Percy Muir

Percy Horace Muir was born on 17 December 1894 in London, United Kingdom.

He began his career as a bookseller in the early 1920s and in 1930 joined Elkin Mathews Ltd., the firm of antiquarian booksellers and publishers, as a partner. One of his colleagues while at Elkin Mathews (and also while at Deval & Muir) was the bookseller Laurie E. Deval.[https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/agents/people/5795 Deval, Laurie E., 1923-1981 (bookseller)], lib.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 December 2023. Muir became the managing director of Elkin Mathews in 1939. During the Blitz he was responsible for moving the firm to Blakeney, Norfolk.

Over the years his influence grew with booksellers and book collectors across the world. In the years 1945-49 he was president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) in Great Britain.[https://ilab.org/article/aba-history-1906-1984 ABA History 1906-1984 (Part 1)], ilab.org. Retrieved 14 November 2023. He was the chair of the inaugural conference of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) in Amsterdam in 1947 and became a major role player in the evolution of the League. In 1950-1952 he was President of the ILAB and later elected as the League's first Life President of Honor.

One of Muir's clients was the British author and book collector[https://www.ianfleming.com/ian-fleming/ About Ian Fleming], ianfleming.com. Retrieved 15 November 2023. Ian Fleming, who would be later known for his James Bond novels. Muir would select books for Fleming who "put himself in Percy’s hands", who said he "wanted to "collect 'books that made things happen', and he left it to Percy to suggest suitable titles".Barbara Kaye, [https://archive.org/details/companywekept0000kaye/page/24/mode/2up The Company We Kept], London: Werner Shaw and Blakeney, Norfolk: Elkin Mathews, 1986. Retrieved 14 November 2023.[https://www.thebookcollector.co.uk/about Ian Fleming], thebookcollector.co.uk. Retrieved 14 November 2023. Another book collector influenced by Muir was the Scottish historian of printing, Iain Bain.[http://www.claudecox.co.uk/209/part1.htm Iain Bain], claudecox.co.uk. Retrieved 14 November 2023.

Muir authored numerous books and essays on bibliography and on book collecting. He also regularly contributed essays to periodicals such The Colophon, A Book Collectors' Quarterly,[https://www.nytimes.com/1932/09/22/archives/soviet-prices-ban-library-purchases-london-agent-finds-it-almost.html "Soviet Prices Ban Book Purchases"], The New York Times, 22 September 1932, p. 9. Retrieved 15 November 2023. the Bibliographical Society's journal The Library, and The Bookman's Journal. He was member of the editorial board of The Book Collector and over several decades he wrote "many reviews for this journal". In 1935-1939 he edited the journal Bibliographical Notes and Queries.[https://www.worldcat.org/title/1532696 Bibliographical Notes and Queries], worldcat.org. Retrieved 15 November 2023.

He wrote pioneering works about historical children's books which "helped define the subject as worthy of serious attention". In 1946 he organized a "landmark exhibition" of children's books at the National Book League and wrote an accompanying catalogue, Children's Books of Yesterday. In 1954 he published his English Children's Books,Marc Drogin, "For enjoying the use of words", The Times, 18 January 1970, p. 11. which, according to the critic Andrew Immel, succeeded F. J. Harvey Darton's Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life (1932) as the standard work on the genre.

Muir was chairman of the historical sub-committee charged with organizing the Earls Court section of the Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition at the International Printing Machinery and Allied Trades Exhibition (IPEX) in 1963.Malcolm, Sandy. (2023)."The Percy Muir Archive: Titles Rejected for PMM." The Book Collector 72 no.4 (winter): 645-653. He compiled and co-edited Printing and the Mind of Man: A Descriptive Catalogue Illustrating the Impact of Print on the Evolution of Western Civilization During Five Centuries. Printing and the Mind of Man: A Descriptive Catalogue Illustrating the Impact of Print on the Evolution of Western Civilization During Five Centuries compiled and edited by John Carter & Percy H. Muir, assisted by Nicolas Barker, H. A. Feisenberger, Howard Nixon and S. H. Steinberg, with an introductory essay by Denys Hay," London: Cassell and New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967.

