PEN American Center Raises $1 Million From Auction, Raymond Chandler’s 1917 Libretto Discovered, and More

by
Staff
12.3.14

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:

Last night in New York City, the literary and human rights nonprofit PEN American Center raised one million dollars from its “First Editions/Second Thoughts” auction. The auction, which featured seventy-five first edition works annotated by their authors, included books by Philip Roth (a copy of his 1997 novel American Pastoral brought in eighty thousand dollars), Paul Muldoon, Amy Tan, Marilynne Robinson, Tony Kushner, and others. (Yahoo News)

It’s time to catch up on all of the wonderful books published in 2014. NPR has released its annual Book Concierge, an interactive guide to help you find your next great read from NPR staff and critic selections.

Meanwhile, at Electric Literature, writer Lincoln Michel suggests that 2014 was the year of the debut, and lists his top first-book picks for your browsing pleasure.

A never-before-published 1917 work by novelist Raymond Chandler was recently uncovered at the Library of Congress, discounting the belief that Chandler gave up writing until he was fired from Dabney Oil Syndicate in 1931. Author Kim Cooper discovered the forty-eight-page libretto to the comic opera The Princess and the Pedlar last March. Cooper and her husband planned a Los Angeles production of the “witty, Gilbert-and-Sullivan-inflected libretto for a fantasy-tinged romance.” Chandler’s estate, however, has refused these plans, as the estate’s literary agent Ed Victor stated that the libretto is “very early work, and not representative of Chandler’s oeuvre.” (Guardian)

In more lost and found news, in 1946, a high school student in Spokane, Washington, checked out a copy of the southern classic novel Gone with the Wind, and like many students, did not return it by its due date. Sixty-five years later, a resident in Maine discovered the book in a basement and had it safely returned to Spokane. The library will waive the late fees, which are now upwards of five hundred dollars. Phew. (Reuters)

On Monday, Jessie Burton’s novel The Miniaturist won the Waterstones Book of the Year award. Burton told the Guardian that she was honored and overwhelmed, but surprised by the response to the female characters in her book, whose strength, to some, defied gender expectations of the novel’s period setting.

The fifth annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day will take place on December 6. Over seven hundred bookstores in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and Germany are participating in this initiative to instill a love of bookstores in children.

Comments

What a cool way to raise

What a cool way to raise money for charity.  First editions are such an excitement piece for any library.  Love to see one in my stocking this year.  Janelle www.janellefila.com