This week Silke Lohmann spoke with Bernard Shapero of Shapero Rare Books, about the upcoming catalogue 'The Pelster Collection' of approximately 50 illustrated books on birds, specifically parrots, including highlights such as Edward Lear's 'Illustrations of the family of Psittacidae, or parrots' published in 1832 with an asking price of £135,000....
News, Features & Interviews
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Interview
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Interview
Technicolour Dickens: The Living Image of Charles Dickens just opened at Dimbola House on the Isle of Wight and will be open until the 19th May. The exhibition presents Dickens' story through the medium of Victorian photography, with each image brought to life in full technicolour. Originally commissioned for the 150th anniversary of his death in...
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News Story
By now, all of our readers will be aware that the British Library was attacked by cybercriminals in late October 2023, and that at the time of writing (early December), almost no online or electronic services have been restored. The BL catalogue is inaccessible online or on-site, as is ESTC, both essential tools for scholars, booksellers and...
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News Story
The last few years have been rather tumultuous in UK politics. A far too regular change of prime ministers culminating in recent resignations and even the brief arrest of the former First Minister of Scotland. But the UK is not the only country where politics seems to have gone a little off-piste and the public seems to be more interested in the...
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News Story
The 13th April 2023 marks the 70th anniversary of the first 007 novel. Casino Royale started it all when it was published on this day in 1953. It was the daddy of them all, Ian Fleming wrote another eleven novels and two short story collections with James Bond as its hero who gained new heights of stardom when the first movie hit the cinemas in...
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News Story
Last week, London Art Week organised a talk as part of its Art History in Focus series about the Kelmscott Chaucer, Press and Manor with Dr Philip Errington of Peter Harrington's in conversation with Martin Levy, who was instrumental in fundraising the recent renovations of Kelmscott Manor. It is now available on here >
It reminded us how...
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Interview
As the follow up to Peter Harrington's first women's catalogue, Louder Than Words is really a celebration of achievements by women in all fields. It is difficult to pick out favourites or the 'most important', because in their way they are all important. So we reached out to catalogue creators, Emma Walshe and Theodora Robinson, to ask what they...
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News Story
The recent pandemic seems to have changed the way people think about book collections, so many having been forced to use internet platforms like Skype and Zoom for work. This is a trend that appears to be here to stay. Closely associated is the way people react to the bookcases, or appearance of bookcases, in the background. This is a subject that...
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Interview
This week, we talked to Bonny Beaumont about her recent Gothic catalogue for Maggs Bros. 'The Gothic Imagination' is a collection of Gothic and Romantic literature from the library of Richard Franklin, supplemented with recent additions to stock. The collection represents a broad understanding of the Gothic and reflects Franklin’s scholarly...
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News Story
At the beginning of this year we read a fascinating article in the Daily Telegraph about how a collector saved a rare Robert Burns book after spotting a barber using it to clean razors. We were relieved to read that this didn't happen 'the other day' but some time in the 1880s.
The book was rescued by John Murison, a 19th century collector of...