Eureka Books Blog

Humboldt's Children's Book Authors

Shelf Awareness, the daily free email blast for the publishing world, ran this photo of Humboldt's finest children's book authors - Natasha Wing, Mary Nethery, and Barbara Kerley. Shelf Awareness even gave Eureka Books credit for publishing the books. That's a job we'd love to hold (if we knew anything about publishing), but Natasha, Mary, and Barbara are actually published by real New York publishing houses. What Shelf Awareness meant to say was that Eureka Books supplied the books sold at a recent event to benefit the Fortuna Friends of the Library.

On a related front, we also donated a gift certificate to the Trinidad Friends of the Library as a prize in their adult spelling bee, to be held as a fund-raiser on March 28. As an indication of the rather sad financing for the library system, this fundraiser generates the money needed to pay the utility bill at the Trinidad branch libary. Call (707) 677-0227 for details on the spelling contest.

Vintage A.W. Ericson Prints

Pardon my Internet slang, but OMG!

We just acquired four vintage A.W. Ericson albumen photographs dating from the 1890s, each with a handwritten caption. Two of the image are iconic Humboldt County pictures, which have been reproduced endlessly, but very few originals survive. These are behind the desk - they just arrived on Friday afternoon and I didn't have time to get them ready for display - and are priced from $400 to $750.

Here's a sampling (click for a slightly larger view):

Lighthouse Photo Post Card

We just acquired a great real photo post card of a California lighthouse. The lighthouse is New Point Loma, in San Diego. The note on the back mentions "the new fog signal under construction." This refers to the small cinder-block building in the foreground, where a loud horn was being installed. The picture above of the front of the card accidentally cuts off the top of the lighthouse. The condition of the card is very good, with a few creases at the corners.

There's a local hook, too. This 1913 post card is addressed to a Mrs. M. Cady, care of the Lighthouse at Capetown (Cape Mendocino). The card refers to "Alice & Babe," presumably an Alice Cady and her mother Mrs. M "Babe" Cady, but we haven't positively identified them. There are still many Cadys living in the area.

The price is $40.