Bryan Dawson Maggs, 1936–2024

Bryan Maggs, who has died after a long illness, was one of the great antiquarian booksellers and bookbinders of his generation and was the last great-grandson of the founder Uriah Maggs in the family business. After school (Ackworth) he did a couple of years in the family business before National Service in the Royal Air Force, after which he succeeded his father Kenneth Maggs (1900-1959) as specialist in early English-language books. Kenneth was already in poor health when Bryan returned from the RAF, and Bryan effectively was manager of the department from an early age.

He was a natural maker and trained in bookbinding in evenings at Guildford College of Art under William Matthews, a major figure of the period when bookbinding was evolving from being an unselfconscious “trade craft” towards a more design-oriented practice. Bryan was a fellow (later honorary fellow) of the Designer Bookbinders, but as bookselling and family life took more of his time binding gradually took a back seat, and his precise, elegant and eloquent work is now very rare in commerce, and much sought after. The photograph above shows him at Wormsley, with his own 1976 binding on the Ashendene Press Tutte le Opere di Dante Alighieri.   

This expertise and a precise eye and visual memory gave him a pre-eminent authority in historical bookbinding, and his Bookbinding in the British Isles catalogues were a remarkable series, unmatched in modern times. He worked with many of the most important collectors of his day, including Major John Roland Abbey and Benjamin Guinness, the Earl of Iveagh, but he will always be associated with Sir Paul Getty and his fabulous collection. Getty went from being a heavy buyer from Bryan’s catalogues to buying them more or less intact, and together their interests and Bryan’s expertise grew, to include fine printed books and manuscripts as well as bindings. He represented Getty at important auctions in the United States, Monaco and Geneva and eventually progressed from bookseller to librarian, in which capacity he helped design the library building at Wormsley 35 years ago and organised the exhibition of highlights at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York in 1999 and the associated catalogue. He retired as librarian at Wormsley only last year, where he was succeeded by his colleague at Maggs, Robert Harding. 

Bryan was predeceased eighteen months ago by his wife Bo, whose exuberance (tiring of her given name Edna she renamed herself as Charles II and then as Boadicea; tiring of aerobatic flying she took up helicopter piloting) was a foil for Bryan’s wryly thoughtful, gentle and generous personality. The two of them shared, and somehow survived, the tragedy of the premature death of their daughter Charlotte in adolescence. 

His funeral will be on Friday, September 13 in Surrey.

Please contact Robert Harding robert@maggs.com if you would like to attend.  

*Photograph credit A.C. Cooper