Bibliophilic Pleasures

I like books. I like looking at a well-designed and produced book, feeling the texture of the cloth cover, turning the pages, resting it in my hands. It's just not the same with an e-book.

I don't consider myself a serious book collector, but there are also the bibliophilic pleasures to be enjoyed by owning second-hand books, especially if they are inscribed or display bookplates or other signs of ownership.

Yesterday I took a book from the shelves to re-read a section for some research: British Antiquity by T D Kendrick (London: Methuen & Co, 1950); it has a very tactile cloth cover with a debossed golden image of the cross found by the coffin alleged to contain the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere uncovered at Glastonbury in 1190 (the book is a critique of Geoffrey of Monmouth's massive influence on early medieval British historiography). I bought it online a few years ago, but for the first time I noticed that there was a bookplate on the front pastedown and the owner's name written carefully on the flyleaf. There was also a small sticker on the pastedown for a bookshop in Oxford (Parker & Son) where the book was presumably purchased. Parker and Son was a famous Oxford bookshop, no longer in existence - see here.

The bookplate was a certificate like I used to get at school when you won the school prize for a particular subject - this one was from Somerville College, Oxford for the Coombs Prize in History awarded to Antonia Morland.

A quick check online reveals that the Edith Coombs Prize for History was won by amongst others the writer and feminist Vera Brittain author of the popular autobiography Testament of Youth; there don't appear to be any recent references to the prize. Somerville College is of course a famous Oxford college established for women students founded in 1879; alumni include Dorothy L Sayers, Iris Murdoch and er, Margaret Thatcher.

Antonia Morland took the married name Antonia Gransden (written on the flyleaf), a name that rang no bells with me but, on checking, I discovered that she was an eminent scholar in medieval history and that, sadly, she had died in January this year at the age of 91. She specialised in historiography, her most notable work being the two-volume Historical Writing in England (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974 and 1982) and merited obituaries in amongst other publications The Times (which mentions that she was a friend of EM Forster) and The Guardian here. She also produced a study of Legends, Tradition and History in Medieval England (here) that it would probably be worthwhile for me to read. She gained a first class degree in History in 1951, so the book was probably presented to her that year. She later went on to study for a PhD, unusual for a woman at that time.

Another intriguing item is a book I bought online by John Russell Taylor: The Art Nouveau Book in Britain (London: Methuen, 1966) with a beautifully spare gilded cover. The flyleaf bears the inscription: 'For Roman, Who has made all too good use of it already - I've never found a JMK drawing! John Russell Taylor 1967'. JMK is presumably Jessie M King, who features in the book, see here. John Russell Taylor, who is still with us, went on to become an eminent critic and writer on film with major biographies of Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh amongst others. Could Roman by any chance be Roman Polanski? I'd like to think so - The Tenant is one of my favourite films.

For films of serious book collectors see for example this film on Mark Valentine or R B Russell's film on collecting weird fiction master Robert Aickman.