iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Don't forget, our event is next week! Please do come if you're in/near London and interested in literature and literary research 📆 Celebrating a Century of the Annual Bibliography and the MHRA’s Work in English Studies, Friday 16 October www.mhra.org.uk/news/2026/08...

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

That really would be a limited edition

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Spending today working on my talk on the history of the Annual Bibliography for our London event in October (join us!). It's going to be so hard compressing everything into the time available. Also I haven't given a public lecture for about 10 years... www.mhra.org.uk/news/2026/08...

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Well this is annoying (in Collini, Literature & Learning (OUP)). Never mind that a lit scholar writing an actual history of English Studies shouldn’t be getting these journals confused, the abbreviation error could have been spotted by anyone literate 🤦‍♂️

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

It’s seriously exhausting. And distracting. Is he gonna go on like this for another 600 pages 😳

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Details here: www.mhra.org.uk/news/2026/08...

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Nice creative use of ornament in this pamphlet on the plague from 1631 #typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

With original blotting paper still inside!

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Doing some research with the first minute-book of @themhra.bsky.social, begun in 1918 — fascinating organizational history!

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

A selection of pretty title pages from French type specimen books, 1754–1818 #typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Thanks for the scan guys, so useful

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

'Every reader will find titles he has been looking for' I'd love to see one of these 'illustrated folders'! Random House Modern Library in-book ad, 1950

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Pope’s translation of the Odyssey, designed by Jan van Krimpen, printed by Enschedé (1931). The purest simplicity in design and yet so beautiful. So much can be achieved with proportion and spacing. #bookdesign #typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Sucks to be Roy Anderson rn 😔

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

And a spread from the magnificent Bremer Presse edn of Andreas Vesalius's book of anatomy (1934 [1543]) #bookdesign #typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Pages from the Bremer Presse edn of Francis Bacon's essays (1920). Bremer Presse was a German private press operating from 1911 to 1939 #bookdesign #typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

The Art Nouveau/Jugendstil #bookdesign of Melchior Lechter (1865-1937) #typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Blake was truly ahead of his time; here's his depiction of England captain Harry Kane as Christ

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Blake's insane title page illustration to Young's Night Thoughts (1797)

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Narrative of a maritime disaster from 1840, bound in timbers from the wreck -- feels like this should be in a museum! (via @wisdompedlars.bsky.social) www.ebay.co.uk/itm/80016131...

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Visitor's guide to Brighton from 1800: 'one of the most desirable summer and winter residences in the kingdom' And best mutton in the universe, apparently. archive.org/details/brig...

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Complaint about 'stupid' scholarly titles that don't describe a work's contents, from a 1966 MLR review of the latest vol. of the Annual Bibliography of Eng Lang & Lit. Can't say I disagree, and it hasn't gone away 🙃

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

So Adobe has finally found a way to poison InDesign, one of their best bits of software, with 'AI' shite. It's a typesetting program, not a writing program. Anyone doing writing in InDesign is nuts. What a waste of everybody's time (and a waste of our absurdly inflated subscription money)

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

A layout choice I’ve never seen before: combined contents and explanatory notes(?!) You’ve got to put them somewhere I guess… (From Poetry of Nature, 1790) #bookdesign

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Reading my book 📖 (While people are trying to get in) (From Le Livre Jehan Boccace, de Calcald, des Cas des nobles hommes et femmes, 15th C)

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Reading my book 📖 (From La Main Enchantée, 1920)

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Absolutely gorgeous edn of Les Mis in the BL shop (Union Square/Hachette). Love the decoration style. Renaissance/Rogers-esque without being pastiche. Not a great photo, sorry 😔 I didn’t buy it, I don’t think this is a book I will ever read again. Kinda regretting it now though 😔📕

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

An interesting set of marginal proof notes 🤔

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Picked up a bunch of Poul Anderson paperbacks at the £1 book sale last weekend. This guy could really crank ’em out 📚

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Had to dig out my old BL card to renew it so why not take the opportunity to reminisce over my old library card collection from my doctoral days 📚 (Embarrassing headshots hidden)

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

The Nonesuch Press edn of Donne’s love poems (1923), printed in the Fell types #typography #bookdesign archive.org/details/love...

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

This DFS bed frame review really captures the zeitgeist

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

I thought it was only black metal bands and tattoo artists that used blackletter type in all caps, turns out they did it in the eighteenth century too! #Typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

This copy also features a phenomenal bookplate:

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Decorated initial designed by Aubrey Beardsley, in an edition of Ernest Dowson's 'The Pierrot of the Minute' (L. Smithers, 1897) Wish we had a whole alphabet of these! #bookdesign #typography