Julian graduated from Exeter University in 1993 with a degree in Ancient History, going on to read for his M.Phil in Classics at Jesus College, Cambridge.

After first working as a computer programmer, Julian started his career in the world of antiquarian books at Maggs Bros Ltd in 1997, apprenticed under the late John Collins in the Natural History department.

By 2003, he was running the Natural History department, managing high-value collections, cataloguing rare works, and representing the firm at major auctions, including those of the libraries of Ortiz Patino (Sotheby’s New York, April 1998) and Joseph Freilich (Sotheby’s New York, January 2001). At Maggs, he helped to build – and later revalue with Christie’s – one of the largest and most important natural history libraries in the Middle East.

In 2008, Julian joined Christie’s, eventually becoming Associate Director and Senior Specialist in the King Street Books Department. His first job was to catalogue the Foljambe Collection of natural history, which included selling a complete subscriber’s set of John Gould’s magnificent ornithological books for £1,252,500 (April 2008). He was later responsible for notable sales such as: a finely coloured copy of the complete first edition of Gerard Mercator’s Atlas, 1585-1595 (£882,000, December 2022), a pair of John Russell’s extremely scarce prints of the moon (£125,000, December 2016); two copies of Mendel’s offprint on genetics and the laws of inheritance, Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden (£242,500, July 2016 and £287,250, July 2019); a beautiful example of the famous Chinese ‘Blue Map’, Complete Geographical Map of the Great Qing Dynasty (£137,500 December 2018); and Marx’s presentation copy of Das Kapital to his cousin (£344,750, December 2019)

He has also enjoyed being involved with non-book lots, and pioneered new markets at Christie’s for objects such as Apple-1 computers (£133,250, November 2010) and Enigma machines (£67,250, same sale), setting new world records at that time.

Over the past decade, Julian has developed successful sales of photographs, maps, posters and other ephemera relating to major 20th-century geo-political events. Julian also has a fascination with paleontology, geology and the earth sciences, and has helped catalogue a major private collection on the subject.

After 17 years at Christie’s, Julian stepped away from the auction world to create his new independent dealership in January 2025.