News Updates

 

Large Selection of Prints Old & New

Did you know CosmoBooks.co.uk offers around 5,000 new prints in addition to the 3,500 historic & antiquarian prints and the 90,000 antiquarian books, journals & articles on the website ?

We have a very wide selection of new reprints from rare & hard to find publications. Click on the links below to browse through;

 

New Prints Click Here

Antiquarian & Old Prints Click Here

 

 

OLD NEWS

New Premises following the 2021 Fire

Move completed to our new permanent premises just 13 months after the devastating fire in Oct 2021.  Lots of fresh stocks and interesting titles waiting to add to the website in the coming weeks.  Thank you very much to all our customers in the past year for the support, encouragement, and purchases you have made that have allowed us to survive and reappear.  All very much appreciated by everyone at Cosmo Books.

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The Thomas Chatterton Society

Another interesting society has just come to my notice: The Thomas Chatterton Society, founded in 2002 (the 250th anniversary of Chatterton's birth), to celebrate the life and works of this remarkable poet and writer, and to broaden and deepen awareness of Chatterton and his world.  The Society brings together all those who are interested in Chatterton’s writing and his extraordinary life-story, and hopes to stimulate interest amongst those who are new to Chatterton.  

 

If you would like to know more take a look at their very active society website and facebook page;

https://www.thomaschattertonsociety.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thomaschattertonsociety

 

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Well, we're now a tiny bit famous.  The New York based Manhattan Institute City Journal, in their Spring 2022 issue has run an article about the fire that engulfed us back in Oct last year, The Bookseller's Tale.  It's written by the brilliant Theodore Dalrymple ("one of the most interesting people alive"), and makes an engaging read. If you'd like know more about us, and about him follow the links just below;  

The Bookseller's Tale

Why Theodore Dalrymple is For All Time

If you are a Samuel Johnson affectionado he is currently conducting an online course for Ralston College on Johnson's Rasselas

Ralston College

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We're now over twelve months on from the fire that destroyed our old premises (see below).  Things are coming together, and at the time of writing, late October 2022 we have over 49,000 titles, in 200 categories listed on the website.  You can see a few pictures below just to give you a flavour of the journey we are on.  

Click on the pictures to see more.

 


 

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Cosmo Books Destroyed By Fire 6th Oct 2021

In the early hours of Wednesday 6th October 2021 Cosmo Books was entirely destroyed in a fire, from an arson incident at a neighbouring unit behind us.  Nearly our entire stock of about 170,000 titles was lost, with just a handful of lucky survivors.

However, we have begun listing again and now have a modest selection of material available.  Lots more will be added in the coming weeks and months, and the aim is to get back to a similar range of titles as previously on offer, so do please keep checking back to see what is being regularly added.  Our service remains as speedy as ever.

Click below to see more pictures of the destruction and to read a couple of interviews with the local press regarding the fire -

Shropshire Star

Whitchurch Herald

A picture of before and after. See more by clicking on the picture.

 

 

 
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YouTube Channel for Cosmo Books

 

We now have a YouTube channel where you can see our books, journals, and articles "in action",  usually with nice music, sometimes even with a bit of talking.

https://tinyurl.com/y663thlv

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History Reclaimed.

https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/

History has become one of the major battlegrounds in the culture wars that are causing anger and alarm across the democratic world. They are particularly virulent in North America, Australasia and Britain.  The abuse of history for political purposes is as old as history itself.  In recent years, we have seen campaigns to rewrite the history of several democratic nations in a way that undermines their solidarity as communities, their sense of achievement, even their very legitimacy. History requires careful interpretation of complex evidence, and should not be a vehicle for facile propaganda.

 

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Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden review: we can't keep all records – so what do we destroy?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/burning-books-richard-ovenden-review-cant-keep-records-do/

Books get burnt, online data will be wiped. Is there a failsafe way to preserve knowledge? By Christopher Howse

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It is undoubtedly true

It is undoubtedly true*, but in every library there are considerable numbers of important contributions to literature which are simply buried neglected for want of proper research, because by an accident of birth they appear in a volume with other equally important works, which have been lumped together without any distinguishing title pages, or have been disguised under some misleading title.

The component parts of the transactions of many of the learned societies represent in a large number of instances results of scholarly research of much greater value to the interested, than the more ambitious but less trustworthy works which are allowed to encumber the shelves. Every item recovered from this buried material and made accessible adds to the available resources, and often is more valuable than the purchase of new volumes.

There has never been a question as to the desirability of getting at this hidden material, but the question of ability to carry out the work with the limited resources at the disposal of many has long taxed readers.

It is this conundrum that Cosmo Books.co.uk has solved for many readers. With over 90,000 titles in stock our unparalleled stocks are the go-to resource you need today.

*From the Prefatory Notes, The John Rylands Library, Manchester: An Analytical Catalogue of the Contents of the Two editions of "An English Garner", Manchester, 1909.

For more on this topic read our article Periodicals & Why They Matter which you can find by clicking here.

 

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 A commentary piece from The Telegraph that may resonate with users of this website:

I’ve stumbled into the lost world of Victorian boyhood

Recently I've been mesmerised by my late grandfather’s old comics – an extraordinary record of a culture, a country, that has gone for good

 MICHAEL DEACON  PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHWRITER  

9 December 2020 • 7:00pm

 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/stumbled-lost-world-victorian-boyhood/

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Spirit of the age

A passionate polemicist and radical Romantic, William Hazlitt was the most brilliant essayist of his day. But since his death 170 years ago, he has been largely forgotten. Now, as a monument to Hazlitt is unveiled in Soho, Tom Paulin welcomes a revival of interest in a timeless critic of pomp and power.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/05/society.history

 

 

 

 

 
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Following the fire that destroyed our premises on the 6th Oct 2021, we have now moved (30th Nov 2021). 

After just two months of semi-chaos following the fire, and the feeling of camping out in temporary quarters we made it this week into our new HQ.  In the picture we are the long pink building, just to the left of centre.