Provenance in books: recognising, reading and interpreting

Interest in historical book ownership has grown steadily in recent decades. We have become more aware of the cultural and research value of provenance evidence, which helps us understand not only what our documentary heritage comprises, but also what influence it may or may not have had. We can learn a lot from whole libraries and their patterns of ownership, or from marginalia in individual copies. Librarians record copy-specific markings more diligently, to meet the needs of researchers, while both collectors and dealers now often prefer annotated books to clean ones.

Provenance evidence takes many forms and the primary aim of this course is around developing a personal toolkit to identify and interpret it, as found in books before 1900. It will cover different manifestations of provenance – inscriptions, bookplates and book labels, armorials and other evidence from bindings – and include practical instruction on palaeography, heraldry and reference sources. With a focus on practical learning to take away, time will also be given to the theoretical and interpretative book historical context within which provenance evidence sits.

Learning about provenance needs hands-on experience, and a great benefit of this course is that it will be delivered at Shrewsbury School, with access to the historic Library there. This remarkable and rare survival of a historic school library contains over 8000 volumes, with a wide range of books from all periods, many in fine and unrestored condition. Course participants will have the opportunity to discover the riches of the collection as a whole, and of individual books. It builds on the success of a non-residential Rare Book School short course there in 2024; for 2025 the offer is being enhanced with the option to stay in School accommodation for the duration of the course.

The course tutor will be David Pearson, who is well known as an expert in this field and whose Provenance Research in Book History and other publications have become standard reference works. The timetable is a slightly adapted version of a week-long course which has been successfully taught at the Rare Book Schools in London, Virginia and Sydney.
 

The course is run in collaboration with Shrewsbury School and will be held at the School’s historic Taylor Library. This remarkable and rare survival of a historic school library contains over 8000 volumes, with a wide range of binding examples from all periods, many in fine and unspoilt condition; it was much used by the binding historian Basil Oldham as the base for his work.

Course participants will have the opportunity to discover the riches of this collection, whose books will be used to illustrate the teaching.

This short course is part of the London Rare Books School programme.