With the exception of the AGM and the December meeting, all meetings will be held at the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE, beginning at 5.30 p.m. All lectures will also be live-streamed.For all regular meetings at the Society of Antiquaries, tea will be served at 5.00 p.m. and wine will be served after each lecture. Members are welcome to bring guests, both to meetings and to the social gatherings before and after each meeting.
24 October 2023
The Annual General Meeting will take place at Lincoln’s Inn Library, Lincoln’s Inn, London WC2A 3TN, on Tuesday, 24 October 2023, at 6:00 p.m. No tea will be served before the meeting, but refreshments will be served afterwards.
Panel for grant recipients
Molly G. Yarn: Invisible furniture: Women printers in the London book trade
This paper explores the challenges and rewards of researching early modern women printers, demonstrating how an approach combining archival, bibliographical, and creative methodologies can illuminate women’s lives and their contributions to the book trade.
Geri Della Rocca de Candal: Aldine proof sheets in the 1499 Dioscorides
While in-house manuscript corrections in Manutius’s own hand are becoming increasingly known, proof sheets are much rarer, and until recently Aldine proof sheets were not known to exist. Three of these have now been identified in different copies of the Dioscorides of 1499, allowing us for the first time to peek at the way Manutius worked and edited texts.
12 December 2023
Please note that this lecture will take place at Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, Room G3.
This talk explores the process and implications of the recent discovery of a printed Book of Hours once owned by Thomas Cromwell, and once immortalised by Hans Holbein the Younger in Cromwell’s portrait.
16 January 2024
Rémi Jimenes: Claude Garamont, royal type-founder?
This lecture will present new facts and hypotheses on the career of Claude Garamont. It will focus on the years 1538-1544, during which Garamont was in the service of King François I.
20 February 2024
Kathleen Doyle and Sarah Griffin: A catalogue of medieval concertina-fold almanacs
Concertina-fold almanacs are a type of folded book, defined by their distinctive structure and content relating to time. This talk describes a project to catalogue all known western medieval examples, and what their analysis as a group has revealed.
19 March 2024
Presidential Address
This paper will focus on the increasing significance of fragments and accidental survivals in our understanding of early printed books.
16 April 2024
Homee and Phiroze Randeria Lecture
Please note the change of date (originally to be given in May)
Mirjam Foot: Taste and discrimination: The Cerruti Collection of decorated bindings
Very few people outside Italy will have heard of Francesco Federico Cerruti, a man of great taste and discernment with an excellent eye for quality. As well as paintings, sculptures, ceramics and other objects of art, he collected decorated bindings, ranging in date from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, displaying a wide variety of materials, styles and designs, originating largely in Italy and France. The lecture will be profusely illustrated.
Graham Pollard Memorial Lecture
Geoffrey Day: The preservation and recycling of ‘waste’ printed sheets in the eighteenth-century book trade
‘Waste’ printed sheets were preserved for various reasons: commercial, idealistic, and occasionally felonious. Records of such preservation illuminate many areas of the eighteenth-century book trade, from the identification of responsibility for anonymous publications to demonstrating customer expectations.
Summer visit
The Bibliographical Society’s Summer Visit for 2024 will be to Special Collections & Galleries at the University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2 9JT, on Thursday, 20 June 2024, beginning at 14.00.
Numbers for this visit are limited and those wishing to attend should notify the Hon. Secretary by email or post no later than Friday, 14 June. Priority will be given to members of the Society, and guests may be permitted if numbers allow. Places will be allocated as replies are received and confirmations will be sent.
Further details and the booking form can be downloaded from Summer visit Leeds 2024