This innovative study investigates the reception of medieval manuscripts over a long century, 1470-1585, spanning the reigns of Edward IV to Elizabeth I. Members of the Tudor gentry family who owned these manuscripts had properties in Willesden and professional affiliations in London. These men marked the leaves of their books with signs of use, allowing their engagement with the texts contained there to be reconstructed. Through detailed research, Margaret Connolly reveals the various uses of these old books: as a repository for family records; as a place to preserve other texts of a favourite or important nature; as a source of practical information for the household; and as a professional manual for the practising lawyer. Investigation of these family-owned books reveals an unexpectedly strong interest in works of the past, and the continuing intellectual and domestic importance of medieval manuscripts in an age of print.

Many important and valuable rare books, manuscripts and artefacts related to Korea have been acquired by donations throughout the long history of the Bodleian Libraries and the museums of the University of Oxford. However, due to an early lack of specialist knowledge in this area, many of these Korean items were largely neglected. Following on from the publication of the first volume of these forgotten treasures, this book collects together further important and often unique objects. Notable items include the only surviving Korean example of an eighteenth-century world map, hand-drawn, with a set of twelve globe gores on a single sheet; rare Korean coins and charms including excellent examples of the 1423 Choson t'ongbo ; official correspondence from the archives of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, shining a light on the history of Christian missions from the opening of Korea in the 1880s until after the Korean War; photographs from the end of the nineteenth century up to the 1960s showing village and street scenes; a rare silk coat with inner armour plates of lacquered hide; a massive iron padlock inlaid with silver character inscriptions, bronze shoes and Nightingale robe; spectacles with dark crystal lenses and frames of horn; an elaborately decorated bow, arrows and quiver and many other rare artefacts.

The Ormesby Psalter is perhaps the most magnificent yet enigmatic of the great Gothic psalters produced in East Anglia in the first half of the fourteenth century. Its pages boast a wealth of decoration picked out in rich colours and burnished gold, and its margins are inhabited by a vibrant crew of beasts, birds and insects. Fantastic imagery proliferates: musicians, mermaids, lovers and warriors are juxtaposed with scenes from everyday life, from chivalric legend, and from folk-tales, fables and riddles. The psalter takes its name from Robert of Ormesby, subprior at Norwich Cathedral Priory in the 1330s. He was not the first owner, however, and it has long been acknowledged that the writing, decoration and binding of the book took place in a series of distinct phases from the late thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century. The final result was the work of four or five scribes and up to seven illuminators and its pages show a panorama of stylistic development. Unravelling its complexities has sometimes been thought to hold the key to understanding the 'East Anglian School', a group of large, luxury manuscripts connected with Norwich Cathedral and Norfolk churches and patrons. This book casts an entirely new light on its history, not only clarifying and dating the successive phases of production, but associating the main work on the manuscript with the patronage of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, one of the greatest magnates of the time. It is extensively illustrated with full-page colour reproductions of the manuscript's main decorated folios, as well as many smaller initials and numerous comparative illustrations.

Among the many books in original bindings in Marsh's Library, Dublin, a surprisingly large number are in decorated blind- or gold-tooled, calf, pigskin or goatskin bindings, which date from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The bindings come from all over Europe, ranging from Ireland to eastern Europe. While most were made in England, some fine and interesting examples from Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Holland are also included. In this volume, leading scholar Mirjam Foot first gives an overview of how books were bound by hand and then describes the bindings by country of origin, within each section treating them chronologically and by type of decoration. The detailed descriptions of the bindings are illustrated with 52 black and white photos and 8 colour plates.

