A day spent at an "International Antiquarian Bookfair" yesterday resulted in my purchasing not a single book - I'm almost proud of that fact. However, I did find a moment to buy three exlibris bookplates. The top one is the bookplate of Siegfied Sassoon's gay cousin, Philip: also a WW1 officer, a politician, writer and society 'host' as well as an important collector of fine things. The bookplate may represent a ship arriving at the Port of Lympne where he famously made his home, perhaps dropping off the next selection of books for the library on the quay brought in from around the world. There is a monogram "TP" in the corner of the engraving but I don't know who that is yet.
The second bookplate also has a monogram, a much less helpful A in a circle, or possibly an "AO", in any case I again don't know the artist but liked the image as a naked youth sits among his books at the window looking out to where a mountain goat stands proudly on the hill.
The third is by a Danish artist called Henry Brokman (1968-1933) who began his artistic career in the cradle of the symbolists but developed into a somewhat more Romantic style later on. This is the bookplate of Francis Marion Crawford, an American writer of a huge number of novels, many of which are set in Italy where he was born and where he later returned to make his permanent home. Many of his novels have a slightly weird, fantastical or supernatural tinge to them.
