Edwina Penge

Title page of the manuscript which reads 'Beschrijvinghe ende onderwijsinghe ter discreter ende vermaerder consten des boeckbinders handwerck, hier inne te sien ende te lesen hoemen de boecken op alderhande manieren binden ende maecken sal.'

Dutch cover of the book in parchment painted in red and part of it in white sheep leather that has been blind tooled.

Detail of the edges of the manuscript painted in red and green respectively.

French cover of the book in parchment painted in green and part of it in white sheep leather that has been blind tooled.

This manuscript by Anselmus Faust, dated 1612, is the oldest surviving European manual on bookbinding. Written in Latin & Dutch, it was created for the St Bernard's Abbey near Antwerp.

What makes it especially unique is its rare dos à dos binding: 2 books bound back-to-back, sharing a single spine.

A copy of Alice in Wonderland labeled “first edition.” It is not a first edition of Alice in Wonderland

Rewatching Columbo and just got to the conveniently labeled “first edition” of Alice in Wonderland.

Lady Bindloss Buys Some Books (1676) Of the various kinds of documents that provide evidence of book ownership in the early modern period, purchase records are among the scarcest survivals: most booklists take the form of wills, inven…

Fantastic post on the blog today by Joe Black, who discusses Lady Bindloss's booklist--evidence of what books she bought, how she ordered them from London, and even how she shelved them by color earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2025/08/20/l... #EarlyModern #HerBook

A high decorative gold tooled binding with a Madonna and Child in the centre.

A nice binding on this book printed in Seville, 1587. Rel.e.58.4 @theulspeccoll.bsky.social

Ireland's Oldest Book Shrine Makes Its Museum Debut | Artnet News After a 39-year conservation process, the Lough Kinale Book Shrine is on view at the National Museum of Ireland.

When You Love Something, Hide It Underwater?

Ireland’s Oldest Book Shrine, Found Buried in a Lake, Reemerges share.google/SwLDzqhgDTMd...

Medieval Love Debate at Longleat The Belle dame sans mercy in Longleat House Manuscript (MS) 258

Online exhibition link 👇

Project shines new light on famous medieval poem at Longleat House - University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham and Longleat House have collaborated on a new project re-examining the famous medieval poem, La Belle Dame sans Mercy.

Delighted to see Longleat library's project with Birmingham Uni announced. Rewarding work producing the digitised MS and collaborating with Liv to create physical & online exhibitions for general audiences. Longleat MS 258 is fascinating - do explore the online content or come visit us!

Text of a ledger describing the client as 'Dierick van Helmont, libraire a Middelborch, par sa fille Janne‘

Yet another example of daughters‘ essential roles in bookselling families: In 1581-2, Middelburg bookseller Dierick van Helmondt repeatedly sent his daughter Janne to buy books from Plantin in Antwerp and settle his accounts (his son worked in the business too) (Museum Plantin-Moretus Arch. 60 f. 2)

Photo of a document with the phrase “Wynkyn de Worse” in the center; this is a typo of Wynkyn de Worde, which appears correctly below

I dunno, I didn’t think he was that bad

Poster on arsenic and light

For those who have not seen it, researchers at the University of St Andrews are testing a device that can identify through light the presence of arsenic in old books:

news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/new-...

The research poster is a great recap:
@uniofstandrews.bsky.social @universalstc.bsky.social

A close-up of a page (from a 17c book) printed in italic type highlighting four ampersands of varying design in close proximity to each other. 222050 • Folger Shakespeare Library

four. different. ampersands. !!!!

& they all illustrate the origin of the ampersand in the ligature of the latin conjunction “et” (“and”).

222050 • @folger.edu

Did you study or work at CLW, DILS or DIS in Aberystwyth, any time from 1964 onwards? Help us celebrate 60 years with our reminiscence project, gathering memories and memorabilia. See libraryschool.aber.ac.uk to find out more. We’d love to hear from you.

Start the week with a dose of National Trust library history. The Book Collector's summer issue has a piece on the wonderful library at Springhill.

ESTC is back online in a new beta version hosted by CERL: datb.cerl.org/estc/ #RareBooks #BookHistory #Skystorians #GLAM 📚📜

Detail from Grylls 2.195 showing the heads of two woodcut figures labelled 'Aquilo Vel Boreas' and 'Cecias Apeliotes' respectively. They surround one corner of Ptolemy's world map.

1482 world map, printed using a woodcut block, and coloured by hand.

What better way to celebrate #EarthDay than with a hand-coloured incunable? 🌎

This is Ptolemy's 'Cosmographia', from 1482, which features 32 early examples of printed maps!

Shelfmark: Grylls 2.195
lib-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Record/90ed3...

