The Boston Raphael A mysterious Painting, an Embattled Museum in an era of change & A Daughter’s Search for the Truth by Belinda Rathbone The riveting story of a museum director caught in a web of local and international intrigue while secretly pursuing a forgotten Renaissance painting—the Boston Raphael. n the eve of its centennial celebrations in December, O1969, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts announced the acquisition of an unknown and uncatalogued paint- ing attributed to Raphael. Boston’s coup made headlines around the world. Soon afterward, an Italian art sleuth began investigating the details of the painting’s export from Italy, challenging the museum’s right to ownership. Simultaneously, experts on both sides of the Atlantic lined up to debate its very authenticity. While these con- tests played themselves out on the international stage, the crisis deepened within the museum as its charis- history; art · october matic director, Perry T. Rathbone, faced the most chal- hardcover · 176 pages lenging crossroads of his thirty-year career. The Boston 6 × 9” Raphael was a media sensation in its time, but the full 978-1-56792-522-7 · $29.95 story of the forces that converged on the museum and rights: world how they intersected with the challenges of the Sixties full color signature is now revealed in full detail by the director’s daughter. In her quest for the true story behind this pivotal event in her father’s life, Belinda Rathbone digs into the background of the affair as it was reported in the popular press, both question- ing the inevitability of its outcome and revealing the power struggle within the museum that led to his resignation. She draws almost entirely from primary source material in various archival collections and over a hundred contemporary and personal interviews. The book is lavishly illustrated with full-color plates and many previously unpublished photographs. Belinda Rathbone is a biographer and historian who has writ- ten widely on 20th century American photography. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Walker Evans: A Biography, as well as important essays on the work of Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, and many contemporary artists and photographers. Rathbone is also the author of the memoir, The Guynd: A Scottish Journal. As a fine arts journalist, she has written for House and Garden, The World of Interiors, and the magazine Antiques. Perry Rathbone, posing for his portrait by Yousuf Karsh New in Hardcoverm 1 Patent for the Dunne plane The Dymaxion automobile Outlook, designed in 1901 The J-class Ranger, designed in 1937 2 No Ordinary Being W. Starling Burgess (1878–1947) A biography by Llewellyn Howland III The long-awaited, fully illustrated biography of an authentic American polymath. ew twentieth-century Americans lived a more cre- Fative, event-filled, and often conflicted life than the Boston-born aviation pioneer and yacht designer W. Starling Burgess. Orphaned at twelve, Burgess received his first patent at nineteen, left Harvard, and, following the suicide of the first of his five wives, published a book biography · december of poetry at twenty-four. Among his children was the 512 pages · 10 × 9.75” celebrated author-artist Tasha Tudor. 978-1-56792-526-5 · $40.00 rights: world After launching his career as a yacht designer, Burgess illustrated built the first airplane to fly the skies of New England (in 1910) and was selected as the sole manufacturer of air- An editor and antiquarian book- craft under the Wright Brothers’ patents. He received the seller, Llewellyn Howland prestigious Collier Trophy “for the greatest progress in III is a frequent contributor to aviation.” His company was a primary supplier of both Wooden Boat and has written civilian and military aircraft before the main factory in several books, including Yachting Marblehead burned to the ground in 1918. in America (with Gerald Mor- ris), On the Wind (with Calvin After World War I, Burgess returned to his first love, Siegal), and The New Bedford yacht design, drafting the lines for three successive Yacht Club: A History. He lives Gloucester fishing schooners to compete against Cana- in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. dian entries for the International Fishermen’s Trophy— and in 1924 introduced the staysail rig on the all-but-unbeatable schooner yacht Advance. He later designed the three acclaimed America’s Cup-winners: the J-Class sloops Enterprise (1930), Rainbow (1934), and Ranger (1937). In 1933, he collaborated with R. Buckminster Fuller to design and create the revolutionary Dymaxion automobile. Although an occasional morphine user (Burgess was successfully treated for chronic ulcers on the eve of World War II), he enjoyed some of his most productive years as a naval archi- tect and inventor doing top secret anti-submarine work for the Navy and Air Force. Burgess was a personality of enormous charm, physical