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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 27d

Spot the difference: John the Baptist from the Hours of Joanna I of Castile and our Community Engagement Officer remembering how many emails he has to respond to

A close up of a medieval manuscript showing St John the Baptist pointing at a lamb. He's looking particularly haggard.

The archive's Community Engagement Officer looking similarly tired. He is in one of the archive's strongrooms, wearing an orange shirt. He is a white man with long brown hair and a short ginger beard.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 27d

We always love manuscript waste bindings, and here's a delightful little one: a 1533 edition of Jacopo Sadoleto's commentary on Psalm 51, bound in a contemporary choral vellum leaf blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A small book bound in vellum, with musical notation and fragments of Latin, including a large 'I' in blue

The rear cover of the same, with musical notation and text in manuscript.

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Gladstone's Library @gladlib.bsky.social · Aug 23

Have you noticed that the History Room shelves are looking even more beautiful than usual?

Our team of conservation volunteers have just completed the mammoth task of cleaning and condition checking every book in the Gladstone Foundation Collection!
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A photo of the Reading Rooms at Gladstone's Library. Big wooden pillars reach up to the ceiling in an arch. Bookcase run floor to ceiling along all walls, filled with books. Two large windows stand at the end of the room, light pouring in.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 23

One of our new favourite items in stock: an artist's proof copy of popular printmaker Graham Clarke's first hand-printed artist book, Balyn and Balan, an abridged retelling of one of the lesser known Arthurian legends produced entirely in wood and lino-cut bobadmin.blackwell.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A large double-page illustration of the exterior of a medieval castle, in shade of grey and dark red, with the figure of sword-wielding knight running across the courtyard on the verso and a second figure disappearing into a shadowed archway on the recto.

Tall oblong illustration of a figure on horseback printed in black and mauve, with woodcut text above reading 'But Balyn mounted his horse and rode out of Caerleon.', all contained within a rough black border.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 22

The same browser, exhibiting remarkable self-control: I'm leaving! I'm leaving now before I make a terrible mistake! Bye!

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 22

Browser, opening up one of our cases to take a closer look at some books: I have no self control
Us, cheerfully: that's what we like to hear

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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · Aug 21

Here's something we've not yet shared to Bluesky from the old site: This illustration from the Drayton Parslow Parish Register, 1785. It opens a section on baptisms.

The Drayton Parslow Parish Register, 1785. There are several notes of marriages and baptisms, alongside an illustration of a baptism.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 19

2/2 Rogers also commissioned special presentation copies in fine bindings, with manuscript verse and letters tipped in. This copy is inscribed to the artist Thomas Uwins (1782-1857) and contains five extra leaves

Two volumes in green morocco, decorated richly in gilt. Inset, a close-up of the gift inscription 'To Thomas Unwins Esq from the author'.

A tipped in leaf on pale blue paper, with a stanza of poetry signed by the poet

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 19

1/2 Rated by Ruskin as the 'loveliest engravings ever produced': J.M.W. Turner's illustrations for Samuel Rogers' second attempt at making 'Italy' a success; after the first edition was a flop, he commissioned engravings from leading artists for an expanded edition blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A Turner engraving of a Venetian bridge over a canal, with gondolas on the water and the moon peeking through a balcony doorway at the top of the bridge. Above the engraving, a stanza of the poem reading: 'Now the scene shifts to Venice -- to a square / Glittering with light, all nations masking there, / With light reflected on the tremulous tide, / where gondolas in gay confusion glide, / Answering the jest, the song every side'.

A Turner engraving of a pastoral scene, titled 'Datur Hora Quieti'. In the foreground, a field being ploughed next to a glittering river. In the background, a bridge, an architectural ruin, and rolling hills.

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Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · Aug 18

A majestically colourful cockerel. From a picture book ABC for children, printed in the Swiss city of Bern in 1860. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Ud.9.460.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 18

(And if you're unfamiliar with this particular earworm, well... good luck www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-1... )

taking the hobbits to isengard

YouTube video by Aaron Hardbarger

www.youtube.com

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 18

20 years since the catchiest high fantasy earworm on the internet was first published, remind yourself of precisely where they're taking the hobbits with this 1970 map of Middle-earth designed by Pauline Baynes blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Map of Middle-earth.

blackwells.co.uk

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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · Aug 12

Here's three minutes of us talking about human skin.

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Steven Van Impe @svanimpe.bsky.social · Aug 12

Using bibliographical format to fill your boxes:
2°, 4°, 8°, two 12°s.

#Bibliography #BookHistory 📚💙

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 11

Not the most comforting sight before you embark on a flight...

Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 8

View all our Tove Jansson stock here: blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/sea...

A photo of Moominvalley in November, the dustjacket illustrated with an autumnal forest floor, covered in orange leaves. There are tall tree trunks fading into darkness, with Moomin characters walking through the trees.

A scene from The Hobbit illustrated by Tove Jansson; Gollum is depicted as a huge, troll-like being rising out of the water, his face obscured by dark wet hair, with a wreath crown on his head. Bilbo crouches on dry land, wielding his sword.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Aug 8

As part of the @blackwelloxford.bsky.social great ground floor refit, we've got some beautiful new cabinets behind the tills - so of course we had to fill one with Tove Jansson, on the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Moomins! Moomin’s Day is celebrated on 9th August, Tove's birthday

A photo of a glass-fronted display case with four shelves of books illustrated by Tove Jansson

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · Aug 1

Love this 1938 woodcut of Univ by Agnes Reeve (which I rediscovered this week on the front of a Christmas card sent to staff by our previous Master, Sir Ivor Crewe!) 💙💛 #universitycollegeoxford

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Jul 23

The later sixteenth century fore-edge decoration is by Gómez Dávila y Toledo, 2nd Marqués de Velada - his brother Sancho (Bishop of Cartagena, Jan, Sigenza, and Plasencia) employed the same practice but with a mitre instead of a crown atop the arms.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Jul 23

In Ozzy's honour, here's some metal.

Clasps, that is - on the first pocket edition of Isocrates' Orations, 1540, in a contemporary Spanish binding. blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A stocky sixteenth century book in a dark brown binding, with a blind panelled design of floriated borders on the upper board. There are three prominent raised bands on the spine and leather thongs on the fore-edge, fastened in place with metal nails.

The fore-edge of the book, with inked decoration of two coats of arms and the books' author and title. The upper board is held open by its metal clasps, attached to leather thongs, giving a glimpse of the leather turn-ins and the original wooden board.

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Nigel Warburton @nigelwarburton.bsky.social · Jul 19

I’ll be interviewing Mark Vernon about William Blake at 11am today (Saturday)…free event upstairs at Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford (Broad Street) in the Philosophy in the Bookshop series

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Jul 18

Sometimes you just want to make absolutely sure nobody misses your favourite aspect of a book... From the first edition of Gerard's Herbal, 1597 blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A photo of a large book in a glass case, open on a page with woodcut illustrations of plants - and a slightly smudged but still discernible inky pawprint, likely that of a cat. A note has been jauntily affixed to the clear plastic tape holding open the book, on which 'Pawprint!' has been written in green ink with an arrow pointing to the offending print.

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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · Jul 18

The Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock is seeking to acquire a Bronze Age hoard discovered near Henley by a metal detector in 2020. The museum’s Friends group has launched an appeal for £10,500 to purchase the hoard, which includes a horse brooch that is more than 2000 years old.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · Jul 17

You know you're going to have a nice day when a wife, who has already assembled a sizeable book pile, exclaims "Holy shit, Geoff!" at the sight of her husband's own tower of books.

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