Search results for ""bodleian library""

Close-up photos of plump apricots, juicy mangoes, crisp lettuce … these are familiar to us all through cookery books and garden guides. But seeing fruit and vegetables as detailed art, viewed through eighteenth-century eyes, is something very different – and more interesting. Thanks to intrepid explorers and plant-hunters, Britain and the rest of Europe have long enjoyed a wide and wonderful array of fruit and vegetables. Some wealthy households even created orangeries and glasshouses for tender exotics and special pits in which to raise pineapples, while tomatoes, sweetcorn and runner beans from the New World expanded the culinary repertoire. This wealth of choice attracted interest beyond the kitchen and garden. In the 1730s, a prosperous Bavarian apothecary produced the first volume of a comprehensive A to Z of all available plants, meticulously documented, and lavishly illustrated by botanical artists. 'A Cornucopia of Fruit & Vegetables' is a glimpse into his world. It features exquisite illustrations of the edible plants in his historic treasury, allowing us to enjoy the sight of swan-necked gourds and horned lemons, smile at silkworms hovering over mulberries and delight at the quirkiness of ‘strawberry spinach’ … a delicious medley of garden produce and exotics that will capture the imagination of gardeners and art-lovers alike.

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What can be found in the Vatican’s Secret Archive? How many books did Charles Darwin’s library aboard the Beagle hold? Which library is home to a colony of bats? Bursting with potted histories, quirky facts and enlightening lists, this book explores every aspect of the library, celebrating not only these remarkable institutions but also the individuals behind their awe-inspiring collections. From the ancient library at Alexandria to the Library of Congress in Washington DC, A Library Miscellany explores institutions both old and new, from the university library to that of the humble village. It opens the door to unusual collections such as herbaria, art libraries, magic libraries and even the library of smells, and charts the difficulties of cataloguing books deemed to be subversive, heretical, libellous or obscene. Packed with unusual facts and statistics, this is the perfect volume for library enthusiasts, bibliophiles and readers everywhere.

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Fountain-Pens - The Super-Pen for Our Super-Men Ladies! Learn To Drive! Your Country Needs Women Drivers! Do you drink German water? When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, companies wasted no time in seizing the commercial opportunities presented by the conflict. There was no radio or television. The only way in which the British public could get war news was through newspapers and magazines, many of which recorded rising readerships. Advertising became a new science of sales, growing increasingly sophisticated both in visual terms and in its psychological approach. This collection of pictorial advertisements from the Great War reveals how advertisers were given the opportunity to create new markets for their products and how advertising reflected social change during the course of the conflict. It covers a wide range of products, including trench coats, motor-cycles, gramophones, cigarettes and invalid carriages, all bringing an insight into the preoccupations, aspirations and necessities of life between 1914 and 1918. Many advertisements were aimed at women, be it for guard-dogs to protect them while their husbands were away, or soap and skin cream for ‘beauty on duty’. At the same time, men’s tailoring evolved to suit new conditions. Aquascutum advertised ‘Officers’ Waterproof Trench Coats’ and one officer, writing in the Times in December 1914, advised others to leave their swords behind but to take their Burberry coat. Sandwiched between the formality of the Victorian era and the hedonism of the 1920s, these charged images provide unexpected sources of historical information, affording an intimate glimpse into the emotional life of the nation during the First World War.

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When American troops arrived in Paris to help maintain order at the end of the Second World War they were, at first, received by the local population with a sense of euphoria. However, the French soon began to resent the Americans for their display of wealth and brashness, while the US soldiers found the French and their habits irritating and incomprehensible. To bridge the cultural divide, the American generals came up with an innovative solution. They commissioned a surprisingly candid book which collated the GIs’ ‘gripes’ and reproduced them with answers aimed at promoting understanding of the French and their country. The ‘gripes’ reveal much about American preconceptions: ‘The French drink too much’, ‘French women are immoral’, ‘The French drive like lunatics!’, ‘The French don’t bathe’, ‘The French aren’t friendly’ are just some of the many complaints. Putting the record straight, the answers cover topics as diverse as night-clubs, fashion, agriculture and sanitation. They also offer an unusual insight into the reality of daily life immediately after the war, evoking the shortage of food and supplies, the acute poverty and the scale of the casualties and destruction suffered by France during six years of conflict. Illustrated with delightfully evocative cartoons and written in a direct, colloquial style, this gem from 1945 is by turns amusing, shocking and thought-provoking in its valiant stand against prejudice and stereotype.

