Rose A. McCandless
@rosemccandless.bsky.social
Bibliographer, rare book enthusiast, and special collections instruction librarian. Lover of books in all ways. I post about rare books & manuscripts, fine/small press, book arts, digital humanities, etc. MPhil, MLIS. Leftist. Silly goose. she/her
One of the innumerable things to love about Ben Wickey’s fantastic graphic novel about the Salem Witch Trials and their entry into the American consciousness, “More Weight,” is the beautifully accurate drawings of the various forms of printed matter—including these stab-stitched pamphlets!
November 8, 2025 at 5:30 PM
One of the innumerable things to love about Ben Wickey’s fantastic graphic novel about the Salem Witch Trials and their entry into the American consciousness, “More Weight,” is the beautifully accurate drawings of the various forms of printed matter—including these stab-stitched pamphlets!
“Hereticks are as good as Papists for all their Masses and Wafers and convents and whorish Nuns and Inquisitions”
Tell us how you really feel!
(From the lives of the Princes of Orange, 1693)
Tell us how you really feel!
(From the lives of the Princes of Orange, 1693)
October 27, 2025 at 8:12 PM
“Hereticks are as good as Papists for all their Masses and Wafers and convents and whorish Nuns and Inquisitions”
Tell us how you really feel!
(From the lives of the Princes of Orange, 1693)
Tell us how you really feel!
(From the lives of the Princes of Orange, 1693)
Bond (or at least ONE of the Bonds, it’s a little hard to ID them all clearly) also included a eulogy for his son at the time of his death in the back of the book, dated 1738.
October 27, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Bond (or at least ONE of the Bonds, it’s a little hard to ID them all clearly) also included a eulogy for his son at the time of his death in the back of the book, dated 1738.
Delightful line of ownership documented in pre-title pages of this 1566 edition of Tyndale’s New Testament—a line of Bonds! Thomas, Bonds. Printed by Richard Jugge, with his mark.
October 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Delightful line of ownership documented in pre-title pages of this 1566 edition of Tyndale’s New Testament—a line of Bonds! Thomas, Bonds. Printed by Richard Jugge, with his mark.
Planting a pollinator bed or two this fall time and pulled up these beauties in the process!
October 25, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Planting a pollinator bed or two this fall time and pulled up these beauties in the process!
Enjoying some time with Jean Mabillon and his extremely approachable transcriptions of Merovingian scripts, in addition to the other joys of De re diplomatica (1681)—the work first establishing the science of paleography.
October 23, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Enjoying some time with Jean Mabillon and his extremely approachable transcriptions of Merovingian scripts, in addition to the other joys of De re diplomatica (1681)—the work first establishing the science of paleography.
Dare I say I was torn when deciding to pull this?
October 20, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Dare I say I was torn when deciding to pull this?
Spent some extremely healing quality time with the most beautiful book ever printed today.
October 11, 2025 at 12:51 AM
Spent some extremely healing quality time with the most beautiful book ever printed today.
Alarmed and shocked at the first page of “The Grammar of Ornament,” Owen Jones (1856) which includes this representation of the head of a Māori woman owned by the Chester Museum.
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October 7, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Alarmed and shocked at the first page of “The Grammar of Ornament,” Owen Jones (1856) which includes this representation of the head of a Māori woman owned by the Chester Museum.
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Me welcoming the students to class in October:
October 7, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Me welcoming the students to class in October:
Books I saw at work: last week and @digitalscriptorium.bsky.social Annual Meeting today!
September 30, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Books I saw at work: last week and @digitalscriptorium.bsky.social Annual Meeting today!
So curious about the gold tooling on this one—looks like contemporary bookbindings! (This is just a random example, but many look so similar to this Lady’s Companion.) Wondering if the circles of bookbinders and the folks who made these had some intersection…
September 24, 2025 at 12:55 AM
So curious about the gold tooling on this one—looks like contemporary bookbindings! (This is just a random example, but many look so similar to this Lady’s Companion.) Wondering if the circles of bookbinders and the folks who made these had some intersection…
Fun things in (and on!) books used in today’s History of the Book scavenger hunt.
September 23, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Fun things in (and on!) books used in today’s History of the Book scavenger hunt.
Stumbled across my 19-year old handwriting while shelving manuscript fragments! Back from my time as a student worker reorganizing the fragment housing—when the collection was a lot smaller than it is now!
September 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Stumbled across my 19-year old handwriting while shelving manuscript fragments! Back from my time as a student worker reorganizing the fragment housing—when the collection was a lot smaller than it is now!
Books I saw at work: last week!
September 21, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Books I saw at work: last week!
Spotted in the back of the stacks!
September 17, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Spotted in the back of the stacks!
Ah, to pull the largest book from the literal bottom of the stack.
But, very very large (and colonial) engraved prints await!
But, very very large (and colonial) engraved prints await!
September 17, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Ah, to pull the largest book from the literal bottom of the stack.
But, very very large (and colonial) engraved prints await!
But, very very large (and colonial) engraved prints await!
One of today’s collection research tasks: finding examples of blackletter in “non-substantial English-language texts” from the handpress era for our History of the Book course.
A favorite find:
A favorite find:
September 10, 2025 at 8:27 PM
One of today’s collection research tasks: finding examples of blackletter in “non-substantial English-language texts” from the handpress era for our History of the Book course.
A favorite find:
A favorite find:
Browsing the stacks this morning and starting to get slightly concerned…
July 21, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Browsing the stacks this morning and starting to get slightly concerned…
Finally got around to doing a first draft of an infographic/drawing on the basics of handling rare books :)
July 19, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Finally got around to doing a first draft of an infographic/drawing on the basics of handling rare books :)
In addition to inheriting Morris’ printing presses and hiring several of his artisans/printers, Essex House continued several artistic choices of Morris’ Kelmscott Press (the OG fine press!), such as the use of red ink for section headings placed in the outer margins.
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July 15, 2025 at 6:36 PM
In addition to inheriting Morris’ printing presses and hiring several of his artisans/printers, Essex House continued several artistic choices of Morris’ Kelmscott Press (the OG fine press!), such as the use of red ink for section headings placed in the outer margins.
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Hodson and Ashbee founded Essex House in 1897, the year after Morris’ death, with the intention of continuing the newborn fine press movement (a subsection of the Arts & Crafts movement)—the goal being to produce beautiful, high quality books in an age of cheap and mass-produced books.
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July 15, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Hodson and Ashbee founded Essex House in 1897, the year after Morris’ death, with the intention of continuing the newborn fine press movement (a subsection of the Arts & Crafts movement)—the goal being to produce beautiful, high quality books in an age of cheap and mass-produced books.
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So tickled by the colophon of this 1899 Essex House edition of Pilgrim’s Progress—“This is the third book printed at the Essex House Press, which was founded by Laurence Hodson and C. R. Ashbee, in the hope to keep living the traditions of good printing that William Morris had revived”
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July 15, 2025 at 6:36 PM
So tickled by the colophon of this 1899 Essex House edition of Pilgrim’s Progress—“This is the third book printed at the Essex House Press, which was founded by Laurence Hodson and C. R. Ashbee, in the hope to keep living the traditions of good printing that William Morris had revived”
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OBVIOUSLY putting her on display.
July 14, 2025 at 7:46 PM
OBVIOUSLY putting her on display.
I mean… perfection!
July 14, 2025 at 7:42 PM
I mean… perfection!