Writing about the dildo-poem 'Monsieur Thing's Origin' today - which might be one of the gappiest title-pages of the hand-press era. A 'thing' made present by this absence perhaps?

Finally, a beach bar for literary critics

The bookseller's label of the Dublin stationer Bennett Dugdale (fl. 1781-1800) in a manuscript. I don't often see letterpress 'sold by' labels in 18thc books!

A press room of 13-14 year olds at work, illustrating the young bookmakers who made the volume I'm currently cataloguing.

First shortlist that I've put together includes a weird Maria Edgeworth first, a Cumbrian sexology pamphlet, and a BCP whose former owned *nailed* their book label to the book.

We're pleased to share a few highlights from our first short-list, a mix of 15 items that are rare, interesting, or that we just have a fondness for. 👉 mailchi.mp/b53332ba368f... The books are not online, so order by contacting us at: 📧 [email protected] or ☎️ (+44) 0191 296 0664

Anyone able to identify this mysterious bookplate? Late 18th/early 19thC, engraved & printed in blue-green ink. The monogram with three letters, perhaps “B S D”, beneath a jewelled turban. In a work by Pope Pius II printed at Cologne by Ulrich Zel c. 1470. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Inc.5.A.4.1[287]

I have found many things in books, snakeskin is a first though...

Viva'd! With no corrections!

come listen to and help me work through many complicated thoughts about the relations between (New) Bibliography and Theory! And of course stay for brilliant work by everyone else :)

The BSA Events Committee is proud to support Queer Bibliography in the South, a multi-day conference including both panels and workshops. Both in person and virtual attendance is free, but registration is required. 🔗Link to the full program details and registration form in bio

I'm going to start citing Bowers whenever I'm asked to produce a timeline for a grant application.

The survey is live until 12 February; please take a moment to comment.

filled out the horrible settlement consultation and I’m sorry, the question that is framed as a negative so that you have to ‘strongly disagree’ with something not happening?? This has enraged me

A reminder that next week I'll be speaking alongside @heggledepeg.bsky.social at @keelrowbooks.bsky.social. There will be wine and hand-press era books in ample supply. RSVP: www.tixtree.com/e/seminar-in...

Gawking at this 1611 alphabet

Assembling my first catalogue has made me realise I have a type: obscure 17th-18thc novels in questionable bindings.

Are there any Leverhulme/BA postdocs on here that would be willing to share their successful application with me? All disciplines welcome!

Some very clean offsetting in a Huguenot Utopian novel.

Thesis submitted! 🍾🍾🍾 If you'd like to read something that contains both bibliographical formulae and discussions of rimming, then it may be for you!

I wouldn't normally go to bat for Kipling but the pictorial paper wraps on this 1st British ed of 'The Phantom Rickshaw' are just tremendous. Link: keelrowbooks.com/item/14704/t...

@elizaaudacis.bsky.social has returned from the US with perhaps the best belated Christmas gift I could ask for: a crisp first edition of Fredson Bowers' 'Dog Owner's Handbook'.

Hitting the road for the first book fair of 2026... Join us this weekend for the January York book fair, a bite sized version of the well loved September fair 👇🏽 Sat 10th Jan 10am - 4.30pm Knavesmire Suite, York Racecourse, YO23 1EX. For free tickets & more, visit yorkbookfair.com

On February 19 I'll be speaking alongside the excellent @heggledepeg.bsky.social at @keelrowbooks.bsky.social about aspects of early modern book history. I'm truly hoping to supply quality slop for the hogs. If you're in the area, you can sign-up here: www.tixtree.com/e/seminar-in...

Applications due January 16th! Apply for research fellowships at Houghton Library! Work with collections including Printing & Graphic Arts! Bother me irl with your ideas, questions, and quandaries! (It’s not a bother.)

A 1720 copy of one of Defoe's major sources for his Journal of the Plague Year (1722), formerly owned by a local sailor's asylum with a very sweet cymbiform book stamp. Perhaps someone thought this would be cheery reading for the afflicted?

