Sometime in the early 1960s, my new job involved lots of driving round the country (UK) but I always tried to find a moment to pop into any antique or second-hand bookshop I passed. My funds then were by no means lavish but I did pick up one or two items which still...

For the past many weeks, I have hardly been in my printing office at all . . . rather I have been holed up with my computer, camera, Photoshop and InDesign wrestling with (but actually much enjoying) the putting together of the 'sequel' to our Bibliography, now ten...

When, years ago, I first saw the flower photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, I stared and stared to try to work out how he made them so unashamedly erotic. Yes there was choice of subject, angle, reflections on the surface and so on but I ended up reckoning that much,...

A dish of elderflower cordial to share with all those with whom I used to communicate on a reasonably regular basis but have hidden away from for far too long! I am so sorry. I am not going to attempt excuses or even explanations. It is just that this exquisite month...

The photograph immediately above will be instantly recognizable (to all that have fallen under his spell over the years) as Ivor Cutler . . . of blessed memory. The, probably unfinished, portrait above was painted by Hans Schwarz (who was a neighbour and purveyor of...

. . . having said so firmly that I was not going to 'traipse round with my camera', today was so deliciously lovely that I couldn't resist! I will just let these images speak for themselves on the subject of the piece of heaven in which we are lucky enough to live....

The dramatic blast and whoosh of Spring this month (despite jackets and heating still being needed the moment the sun goes behind a cloud) has been so universally felt and talked about that I do not feel a traipse round the garden with a camera would add very much to...

He's been at it again! Down to Pembrokeshire we went, the moment a big sun showed up on the online weather forecasts for more than an hour or two at a time. Wonderfully restorative. Snow? What snow? It is frustrating not to be able to paint pictures like this but very...

. . . but this poor little creature (help came too late, I am afraid) is the very first to have been discovered on our riverside field! High tide this morning and a lot of rain on previous days so the river overran its banks. Our small friend must have swum happily...

I was recently rambling round the website of a friendly art dealer and identified a couple of lithographs dating from the mid- (nineteen) fifties and deliciously redolent of the period. I did not recognize either of the names involved, but that did not seem to matter...

We have described HERE the saga of how the final copy of the extraordinary piece of work, that Angela Lemaire made in a tiny edition when she was a student, came to us and was eventually given a designed binding for our library by Nesta Rendall Davies. HERE, more...

The redoubtable Nancy Campbell was most recently staying here about a month ago in order to work with us on the preparation of the second helping of our Bibliography. More about that anon. She was regaling us with excitements and fears about her upcoming adventure - a...

For those eager book buyers who like to see and handle books before adding them to their shelves, here are some occasions during the year when you have the opportunity to enjoy displays - not just of The Old Stile Press books - but those from other presses too. During...

I would like to lie and say that this was a photograph I took this very morning to catch the moment when the poet was told that he had won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for 2009 but, apart from fear of my nose growing long, the scene of Summertime outside the window...

. . . but it seems to have taken over everybody's lives! Just as the first lot of snow was showing slight signs of beginning to melt away, there was a grand encore (especially dramatic in this part of the world) which revealed this lot as morning broke yesterday and...

Snow finally fell last night and enabled me to post this 'card' to all of our friends at this festive time of the year. I do, however, promise to spare you any further snow photos. We have, I reckon, had many too many this year already!

. . . well, here is a Pheasant in an Apple Tree! And here is a less than perfectly successful attempt to capture his exit from the scene!

We decided to take ourselves away for a couple of days to try to rid ourselves of some accumulated end-of-summer-that-hardly-was glooms. Partially successful only, to be honest, but I was happy to return with some of the inevitable camera full of photographs . . . of...

First of all, an early morning spider's web taken just before we went to London for the shenanigans described below and when, if I am honest, I was having my usual 'missing you already' feelings about this place before leaving it even for a couple of days! The...

The McDowalls stepped out of their hotel and were assailed by wafts of warm air bearing scents of exotic food preparation and the sounds of multifarious city life. Had they returned to Italy for another holiday? Sitting down for a pavement breakfast, Frances sips her...

EQUUS The play by Sir Peter Shaffer Images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins Equus was first produced on stage in 1973 and, in its first published form, Peter Shaffer wrote of the dangers of ‘flatly setting down on paper what was far from flat on the stage, and listing...

Over the years, there have been many ways in which we have found texts which tempt us to work with them and many ways also in which we have discovered artists whose work we can visualise within one of our books. Our newest venture is a dramatic example of these arcane...