courage, and energy. He was also, as his son lamented, “a child who will not face hard facts, but will hide from them and will love the person who shields him from them.” The tension between his personal and professional life had consequences both disturbing and tragic—and provides answers to questions, and insight into events, that cover the entire span of the twentieth century. Here, at last, is a book that cover the entire fascinating career of a genuine native polymath. New in Hardcoverm 3 Poil de Carotte by Jules Renard Translated from the French by Ralph Manheim; Illustrated by Félix Vallotton eglected by his parents, bullied by his peers, left to Nwander the streets and woods by himself (that is, when he isn’t locked in his room or the cellar for pun- ishment), the little redheaded boy known as “Poil de Carotte” [“Carrot Top”] manages to survive the worst that rural France has to offer. His triumph is one of imagination, cunning, and sheer persistence. An inspi- ration to writers as diverse as Barthelme, Beckett, and Sartre, Jules Renard’s timeless novel-in-stories is at once the lyrical account of a hard-knock provincial childhood and a frighteningly acute psychological study of how nonpareil fiction · november cruelty can affect a young mind—a book that is by turns softcover chilling, humorous, and quietly beautiful. 218 pages · 5.5 × 8.5” 978-1-56792-523-4 · $17.95 “Renard is at the origin of contemporary literature.”– rights: world Jean-Paul Sartre “A novel as cold and brilliant as ice.” – Gilbert Sorrentino Born in Châlons-du-Maine, “A small masterpiece.” – Gore Vidal France, Jules Renard (1864- 1910) was a poet, novelist, play- “[Poil de Carotte’s] continuing power comes from its wright, a member of the Académie rejection of fiction’s sentimental myths about childhood: Goncourt, and the mayor of the Renard wrote elsewhere that a child is a ‘small, necessary town of Chitry. His most famous animal, less human than a cat.’” – Julian Barnes works include Nature Stories, L’Écornifleur, and his posthu- [Renard] is a necessary, irreplaceable nourishment… mously published Journal. His [His] prose is faultless, perfectly embodying Baudelaire’s novel, Poil de Carotte, has been ideal of la littérature sévère et soignée. I have never found adapted numerous times for the a sentence of his which I could budge. Every word, every screen. rhythm is absolutely, joyously right. – The New York Times Ralph Manheim (1907–1992) was among the twenti- eth century’s foremost literary translators from French and German. His work includes translations of Brecht, Céline, Günter Grass, Peter Handke, Heidegger, Hesse, among many others. He was deservedly the recipient of numer- ous honors, including both the National Book Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. 4 mnew in softcover Giambattista Bodoni His Life and his world by Valerie Browne Lester A lively, lavishly illustrated biography of the great printer Bodoni, vividly describing his work, life, and times while justifying his reputation as the “prince of typographers”. his is the first English-language biography of the Trelentlessly ambitious and incomparably talented printer Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813). Born to a biography · february printing family in the small foothill town of Saluzzo, he hardcover left his comfortable life to travel to Rome in 1758 where 400 pages · 8.75 × 11.75” he served as an apprentice of Cardinal Spinelli at the 978-1-56792-528-9 · $40 Propaganda Fide press. There, under the sponsorship rights: world of Ruggieri, his close friend, mentor, and protector, he Valerie Browne Lester is learned all aspects of the printing craft. Even then, his an independent scholar, writ- real talent, indeed his genius, lay in type design and er, and translator living in Bos- punchcutting, especially of the exotic foreign alphabets ton. She is the author of Phiz: needed by the papal office to spread the faith. The Man Who Drew Dickens (2004), a biography of Hablot His life changed when in 1768 at age 28 he was invited Knight Browne, Dickens’s prin- by the young Duke of Parma to abandon Rome for that cipal illustrator who was also very French city to establish and direct the ducal press. her great-great-grandfather. She He remained in Parma, overseeing a vast variety of translated Alain-Fournier’s Le printing, some of it pedestrian, but much of it glorious. Grand Meaulnes (The Magnif- And all of it making use of the typefaces he personally icent Meaulnes, 2009), and has designed and engraved. written poetry, plays, & articles. This fine book goes beyond Bodoni's capacity as a printer; it examines the life and times in which he lived, the turbulent and always fragile political climate, the fascinating cast of characters that enlivened the ducal court, the impressive list of visitors making the pilgrim- age to Parma, and the unique position Parma occupied, politically Italian but very much French in terms of taste and culture.