The joy of small books
This year marks the centenary of perhaps the most marvellous collection of small books in the world (and you can visit it)
It won’t surprise anybody that as the son of librarians - my father was also an archivist and English teacher, my mother ran a mobile bookshop too - the books on my shelves are arranged alphabetically and by subject. There are two exceptions, a kind of ‘to be read/recent aquisitions’ shelf in the sitting room which is naturally a bit of all sorts, and a separate little shelf in the dresser (above the cookery books, which are not alphabetised but are divided into a shelf of recipe books and another of general books about food). This is the ‘small books’ shelf.
Because of its unadjustable height there is not much you can do with it so I’ve made it home to all the really small books that we’ve randomly accumulated. Most of these are for children including Mister Magnolia by Quentin Blake, The Surprise Party by Pat Hutchins, Father Christmas Joke Book by Raymond Briggs, Andy Pandy’s in the Country (one of mine from decades ago, a classic of the genre), Katie Morag Delivers the Mail by Mairi Hedderwick, a stack of Mister Mens and Little Misses, two copies of Happy Christmas Maisy by Lucy Cousins, various Little Red Train books, several Noggin the Nog books (including my favourite, The Omruds, full of very small people), numerous Rev W Awdry Train Series books, A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone, The Secret Path (one of the Percy the Park Keeper books) by Nick Butterworth, and the slightly unsettling A Rabbit in the Attic which allows the child reader to put their finger in a rabbit-shaped piece of cloth and poke it through holes on each page.
It’s a nice little collection but it pales beside what’s inside one of architect Sir Edward Lutyens’ most luxurious 1920s London townhouses, built for the then reigning monarch, which celebrates its 100th birthday this year. As you would expect, it is beautifully constructed, from the servants quarters to the wine cellar. But perhaps the most remarkable room is the library, superbly stocked, walnut-panelled, and like the rest of the house, on a perfect 1:12 scale.
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