'Scouts in Bondage', a wholesome novel about the values of scouting from the author of 'Trawler Boy Dick'. The title features prominently in Michael Bell's compilation of 'Titles that Might Cause Vulgar Minds to Misapprehend their Content'.

It's not often that the outside of a photo album is more attractive than the contents, but this embroidered binding might be the exception... As far as we can determine, the photographer was a talented amateur (likely an American woman) who travelled extensively in Europe at the fin de siècle.

I've now worked with a number of cookery manuscripts of the 18th/19th century, and I'm a fan of this one because we confidently identified the author (right down to finding her gravestone), and her curry recipes seem actually competent and use a variety of spices.

I think one of my all time favourite books that I've described: a nineteenth-century 'metaphysical story' about a man who can travel to planets inhabited by characters from novels. This copy is from an occultist library in Edinburgh, and we've only found two institutional copies worldwide...

In the spirit of Christmas I have allowed myself *two* footnotes that begin with the word 'consider' and contain long quotations from novels of questionable relevance to the argument.

Once again 'a copy of Newton's first publication in Germany in battered contemporary sheep' is at the top of every child's Christmas wishlist, and I'm glad to say we're the only retailer where that is available for purchase: www.abebooks.co.uk/first-editio...

I tried Gemini on some tricky marginal annotations I'm working on. I'm not a good manuscript scholar but it took much longer than me to produce a transcription that ignored most of the manuscript and inserted a word that wasn't there. I think I'm not going to give up reading my sources just yet.

This conference has been absolutely transformative for me every year that is has run. The continued commitment to hybrid is fantastic, I'll be attending online! Apply while you still can!

Deadline extended! You have until Monday October 20th to put in an abstract! #queerbibliography #transbookhistory @bibsoc.bsky.social @bibsocamer.bsky.social @obs1922.bsky.social @transbookhistory.bsky.social @thetransfemininereview.com @sharpnews.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org

Surely one of the great ODNB epithets?

anyway, apropos of nothing, if anyone needs provide editing, proofreading, or archival/special collections/bibliographical research services, I have those skills that can be used on a freelance basis and otherwise

On my desk today: victorian Frankenstein x Dickens x Zola fan fiction; and a sammelband of pamphlets about ghosts, adult circumcision, and slavery.

Today's task: a love poem in cipher at the back of an otherwise quotidian local woman's memorandum book.

Our next Bibliographical Skills Workshop is taking place at the University of Stirling, on 28 October 2025: ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

I'm really delighted to say that following submission of my thesis in December, I'll be starting as a full-time cataloguer and bookseller at the Keel Row Bookshop, supported by a traineeship from the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association. Expect to see many more books here!

Hot take but it may be inadvisable for booksellers to describe 'Samuel Mearne bindings' on books printed 40 years after his death.

I've been reading a lot of introductions to get a feel for writing my own, and I fear this thesis may fall into the classic genre of 'book about the turn of the 18thc that begins with long quotation of questionable relevance from Pepys' Diary/London Spy/The Spectator.'

Some days I wonder if doing a whacko collation over the course of 2 days is worth it or if '8 volumes, gathered in an erratic order' would have the same effect.

Perhaps my most heinous take is that books as furniture is a practice that is both rooted in the long tradition of using books as vehicles for visually appealing bindings, and is a necessary means of dealing with the swathes of volumes that have few other uses. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

There have been too many instances in this PhD where following up a citation leads to me realising that some apparently momentous event in the history of sexuality was probably just made up by John Wilkes in an attempt to impress women.

I have rarely seen a work of art that speaks to me so specifically.

Earlier today, Patrick J. Kearney emailed me to tell me that he fabricated five letters allegedly written from James Campbell Reddie to Henry Spencer Ashbee, a transcription of which he has posted on his website + scissors-and-paste.net/pdf/Reddie_L...

Today I am a bibliographer of erotica, reading a letter between two other bibliographers of erotica, which was mounted into a a bibliographer of erotica's copy of the Erotika Biblion.

My ambition for a bookshop is to have a floor dedicated to 'specialist publications' that consists of scarce but unsaleable books.