Latest updates
Laurence Worms's half-century
Posted on 07/06/2021 at 11:06Congratulations to Laurence Worms who celebrates fifty years in the book trade in June 2021. My interview with Laurence was conducted at the halfway point in 1995, but he has kindly provided occasional updates which have been added to the original text, http://www.sheila-markham.com/interviews/laurence-worms.html
'We Are All Greeks'
Posted on 03/04/2021 at 17:04
On 24 March 2021 Greece began the commemorations to mark the bicentenary of the country's war of independence. Although the armed struggle against the Ottoman Empire began in Moldova, the first successful uprising took place in the Peloponnese in March 1821. In that remote corner of Greece, there is a remarkable library that deserves to be better known. The Public Historical Library of Andritsaina houses the magnificent collection of Konstantinos Agathophron Nikolopoulos (1786-1841), who formed it while living in exile in Paris for most of his life. The poiema Karkinikon of Ambrose Pamperis, illustrated above, is one of the many bibliographical rarities in the collection. The poem is entirely written in palindromic style, in which each of the 416 lines can be read backwards and forwards. It opens with a portrait of the dedicatee, Tsar Alexander I, and was published in 1802 by George Vendotis, who compiled the Greek dictionary that Lord Byron carried on his travels. It was Byron's support for the cause of Greek self-determination that inspired Philhellenes everywhere to regard the struggle as their common cause. As Shelley declared in the preface to his poem Hellas, 'We are all Greeks'.
