This week, we can share some great news – we have a new editor! Many of you will already know David Pearson, who has spent the last 40 or more years enjoying the rare book world, with 35 years working in various major research libraries in the UK. He started his career in Durham, and went on to the...
This week Silke Lohmann caught up with Sarah Griffin, curator at Lambeth Palace Library, to discuss her latest exhibition featuring a precious collection of rare medieval folding almanacs.
Unfolding Time is your latest exhibition, introducing us to the fascinating medieval pocket calendar. Many...
This month we have been talking to two young booksellers Rebekah Cron and Mark Baczoni, who founded Fold the Corner Books. We discuss their processes for working on their catalogues, combining both old and new.
1. Rebekah and Mark, you recently started Fold the Corner Books and have published...
It is with great sadness that we have to let you know that our much-loved editor, James Fleming, passed away last week after a sudden illness.
James took onThe Book Collectoras proprietor in 2016 and later editor in 2018, returning the publication to the Fleming fold. He loved his work and the...
How was the fair for you? Well, book collecting can be a solitary affair: our partners may think that shelves exist for other purposes. But here everyone is on our one and only wave length. There are no spouses loitering by doorways hoping to escape, or refugees from the weather. No, at book fairs...
David Kotthoff is a collector of all things Charles Bukowski and will be selling part of his collection in Bellmans' rare book auction in December. He first came across Bukowski in Germany where he was brought up, but he then travelled the world and now lives mainly in Malaysia.
‘The day that I...
Silke Lohmann speaks with Leo Cadogan about their latest catalogue, Treasures.
1. Your latest catalogue, beautifully designed by the way, covers ten treasures from 1480 to 1700. What's your personal favourite?
I probably have two favourites at the moment. One is a 16th-century lawbook that an...
Peter Harrington's specialists Sammy Jay and Dr Philip W. Errington have chosen Keats's words as the title for their latest catalogue A Thing of Beauty – celebrating the art and craft of beautiful book production and exceptional private press works.
The catalogue includes several Kelmscott Press...
'I came into bookselling through a route taken by many specialist dealers, approaching from knowledge of my subject rather than experience of the trade. In my youth I wanted to be an urban designer, and studied town planning at university. I was doing academic research when I met Peter Inch. We...
By the time Bligh returned a year later, having finally brought the breadfruit to the West Indies, the tide was out. Rather than great public acclaim and a grand official account of his success, he was reduced to conducting a small and strangely ineffective pamphlet war with Christian’s brother,...