Creative Bookshelf

The true barrister's bookcase must be capable of each shelf being carried with a heavy load of books. The more robust examples have folding handles at the ends of each shelf. Modern "decorator" copies of these may look the same, but are often too lightly constructed to be carried whilst loaded, or may even be simply a single fixed case as per a normal bookcase, but with separate doors to each shelf to give the appearance of a barrister's bookcase.
Writing about bookcases
• The construction and arrangement of bookcases was learnedly discussed in the light of experience by W. E. Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century for March 1890, entitled "On Books and the Housing of Them". An early type of mobile shelving made of steel is sometimes said to have been invented by Gladstone.