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The First World War was unique in being fought largely in trenches. Men ate, slept, fought, played, sang, prayed, and died in the trenches. This book brings together a collection of postcards which portray this strange subterranean world in its various manifestations. The cards have been selected to show how life progressed from day to day in and out of the trenches. We see wounded men smiling obligingly for the camera; others appear to be suffering from the onslaught of boredom. Some take part in a mock party with very meagre provisions. One image shows a group of men kneeling to receive communion before going into battle. The tone of postcards encompasses the range of human experience, from sombre realism to light-hearted humour. There is also the soldier’s good-natured lightly smutty card. This is a fascinating insight into the everyday lives and behaviour of the men who fought one of the most gruesome wars in history.

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To judge by the worldwide success of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Poirot, it is not only the Anglo-Saxons who have an appetite for mystery and mayhem. Talking about the craft of detective writing and sharing her personal thoughts and observations on one of the most popular and enduring forms of literature, P.D. James examines the challenges, achievements and potential of a genre which has fascinated her for more than fifty years as a novelist. From the tenant of 221b Baker Street to the Village Priest from Cubhole in Essex, from the Golden Age of detective writing between the wars to the achievements of the present and a glimpse at the future, P.D. James explores the metamorphosis of a genre which has gripped and entertained the popular imagination like no other type of novel. Written by the author widely regarded as the queen of the detective novel, this book is sure to appeal to all aficionados of crime fiction.

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The Wind in the Willows has its origins in the bedtime stories that Kenneth Grahame told to his son Alastair and then continued in letters (now held in the Bodleian Library) while he was on holiday. But the book developed into something much more sophisticated than this, as Peter Hunt shows. He identifies the colleagues and friends on whom Grahame is thought to have based the characters of Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad, and explores the literary genres of boating, caravanning and motoring books on which the author drew. He also recounts the extraordinary correspondence surrounding the book’s first publication and the influence of two determined women – Elspeth Grahame and publisher’s agent Constance Smedley – who helped turn the book into the classic for children we know and love today, when it was almost entirely intended for adults. Generously illustrated with original drawings, fan letters (including one from President Roosevelt) and archival material, this book explores the mysteries surrounding one of the most successful works of children’s literature ever published.

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The less it is part of everyday life, the more the appeal of handwriting grows. This wonderful selection of treasures from the Bodleian Library introduces remarkable individuals through documents written by their own hands. From the second century BCE to the present, individual lives and relationships are illuminated through the writing that has been left behind. We see Elizabeth I attempting to win over her new stepmother, Alan Bennett working out the character of Mr Toad, Henry Moore advising soap and water for cleaning sculpture and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin balancing childcare with discovering the structure of penicillin. Here you will find letters, first drafts, autograph albums and hastily scribbled notes, fair copies, marked-up proofs and doodles. Divided into themed categories, the entries feature novelists Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Arthur Conan Doyle and Raymond Chandler; scientists Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein; reformers Emmeline Pankhurst, Florence Nightingale and Mohandas Gandhi; and explorers Walter Ralegh, T.E. Lawrence and Patrick Leigh Fermor among many others. Each of these extraordinary people has passed on a manuscript or document with a fascinating story to tell.

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Over the past 200 years, many thousands of undergraduates have been initiated into membership of Apollo – the Masonic lodge of the University of Oxford. These have included such diverse figures as Oscar Wilde, Osbert Lancaster, Samuel Reynolds Hole, Cecil Rhodes, Edward, Prince of Wales and his brother Leopold, Charles Canning, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Godfrey Elton and Roger Makins. Drawing on archives held in the Bodleian Library, this book is the first serious attempt to set the story of Apollo in the context of Oxford life and learning as well as its wider social and political diaspora. From the devastating numbers lost in the First and Second World Wars, as well as those decorated for bravery, to the significant number of Olympians who were members of the lodge, it also charts the lodge’s charitable work, its changes of location, social events and adaptation to twenty-first-century life in Oxford. Illustrated with archival material, portraits and Masonic treasures, this is history in a minor key, but a minor narrative with major implications, documenting the remarkable numbers of Oxford freemasons with distinguished careers in government, law, the army and the Church.

