Updating the Google Drive of Monthly Letters

A member here has brought it to my attention that the folders for Tyl Eulenspigel and Arabian Nights Entertainments are empty. I don't know if this was the result of that accidental removal which mandated that only a limited number of curators can access the folders now, but since I have copies of these 2 missing MLs, I will scan them this week and will send the scans to those members who have editorial privileges. Just PM me.

All -

Keep in mind that in Google Drive we have these two folders:

1) "LEC Monthly Letters"
2) "LEC ML Upload"

Folder #1 is the main repository and majority of users have read access with only a few members that can edit (Faisel & Jack as far as I know). Thus we are limiting accidental deletion of data, which has happened in the past. Members with read access in folder #1 can edit in folder #2. This is important because everyone can at his/her leisure upload to folder #2. Then again Faisel or Jack can at their leisure move files from folder folder #2 to folder #1.

Thanks so much to those that help maintain the LEC Monthly Letters drive! I find a lot of enjoyment reading through these letters whether I own the book in question or not.

It's been a bit disappointing, however, to find gaps where no monthly letter is available, yet. Today, I was hoping to find the ML for the Machen translation of Casanova, but it's simply not there. Anyone?

In order to rectify this, I was wondering if anyone has any experience with using the Special Collections at Syracuse as a way to fill-in these gaps? According to their website, they have these MLs in the collection:

Newsletter - issues of the Monthly Letter
Box 1 No's 1-51 Jun 1929 - Dec 1933
Box 1 No's 52-103 Jan 1934 - Dec 1937
Box 1 No's 104-117 Jan 1938 - Feb 1939
Box 1 No's 186, 216, 229 Dec 1947, Jul 1950, Apr 1952
Box 1 No's 323-369 Oct 1960 - Oct 1964 - some missing issues

I've just sent them an email to inquire about the process to access and/or scan these for personal use (or to be put on the drive). Now I wonder if this path has already been tread?

Thoughts?

>2 BuzzBuzzard:
Thanks for this; I'm getting more forgetful all the time

>3 BionicJim:
Gaps are inevitable given that not every copy of the book has the ML included (most don't!) and in over 30 yers of collecting, and of purchasing duplicate LECs just to fill a gap in my ML collection, there are still about 30% of my volume the don't have the ML. Thanks to the generosity of the members here, and especially Faisel who not only put it together originally, but who had to recreate it all over again when some users removed many of the MLs, deleting them from the drive.

I don't know about the Syracuse Collection, but as these items are not really in the public domain, and there may be thorny issues of ownership and usage, they may baulk at making these available to upload to our own drive. Although freely sharing these with others may be not violate any laws, Quieta non movere.

(BTW, if you are referring to the 1940 Casanova edition, I have a copy of the ML and will scan it with the other 2 this week on my days off.)

I have scanned the MLs for Tyl Ulenspiegl, The Arabian Nights Entertainments, and The Memoirs of Casanova (1940) and uploaded them to the "LEC ML Upload" of our Google Drive. I believe it is possible to copy them from there. Hopefully one of the administrators will be able to place Tyl and the Arabian Nights back in the empty folders when they have the time. Both have been missed here of late.

The Arabian Nights Entertainments ML is somewhat unusual in that is 8 pages rather than the usual 4, and has a tribute to Arthur Szyk, who passed away during the illustrating of the tales. It's obvious that Macy was particularly fond of this artist and was moved by his untimely passing.

>5 Django6924: Thanks for taking the time to do this Django

I received a response from the librarian at Syracuse and it looks like this can be a good resource. She originally stated that they charge $10+ per professionally scanned page that is print-worthy, but her count of approximately 685 pages made it clear that my budget, which is negligible, is not going to cut it.

However, she stated that I can come to the library and take digital photos of the MLs for research purposes or hire an independent researcher to do it for me. I got a list from her of some researchers that may be available and will weigh their cost with my making a trip there (from Seattle!). Additionally, I could possibly get a student to do it.

So...I've sent an email to the list of possible researchers to see how much they'd charge me and hopefully I'll be able to help fill-in some of the missing MLs soon.

Here's initial response, if anyone is interested:

Dear Jim,

Thank you for contacting the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries regarding your inquiry. The Monthly Letter issues in Box 1 of our Limited Editions Club Collection total approximately 685 pages. SCRC engages in a systematic digitization program, and we regret that we are not able to digitize such a large amount of collection material on demand. This would be a substantial digital project for the Libraries, reflecting the special care and handling and the substantial staff time involved in digitizing archival materials in accordance with professional best practices as well as the ongoing costs of server space and file maintenance.