'Seeking a Christmas present for that bibliophilic relative who has seemingly read everything? It's right here' Financial Times 'An utter treat' Daily Mail 'Peculiarly hilarious!' - William Gibson 'Every page is a pleasure' - Lindsey FItzharris 'Utterly charming' - Tom Holland 'Laugh-out-loud' - Garth Nix 'A must read' - Fergus Butler-Gallie 'Brims with self-effacing charm' - Caitlin Doughty 'Unfortunately I have mislaid the book in question' - Neil Gaiman Welcome to Sotheran's, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabelled keys, poisoned books and some things that aren't even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice. Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd on Sackville Street (est. 1761) to interview for their bookselling apprenticeship, a decision which has bedevilled him ever since. He'd intended to stay for a year before launching into some less dusty, better remunerated career. Unfortunately for him, the alluring smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap proved irresistible. Soon he was balancing teetering stacks of first editions, fending off nonagenarian widows with a ten-foot pole and trying not to upset the store's resident ghost (the late Mr Sotheran had unfinished business when he was hit by that tram). For while Sotheran's might be a treasure trove of literary delights, it sings a siren song to eccentrics. There are not only colleagues whose tastes in rare items range from the inspired to the mildly dangerous, but also zealous collectors seeking knowledge, curios, or simply someone with whom to hold a four hour conversation about books bound in human skin. By turns unhinged and earnestly dog-eared, Once Upon a Tome is the rather colourful story of life in one of the world's oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment.

Although the connection between the invention of printing and the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century has long been a scholarly commonplace, there is still a great deal of evidence about the relationship to be presented and analysed. This collection of authoritative reviews by distinguished historians deals with the role of the book in the spread of the Reformation all over the continent, identifying common European experiences and local peculiarities. It summarises important recent work on the topic from every major European country, introducing English-speakers to much important and previously inaccessible research.

This volume celebrates the work of William O'Sullivan, the first keeper of manuscripts at Trinity College, Dublin, who preserved, made more accessible and elucidated the documents in his care. The manuscripts throw new light on the society of Ireland, the place of the learned and literate in that world, and its relations with Britain, Europe and America. Some of these essays clarify technical problems in the making of famous manuscripts, and bring out for the first time their indebtedness to or influence over other manuscripts. Others provide unexpected new information about the reigns of Edward I and James I, Irish provincial society, the process and progress of religious change and the links between settlements in Ireland and North American colonization.

Cocktail culture boomed in the United States after Prohibition as America couldn't get enough of the new concoctions developed by barkeepers. Exotic drinking venues defined this era of drinking culture and were immortalised in the linen postcards used to advertise them. Transport yourself to an era of indulgence and glamour with over 50 vintage cocktail recipes (and modern twists), historical vignettes and more than 100 pieces of vintage ephemera.

A collection of articles in English and German devoted to the study of books, readers and libraries in medieval England, especially in the Anglo-Saxon period. The first article surveys the history of the English library from its beginnings to the suppression of the monasteries. It is followed by a more detailed examination of the first four centuries of Anglo-Saxon book collections and by studies on book production in 9th-century England, as seen in relation to King Alfred's plans for educational reform and to the intellectual background of library history in the 10th century. Of two articles on liturgical books, one sets out the now standard classified list of liturgical manuscripts written and owned in Anglo-Saxon England; other essays look at individual manuscripts and the earliest modern catalogue of surviving books with Old English texts.

When does a book that is merely old become a rarity and an object of desire? David McKitterick examines, for the first time, the development of the idea of rare books, and why they matter. Studying examples from across Europe, he explores how this idea took shape in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how collectors, the book trade and libraries gradually came together to identify canons that often remain the same today. In a world that many people found to be over-supplied with books, the invention of rare books was a process of selection. As books are one of the principal means of memory, this process also created particular kinds of remembering. Taking a European perspective, McKitterick looks at these interests as they developed from being matters of largely private concern and curiosity, to the larger public and national responsibilities of the first half of the nineteenth century.