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About a millennium ago, in Cairo, someone completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, our unknown author guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features and inhabitants. This treatise, known as The Book of Curiosities, was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manuscript copy surfaced in 2000. Lost Maps of the Caliphs provides the first general overview of The Book of Curiosities and the unique insight it offers into medieval Islamic thought. Opening with an account of the remarkable discovery of the manuscript and its purchase by the Bodleian Library, the authors use The Book of Curiosities to re-evaluate the development of astrology, geography and cartography in the first four centuries of Islam. Early astronomical ‘maps’ and drawings demonstrate the medieval understanding of the structure of the cosmos and illustrate the pervasive assumption that almost any visible celestial event had an effect upon life on Earth. Lost Maps of the Caliphs also reconsiders the history of global communication networks at the turn of the previous millennium. Not only is The Book of Curiosities one of the greatest achievements of medieval map-making, it is also a remarkable contribution to the story of Islamic civilization.

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Set like a stronghold south-west of the Caucasus mountains, Armenia is caught between East and West. Briefly a great empire in the first century BCE under King Tigranes the Great, Armenia was later incorporated first by the Sasanian and then the Byzantine Empires. Armenian art, literature, religion and material culture have reinterpreted elements of a wide variety of cultures. Spanning over two and a half millennia, the history of Armenia and the Armenian people is a series of riveting tales, from its first mention under the Achaemenid King Darius I to the independence of the Republic of Armenia from the Soviet Union. With the help of the Bodleian Libraries' magnificent collection of Armenian manuscripts and early printed books, this volume tells the story of the region through the medium of its cultural output. Together with introductions written by experts in their fields, close to one hundred manuscripts, works of art and religious artefacts serve as a guide to Armenian culture and history. Gospel manuscripts splendidly illuminated by Armenian masters feature next to philosophical tractates and merchants' handbooks, affording us an insight into what makes the Armenian people truly unique, especially in the shadow of the genocide that threatened their annihilation a hundred years ago: namely their spirituality, language and perseverance in the face of adversity. VISIT THE EXHIBITION Armenia: Treasures from an Enduring Culture October 2015 – January 2016 Bodleian Library, Oxford

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Set like a stronghold south-west of the Caucasus mountains, Armenia is caught between East and West. Briefly a great empire in the first century BCE under King Tigranes the Great, Armenia was later incorporated first by the Sasanian and then the Byzantine Empires. Armenian art, literature, religion and material culture have reinterpreted elements of a wide variety of cultures. Spanning over two and a half millennia, the history of Armenia and the Armenian people is a series of riveting tales, from its first mention under the Achaemenid King Darius I to the independence of the Republic of Armenia from the Soviet Union. With the help of the Bodleian Libraries' magnificent collection of Armenian manuscripts and early printed books, this volume tells the story of the region through the medium of its cultural output. Together with introductions written by experts in their fields, close to one hundred manuscripts, works of art and religious artefacts serve as a guide to Armenian culture and history. Gospel manuscripts splendidly illuminated by Armenian masters feature next to philosophical tractates and merchants' handbooks, affording us an insight into what makes the Armenian people truly unique, especially in the shadow of the genocide that threatened their annihilation a hundred years ago: namely their spirituality, language and perseverance in the face of adversity. VISIT THE EXHIBITION Armenia: Treasures from an Enduring Culture October 2015 – January 2016 Bodleian Library, Oxford

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By the end of the eighteenth century London was the second largest city in the world, its relentless growth fuelled by Britain’s expanding empire. Before the age of photography, the most widely used means of creating a visual record of the changing capital was through engravings and drawings, and those that survive today are invaluable in showing us what the capital was like in the century leading up to the Industrial Revolution. This book contains over one hundred images of the Greater London area before 1800 from maps, drawings, manuscripts, printed books and engravings, all from the Gough Collection at the Bodleian Library. Examples are drawn from the present Greater London to contrast town and countryside at the time. Panoramas of the river Thames were popular illustrations of the day, and the extraordinarily detailed engravings made by the Buck brothers are reproduced here. The construction, and destruction, of landmark bridges across the river are also shown in contemporary engravings. Prints made of London before and after the Great Fire show how artists and engravers responded to contemporary events such as executions, riots, fires and even the effects of a tornado. They also recorded public spectacles, creating beautiful images of firework displays and frost fairs on the river Thames. This book presents rare material from the most extensive collection on British topography assembled in this period by a private collector, providing a fascinating insight into life in Georgian London.

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How did the advertisers of the past sell magnetic corsets, carbolic smoke balls or even the first televisions? Which celebrities endorsed products? How did innovations in printing techniques and packaging design play a part in the evolution of advertising? And what can these items tell us about transport, war, politics and even the royal family? 'Vintage Advertising: An A to Z' takes a fresh look at historical advertising through a series of thematic and chronological juxtapositions. Richly illustrated from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera at the Bodleian Library, this book features a range of topics from Art to Zeitgeist, showcasing how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century advertisements often capture the spirit of their age and can be rich repositories of information about our past.

