Tag Archive: 0twentieth century

Rilke wrote Das Marien-Leben at the castle at Duino, on the Italian Adriatic coast, in late 1911 and early 1912, just before he began work on what was to become the monumental Duineser Elegien.  In the preface to his translation in 1951, Stephen Spender notes that ‘Rilke wrote of the Marien-Leben as being “a little […]

This week we received the printed copies of a catalogue that has been in the works for some time, and have finally mailed them out. Published to mark my tenth anniversary as an independent bookseller, it has been years in the making.  Many people know me for selling Russian material, but in fact my interest […]

Yesterday, we featured a carol that first appeared in The English Hymnal (1906). Today is the turn of another beloved carol which appeared for the first time in that book: ‘O little town of Bethlehem’. This carol owes its origin to the folk song revival of the early twentieth century, which is often twinned with […]

As today (5 December) is Christina Rossetti‘s birthday, we thought it apt to feature her in our Christmas carol countdown. ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ was based on the hauntingly beautiful poem by Rossetti, which was first published (without music) in the January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly. Its first appearance with music was in 1906, […]

Continuing on in our series of Christmas carols, it’s ‘Ding dong! merrily on high’, one of our personal favourites! Its first appearance (words only) was in George Ratcliffe Woodward‘s Carols for Yule-tide (privately printed, Highgate Village, 1922): Traditionally, the first edition of ‘Ding dong! merrily on high’ (and ‘Past three a clock’) have been ascribed […]

October is drawing to a close, which means here in Chesham we are inundated with fireworks (for Diwali) as well as book fair preparation (for the Boston fair). Equally exciting, but the latter is perhaps more pertinent to this blog. This year we are bringing some fantastic things, including an apparently unrecorded book; privately printed […]