What is this crazy thing? You'll have to read to the end to find out.
Debby Rosenzweig of the Attic Bookstore in Englewood, Colorado, sent me a link to a series of more than 20 podcasts about books: www.bookstories.org.
I watched several, and particularly enjoyed the one about Tattered Cover, a huge independent bookstore in Denver, moving the entire shop in one day.
Episode 21 features an inspiring or grim (depending on your POV - I lean toward grim) interview with a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, followed by a history of the bookmark. Unfortunately, it draws from the Wikipedia entry on the topic. In our July/August issue, we had a short piece comparing Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia anyone can edit, to the Encyclopedia Britannica. A recent study suggested that Wikipedia was nearly as accurate as EB. As it happens, EB doesn't have an entry on bookmarks, so an accuracy comparison is hard to make. However, the Wiki article leaves much to be desired, as does this podcast. The bookmark does not originate with Queen Elizabeth - they are probably as old as the book itself.
Here's a piece Ian McKay, our auction correspondent, wrote last year on a 14th century bookmark sold at auction. Due to space limitations, it was cut, so I'm glad to have a reason to post it after the jump:
A common enough item, if not in this form, the object to the left is a rectangle of vellum, folded and loosely stitched around a string so that it can slide up and down. It partly sandwiches a circular vellum disc that is n turn stitched so that it can revolve to reveal the Roman and Arabic numbers i-iiii and 1-4 on different sides.
What we have here is a medieval bookmark. The upper end of the string would be attached to the headband of a manuscript and the marker could then be slid along the string to mark the exact line of text on the chosen page, while the disc could be turned to indicate columns 1 or 2 on the left-hand opening or 3 or 4 on the right.
Around 30 such bookmarks are recorded in European libraries. This one, believed to be French and to date to the 14th or 15th century, was sold for £7200 ($13,100) to an American collector at a Sotheby’s London sale of Western manuscripts and miniatures held on July 5. - Ian McKay
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