This is extremely cool: a catalog from 1911, featuring all manner of notebooks and other stationery. The only thing that could be cooler would be if you could find some forgotten warehouse that still had all these products in stock! Flip through the whole catalog at Catalogue of stationery : section no. 1, blank … Continue reading 1911 Catalogue of Stationery
A beautiful old notebook containing the recollections of Alfred Gougeon, a French stretcher-bearer in World War 1. It sounds like he kept daily notes during the war, and then returned to them in the 1960s to write more about his experiences, given the two sets of dates on the cover. His family kept 3 of … Continue reading Diary of a WWI Soldier
A lovely and mysterious sketchbook from an Australian archive: “One of the most intriguing items in the James Cook University Library Special Collections is a private sketchbook dating from the end of the 19th century. It is considered an anonymous work because its creator, and/or copyright owner, is unknown and so far cannot be traced. … Continue reading An Anonymous Victorian Sketchbook
From Dave: a link to a page with some beautiful calligraphy in a sketchbook: And also a link to a TV promo video with some glimpses of animated notebook pages in the first 20 seconds: Bluejay is looking for these notebooks, spotted in a Tumblr post, anyone know where to find them? Raymond shares … Continue reading From the Mailbag
Catching up on some old links I’ve saved, here’s a nice wrap-up of some books featuring the pages of artists’, designers’, and scientists’ notebooks, including the one below from Field Notes on Science & Nature: “A typical notebook page detailing the thoughts and events of a day doing fieldwork at Olorgesailie, Kenya, with a personal … Continue reading A Paleontologist’s Field Notebook
Here’s an interesting historical notebook– one of dozens that belonged to Frances G. Spencer, who traveled around the country collecting sheet music in the mid-20th century. Her collection, one of the largest in the US, is now housed in the archives of Baylor University. “The Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Popular Sheet Music contains … Continue reading Frances G. Spencer’s Notebook
I was in Washington DC over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and thanks to a tip from a reader, I went to one of the Smithsonian museums to see a cool little exhibit on artists’ diaries: A Day in the Life: Artists’ Diaries from the Archives of American Art. It’s not a huge exhibition, and the … Continue reading Artists’ Diaries at the Smithsonian
I recently took a trip to Paris and Amsterdam. Searching for notebooks wasn’t the sole purpose of the trip, of course, but I did a better job than usual of preparing for the journey with some research on places to buy notebooks. In Amsterdam, I had less time to devote to stationery shopping, as I’d … Continue reading In Search of Notebooks: Paris and Amsterdam
Catching up on various tips and questions people have sent in! From S, a link to an old episode of Fresh Air Weekend: ‘Let’s Explore’: David Sedaris On His Public Private Life: The best-selling author and humorist has kept journals for 36 years. Those diaries have been the jumping-off point for the personal essays that … Continue reading From the In-Box
I came across some really interesting work by an artist called Julien “Seth” Malland. He seems to have done graffiti art in Paris, as well as other paintings and collages in notebooks, such as the one below. It looks like an old ledger, which he’s partially covered and painted over, incorporating the old handwriting into … Continue reading Julien “Seth” Malland’s Art