Muir's Victorian Illustrated Books (1971) was among "sympathetic reappraisals of a traditionally undervalued era".

Muir was married to Barbara Kaye, who shared his life in the book trade and was herself the author of 14 novels.Ed Klimuska, "Some antiques potpourri, from Lahaska to London", Lancaster New Era, 25 March 1996. They had two children, Helen and David. He died on 24 November 1979 at Blakeney, Norfolk, England.

• Points, 1874-1930: Being Extracts from a Bibliographer's Note-Book, London: Constable, 1931. [https://archive.org/details/points18741930017617mbp Online copy] at Wayback Machine
• Book Collecting as a Hobby in a Series of Letters to Everyman, London: Gramol Publications, 1944. [https://archive.org/details/bookcollectingas0000perc/page/n7/mode/2up Online copy] at Wayback Machine
• Children's Books of Yesterday: A Catalogue of an Exhibition Held at 7 Albemarle Street, London During May 1946, London: National Book League, [1946].
• Book-Collecting: More Letters to Everyman, London: Cassell, 1949.
• Talks on Book-Collecting, London: Cassell, 1952.
• English Children's Books, 1600 to 1900, London: Batsford, 1954. [https://archive.org/details/englishchildrens00muir Online copy] at Wayback Machine
• Minding My Own Business: An Autobiography, London: Chatto & Windus, 1956; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 1991, 2nd edition, with a new foreword. [https://archive.org/details/mindingmyownbusi0000muir/page/n7/mode/2up Online copy] at Wayback Machine
• Victorian Illustrated Books, London: Batsford, 1971; New York: Praeger, 1971. [https://archive.org/details/victorianillustr0000muir Online copy] at Wayback Machine
• Printing and the Mind of Man: A Descriptive Catalogue Illustrating the Impact of Print on the Evolution of Western Civilization During Five Centuries, "compiled and edited by John Carter & Percy H. Muir, assisted by Nicolas Barker, H. A. Feisenberger, Howard Nixon and S. H. Steinberg, with an introductory essay by Denys Hay", London: Cassell and New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967; 2nd edition: Munich, Karl Pressler, 1983.Robert R. Kirsch, "Printing and the Mind of Man: Book that Speaks Volumes, Los Angeles Times'', 23 July 1967, p. 516. [https://archive.org/details/printingmindofma0000john Online copy] at Wayback Machine

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• Nicholas Barker, Percy Muir: Ian Fleming's Bookseller, London: Queen Anne Press, 2017.
• Barbara Kaye [Mrs. Percy Muir], The Company We Kept, London: Werner Shaw and Blakeney, Norfolk: Elkin Mathews, 1986; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 1995. [https://archive.org/details/companywekept0000kaye/page/n5/mode/2up Online copy] at Wayback Machine.
• Barbara Kaye [Mrs. Percy Muir], P. H. Muir: A Check List of His Published Work, Blakeney, Norfolk: Elkin Mathews, 1983; Supplement, 1985.
• Barbara Kaye [Mrs. Percy Muir], Second Impression: Rural Life with a Rare Bookman, New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 1997.

• [https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt009nb6d7/entire_text/ Finding Aid for the Percy H. Muir papers, ca. 1919-1970] at Online Archive of California
• [https://archives.iu.edu/catalog?f%5Bcreators_ssim%5D%5B%5D=Muir%2C+Percy+H.+%28Percy+Horace%29%2C+1894-1979 Percy H. Muir archives] at Indiana University
• [https://archive.org/details/mindingmyownbusi0000muir/page/n7/mode/2up Portrait of Percy Muir] - frontispiece in Minding My Own Business by Percy Muir.

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Category:1894 births

Category:1979 deaths

Category:English bibliographers

Category:English book and manuscript collectors

Category:Antiquarian booksellers

Category:British children's literature