As a modest start for my own edification, I set aside every copy of the New York Times from September 12 through September 25, 2001, fourteen days in which every edition featured a banner headline across page 1, not a record for the newspaper in wartime, I later learned from the newspaper’s archivist – that would be a seemingly unsurpassable 141 consecutive issues, from December 21, 1944, through May 10, 1945, during World War II – but an extraordinary passage in recent American history nevertheless. The record for consecutive banner headlines in peactime, I also learned from that telephone call – and I have saved all of them as well – is November 8 through November 27, 2000, twenty issues altogether, which followed the surreal process of deciding who would be the forty-third president of the United States.
– Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century, by Nicholas A. Basbanes
As a lover of the New York Times (and newspapers in general) I find this truly interesting. I have many of these papers saved too, but not as complete as you have done. Space is an issue at times, and sorting and winnowing down is required.
I have found your posts on obit word counts also interesting. I hope that you will find other tidbits of this sort and share.
Thanks again.
Thanks but it’s not me who saved them… it’s the author of the quote.