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Movable Book Society Conference
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Auction of the Marjorie Moon Collection Theo Gielen The Netherlands
Ellen Rubin Scarsdale, New York
For those of us who attended The Movable Book Society Conference on April 18-20, one of the thrills,
among many, was to participate in the first-ever occasion. Ann Montanaro, the organizer and hostess, had provided attendees with a packet outlining the events. including a specially designed pop-up by Maria Pisano and made by Ann herself. The excitement was heightened by the legitimacy of our very own convention.
The event was kicked-off with a trip to Preview Night of the New York Antiquarian Book Show at the 69th Street Armory. Being a New Yorker, I met the bus from East Brunswick at the Armory. Exiting first from the bus was Robert Sabuda acting as a troop leader. Thirty or so
excited "scouts" from as far away as Arizona, Texas, Michigan, Maine, and Georgia spilled from the bus. Ann, ever the protective den mother, stayed behind to assist some late comers and arrived later. The group quickly dispersed into the show to search for pop-up "treasures." A group gathered at Aleph-Bet's exhibit, always filled with new delights. We especially delighted in the Speaking picture book, the one many have only seen in Haining. Our paths crossed at Jo Ann Reisler's booth,
and foraged through her large numbers of pop-ups. At a booth from Spain, there was a 17th century astronomy book in Spanish studded with volvelles. I, myself, decided to hunt for contemporary limited editions and found several by Julie Chen, Sande Wascher-James, and
ORIEN
On Wednesday, June 28, 1995 Christie's in London brought the Marjorie Moon Collection of Early English Children's Books to the hammer. Mrs. Moon, though starting late in her life time, brought together a of collection tremendous antique children's books of high quality. Private collections like this one rarely exist anymore and it had been a long time since there had been such a marvelous collection at auction.
Christie's prepared a beautiful catalog with an abundance of pictures, some of them in color, often with comprehensive annotations. On the whole, of 233 lot numbers, including 1348 books mostly dating before 1850, there were eleven numbers (221-231) with "Toy Books," containing 78 books relating to the interests of readers of Movable Stationery. that there were that many toy books It is amazing since Mrs. Moon specialized in the Georgian (preVictorian) English children's books. It was in that era she published three highly esteemed bibliographies of the author Mary Belson Elliott (1794?- 1870) and of the publishers John Harris (1801-1843) and Benjamin Tabart (1801-1820).
Mrs. Moon made an explicit exception in her collection for movable books, even modern ones, as is shown in the text which opens the chapter of The temple of fancy m the catalog Childhood re collected This
catalog accompanied an exquisite exhibition of highlights of the Moon collection held at Christ Church in Oxford during the conference of antiquarians, collectors, and scholars of old children's books in September 1994. .Carol Barton . left, speaking with Conference
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