Rupert Neelands began working in books as a postgraduate student in English at Queen Mary University of London. Having spent two years living and working as an English teacher in Portugal, he joined the Book and Manuscript Department at Christie’s South Kensington in 1983, intending to stay no more than six months. However, the book field proved such a fascinating one that he continued working for Christie’s until 2016, becoming Head of Department at South Kensington, auctioneer and King Street Director, whilst still continuing as a consultant for the firm.
The valuation of large, long-untouched country house libraries has always been of strong appeal and he has first-hand knowledge of many of the country’s great collections
More from Rupert:
Robert Herrick: Poems of Christmas
The poem ‘To Daffadills’ beginning ‘Faire Daffadills, we weep to see/You haste away so soon’ graces many an anthology. It is often mistakenly thought of as by Wordsworth. But the author was Robert Herrick, a 17th-century country vicar who made a speciality of lyric verse in short lines. Although Herrick’s life was a quiet one, […]
The Care of Books
Rupert Neelands gives his best advice for caring for books: Space Libraries great and small suffer from a shortage of space — there is never as much room on the shelf as one would like. This is a permanent problem for the collector, but the desire to squeeze on an extra volume has to be […]
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