Look at this lovely 15th century manicula!
As I was working through one of Archbishop William Scheves’ collected volumes of incunabula, I came across one of his wonderful manicula (or fist, or… Read More »Look at this lovely 15th century manicula!
Rare Book finds
Albert Robida’s Le Vingtième siècle
While preparing material for an upcoming session of the Honours course “Print Culture in Britain, 1750-1900”, taught by Aileen Fyfe, our Rare Books Librarian, Elizabeth… Read More »Albert Robida’s Le Vingtième siècle
The mystery of Ben Jonson’s 2nd Folio
In 1616 Ben Jonson gathered a collection of poems, plays and other works that would be published as a collected volume of Works. Jonson worked… Read More »The mystery of Ben Jonson’s 2nd Folio
Update: Rare 17th century heraldic playing cards from Edinburgh
Original post from 29 June 2011 We were contacted by members of the Scottish media shortly following an early post on this blog on a… Read More »Update: Rare 17th century heraldic playing cards from Edinburgh
Code breaking and Sir Walter Raleigh
Last winter I came across a copy of the first edition of Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the world. This book was published after Raleigh’s… Read More »Code breaking and Sir Walter Raleigh
Need help with your summer gardening or planning a home-brew?
Recently catalogued TypBL.B96EH is a volume of 11 tracts on gardening and animal husbandry dated 1578-1599. Many of these tracts include some very beautiful and… Read More »Need help with your summer gardening or planning a home-brew?
52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings: Week 4
On the trail of the elusive John Murray This weeks fantastic binding is included in this longer post about the search for an unknown former… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings: Week 4
Rare 17th century heraldic playing cards from Edinburgh
To see an update on these cards, view this post from 1 August 2011. I recently catalogued a very interesting set of playing cards from… Read More »Rare 17th century heraldic playing cards from Edinburgh
A contemporary cure for the plague
Finding marginalia and other inscriptions in our early collections is so common that we often take it for granted. However, sometimes something really spectacular pops… Read More »A contemporary cure for the plague
52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings: Week 1
Having been inspired by a recent conference in Oxford (9 June 2011) entitled “The place of bindings in book history and bibliography: resources and research”… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings: Week 1
Edinburgensia: A collection of over 60 17th-19th century items in one volume
Bound-with volumes, or analytical volumes, are often the bane of a cataloguer’s existence and are sometimes the last items to come off of a shelf… Read More »Edinburgensia: A collection of over 60 17th-19th century items in one volume
Rare edition of “A cloud of witnesses” with eerie frontispiece
The anonymous “Cloud of witnesses” (St Andrews item TypBE.D14XX) came up recently while working through the Edinburgh section of the Typographical Collection. This is the… Read More »Rare edition of “A cloud of witnesses” with eerie frontispiece
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