THE PHILOBIBLON CLUB
The Philobiblon Club is Philadelphia's club for book collectors
(whether personal or institutional), booksellers, and anyone interested in
books.
Meetings are held, normally on the evening of the second Tuesday of
each month, from October through May, with the exception of January.
Once each season--usually in February--the Club's Edwin Wolf Memorial
Lecture honors the memory of Edwin Wolf 2nd, one of Philadelphia's
greatest bookmen.
The Philobiblon Club is affiliated with the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic
Societies.
Unless otherwise specified, meetings are held at
The Franklin Inn Club, located at 205 South Camac Street -- the northeast
corner of the intersection of Camac and St. James Streets, which is just
north and east of the intersection of Locust and 13th Streets, in Center
City Philadelphia. They begin at 6 P.M.
For reservations, consult the Club's Secretary, Thomas Whitehead (Head,
Special Collections, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA 19122).
Dinner is served towards 6:30 P.M., but it is possible to attend talks
(which begin at about 7:45/8:00 P.M.) without also attending the Club's
dinner. Since the opportunity for book-related conviviality as much as the
chance to hear the speaker is one of the virtues of Club evenings,
however, to do so would seem rather to miss the point.
George Allen (formerly of William H. Allen,
Booksellers, 2031 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103) was the
President of the Club for the quarter of a century preceding his death on
November 20, 1998. The Club has mounted, in his memory, the obituary notice published by The Philadelphia
Inquirer on November 25, 1998, and eulogies delivered at the Memorial
Service for George Allen held on November 29 and at the Club's December 8
meeting.
Contacts (with their e-mail addresses as live links)
include:
- Steven D.
Rothman (220 West Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA 19103; and a
collector), President (elected 8 December 1998)
- Cynthia Buffington (Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts
Company, P.O. Box 9536, Philadelphia, PA 19124), Membership
Chair
- James N.
Green (The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19107), Treasurer
- David Holmes (David Holmes,
Autographs, P.O. Box 548, Collingswood, NJ 08108),
Director
- Mary Leahy
(Rosemont College, 1400 Montgomery Avenue, Rosemont, PA 19010),
Director
- Brian Stilwell
(219 Sugartown Road [L204], Wayne, PA 19087; SEPTA; and a collector),
Director
- Daniel
Traister (Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Van
Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania 19104-6206), Program
Chair (it is his home page of
which this announcement is part)
- Thomas Whitehead (address
above), Secretary
If you are interested in joining The Philobiblon Club, please
communicate directly with Ms. Buffington (Membership Chair), any member of
the Board, or any member of the Club.
Information about Club publications is available here.
Schedule of meetings --
2001-2002
Meetings begin at 6
P.M. and, unless otherwise specified, take place at The Franklin Inn Club,
St. James and Camac Streets, Philadelphia.
- October 16, 2001: Peter Stallybrass (University of
Pennsylvania)
"Dressing Adam and Eve: Text versus Image"
- November 13, 2001: Joseph Farrell (University of
Pennsylvania)
"The Bookman's Lexicon, the Author's Body, and
Ancient Roman Texts"
- December 11, 2001: David Holmes (Collingswood, NJ)
"A
Spring, Not a Pump: Collecting Kenneth Grahame"
- February 12, 2002: Michael Gamer (University of
Pennsylvania)
"Falling off Parnassus (A Della Cruscan
Improvisation)"
- March 12, 2002: David Szewczyk (Philadelphia Rare Books &
Manuscripts Company)
collecting books in Spain
- April 9, 10, 11, 2002: NOTE DATE & LOCATION CHANGES
THESE
MEETINGS TAKE PLACE AT VAN PELT-DIETRICH LIBRARY, 3420 WALNUT STREET,
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
MEETINGS START AT 5:30 P.M. -- THERE
WILL BE A RECEPTION, BUT DINNER IS ON YOUR OWN!Nicolas
Barker (Editor, The Book CollectorThe A. S. W. Rosenbach
Lectures in Bibliography
- May 14, 2002: Thomas Kinsella (The Richard Stocton College
of New Jersey) and Willman Spawn (Philadelphia)
The speaker roster for the last several years (1995-2000)
follows. Some of the talks presented on these occasions have been mounted
on this site. NOTE: All rights to these essays, most especially
including copyright, remain their authors's property. These are NOT essays
in the public domain.
- 1995-1996
- October 10, 1995: Janice Fisher (University of
Pennsylvania)
"I Married a Book Collector: One Woman's Poignant
Story"
- November 14, 1995: Cynthia Buffington
(Philadelphia)
- December 12, 1995: Fred Schreiber (New York)
- February 13, 1996: Daniel Traister (University of
Pennsylvania)
- March 12, 1996: Bruce McKittrick (Narberth)
"From
Cloak to Cabinet: The Emergence of Rare Books in France"
- April 9, 1996: Amanda Hall (London)
"Selling
Eighteenth-Century Pulp Fiction: Amanda Hall Talks Trash"
- May 7, 1996: Jocelyn Konigsmark (Wayne)
"Confessions
of a General Antiquarian"
- 1996-1997
- October 8, 1996: James N. Green (The Library Company of
Philadelphia)
"'The cowl knows best what will suit in Virginia':
Parson Weems on Southern Readers"This essay is
forthcoming, in another form, in Printing History, the journal of
the American Printing History Association.
