Beyond Books: The 45th Annual Book Trade History Conference, 2024
On November 17-18th 2024 the 45th Annual Book Trade History Conference met at Stationers’ Hall in the City of London to explore the intersections between bookselling and other trades from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Sixty delegates from academia, libraries, archives and the book trade discussed the ways in which the trade in books has shaped and been shaped by the production and sale of a wide range of other objects, including toys, games, prints, decorated papers, fabrics and maps. In addition, the conference discussed the contributions of book producers and binders to the creation of non-printed materials ranging from medieval relic labels to notebooks and account books.
On the first day, Dr Ana de Oliviera Dias shared the work currently being done by the Crafting Documents project, demonstrating how new scientific analysis of early medieval relic labels is offering new insights into both the movement of relics and scribal cultures. Grace Touzel presented some of the results of her doctoral research into London blank-book makers and their families from 1650 to 1850, demonstrating the longevity of flexible trade as fortunes and demand for different types of books ebbed and flowed. Dr Jane Carroll then explored the long history of selling toys in connection with children’s books, from A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744), which was sold with a ball and pincushion, to Beatrix Potter’s attempts to make money from stuffed rabbit toys. Finally, Laurence Worms demonstrated the interdependence between book and map production, as globe makers turned printed sheets into spheres of different sizes.
Day two returned to the theme of book creation beyond print, with Prof. Nicholas Pickwoad’s research into bindings for non-printed books for a range of purposes. His paper demonstrated the rich, and largely unstudied, collections of bindings held in European archives. Laura Carnelos then explored the diverse uses of paper, as sold by the Remondini family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to books and single sheets with textual content, decorative papers were sold to fill windows, decorate walls and serve many other purposes. She also demonstrated that remarkable survivals can be found in unexpected places, including Italian churches. Finally Prof. Adrian Seville shared both items from his collection of printed board games and his research into piracy, popularity and longevity in the trade in such games.
The conference was generously supported by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association, Dr Williams's Trust, the Bibliographical Society, the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, and Bernard Quaritch Ltd. It was organised by Laura Cleaver (IES), Giles Mandelbrote (Warburg), and Julian Pooley (Surrey History Centre).
