Spot the difference: John the Baptist from the Hours of Joanna I of Castile and our Community Engagement Officer remembering how many emails he has to respond to

We always love manuscript waste bindings, and here's a delightful little one: a 1533 edition of Jacopo Sadoleto's commentary on Psalm 51, bound in a contemporary choral vellum leaf blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Have you noticed that the History Room shelves are looking even more beautiful than usual? Our team of conservation volunteers have just completed the mammoth task of cleaning and condition checking every book in the Gladstone Foundation Collection! 1/3

One of our new favourite items in stock: an artist's proof copy of popular printmaker Graham Clarke's first hand-printed artist book, Balyn and Balan, an abridged retelling of one of the lesser known Arthurian legends produced entirely in wood and lino-cut bobadmin.blackwell.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Browser, opening up one of our cases to take a closer look at some books: I have no self control Us, cheerfully: that's what we like to hear

Here's something we've not yet shared to Bluesky from the old site: This illustration from the Drayton Parslow Parish Register, 1785. It opens a section on baptisms.

1/2 Rated by Ruskin as the 'loveliest engravings ever produced': J.M.W. Turner's illustrations for Samuel Rogers' second attempt at making 'Italy' a success; after the first edition was a flop, he commissioned engravings from leading artists for an expanded edition blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A majestically colourful cockerel. From a picture book ABC for children, printed in the Swiss city of Bern in 1860. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Ud.9.460.

20 years since the catchiest high fantasy earworm on the internet was first published, remind yourself of precisely where they're taking the hobbits with this 1970 map of Middle-earth designed by Pauline Baynes blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Here's three minutes of us talking about human skin.

Using bibliographical format to fill your boxes: 2°, 4°, 8°, two 12°s. #Bibliography #BookHistory 📚💙

As part of the @blackwelloxford.bsky.social great ground floor refit, we've got some beautiful new cabinets behind the tills - so of course we had to fill one with Tove Jansson, on the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Moomins! Moomin’s Day is celebrated on 9th August, Tove's birthday

Love this 1938 woodcut of Univ by Agnes Reeve (which I rediscovered this week on the front of a Christmas card sent to staff by our previous Master, Sir Ivor Crewe!) 💙💛 #universitycollegeoxford

In Ozzy's honour, here's some metal. Clasps, that is - on the first pocket edition of Isocrates' Orations, 1540, in a contemporary Spanish binding. blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

I’ll be interviewing Mark Vernon about William Blake at 11am today (Saturday)…free event upstairs at Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford (Broad Street) in the Philosophy in the Bookshop series

Sometimes you just want to make absolutely sure nobody misses your favourite aspect of a book... From the first edition of Gerard's Herbal, 1597 blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

The Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock is seeking to acquire a Bronze Age hoard discovered near Henley by a metal detector in 2020. The museum’s Friends group has launched an appeal for £10,500 to purchase the hoard, which includes a horse brooch that is more than 2000 years old.

You know you're going to have a nice day when a wife, who has already assembled a sizeable book pile, exclaims "Holy shit, Geoff!" at the sight of her husband's own tower of books.

Dustjacket of the day: a strikingly malevolent design on the 1960 first edition of The Devil's Own by 'Peter Curtis' - Norah Lofts' pseudonym for her mystery fiction. The novel was adapted into the 1966 horror film The Witches by Nigel Kneale, Quatermass creator blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

The curse of being a bookseller is that the phone will ALWAYS ring when you've just grabbed a cheeky biscuit from the book (and biscuit) cupboard. (Originally posted a few years ago on twitter but remaining so true, as we all frantically looked around at each other to see who wasn't still chewing.)

It's almost time for the Bath Book Fair! From 27th to 28th June, visit us at stand 10 in the lovely Bath Pavilion, where we'll have some wonderful stuff. Find out more here: www.bookfairs.org.uk/our-book-fai...

Feeling the heat? 🥵 Try these herbal remedies for cooling the blood from our 18th century herbal notebook.

Overheard in the @blackwelloxford.bsky.social Norrington Room: "I want to die down here. ... in a good way, I mean."

Think of the musician who wrote this song 400 years ago. Think of them writing it down, folding up the paper, putting it away, losing that paper at some point — never knowing that the last time they played it wouldn’t be the last time someone heard their music. Hey buddy. I really like your song.

