In setting off to Nottinghashire yesterday, I discovered that my only guidebook to the county was the original 1951 Pevsner, first published in 1951, the same year as Cornwall. I found it odd handling the heavily mottled original edition, still with the coffee stains from when my bookshelf collapsed during a talk in Cambridge. I’ve probably never previously used it (Nottinghamshire is not a county I know at all well). I like the odd dedication ‘To the driver who gave satisfaction’ – presumably his wife, as Pevsner never drove – and the much more clipped, telegraphic style of the entries.