In my current project, I don’t quite know what I’m doing, though I’m hoping to strike lucky. As with metal detectorists and those who browse the shelves of charity shops for Ming vases, my hope is alw

When William Caxton opened Britain’s first printing press 550 years ago, he helped the country form a shared language and literary culture, as a new exhibition reveals

After years in the doldrums, the tide may be finally changing for brown furniture, if last month’s sale of Michael Eaton’s collection is a sign of things to come

THE first billet-doux I ever received came from ...

From George Stubbs’s golden vision of the labourer’s place in society to Ford Madox Brown’s heroically monumental celebration of manual labour, artists gave individual interpretations of work, as Michael Hall reveals

Jennifer Buckley Periodicals, Fiction and the Novel, 1700–1760 Ecologies of print 232pp. Edinburgh University Press. £95. Matthew P. Brown The Novel and the Blank A literary history of the book trades