FINDERS STORIES: TOM AYLING
Searching Through the Shelves of an Antiquarian Bookshop
Tom Ayling of Jonkers, Henley on Thames.
We swung by Jonkers Rare Books to visit Tom on the way to the Rodney Cook Memorial Rally.
With the panda absolutely full to the brim with every piece of camping and metal detecting equipment we could ever possibly need we made the stop in Henley on Thames. Roman Found really needed to invest in a proper sat nav set up, as crossing the country with a phone propped up on the perfectly designed dashboard ledge that would fire it out during the slightest turn might not have been ideal for the four and a half hour journey we had! Quite the sight for the good people of Henley’s Waitrose we disembark, trying not to disturb the tightly packed tents and chairs, metal detectors in hand.
We had become good friends with Tom over the past year or so and had seen snippets of the famous ‘Jonkers Rare Book Shop’ in his various TikToks but to actually enter the shop was a surreal experience. Surrounded by books of all shapes and ages we were treated to a tour of the shelves, turning the pages of 16th century reprints of Roman Literature, marvelling at the first appearance of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in colour on hand written letters and discovering hidden paintings within the leaves of the books themselves.
Remembering to put our content creator hats on, we pap the entire shop, snapping away as Tom tells us all about the various novels he's plucked from the shelves. His personal favourites of the moment, spoken to with such enthusiasm, we really start to capture the essence of Jonkers and Tom’s on camera charm.
Stepping out into Henley after thoroughly exploring every inch of the shop we were taken to a gastro pub eatery type that we were assured was excellent (despite us being practically the only customers in the restaurant). Unable to make a decision on ordering for quite some time, much to the delight of the server, as we were too busy gossiping and hadn’t even looked at the menus! We dug in, getting all the dirt from Tom about his world in the Antiquarian Book Trade.
The famous ‘Jonkers Rare Books’.
Roman Found: Thank you for being a well needed rest stop for us on our journey, we’ve really enjoyed exploring the shop and the book world. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?
Tom Ayling: No worry at all it’s been a pleasure, ask away!
RF: Do you class yourself as a finder? Is it a skill you think is important in your trade?
TA: Discovery, in all its excitements and incantations, is fundamental to what booksellers do. Of course there is the act of finding in your first encounter with a book; that of actually setting your hands on a volume in the first place, be it in a darkened corner of somebody’s library, the back room of a colleague’s bookshop or tucked away in a job lot at auction.
But even if that first encounter is less of an unearthing; say somebody brings something amazing into the bookshop, or it is offered at a major auction, there are still discoveries to be made as we begin to collate it, explore it, and catalogue it. Can we find something about the binding, or printing, or paper, that adds to the book’s story? How about its previous owner, who were they? Have they left marks in the book? And how does all of this add to our understanding of it as an object?
RF: Can you tell us a bit about your world in the Antiquarian Book Trade and how you got involved in it?
TA: I’ve been a bookseller at Jonkers Rare Books for six years, and from our bookshop in Henley on Thames we buy, research and sell rare books and manuscripts, with a particular focus on English Literature. Before that I was a bookseller at Topping & Company in St Andrews whilst at university. It was really in St Andrews that I first got seriously interested in the history of the book and of book collecting.
The wider world of rare books is an extraordinary network of booksellers, private collectors, librarians, archivists, curators and academics. In my experience it is an incredibly collegiate one. At the New York Book Fair a few years ago I was holding a rare presentation copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses that was being offered by a French bookseller. I needed to work out why Joyce was where he said he was in the inscription; and so fired off a quick email to a librarian in London, who had the necessary reference book to hand, and confirmed the answer almost instantly.
In a similar instance the previous year, I was looking at purchasing a book that had not been offered for sale for over 160 years, and not having a copy of the relevant nineteenth-century auction catalogue in which it had appeared, wrote to the Houghton Library at Harvard who did have a copy. That evening I knew not only the book’s full description, but also what it had sold for, and who had bought it, as their catalogue was annotated!
At the New York Book Fair a few years ago I was holding a rare presentation copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses that was being offered by a French bookseller.
French edition of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, a fore-edge painting of the Parthenon reveals itself. VIEW AT JONKERS
Tom with a copy of ‘Poems of Sentiment’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
The Roman History by Titus Livius.
RF: What's been the most significant or most historic and exciting discovery you’ve come across?
TA: In 1949, Graham Greene printed twenty-five copies of a book of poems called After Two Years on the island of Capri. They were written for his great love Catherine Walston, the inspiration for, and dedicatee of, The End Of The Affair. Greene was married to another woman at the time, and so had very few people to give copies of the book to, and so after giving away a couple, Greene destroyed the rest.
Having heard this story, I had resolved that I was unlikely to ever see a copy, until one day I did. I was about ten yards away from a glass case in a bookseller’s booth at my very first Boston Book Fair, when I saw it sitting there in its very plainly adorned paper wrappers, the simply printed red titles barely discernible under its glassine dustwrapper.
The only thing I can compare it to was like falling in love at first sight across a crowded room. I rushed over to it and rather excitedly told my boss that we had to buy it. Many serious Graham Greene collectors haven’t heard of it, let alone seen a copy, and I may not see another one again.