I am sorry we are not able to assist you with a project on such a large scale. However, we would be able to accommodate a smaller order for a selection of up to 50 scans. If you would like to order digital copies of a smaller selection of the slides, please complete and return to us, a Duplication Order form, https://library.syr.edu/scrc/documents/DuplicationOrderForm.pdf, complete with payment arrangement information. Please make sure to sign and date where indicated on the second page. You may email, mail or fax (315-443-2671) us back a copy of the completed form. We charge $10 - $15 per publication quality image (300 dpi or higher TIFF or JPEG) plus shipping costs, if applicable. We accept American Express, Discover, Mastercard, Visa, personal checks and money orders drawn on US funds. Normal turnaround time for orders is 3 - 6 weeks. Please note that these reproductions are for research purposes only. If you intend to publish images or transcriptions of this material, please contact us as there may be separate forms/fees involved.

You are welcome to visit to review the collection in our Reading Room. Information about visiting is available on our website at https://library.syr.edu/scrc/visit/index.php. We recommend scheduling your visit at least 2 weeks in advance so we can add you to our calendar and ensure your requested materials are available for your use. If you cannot visit our facility in person, we can provide you with contact information for fee-based independent researchers in the area who might be available to conduct research and take research quality digital photographs of the material on your behalf.

We have noted your interest in the Monthly Letter and have added them to our list for consideration for future digitization as part of our ongoing systematic digitization program.

I can certainly pass your contact information on to our curatorial and acquisitions team regarding your interest in donating materials to our collection.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any other questions.

Nicole Westerdahl
Reference and Access Services Librarian
Special Collections Research Center | Syracuse University Libraries

Hello, all. Thank you for creating a new thread and keeping this going. Yes, I’ve been away, time limited, and working too many hours so taht I only have the weekends to relax. However, I see that one member has contacted me about access to Google Drive, which I shall tend to immediately. I have so many ML, from years of picking up on Ebay, alas they are in storage in Copenhagen. My aim was to scan them in higher resolution including the Announcement Cards but will have to wait some time, when I finally have them shipped over.

We will keep on doing our best.

>6 BionicJim:

Before any money is spent, please request which MLs you desire--I'm fairly certain that amongst all our members there must be some who can help fill in gaps. Members here have always been very generous in this regard.

Faisel, I have some vacation time coming up and would be happy to retrieve them from Copenhagen for you. Just send the round-trip ticket to my address....

Tonight I went through a batch of surplus MLs I have, and comparing it to the contents of the Google Drive, I have the following MLs which are not there, but which I will scan next week and add to the ML Upload folder:

The Journals of Lewis & Clark(1962), Poems of Heinrich Heine(1957), The Spy(1963), The Warden(1956), Tales of de Maupassant(1963), The Koran(1958), Andersen's Fairy Tales(1942), Nana(1948), The Aeneid(1944), Poems of E.A. Poe(1943, Paul Bunyan(1945), The Rights of Man(1961), The Conquest of New Spain(1942), and an interesting ML about not a single book, but a bunch of Files on Parade--Letter #65, October 1934

Again, I encourage anyone looking for a particular ML to post here. I have quite a few in my books, but I'm not going through every volume to see which has a letter unless there is a specific request for one not already in the drive.

Which are we missing? I know which ones I own and could upload.

Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but is there a link to the Google drive folder that I have overlooked on the site somewhere? I'd love to be able to browse the letters available there, particularly if any of the following letters are available: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; The Mysterious Island; The French Revolution; Notre Dame de Paris (1955); Kidnapped.

I know the letters include details and background about the productions, which I'd like to use to inform the book blog and video series that I maintain.

PM me, I am the keeper of the letters

Iron jaw - how do I PM you? I can’t find a messaging link.

Hi, if you click my name in this post and browse down the page you can see that there you can post a message

Every reader of this forum owes an immense debt of gratitude to Faisel (ironjaw) for the tremendous act of generosity he has performed in making this source available to us.

And also to Steve Johnson for the incredible mount of work in compiling the Limited Editions Club/HP spreadsheet, which is the best guide today I've seen for collectors of these books.

16) Hear hear!

>16 Django6924: I second that!

>16 Django6924: Absolutely!

has anyone found and experimented with printing ML's with acid free printer paper? I have a regular offset laser and was wondering if I could find appropriate printer paper and that the ink would not transfer to the LEC paper? I'm in Canada.

Or does anyone else have another system (ML's stored/bound separately)?

>20 EclecticIndulgence: Neenah makes their Southworth line of acid-free papers from cotton. I've used Southworth Private Stock Laid in several of my digital printing projects with excellent results. It is 25% cotton, acid and lignin free and comes in either White or Ivory. I prefer the latter. They offer a 100% cotton paper as well, but as I am not personally familiar with it, I cannot speak to its performance, although it should be equally excellent.

