How have I only just spotted this fabulous joke in Carter’s ABC?!

Join the @stemma.bsky.social team! We've just advertised a two-year postdoc on WP2, "Networking Early Modern Poems." Apply by 30 September; details at link below. #earlymodern #dh #postdoc #jobfairy www.universityofgalway.ie/human-resour...

By what I still worry must be a glaring clerical error, I will be spending the coming term at All Souls. Let’s catch up, Oxford people! www.asc.ox.ac.uk/person/dr-jo...

Someone has never hosted a birthday party for a three year old.

We're recruiting for a new role in the Early Modern team at TNA to help us integrate the Parliamentary Archives. I'm looking for someone with an expertise in pre-modern Westminster Parliament so we can join the executive, legislative and judicial collections www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOD893/r...

The curse of the type facsimile strikes again! This is NOT a C17th century book. Anyone who knows anything about typefaces will tell you that’s a late C18th Caslon. I would wager this was printed c. 1820 not 1678.

Where’s Hilary gone?!

Registration for the 3rd Queer Bibliography symposium is now live! Please share widely. Attendance is FREE with registration; the symposium runs 11-13 June both in-person at Newcastle University (UK) & online. Register (by 09 June): bit.ly/QB2025Register Short Programme: bit.ly/QB2025ShortP...

Only in Cambridge would a bookshop devote this much shelf space to J.H. Prynne.

On a list! And with Henry Hemming and Kate Summerscale, too. Chuffed.

Cambridge people! I’m going to be giving a talk on TJ Wise, detritus, stolen leaves, and made-up books on Thursday at 5pm. Do come along! www.english.cam.ac.uk/cmt/?cat=6

Good lord. This collation is becoming deranged. MN?!!

Here’s my diary for this month’s Literary Review. Mostly it’s about Julia Donaldson. literaryreview.co.uk/destroy-whil...

I saw this wonderful copy of F1 today at Berkeley (shakespearecensus.org/sc/5202/) This page looks absolutely normal at a glance. But all the prelims in this copy are facsimile. Normally this would be seen as loss, but these are by the 19th-century master of the art, John Harris. 1/3

Very happy to have this piece in the new PBSA. Sure it’s a tad provocative in places, but even if people don’t agree on every point, hopefully it will be useful to think with. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Question for typography people: when did ‘R’ develop a curled tail (i.e. in ‘NATURE’ here) rather than its normal straight tail (‘MIRACLES’)? I know it’s a Grandjean signature (c.1700) but see it quite a bit in English books in the 1680s. Where does it come from? France?

Is there anything more satisfying than completing a set, one volume at a time, over many years and across many second-hand bookshops?

It’s out! Today is publication day for Gender and the Book Trades, from the conference of the same name in June 2021. Huge thanks to everyone who contributed and read drafts of this behemoth's xxii + 492 pages. We are so proud of it and hope you enjoy. brill.com/edcollbook/t...

Sorry. The WHAT eating house?

Here’s a game. Just filed a review for next month’s @historytoday.com. Who am I talking about?

They said it couldn’t be done! All three Reynolds Stone alphabets ready to be mounted and framed.

Fabulous 2-year fellowship at @theul.bsky.social / @theulspeccoll.bsky.social! The Munby Fellowship has been doubled this year! They're particularly seeking applications that combine Bibliography/History of the Book & Natural History. Closing date 17 Jan, start October 2025. www.lib.cam.ac.uk/munby

What a lovely list to be part of!

Today’s set-up. Will my eyes survive the day?

@historytoday.com asked for my books of the year: featuring Noel Malcolm and @misswalsingham.bsky.social

Nice to see Noel Malcolm's Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750 included here, chosen by @josephhone.bsky.social. 🌈📚🗃️

I have a toddler zooming around the house shouting ‘no dinner; just chocolate’. It’s going to be an evening.

Okay here’s a puzzle. Saw this cool book in our Spec Colls: bookplate of Edward Burne-Jones. Except I’m pretty sure it’s in the Doves Type, which wasn’t commissioned till 1899. And EBJ died in 1898. Thoughts?

Freezer died in the night. Send thoughts and prayers and £500 for a new one.

Hi everyone, I've made my first starter pack for Rare Books and Spec Coll folks. I am completely sure I've missed folks, so please speak up in a reply and I'll add you to the pack! follow on, friends! 📜 #bookhistory go.bsky.app/4fvc2XS

I’ve always loved (and coveted) Reynolds Stone’s calligraphic bookplates. Decided to attempt a Stone-inspired bookplate for myself. I think they have turned out rather well!

Today on the blog, Joe Black adds to the evidence we have assembled of the formidable library of Katherine Blount, whose interests were wide ranging and who thankfully left excellent evidence of her ownership #HerBook #EarlyModern #C17 earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2024/03/01/t...

Imagine putting all that work into a pen facsimile only to smudge it at the last second. Nightmare.

Bibliographers! You MUST read this amazing piece by @josephhone.bsky.social in this month's Lit Review about the thief and book forger Thomas Wise. literaryreview.co.uk/he-steals-th...

Jetlagged to hell in the Morgan, and I’m reminded just how wonderfully trusting and permissive special collections librarians are in the UK!

JOB: There’s a 12-month Research Associate post associated with my AHRC project on the history of book forgery. Deadline soon: 21 November. Details here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DDU783/r... Always happy to receive informal questions via email.

If you couldn't be at our first seminar of the year, don't despair: the video of Ian Calvert talking about Alexander Pope's #18thC translation practices of Homer is now on YouTube. We've even got sneak peeks of Ian's forthcoming edition. #bookhistory

October is here, so get ready for Ian Calvert covering Alexander Pope as translator for our first #18thc seminar this autumn in just a few weeks: 19 Oct @ 11am EDT/4pm BST. Free registration for the zoom below, #bookhistory 🗃️ folks please join us, spread the word.

Reposting from the other site...

It’s amazing m.youtube.com/watch?v=OYot...

People seemed to enjoy Pope’s books. Now the good people in Spec Colls have put together a little online exhibition, so you can take a closer look (FWIW the inscribed ToF in ORIGINAL WRAPPERS feels like the find of a lifetime!). speccollstories.ncl.ac.uk/alexander-po...

Come and join the COOLEST PROJECT at QMUL & Cambridge! #bookhistory! Material culture! #reformazing history! #earlymodern chaos! COOL SCIENCE TOYS! All info & how to apply here: www.qmul.ac.uk/jobs/vacanci...

We're hiring up to four postdoc researchers to work on Written Worlds in 17th-century England at Birkbeck, led by Sue Wiseman (PI) and me (CI), focusing on #EarlyModern non-elite writers. £42K pro rata; 0.5FTE for 25 months, starting mid-Nov. Apply by 22 Oct: cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/post...

One for the #c18th crowd!

I’ve got a piece in the new issue of The Library on some *very* special books that have resurfaced after 70+ years, including the below (no prizes for identifying the handwriting!). academic.oup.com/library/arti...