Stephen Tabor on Extra-Illustration: A Possibly Unfamiliar, Thoroughly Intriguing, and Potentially Appalling History

February Daytime Program

It turns out that people were creating their own Facebooks long before the advent of the Internet. They would take apart a published book (gasp!), add illustrations, autographs, maps, and particularly portrait prints ... and then rebind the thicker volume to create a one-of-a-kind. Some called it literary scrapbooking.

The practice even acquired a name that became a verb. What name? Zoom in to find out, as Stephen Tabor, curator of rare books at the Huntington Library, reveals the remarkable history of extra- illustration in a presentation rich with images of these rare volumes.

Stephen Tabor specializes in rare books’ physical aspects – including bibliography, structure, printing history, provenance, binding, and annotation – with an emphasis on incunabula and English books printed before 1801. He is the principal Huntington liaison with three international bibliographical databases and has published descriptive bibliographies of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Register today, but don’t bring your scissors and glue pot!

Zoom presentation is free and open to all.

Advanced registration required via website.