SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE IN MAY.

This is a preview listing. Details will be updated closer to the time of release. 

A commonplace book is a personal compilation of knowledge, ideas, quotations, and observations collected by an individual. It is a notebook or journal where one gathers and organizes information from various sources for future reference and reflection.  They are more like a database than a diary.

In the past many people used commonplace books as a way to order their ideas and make them easy to refer back to. Each entry was classified and ordered by subject and category- making them a useful way for scientists and scholars to take notes.

DESCRIPTION

This full leather binding is filled with original, antique paper dating from the 1600s. Lavishly tooled in genuine gold leaf, this is a beautifully made little book, a real treasure. Many of the individual brass tools used to decorate this are made in the studio, and some are hundreds of years old.  

The front cover has turnips surrounding a sun with a man in the moon looking down on it. The back cover has the same turnips but instead of the moon and sun, sits a beehive complete with buzzing bees.

Both front and rear boards have a patterned border. To the spine are four panels of flying birds divided by three, gold tooled raised bands. The top edges of the boards are tooled in a repeat pattern.

The binding is housed in a bespoke, gold tooled , leather entry slipcase, covered in burnished and waxed hand marbled paper and lined with antique, 17th century, text-printed, handmade paper.

INSIDE

The book contains almost 300 pages of "Penicuik" (pronounced "penny-cook") paper, made sometime in the late 1600s.

We don't know the precise origin of this paper, it was found in a bound book of blank paper, rescued from an attic of an old house in Penicuik, Scotland, but it matches exactly with some text printed paper in our archive found in a book published in London in 1669, so we're assuming it'a contemporaneous and as such, we're calling it English 17th century paper. 

The paper for these pages was salvaged from the spine of the Penicuik book, where it had been used as folded guards. You can see in the accompanying photos, signs of a hard life - fold marks, sewing holes, discolouration, etc. We love this and feel it adds even more character and story to something which is already soaked in history.

DETAILS 

• LayFlat design - allows this book to open fully without causing any structual damage making it completely usable in the field or studio for years.
• Covers - Full leather, tooled in genuine gold leaf
• Foredges - Deckled
• Endpapers - Plain
• Paper Inside - Penicuik paper, dating from the 1600s
• Size - 3½ x 3 inches, 90 x 76 mm
• Page Count - 296

HANDMADE IN SCOTLAND TO THE HIGHEST STANDARD