iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Spot the difference: John the Baptist from the Hours of Joanna I of Castile and our Community Engagement Officer remembering how many emails he has to respond to

A close up of a medieval manuscript showing St John the Baptist pointing at a lamb. He's looking particularly haggard.

The archive's Community Engagement Officer looking similarly tired. He is in one of the archive's strongrooms, wearing an orange shirt. He is a white man with long brown hair and a short ginger beard.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

We always love manuscript waste bindings, and here's a delightful little one: a 1533 edition of Jacopo Sadoleto's commentary on Psalm 51, bound in a contemporary choral vellum leaf blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A small book bound in vellum, with musical notation and fragments of Latin, including a large 'I' in blue

The rear cover of the same, with musical notation and text in manuscript.

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Gladstone's Library @gladlib.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Have you noticed that the History Room shelves are looking even more beautiful than usual? Our team of conservation volunteers have just completed the mammoth task of cleaning and condition checking every book in the Gladstone Foundation Collection! 1/3

A photo of the Reading Rooms at Gladstone's Library. Big wooden pillars reach up to the ceiling in an arch. Bookcase run floor to ceiling along all walls, filled with books. Two large windows stand at the end of the room, light pouring in.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

One of our new favourite items in stock: an artist's proof copy of popular printmaker Graham Clarke's first hand-printed artist book, Balyn and Balan, an abridged retelling of one of the lesser known Arthurian legends produced entirely in wood and lino-cut bobadmin.blackwell.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A large double-page illustration of the exterior of a medieval castle, in shade of grey and dark red, with the figure of sword-wielding knight running across the courtyard on the verso and a second figure disappearing into a shadowed archway on the recto.

Tall oblong illustration of a figure on horseback printed in black and mauve, with woodcut text above reading 'But Balyn mounted his horse and rode out of Caerleon.', all contained within a rough black border.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Browser, opening up one of our cases to take a closer look at some books: I have no self control Us, cheerfully: that's what we like to hear

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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Here's something we've not yet shared to Bluesky from the old site: This illustration from the Drayton Parslow Parish Register, 1785. It opens a section on baptisms.

The Drayton Parslow Parish Register, 1785. There are several notes of marriages and baptisms, alongside an illustration of a baptism.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

1/2 Rated by Ruskin as the 'loveliest engravings ever produced': J.M.W. Turner's illustrations for Samuel Rogers' second attempt at making 'Italy' a success; after the first edition was a flop, he commissioned engravings from leading artists for an expanded edition blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A Turner engraving of a Venetian bridge over a canal, with gondolas on the water and the moon peeking through a balcony doorway at the top of the bridge. Above the engraving, a stanza of the poem reading: 'Now the scene shifts to Venice -- to a square / Glittering with light, all nations masking there, / With light reflected on the tremulous tide, / where gondolas in gay confusion glide, / Answering the jest, the song every side'.

A Turner engraving of a pastoral scene, titled 'Datur Hora Quieti'. In the foreground, a field being ploughed next to a glittering river. In the background, a bridge, an architectural ruin, and rolling hills.

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Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

A majestically colourful cockerel. From a picture book ABC for children, printed in the Swiss city of Bern in 1860. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Ud.9.460.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

20 years since the catchiest high fantasy earworm on the internet was first published, remind yourself of precisely where they're taking the hobbits with this 1970 map of Middle-earth designed by Pauline Baynes blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

blackwells.co.uk

Map of Middle-earth.

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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Here's three minutes of us talking about human skin.

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Steven Van Impe @svanimpe.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Using bibliographical format to fill your boxes: 2°, 4°, 8°, two 12°s. #Bibliography #BookHistory 📚💙

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

As part of the @blackwelloxford.bsky.social great ground floor refit, we've got some beautiful new cabinets behind the tills - so of course we had to fill one with Tove Jansson, on the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Moomins! Moomin’s Day is celebrated on 9th August, Tove's birthday

A photo of a glass-fronted display case with four shelves of books illustrated by Tove Jansson

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Love this 1938 woodcut of Univ by Agnes Reeve (which I rediscovered this week on the front of a Christmas card sent to staff by our previous Master, Sir Ivor Crewe!) 💙💛 #universitycollegeoxford

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

In Ozzy's honour, here's some metal. Clasps, that is - on the first pocket edition of Isocrates' Orations, 1540, in a contemporary Spanish binding. blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A stocky sixteenth century book in a dark brown binding, with a blind panelled design of floriated borders on the upper board. There are three prominent raised bands on the spine and leather thongs on the fore-edge, fastened in place with metal nails.

The fore-edge of the book, with inked decoration of two coats of arms and the books' author and title. The upper board is held open by its metal clasps, attached to leather thongs, giving a glimpse of the leather turn-ins and the original wooden board.