The big house and the book-collecting game: notes on a partial twentieth-century library dispersal | Library & Information History The big house library in Ireland was on a precarious footing in the early twentieth century. Successive sales assisted the demise, or diminishment, of the houses’ book collections. Libraries were ofte...

Interested in big house libraries? My article about the library at the National Trust's Springhill is out now: www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/lih.2025.0189 Many thanks to LIH's editors Nadine Kozak & @jilld17.bsky.social.

The end of a printed book in which the word FINIS has been printed FINSI with the letters somewhat crooked.

It's that Friday feeling.

Call for Papers: ‘Built with books: shaping the shelves of the early modern library’
Deadline 16th May 2025
9 –10 September 2025 at UCL, London

Phtotograph of Bodleian Benefactors' Register, open and showing gifts of Robert Barker and William Ballow, in italic print and manuscript on parchment.

For anyone interested in the early Bodleian Library or early modern book owners, the Shaping Scholarship project at CELL, UCL has made the project data available: ebdo.org.uk/data/ It details every officially recorded donation made c. 1600-1620, plus some extras, which is around 10,000 items.

'Noble Siennoise' plate from Mercuri's work. The depicted 14th century woman looks like she about to run.

Hurry! 🏃‍♀️ It's your last weekend to catch the display of costume books from the libraries at Longleat House. Image from Mercuri's Costumes historiques (Paris: Levy fils, 1860-1861). www.longleat.co.uk/whats-on/thr...

15th c. Italian woodcut of Jerome and lion, pointing at a frustrated scribe.

Just keep writing, just keep writing....

The first page of Matins, with an historiated initial showing the Annunciation and a full-page border with gold architectural ornaments and putti in front of a mountainous landscape.

Four missing leaves in the Mass of the Virgin result in two adjacent historiated iniatls. On the left, the Virgin and Child, on the right, King David

Peter with book and keys at the opening of Prime

A tiny, intensely illuminated Italian book of hours, newly acquired at the Boston Public Library. Copied in or around Brescia at the end of the 15th century, this book has never been in an institutional collection and will soon be digitized. Now BPL MS q Med.303 bpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S7...

Hand-coloured printed illustration of a rabbit, with Latin text.

Supercute. Conrad Gessner’s bunny, from his history of animals, the copy presented to @theul.bsky.social by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1574. N*.1.19(A) (1551) @theulspeccoll.bsky.social

Detail from [Gregor Reisch] AEPITOMA OMNIS PHYLOSOPHIAE ... (1504). Two men in a room with a book collection in the back. https://sammlungen.ulb.uni-muenster.de/hd/content/zoom/6045160

How to organize your books in true #earlymodern style by following 3 simple steps. Here is an advice from 1504:

Step 1: lay them on top of each other.

Step 2: book spines facing up.

Step 3: Have a few boxes within your book collection.

#bookhistory #skystorians

‘Redublique’ [sic]

Program of the workshop "Turning Page(s): Nee Horizons in Book and Library History", Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Institute, December 6th 2024

📢 The program for our upcoming workshop "Turning Page(s)" is now available! Join us on December 6th at the Arnamagnæan Institute or online via Zoom (link in the first rwply) for a full day of insightful talks on the history of books, libraries, and more.
Register now! #BookHistory #LibraryHistory

Title page of 17th century German book on the legal status of women. The title page text is printed in red and black, and is in Latin.

My notes in a ruler notebook, after collating the book. The collation statement takes up 2 lines, separated by some notes and the pagination statement. The pagination statement runs almost an entire line.

A signature mark that says “T • • Z”. I have never encountered such a thing.

Another odd signature mark. This one is in a German blackletter typeface, and reads “Ll ll — Zz zz”.

*twitch* I’ve honestly never seen some of the ways this printer is designating signatures.

The Holy Bible (London: 1630) Image by Dr. Tara Lyons with permission of Reader’s Books, Petworth, UK. This 1630 English Bible has an array of evidence of women’s book ownership. At the top of the front cover’…

Today on our blog on early female book ownership: a post by @tarallyons.bsky.social on a lovely bible with names of early modern women, a gift inscription, and a recipe https://buff.ly/3YPkiQ7 #EarlyModern #HerBook

Facsimile | Shaw, Henry | V&A Explore The Collections

And so VAM didn't collect any late medieval English illumination (with very few exceptions) bc they had things like this. (The two following drawings may be French, as Shaw claims, but this border isn't!)

Four similarly sized bindings, in yellow, green, blue, and red silk from left to right, all with intricate designs in metal filament and sequins

Need Some Color Today?

You're welcome! Silk and bonus sequins courtesy of 18th c. Barcelona Opera libretto fashion, lovingly collected by Howard Mayer Brown and now at #NewberryLibrary!