Search by category: rare book finds

Not a bad way to end a day

This very pretty book was the last book off my shelf today for cataloguing. Not a bad way to end a day, eh? This is the Library’s copy of Paolo Veneto‘s Expositio librorum naturalium Aristotelis, printed in Venice by…

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 index finger, or pointing hand). This volume is a collection of 15th…

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 very closely with the press to execute a uniform work in style and format.…

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 first expedition for El Dorado, and after he was arrested for suspected…

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 owner, we hope you enjoy! Towards the beginning of my work here at St Andrews…