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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
DATES FOR 2010
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 Visit to the Perez collection of Bookplates at BookTrust in Wandsworth (South London) preceded by a convivial lunch locally.
Please contact the Secretary if you wish to join this visit
Saturday, 25 September 2010 Auction 60
Saturday, 4 December 2010 Talk and exchange meeting.
Participants able to bring an album of bookplates are invited to do so, for everyone to discuss.
These meetings start at 2pm and will (except 14 July) as usual be in the Wynter Room (top floor) at the Swedenborg Society, 20 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH (Entrance in Barter Street). Nearest underground stations are Holborn and Tottenham Court Road.
Results for our first auction meeting of the year, held on Saturday, 10 April 2010 can be found at the Members Area page.
ENDING SOON - EXHIBITION AT NEWCASTLE, 26 February to 17 April 2010
Northern Print, Stepney Bank, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2NP Tel: 0191 261 7000
‘With Pleasure’ - Prints from personal collections - A selection of contemporary wood-engraved bookplates by Simon Brett, Chris Daunt, Andy English, John Lawrence. Hilary Paynter, Richard Shirley Smith and Ian Stephens
This show at Northern Print’s gallery (open Wednesday to Saturday from 12 to 4) accompanies an exhibition of prints on loan from private collectors giving an insight into the personal enthusiasms
and motivations of print collectors. About 50 items in total are on display. The exhibitions may tour (details of other locations not yet announced)
Anna Wilkinson, Director of Northern Print (www.northernprint.org.uk) says that “in essence, both exhibitions are really about prints and people; what it means to live with prints and what our personal choices
might say about us. The prints kindly loaned from collectors tell us something about their owners, and what they convey about their lives and passions may be intentionally shared or not. The bookplates on
the other hand are so often designed specifically to hold clues about the owner. I am sure that visitors to the show will enjoy both deciphering the codes hidden within these delicate and complex prints as
much as musing upon what they would choose to say about themselves were they to commission their own bookplate. I do hope people will be inspired to either commission one of the many wonderful wood-engravers
working today or to come along to Chris Daunt’s course to make their own bookplate.
"This opportunity to see prints from his private collection is a real treat for all those interested in wood engraving. A collection which began through an interest in books and book
illustration and further fuelled through a meeting with Douglas Cleverdon (1903–1987, bookseller and radio producer) contains engravings by some of the greats of the last century including Eric Ravilious,
David Jones, Eric Gill, Lynton Lamb, Edward Wadsworth, and John Nash."
Chris Daunt writes of his collection: ‘’Interest, curiosity, fascination and sheer liking brought it together over the years. Even the smallest items here have, as the ads say, magic. I recall with pleasure
Blake’s line about seeing the world in a grain of sand and I think ‘yes – that’s it…Or for that matter in a few square inches of boxwood or copper!”. [Quotation from ‘The Sycamore Collection, Twentieth Century
Prints from a Private Collection’ published by Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, 1988. ISBN 0 90658520 1 ].
BOOKPLATE TALK BROADCAST ON BBC RADIO SCOTLAND
Bookplates were one of the topics broadcast on 12 January 2009 by BBC Radio Scotland in its programme The Book Café, hosted by
Clare English. Prompted by an exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (see below), she talked about bookplates with Robert Betteridge,
Rare Books Curator at the National Library of Scotland, and with our American member Lew Jaffe of Philadelphia. It is no longer possible to listen online,
but to read our transcription of this section of the broadcast Click Here.
RECENT EXHIBITION: "NOT HIS NOW": Inscriptions, bookplates and annotations in some RBGE Library books
Opening the covers of a selection of books from the library of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, this exhibition shows who owned them before they reached the RBGE, and
how previous owners marked their ownership.
The exhibition closed on Fri 30th January, 2009.
