With the exception of the AGM, all meetings will be held at the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE, beginning at 5.30 p.m. All lectures will also be live-streamed.
For all regular meetings at the Society of Antiquaries, tea will be served at 5.00 p.m. and wine will be served after each lecture. Members are welcome to bring guests, both to meetings and to the social gatherings before and after each meeting.
Click here for previous years’ lectures
15 October 2026
The Annual General Meeting will take place at the Maughan Library, King’s College London. No tea will be served before the meeting but refreshments will be served following a tour and display.
17 November 2026
Panel for grant recipients
Michelle Michel, Reconstructing John Danter’s printing house.
Drawing on research at the Huntington Library, this talk presents preliminary findings from a new bibliographical study of surviving editions produced by John Danter (fl. 1591-99) and their implications for understanding his workshop and career.
Stephanie Kitchen, Journal publishing in Cameroon and Senegal from the 1960s to the present.
A brief historiography of four journals published in Cameroon and Senegal in the humanities and social sciences, including Global Africa (launched in 2022), the only one still published. The journals’ struggles to sustain publication are connected to patterns of state and donor patronage, institutional politics, and postcolonial relationships.
Ellen Hausner, Alchemical Characters: an early modern notational system.
Early modern alchemists used abstract symbols, known as ‘characters,’ to represent substances, processes, laboratory apparatus, and, occasionally, concepts. This talk will give an introduction to characters and briefly explore the ways in which they were used in alchemical manuscripts.
15 December 2026
Harry Spillane, A Maker of Chocolate and Bibles: Francis Fry’s Collecting, Correcting and Cataloguing.
Francis Fry, the Victorian collector of Bibles, amassed one of the largest Bible collections ever known. Fry used his vast library to create a series of influential facsimiles, books, and catalogues. He corrected and catalogued copies, rearranged them, and even recreated missing pages. This presentation uncovers what Fry’s habits show us about Victorian book collecting and explores the lasting legacy of this remarkable collection.
19 January 2027
Emma Smith, George Hibbert and the Roxburghe Club.
George Hibbert (1757-1837) was elected to the Roxburghe Club at its first anniversary dinner. This talk explores his role in the early years of the club, his own book collecting, and adjacent political and lobbying activities that drew in other Club members, especially around anti-abolition.
16 February 2027
Emily Wingfield, Mary and her Books: The Literary Life of Mary, Queen of Scots.
This paper draws on research undertaken both for my recent book on Scotland’s Royal Women and European Literary Culture 1424-1587 and for my planned critical edition and translation of the literary works of Mary, Queen of Scots. It asks whether, and why, an examination of the books owned by Mary – into many of which she added her own verse – might offer a new perspective on her infamous life, and it explores the meaningful relationship of those books, and Mary’s literary writings, with broader material culture.
16 March 2027
Mark McConnell: Publishing Early Modern Science: Christophe Plantin’s Strategic Investment in Botany.
Naturalists in the Low Countries led the Botanical Renaissance of the later sixteenth century. Christophe Plantin’s publishing a was major force behind this, including the works of Rembert Dodoens, Mathias L’Obel and Carolus Clusius. Plantin’s opportunity arose amidst the trends of his day, including the emergence of scientific illustration out of the traditions of Netherlandish art; Antwerp’s position as Europe’s financial center and as entrepot for Spanish and Portuguese voyages; and the rise of horticulture and ornamental gardens in the Low Countries. Mark McConnell will examine Plantin’s entry into botanical publishing from a business perspective, sharing insights into Plantin’s strategy from his database of Plantin’s publishing costs and from the sales records in the Plantin archive.
20 April 2027
Graham Pollard Memorial Lecture
Laura Cleaver, Crime and the Book Trade in Britain in the Golden Age c. 1890-1929.
In 1903 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle resurrected Sherlock Holmes, who made his reappearance disguised as a book collector. Two decades later, Dorothy L. Sayers introduced readers to her sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, on his way to a book auction, establishing him as a collector of rare books and manuscripts. In addition to the book trade’s appearances in crime fiction, crimes against and by British booksellers were documented in newspapers, court records, diaries and letters. Together these sources offer insights into booksellers’ operations during a “Golden Age” for both crime fiction and the British book trade. This talk will focus on the most common accusations made in connection with the book trade by examining cases of theft, fraud and obscenity. It will explore what these allegations reveal both about the value of books and the responsibilities of the book trade as part of British culture and society.
18 May 2027
Homee and Phiroze Randeria Lecture
Anthony Davis, Collecting English Bookbindings: a half a century of obsession.
Anthony Davis has been collecting bookbindings since he was at school, mainly English ones and mainly from between 1650 and 1840, focusing particularly on books which have a story. Anthony will describe his experiences as a collector and show some of his favourites, while trying to explain why anyone would assemble a collection of books that they never read. It is hoped to display some books from the collection before and after the talk.