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Nigel Warburton @nigelwarburton.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

I’ll be interviewing Mark Vernon about William Blake at 11am today (Saturday)…free event upstairs at Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford (Broad Street) in the Philosophy in the Bookshop series

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Sometimes you just want to make absolutely sure nobody misses your favourite aspect of a book... From the first edition of Gerard's Herbal, 1597 blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A photo of a large book in a glass case, open on a page with woodcut illustrations of plants - and a slightly smudged but still discernible inky pawprint, likely that of a cat. A note has been jauntily affixed to the clear plastic tape holding open the book, on which 'Pawprint!' has been written in green ink with an arrow pointing to the offending print.

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Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

The Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock is seeking to acquire a Bronze Age hoard discovered near Henley by a metal detector in 2020. The museum’s Friends group has launched an appeal for £10,500 to purchase the hoard, which includes a horse brooch that is more than 2000 years old.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

You know you're going to have a nice day when a wife, who has already assembled a sizeable book pile, exclaims "Holy shit, Geoff!" at the sight of her husband's own tower of books.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Dustjacket of the day: a strikingly malevolent design on the 1960 first edition of The Devil's Own by 'Peter Curtis' - Norah Lofts' pseudonym for her mystery fiction. The novel was adapted into the 1966 horror film The Witches by Nigel Kneale, Quatermass creator blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A stormy yellow and green foreground, with a small village church in the background and a large silhouette of a black cat dominating the front panel, with solid yellow eyes. The title is in white brushstroke lettering.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

The curse of being a bookseller is that the phone will ALWAYS ring when you've just grabbed a cheeky biscuit from the book (and biscuit) cupboard. (Originally posted a few years ago on twitter but remaining so true, as we all frantically looked around at each other to see who wasn't still chewing.)

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RCPSG Heritage @rcpsgheritage.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Feeling the heat? 🥵 Try these herbal remedies for cooling the blood from our 18th century herbal notebook.

A handwritten page from a notebook showing herbs for cooling the blood. These include sorrel and endives

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Overheard in the @blackwelloxford.bsky.social Norrington Room: "I want to die down here. ... in a good way, I mean."

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alexis nedd @alexisthenedd.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Think of the musician who wrote this song 400 years ago. Think of them writing it down, folding up the paper, putting it away, losing that paper at some point — never knowing that the last time they played it wouldn’t be the last time someone heard their music. Hey buddy. I really like your song.

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Cambridge University Library @theul.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

💅Self-care, medieval style… 🛌Catch up on sleep 🥗Eat a good diet 🏊Do some exercise 🛀Have a bath We hope you spent your bank holiday doing at least ONE of these things, which are all recommended in this beautiful manuscript, once owned by Elizabeth of York (MS Ii.5.11). #CuriousCures

A medieval person in bed covered in blankets

A man and a woman sitting a table, eating a meal

A man in a canopied bathtub with a table of food

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

"Wait a second... Wait a second! Oh my god, that's LATIN!" - a kid in the bookshop, reminding us joy can be found anywhere

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Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

There's nothing worse than getting your spacing wrong! The title on the tail edge tells us this book about the Kingdom of Naples, printed in 1563, was previously stored lying down. It's been (standing up) on our shelves since 1707!

16th century book lying down with the the tail edge pointing at the camera showing the title written there in ink

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

"Antiquarian? Isn't that where you keep fish?" - overheard in the bookshop

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Dustjacket of the day, from our latest catalogue: a striking design by one of our favourite dustjacket artists, K. Romney Towndrow, on the only novel by playwright Laura Wildig, a member of the London literary circle ‘The Launderers’ View the catalogue here: blackwells.co.uk/rarebooks/ca...

Dustjacket with a yellow front panel, against which the simple and stylised illustration of a woman's shocked facial features in red and black, with a heart-shaped hairline and stylised red hair (perhaps) spreading upright and outwards in straight lines like sunrays. The woman's white hands are held up to her mouth in an shocked expression.

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Susan Theobald @sortalazysusan.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

This was a bit of a rush job, but it was v fun to do. Might have another crack at it one day, or something similiar... The Hobbit illumination with Smaug as a weird mediaeval dragon?

A gouache painting of Alice and the White Rabbit, in a mock mediaeval illumination style

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

It's the most wonderful time of the year again! Namely @firstsrarebooks.bsky.social, 16-18 May in the Saatchi Gallery (Sunday free entry). Visit us at Stand F47, where we have, as always, some lovely stuff

A photo of our fair stand, with glass cases and wooden bookshelves

A close up of a pair of glass cabinets, holding antiquarian books and ephemera

A close up of wooden shelves, holding modern books.

A shot of another set of glass cabinets, holding a mix of modern and antiquarian books, with framed original illustrations hanging on the wall around the cabinets.

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Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk · 09/05/2025

Cat in the Old Schools Quad! Cat in the Old Schools Quad! Maybe he's been mewsing on philosophy in the Divinity School? Or reading Pawlatonic ideals in the Old Bod? Because he's a catademic? Better puns gratefully recieved.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

This event @blackwelloxford.bsky.social is free to attend, and our manager Sian plans to bring something nice upstairs to the third floor to show off to attendees

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Listen to our very own Henry Gott chatting with Emma about At Swim-Two-Birds!

