From the earliest printing to C21st zines: a very engaging account. The author is Prof of Eng Lit at Balliol when not noodling about with like-minded eggheads and a Model 4 letter press.
The 40-year relationship between the prodigious writer and scholar (biographer of Gandhi, amongst other things, and a JS customer) and his original editor at Oxford University Press.
Like a detective novel of the time, the story of two booksellers who uncovered the forgeries of a pompous bastion of the literary scene in 1930s' London.
A small book on this miraculous library, filled with 300 tiny books commissioned by Lutyens and Princess Marie Louise from some of the greatest authors of the time - Hardy, Conan Doyle and m... read more
A vivid portrait of a complex man approached through twelve books, including his mother's diary and Lolita. Beguiling and intriguing, he did not shun controversy.
Several of the principal compilers of the OED have already been sung - not least the editor James Murray, who took over two decades to reach the letter 'T'. It is his newly-discovered addres... read more
A vast array of material is expertly woven together in this illuminating look at embattled authors and their literature: Anne Frank, Orwell, Biggles...
A sharp scrutiny of the recent literary phenomenon by the emeritus Professor of Modern English at UCL makes clear the distinction between responsible warnings and censorship, as well as expo... read more
Explores the history of the translation of classical Greek literature into Latin. Far from being inevitable, as it seems seen from the C21st, the Roman adoption of Hellenic classics was an e... read more
A charming self-published book about Great Bardfield, the Essex village that became home to several artists, including Ravilious and Bawden; like a picture within a picture, it's also about ... read more
Translation and interpretation are not straightforward, and never were... With matchless scholarship and sensitivity, Dr Barton compares multiple readings to reveal their ambiguities and int... read more
Carey has been chief reviewer at the Sunday Times for over forty years. This new book is his own selection of his favourite books from the 1000+ that he has reviewed so far.
The title could pass off as a short story by M.R. James or as one of the exploits of Robert Louis Stevenson's little-known, rather Ruritanian sleuth called Prince Florizel. It is in fact a d... read more
The remarkable story of the author's Jewish grandmother, whose bestselling Viennese cookbook was expropriated by the Nazis after the Anschluss in 1938 and republished for decades under a fal... read more
This eloquent little book offers a moving and erudite justification for the survival of high quality book shops and why they are essential places of discovery, refuge and fulfilment. Laced w... read more
Marius is the distinguished antiquarian bookseller who features in the work of Javier Marias and worked for Bernard Stone and Peter Ellis; also a wide-ranging writer, most recently on Naples... read more
Using West's 1930s masterpiece Black Lamb, Grey Falcon as a vade mecum, Allan has written a wonderful, personal portrait of the countries that made up the former Yugoslavia.
Gorgeous colour images, as well as translations and commentary on these celebrated Persian poems. Both manuscripts date from the C15th and are exquisitely illustrated. This will be ravishing... read more
Argues that the physical form of books makes them distinctive, and sometimes dangerous, quite as much as their content. (John Morgan’s recent, limited edition Usylessly, with its beautiful... read more