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Polaroid: Enzo
Occasionally, when surfing around for photographs to buy I am tempted into colour and sometimes tempted away from vintage swimwear as well. Apart from knowing that this model's name is Enzo, he 18 and...
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Pre-Order: Frederick Rolfe Centenary Catalogue
You cannot possibly be a regular reader of this blog without knowing of our regard for Frederick Rolfe Baron Corvo and this Saturday past was the 100th anniversary of the Baron's death in Venice....
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Corvine Pilgrimage Photos
Well, I'm back from a week of Corvine celebrations. Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@callumJBooks) will already have seen some of these photographs of my Corvine mini-pilgrimage just completed:...
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Penguin Poets: Elizabethan Verse
...and while I was away this addition to the collection of the Penguin Poets series arrived. This is the Penguin Book of Elizabethan Verse (D83) with an amazing design by Stephen Russ on the cover.
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Vintage photo: Nearly Naked Dancers
I stayed out of the bidding on Ebay for this one, knowing that if I got invested in it I'd end up spending far too much. It sold earlier for just over 200 GBP: which sounds okay until you realise it...
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Frederick Rolfe Centenary: The Catalogue
Last week we issued our Baron Corvo centenary catalogue, Baron Corvo: One Hundred Items from the Collection of Robert Scoble. Members of our mailing list were sent a link to the digital version a few...
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A Very Late Review: Ernesto by Umberto Saba
This is a quite remarkable book. Usually billed as an unfinished novel, the novella-length story is divided up into five chapters headed first, second, third... 'episode'. Each episode is a little...
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Shane Leslie: Better if Rolfe Crowley & Maundy Gregory Never Born
This astonishing letter from Shane Leslie to an someone connected with Exeter University in 1964 is currently for sale on Ebay, and the images are reproduced here with the permission of the seller....
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Don't put your hand up!
Provenance is everything. I bought this at an auction. Admittedly for not very much money at all. It was catalogued as being 'reputedly by G. K. Chesterton'. Everyone else was sitting on their hands...
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Ex Libris Vivian Forbes
In my Short List #11 I listed the postcard above and cataloged it thus:FORBES, Vivian. Autographed Card. 140mm x 100mm. Asepia-toned reproduction of Forbes’s painting, “The EchoingValley” is signed at...
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More Vintage Polaroid Loveliness
Not the first time in the last couple of weeks that I've been tempted by rather more modern, but still vintage photos. Polaroid photos have something of an appeal for their sheer one off-ness. I have...
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Patterned Paper at Bonhams
If, like me, you have something of a penchant for patterned paper or marbled paper, or simply the joy of paper of any kind, you might want to check out lot no 100 in Bonhams upcoming sale of books,...
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Late Review: By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham
By Nightfallby Michael CunninghamFourth Estate, London: 2011Another example of reaching for a book for its cover. I confess, however, I wasn't expecting to like it. Peter and Rebecca are a couple in...
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More Underwater Vintage Swimming
A couple of weeks ago I blogged a press photo that I had bought of two men, underwater, an ambiguous image that turned out to be reportage of lifeguards training for rescuing a swimmer in distress....
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Aubrey Beardsley by Joseph Pennell: An Early Notice
In volume one of The Studio, in 1893, under the editorship of Joseph Gleeson-White, a man whom we have mentioned many times on Front Free Endpaper as not having received his due for his influence on...
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Things That Fall From Books #16: The Band of Purity
It was in August that we last had an entry in the occasional series of blog post about things that I've found tucked inside books. I really couldn't let this one go now could I? Made better still by...
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An Anthology in Calligraphy by John C Tarr
John C Tarr wrote and edited books on calligraphy, printing, illustration and handwriting. Those publications span the 1940s o the 70s but apart from that there is little online to tell me much about...
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Tunnicliffe illustrates Henry Williamson
C. F. Tunnicliffe is not, perhaps, known for his depictions of human beings. He is the artist of heavy horses, fat bulls, sheep and other bucolic subjects: at least, those are the images most readily...
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Mervyn Peake illustrates Treasure Island
I have a confession to make. I have read the Gormenghast books of Mervyn Peake: I wasn't blown away by them. This is almost a heresy in some quarters I know, and on the whole they are quarters where...
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Very Late Review: The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley
The Go-Betweenby L. P. HartleyHamish Hamilton, London: 1953The story is prompted by an old man discovering in his possessions a box of 'treasures' from his boyhood which include a diary. The diary is...
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