LONG WAY FROM THE ARMSTRONG BEER PARLOUR - A LIFE IN RARE BOOKS: ESSAYS BY RICHARD LANDON.|A

New Castle, DE and Toronto: Oak Knoll Press and The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 2014. hardcover, dust jacket. 5.5 x 8.5 inches. hardcover, dust jacket. 440 pages. With an Introduction by Marie Elena Korey. "It was at heart Landon's hard work and connections that turned the Fisher Library into the world-class rare book and manuscript collection that it is today... These essays are exactly what polite essays should be: full of recondite information attractively expressed, and somehow as revelatory of their author as they are of their subjects."

- Bruce Whiteman, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada



"His wife, Marie Elena Korey, has put together this fine selection of his writings (five of the essays are here published for the first time in full), and provided a useful biographical introduction and an eighteen-page checklist of his publications. The range and depth of the volume's contents may be seen as evidence of his success in achieving what many rare book librarians find difficult as their careers progress."

- Brian Hillyard, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society



"This well-designed and produced volume, which is both interesting and pleasurable to read, serves as an elegant and fitting tribute to Landon's many achievements, and to his life spent with books."

- Joel Silver, The Book Collector



In 1967 Richard Landon (1942 - 2011) joined the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections (later the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library) at the University of Toronto and quickly established his reputation as a collector, both institutionally and personally. He took great pride in the growth of the research collections under his care and delighted in sharing the stories of wonderful acquisitions in lectures, exhibition catalogues, and other publications. This volume brings together a selection of these writings chosen and edited by Marie Elena Korey, Richard's wife and partner in his Life in Rare Books. She also has provided an introduction on his life and writings and compiled a checklist of his publications.



Beginning with a piece on R.B. McKerrow's An Introduction to Bibliography as an inspirational book, the first section forms a sort of autobiography, with contributions from The Halcyon, the newsletter of the Friends of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library; memoirs of antiquarian bookseller Franklin Gilliam and Fisher Library benefactors Edgar and Elizabeth Collard; and "A Personal Miscellany" from Bibliophilia scholastica floreat, a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Toronto.



Under 'Bibliography and Book History' are essays on topics such as the bibliography of Canadian literature in English; the work of Canadian graphic artist Thoreau MacDonald; the narratives of Canadian political exiles in Australia; the textual complexities of Charles Darwins publications; literary forgery; the career of Richard Garnett; and the history of bibliography.



'Collecting and the Antiquarian Book Trade' includes papers on James Edwards and James Lackington and the antiquarian book trade in England in the eighteenth century; the development and disposition of the collections of Thomas Grenville, Lord Amherst of Hackney, William Morris, and Frederick Locker-Lampson; the collecting of the history of science as exemplified in the Galileo collection of Stillman Drake and the Hannah collection in the History of Medicine, both at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library; and the significance of provenance research.