One can always expect some surprises when working through an incunabula collection, however this little find came of something of a surprise. Yesterday I pulled TypIM.A75SP off the shelf to be catalogued, and didn’t…
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…
Whilst recataloguing our copy of a 1473 Augsburg printing of a collection of works in German (including a translation of Pope Gregory I‘s Dialogorum libri quattuor, a German translation of Visio Tnugdali, and four…
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…
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 Henderson, pulled out a copy of this beautifully…
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.…
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 set of heraldic playing cards printed in Edinburgh in 1691. This post, and its…
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…
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 detailed woodcuts. The 1594 edition of Thomas Hill’s The…
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…