The laser toner should not transfer to the book paper under normal conditions. To be absolutely certain, you might consider enclosing your laser-printed MLs w/in blank sheets or wrapping a sheet around the folded ML. You get the idea.

There is a folder for Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the drive but it is empty (1951). Does anyone have it?

Hi everyone. I'm a bit of a newbie here, but I have added scans of The Journal of a Trip to the Hebrides and The Mysterious Island, along with a new PDF version of Kenilworth> to the ML Upload folder.

Does anyone happen to have a copy of the ML for either of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or The French Revolution?

>23 ubiquitousuk:

My copies of both titles are my original Heritage Club purchases.

>16 Django6924:

Robert, and everyone, thank you so much for the kind words. It's just a small thing, and although I do not frequent these boards like I used to, it fills me with great pleasure to see other like-minded members enjoying these wonderful books and craftsmanship from a long-gone era. I have always had a special place for Macy's creation and sometimes I think back to what 1929 was like and what he was up against with the dire economic conditions that are so real today. I would not know how to handle a life without LEC to be honest. They are immensely cherished in my collection because I just adore not only the books, but the Monthly Letters so much.

I can only thank Robert for introducing these books to me.

>16 Django6924: >25 ironjaw: I agree and extend my gratitude to Faisel as well. Evemn though I don't have the LEC editions for most of the books, my plan is to print them out and keep them handy with the editions that I own.

>22 laotzu225: I have recently purchased the Sherlock Holmes set and happy to scan and upload them next week, once the books and the letters arrive.

>26 venkysuniverse: Please do. I'm not sure if "The Final Adventures" came with an ML since it apparently was issued the month after "The Later Adventures" in 1952.
I have just purchased the "set", that is the Adventures, The Later... and the Final..., all of which came out separately but from three different sellers. I thought I was pretty smart in this; anyone selling the entire collection was asking for a lot more money. Then I got a message from ABE, after two were confirmed, that the third purchase fell through, apparently sold already. Fortunately I found another seller at similar price and quality. However none of these come with the Monthly Letter.
I only recently learned that George Macy was "investitured" into the invitation-only Baker Street Irregulars in 1951 as a result of this project. As a BSI myself, I was thinking of doing an article or talk for a Sherlockian group on Macy. The Monthly Letters would help immensely.

I believe ML 231 covers both the Later Adventures and the Final Adventures. Earlier, ML 215 covered the Adventures. Enjoy your sets!

I just checked, and I have clear photographs of ML 231, which I took before I sold my sets (I replaced the LECs with the Folios). How do I access/upload them to the Google Drive?

>29 NYCFaddict: You'll need to PM ironjaw for details.

>29 NYCFaddict: Good thing to do! Also thanks for confirming that ML 231 covers both later sets.
As I mentioned before, there was apparently a spot in the Drive for the 1951 ML, which you refer to as ML 215. But it is now empty.

>27 laotzu225: Till NYCFaddict uploads the well scanned ones on ironjaw's google drive, I clicked pics of my copy and converted to pdfs (post some cleanups). Hopefully it will help you with your article/talk. I will PM you the google drive link.

>32 venkysuniverse: Thank you, Venkat. These MLs will be very helpful and I can already see that G. Macy took up every millimeter of space in these MLs to tell his story. Once these are up in the Google drive, all members can read these entertaining and illuminating essays.
Although, as a long time Sherlockian, I have several annotated versions of the SH stories and a lot of other reference material, I never until recently had an interest in the LEC set. I considered it a fine printing of the Canon and that was all. Only recently did i realize the effort which went into making sure the best texts were used and that there were a number of essays by the leading Sherlockians of the time (of all time, in fact) interpolated. I had an e-mail exchange with the editor of The Baker Street Journal in which he informed me that the LEC texts were the authority for any canonical quotations appearing in the BSJ. And then there were the exclusive Steele illustrations done for the set along with reproductions of some of the other great artwork. So, I came to belatedly realize how important this publication project really was.
So I definitely intend to bring Macy's contribution to the attention of today's Sherlockian community.

>33 laotzu225: No worries, glad to be of help. there is more information in the 'The History of the LEC' book, which is currently on sale at Oak Knoll (incase you already don't have a copy).
I agree on the historical importance of the set, which drove me to order a copy (with expensive shipping) from the Us to the UK. Currently struggling with the fine dust on the bookset and its associated smell. This forum provides lot of info on how to deal with both. However unable to find one of the solution I had read previously.It was suggested by someone that a company sells some kind of 'balls' or circular items which can be placed alongwith the books in a ziplock bag, to neutralise the smell. Hope someone can help with the name of the company/product as scared to use other options on the Sherlock set.

Good morning, everyone. We have now 71 members in our Google Drive LEC Monthly Letters. I've had a recent request from someone with an email address from an accounting firm. They did not contact me via PM so if you're reading this, please PM me and we can sort this out.

