Boston Grammar School Prize Book - c1861

Photo: Allan Krill

I have recently been updating the entry in the OBA wiki to list as far as possible, all the speakers at BGS Speech Days and Prize Givings. Coincidentally, today I received an email from Allan Krill, Professor of Geology at NTNU Trondheim, Norway.

Allan is collecting copies of The Playbook of Metals by John Henry Pepper who is most generally known as having invented Pepper's Ghost, the theatrical illusion where a brightly lit subject off stage appears as a "ghost" on stage using a sheet of glass to create a partial reflection.

Allan has bought an 1861 first edition of the book on the internet which was presented as a school prize to a pupil of BGS. Unfortunately the bookplate is missing as is the back cover and the spine. However, the book was leather bound and the front cover bears an image of the Boston Grammar School "big school" building (currently the school library). The "big school" was built in 1567.