Bookplates,
also known as ex-libris, have since the 15th century been placed
in books to declare ownership. Many artists, some famous such as
William Hogarth, Aubrey Beardsley and John Piper, have designed
bookplates, and many significant people
(e.g. Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling) have used them, but a personal
bookplate has been available to anyone owning a library and wishing
to place in the books a printed design as a mark of possession.
Founded in 1972, The Bookplate Society is the direct descendant
of the world's first such organisation, the Ex Libris Society, 1891-1908,
and its creation and successor, the Bookplate Exchange Club. Our
purpose is to encourage the production, use, collecting, and study
of bookplates. We achieve this through our publications, lectures,
visits to collections, members' auctions, social meetings, and exhibitions.
THE FRANKS CATALOGUE IS NOW DIGITIZED AND AVAILABLE ONLINE
Library staff in Toronto have earned our warmest thanks by converting into digital form the Catalogue of the Franks Collection of British and American Bookplates in the
British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings. Rather than paying out £400 or more for ever-scarcer copies of this important reference work, you can now find it online.
Each of the three volumes can be downloaded free of charge, without copyright restriction, in PDF format, which is partly searchable. Alternatively, you may flip through
the pages online (but not downloadable). The links to the three volumes are:
VOL.1 A-G
VOL.2 H-R and
VOL.3 S-W, Bookplates of Institutions, and Heraldic Index .
RECENT CHANGES TO THIS WEBSITE
The listing for our members auction to be held on 14 April 2012, together with prices realised in our auction held on 3 December 2011, is now posted on the Members Area page.
A collection of European Ex-libris auctioned by Dominic Winter in November 2011 went unsold but subsequently found buyers - see our News and Events page.
The Winter 2011/12 Newsletter has been printed, and will be mailed to members before end-January.
The Autumn 2011 edition of Bookplate Journal was mailed to members in the last week of October.
At last, the long-delayed March 2009 issue of Bookplate Journal has seen the light of day. Our thanks go to John Blatchly for stepping in to assemble
this. It has been sent out with the Autumn 2011 journal to those members who subscribed for 2009. Details of the contents of these
two journals appear on the News and Events page.
It is worth mentioning that there exists a vibrant market in bookplates on eBay.
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