The cyclist as hero: Harry Graf Kessler and private press books (Special Collections blog)

This post, written by guest author Dr Jaap Harskamp (formerly Curator of Dutch & Flemish collections at the British Library, who is now working on the University Library’s early Dutch books) celebrates the coming of the Tour de France to Cambridge.  It concerns Harry Graf Kessler and the connections between cycling and private press books.

The Eclogues of Vergil, in the original Latin. Edition limited to 264 copies [Weimar: Cranach Press, 1927], classmark Broxbourne.a.17 (p. [1])

The Library holds a number of collections of both printed and archival material of typographical interest such as the outstanding Stanley Morrison collection of books and papers, the Broxbourne collection, and others. It also has a considerable collection of printing artefacts associated with private presses (the Golden Cockerel Press, Eragny Press, and Ashendene Press amongst them) – including the punches, matrices and bookbinders’ tools from Harry Kessler’s Cranach Press.

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