RF: Is there anything or any object in particular you find yourself looking out for in the trade?
TA: As specialists in English Literature we are always on the look for fine or interesting copies of great books. And those two qualifiers of ‘fine’ and ‘interesting’ are important. Printed books, by the multiplicity of their nature, will often present collectors and booksellers with different copies of the same book to choose from. In pursuit of not just the best books, but the best examples of the best books, we are therefore drawn to either a copy in the finest condition, or with the most interesting story to tell.
An obsession over condition can draw criticism, but it is vital to the book’s integrity as an historical object. It’s like the Ship Of Theseus; if time strips away those original elements of a book's condition, it is a lesser example of that complete, original form we are seeking, especially when it comes to first editions.
In terms of what other characteristics we look out for, the list is truly endless because books can contain multitudes. Anything; the binding, the paper, the printing, the ownership, the illustration, the decoration, annotations, scrawls in the margins, all these things and more can make a book more interesting.
RF: What is a day in the life of an Antiquarian Bookseller?
TA: No two days are the same, but typically I get the bookshop around 8.30am and spend the first hour or so filming video content for social media. After the bookshop opens at 10am, I could be researching and cataloguing recently acquired items, showing visitors around the shop, offering books to customers that I think would suit their collections, trawling auctions across the world for potential acquisitions, visiting people who have books to sell, packing up orders, or preparing our next catalogue for production. After the bookshop closes at 5.30pm there is usually still more work to do, but if not I head home to edit videos for social media, read or write throughout the evening.
RF: You’ve been sharing your world through social media. Do you think it's important to use these social platforms to showcase what we do?
TA: Like most booksellers, I love talking about books and getting people excited about books, and I see social media as a natural extension of what I already do in person or in catalogues or over the telephone. Book collecting is tremendous fun and I’m keen to spread the word as far and wide as possible. And nothing is more fulfilling than hearing that somebody has started book collecting as a result of watching my videos.
RF: Can you give any insights into your private collection?
TA: I collect St Andrews - the small Scottish town where I went to university and, more importantly, really fell in love with books and book collecting. Within this narrow geographic confinement, I collect across all areas and am interested in books, manuscripts, coins, artwork, or any other artefact to do with the history of the town. If any of your readers have or happen upon anything then I’d love to hear about it!
RF: Is there a particular book or author that has had the biggest impact on you?
TA: I remember the first time that I read Oscar Wilde in school, I realised that ’serious’ literature could be playful and exciting and funny. It was my first experience of feeling a hand reach out from the past and touch you, and it’s been incredible to feel that same feeling at work when I’ve handled a book Oscar has inscribed, or a letter he has written.
I collect St Andrews - the small Scottish town where I went to university and, more importantly, really fell in love with books and book collecting.
RF: What impact do you think private collections have on history?
TA: Private enterprise, expertise and connoisseurship, can be just as significant as its academic and institutional equivalents, so it is a shame that they are often portrayed as at odds with one another. It’s so important that all of these groups work together - and for the most part they do. After all, many of the great ‘public’ books collections of today are the result of private collecting of yesteryear.
RF: Is there anything you would like people to know about antiquarian books or dealing with historical artefacts outside of museums?
TA: Two things - firstly their availability. You can go into a bookshop like ours and get up close with some extraordinary historical objects and literary artefacts - first editions by your favourite authors, letters that they wrote by hand, manuscript drafts of their works, books printed or bound to commemorate or signal important or historic events.
Secondly, their diversity. Whatever you’re interested in, whether its literature or nature or sport or an eccentric hobby or a cause you a passionate about, the chances are that it will have a printed history that you can trace and preserve and develop our understanding of by collecting books about it.
RF: What is your favourite part of what you do in the trade?
TA:Talking to people about books and seeing that glint in their eye when something resonates with them, or their hands start to tremble as I pass them a first edition of their favourite book!
RF: Do you have any questions for us?
TA: If you could pick one book from the bookshop to join the Roman Found library, what would each choose?
RF: Now that’s a hard one, there’s simply too many to choose from!
But we do think that if we had to choose just two it would have to be: first ‘The Roman History by Titus Livius’ because, well we are Roman Found for a reason, got to have all things Roman! But the Illustration plates are absolutely stunning, plus what better to read about Ancient Rome than the words of a Roman Historian himself. The printing of the copy that you showed us as well was fascinating with the typefaces and layouts something that really appeals to Ellie’s creativity and printmaking background.
Then our second choice would be purely for its artistic and not necessarily literature value as we really loved those publications that had a fore - edge painting. Especially down to the way that they remain hidden until the pages are perfectly fanned to reveal its artistic masterpiece. Simply a beautiful and fascinating type of book decoration and history.
We hope we’ve made some good choices!
TA: I couldn’t have expected more fascinating choices from you both! It’s been lovely to see you and I look forward to seeing you in the bookshop again!
RF: We will certainly be making the trip down and maybe next time adding to the Roman Found library.!
You can follow Tom and his rare books over on Tiktok: @tomwayling
