Blog

1. Norman wisdom

   The BBC’s excellent Norman Season continues to explore ways in which the Normans influenced our civilisation, beginning of course with the invasion of William of Normandy and his subsequent coronation...

   18th August 2010 • Read more

2. Some unusual bindings

   These two illustrations are examples of the ingenious ways in which books have often been bound. The first is often known as a dos-à-dos binding (from the French meaning ‘back-to-back’)...

   13th August 2010 • Read more

3. Make do and mend

   We sometimes tend to equate early printed books with ‘fine printing’, but often books printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exhibit all the flaws of a handcraft practised carelessly,...

   9th August 2010 • Read more

4. De monstrorum caussis, natura, et differentiis

   Among interesting works catalogued this week is this remarkable work on monsters published in Padua in 1634 by Paulus Frambottus. The author Fortunius Licetus, a physiologus or medical researcher, offers...

   5th August 2010 • Read more

5. The return of Matthew

   Long-term readers of the Library website will remember TV’s Matthew Yeo, who spent three years at Chetham’s working towards his PhD, as well as taking time out to appear as...

   4th August 2010 • Read more

6. A flying visit

   The RAF dropped in on us at lunchtime today, but not to return their library books – Chetham’s Library is reference only. They landed their beautiful and very noisy helicopter...

   28th July 2010 • Read more

7. Health beckons from every pie

   Being, as it is, very much the home of the pie, Chetham’s Library seems the perfect resting place for this delightful little pamphlet from the 1920s advertising the benefits and...

   9th July 2010 • Read more

8. Rude Britannia

   The Tate Gallery’s current exhibition on British comic art, Rude Britannia, has prompted Library staff to look out some of their own favourite rude images. Chetham’s Library holds works by...

   5th July 2010 • Read more

9. Strawberry Hill forever…

   Click on the image for an enlarged view The recent exhibition at the V&A, Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill, reminds us that one of the Library’s most important manuscripts is...

   2nd July 2010 • Read more

10. Ex Libris: Bookplates at Chetham’s

    Bookplate collecting is a serious business. There is a plethora of collections and collectors lurking in private and in the public domain and, it seems, an entire world devoted to...

    18th June 2010 • Read more