Years ago, in my final year as a undergraduate, I took a course on the medieval German epic. I was attracted by the idea of reading old German texts–Tristan and Isolde, Wolfram von Eschenbach‘s Parzival, the Nibelungenlied–although I soon wondered whether the choice was such a good idea when I realised quite how long they […]

Yesterday, the ABA’s virtual book fair Firsts Online opened. The first day went quite well, and I sold a number of things, so I have just uploaded a few new items, among them this: Published in Munich in 1845, it’s a copy of the first edition in English of Walhalla’s Genossen (1842; second edition, 1847), […]

Last year, I issued two joint catalogues (At Home with Books and CTRL+P) with my good friends, the booksellers Justin Croft, Heather O’Donnell, and Ben Kinmont.  Entering what would ordinarily be the new book fair season (California, New York, Paris), but still stuck at home, we thought it would be nice to collaborate again. We met […]

Over on We Love Endpapers, Twitter, and Instagram all this week, I’ve been sharing examples of bronze-varnish paper, in part because it is often misidentified by booksellers and cataloguers (in the English-speaking world, at least) and I thought some photos might prove useful. Bronze-varnish paper (Bronzefirnispapier in German) was made in Augsburg between about 1690 […]

As it was Burns Night earlier this week, I thought I’d share the following: ‘During the last eight years of his life, Burns directed most of his talents to the writing of songs.  Though there are a few songs in the 1786 Kilmarnock and 1787 Edinburgh Poems, it may be doubted whether Burns ever thought […]

This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott, the great Scottish writer. A few years ago, I managed to visit his house, Abbotsford, when I was up in Edinburgh for the book fair. Sadly, the fair didn’t take place last year, but hopefully it will be back later in 2021. […]