Ephemera

Among the delights of secondhand books are the odd surprises tucked between their pages, pieces of paper that were once used as bookmarks – postcards, receipts, letters. At Richard Booth’s Bookshop, we call them ephemera, a word from the Greek ephemeros meaning lasting only a day, but later in the 16th century coming to mean trivia or bits of information of little value. Here are some ephemera from our collection that got us thinking.

  • The National Family Bible

    In late July 2024, a customer called into the bookshop bearing a bag bulging at the seams. It was carefully heaved onto the counter, where…

  • Communication from Westminster

    Hidden amongst the leaves of a book, a personalised note was left, presumably forgotten from when it was last studied. Dated 20th June 1969, the…

  • A collection of ephemera collected at the bookshop. Some photographs, newspaper cuttings and postcards are all carefully placed to interlock with eachother

    A Handwritten Note

    Here at Richard Booths, we regularly discover something forgotten amongst the pages of an old volume. Most often, these items are bookmarks of some fashion;…

  • A Confession

    Some time ago, staff at the bookshop came across something even more unusual than the regularly collected ephemera: a book itself. This book, a green…

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind”

Virginia Woolf