Good morning from The Petersfield Antiques Fair at the Festival Hall. Open at 10.30 till 5 today and Sat/Sun. Come and see us and a plethora of top notch antiques dealers

I don't know about my fellow booksellers but I often find I have a pile of booklets around, some worth a bit, some not. I put them to one side when a load of books come in, because dealing with the space-eating pile of books seems more pressing then they sit there accusing me!

Some oddities from a military history collection being catalogued this morning.

These three volumes are a sumptuous full burgundy leather binding by Riviere and Son, one of the very best 19th century bookbinders, on Thomas Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax"...

Joan Hassall was a prolific wood engraver and book illustrator throughout the mid 20th century. This is the original artwork for "The Orchestra in England". It has a sample dustjacket framed behind too!

Fashion is always fast. If you wanted to know how to do your hair in the latest styles in the 19th century you would be subscribing to this monthly publication: this being the one from February 1826, 200 years ago. Two handcoloured engraved plates stitched into paper wraps.

Make this saturday amazing - visit a bookshop!

We have a full house booked in for tonight's Dead Poet Salon and Open Mic. Out dead poet doesn't get much deader... we will be honouring the Epic of Gilgamesh. If you can't be with us tonight check out this list we curated of translations & related books uk.bookshop.org/lists/dead-p...

An intriguing find in amongst a box of military history books. This is a WW1 trench candle. It's very evocative. One can imagine its tiny lighyt on an upturned box in a dug out, perhaps illuminating the writing of a letter home.

"You have played the game, go on playing it and all will be well with the great Empire which you have helped to save" A 1919 demobbing letter, printed on cloth but individually addressed and signed by a Lt. Col. of the Sherwood Foresters.

Aesop's Fables in a full leather from 1898 given to Lizzie Lewis as a Cookery prize at Merthyr Tydfil County School..

Pteridomania! There were a couple of decades in high Victorian age when the whole country went nuts for ferns. Ferns were on EVERYTHING! So much so it is thought some of our native species came close to extinction... whatever would Wordsworth have thought!

This book is a slow reveal. From the spine you think, it's an early 20th century binding. But whats's this!? Turn it 90° & the leather is older, more cracked & worn, huh? Maybe this is an 18th century book. We open it up! Ta dah, old marbled paper and a publication date of 1782

Among all the books here you will also find a great selection of objets d'art including ceramic and glass art pieces by significant makers.

One sailor's war from North and West Africa to the surrender of Singapore, the death of a friend, images of shipmates, RMS and HMS, a crossing the line certificate, love this kind of thing...

Yes, actual sunshine!

What do you do when a war ends? Try to make sense of it I guess. Four scarce 1945 pamphlets of religious services/parades to mark an ending, they hoped...

Here's fun. A stack of Rupert books from the 40s and 50s. All of them signed by the author/illustrator Alfred Bestall and one with a rather nice letter inside from him talking about story ideas.

Loving the fineness of the engraving in this leather bound 1851 edition of Woodward's Molluscs: plate after plate of tiny hyperdetailed images.

Robert Blatchford, the author of "Merrie England" (a book credited with converting more Brits to Socialism than Das Kapital!) Also wrote a companion piece in "Dismal England" an account of the grim conditions of the working poor. This 1901 edition has such a great cover!

We are rebooting our monthly "Knit and Chatter" bring the knitting, the crochet, the sewing, the chatter... every 2nd Thursday, that's TOMORROW in the shop. Tea, coffee and biscuits and its all free!!!

This is very cool. An 1841 1st ed of the Duke of Wellingtons's Dispatches and Standing Orders inscribed by the compiler to Christopher Collins, Wellingtons's steward, valet and confidential servant. This copy almost certainly therefore lived within the Duke's houselhold.

One of Longfellow's best known poems is a fictionalised account of Paul Revere's epic midnight ride to inform his countrymen, "the British are coming" [sic.] And this quarter vellum 1910 edition of Longfellow has a fore-edge painting of that scene hidden beneath the gilt.

