Simon Beattie
@simon-beattie
Antiquarian bookseller, literary translator, choral composer. New album here:
Am thoroughly enjoying this. What a beautiful translation. (And I'm a demanding reader.)
Summer personified (‘Le brûlant fils du Soleil, le radieux Été règne à son tour…’) in 1808. The dog is Sirius, ‘qui souffle de ses naseaux ses exhalaisons malignes.’ #Dogdays
In terms of overall design (matching sprinkled endpapers and slipcase, and those striking orange boards), I think this might be the most stylish publisher's binding, for its date (1804), I have ever seen.
Look what flew in. Delighted to be exhibiting there in September. #RareBooksBerlin #ILABBerlin2026
Spotted at the weekend in the church where I was singing in a concert. It’s a famous icon, and the subject of Rowan Williams’ poem ‘Rublev’, words I set as ‘One day, God walked in’ and which, by chance, just last week was published by Boosey & Hawkes. soundcloud.com/simon-42-1/o...
Tonight's concert venue: the appropriately named Christ Church, Waterside in Chesham.
Chocolate wrappers produced by the Petrograd firm Georges Borman during the First World War. As chance would have it, I happen to be reading 'Doctor Zhivago' at the moment.
An eyewitness account of the first Bastille Day celebrations in 1790. A very happy 14 juillet to all my French followers!
Out next week! ‘Thoughtful and always guided by the text, with minimal divisi though some harmonic challenge, the settings are appropriate for intermediate to advanced choirs and would make engaging and thought-provoking anthems or concert pieces.’ schottmusiclondon.com/iconographie...
A collection of self-published booklets telling the story of various Parisian streets, the majority on the Left Bank, by a local resident. It feels like a zine. Would that be a good term for it?
Fiction (unusually) co-written by husband and wife (Lord and Lady Nugent). Lilies is a house in the Buckinghamshire village of Weedon. I sang in the gardens there once for a charity event.
First edition, together with the original plate for printing the title-page.
Bookplate of Waldorf and Nancy Astor at Cliveden. One of the books to feature in my new e-list out next week, on #Buckinghamshire. Do sign up on my website if you’re interested in receiving it: www.simonbeattie.co.uk (and scroll right to the bottom)
I presume this to be a theatre ticket, given the imagery, but I’m happy to be corrected. Anyone seen one before?
Some exciting post this morning. Amazing to see my work published by ‘the world’s leading classical music publisher’ and joining the likes of Britten, Finzi, and James MacMillan (not to mention Rachmaninoff, Copland, Stravinsky, etc). More to follow in the coming months!
Memorial to the librarians of Britain who died the First World War.
Given the current temperatures, this 1920s sign seems appropriate to share.
Scorchio! I came across this ‘sun’ recently, which is actually a graphic representation of the dancers in Gluck’s ‘Il Trionfo di Clelia’ in Bologna in 1763. Keep cool, everyone.
A publisher that never existed: this pocket edition of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago wasn’t printed in Paris, as the book states, but in Washington, DC by the CIA on its own in-house press.
A drawing by Rubens from the collection of Pierre Crozat (1665–1740), etched by Caylus and published in 1735.
The composer William Crotch (of 'Lo! star-led chiefs' fame) was also an accomplished artist. This comes from his first published set of etchings, showing the damage to Christ Church, Oxford after a fire in 1809.
Portrait of the Austrian cartographer and instrument maker, Peter Anich (1723–1766), from a rare biography published the year after his untimely death.
From a suite of plates representing troops from the Allied nations in the First World War by the French artist Georges Taboureau (1879–1960).
The first illustrations to 'La nouvelle Héloïse', overseen by Rousseau himself.