Until the advent of bookplate collectors and their frenzy for exchange, the devising of bookplates was almost invariably left to the routine skill of the heraldic-stationery salesman.
Among early 20th-century English artists who have more specially paid attention to the devising of bookplates, may be mentioned C. W. Sherborn, G. W. Eve, Robert Anning Bell, J. D. Batten, Erat Harrison, J. Forbes Nixon, Charles Ricketts, John Vinycomb, John Leighton and Warrington Hogg and Frank C. Papé.