Three is a Collection . . .
Bibliographies of J.L. Carr and Edmund Blampied, plus bookplates and engravings by Stephen Gooden and others.
This site is dedicated mostly to my collections and to the bibliographies and catalogues that they have led to. The name is taken from the privately printed autobiography of the collector and misanthrope James L'Arbalestier (1875-1938), who wrote:
Beware of aquiring things of the same nature: two is a coincidence; three is a collection.
Here you can find:
► A bibliography of the novels, small books, maps and other published works of J.L. Carr, with printed materials related to him, including articles about Carr. There are a few examples of his paintings, too.
► Pages on the art of Edmund Blampied including designs for sheet music, bookplates, stamps and money, and a comprehensive bibliography of books and magazines containing his illustrations.
► I am also working on a new catalogue raisonné of Edmund Blampied's prints - etchings, drypoints, lithographs and silhouettes - but may publish that, if I can find a publisher.
► NEW pages on the artist and engraver Stephen Gooden. They include my collection of some of his bookplates and a page of basic tables listing his designs for bookplates, coats-of-arms, award labels and devices. I have also added a page on a few other engravings by Gooden.
► A newly updated page on bookplates including examples designed by Mervyn Peake, Henry Rushbury and William E.C. Morgan, plus a page devoted to bookplates initialled W.P.B.
► An inconsequential page about things I have found in books.
► A page of links to personal web sites about books and things.
Other stuff that interests me:
► An article about Kate Abadie's sons who all died in the service of their country.
► A note about John Snow, an epidemiologist, although he didn't know that.
► A page on Betty Trask, an author whose 55 novels have been forgotten, but a Prize carries on her name.
► Things you can download or watch, starting with 3 minutes of church bells.
Why?
Nothing on this site is done for personal gain. It's just been fun to try to teach myself how to construct web pages; to have at my hand basic bibliographies or catalogues of things that I collect; and to be able to share with others my collections and obscure interests. A web site allows me to update the text and order of books or prints easily, whenever I get new information or find new things, and to show images of the items, which may be helpful to collectors. My printed bibliography of Edmund Blampied (2010) was out of date as soon as I found another dust jacket that he had designed. I have now found ten more, so about one a year; there may be more. I can easily add new items as I find them.
A web site also allows me to embed links to other entries on the same site or to supporting information on an external site, which is indicated with this symbol: 
. It should open on a new page. This provides a link to additional information in a way that a printed book cannot, and allows digression and distraction. Many of the links are to Wikipedia or to other sites that provide interesting information, such as how things look now. These other sites are not permanent, so if a link doesn't work, please let me know.
Search engines and this web site
I recommend using DuckDuckGo because Google does not find all pages on this site. For example if you ask Google to search for "pseud Mary Winifred Boggs", my page on the book My Wife is not found (except this page now, of course); if you do the same search on DuckDuckGo my pages are the only pages found. Another example. I have had a page for over three years about an obscure WWI magazine: Google has not indexed it yet as it doesn't appear on a search, even if I ask it to search my web site specifically, but my page is listed third in a general search on DuckDuckGo. This is perhaps because Google does not always index pages that are more than two layers below the top page whereas DuckDuckGo does. Google is a shallow search engine; DuckDuckGo is a deep search engine. Google search often gives adverts before the actual page that you may be looking for; DuckDuckGo gives you what you are looking for at the top. My pages also tend to be indexed by Bing and Yahoo, and there may be other good search engines too.
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This is work in progress.
. . . Three is a Collection
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