The Eternal Passion: Nicholas A. Basbanes and the Making of A Gentle Madness. A Video Tour

 

Pandemic or not, there is still room for celebration.  Currently on view by appointment is the exhibition at the Cushing Library at Texas A&M University, “The Eternal Passion: Nicholas A Basbanes and the Making of A Gentle Madness.”  The exhibition was originally planned for a March launch but delayed by the Pandemic.  A much-anticipated opening day event featuring Nick Basbanes himself had to be cancelled.  Nonetheless, curator Kevin O’Sullivan was determined to keep the exhibition available.  The exhibition was rescheduled and is now running from Aug. 3^rd – Nov. 30, 2020.

This is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books.  Basbanes’ work on bibliophiles and book collecting is now considered a classic.  But it almost didn’t get published.  O’Sullivan does a magnificent job selecting material from the Basbanes archive at the Cushing and other sources to present a well-rounded look at the making of A Gentle Madness.   He also highlights Basbanes’ career generally with material about his later publications.

I contributed a number of items to the exhibition.  I was also scheduled to speak at the opening event.  So, the cancellation affected me personally.  When the exhibition reopened, I arranged a tour for myself and wife Nicole with Kevin O’Sullivan.  Also present were Francesca Marini and Beth Kilmarx of the Cushing Library.  Nicole videoed the tour.  It is not a professional production, but she captures Kevin’s talk and our banter, along with a detailed look at the material on display.  May this serve as an imperfect but entertaining record of an exhibition that faced unprecedented challenges.

Link to video:

Basbanes Exhibition. Cushing Library. Sept. 2020. Kurt & Nicole Zimmerman with Kevin O'Sullivan

Here are details about the exhibition and how to see it in person.

Basbanes Exhibition Information

A Book I Shouldn't Have Had Yet

Dr. Herbert M. Evans, 1882-1971

The book’s the thing, but sometimes it is more than that.  An acquisition can leave a deep impression or even a scar.  And when you hold the book, you feel life, or death. 

            It is the third month of the 2020 Pandemic, and maybe I have spent too much time with my books.  (Can there be such a problem?).  But the world is not as it should be, and every venture out brings an awkward tension between masked and maskless.  And so it is with this story: excitement and incredulity tempered with fear.  We begin with two doctors and end with a third, all notable book collectors.

            The book is the rare, privately printed catalogue Medical Library Belonging to Herbert M. Evans (Berkeley: 1931).  The bookseller description records 202 mimeographed sheets with additions and deletions using pasted slips, as well as a few scattered holograph corrections.  It is a quarto bound in blue cloth; the paper spine label reads “Evans Library of Medical Classics 1932.”  The pastedown has Evans’ bookplate and the front free endpaper the following inscription, “To my friend Elmer Belt, Herbert M. Evans, Berkeley, March 14, 1936” with Belt’s bookplate below.

In the Midst of It: A Book Hunter Down the Cataloging Rabbit Hole

The story begins with a drowning, includes a fratricide, a sensational trial, and has no ending yet.  But let us start anyhow.

Prominent book collector C. Fiske Harris and his wife are both recovering from illness in 1881.  They decide to take a recuperative canoe ride with their servant Hedges on Moosehead Lake in Maine.  The canoe capsizes in rough water “and for a time the Harrises clung to the craft.  Hedges heard Mrs. Harris say, ‘If Mr. Harris goes, I will go also.’  She succumbed first, however, and Harris followed her.”  Thus quoted from Roger Stoddard’s authoritative essay, “C. Fiske Harris, Collector of American Poetry and Plays” (1963). 

            This abrupt and tragic demise of a notable collector is not yet on my mind as I prowl the aisles of the recent ABAA Book Show in Pasadena, California.  I am nearing the end of my Saturday all-day scout, my eyes strained and the need for food urgent.  Serendipity comes into play as I browse the booth of Holly Segar and Jeffrey Rovenpor of Caroliniana Books, Aiken, South Carolina.

            Propped up on a shelf in a sleeve is a modest looking pamphlet, plain original wrappers, with a neat ownership signature on the cover.  I almost miss it, but I don’t.  Holly & Jeffrey’s description reads, in part: “Index to American Poetry and Plays in the Collection of C. Fiske Harris.  Providence, RI: Printed for Private Distribution, 1874. . . Finely printed pamphlet listing the major American poetry and play collection belonging to C. Fiske Harris.  The collection today resides at Brown University. . . This copy with the ownership inscription to front wrapper of R. A. Guild.”