.5m grant from the Lilly Endowment's Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative to support The Morgan Illuminated, a major project that will expand access to the Morgan's collection of medieval and Renaissance religious manuscripts through a new digita...