The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in A.D. 79 also buried nearby Herculaneum. Over time the location of the small town was forgotten. Shortly after its rediscovery in the 1730s, excavations--more likely treasure hunts--were organized that unearthed ancient sculptures that had survived the disaster. The richest finds were from a villa that came to be called the Villa dei Papiri, because it also yielded upward of a thousand papyrus rolls--the only library ever to have been recovered from the classical world. To the great excitement of contemporaries, the papyri held out the tantalizing possibility of the rediscovery of lost masterpieces by classical writers.
Written for the general reader, this introduction to the ancient library describes the long and difficult history of attempts to unwind the damaged rolls. Sider discusses the texts that have been deciphered and puts them in the context of literacy and Roman society of the time. He describes the how the ancient books were created from papyrus, and provides an account of attitudes toward books in Greece and Rome. He also surveys the private and civic libraries of the ancient world. This thoroughly researched and engaging book will be enjoyed by any reader with an interest in classical studies.

This book, which is a mixture of fact, anecdote and quotation, describes the author's meandering exploration of some of the best of England's provincial second-hand bookshops, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Isles of Scilly. Judged by the contents of the author's bookshelves, he has a strong but highly selective interest in sport, with rugby union, cricket and bowls foremost, and the odd place allowed to football and golf. There are biographies and autobiographies from Bernard Shaw to Alan Ross; a dozen volumes by W H Hudson, greatest of naturalists; travels with Henry James and Paul Theroux and Edwin Muir; books on cinema Westerns; essays by Ford Madox Ford and Edward Thomas; a novel or two; and a little poetry. The bulk of these books, as you may notice, are dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on fact, suggesting, correctly, that their owner is a journalist.

When award-winning journalist Dave Jamieson rediscovered his childhood baseball card collection he figured that now was the time to cash in on his "investments." But when he tried the card shops, they were nearly all gone, closed forever. eBay was no help, either. Baseball cards were selling for next to nothing. What had happened? In Mint Condition, the first comprehensive history of this American icon, Jamieson finds the answers and much more. In the years after the Civil War, tobacco companies started slipping baseball cards into cigarette packs as collector's items, launching a massive advertising war. Before long, the cards were wagging the cigarettes. In the 1930s, baseball cards helped gum and candy makers survive the Great Depression, and kept children in touch with the game. After World War II, Topps Chewing Gum Inc. built itself into an American icon, hooking a generation of baby boomers on bubble gum and baseball cards. In the 1960s, royalties from cards helped to transform the players' union into one of the country's most powerful, dramatically altering the business of the game. And in the '80s and '90s, cards went through a spectacular bubble, becoming a billion-dollar-a-year industry before all but disappearing. Brimming with colorful characters, this is a rollicking, century-spanning, and extremely entertaining history.

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Chancellors and Secretary Generals of totalitarian states in the twentieth century have been highly conscious of the need to present a national image suited to the new political culture they sought to inculcate. In these regimes, state-sanctioned art performed a key function, giving visual dimension to an abstract political ideology. There is a striking similarity between the idealized images from these countries. This book presents about fifty postcards from the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, Spain, and China, between 1920s and the 1970s. While some of the images are of a high aesthetic calibre, others are simply intended to portray a vernacular socialist realism or to cultivate the cult of the leader. Taken together, they provide a fascinating look at the art of power and its expression at a time of political upheaval and experiment.

This book records the proceedings of a symposium held in conjunction with the 1988 exhibition of the Philip Hofer bequest to the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts at Houghton Library. Contributors include William H. Bond, Charles Ryskamp, Arthur Vershbow, William Bentinck-Smith, and Lucien Goldschmidt. Their recollections of one of Harvard College Library's most generous donors provide a fascinating portrait of one of America's great bibliophiles.

Paper Jewels is the story of postcards during the Raj, and covers India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma. It is the first book on the subject and contains some of the most beautiful and popular postcards telling the stories of the first postcard publishers between 1892 and 1947. The essays cover the major cities and regions important to postcard publishing and the key themes-from dancers to religion, to tea, soap, famines, fakirs, humour and warfare. The volume uncovers such gems as the early postcards of the great Indian painter M V Dhurandhar and the Ravi Varma Press, the exceptional work of an early Austrian lithographer in Kolkata and a German one in Mumbai. Many of the images in the book have never been published since their first runs a century ago.

