A description of a commonplace book together with a life of its first owner bookseller, land surveyor and collector, John Bell, 1783-1864; 'It was in 1807 that John Bell began to keep his Newcastle Commonplace Book, and it was to flourish for close on sixty years, hoarding an astonishing array of notes and autographs – events local and national, jokes mild, amusing and doubtful, accounts of the visits of giants and freaks, tales of high-tides and shipwreck, murders, hard frost and bad trade. A great many of the entries are contributions from his numerous visitors ...; eighty copies for members and friends of the Private Libraries Association Society of Private Printers.
