The Book Trade and its Customers, 1450‐1900: : Historical Essays for Robin Myers

Citation

Harrison, K.C. (1998), "The Book Trade and its Customers, 1450‐1900: : Historical Essays for Robin Myers", Library Review, Vol. 47 No. 4, pp. 238-238. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1998.47.4.238.1

The modest Robin Myers is not to be found in Who’s Who, so it should be noted at the outset that she has for many years been honorary archivist of the Stationers’ Company, and in 1996 became the first woman president of the Bibliographical Society (London). A group of friends and fellow scholars got together to produce this Festschrift to her, and it was a well‐kept secret until its appearance, as all the best Festschriften should be. Edited by Arnold Hunt, Giles Mandelbrote and Alison Shell, it is made up of 17 essays on the book trade and its customers from 1450 to 1900, and carries an introduction by Professor D.F. Mackenzie, of Oxford University, a memoir of Robin Myers by Allison Shell and others, and a list of Myers’ published works from 1994 to 1996.

A former librarian of the National Book League, Robin Myers has spent most of her life as a historian of the book trade, so it is fitting that these 17 experts have combined to produce such a volume as this which, incidentally, was presented to Robin Myers at the Bibliographical Society’s Randeria Lecture on 20 May 1997. It is almost impossible to do justice to this volume in what must necessarily be a brief review, because all 17 chapters deserve the closest attention. Here is just a taste of some of them.

Anna Greening, archivist of the Fawcett Library, contributes a brief description of the Tottell family documents (1448‐1719) at Stationers’ Hall to provide a glimpse of a sixteenth‐century stationer and his business records. David Pearson, librarian of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, provides an even briefer account of a binding with the arms of the Stationers’ Company, but this is enriched by a fine illustration of the binding he describes, dating from 1613. On the same subject, Eiluned Rees writes on bookbindings in the National Library of Wales, and this, too, is embellished with three illustrations. The changing role of trade bookbinders in the nineteenth century is traced by Esther Potter, a specialist historian on the subject . Other chapters are concerned with the libraries of private collectors such as Sir Edward Sherborne (1616‐1702) and Francis Fry (1803‐1886), the Bristol chocolate‐maker who collected Bibles.

Book trade patents 1603‐1640; engravers and printsellers of the eighteenth century; and Magdalen College, Oxford, and the book trade, 1450‐1550; these are just some of the other topics covered in this admirable volume. There are others, too numerous to mention. Collectively they form a notable contribution to book trade history. This is a volume which will surely be treasured by Robin Myers, and it is one that scholars of the subject will ignore at their peril. Finally, one should pay tribute to the publisher, St Paul’s Bibliographies, for making available yet another valuable contribution to historical bibliography.