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

It's finally here! The Oxford Fine Press Fair opens at 12 noon today, in the beautiful Examination Schools on the High Street. Private press books, ephemera, broadsides, fine bindings, and printers from around the world... Tickets are £5, at the door or online: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2025-oxfor...

eventbrite.co.uk

2025 Oxford Fine Press Book Fair

Our favourite book fair of the season returns featuring international private presses, book artists, designer bindings and associated trades

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British Online Archives (BOA) @boapublishing.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Thanks to @lampallib.bsky.social for letting us know that it is World Frog Day🐸! We had a look through our scoping images and found some fun frogs to share with you from The National Archives, @britishlibrary.bsky.social, and @uclspeccoll.bsky.social

An illustration of two frogs standing on their hind legs in the grass. The grass is taller than them. The frogs appear to be giggling.

Three crudely illustrated frogs sit upon a shield with the word "Buttres" written above it. The frogs are rotund and spotted.

A page from an early modern book with a hand coloured illustration of three frogs. The frogs are in different swimming positions in a bright blue pond, and are coloured with varying shades of green and brown. There are tall bullrushes in the pond behind them.

An illustration of two frogs dancing on their hind legs, apparently at a witches sabbath. They are both wearing capes.

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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 18/03/2024

Is it a ghost? Is it a cloud? No, it is just a weird space created by a finger image removal technology trying to autocorrect the finger of the scanning person. Welcome to another striking example of how automatic repair systems do crush our digital heritage. #bookhistory #digitalhistory

Page from the digitized copy of the publication "Die Gerechte Rettung seines Rechtens..." (VD17 23:316809E), page 32, showing an automatic repaired digital space in the left corner.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

It is a truth universally acknowledge that any Victorian illustration of sperm whales will be in want of some distressed whalers flying through the air, no matter how relevant it may or may not be to the work... this from an 1855 work on perfumery.

An engraved vignette of a sperm whale erupting from the ocean, knocking a destroyed rowing boat into the air, with debris and whales flying around it. In the background, two more whales are visible, one spouting water, as well as two rowing boats and two distant ships.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

A wonderful #ManuscriptMonday miniature vade mecum prayer book, written in 1568 by - or at least for the use of - Thomas Agricola, a Bavarian priest blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

The manuscript title page, within an ornate calligraphic lattice-work border in blue ink, with tendrils and leaves in gold. The title capitals and date are also in gold - the rest of the text written in black ink, in a very neat hand.

A page of text written in black and red ink, with gold capitals and a border of multicoloured leaves and flora down the inner margin. There is a small miniature, somewhat blurred but still visibly Christ on the cross.

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Susan Theobald @sortalazysusan.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Semi-regular reminder that one of the best views in town is from the top floor of @blackwelloxford.bsky.social when the sun is setting (currently slightly marred by scaffolding but only slightly)

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Jacqueline Antiquariaat Digitalis @jlensink.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Great midcentury illustrations by the Bulgarian artist Ivan Gongalov for Tom Thumb.

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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

How about .... 👻✂️ A 1493 Sewing Scissors Ghost? #ThingsInBooks

Art Institute Nuremberg Chronicle with letterpress, woodcut saints, and an impression of seeing scissors in the large gutter!

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BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Here is the Application Cow for all your mathematical needs

An orange and yellow striped cow in an 1842 math manuscript

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Just saw my first ever AI-generated cataloguing description for a book on eBay... It was of course ludicrously vague and nevertheless wrong.

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Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

'Daphne Du Maurier wrote a novel set in an old coaching inn on Bodmin Moor.' 'Jamaica?' 'No, I think she wanted to write it.'

A shelf of books by Daphne Du Maurier. Jamaica in is front on while the others are spine out.

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Blackwell's Rare Books @blackwellrare.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

We love a good scrap book, pressed flowers, and watercolours of irritable dogs, and lucky for us this album contains all of the above! Compiled by Mrs Charlotte Sutton over a couple of years starting in 1864, it's a charming glimpse into Victorian provincial life blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

A page of watercolours, sketches and plant specimens: samples of leaves and pressed snowdrops. The watercolours include two landscape scenes of Scotland and a small dog, and the sketch is of a trotting horse.

A page of pressed flowers and leaves, attractively arranged, including a sample of seaweed from Whitby - and a child's charming watercolour of a Whitby scene.

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

In the 1790s a London woman named Eliza Denyer developed a modest reputation as a restorer of medieval manuscripts. She was forgotten by scholars and, in one case, her restorations were deliberately replaced by a man’s. I recovered her story & tracked all her known work here: tinyurl.com/2ktztx2e

Part of a page of a medieval manuscript that had a hole cut into it. Underneath it is a restoration of a large decorated B, which would have been in this place, and which was restored by Eliza. The letter emulates the medieval style of script, but the image inside it is in a late 18th century style, showing a verdant tree standing against a green bucolic landscape.

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