Andrew Roberts
The Frugality Cipher
A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors 1801–1924
By Charles Sebag-Montefiore
The Roxburghe Club/Maggs Bros Ltd 464pp £250 order from our bookshop
The grandest club in the world is undoubtedly the Roxburghe. Founded in 1812 and made up of 41 bibliophiles, many of whom own superb libraries, it numbers three dukes, two marquesses, three earls and a prince among its members, along with ten Deputy Lieutenants, six Fellows of the British Academy, two Privy Counsellors, a Knight of the Thistle, seven PhDs and DLitts, a member of the Order of Merit and another of the Académie Française.
Each member is expected to publish a book to give to the others, with a few copies left over for sale to the general public. Very often members choose to reproduce manuscripts or rare printed books from their own libraries, or sets of correspondence that would otherwise never get published.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Walk down your supermarket pet food aisle and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single brand that claims to be made with high-welfare meat. More expensive pet food should not be about spoiling our cats but about sparing the farmed beasts we feed them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/meattoo
'Two things prevent [this book] from collapsing under the weight of its own wayward ambition. Colin Jones, one of the finest living scholars of early modern France, is no ordinary historian. And the day in question, 27 July 1794, was no ordinary day'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/night-of-the-guillotine
The Anatomy of Melancholy 'has never quite become a widely recognised, bona fide "classic". For long stretches, the bulk of its readership has been restricted to bibliophiles and scholars. It has had an air of murkiness and desuetude'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/phantoms-of-the-mind