A gift of miniature books

The Library has just been given by Mrs Chloe Morton an extraordinary collection assembled by her late aunt Miss Ursula Mary Radford.

They arrived double- and triple-  banked in a specially made  bookcase with an overflow in a  cardboard box. So far there are  some 320, but more are being  found as the Radford house is  cleared and they are destined  for us.

The range of books is wide, from a 1625 Psalter in a contemporary embroidered binding to a mid-20th century paperback dictionary, a 1780 thumb Bible to a finger New Testament of 1900, a book bound in wood from the Mary Rose to a cathedral binding.

And there are books that aren’t: a housewife of scissors, bodkin, thimble, writing tablet, all contained in a book shaped case, a tiny wooden box with a sliding lid to keep something small safe, and a portable writing-case holding an ink-well, sealing-wax, and wafers, bound like a book in gold-tooled red-morocco.