book-aesthete

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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

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mythsandmusings:

The Crawford Collection of books is the founding collection of the ROE on Blackford Hill, gifted by the 26th Earl of Crawford. It is of outstanding international significance and has been acknowledged as one of “four truly great collections of astronomical books” in the world.

The Collection contains some 15,000 items. The oldest printed books in the collection, by Nuremburg astronomer Johannes Regiomontanus, date from the 1470s. Perhaps more significantly, the collection contains a first edition of the greatest astronomical book of the 16th century, Nicolas Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus. The copy is annotated by Erasmus Reinholdus, Professor of Astronomy at Wittenburg, providing an insight into how Copernicus’ cosmological claims were received. It has been called the most important copy of the book in existence: a book that changed the perception of the place of earth, and so humanity itself, within the universe.