This is a bit glorious. Gilt, black and white printing on the covers, folding map and fully illustrated throughout with the black and white artwork of the Marquis of Lorne! What a production. "Pictures of Canada" from 1885.

"Rust, Smut, Mildew and Mould" Not a remake of Trumpton for a new era but our #BrokenBookOfTheDay. From 1886 the 5th edition by M. C. Cooke.

If you don't like photos and fun facts about old books, maps, pictures and ephemera it might be wise to block us for 24 hours... ...pretty sure we won't see any customers today so I think I may have a social media blitz!

I can't honestly say that the novels of the Earl of Beaconsfield, better known as Bejamin Disraeli are current bestsellers but this complete set published in 1882 just after his death is certainly very pretty!

Used to be more popular than stamp collecting... writing to businesses, naval ships, dukes, bishops and clipping and sticking the embossed crests on their return letters into your album. 1300 of them in this one: yes, I counted!

You know where's cooler than outside today...? BOOKSHOPS. #justsayin #heatwave

This book was wrapped in error. So you get a chance to see how we wrap books for posting when you order one. . . . . . Better still, order one and then you can have this experience for yourself. 🤣

What's not to like on a summer's day about this lovely 1926 Winnie the Pooh. The second edition, printed in the same year as the first and looking exactly like the first.

Don't normally post Bibles but l am rather taken by this 'pocket' sized affair from 1859, all its metalwork still intact although the gilt rubbed away, and hand coloured maps inside... the slightly rubbed look only makes the book more appealing in this instance

Staff reading: just finished this retelling and expansion of Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, "What Moves the Dead" by T. Kingfisher. Modern, eerie, bleak and yet gripping with moments of real shivers!

Staff reading: just finished this retelling and expansion of Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, "What Moves the Dead" by T. Kingfisher. Modern, eerie, bleak and yet gripping with moments of real shivers!

Apart from the fact this actually counts as damage, I think these book boards are actually rather beautiful... 🧐 hmmm... there's a sermon in there somewhere!

Starting the day with this amazing 1950s jacket design by Dodie Masterman on a book of essays by rural and nature writer Richard Jefferies.

From 1803 this is the book you need if you have a battalion to drill... from what I can make out its a bit like synchronised swimming, but on land, and without swimsuits, and with a few hundred chaps...!

A great album of photos, both personal and press, of northwestern germany and the netherlands just post-war. Includes macabre images of girls accused of collaborating having their heads shaved in public.

AFTER HOURS AT THE BOOKSHOP 7pm onwards, Saturday 27th June. Two twenty-minute sets by Fate of the Magpie drinks, social joy and discount shopping throughout the shop. This is a free invitation only event - but if you would like an invitation pop into our DMs

More vexilology... yes, I do just like saying the word!

Tfw you are sitting in the shop all day and the colleague who does metal detecting sends a photo of his "office" for the day

From 1737 this is a brilliantly detailed map of Africa is by Johann Matthias Hase. It's a rabbit hole all on its own, more so when you have a modern atlas beside you...

Some books added to ebay offering yesterday...

I do love the possibly apocryphal story about Douglas Bader, Fokker fighter planes and a girls' school assmbly but I am not going to repeat it here! Nice to have a signed copy of his biography though!

Started today with a map of Hampshire by Noden and Hole. Nearly 400 years old. Hand-coloured.

Vexilology is in the building...! someone collected over 200 cards to complete this album of Flags of Europe.

The Iain Sinclair collection is looking pretty smart against the new blue paint job. All of these either signed, or signed and limited editions.

From 1784 these two enormous chaps are the 5th edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary... folio sized and full of etymological joy!

And here are the answers to yesterday's quiz round...

Most of the afternoon spent going through a huge influx of WW1 books...

Find all kinds of things in books but this is the first real butterfly!

I have a love-hate relationship with books like this and it all comes down to the &c. It is a Guide To Dover as it says but also, all bound together are...

A bit of fun to start the day. Going through old folders, found a book quiz we did once. How will you do (without resort to google of course) with this round of "Connect 3"? Will post some answers later...

This is a scarce survival. Four issues of the magazine of the Regional Railway Control Team from 1946 Germany. These were specialized teams mainly from The Royal Engineers tasked with reopening and running Germany's WW2 infrastructure after the war.

Had a quick break. Did you even miss me!? 😁 As is traditional you get one holiday snap then it's back to work...

Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, an early edition of the full score by his main publisher Simrock of Bonn. Probably 1847. Given as opus 88 on the title page though this later changed.

260 years old, a beautiful hand-coloured map of the Isle of Wight and The Solent by Jacques Bellin. (Pen for scale)...

There's a whole genre of 19th century publishing companies that could also be 1970s prog folk ensembles.

Here we go again...

A superb piece of work. Congratulations on the nomination.

A scarce little version of Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck's play "The Indtruders" with a cover by Jessie M. King from 1913

"Just how loose are the morals of certain Top People?" Asks Mandy Rice-Davies in 1964!?

A book for our times...

Do you happen to need a first edition of The Lord of the Rings, the first printing of all three volumes, beautifully bound in full red leather, sitting within a custom made clamshell case? And oh, did I mention the actual Tolkien signature bound into the endpaper of Vol 1. ?

Nice pair of books related to Augustus John, one was his copy of a book gifted to him by the author; the other is a book of his drawings in which a gift inscription has been pasted above what is possibly an unrecorded photo of John.

"Five pounds!? It says it was 75p when it was new on the back!" "I will happily let you have it for 75p if I can buy your house for its 1971 price as well."

How cool are the covers on these 1930s aviation magazine.

Such a colourful book from 1931, The Story of Siegfried with these brilliant full colour plates by Peter Hurd who I haven't come across before.

From 1887, everything you wanted to know but were too afraid to ask about Victorian plumbing or, "the best means for effectually excluding noxious gases from our houses."

This is an extraordinary beast of a book, published in Paris in 1904 and almost every other page is a stunning chromolithograph. The story of Louis XIV, the Sun King.

A nice little group of Noel Coward items. Both the books are signed and the second signature on "Cavalcade" 'and Jeffery' is by Jeffery Amherst, "long time travel companion and sometime lover" of Coward: a scarce evidential scrap of a same-sex relationship from the 30s.

Thursday at the shop. Just a few seats still available.

The first edition of one of the best and most loved childrens books of the last 50 years. Most were sent to school libraries to be covered in labels and stickers and passed from grubby hand to grubby hand. Not this one 😍