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"May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books." -Thomas Carlyle

Welcome to my virtual book collection. Since collecting actual books is somewhat cost-prohibitive, I've begun to amass all of the books I would love to have if I had the means. Some are new, lots are old, all are unique or beautiful or unusual or in some other way have captured my fancy. Enjoy browsing!

Special Collections: Fine Bindings ~ Fairies and Fairy Tales ~ Terror and Madness ~ Poetry ~ Food, Drink and Apothecary ~ Science Fiction ~ Illuminations, Lettering and Hand-Coloring ~ Magic ~ Supernatural and Occult ~ Alchemy ~ Science and Technical ~ Maritime ~ Costumes ~ Humor ~ Children's books ~ Legend of King Arthur ~ Americana ~ 18th Century ~ 19th Century

Authors and illustrators: Edgar Allan Poe ~ Jules Verne ~ Edmund Dulac ~ Kay Nielsen ~ Arthur Rackham ~ Edward Gorey ~ Charles Dickens ~ H.P. Lovecraft ~ William Hope Hodgson ~ Mark Twain ~ Lewis Carroll ~ Salvador Dali ~ George Cruikshank ~ Emily Dickinson ~ Geoffrey Chaucer ~ H.G. Wells

Brown’s kleurvisioenen met een woord ter aanwijzing en verklaring
J.H. Brown. Leeuwarden, Hugo Suringar, 1866.

Original illustrated green cloth-backed boards, flyleaves with publishers advertisements. With 16 numbered lithographed plates (13 hand-coloured) lithographed by Morriën & Amand, Amsterdam. [8] pp.

Rare first edition of the Dutch translation of J.H. Brown’s Spectropia, or surprising spectral illusions (1864), using the 19th-century knowledge of optics to explain how people see ghosts. A second edition was published ca. 1870.

As described in the (original) introduction: ” To see the spectres, it is only necessary to look steadily at the dot, or asterisk, which is to be found on each of the plates, for about a quarter of a minute,.. Then turning the eyes to the ceiling… of a darkened room (not totally dark), and looking rather steadily at any one point, the spectre will soon being to make its appearance, increasing in intensity, and then gradually vanishing, to reappear and vanish again.”

B-A Note: A translation of the popular Spectropia, which I posted here a few months back. Serendipity is fun!