Private Press Books at St John’s College
an unexpected treasure box by Petra Hofmann (College Librarian) This blog is based on a talk I gave alongside the Librarians of Merton College and Worchester College at the online event “Printing for Pleasure: Private Press Collections at Three Oxford Collages” on 9 December 2021 organised by the Oxford Bibliographical…
“To delight and entertain”: Children’s Literature in the Special Collections
This blog post explores texts in our special collections written and created for children, and the ways in which this genre has evolved through the centuries. These items span from Ancient Greek stories and 17th century fatherly advice, to Victorian adventurers and mischievous modern poems. Links throughout the post will…
James Joyce in the Collection of Livres d’Artistes
This month’s blog post on the Library’s Livres d’Artistes is written by Tom Cullimore, a previous trainee and recent Assistant Librarian at St John’s College Library. The Library has a collection of livres d’artistes – you can find out more about these texts by reading Tom’s previous blog post. This…
Your Guide to Christmas in 1884
It can be tricky to navigate the maze of gifts, food, entertainment, cards, and relatives that make up Christmas – how can you know for sure you are making the perfect purchasing decisions? This month’s Special Collections blog post picks the best bits from the 1884 Pall Mall Gazette Christmas…
In the Library
A selection of livres d’artiste from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is on temporary display in St. John’s College Library. It has been drawn from the college’s collection of such books, a collection which Dr Peter Hacker built when he was the Library Fellow at the college. In the glossary…
Not An Illustration: Livres d’artiste in the Special Collections of St. John’s College, Oxford
“Experience of our age in terms of painting—not an illustration of—(but the equivalent.)” – Jackson Pollock This is an exhibition of a selection of the college’s livres d’artiste and some other rare books which were produced in the early 1930s, in collaboration with Leonard Lye, a modernist film-maker and…
Paul Eluard, Poèms d’amour = Love Poems; illustrations by S. W. Hayter, versions by Brian Coffey (Bath: 107 Workshop, 1984)
Dr Peter Hacker, Fellow in Philosophy at St. John’s College, became friends with Stanley Hayter, acquiring two illustrated livres d’artiste directly from the artist’s studio while Fellow Librarian (between 1985 and 2006). Hayter’s collaboration with Paul Eluard and his translator Brian Coffey produced Poèms d’amour = Love poems in 1984.…