Thursday, Feb 26, 2026 12:00 AM

In the interest of complete transparency, we were offered a collection of books in Brisbane owned by a very old client and friend who had recently passed away. He was a gentleman, a scholar, and a collector of many things, from carpets and objects to books and prints. His heir contacted us, and we were astonished by the scale of it all. He himself was overwhelmed by the size and complexity of the various collections.

He was a thematic collector but not a careful storer of books, so one had to try to find the themes and connections: illustrators, books on books, and so on. He kept everything, much of which was beginning to deteriorate. The work was hard and physical for Gordon. During each trip we divided the work, I packed and piled and Gordon carried every single volume. It was very hot, the height of the Queensland summer. We filled the car, loaded to the gunwales, and drove home to unload again.

This became a routine for us, and as I was very aware of the connections in the disorder, I did not want to leave anything behind as even small, subtle and seemingly uninteresting things had been carefully collected for often oblique or esoteric reasons. I am always optimistic that we will manage to “fit in” another box or two, but this collection pushed us over the top. Our last day there was bittersweet. The house, which was beautiful, had taken on a lighter airy feel about it as if the strain of so many now uncared for volumes had been lifted. The books they had elected to keep had a beautiful home. The books we have bought will go all over the world; we trust that he would have liked that. He never bought a book on the internet, always from catalogues or shops you could see in his collection the connections he had made, the businesses he had frequented, the traces of a readers life spent in fine and not so fine bookshops, the dealers he had known, the friendships he had shared. There were many books left over, awaiting donation, but I felt we had looked after my friend's collection, and I hope he would have approved.

Our home was now chaos, with boxes everywhere. The real work begins with cleaning, sorting, and listing, and we were all exhausted.

Alan started sorting the books that stood alone, unboxed, but many of those have provenance, a bookplate, or a particular point of interest in printing history. Our friend the collector had rarely bought the most expensive or flashy books but had a careful eye for providence, association, connection, the unusual, the strange and the underappreciated. His collection has served as an education for all of us.

We then decided it was time to refit the shop, which is still a work in progress. Gordon sorted out the design and made all the bookcases and trolleys. Alan did the painting and fitted sinks, tiled, plastered, covered the entire shop in a fine layer of plaster dust, narrowly evaded strangulation but completed the task beautifully. I moved and packed a ton of books. Gordon and I locked horns from time to time mainly regarding how to organise various book mountains, but in the end we emerged: a perfect (ish) working space for me. We are still not quite there; the desk in the shop and my book mountains are still too apparent, but customers seem to like it. The shop is different, but the trade is different—so much more online now. Our shop is in a small village on the Sunshine Coast. We are a destination for some customers, and it is nice to have a private area to show them things and have a cup of tea. My husband built me five beautiful shops over 50 years, and now my son has transformed this one for the next chapter—if I can just sort through all the books.

- Fiona