Jesse R. Erickson is the Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings at the Morgan Library & Museum. Along with Sarah Werner, he is co-editor of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. He worked previously in a joint appointment as Coordinator of Special Collections and Digital Humanities and Assistant Professor in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Delaware. And he has served as the Vice President for Programs for the American Printing History Association, on the Board of Directors for the Center for Book Arts in New York City, and on the editorial boards of the University of Delaware Press and Birmingham City University Centre for Printing History and Culture’s journal, Publishing History. His research specializations are in ethnobibliography, alternative printing, Black print culture, and the transnational publishing history of the works of Victorian period author Ouida.
I’m grateful to Jesse Erickson for sharing his passion for books and his vocation with me. I think this is an important discussion for bibliophiles (book people, as I tend to refer to them) and will appeal to many. Unique in this episode is that the Morgan Library & Museum features prominently, almost to the point of being a guest on the episode. I visited The Morgan in 2019 and cannot wait to make another visit. The Morgan began as the personal library of financier, collector, and cultural benefactor Pierpont Morgan. As early as 1890 Morgan had begun to assemble a collection of illuminated, literary, and historical manuscripts, early printed books, and old master drawings and prints, and today is a museum and independent research library located in the heart of New York City. If you’re ever in New York City, I can’t recommend it enough.
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