- The Antarctic Sun (page 7) is published during the Southern Hemisphere summer at McMurdo Station – where today it was warmer than in Minnesota! Numerous stamps, envelopes, and other postal materials as well as extensive history of Antarctic exploration can be found at South-Pole.com – much Arctic material is there as well. The American Society of Polar Philatelists is located at the same web site. Michael de Jong's Polar Philately site has similar information, including over 100 polar post office photographs. The National Sciences Foundation philately web site listed in the sidebar at the end of the article has a new address. Wondering where the term "philately" comes from? According to the journal Philotelia, the word was coined in 1864 from the Greek words philos (friend) and ateleia (exemption from paying a tax) – rather an odd choice, as the article explains. Before that time stamp collecting was called timbrology, and the editor of Philotelia made an eloquent but unsuccessful plea in this 1924 article for changing "philately" to "philotely", which would use the Greek word telos (tax) and thus be more accurate.
- The Envelope Mill: Recycle Magazines and Other Paper Products into Beautifully Crafted Envelopes by Haila Harvey (page 11) is apparently out of print, but can often be found at used book sites, or on Half.com, although the price is usually well above the list price. If you find it for near its list price let us know and we'll pass the information on. You can also check WorldCat Libraries for a library near you that has it in its collection.
- The book Letterwriting in Renaissance England by Alan Stewart and Heather Wolfe (see the article on page 20) is available from the Folger Museum Shop, part of The Folger Shakespeare Library, administered by Amherst College. The Library also runs The Folger Institute, a research organization, The Folger Theatre, sponsors musical concerts from The Folger Consort, and presents lectures, radio shows, and other educational programs. It contains the world's largest Shakespeare collection. A fuller description of the letters of the Earl of Leicester to Elizabeth, including a photo of a portion of a letter, can be seen at the Folger web site. A larger portion (including the eyebrows, on Image 5) are in a gallery linked to a story on NPR about the exhibit. Donna Halford of Texas A&M University has written an article on Angel Day's The English Secretorie: Wherein is contayned, a perfect method, for the inditing of all manners of epistles; Dr. Webster Newbold of Ball State University has written a more extensive academic paper on the same book. The marchants avizo verie necessarie for their sonnes and seruants, when they first send them beyond the seas, as to Spayne and Portingale or other countreyes is available at some university libraries; WorldCat will show where.
- Volumes 1 and 2 of Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (see page 22) are available for on-line reading or downloading from The Gutenberg Project. Also available are Volumes 1 and 2 of More Letters of Charles Darwin, also edited by his son Francis. Darwin's home, Down House, is now a historical site administered by English Heritage; the historically-furnished rooms include his study containing his writing desk. His elaboration of Pangenesis can be found in the Gutenberg online text of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication Volume 2. The Einstein Archives Online contains many personal writings of Einstein, including letters, as well as some photographs of his writing. A review of the Nature article appeared in New Scientist; another from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation includes some daily statistics on Darwin's and Einstein's letter activity. Rebuttals of the Nature study, claiming that the "bursty" pattern found in the letters (and in modern e-mail as well) is an artificial result of the analysis methodology, can be found in academic journals as well as online student blogs.
- Here's a photo of the antique desk mentioned in From the Editor on page 29.
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