There is a strange phenomenon, which I am sure there must be German compund word for, or perhaps a slightly mystical sounding Japanese phrase, where despite cataloging loads of books every day, a few just come to rest on my desk and never quite get dealt with. Currently:

Inside this dowdy-looking folder is a collection of English Language O-Level papers from the 50s and 60s. Might be a bit of a rabbit hole this one.

Because Fitzcarraldo Press usually publishes work in translation, for such a small publisher they have picked up a very large number of nobel literature winners. The Polish author Olga Tokarczuk being one of them. And this is their stunning signed ltd ed of The Books of Jacob.

We are all Hockneyed-up!

A watercolour design for a stained glass window of St Thomas. No idea of where the window might be but I love the little notes about colours pencilled on.

Listed this extraordinary book on ebay today (link below). The 1873 first edition of Walter Buller's "Birds of New Zealand". Not only at the 35 plates all coloured by hand, they have highlights in gum arabic to make parts of the image shimmer like real feathers.

The Rev'd Sabine Baring-Gould wrote book after book after book from fiction to folklore. This is a rather nice looking edition of his Lives of the Saints from Athanasius to Zosimus... sadly missing two volumes so it has to be really cheap.

Not the most fashionable subjects today perhaps but just acquired three books on huntin' and shootin', two in full vellum, one in half-leather with gilt stamped decoration. Lovely things.

Just gonna get this off my chest. "Young people today don't read anymore" usually from someone middle-aged or older leaving the shop without buying anything at all. Customer either side of them will be in their twenties or thirties juggling a pile of five books to the till.

Rudolf Steiner was an interesting character who began his esoteric interests with The Theosophists and, after breaking with them went on found the even more tongue-twisty Anthroposophy, he is best known today for his role as founder of Steiner (or, Waldorf) Schools. A rare title this!

The 1908 edition of "Poems" by W. B. Yeats has an amazing gilt design on the front by Althea Gyles, full of occult symbolism. Gyles was in The Order of the Golden Dawn with Yeats who described "a strange red-haired girl all whose thoughts were set upon painting & poetry"

The rather wonderful looking "Cahiers Series" 41 substantial booklets in slipcases, all illustrated and all exploring in some way the art of translation.

A very cool image of HMS Invincible just acquired. A copper plate engraving by John Boydell from 1751.

Enjoying this archive of letters, poems, stories and original artwork by 20th century illustrator W. S. Foyster who was known for work in childrens annuals, women's magazines and for Enid Blyton.

A Russian childrens book published on Moscow in 1910. Amazing illustrations but the best I can do with the title is something like "Fairy Tale of the Underground People" a poem by A. A. Fedorov-Davidov, illustrator uncredited.

This is a very pretty edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge using illustrations by, among others, Gustave Doré. It was published in Boston in 1883 less than 10 years after Doré's illustrated editon was first published.

There must be books on "Wildflowers of..." almost every continent, region, country and county in the world. Some are better than others. This is "...of Canada" and is full of rather lovely coloured illustrations.

The painting is coming along quite nicely.

"Bogus Sausages" ! Not THE book by Bram Stoker that everyone knows but an interesting sideline of his detailing "Famous Impostors". UK first edition from 1910 and this copy from the library of renowned collector of conjuring books, Jimmy Findlay, with his great exlibris plate.

A bit of a Scottish theme today. Two more maps, these probably from the 1620 edition of "Famous Islands of the World" engraved by Girolamo Porro. One of the whole of Scotland, one of the Hebrides and Orkneys.

New paint colour going on slowly but surely...

A map of Scotland, mounted in sections on linen for folding but would look amazing framed. Cartographer was James Knox and it was published in 1788.

Other fun books priced up and listed today...

"It is the ambition of most gardeners to excell each other in the production of early cucumbers" apparently. At least it is according to Thomas Mawe in this 1776 edition of his Gardener's Kalendar.

One finds the strangest things in boxes of books sometimes!

I am staying at my desk today...!

Enjoyed The Forsytes on the telly last year? This is 1960s copy of the book but bound in leather with all the trimmings by the prestigious Bayntun bindery in Bath.