Free Republic

Purchased cheaply at auction as a second edition with extensive Latin "marginalia" by an unknown hand, this copy of "De humani corporis fabrica" was found to have been Andreas Vesalius' personal copy, and the thousands of autograph notes were his revisions for a third edition that never saw publication, offering rare insight into the mind of one of history's most important scientists and teachers.Purchased cheaply at auction as a second edition with extensive Latin "marginalia" by an unknown hand, this copy of "De humani corporis fabrica" was found to have been Andreas Vesalius' personal copy, and the thousands of autograph...

Over hundreds of years, and thousands of miles, a collection of rare historic books now on display at Stanford University bristles with an excitement as fresh as yesterday. The collection, "The American Enlightenment: Treasures from the Stanford University Libraries," offers a glimpse of transatlantic intellectual debates triggered by the discovery of the New World, contributing to the revolutionary experiment that created our nation. Could a perfect new government -- uncorrupted by European degeneracy and disorder-- be created? Were the American Indians "the fundamental state of nature" of all human societies? How should children be raised? Was slavery immoral? What were...

Man arrested over Shakespeare theft     The Shakespeare book is worth an estimated £15m plus     A man has been arrested on suspicion of the theft of a priceless book from Durham University ten years ago. The first folio edition of a collection of the works of William Shakespeare, published in 1623, was one of a number of manuscripts and books stolen from the University library on Palace Green in December 1998. It is believed to be worth at least £15 million. Durham Police were alerted by the British Embassy in the United States, two weeks ago...

NEW HAVEN -- Benjamin W. Johnson thought it was an easy way to make money - and it was, for a while. But now Johnson is going to prison for 15 months for stealing more than $1.5 million worth of books and one-of-a-kind manuscripts from Yale University's rare book library. He tried to sell some of the items through the eBay Internet auction site before a Philadelphia autograph dealer tipped off authorities that a young student was selling mint-condition signatures that even private collectors rarely find. Johnson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student, worked last summer at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book...