archive files: Interview with Tony Fothergill, 2016. York Dealer selling rare book for £50,000 T.E. Lawrence. Seven Pillars of Wisdom (The Scotsman) Fantastic photos of 1920s and 1930s York cyclists up for sale Is this England's oldest teabag (The Guardian) A Life's Work Brought to Book (Peter Miller) Laying your Cards on the Table (Ephemera) Psycho - Hitchcock's original typescript Going by the Book - a tour of some of the U.K's best bookshops
James Fergusson writing in The Bookdealer. Ken Spelman Rare Books have gone, till now, from strength to strength. Their latest catalogue, 43, 'Recent Acquisitions', celebrates the expansion of their shop into the premises next door, thus reuniting the two shops which were one before the First World War. Their catalogue cover illustrates in full colour their new shop front, art books displayed artfully under a vase of flowers, books on orangeries and the kitchen garden lined up beside Sargent and Venetian villas, glass and Ibsen. The fanlit shop door stands open, revealing bookcases eight shelves high - orderly, packed, inviting. Inside is a photograph, black and white and a little faded, of the shop as it used to be circa 1910, before Spelman's (now in only their 52nd year) had it. Edwin Story Booksellers & Stationers were more old fashioned. The lettering is hotchpotch, a mixture of sweetshop-curly and classroom-plain straight on the glass. The two windows are subtly different - as though Story's, too, have overrun a willing neighbour. One is stacked with photograph frames and other paraphernalia of stationers for the gentry; the other is an obscure muddle of books and prints on which even my eager magnifying glass sheds little light. In each door stands a figure - each, again, oddly different in physiognomy and dress: two proud Story cousins in suits waiting for Passchendaele? What is impressive about Spelman is that in the twenty-first century not only do they seek to remain, indeed to expand on street, but that at the same time they ally this expansion to e-development. 'We are committed to maintaining the tradition of a general country bookshop but in this new century this will be complemented by a large web site as well as regular printed catalogues in our specialist areas of the humanities and the fine arts.' Thus the shop boasts a stock of 40,000 books across the board, while the website shows 'over 10,000 titles searchable on-line', with 300 titles added each week. This is progressive and interesting; and not, from current evidence, at the expense of the quality of their printed catalogues. The latest, divided into sections entitles 'Art, Architecture & Design'. 'Gardens, Landscape & Agriculture', 'Country House Guides'. 'Picturesque Travel & Aesthetics', 'Italy & the Grand Tour', 'Illustrated Books', 'Literature', runs to 337 items, well chosen, clearly presented and with judicious illustrations. Their web-site is equally hospitable..."
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