A new exhibit at New York’s Morgan Library & Museum features book jackets, first editions, galley proofs, and manuscripts from the Carter Burden Collection. Considered the book jackets’ golden age, the exhibition includes book covers from The Great Gatsby, Light in August, and Herzog as well as first edition copies of Henry James’s The Golden Bowl, Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, and Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus. The nearly 100 items in this literary exhibit were originally purchased by Carter Burden (a former NY City councilman) who began collecting in 1973 by acquiring Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, and had “assembled the greatest collection of modern American literature in private hands.” You can read more about this “feast of first editions” in the NYTimes article here.
Laura