I am a rare-book and manuscript dealer based near Szczecin, Poland. I specialise in incunabula, manuscripts, early printed books and Polonica.

What interests me most is discovery. A book or manuscript can pass through the market for generations with an important part of its story unnoticed: an unidentified hand, an overlooked former owner, a letter addressed to the wrong person, a fragment hidden inside a binding, or a Polish connection that disappears when an object is catalogued elsewhere in the world. Much of my work begins with asking what has been missed.

Before establishing Julia Woodward Antykwariat in Poland, I spent six years as a Director of WoodPaz Books Ltd in England. WoodPaz developed into an international rare-book business handling material across the history of the book, from medieval manuscripts and incunabula to major works of Renaissance printing and modern first editions.

Among the books I have handled are a complete illuminated Paris Bible of about 1250; the Rusch-Mentelin Biblia Latina, one of the earliest obtainable printed Bibles; the 1481 Florentine Divine Comedy, the first illustrated edition of Dante; and Aldus Manutius' 1513 Plato, the editio princeps of Plato's works in Greek. That experience taught me that the most interesting objects are not always those with the most famous names. Often their real importance only emerges through provenance research, bibliography and historical context.