Book Owners Online (https://bookowners.online), an e-publication of the Bibliographical Society, was launched as a freely available directory of historic English book owners in August 2020. A Zoom symposium at 5.30 pm (London time) on Tuesday 9 February 2021 will explore its purpose and plans, and invite wider engagement – brief presentations by David Pearson, Clodagh Murphy, David Shaw and Sarah Cusk will be followed by discussion. The event is open to anyone interested, and registration is free.
Events
Tuesday, February 9, 2021 - 17:30
Location:
ONLINE VIA ZOOM
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - 17:30
16 February 2021
Stephen Clarke, Horace Walpole and W.S. Lewis: A Collector Revealed
W.S. (‘Lefty’) Lewis combined the roles of obsessional collector and scholarly editor of Horace Walpole. This lecture, which follows the exhibition ‘Rescuing Horace Walpole: the Achievement of W.S. Lewis’ at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, considers issues of personality, methods and circumstances that combined to create one of the great single-author collections of the twentieth century, with exceptionally rich supporting material.
Location:
ONLINE VIA ZOOM
Tuesday, March 16, 2021 - 17:30
16 March 2021
Rachel Jacobs, Waddesdon Manor: A Rothschild Collection
This talk will present an overview of the Waddesdon collection of printed books, manuscripts and bookbindings, including its highlights alongside its lesser known ‘working library’. It will discuss the formation of the collection, its display within the Manor and its subsequent growth, and it will also look at some more recent acquisitions.
Location:
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - 17:30
20 April 2021
Graham Pollard Memorial Lecture
Edward Wilson-Lee, 'Hernando Colón and the Universal Library Machine'
This lecture will give a brief overview of the extraordinary bibliographical project of Hernando Colón, natural son of the explorer Columbus, who set out to build a library that would focus on printed works and would contain a copy of every book in every language and in every subject. As well as sketching the contents and organisation of the library, the lecture will briefly consider the implications of Hernando's projects for our understanding of the early modern book world and the role of library catalogues within it.
Location:
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - 17:30
18 May 2021
Homee and Phiroze Randeria Lecture
Mirjam Foot, New movements in French twentieth-century binding design: the importance of patronage
In the first half of the twentieth century, a group of designers in France, initially encouraged by an enlightened patron and book collector, started to produce wonderfully varied, and often amazingly beautiful designs for bindings, applying to books and bindings the philosophy and artistic skills that had inspired their drawings, engravings or etchings, as well as their designs for furniture and Pklceramics. They chose the best forwarders and finishers to carry out their designs, producing the most stunning results. Their work was mostly, but not entirely, intended for discerning collectors.
This talk will concentrate on this group of designers who worked mainly in Paris until c. 1960.
Location:
