My first stop in the UK was the book town Hay-on-Wye in the Welsh borders. Home to 40 or so booksellers, Hay-on-Wye is a charming small market town on the river Wye filled with grey stone buildings, slate roofs, and quaint bookstore shop fronts. Once home to 80 or so dealers, it is now the home to a literary festival that dwarfs the town. Of the dealers there, a few are PBFA members and two, Francis Edwards and Joshua Green, ABA members. A little good scouting was done, but most of the books available were general second-hand. Green Books was a particularly lovely store, with an interesting stock and an Australian connection, the owners having been the owners of Alice’s Bookshop in Melbourne for a few years after Anthony Marshall retired.

Hay-on-Wye was also the venue for the BRN Conference. Established jointly by the University of Bangor and London University, the conference was a day and a half of presentations from scholars and booksellers about bookselling... in Japan, of radical books, women printers in 17^th century York etc. Common themes that kept recurring were the perceived fragility of our trade and its enduring nature; the characters and generosity of booksellers new and antiquarian; and the need for more social and economic research to be done about the role of bookselling both in the past and today in supporting communities and culture.

After Hay-on-Wye I drove to York to attend the PBFA York Fair. Along the way, the passing of the Queen was announced and by the time I arrived in York that evening (3 motorways, a bus, a train, and a walk) the end of an era was palpable...and the Queen’s image was on every digital advertising board. That evening, staying at the end of the Micklegate, I peered into the windows of Lucius Books, an address noted for scouting on another trip. The PBFA York fair was an immense, rowdy, jostling affair with hundreds of dealers over three floors: perhaps ten times the size of the Melbourne Fair. International and London dealers were substantially outnumbered by Provincial dealers. Three hours, all the time allowed as the bus to the Congress left on time, was nowhere near enough. There was something for everyone; and scouting the fair was a joy, filling a box on my way around.

The bus trip down from York was my first introduction to a ‘gaggle’ of international booksellers and to what is, I believe, the real, and secret, value of Congress. The four-hour drive passed very quickly in conversation, camaraderie, and laughter with the assistance of somebody’s duty-free allowance.

The Congress proper...

We arrived at our accommodation, The Malmaison, the old Oxford prison late in the afternoon. Like most of Oxford, built in sandstone, and glowing with the long summer evening sun. The inaugural dinner saw us sorted into ‘groups’ for the remainder of the Congress; and the prison exercise yard and bar became the ‘conversation pit’ every evening after dinner.

For the next four days, the Congress provided during the day a surfeit of bookish wonder, experience, and education; and over meals and in the evenings an entree into the community of ILAB, meeting booksellers of all walks and ages from all over the world.

The four days of activities were: Museum Day, Bodleian Day, College Day, and Private Library Day

Day One - Museum Day was spent in private tours of three museums: the Ashmolean, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (including the Pitt Rivers Museum) and the Museum of the History of Science. Highlights included the most complete remains of a dodo, an extraordinary collection of astrolabes (including pocket astrolabes), and the actual blackboards used by Einstein at an Oxford lecture in May 1931, with his chalked equations connecting the age, density, and size of the Universe.

Lunch was held on the roof-top of the Ashmolean, with stunning views of the Oxford skyline. A pre-dinner drinks reception was held in the rare books department at Blackwell’s just next to the Bodleian, and dinner was held in the truly magnificently vaulted hall of Balliol College.

Day Two - Bodleian Day - a day of wonders: four tours, behind the scenes of the Bodleian library with private viewings of an extraordinary range of treasures. It started with the oldest reading room, Duke Humfrey’s Library, (1487) followed by presentations by the Bodleian Librarian and his senior colleagues of some extraordinary treasures: Modern, Classical and Eastern. The Modern presentation included the only extant copy of Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis; the manuscript of George Herbert’s, The Temple, Handel’s conducting manuscript for the Messiah; Tolkien’s hand annotated maps for the endpapers of The Hobbit; a 9^th century Quran (which had been misplaced in the Bodleian for over a century – and looked like it was printed last year), and much more. The Classics and Eastern tours were equally overwhelming. There was so much on display that it was hard to take it all in. By the end of the day I (and I suspect many others) was completely overwhelmed by the enormity and uniqueness of the collection and the generosity of the library in displaying them.

Lunch was held in the foyer of the Weston Library, the newest area in the Bodleian, and coincidentally the exhibition space for the superb entries by the finalists of the Designer Bookbinders Exhibition. Dinner was held in the recently restored fifteenth-century Divinity School with Richard Ovenden, the Bodleian Librarian as the Guest speaker.

Day 3 - College Day - meant visiting four of the College Libraries: Christ Church, the Upper Library; Merton College, University College, and All Souls. There are some thirty colleges at Oxford, so this was just a taste. Merton is the oldest academic library in the world dating back to 1264. A stunning medieval building, where chained books contrasted with USB ports on some of the reading desks. A copy of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists in a 15^th century binding was, apart from a few herbals, the only gastronomic book I saw during the Congress. University College displayed a range of Oscar Wilde material as well as items connected with Shelley and Max Beerbohm. All Souls, an 18^th century library was next. A striking space, items on display included memorabilia of T.E Lawrence. And finally, Christ Church College (where Lewis Carroll was the librarian) was a stunning gallery lined with bookcases, original Chippendale furniture and Old Masters. On display were works by Chaucer and much more.

Lunch was held at the café at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. The climb to the church’s belfry was worth the effort for stunning views of the centre of Oxford. In the evening we were bused to the Cherwell Boathouse for a spot of leisurely punting (which quickly became competitive) before dinner. No one fell in or admitted to falling in!

Day Four – the private library day - seemed at the outset, to the uninitiated (a.k.a. me) to be the least exciting day of the Congress. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The day was spent out of Oxford on a 1940s double decker bus, visiting first a great private collection at Waddesdon Manor formed by Baron de Rothschild in the nineteenth century, and second, a truly extra-ordinary private collection on the Art of the Book (covering printing, illustration illumination, calligraphy and most importantly book binding) formed in the twentieth century at Wormsley by Sir Paul Getty. Waddesdon Manor (interesting to me for the connection in the kitchens with Carême) was a stunning experience. But Wormsley was altogether on another plane of existence. It was hard to know where to look first. On every shelf, table, surface there was something stunningly unique. On one table alone there was a first, second, third and fourth folio Shakespeare, together with the Kelmscott Chaucer on vellum and beside that a quietish looking book, that on closer examination was the original Chaucer used to publish the Kelmscott. Riviere & Sons, Sangorski & Sutcliffe and Zaehnsdorf bindings were just the tip of the ‘iceberg’; I had to buy the catalogue, if only to remind myself of what I had just seen. On the bus ride back to Oxford, almost everyone was quiet, contemplating what they had just seen.

Lunch was held at Waddesdon Manor, in amongst walls filled with culinary copperware. The farewell dinner was held at The Perch, one of Oxford’s oldest pubs, on the banks of the river Thames where much eating, drinking, and dancing was had.

Immediately following the Congress was the 2022 ILAB Symposium, held in the Bodleian’s Weston Library, a day of seminars and presentations on matters important to the rare book trade, including a very entertaining presentation by the Metropolitan Police on the successful recovery of the treasure trove of rare books highjacked in transit in London in 2017 and recovered from a Romanian cellar in 2020.

Overall, the Congress provided an extra-ordinary once-in-a-lifetime educational immersion. Oxford was an exceptionally rich and rewarding experience and ILAB and the ABA opened many doors to great collections and institutions that one could normally only dream about.

The Congress ‘Improper’...

Notwithstanding the excellence of the Congress programme, in my view, the secret, and real benefit, in attending Congress was to meet one’s international colleagues. Throughout the Congress there were countless opportunities to meet colleagues from around the world. Whether walking in one’s group around an exhibit, grabbing a seat at lunch or at a dinner table or having a post-dinner conversation in the exercise yard, one couldn’t avoid meeting someone interesting and learning something about the international and collegiate nature of our trade. Our trade is as much who we know as what we know. I made many friends and connections in an extraordinarily short time. I put many names to faces, met many people I had been corresponding with and gained many meaningful introductions. I learnt much about our trade over a drink or having a laugh after dinner. Meeting fellow booksellers and talking to them about their books and businesses was by far and away, the most important part of the occasion. Attending Congress, one quickly realises the truth inherent in the ILAB motto that “the love of books unites us”.

Firsts London

After Oxford, I travelled to London to exhibit at my first international fair. Over 120 dealers exhibited from around the world. I shared a booth with Douglas Stewart (and thanks to Doug for showing me the ropes). It was eye-opening. The opportunity to exhibit after the Congress was priceless. It allowed me to prepare my first catalogue. It took my bookselling aspirations to the next level. It showed me what dealers at this level do and what customers are out there. I shopped the fair. Thankfully I also sold some books. I met many new colleagues who had not attended the Congress and some new customers. It too was a wonderful and transformative experience. I will be going back.

After the fair, I took a few days to visit as many London bookstores and cram in as many gastronomic experiences as I could. Cecil Court was high on my list; but so was Harringtons, Maggs, Sotherans, Jarndyce, Quaritch, and many others. I managed to dine at Andrew Edmunds, the restaurant run by the 18^th century ABA print dealer the day he passed, joined the British Library, undertook an Elizabeth David pilgrimage around Chelsea and saw the queue for the Queen’s lying in state. Noble Rot, the Borough Market, the Brixton Markets, the Cheshire Cheese, Notting Hill (and yes Books for Cooks) and the Bloomsbury Ephemera Fair all captivated me. All in all, I visited over 65 bookstores, three fairs, did some 30,000 steps a day in London, and came home notionally fitter, but with excess luggage (all printed material).

In conclusion, thankyou again to my colleagues at ANZAAB for making the experience possible. You have all contributed more to the future of my bookselling career than you know. I look forward to seeing you all at the 2024 ILAB Congress in Amsterdam.

The Australian contingent at Oxford 2022