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Bookplates,
also known as ex-libris, have since the 15th century been placed
in books to declare ownership. Many artists, some famous such as
William Hogarth, Aubrey Beardsley and John Piper, have designed
bookplates, and many significant people
(e.g. Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling) have used them, but a personal
bookplate has been available to anyone owning a library and wishing
to place in the books a printed design as a mark of possession.
Founded in 1972, The Bookplate Society is the direct des-cendant
of the world's first such organisation, the Ex Libris Society, 1891-1908,
and its creation and successor, the Bookplate Exchange Club. So in 2012 we
celebrated the Society's 40th anniversary.
Our purpose is to encourage the production, use, collecting, and study
of bookplates. We achieve this through our publications, members' auctions,
visits to collections, social events, talks, and exhibitions.
Interested in joining The Bookplate Society?
The annual subscription of £40 (UK) or £52 (rest of world) is good value.
Click on these links here for an information leaflet, for details of
membership benefits and for an online application form.
Our recent members auction no.100 took place in May 2024. Like Auction 99 it was much larger than our typical sale.
In the listings of unsold items there remains a good choice of interesting material for immediate purchase (non-members can now buy also).
OUR LATEST BOOKS
Issued in Autumn 2024 to members who paid for 2023 and 2024, our latest book is Bewick Bookplates - A Late Harvest. Published in association with
Florin Press, this 64-page hardbound book by Nigel Tattersfield is a follow-up to his wonderfully well-researched 1999 book Bookplates by Beilby and Bewick. .
Non-members living in the United States may order a copy to be sent from our stock in California.
Our book for 2014/15 was mailed to members in mid-March 2017. Entitled Strawberry Leaves.
illustrates the bookplates of many British non-royal dukes and records their family histories. Royal dukes were covered in British Royal Bookplates by Brian North Lee,
published in 1992, but we obtained the back stock and issued a copy to every member in June 2013.
Our members book for 2011/12 was on the bookplates of
Miss C Helard (see image below right). She was the wife of Arthur Fox-Davies, the great heraldic authority. Standard copies of these and other books can be ordered from the
Society (see Publications page). One or two copies of the special edition of the Helard book, with original bookplates tipped-in, remain available. In the pipeline for
issue to members in the second half of 2018 (funded by subscriptions for the three years 2016 to 2018) is a 400-page book on bookplates of alumni of St John's College,
Cambridge, written by John Titford FSA.
THE FRANKS CATALOGUE IS DIGITIZED AND AVAILABLE ONLINE
Library staff in Toronto have earned our warmest thanks by converting into digital form the Catalogue of the Franks Collection of British and American Bookplates in the
British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings. Rather than paying out £400 or more for ever-scarcer copies of this important reference work, you can now find it online.
Each of the three volumes can be downloaded free of charge, without copyright restriction, in PDF format, which is partly searchable, or in a choice of several other formats.
Alternatively, you may flip through
the pages online (but not downloadable).
The links to the three volumes are:
VOL.1 A-G
VOL.2 H-R and
VOL.3 S-W, Bookplates of Institutions, and Heraldic Index .
RECENT CHANGES TO THIS WEBSITE
Details of the members book for 2023/2024 have been uploaded, and Auction 101 will come end-August for the sale in October or early November. Auction 100 ended on 26 May 2024,
and Auction 99 (click on the button at left above) closed on 25 November 2023 but from bot sales there are good items still available in the unsold lots
(find the listing on Auction 99 page).
Click on the FISAE 2020 button (above left) to read about cancellation of the August congress and the procedure for refunds. This also takes you to the 2020 Competition page, giving the
report of the Jury and an online exhibition slideshow of the prizewinning and other designs.
Our Autumn 2018 journal (click on cover image above) was mailed on 19 May 2024. Our next publications will be the Spring 2019 journal, currently
in preparation. We apologise for the very long delay, and hence of subsequent issues. Also awaiting circulation are several newsletters.
All back issues of The Bookplate Journal now feature on a separate webpage, with images of their covers and details of all their
contents. Searching this webpage is a quick way to locate articles in back issues.
A webpage has been created, recording bookplates sought by members and others. See Desiderata on the Members Area page.
A project has been launched, requesting the contribution of images of circulating library labels, with the intention of eventual publication as a miscellany of such items, together with
booksellers labels.
However, there is no link from these webpages because this is work in progress - we do not wish incomplete information and poor, low resolution images to be stolen by internet search engives and image
libraries. Please contact our Membership Secretary if you wish to know more about, or participate in, this project.
It is worth mentioning that there exists a vibrant market in bookplates on eBay but be aware that descriptions of exlibris may not
always be accurate, especially as regards dating of bookplates, their condition and the attribution of ownership.
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