- November 12, 1996: Archibald C. Elias, Jr.
(Philadelphia)
"Jonathan Swift's Annotated Copy of His own
Contests and Dissensions, with Other Pamphlets from His
Library"This essay is now available in print, in
another form, in PQ [i.e., Philological Quarterly], 75
[1996], 167-195.
- December 10, 1996: Michael T. Ryan (University of
Pennsylvania)
"Reflections on Best Sellers: Some Thoughts in
Season"
- February 11, 1997: George Allen (Philadelphia)
- March 11, 1997: James Tanis (Bryn Mawr College
"A
Baker's Dozen: Twenty-Seven Years of Bryn Mawr Acquisitions"
- April 8, 1997: Ruth Hughes (The Library Company of
Philadelphia)
- May 13, 1997: Elliott Shore (Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton, and about to move to Bryn Mawr College)
"The German
Society of Pennsylvania: History Resurgent"
- 1997-1998
- October 14, 1997: William Stoneman (formerly Scheide
Librarian, Princeton University, and Librarian, Houghton Library, Harvard
University)
"'The Same Purposeful Instinct': Reflections on The
Scheide Library"
- November 11, 1997: James N. Green (Library Company of
Philadelphia)
"Readers and Reading in Colonial Philadelphia: Thomas
Bradford's Circulating Library"
- December 9, 1997: Peter Stallybrass (University of
Pennsylvania)
- February 10, 1998: Melissa J. Homestead (University of
Pennsylvania)
"'Uncle Tom in German and in Court': Harriet Beecher
Stowe's Copyright Suit against Philadelphia Publisher F.W. Thomas"
- March 10, 1998: Andrea Immel (Cotsen Librarian, Princeton
University)
"William Hogarth and the Spirit of John Newbery's
Children's Books"
- April 7, 1998: Samuel A. Streit (The John Hay Library, Brown
University)
"The Browns of Rhode Island: Collectors and Benefactors
Extraordinaires"
- May 9, 1998 (held as part of the Fellowship of American
Bibliophilic Societies Philadelphia tour): William Helfand(New York
City)
"The Artist Looks at Disease and Death"
- 1998-1999
- October 13, 1998: James O'Donnell (University of
Pennsylvania)
"From Papyrus to Cyberspace: Why Books Are in No
Danger"
- November 10, 1998: Evelyn Tribble (Temple
University)
"Citation and Its Discontents"
- December 8, 1998: The talk originally scheduled for this date was
CANCELLED because of the recent death (November 20, 1998) of Club
President George Allen. On this date, the Club presented
A
Celebration of George Allen
- February 9, 1999: Daniel Traister (University of
Pennsylvania)
- March 9, 1999: James Tanis (Director of Libraries
emeritus, Bryn Mawr College)
"Leaves of Gold: A Glimpse of
Manuscript Illuminations in the PACSCL Libraries"
- April 13, 1998: Mirjam Foot (The British Library)
"Form
and Content, Form and Use"
- May 11, 1998: Warren MacDougall
"Thomas Dobson's
Secret Scottish Backer Revealed"
- 1999-2000
- October 12, 1999: Henry Morris (Newtown,
Pennsylvana)
"Theodore Bachaus, D.S.E.: A San-Serriffean Literary
Legend"
- November 9, 1999: Enid Mark
"An Artist in the
Book-World; or, The ELM Press: Not Just Another Private Press"
- December 14, 1999: Barbara Traister (Lehigh
University)
"A Sixteenth-Century London Physician and His
Books"
- February 8, 2000: Michael Benjamin
(Philadelphia)
"African Americana: What's It Worth? The Musing of
an African American Bibliophile"
- March 14, 2000: Kenneth Finkel (Executive Director of Arts
and Culture Service, WHYY)
"Philadelphia Philanthropy and
Collections: Corrupted Content"
- April 11, 2000: Hugh Amory (Harvard University)
"An
Eighteenth-Century American Rare-Book Club: the Prince Collection"
- May 9, 2000: Philip Bishop
"The Mosher Books in Some
of Their Graphical Aspects"
- 2000-2001
- October 10, 2000: Mike Peich (West Chester
University)
- November 14, 2000: J. B. Post (Philadelphia)
"Copyright Litigation for Fun & Profit"
- December 12, 2000: Linda J. Langham
(Langhorne)
"Virginia's Pages: On Collecting Woolf's Books and
Letters"
- February 13, 2001: Don C. Skemer (Princeton
University)
"Archeology of the Medieval Book"
- March 13, 2001: Thomas R. Adams (Providence, RI)
on
the Philadelphia book world of the 1940s and 1950s (Edwin Wolf 2nd
Memorial Lecture)
- April 17, 2001: Jenny Thompson (Philadelphia Museum of
Art)
"With Pen and Penknife: Author Portraits in Philadelphia
Manuscripts"
- NOTE CHANGED DATE:
May 2, 2001 (A
WEDNESDAY!): Bob Kieft (Haverford)
You can
send Traister e-mail concerning this page at
traister@pobox.upenn.edu
.
Go to Daniel
Traister's Home Page (where The Philobiblon Club Page lives).