Brimming with lively animals both real and fantastic, the bestiary was one of the great illuminated manuscript traditions of the Middle Ages. Encompassing imaginary creatures, such as the unicorn, siren and griffin; exotic beasts, including the tiger, elephant and ape; as well as animals native to Europe, like the beaver, dog and hedgehog, the bestiary is a vibrant testimony to the medieval understanding of animals and their role in the world. So iconic were the stories and images of the bestiary that its beasts essentially escaped from the pages, appearing in a wide variety of manuscripts and other objects, including tapestries, ivories, metalwork and sculpture. With over 270 colour illustrations and contributions by twenty-five leading medieval scholars, this gorgeous volume explores the bestiary and its widespread influence on medieval art and culture as well as on modern and contemporary artists like Pablo Picasso and Damien Hirst.

In Australia, from Victoria's goldrush of the 1850s to Melbourne's boom of the 1880s and bust-to-recovery of the 1890s, newspapers dominated the Australian publishing scene. Uniquely, they provided local, intercolonial, and international news; magazine content from the popular to the intellectual; and the latest literature, especially novels in serial installments. By the 1870s, the Melbourne Age newspaper dominated the journalistic stage. In the 1880s, its circulation was far in excess of any other daily throughout all British colonial possessions. Its proprietor, the driven and talented immigrant Scotsman David Syme, was acknowledged as the leader of the Australian press. For the influence that he and his newspapers exercised, Syme became a legend in his lifetime and for several generations after his death in 1908. Making use of family and business records, as well as the massive 19th-century newspaper archive now accessible through digitization, this biography of a powerful man goes behind the legend and rounds out the story of David Syme's life - primarily as a press 'baron, ' but also as a theorist, author, financier, farmer, property developer, and, not least, family man. (Series: Biography)

The Livre des faits de Jacques de Lalaing (Book of the Deeds of Jacques de Lalaing), a famous Flemish illuminated manuscript, relays the audacious life of Jacques de Lalaing (1421-1453), a story that reads more like a fast-paced adventure novel. Produced in the tradition of chivalric biography, a genre developed in the mid-fifteenth century to celebrate the great personalities of the day, the manuscript's text and illuminations begin with a magnificent frontispiece by the most acclaimed Flemish illuminator of the sixteenth century, Simon Bening. A Knight for the Ages: Jacques de Lalaing and the Art of Chivalry presents a kaleidoscopic view of the manuscript with essays written by the world's leading medievalists, adding rich texture and providing a greater understanding of the many aspects of the manuscript's background, creation, and reception, revealing for the first time the full complexity of this illuminated romance. The texts are accompanied by stunning reproductions of all of the manuscripts' miniatures-never before published in colour-as well as a plot summary and translations, allowing the reader to follow Jacques de Lalaing on his knightly journeys and experience the thrilling triumphs of his legendary tournaments and battles.