The Art of the Bookplate

While this book is not the best resource on Ex Libris, it is a great book. The writing flows. The history is very interesting. The collection of bookplates is very interesting. There are lots of great ideas on how to develop/design your own bookplate. The bottom line: A great book.

If you know little about bookplates, this volume is a great place to start. The book begins with a discussion of bookplate history, including the artist, techniques, and why of bookplates. This section also gives an overview timeline of bookplate art and collecting. The second portion of the book contains images and brief, sometimes shallow, descriptions of the plate, the owner, or the artist. My rating is based in my love of all things book, and the wonderful visual catalog of bookplates that make up the majority of the book. Because of the occasionally prosaic descriptions and compressed information regarding collecting and creation techniques I give this work only 4 stars.

In the spirit of openess let me start by saying that many of the bookplates illustrated in this book came from my personal collection.Having said that, this is an exceptionally well written, well illustrated and very informative book which is very reasonably priced and well worth the money.