Doon’s Books

Thank you for purchasing this special book.

It forms part of the lifelong collection of my late father, Henry Piperger, who amassed them over fifty years from the mid-1950s Doon, our name for him, arrived in London from Prague, having fought in the Second World War. He lived the rest of his life first in rented rooms in Belsize Park and then in a two-bedroom council flat with our mother and my two sisters. His passion and possessiveness for his books were partly the trauma of losing all his childhood books that his mother had given away and later the loss of everything after the war.

He loved books more than anything and collected them in clusters of five from the antiques and second-hand bookshops of Hampstead and Belsize Park, then ravenously read them all. He also inherited books from his elderly patients, usually old majors and colonels from the previous war.

By the time he died, the books were three deep on shelves and piled high on every inch of floor and our task was to excavate like archaeologists through the layers and morass.

Through this we discovered his wonderfully eclectic tastes from the travels of his hero Richard Burton to the depravities of Alister Crowley and everything in between; Stendhal and Mitford, Sitwell and Beerbohm all pathways to wonder and enquiry.

Some books we kept, some sold to noble Hatchards and the remaining pockets of shops on Charing Cross Road. The rest we have given to places he loved to visit, Kenwood, Oxfam, holders of the flame.

Of course, it would have been nice to keep them all but we’ve had such joy discovering his scribblings within, the newspaper cuttings of obits and all, wonderful ex libri of ones who’d gone before, and the odd dedication to him or our mother from long lost souls.

Books outlive us all and dream themselves of pastures new.

- Justin Piperger