Harry Potter: A History of Magic is the official book of the record-breaking British Library exhibition, a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between Bloomsbury, J.K. Rowling and a team of brilliant curators. As the spectacular show takes up residence at the New York Historical Society from October 2018, this gorgeous book - available in paperback for the first time - takes readers on a fascinating journey through the subjects studied at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, from Astronomy and Potions through to Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures. Each chapter showcases a treasure trove of artefacts from the British Library and other collections around the world, beside exclusive manuscripts, sketches and illustrations from the Harry Potter archive. There's also a specially commissioned essay for each subject area by an expert, writer or cultural commentator, inspired by the contents of the exhibition - absorbing, insightful and unexpected contributions from Steve Backshall, the Reverend Richard Coles, Owen Davies, Julia Eccleshare, Roger Highfield, Steve Kloves, Lucy Mangan, Anna Pavord and Tim Peake, who offer a personal perspective on their magical theme. Readers will be able to pore over ancient spell books, amazing illuminated scrolls that reveal the secret of the Elixir of Life, vials of dragon's blood, mandrake roots, painted centaurs and a genuine witch's broomstick, in a book that shows J.K. Rowling's magical inventions alongside their cultural and historical forebears. This is the ultimate gift for Harry Potter fans, curious minds, big imaginations, bibliophiles and readers around the world who missed out on the chance to see the exhibition in person.

This richly illustrated book explores the huge creative endeavour behind Tolkien's enduring popularity. Lavishly illustrated with over 300 images of his manuscripts, drawings, maps and letters, the book traces the creative process behind his most famous literary works - 'The Hobbit', 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Silmarillion' and reproduces personal photographs and private papers,some of which have never been seen before in print. Tolkien drew on his deep knowledge of medieval literature and language to inform his literary imagination. Six introductory essays cover some of the main themes in Tolkien's life and work including the influence of northern languages and legends on the creation of his own legendarium; his concept of 'Faerie' as a literary construct; the central importance of his invented languages in his fantasy writing; his visual imagination and its emergence in his artwork; and the encouragement he derived from the literary group known as the Inklings. This book brings together the largest collection of original Tolkien material ever assembled in a single volume. Drawing on the archives of the Tolkien collections at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and Marquette University, Milwaukee, as well as private collections, this exquisitely produced catalogue draws together the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien - scholarly, literary, creative and domestic - offering a rich and detailed understanding and appreciation of this extraordinary author.

The Lammermuir Hills have been an important trade route between Scotland and England for generations, as well as an effective barrier when necessary. Drawn by the long history of south-eastern Scotland and the many conflicting elements in play in its natural environment - among them wind farms, pylons, forestry plantations, grouse moors and sheep - the distinguished Scottish painter and printmaker Barbara Rae CBE RA has made numerous studies of these wild expanses. This handsome volume reproduces a wide selection of her intensely colourful images with accompanying photographs and maps, and texts by the art critic Duncan Macmillan, Emeritus Professor of the History of Scottish Art at the University of Edinburgh, and Maureen Barrie, who worked for many years at National Museums Scotland.

Hogarth’s Britons explores how the English painter and graphic satirist William Hogarth (1697–1764) set out to define British nationhood and identity at a time of division at home and conflict abroad. With notions of community cohesion, good citizenship and patriotism, wrapped up in a unifying idea of British national character and spirit in all its variety, and set alongside the ongoing national debate on Britain’s past, present and future within European and World affairs, Hogarth and his art has never been more relevant. In the summer of 1745, Prince Charles Edward Stuart ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ landed with his supporters, the ‘Jacobites’, in a remote corner of Scotland. This signalled the start of his audacious military campaign, with the backing of Britain’s global adversary France and during a Europe-wide war, to topple the Hanoverian, Protestant monarch George II and restore the Catholic Stuarts, exiled in France and then Rome since 1688, to the throne. The country descended into turmoil, with regional, local and family loyalty for these rival royal dynasties severely tested, and opposing visions for the new nation of Great Britain – since the Union of England and Scotland in 1707 – laid bare. By early December the prince and his 6,000 troops arrived in Derby, just 120 miles and five days’ march from London. For both sides everything was at stake. From the 1720s, through the crises of the early 1740s, to the civil war called the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion or Rising, Prince Charles’s defeat at Culloden in April 1746 and beyond, Hogarth created some of the most iconic images in British and European art, including Marriage A-La-Mode, O the Roast Beef of Old England (The Gate of Calais) and The March of the Guards to Finchley. Through such vibrant scenes, rich in topical commentary, he conveyed a sense of external threat (real and imagined) from foreign powers and internal political, social and cultural upheaval. At the same time he offered his fellow Britons a confident, reassuring idea of the rights and liberties they enjoyed under King George and his government: a flawed status quo, as Hogarth would readily admit, yet certainly better, he would argue, than the regime that would replace it under the ‘popish’ Stuarts as client monarchs of the self-serving French king, Louis XV. With British society and politics in flux, and the Union between Scotland and England arguably more vulnerable now than at any moment since 1746, the themes explored in Hogarth’s Britons have profound resonance with our own time.