Category: Provenance
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A Mysterious Box, Part V
After decades of separation, I am tremendously pleased to write that Dr. Alfred Huhnhäuser’s photograph albums are now once again in the same archive – the University of Stirling’s Special Collections – as his other papers! And that concludes this series on the “Mysterious Box”, which turned out to be more remarkable, implausible, and serendipitous…
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A Mysterious Box, Part IV
This evening I’ve been sorting through the remaining photo albums in advance of handing Dr. Huhnhäuser’s collection over to the university. There are so many volumes I haven’t even mentioned here and so many wonderful photos, like the Christmas family group above or the interior shot below, that I haven’t touched on. Of the remaining…
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A Mysterious Box, Part II
Today I have returned to the box of photograph albums (see my previous post). The first album I open is another snapshot of the family at Davos: photos of snow, laughing young people, and warm hostels. There is a wonderful candour and freedom about the photographs here and elsewhere in this collection. When one thinks…
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Week 17: Provenance and the Individual Book in the Digital Age
Another chapter down. This one was on reception and readership and – combined with some very exciting plans for a new project which I’ve been cooking up with a friend down south – it’s been making me think about provenance and book ownership even more than usual. “[People] care about what makes a book unique“ A…
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An Excursus into Bookbinding: MacLehose of Glasgow
A couple of days ago, I had bindings on my mind. I’d been discussing Scottish bindings with a friend and that evening found myself looking at my own library for any which stood out from the ordinary run. Pulling a couple of volumes off the shelves, the third Miscellany of the Spalding Club (Aberdeen, 1846) and…
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Peeling Back the Layers of an Eighteenth-Century Book
Amongst my weaknesses may be counted a taste for collecting the books I study. This led me, a few days ago, to be in the happy condition of owning a copy of Alexander Nisbet’s System of Heraldry, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1722-42), one of the heftier sets of antiquarian folios to be published by the eighteenth-century Scottish book…
Kelsey Jackson Williams 