Ah, the taste and smell of tears!
I cried when I heard of the death of Peter Jolliffe. He managed so bravely with his illness for so many years. And the last few times we met he was almost trim! So kind and so erudite. He was, of course, the person referred to in Byron’s book as ‘The Collector’! His love of RS’s work as well as that of Elizabeth Bishop, Derek Mahon, W.S. Graham and others led him to acquire some wonderful works. The loss of Ulysses will be a jolt to many. When S and I first went to a Book fair in Bath in the early days of Lapis Lazuli it was Peter who bought so many of the books and became our friend..when was that ?? 30 years ago!
Julian Nangle has written a moving obituary of him:
Peter Benedict Jolliffe, antiquarian bookseller and poet:
born Trowbridge, Wiltshire 26 October 1947; died London 27
December 2007
The Independent
11 January 2008
Julian Nangle
Peter Jolliffe, poet and bookseller, who co-founded and
later became sole proprietor of Ulysses Bookshop in the
heart of Bloomsbury, London, developed a successful business
dealing in modern first editions. His bookselling career,
which began in the early 1970s, developed into an
international business, having particularly strong ties with
the United States. He was an early and lifelong supporter of
the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association, in addition to
being a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association.
Jolliffe began his career working for Blackwell's in Oxford,
following education at Stonyhurst and at Merton College,
Oxford, where he read Classics. At the age of 21, he
suffered a profound and comprehensive breakdown in health
which was to affect him for the rest of his life; indeed, on
one occasion he was told he would not live beyond the age of
30. He endured his incapacities with remarkable stoicism.
After the death of his father, his mother and siblings
having died when he was a boy in Kenya, he branched out on
his own, specialising in modern first editions. He became a
familiar figure in the auction rooms of Hodgson's in
Chancery Lane in the late 1970s, where he would hoover up
any collection of fine first editions of contemporary
literature that took his fancy. He was one of the first in
his field to inspire customers to pay serious money for the
books they wanted, justified by the extraordinarily good
condition of the books he offered them.
Almost single-handedly in the 1980s, during the heyday of
the modern first edition boom, he raised the profile of
writers such as Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon, by pricing
their books in such a way as to make one reflect that he
valued the writers' works seriously. It was this passion for
poetry, particularly Irish poetry, which lay at the core of
Jolliffe's passion for books in general. It was clear on the
rare occasions when he shared his own poetry with the world
that Jolliffe himself was no slouch at this craft and sullen
art. Poets he loved included Heaney and Mahon, but also
those of an earlier generation; Edward Thomas and R.S.
Thomas, and he amassed serious collections of their work
over the years.
Between 1983 and 1986 Peter Jolliffe and I shared offices in
Fulham Road. This was a happy time for Jolliffe as he
developed his business and his name as one of the leading
players in the world of modern first editions both in
Britain and in America.
In the 1990s, he joined forces with three other booksellers,
Peter Ellis, Joanna Herald and Gabriel Beaumont, to form
Ulysses Bookshop in Museum Street, London. This partnership
created two bookshops across the road from each other in the
heart of Bloomsbury. After several years of very successful
trading, during which time Ulysses also undertook some
publishing, issuing various limited editions by William
Boyd, Adam Thorpe and Jeanette Winterson, among others, the
partners decided to go their separate ways and Jolliffe
stayed on with the name and the premises at 40 Museum
Street, living, sleeping and eating Ulysses Bookshop.
Due to his infirmities he would never actually go to bed,
but would curl up in his favourite chair in the shop,
discreetly enough not to be spotted by any passer-by, and
would literally sleep on the job. Night after night, day
after day, year upon year, this was his routine. He rarely
returned to his house near Oxford.
Jolliffe's attention to detail when describing the condition
of a book was extraordinary. In his last catalogue, his
102nd, issued shortly before his death, there is a volume he
describes thus: "Covers slightly marked, creased, rubbed and
dusty. Very good." To anyone outside the bookselling trade
this would appear to be a book destined for the dustbin, but
his final description, "Very good", is actually the correct
description of the book for anyone seriously contemplating
buying it. He wanted, above all, to be fair to his
customers, and would go to extraordinary lengths to be sure
they were not disappointed.
A private man, Jolliffe none the less had a thirst for
intelligent, and sometimes glamorous, company. Among the
regular visitors to the shop were Heaney and Jeanette
Winterson, the latter having once written that Ulysses was
her favourite bookshop. Often, friends and colleagues who
dropped in to the shop for a chat would leave reeling at
Jolliffe's encyclopaedic knowledge, or his rather famous
inability to let go of the memory of a missed opportunity to
buy something particularly special or cheap. As they stepped
out of the door, he would return to listening to his
favourite music; some opera, perhaps, or an album by Nina
Simone or Bob Dylan. And, once the shop was relatively
empty, he would release his grip on the bowls of soft fruit
which lay around the shop when in season. As former
employees at the shop can recall, woe betide you if you
started nibbling at his strawberries or grapes uninvited.
This said, one feature of Peter Jolliffe was his astonishing
generosity, both with his time and also in business. He
might offer discounts or extended time to pay off the bill;
he first encountered this behaviour in Peter Howard, of
Serendipity Books in Berkeley, California, and was quick to
adopt it. At the same time, Jolliffe would lament that the
new entrants to the world of modern first editions were
pushing up the prices (something he had done himself in the
early 1980s, a subject upon which he did not linger in
discussion).
Jolliffe was a recognisable figure within the world of rare
books. He was often seen trudging the streets of London from
sale to sale, or exiting from a taxi, heavily laden with his
latest acquisitions in a giant carrier bag from Bonhams,
Phillips, Christie's, Sotheby's or Bloomsbury Book Auctions,
always ready to stop and talk about how he'd missed what he
really wanted at the auction.
It is hoped that the Ulysses Bookshop will remain open, so
that Jolliffe's considerable legacy can be built upon.
Julian Nangle
Meanwhile we argue with builders and tillers and plumbers to try and correct the defects of this lovely house! We spend $5 a day on food, $10 on phonecards and $30 on flowers and the garden!!
And Bangkok is shrouded in fog....so Not The Man in The Mist! while her it is nearly freezing under a full moon night