THE BOOKPLATE COLLECTION OF HENRY PECKITT (1801-1884)
This collection of approx. 4,500 bookplates, deaccessioned by York Public Library, was sold by auctioneers Bonhams on 18 March 2008. Adding premium to the hammer price of £7,800, the total cost of this quite early collection
was £9,633. We understand that the purchaser hopes either to prepare a set of photocopies as a record of the collection or perhaps to scan the whole collection and make it available on CD-ROM.
Once this is done, there will be a great number of duplicates to the new owner's collection, so these will be made available for purchase. Please contact Anthony Pincott for fuller details.
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
SEPTEMBER 2010 ISSUE OF BOOKPLATE JOURNAL
Peter Youatt's third journal as editor is on schedule for issue to members in early October,
and again promises a good range of varied and well illustrated articles.
MARCH 2009 ISSUE OF BOOKPLATE JOURNAL
Please note that regrettably this is running more than a year late, as the result of serious illness. We apologise for this long delay.
This issue relates the beginnings and the demise of the Ex Libris Society (1891-1908). The body of the journal is devoted to a full reprint
of The Book-Plate Collector's Miscellany, a little-known precursor to the Ex Libris Journal.
INDEX TO THE BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, SECOND SERIES
The first index to the New Series Bookplate Journal is in preparation and will cover the years 2003-2008.
It will automatically be sent to all subscribers.
PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, MARCH 2010
My Ladye Nevells Booke is the title of John Harley's contribution describing a music manuscript acquired in
2006 by the British Library and containing a fine heraldic painted bookplate pre-1626. Peter Allpress writes on Some Aspects of Ecclesiastical Heraldry as illustrated by
ex-libris. Bookplate work by Bristol engraver John Ames is recorded by John Blatchly. Anthony Trollope's bookplates are investigated by Bryan Welch. We publish an article
written by the late Brian North Lee on Bookplates reflecting the Gothic Revival in England, and the final pages are devoted to short notes on several bookplates of interest,
including a wood-engraving by Keith Vaughan for publisher John Lehmann.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2009
The three main articles in this number are:
John Blatchly writing about William Milton, Engraver of Bristol, a previously unpublished piece by the late Brian North Lee on Some British bookplates made for use overseas,
and the work of William Henry Toms, Engraver and Copper-plate Printer chronicled by Edward Potten. A variety of notes cover E.D. French's bookplate for the Union League Club,
Charlton of Ludford, Winifred Lindsay Scott's manuscript ex-libris, Irish Jacobeans V, Jacob Skinner in London and more on his Bath period, Discovering Mr Baker, The Frederick Starr
collection of Mexican bookplates, More on the bookplate of Hugh Oswald Short, Caroline Newton's bookplate, The Wedgwood Library, and some Questions and Answers from correspondents.
The issue concludes with a report on The Society's Summer Outing.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2008
This issue has four main articles: John Blatchly gives a comprehensive view of the Bath
engravers Jacob Skinner and William Hibbart, active in the 1730s and 1740s; the Ex-libris of William Stewart Bishop of Aberdeen is discussed by
Alastair Cherry; Paul Latcham elaborates on the links between Bookplates and Chinese Armorial Porcelain; and John Blatchly catalogues Square
fleuron-bordered labels from Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds. In the Notes section are mentioned the bookplates of Arthur Troyte Griffith,
additional Brownlowe and Cust family plates, Charles Stewart Rolls, Hugh Oswald Short, and Blayney and other Baldwyns, and much more.
