Collectors often say that they only regret ‘the ones that got away’. That feeling of loss at having missed out on something is much the same whether one collects paintings, fossils, sculpture, ceramics or stamps. It only intensifies when the thing being collected is particularly hard to come by, but, conversely, can be relieved by the small triumph of acquiring something else that others have overlooked or not managed to secure. In my own case, these feelings are palpable in relation to (arguably) one of the most niche areas of collecting: bookplates. As a child, I was forever creating collections of things: coins, postcards, badges, stones and even novelty erasers. In adulthood this mindset of acquisition and organisation has been focused, outside my professional life as a museum curator and director, into an enthusiasm for the more specialised domain of bookplates, informed by my love of wood engraving and illustrated books.
Apostle of modernism: Clive Bell s reputation repaired
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9781860661716: Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and Myth - AbeBooks - Jones, Nigel: 1860661718
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Blake Baileyâs Philip Roth, a volume Roth had imagined in some form for more than 20 years, was published internationally this week, and will be released in hardback on June 16 in Australia. Ever willing to provoke or amplify an argument, the author of
American Pastoral,
Sabbathâs Theater and other novels had been thinking of a biography ever since his former wife, actor Claire Bloom, depicted him as unfaithful, cruel and irrational in her 1996 memoir
Leaving a Dollâs House.
Roth was determined to have his side come out, but wanted someone else to tell it. He first recruited Ross Miller, an English professor and nephew of playwright Arthur Miller, but became so unhappy with what he believed was Millerâs narrow scope that the two had a falling out. So in 2012, Roth brought in Bailey, granting him full access to his papers, his friends and, the highest hurdle, the author himself. Bailey would have the final say.