As booksellers, we have handled a plethora of books with wonderful association copies—and, indeed, we still do. In our latest offering of association copies and books and art inscribed by the artist, we now turn the spotlight onto those books and works on paper in which one can find a few choice connections. We offer, for instance, a copy of the Officina Bodoni’s Four Gospels in Italian, inscribed by Pope Paul VI to the mayor of Milan—a connection that becomes even more intriguing when one considers that prior to becoming Paul VI, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini served as Archbishop of Milan for nearly a decade. Or consider the story behind the first type specimen to feature Bruce Rogers’s Centaur type, inscribed by BR to William Edwin Rudge, for whose imprint BR designed eighty publications.

While there are certainly many booksellers who make history a specific area of specialization, that has never been our focus. And yet, here we stand on the cusp of launching an e-catalogue on the subject of history. We have come to find out that one can find oneself on the road to acquiring books and other material with historical content without being completely conscious of it. Some items, of course, are more obvious: an original painting of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms—executed the year before Norman Rockwell indelibly imprinted it upon the national consciousness—is not only thematically forthright, but also imposing in terms of sheer size. Some are less so, such as Gaylord Schanilec’s subtle tribute to the High Bridge in St. Paul, which uses images and newspaper accounts to tell the story of a bridge and its impact on the community from its construction in the 19th century to its demolition in 1985.

Given the amount of time we have been able to devote to outdoor activity lately, we thought it fitting we should honor those who make springtime really sing, literally and figuratively. One could, for instance, delve into the increasingly popular activity of birdwatching via an album of 19th-century Japanese brush paintings documenting fifty-six common species—from songbirds to waterfowl. And at ground-level, fish and reptiles are represented, including in a finely printed edition of Thoreau's Of Woodland Pools, Spring-Holes & Ditches, bound by Mark Esser in a design that evokes the world that is hidden just below the surface of the titular locales.

Above all, springtime reminds us that we live in a cyclical world—one where the mechanics of recurrence governs the marking of time. The flowers and trees now bursting into bloom aren’t beholden to the calendar, emerging only when conditions favor it—reminding us of Emerson’s observation that we would do well to “adopt the pace of nature” because “her secret is patience.”