Becky L
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bekkhilde.bsky.social
Becky L
@bekkhilde.bsky.social
Librarian. Lover of rare books, ballads & broadsides. Runs sometimes, swims often.
A @antiquaries.bsky.social display of early-printed books on witchcraft, death & the occult just wasn't enough for #halloween, so I also dressed up as an early-printed book. 💀

#antiquaries #rarebooks #print #macabre #woodcut #broadside #library #spooky #witchcraft #oldbooks #history
October 31, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Fakes and forgeries out on display today at @antiquaries.bsky.social for our April Fool's themed Open Friday 🎉 Including real medieval pilgrim badges and Victorian 'Billy and Charley' forgeries!

#fakes #forgeries #archaeology #antiquaries
April 4, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Some of our @antiquaries.bsky.social treasures out on display for our special "Illuminated" Open Friday today ✨💖🌟 Open until 4pm!
March 21, 2025 at 11:19 AM
As part of our spring illuminations celebration tomorrow I've also been looking for modern books to show alongside the medieval orginals. These 1860s books on Illuminating are like works of art in their own right, with decorated gold bindings & wood-engraved or chromolithiographed plates.
March 20, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Happy birthday to the 3rd revision of Magna Carta, 800 years old today! 🎉🎂🥳 (yes, we are having cake to mark the occasion - appropriately distanced, of course!)

#magnacarta #magnacarta800 #magnacarta1225 #specialcollections #archives #manuscripts #medieval #medievalhistory #socantiquaries
February 11, 2025 at 3:41 PM
From the latest @britishlibrary.bsky.social newsletter... not a manuscript! Of all the places who'd mix those up... 🤐😅

#earlyprint #printed #rarebooks #broadside #print #16thcentury #tudor
January 31, 2025 at 5:55 PM
This week's surprise book find @antiquaries.bsky.social: a lovely gold-tooled copy of a 1580 handbook of French verbs, with these charming 18th-century coloured drawings of fruits (and a broom?). Perhaps those of Lucy Strong, who signed "her booke" at the back.

#herbook #rarebooks #printedbook
January 23, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Great @efdss.bsky.social lecture tonight by Dr Peter Harrop on "prog folk" and different ways of thinking about modern folklore(sque) customs, art, radicalism, inclusivity vs. first wave of folk revival... a lot to digest and ponder!
January 14, 2025 at 9:53 PM
A few nice 17th-century bindings on printed books one of my volunteers is working on, adding Albert Way FSA's ownership provenance to our library catalogue. Always a good surprise to find a contemporary binding (especially armorial) when pulling a rather dismal burgundy box off the shelf!
January 14, 2025 at 11:45 AM
A glorious day at Whittlesea Straw Bear festival yesterday, full of morris, merriment and music in the winter sun 🌾❄️ And, of course, rather a lot of real ale!
January 12, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Some fabulous things in the Medieval Women @britishlibrary.bsky.social exhibition. One to revisit again, I think. I feel vindicated in my dislike for ice skating, now knowing its patron saint Lidwina of Schiedam (1380-1433) is also the patron of chronic pain!
December 18, 2024 at 9:53 PM
Love this printer's device of Joanne's Oporinus, Basel (1559 ed. of Bale's Illustruim Maioris Britannaie Scriptorum). The Greek poet Arion stands on an dolphin whilst playing a lira de braccio, a sort of large proto-violin with extra drone strings. The dolphin looks distinctly unimpressed...
December 16, 2024 at 3:06 PM
A late-1600s Burying-in-Woollen affidavit... the only one I've seen on vellum! It looks like parts have been scraped - possibly reused? Given its pretty dishevelled state, maybe it was pinned up somewhere. All very intriguing. Love those crude skull and shroud woodcuts! ☠️🍬
November 24, 2024 at 1:39 PM
Now I have an account on a non-Muskian platform, I can get back on sharing Cool Things from the collections 🙌 🎉 Last week I found this 49cm tall engraving of a monument for Henry, Prince of Wales, d.1612, by Richard Haydock. As far as I can tell it's unique - haven't found any other references!
November 23, 2024 at 1:37 PM