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Provenance

Former owners and their marks in Newcastle University Special Collections & Archives' rare book collections

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Provenance exhibition poster

Philip Robinson Library, Level 2, Special Collections & ARchives exhibition area

20th December 2024-11th May 2025

Free entry, open to all

Please check the Philip Robinson Library's opening times

Bookplates, inscriptions, and armorial stamps are the most common ways to identify a book’s previous owners, but there are other, less obvious clues as well.

Monograms (designs made from two or more letters), mottoes (personal or family rules), distinctive binding styles, annotations and additional material added to into the book can also point to a former owner. Sale catalogues can also provide records of a collector’s library and the names of purchasers when the collection is broken up. Similarly, catalogues of private libraries can provide records of collections which may now be dispersed.

Parts of the exhibition is co-curated by Dr Joseph Hone, Research Fellow in Literature and Book History at Newcastle University. View online Alexander Pope and his Books also featured in the Provenance exhibition.