I have not allowed it and know from personal experience that they will not allow their email domains for this kind of service. I would like to raise everyone's attention that this resource is for educational purposes and private use only and is meant as a backup of the physical hardcopy that we already have in our possession and in our library. So please use personal emails and not work emails to access these resources, not only for your interest but mine as well.

Thanks

I'd like to second Faisel (>35 ironjaw:) on this. It is only a resource for the members of this group as a backup our personally-owned documents.

Originally I believe one had to be a member of this group for a certain period of time and had to have their own copies of Monthly Letters to add to the collection to be permitted access.

I was hoping to add The Spy to the Google Drive. I uploaded it to My Drive but I don't believe I have the ability to add it to the LEC ML Upload or LEC Monthly Letters sites. Is this something an administrator would do?

I need to see what the Sandglass looks like on the New York Heritage Press Frankenstein. I just bought the book but it doesn't have the sandglass. Someone is offering to sell me their Frankenstein sandglass but I want to make sure the Sandglass doesn't change from edition to edition. Or maybe all Frankenstein Sandglass' are the same? The link below is what my Frankenstein looks like. Maybe this will help me find the correct Sandglass. Thanks!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WbHKwMqfn1vqOAHR8NyGXJjkm0GOLgZL/view?usp=shari...

>38 RickFlair:

The correct Sandglass identifier for the New York HP Frankenstein is V:18, indicating that it was the fifth book (Roman numeral V) issued in the Heritage Press' 18th series.

Thank you. And I have never seen a Frankenstein with the light brown / tan slipcase as I posted in the picture above. Does anyone have more information on that Frankenstein?

>40 RickFlair:

My slipcase is purplish to match the design on the cover of the book (as noted in the Sandglass) with a pebbly texture.

Anyone able to add Dracula ML and/or Sandglass to the Drive? I just finished reading the Heritage version and it is really a premium book. It’s always my pleasure to read the publisher notes on these so I hope someone has a chance to add it.

>42 BionicJim: I have the ML. It will take a couple of days before I am able to upload it.

>37 johnbean9: Hi John, please double check if you can add it to the LEC ML Upload folder. If not, PM me private and send me your email and I will double check your permissions.

>43 BuzzBuzzard: Thanks for taking a bite out of your time to upload this. If it’s not too much trouble, can anyone post The Beggar’s Opera ML? The one in the drive is of a different book - Threepenny Opera.

>45 BionicJim: Thank you for your patience! The ML for Dracula is now in the upload folder.

I just posted to the Upload Folder The LEC Nostromo ML

Anyone have Beggar’s Opera to post?

I do have Beggar's Opera and can look into scanning it. I don't think I have posting privileges, though.

>47 BionicJim:

Sadly, both my copies are lacking the ML.

Well! As a long time beneficiary of the group and the copies of letters on the Drive, I can finally be of service. I have the ML. If someone can guide me to get it to a moderator with uploading access, I'll scan it and send it along.

>50 laotzu225: I may be wrong, but if you have access to the drive, you have add privileges to the folder called LEC ML UPLOAD. Simply drag your pdf scan of the ML there.

Thanks!

>51 BionicJim: I think I've done it but someone will have to check if I've been successful and then it will have to be integrated into the list.

>52 laotzu225: Sorry, but I’m not seeing a new file for Beggar’s Opera in the drive. Feel free to PM me if you would like additional help.

Hello everyone. I hope all of you are staying safe and are looking forward to a pleasant holiday season and new year. This is an annual reminder to everyone to take a full copy of the folder for private backup - copy it to your desktop, an external hard drive, burn it to a DVD or to a usb thumb drive. What ever suits your need.

>54 ironjaw: Great recommendation! Although I hope this resource can stay on Google Drive forever, it's worth having a local copy in case of changes. When adding to the upload folder do you prefer that we simply add the .pdf with the name of the document?

>52 laotzu225: Thanks to laotzu225 for providing the ML to The Beggar's Opera, which is now posted to the ML Upload folder. This one provides wonderful information on the unique typeface used to hand-set this book; eight pages at a time! Like usual, I now have a new appreciation.

I don't suppose anyone has the ML for 1938's Kidnapped?

There is another thread on our group I started called "Monthly Letter Inquiry" which lists books i have (without MLs) for which there are also none on the Google Drive. While I would benefit from having an ML copy, I'm mentioning it in this additional thread to try to fill in the gaps of this resource for us all. I update my original post on that thread whenever I become aware of a new ML or when I get another LEC for which there isn't one.

How does one access the Monthly Letters on Google Drive now?
The link I had no longer works.

>58 wcarter: I don't know if I have permissions to do that...I'd PM ironjaw.