250 years ago, during the voyage of HMB Endeavour, Captain James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to set foot on the eastern coast of Australia. Among them was the ship’s naturalist, twenty-seven year old Lincolnshire botanist Joseph Banks, who discovered some 1,300 previously unknown botanical species during this voyage – from Brazil...
News, Features & Interviews
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Want to know more about the history of the early printed Qur'an in the Muslim world?
Nick McBurney will be talking about this surprisingly under-explored subject next week, with Roxana Kashani (Bloomsbury Auctions) discussing the manuscript Qur'an, and Alex Day (Bernard Quaritch) on the Qur'an in the West.
You can join them for this virtual...
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Worldwide lockdowns have taken their toll on us all. So many freedoms that we had taken for granted, suddenly seem like distant memories. The pleasure of wandering into a library and browsing through the stacks is certainly a feeling we lament.
There is hope on the horizon, as June will see some of the social restrictions begin to ease in the...
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We are now in week nine of lockdown in the UK and a lot has happened during a time when our lives have been restricted so dramatically. The antiquarian book world seems to have got on with it and it has brought about some fantastic collaborations among dealers and some new ways to run book fairs and sell books around the world.
The pandemic may...
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This week's Podcast comes from our Spring issue of 1965, a first hand account of the life and times of one of America's greatest female collectors, Countess Carrie Estelle Doheny.
Mrs EL Doheny, a devout Roman Catholic, shared her fortune generously and lived a life of Christian service, ministering directly to the homeless and sick and weaving...
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Across the world museums, galleries and libraries are relying more than ever on social media and the internet to stay connected to their followers and share their work. This week one museum has received one of ‘the internet’s highest honour’ in recognition of the great work it is achieving through its social media accounts.
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This piece, as well as an extract coming in our Autumn 2020 issue, is dedicated to the memory of Madeline Kripke, ‘the doyenne of dictionaries’ who passed away on 25 April 2020 at the age of 76.
“What slang really does is show us at our most human” says Johnathon Green, aka ‘Mister Slang’, a scholar of slang for over 40 years.
Since the...
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The Book Collector was launched by Ian Fleming in 1952 at about the same time as he started working on his first James Bond novel. A new book is now giving some insightful information on Fleming and his biographer John Pearson - a book about writing a book.
Ian Fleming - The Notes by John Pearson refers to his notes while he was researching The...
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This week's podcast comes from our popular Polar issue of Autumn 2018. 'Scribes in Ice and Darkness' was written by Fergus Fleming, a renowned travel writer who has penned several books about polar exploration, including Ninety Degrees North, and Barrow's Boys.
This article looks at the Polar newspapers, the people behind them, and the... -
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In March 1789, a weekly journal edited by James Austen, The Loiterer, received a long letter criticising its lack of suitable and engaging content for women. The letter was signed by 'Sophia Sentiment', though the true identity of the writer has never been firmly established.
Our latest Podcast features an article from The Book Collector's ...