A 16th century German book bound in 19th century British Paisley cloth This one is a bit of a mystery. As I was re-shelving some books last week, the pattern of the fabric used to cover this book caught my eye. Image…
A book fit for a countess This little gem just came off the shelf a few days ago to be fully catalogued. This is one of the three dozen or so items found in the Perth section of the Typographical collection, and is…
Books donated to St Andrews by Thomas Hollis In the 1760’s, St Andrews received a series of small but important donations from one of the great English benefactors to 18th century libraries: Thomas Hollis (1720-1774).…
The mystery of Edward Gwynn Earlier this year the rare book community received a general call-to-arms request in regards to helping track down books owned by Edward Gwynn. Frank Mowery, of the Folger Shakespeare…
A gorgeous issue of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King illustrated by Gustave Doré While I was searching through the stacks last week, hot on the case of Albert Robida, I stumbled upon this beautiful, and…
Three 16th century portrait bindings This week’s post highlights the bindings of three 16th century books, two printed in Basel and the other printed in Leipzig. All three of these books share similar features of a…
Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s copy of the 1571 edition of Matthew Paris’s Flores historiarum Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948) was a fixture of St Andrews in the later years of his life, after he relocated…
John Duns Scotus’s Quaestiones in quatuor libros Sententiarum, printed by and bound for Anton Koberger Although small, St Andrews’ incunabula collection has a wealth of contemporary bindings. Because the majority of…
16th century half-binding, with pen- and ink-drawing of Saint Veronica This week’s volume is a testament to how durable some of our historic bindings are. TypGC.B21HL is the 1521 Cologne printing of Jacques Lefèvre…
Fragment of a 14th century Gospel manuscript found in 16th century German binding As I was searching through the stacks at our new storage facility I came across a beautifully tooled spine that I just had to pull off…