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Henry Sotheran Ltd Profile picture
Henry Sotheran Ltd
@Sotherans
Antiquarian booksellers in business since 1761. We sell old books. Rare books. Unusual books. Books with mysterious pasts. Tweets by Oliver (he/him).
Jun 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
sometimes you just want to read about imaginary people suffering, and that's okay because they are not real people, they are fictional you can enjoy sad stories
and find catharsis in dark tales about evil people or wolves eating grandma
it is allowed
no moral points gained or lost
Apr 1, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
losing my mind over the victorians attempting to industrially manufacture spider silk but having to stop because the spiders wouldn't stop biting all the scientists and eating each other amazing book of deranged Victorian spider experiments and antics 10/10 ImageImage
Jan 29, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
well, there comes a point where the records get fuzzy but this one has been in stock the longest and it came in at some point in history before 1993

sotherans.co.uk/products/de-la… truly resilient to being sold, that book
it's resisted every attempt
Jan 1, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
so it turns out it is possible to be so good (or bad) at your retail job that people start writing fanfic about it because

I have been made aware that there is now Oliver at Sotherans fan fiction

words fail me Image I am linking to it because I can't NOT link to it, it's the honorable thing to do

reminder I did not write this, I am not directly responsible for it

archiveofourown.org/collections/yu…
Nov 1, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
if people could kindly stop jerking the knobs off everything in this store that would be wonderful we are now down to 2/4 handles on the front doors due to rampant overenthusiasm
Oct 20, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
the real problem with bookselling lately is that we have about as much control over our couriers as we might over a delivery wolf

they do vaguely what we ask for, if they are in the mood, but most often they perpetrate some ghastly obscenity on the doorstep and maul the package it's actually more like a conspiracy of wolves, each of which can only tell you either where the package is, or where it is going, but never both at the same time

and then it turns up mauled on a doorstep, in the wrong street, with bite marks in it
Oct 18, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
am back from holiday but considering keeping my out of office autoreply on until I die if I prop up a sock puppet with glasses on behind my desk then that's basically my job taken care of
Apr 13, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
today's events include finding someone has added a "poisonous" book into stock and now I guess we have to do a whole staff meeting about why we cannot sell poisoned books to customers, and how a footnote is not considered to be taking sufficient precautions I suppose we should be thankful it was poisonous and not venomous
Apr 11, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
even if you are fully vaccinated it doesn't mean you can just walk into a rare bookstore and start buying things like an animal oh I'm sorry did we miss a comma in there, do you have any idea how expensive commas are in this economy we are in a PANDEMIC ma'am show some sensibility
Jan 31, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
well as Katie is on maternity leave, in order for the decorations to come down someone else would have to do it, and I am guilty of walking past it every time without doing a thing to help, so I suspect it will be there when she gets back it's more of a festive-general-all-purpose tree these days
Jan 31, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
for the record, I could use my carefully honed rare bookseller powers to give me an unfair advantage collecting any numbers of scarce/arcane subjects, and I use them to acquire Dungeons and Dragons books like a total nerd whenever I talk about with another book dealer it reminds me of this iconic conversation ImageImage
Jan 30, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
lately people have been asking about precisely what we do, because it's more nuanced than just being a bookstore. We sell rare books, and often cater to book collectors

rare book collecting is an old hobby about the draconic urge to gather and sit on precious, valuable things precious and valuable -differs- from person to person, it's rarely about cash value as much as passion for their chosen theme, which can be anything from cricket books to hog demon curiosa

our job is to dredge up that kind of odd material from wherever it might be hiding
Jan 29, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
it has come our attention that some of our newer followers are struggling to understand the words we use to describe our rare books, and you are in for a treat with this simple guide to "Words That Don't Mean Anything What It Seems Like They Mean"

[thread 1/?] when we get books in, collectors want to know what the damage is, so we have to find a way to tell them, and over a few centuries bookstores have developed a form of shorthand for this, because business has always been done by catalogue from hundreds of miles away
Jan 27, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
the denizens of this bookstore slowly waking up to the advantages of competitive social media is like watching dracula rise from his coffin - ponderous, civilised, hungry for more, and a little confused about what year it is ME: so you see when we post something all these potential customers see it

DRACULA: i see so would you say there are perhaps...10 customers? seeing our advertisements in this fashion?

ME: well

DRACULA: 20? ...40? do not toy with my emotions, boy
Jan 27, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
occasionally I will just get messages from the other booksellers titled stuff like "a book of animals who have seen too much" trivia: these are from Daniell's 'Zoography' where he drew a bunch of pictures of animals looking like they're remembering losing fellow soldiers in the War
Jan 27, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I know the world cannot currently handle anymore grief but yesterday I encountered a 17 year old who had never heard of Terry Pratchett the good news is that I am a professional bad influence so I fixed it
Jan 24, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
BEATRIX POTTER: (places book down) this one is about a rabbit

PUBLISHER: beatrice this time we really are going to need something more than a small animal walking somewhere

BEATRIX POTTER: the floopity rabbit boops

PUBLISHER: beatrice

BEATRIX POTTER: flabbity doop doop toad yes the publisher is getting her name wrong I fully believe this would be historically accurate

fun fact, Beatrix was an excellent mycologist and like anyone who studies the eldritch abomination which is mushrooms this makes her about 140% more terrifying
Jan 23, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
a big part of rare bookselling is wooing clients who collect the kinds of books you sell and who have money, but unfortunately I have the woo-ing capacity of a dented bucket with a sarcastic face drawn on YOU: be convincing

ME: 😠 no
Jan 22, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
they say you either quit bookselling within 2 years, or you stay long enough for the wind to change while you're making a sarcastic comment and then your face gets stuck like that spoilers: I stayed too long
Jan 19, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
for your peace of mind we are here for your strictly non-skeletal needs

sotherans.co.uk
Jan 18, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
ok so we just got in some mad science written by the 'magnetic healer' Andrew Jackson Davis and I am compelled to share it because 1) I would join his cult in a heartbeat and 2) he is one of my favourite Bad Scientists Who Should Have Been Thrown In Jail [thread] he wrote a gazillion books, ALL of which were delightful gobbledegook
he was -obsessed- with hypnotising animals
he said you could magnetize people to make them invisible and see their diseases
he appointed a musician to be his professional magnetizer