Book Collecting Seminar Series

The Institute of English Studies (IES) runs a series of lectures and seminars on book collecting, bibliophilia and the book trade, with speakers including collectors, dealers and auctioneers. The programme is run in association with the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association Educational Trust.

Next in the series is The Country House Library: Women's Book Ownership and Reanimating Collections on March 14 with speakers Oliver Cox (Head of Academic Partnerships at the V&A) and Dr Melanie Bigold from Cardiff University who specialises in book history and women’s literary history during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This is followed on April 11 with Rare Books and Film presented by  Stephen Foster from Foster Books, and actor and book dealer Neil Pearson from Neil Pearson Rare Books.

Then on May 9, Oliver Darkshire from Sotherans will talk about his recent book Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller, the story of his working life in one of the world's oldest bookshops and the daily nuts and bolts of antiquarian bookselling. Darkshire is an IES alumnus who studied on the MA in the History of the Book, graduating in 2020 and will also talk about his time as a student at IES.

The final seminar in the current series will be Representation in Modern Collections with speakers Miranda Garno Nesler (Senior Specialist, Whitmore Rare Books) and Rhiannon Knol (Specialist, Books & Manuscripts, Christie's, New York). This even on June 13 will also be accessible via Zoom
 
All the events are free and anyone interested in the topic is welcome to attend but registration is required. They all take place in  Senate House, Malet Street, London, from 6pm to 8pm.

Part of the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, the IES specialises in the history of the book, manuscript and print studies, textual scholarship, digital editing and new critical approaches to literary history.