book-historia - Tumblr blog

[book-historia]

Curl up with a book? More like curl up IN a book! 🛌 This Victorian collage album is a mansion in book form 🤩 Created in the 1880s or 90s, it would have been the ideal setting for some choice paper doll drama. It’s part of the Winterthur Library, and has been fully digitized! You can view the whole thing here.

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The bestiary, where you keep all your besties

[book-historia]

☞ THUS

[book-historia]

Do you have any tattoos? ⚓️ I have a bunch, so I was very excited to come across these 19th century tattoo flash books in the Winterthur Library – and they’re digitized! You can see them here 📚

[book-historia]

Got any Valentine’s Day afternoon plans? 💕 Hop on Zoom and listen to me give a lecture on Pop Bibliography, the importance of understanding why “old” books in your favorite media look That Way!

You can register here ✨ (it will also be recorded 👍)

[book-historia]

Magic in the collection 🪄 These are Thaumatropes, paper discs that create an optical illusion when spun. It’s so exciting to see these in motion! This set dates from the mid-19th century, and is part of col. 121 at the Winterthur Library 📚

[book-historia]

Little Isaac Bawden was quite the calligrapher! 🖌️ This 1763 arithmetic book shows off his flourishing skills. The later 1880s Golden Gems of Penmanship, published during the calligraphy revival of the 19th century, allows us to see how Isaac learned this art! Isaac’s book has been digitized, and you can find it here 📖

(Doc. 743 at the Winterthur Library)

[book-historia]

snail for lunch

[book-historia]

The most common place people encounter book history is not in the library, but through popular media. This is where Pop Bibliography – the intersection of vibes and material culture – comes in! I wrote about it on my blog: https://www.bookhistoria.com/blog/pop-bibliography

[book-historia]

[book-historia]

Medieval manuscript Mothman

[book-historia]

in 2024 you and your friends need to be talking about grimoires

[book-historia]

The most common place people encounter book history is not in the library, but through popular media. This is where Pop Bibliography – the intersection of vibes and material culture – comes in! I wrote about it on my blog: https://www.bookhistoria.com/blog/pop-bibliography

[book-historia]

Fortune telling via jack-o-lantern? A Victorian camera costume? All this and more at this little Halloween display from the Winterthur Library 🎃📚

[book-historia]

Went to the Brandywine Museum of Art today and I am absolutely obsessed with this beast

[book-historia]

Some of these dudes press fish fins in their journals like flower petals and it’s something.

Love the aesthetic notions people have of Victorian-era journals of like, a lady pressing delicate little natural mementos between the pages and then you get one from a whaleman and it’s just……..mangled flying fish fins.

[book-historia]

that photo of hunter s. thompson shooting his typewriter is such a mood