20 October 2013

Things found in books - Northern College library

The library - or rather, the bookshelves - in some of the grand rooms of Wentworth Castle  has many volumes of parliamentary papers from the 1970s. Here they are a backdrop for Yvonne Brown's work.

Elsewhere, though, are five or six bays filled with venerable books [the sort charity shops are only too happy to bin as unsaleable]. They were once the library of Reginald Gaimster (1897-1978), "Citizen of Barnsley & USA", obviously read and loved -
I was tempted to take this book away for bedtime reading (Sir Sydney Cockerell, who had to leave school at age 10, was a manuscript collector and museum curator, friend of William Morris and John Ruskin, and expanded the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge during his long directorship) but subsequently found Virginia Woolf's "The Common Reader" and dipped into that instead, discovering Dorothy Osborne (1627-1695, known for her 77 extant letters to William Temple) and the intense friendship between Jane Carlyle and Geraldine Jewsbury (thank you, Reginald Gaimster!) -

Also amazing was this 1946 publication -
It's listed on Google Books but an ebook isn't available.

1 comment:

Cate Rose said...

Perhaps you should venture into the antiquarian book business...along with all your other pursuits!