Antiquarian Bookplates: 55 Bookplates to Personalize Your Library

Product Information

Whether you simply want to learn more about bookplates or you’re thinking about starting a collection, exploring the history of these ephemeral objects and their uses is a worthy pastime. Book Plates are to go inside books but of course can also be used as labels and in other creative ways.

Label and personalise your stationery with the variety of bookplates available on this sticker sheet. One or two copies of the special edition of the Helard book, with original bookplates tipped-in, remain available. To enable personalised advertising (like interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies.In 1901–1903, the British Museum published the catalog of the 35,000 bookplates collected by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826–97). We’ll also tell you a little bit more about sources for discovering new information about bookplates if you get particularly interested.

We know that what you really enjoy about this site is the bookplates - so we've had a grand spring clean to make it easier for you to make the most of them. Some of the technologies we use are necessary for critical functions like security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and to make the site work correctly for browsing and transactions. Some collectors attempt to acquire plates of all kinds (for example, the collection of Irene Dwen Andrews Pace, now at Yale University, comprising 250,000 items). Until the 19th century, the devising of bookplates was generally left to the routine skill of the heraldic-stationery salesman. He's the great man who endowed so many of our public libraries, and rather wonderfully said, "To die rich is to die disgraced.Societies of collectors were founded, first in England in 1891, then in Germany and France, and later in the United States, most of them issuing a journal or archives: The Journal of the Ex-libris Society (London), the Archives de la Société française de collectionneurs d'ex-libris (Paris), both of these monthlies; the Ex-libris Zeitschrift (Berlin), a quarterly. The various styles of English bookplates from the Tudor period to the late Victorian period reflect the prevailing taste in decorative art at different epochs—as bookplates do in all countries. Near the turn of the 20th century, the composition of personal book tokens became recognized as a minor branch of a higher art, and there has come into fashion an entirely new class of designs which, for all their wonderful variety, bear as unmistakable a character as that of the most definite styles of bygone days. Many notable historical figures have also been book collectors, and as such, a book containing one of their bookplates can have great value.

Holland comes next with the plate of Anna van der Aa, in 1597; then Italy with one attributed to the year 1622.According to the King’s College Cambridge Archive Centre, believe it or not, bookplates have been around since the Middle Ages. Period Features strive to be the number one source in the UK for vintage homeware and traditional hardware products for period properties, and to always provide an excellent, friendly service. The ratings/reviews displayed here may not be representative of every listing on this page, or of every review for these listings. With gold foil details these letter book plates will add a fantastic personal touch to any home library.

At the turn of the 20th century, however, bookplate design diversified and flourished beyond traditional armorials.

Bookplates often bear a motif relating to the book's owner, such as a coat-of-arms, crest, badge, motto, or a design commissioned from an artist or designer. Broadly speaking, it may be said that the purely heraldic element tends to become subsidiary and the allegorical or symbolic to assert itself more strongly. And the tenth Children's Laureate, Lauren Child, has drawn us a lovely new bookplate to mark the occasion! With a selection of six, all designed to suit the Colour Story collection, these label stickers work best on our paperback covers and hardback endpapers. The earliest English bookplate appears to be the gift plate of Sir Nicholas Bacon; it adorns a book that once belonged to Henry VIII, and now is located in the King's library, British Museum.