A palm-sized visual history of tarot cards, from hand-painted Renaissance decks to the creations of modern artists like Salvador Dalí

Originally used by northern Italian aristocrats in complex games resembling bridge, tarot cards became more popular with the spread of printing in the sixteenth century and were eventually used by Freemasons, fortune-tellers, and mystics to reveal hidden truths about the past, present, and future. More recently, artists have used the imagery and potency of tarot as a springboard for creativity.

As a path to revelation or simply as a pastime, tarot is fascinating. A carefully curated selection of decks from the past six centuries―showing the chief turning points in their development―make this little book an indispensable guide to the history of tarot.

The fifty-ninth volume of "Studies in Bibliography" continues its tradition of presenting a wide range of articles by international scholars on bibliography, textual criticism, and other aspects of the study of books.

This volume opens with an excerpt from a forthcoming memoir by the eminent bibliographical and textual scholar G. Thomas Tanselle. Articles range in topic from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century and from manuscript production to the distribution of books by American bookstores. In a tour de force of bibliographical analysis, one piece examines the implications of inked pages that leave their images on adjacent leaves, and another provides new insights into the vexed question of the canon of Daniel Defoe. An advertisement for an early piracy of writings by Mark Twain and Bret Harte provides a springboard for a deeply contextual essay that demonstrates the complex interrelationships of the world of publishing and authorship, while another article on nineteenth-century books brings to light rare bindings issued by a major English publisher.

Among the articles and their authors are:

"Extracts from The Living Room: A Memoir," G. Thomas Tanselle, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; "Merton College, MS 68: Production and Texts," Ralph Hanna, Keble College, Oxford; "Beyond Furbank and Owens: A New Consideration of the Evidence for the 'Defoe' Canon," Ashley Marshall, University of Nevada, Reno; "Offset Evidence in Edward Young's The Centaur Not Fabulous," James E. May, Penn State University, DuBois; "Mark Twain and Bret Harte: A Mysterious Early Piracy in Context," Richard Bucci, Mark Twain Project; "Wilkie Collins in Smith, Elder Boards 1865-66," Geoffrey Hargreaves; "Directories of American Bookstores to 1950: Addenda & Corrigenda," Michael Winship, University of Texas at Austin.

Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia

Originally published in 1948, this book contains the text of the Sandars Lectures in Bibliography for the previous year. Carter reflects upon the evolution and method of book collecting from the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1940s, and meditates on what it means to be a book collector, the changing definition of that term, and recent developments in collecting styles. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in bibliophilism or the history of book collecting.

Little is known about William Clarke, the author of this 1819 survey of libraries in Britain, though hints in the opening pages suggest that he was acquainted with the activities of the Roxburghe Club. His object is 'to assist ... the collector in his pursuit of valuable editions of rare books'. A short survey of the major libraries of Europe is followed by descriptions of the collections which make up the British Museum's library, the great 'public' libraries, including those of Oxford and Cambridge, and the libraries of learned societies. Private libraries covered include those of Sir Joseph Banks, William Beckford, and the duke of Marlborough. The final portion of the work describes the content of some great library sales (a fuller list of sales having been given earlier in the book), from the seventeenth century to Clarke's own time. This remains a useful source for bibliographers and those interested in the provenance of books.

Music, like books, has attracted collectors for centuries; but whereas book-collecting has been well served by innumerable scholarly monographs and studies, the history and techniques of music-collecting have been largely ignored. In choosing British music collectors as the subject of his Sandars lectures, Mr King did much to redress this neglect; and here, in this 1963 volume, these lectures form the first book on the subject in any language. In the course of four lectures Mr King describes the interests and activities of nearly two hundred collectors. He gives details of the rare or interesting items owned by each, and in doing so says something of the character and purpose of collecting in different periods. His researches into the transmission and location of manuscripts and rare printed items carry us through an absorbing range of musical topics, and reveal a remarkable breadth of taste and interest among amateur collectors.