THE MEMBERS' BOOK FOR 2007-2008 EAST ANGLIAN EX-LIBRIS, by John Blatchly
This sequel to the author's Some Suffolk and Norfolk Ex-Libris, 2000, is printed and is about to be issued
to members with our June 2008 Newsletter. Those who are members for only one of the two years 2007-08 may purchase a copy by paying £10.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, MARCH 2008
Peter Hoare writes at length about
The Brownlowes and Custs of Belton House, Lincolnshire and their bookplates, and John Blatchly tells us all about Thomas Oughtibridge (c1702-56),
engraver of Hatfield near Doncaster, and London. Included amongst a wealth of notes is information about: watercolour ex-libris by Bowdler;
The Inspector General of Insane; bookplates for Daniel Beaumont, CJ Shoppee, TN Dick-Lauder, R Effinguer de Wildek, Ducarel, Richard Wilk(e)s;
and work by engravers Nathaniel Kettle, Michael Burghers, Culleton, ED French, JAC Harrison.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2007
Paul Latcham has researched the work of 18c. engraver William Bowley of Shrewsbury; Alastair Cherry writes
about the bookplate of the Scots College, Paris; Simon Brett tells us of his recent wood-engraved ex-libris; Edward Law studies bookplates in an Irish provincial library; and
Georgia Barnhill describes the bookplate collection at the American Antiquarian Association. Other topics include a unique Charles I bible plate, bookplates in
fiction, Frederick Rolfe Baron Corvo, and the bookplate of Cecil Rhodes. Several queries and a book review are followed by an obituary of Brian North Lee.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, MARCH 2007
This contains three main articles: (1) John Blatchly, Two London bookplate engravers c1730-60: Charles
Gardner and John Clark (2) Edward Potten, The bookplates of the Winn family of Nostell Priory and the Strickland family of Boynton Hall (3) Brian North Lee: Five
Irish woodcut Chippendale armorials. Various notes include details of the work of Culleton, heraldic stationer, and John Blatchly's address at the funeral of Brian
North Lee (1936-2007). It was posted to members (rather late - our apologies) on 10 May 2007.
THE MEMBERS' ANNUAL BOOK FOR 2006
is a collaboration between the late Brian North Lee and Sir Ilay Campbell on Scottish Bookplates.
The extensive introduction is followed by a selection of representative examples - these are all illustrated and their history described. 144 pages;
247 illustrations. Soft cover. It has now been mailed to all members (non-UK members will receive it with the March journal).
THE MEMBERS' ANNUAL BOOK FOR 2005
is a detailed review by our Journal editor, Paul Latcham, of bookplates
in the trophy style. Details are given on our Publications page.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, MARCH 2006
As main articles we have Brian Lee discussing rare modern British exlibris, Brian Schofield writing about
the Charles Hall Crouch collection bequeathed to the Society of Antiquaries, Sir Ilay Campbell investigating the lairds of Abercairney,
John Blatchly on the stencilled exlibris, and Ed Potten reporting on the National Trust cataloguing project. A dozen notes in this issue
range far and wide, including a gallows bookplate and the problem of gift or homage bookplates. Queries and answers are followed by a book
review and an obituary of Audrey Arellanes.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2005
has Edward Potten's researches into the bookplates of the Egerton and Tatton
families of Tatton Park and Wythenshawe Hall; details by Brian Smith of John Dougharty of Worcester; The Trafalgar
bicentenary - some relevant bookplates by Peter Allpress; A much bookplated Irish earl, by John Blatchly; Miss Maria Jenkins - bibliophile
of Clifton (1791-1858), by Anthony Pincott; and An early Scottish ex-libris - Alexander Mylne and the Cambuskenneth missal, by Alastair Cherry.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, MARCH 2005
contained as its leading article a comprehensive study by John Blatchly on the
Cambridge engraver William Stephens. A second feature article covers the modern bookplates engraved on copper by Stanley Reece, and is
followed by a host of notes and information about exlibris of all periods in a range of styles.
THE MEMBERS' ANNUAL BOOK FOR 2004
was about the bookplates of Church of England parochial and cathedral libraries,
by Brian North Lee.
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2004
has an extensive study by Brian Lee of 18th century woodcut or soft metal
armorials with particular attention given to the engraver Francis Hoffman. Edward Potten writes about the bookplates
of the Grey and Booth families of Dunham Massey and Enville Hall, and Ian Jackson's piece is entitled
'Ever learning, ever dying' (The motto used by Anatole de Montaiglon on his ex-libris -
'De jour en jour en apprenant mourant').
BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, MARCH 2004
contained as its leading article a ground-breaking
paper giving a biography of Miss Sarah Sophia Banks, early ephemera, coin and bookplate collector. She was the sister of Sir Joseph Banks, the celebrated
naturalist and President of the Royal Society. The two other main articles provided an overview of the work and bookplates of 18th century engraver William Austin, and
a discourse on some bookplates of men who fought at Waterloo. Also in this issue: notes, queries and book reviews.
EARLIER ISSUES
- A listing of the main contents of Bookplate Journal is given here.
DETAILED INDEX TO THE BOOKPLATE JOURNAL, FIRST SERIES, 1983-2002
These files record the contents of the First Series, which comprised 40 issues of
Bookplate Journal. See the first file for Notes to Users of this Index.
Index of Names A to D
Index of Names E to H
Index of Names I to P
Index of Names Q to Z
Index of Author and Title
BRIAN NORTH LEE (1936-2007)
Three years have passed since the death of our Past-President, Brian North Lee FSA, who had such a great influence on the history of our Society. He died on Saturday, 24 February 2007 as a
result of bowel cancer. He was 70 on 27 December 2006.
HIS OBITUARY NOTICE OF 5 MARCH 2007
is reproduced here by kind permission of The Independent.
On the FISAE website are some further memories.
Renowned for his knowledge of British bookplates and for his extensive output of
books and articles on the subject over more than thirty-five years, he was pre-eminent in this field, signally eclipsing Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks and
Julian Marshall, both leading collectors over a century ago, as well as George Heath Viner (1866-1955), none of whom wrote much on the subject.
His last book, SCOTTISH BOOKPLATES, written jointly with Sir Ilay Campbell, Bt. was published by the Society in 2007. Further memories of him are given in the September 2007 issue of Bookplate Journal.
BRIAN NORTH LEE'S BOOKPLATES
Bonhams of New Bond Street, London auctioned the residue of Brian Lee's bookplates on 13 November, 2007. So very much of his collection was sold off to favoured friends during his
last years that the (well picked-over) residue and its method of lotting were largely a disappointment to most collectors. An alphabetical sequence of some 4,900 British bookplates realised a total
of £9,600. Collections of Indian and West Indian fetched £1,800 and £2,200 respectively. A unique silver Charles II Bible Plate sold for £1,200, and seventeen albums
of material (including photos and letters) of British and Foreign Royalty achieved £6,200. With other lots, a total of nearly 9,000 bookplates sold for £29,180 (all figures before adding 23.5% buyer's premium).
Some bookplates bequeathed by Brian Lee to The Bookplate Society were sold in December, 2007, and more were offered on 6 December 2008 at our third auction for that year.
We can offer a few
items for direct sale - See here.
These are in addition to the several hundred bookplates already available for sale to members (for access details see notice on page 26 of the Directory of Members, or write to the Membership Secretary).
IN MEMORIAM - FRANK MARTIN (1921-2005)
With the death of Frank Martin we have lost an accomplished wood engraver, though
his other interests meant that he produced only a couple of dozen bookplates. Brian North Lee has written a short appreciation which appears
on the FISAE website. An obituary in The Times online is to be found here.
IN MEMORIAM - AUDREY ARELLANES (1920-2005)
An outstanding contributor to American bookplate literature is also gone. She is described
as "one of the giants" of the bookplate world who "took the trouble to attend ex-libris congresses and meetings far and wide, and her character was such that she made
many friends". Her Year Books, ABCD&E Newsletter and her bibliography of bookplate periodical literature were all the products of great devotion.
The appreciation written by Bill Butler and Brian North Lee can be found on the FISAE website.
The Czech artist Joseph Liesler (1912-2005) and Italian collector
Remo Palmirani (1943-2005) are also remembered.
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