💅Self-care, medieval style… 🛌Catch up on sleep 🥗Eat a good diet 🏊Do some exercise 🛀Have a bath We hope you spent your bank holiday doing at least ONE of these things, which are all recommended in this beautiful manuscript, once owned by Elizabeth of York (MS Ii.5.11). #CuriousCures

"Wait a second... Wait a second! Oh my god, that's LATIN!" - a kid in the bookshop, reminding us joy can be found anywhere

There's nothing worse than getting your spacing wrong! The title on the tail edge tells us this book about the Kingdom of Naples, printed in 1563, was previously stored lying down. It's been (standing up) on our shelves since 1707!

"Antiquarian? Isn't that where you keep fish?" - overheard in the bookshop

Dustjacket of the day, from our latest catalogue: a striking design by one of our favourite dustjacket artists, K. Romney Towndrow, on the only novel by playwright Laura Wildig, a member of the London literary circle ‘The Launderers’ View the catalogue here: blackwells.co.uk/rarebooks/ca...

This was a bit of a rush job, but it was v fun to do. Might have another crack at it one day, or something similiar... The Hobbit illumination with Smaug as a weird mediaeval dragon?

Oriel College's statement on the Harvard Magna Carta is... *chef's kiss* www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/news/stateme...

It's the most wonderful time of the year again! Namely @firstsrarebooks.bsky.social, 16-18 May in the Saatchi Gallery (Sunday free entry). Visit us at Stand F47, where we have, as always, some lovely stuff

Cat in the Old Schools Quad! Cat in the Old Schools Quad! Maybe he's been mewsing on philosophy in the Divinity School? Or reading Pawlatonic ideals in the Old Bod? Because he's a catademic? Better puns gratefully recieved.

This event @blackwelloxford.bsky.social is free to attend, and our manager Sian plans to bring something nice upstairs to the third floor to show off to attendees

Listen to our very own Henry Gott chatting with Emma about At Swim-Two-Birds!

It's finally here! The Oxford Fine Press Fair opens at 12 noon today, in the beautiful Examination Schools on the High Street. Private press books, ephemera, broadsides, fine bindings, and printers from around the world... Tickets are £5, at the door or online: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2025-oxfor...

Thanks to @lampallib.bsky.social for letting us know that it is World Frog Day🐸! We had a look through our scoping images and found some fun frogs to share with you from The National Archives, @britishlibrary.bsky.social, and @uclspeccoll.bsky.social

Is it a ghost? Is it a cloud? No, it is just a weird space created by a finger image removal technology trying to autocorrect the finger of the scanning person. Welcome to another striking example of how automatic repair systems do crush our digital heritage. #bookhistory #digitalhistory

It is a truth universally acknowledge that any Victorian illustration of sperm whales will be in want of some distressed whalers flying through the air, no matter how relevant it may or may not be to the work... this from an 1855 work on perfumery.

A wonderful #ManuscriptMonday miniature vade mecum prayer book, written in 1568 by - or at least for the use of - Thomas Agricola, a Bavarian priest blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Semi-regular reminder that one of the best views in town is from the top floor of @blackwelloxford.bsky.social when the sun is setting (currently slightly marred by scaffolding but only slightly)

Great midcentury illustrations by the Bulgarian artist Ivan Gongalov for Tom Thumb.

How about .... 👻✂️ A 1493 Sewing Scissors Ghost? #ThingsInBooks

Here is the Application Cow for all your mathematical needs

Just saw my first ever AI-generated cataloguing description for a book on eBay... It was of course ludicrously vague and nevertheless wrong.

'Daphne Du Maurier wrote a novel set in an old coaching inn on Bodmin Moor.' 'Jamaica?' 'No, I think she wanted to write it.'

We love a good scrap book, pressed flowers, and watercolours of irritable dogs, and lucky for us this album contains all of the above! Compiled by Mrs Charlotte Sutton over a couple of years starting in 1864, it's a charming glimpse into Victorian provincial life blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

In the 1790s a London woman named Eliza Denyer developed a modest reputation as a restorer of medieval manuscripts. She was forgotten by scholars and, in one case, her restorations were deliberately replaced by a man’s. I recovered her story & tracked all her known work here: tinyurl.com/2ktztx2e

Hey Cambridge people. If you want to hear about othe most challanging project where we pulled whole arsenal of imaging technologies. Join a talk @bird-gerhl.bsky.social & Blazej Mikula to learn more. languagecollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/2025/03/04/c... #DH @camdiglib.bsky.social #HeritageScience