Upcoming Caxton events

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• Nina Barrett on Leopold & Loeb

  • When
    12/13/2019
  •  
    11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
  • Location
    Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago

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  December Luncheon

  
  

  The Chicago press labeled it the crime of the century and breathlessly reported about the eyeglasses, the typewriter, and the interrogations that solved it. Editorialists used it to decry Jazz Age excesses. A playwright drew on it and Hitchcock’s Rope brought it to the screen. Ira Levin’s Compulsion was inspired by it.

  But we are going to hear about a different detective story, one that began in Northwestern’s Special Collections, with a trove of documents that in the normal course of events might have been lost to fire, flood, mildew, or bureaucratic carelessness. Instead, out of the linear feet of letters, court pleadings, transcripts, psychological evaluations, and more, the real tale emerges.

  Join Nina Barrett, whose book The Leopold & Loeb Files is on the shelf at her store down the alley in Evanston, and whose work at the Deering Library brings Darrow for the defense and more to life so vividly.

  And of course, you will be able to purchase books and have them signed!

  December 13 Luncheon: Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson Boulevard. Buffet opens at 11:30 am; program 12:30-1:30. Luncheon is $35. Program free but please let us know you’re coming. Reservations or cancellations for lunch by noon Wednesday the week of the luncheon. Reserve and pay at caxtonclub.org, call 312-255-3710, or e-mail caxtonclub@newberry.org

  
  

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• Revels: Our Annual Holiday Event of Magic, Fellowship, Music, and Book Auction

  • When
    12/18/2019
  •  
    5:00 PM
  • Location
    Newberry Library, 60 W Walton St, Chicago, IL 60610

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  CAXTON REVELS

  
  

  

  Inaugural Revels Announcement from 1938

  Mark your calendars for the Caxton Revels on December 18. Our annual holiday party will be held at the Newberry Library. Dinner will be in Ruggles Hall with the silent auction in Rettinger Hall. Members will be encouraged to sip libations and exchange stories as they bid on bibliophilic bargains and treasures. Continuing our 80-plus-year tradition of surprise, this year’s event will feature fellow Caxton member and professional magician John Railing and a wide assortment of Caxtonian treasure plus the reappearance of “frothy egg nog” for the most adventurous.

  Revels: Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton Street. Doors open at 5pm for social hour and browsing the treasures; dinner and the magic begin at 6pm. Buffet dinner $60 (a slight reduction in standard charges to allow extra money for bidding). Drink tickets $5 each. Reservations must be made by no later than noon Monday, December 16. Cancellations and no-shows after this deadline will require payment. Reserve at caxtonclub.org, call 312-255-3710, or e-mail caxtonclub@newberry.org.

  
  

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• James Hagy on Fair Tricks: Magicians at the Columbian Exposition

  • When
    01/10/2020
  •  
    11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
  • Location
    Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago

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  January Luncheon

  The 1893 Columbian Exposition drew governments, businesses, and entrepreneurs from across the United States and around the world to exhibit. The Exposition was also a magnet for performers, established and budding, to appear on the Midway Plaisance and offer entertainments cast in replicas of world cities and cultures. Recent scholarship has confirmed the long-assumed presence of a young Howard Thurston and an even younger Harry Houdini, both then unknown but who would soon become the two most recognized magicians of the vaudeville era. But how extensive were conjurors’ contribu-tions to the Magic of the White City? Caxtonian’s Fair Tricks pulls back the curtain of the Midway to reveal the remarkable range of world magicians who appeared in, and around, Chicago at this extraordinary moment.

  There will be special, limited edition books for purchase!

  January 10 Luncheon: Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson Boulevard. Buffet opens at 11:30 am; program 12:30-1:30. Luncheon is $35. Program free but please let us know you’re coming. Re-serve or cancel for lunch by noon Wednesday the week of the luncheon. Reserve and pay at caxtonclub.org, call 312-255-3710, or e-mail caxtonclub@newberry.org.

  
  

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