Simon Beattie

Printed dust-jackets. From 1835!

Double bill advertising a London performance by the American actress Charlotte Cushman (and her sister) in 1847.

My Christmas cactus is getting a bit ahead of itself.

The compiler was someone called Faina Vladimirovna Germansheva. Born 1922, apparently. It's quite a nice little book, actually, fully illustrated. 700 copies printed.

I have an little catalogue of the incunables in Saratov University Library (they only had ten) from 1970 compiled by a woman. Too late for you?

Preparing for the Boston book fair.

A bookplate in the shape of a shield. It has three bat wings in the middle, with a small lion above. At the top is another bat wing with black spots on it. The phrase 'nocte volamus' is at the bottom.

🦇 Nocte Volamus = We Fly by Night 🦇

The best motto to have around #Halloween time for your heraldic bookplate. This particular bookplate comes from our Charles Hall Crouch collection of heraldic bookplates, which encompasses around 30-40,000 bookplates in 73 boxes!

Out now: simonbeattie.co.uk/wp-content/u...

A costumes with lots of different tails? Tails of Hoffmann.

The acer's acing it again this year.

With One's Thoughts

For #WorldMentalHealthDay, I offer 'With one's thoughts', a poem by Anna Akhmatova I had translated which I then set to music in 2021, summing up various thoughts and feelings I had during lockdown. open.spotify.com/track/70Qs65...

Very different kind of 18th-century bindings from yesterday's photo, but I still love them.

Who doesn't like a bit of 18th-century bling?

LHR was once described as a shopping mall with runways attached, which is a pretty fair description.

A sermon preached on St Cecilia’s Day in 1713, ‘this being the Day which Custom has Devoted to celebrate the Decency of Cathedral Service, to set forth its Usefulness, to convince the Gainsayer, to remove the Prejudices of the Ignorant, and the Cavils of the Malicious.’

A late 18th-century engraved label on the benefits of methodical reading.

Simon Beattie, London Choral Sinfonia, Michael Waldron - The World to Me: The Music of Simon Beattie Listen to The World to Me: The Music of Simon Beattie by Simon Beattie, London Choral Sinfonia, Michael Waldron.

Happy Album Release Day! orchid-music.lnk.to/theworldtome

Pre-orders for my album are now being taken: orchid-music.lnk.to/theworldtome Thanks!

For #InternationalTranslationDay, two of my translations along with their respective first editions (from 1934 and 1950). I loved working on both of these.

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Joining the dots - 200 years of Braille Music The story of Braille music and its impact on blind musicians over the last 200 years.

"2025 marks 200 years since Louis Braille invented his revolutionary 6-dot tactile writing system for blind people. Braille was also an organist, and went on to adapt his system into Braille Music, allowing blind musicians to access and study scores like never before." www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Release date is this Friday. www.facebook.com/share/r/1Cq3...

It may not look much, I know, but this seems very early for a book on music therapy.

Far from shiny. In fact, a very unglamorous binding overall. But a nice example of late 18th-century sheep on a simple Scottish pocket psalter.

Shiny.

Yes, why is that? Presumably French chefs don't use it in their cooking, so why is it so prevalent? One can get fresh milk more easily abroad now, thankfully. At least, at larger supermarkets.

Unused sheet from a contemporary Belgian partbook used an endpapers in a 1558 edition of Luther’s works. Currently on display in the ‘Sing Joyfully’ exhibition at Lambeth Palace Library.

Nice bit of tooling.

We once went by coach all the way from Devon. DO NOT DO THIS.

Have a great time. I remember a similar trip with Exeter Cathedral Choir back in the 90s: English Church in Zurich, Lugano Cathedral, and over the Italian border in Pallanza.

#WordsAndMusic