This is our Dead Poet for the end of the month's Salon. The Revd Robert Hawker. Proper English eccentric... please wear a wee bit of purple if you can. Opem mic follows.. come read your own work to us. 27th August 7.30pm. £5.
The Petersfield Bookshop
@pfieldbookshop.bsky.social
Sending books to every corner of the known universe since 1918
The 1899 first edition of "The Wind Among the Reeds" by W. B. Yeats, along with its gilt cover design by Althea Gyles.
Here's a rareity. A promissory half-penmy issued for tender by Eames, Holland and Andrews in 1793 in Petersfield.
A colleague found this evidence of a lending library in Petersfield in a late 18th century book at an auction viewing today.
The shop will be closed tomorrow between 2pm and 4pm in order to raise a glass to and share some memories of Ian Calder, a former member of staff and then volunteer here for many years. His funeral is at 2pm at Rowlands Funeral Service Chapel.
A nice little find to start the day, Richard Adams's signature, of Watership Down fame, in his third novel "The Plague Dogs"
A nice little find to start the day, Richard Adams's signature, of Watership Down fame, in his third novel "The Plague Dogs"
I think Philip K. Dick would been surprised and amused to know that in 2026 his novels were being produced in a collected edition in a box set under the imprint "Library of America" !
John Donne's son, also John, collected some of his letters to "honourable" people and published them very soon after Donne's death. This is a very early edition we have just acquired.
So this is an absolute treasure... an early edition of Grose's "Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence". Knowing the Samuel Johnson left out lots of slang and vulgar words on the grounds of propriety, Capt. Grose stepped up to fill the gap.
All ten volumes of The Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic to keep you entertained for a few hours!
Died a couple of months ago but wjat a legacy to leave behind, the Bloodaxe edition of J H Prynne's Collected Poems runs to over 1,400 pages.
Doing some research online I come across what has to rank as one of the most peculiar bookplates I've ever seen! "Urology - Troubled Waters" 🤣
After a summer reading project? Herewith the oh so stylish Arrow Books edition on Anthony Powell's Dance to the music of time series.
A rather fine vintage boarding pass for a flight to Boston on New England Air. #ThingsThatFallFromBooks
If the customers won't come to the books... My colleague is rightly proud of having sorted out all the general fiction into alphabetical order, so here's a taste...
Quite a bit of leather polish deployed today...
Really enjoying the "Instructive Picture Book of Quadrupeds" today! Crammed full of these delightful hand-coloured plates.
In fact, as huge Victorian Bibles go, this one is quite the charmer...
This is a bit glorious. Gilt, black and white printing on the covers, folding map and fully illustrated throughout with the black and white artwork of the Marquis of Lorne! What a production. "Pictures of Canada" from 1885.
"Rust, Smut, Mildew and Mould" Not a remake of Trumpton for a new era but our #BrokenBookOfTheDay. From 1886 the 5th edition by M. C. Cooke.
If you don't like photos and fun facts about old books, maps, pictures and ephemera it might be wise to block us for 24 hours... ...pretty sure we won't see any customers today so I think I may have a social media blitz!
I can't honestly say that the novels of the Earl of Beaconsfield, better known as Bejamin Disraeli are current bestsellers but this complete set published in 1882 just after his death is certainly very pretty!
Used to be more popular than stamp collecting... writing to businesses, naval ships, dukes, bishops and clipping and sticking the embossed crests on their return letters into your album. 1300 of them in this one: yes, I counted!
This book was wrapped in error. So you get a chance to see how we wrap books for posting when you order one. . . . . . Better still, order one and then you can have this experience for yourself. 🤣
What's not to like on a summer's day about this lovely 1926 Winnie the Pooh. The second edition, printed in the same year as the first and looking exactly like the first.
Don't normally post Bibles but l am rather taken by this 'pocket' sized affair from 1859, all its metalwork still intact although the gilt rubbed away, and hand coloured maps inside... the slightly rubbed look only makes the book more appealing in this instance
Staff reading: just finished this retelling and expansion of Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, "What Moves the Dead" by T. Kingfisher. Modern, eerie, bleak and yet gripping with moments of real shivers!
