Clik here to view.
Frederick Rolfe and Mar Jacobus
In the course of his life, the novelist Frederick Rolfe became involved in some truly bizarre shenanigans from time to time, but there was one occasion which stands out as what Donald Weeks described...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two Drawings
Sometimes, you go out buying and come home, look at what you've bought and realise that in the heat of the moment you might have spent money on something doesn't grip you in the same way after cool...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Callum James Books - Cards
A bumper postbag today, including this new set of promotional material for Callum James Books. Two different business cards for different occasions and a two sided postcard with details of what I buy,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dutch Gilt Patterned Papers
If it's alright with all of you, can we just skip over the fact that I haven't posted anything here for ten days and move on...? Thank you...This is a little outside my comfort zone when it comes to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two Glamorous Novelists
These two gloriously glamorous dames are from a small collection of author photographs I bought recently. They are both from the Eileen Clarke Agency and photographed by Clayton Evans. Both have an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tempting Fate by Michael Levey
It's become fashionable, I believe, to call the kind of thing I'm about to type a "late review". In this case it is only 31 years late. Michael Levey's Tempting Fate was written in 1982 and published...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Homoerotic and Male Nude Bookplates
Ā I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "I don't consider myself a dealer or collector of ex-libris bookplates". This is swift becoming something of a disingenuous statement. In fact, I recently...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Very sexy 1930s photo
I think this may be one of the sexiest photos I've seen for a long time. It is in a book by Sargeant Jagger, Modelling and Sculpture in the Making, from 1933, which is illustrated with numerous...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Callum James Books: Short List #11
Ā Delighted to announce that I have just uploaded the latest Short List catalogue and the link to the pdf file has just been emailed to the mailing list. If you would like to receive details of this and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Victorian Bookmark With Prince Albert Photograph
This is a brilliant bookmark and there's so much going on. The base of the bookmark is pierced paper which has then been embroidered with a cross and other designs. Cut steel beads have been used to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Civil Defence: Cold War Ephemera
I am completely torn between loving this booklet for its great retro graphics and being repelled by the scary, scary information. This is a Civil Defence recruitment booklet from the height of the Cold...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Handsome Chaps
A beautiful Bank Holiday Monday here on the South Coast today. We headed to Winchester to an antiques fair and spent the morning wandering around looking at lovely things. Sadly, there wasn't much for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The One That Got Away
I've been having a bit of a buying spree on Ebay for the vintage swimwear collection and this one, above, I really wanted. So badly in fact, that I stayed up into the early hours of the morning to be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Wonderful Horrible Letter
Somebody please buy this! One of the best pieces of ephemera I think I've ever seen on Ebay. So many questions left unanswered and yet, one feels that the lady to whom it was addressed probably had any...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hart Crane and Retro Graphics
I was first turned on to the poetry of Hart Crane by a novella of Samuel R Delany's in which Crane features. He's not a very well known poet in the UK but I tracked down a new copy of his collected...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Lord of the Flies Folio Society Edition
The Lord of the FliesĀ is a book which draws a line in the sand between childhood and adulthood and watches a group of boys pitch and fall, this way and that, back and forth over that line. Those of us...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Strange and Supernatural from Callum James Books
For the last few months we've been working on another full-length catalogue, and some of the goodies it contains have been trailed here and on twitter so it will come as no surprise to know that we...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Woodcuts by Pam G. Rueter
I can't tell you anywhere near as much as I'd like about Pam G Rueter (1906-1998), the artist behind these enchanting woodcuts. There is a dutch Wiki page which Google will translate into English for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Isle of Wight and Indiana Jones
Those of you who follow me on twitter will know that I've been braving storms and high seas to visit the Isle of Wight today to do a touch of book hunting and, what in some parts of the world is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lionel Wiggam Photo
One of the things I've often thought about collecting for myself is photographic portraits of poets. If there was ever any part of me that thought this was a serious proposition it was dashed to the...
View Article