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To celebrate the acquisition of the Tom Phillips archive, the Bodleian Library has asked the artist to assemble and design a series of books drawing on his themed collection of over 50,000 photographic postcards. These encompass the first half of the twentieth century, a period in which, thanks to the ever cheaper medium of photography, ‘ordinary’ people could afford to own their portraits. Bicycles documents the great age of the safety bicycle which was the instrument of emancipation for women and freedom for men. Also we see competitive racers and pedalling toddlers. Each book contains 200 images chosen with the eye of a leading artist from a visually rich vein of social history. Their covers will also feature a thematically linked painting, especially created for each title, from Tom Phillips’ signature work, A Humument.

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Albert Einstein visited Oxford in 1931, to receive an honorary degree and to lecture on relativity and the Universe. While lecturing, he naturally chalked equations and diagrams on several blackboards. One of these is today the most popular object in Oxford's History of Science Museum. Yet Einstein tried to prevent its preservation because he was modest about his legendary status. Having failed, he complained to his diary: Not even a cart-horse could endure so much!' Nevertheless, he came back to Oxford in 1932 and again in 1933 now as a refugee from Nazi Germany. In many ways, the city appealed deeply and revealed him at his most charismatic, as he participated in its science, music and politics, and wandered its streets alone. While staying in college rooms once occupied by the mathematician and writer Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, he wrote a rhymed German poem now kept in the Bodleian Library describing himself as an old hermit' and a roaming barbaria

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Featuring some of the most ferocious and humorous book curses ever inscribed, this is a lively and engaging introduction to the history and development of bookish maledictions.

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A beautiful cloth-bound edition of William Blake's Songs of Innocence, delicately illustrated with his exquisite designs, and accompanied by an introduction to his life and work.

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Introduced by bestselling author Nick Hornby, this hilarious anthology of the funniest bits' from Dickens' novels is illustrated throughout with humorous line drawings from early editions.

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The Geoffrey Chaucer of this book is not the Father of English Literature that you think you know. In this wide-ranging collection of essays you will find wartime Chaucer, postcolonial Chaucer, feminist Chaucer, misogynist Chaucer, radical Chaucer and conservative Chaucer, among many other interpretations. Featuring beautiful illustrations of early manuscripts and rare editions, Chaucer Here and Now gives a picture of how varied adaptations of and responses to his work have been, from fifteenth- century scribes who finished off incomplete tales, through early printers who constructed Chaucer as the Father of the Nation, to contemporary postcolonial writers such as Zadie Smith. The book moves through years of censorship, the creation of children’s Chaucer, Protestant Chaucer and imperial Chaucer – and the travels of Chaucer all around the world. It also explores Chaucer on film and Chaucer in the present moment. Today’s creative responses follow in a line of irreverent, partial responses that we can trace back to Chaucer’s very first readers and editors, showing that Chaucer is available for every here and now to remake, rework and reinvent.

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The Kennicott Bible is among the most celebrated Hebrew Bibles that survive from the Middle Ages. Originating from La Coruña in northern Spain, it features lavish carpet pages, gold leaf silhouettes and abundant marginal decorations. This extraordinary manuscript is a treasure chest of history, culture, devotion, art and cross- cultural collaboration. The story of its survival is a remarkable one and its sumptuous images have delighted readers since its creation in 1476. This book features a collection of all of the decorated pages from this stunning manuscript – accompanied by four chapters authored by experts in the fields of Bible study, book history and medieval Jewish art. They discuss the main themes from several perspectives, including the Hebrew text of the Bible, the scribe who created the pages, the layout and palaeography, and the illuminator who produced the decoration and its imagery. There is also an analysis of the early medieval commentary on the Old Testament, the Masorah. Richly illustrated throughout, this beautiful book makes available the key pages from a treasure of Jewish book art together with the latest scholarship on its origins, provenance and creation.

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In 1922, as Egypt became an independent nation, the tomb of the young king Tutankhamun was discovered at Luxor, the first known intact royal burial from ancient Egypt. The excavation of the small but crowded tomb by Howard Carter and his team generated enormous media interest and was famously photographed by Harry Burton. These photographs, along with letters, plans, drawings and diaries, are part of an archive created by the excavators and presented to the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford after Carter’s death. These historic images and records present a vivid and first-hand account of the discovery, of the spectacular variety of the king’s burial goods and of the remarkable work that went into documenting and conserving them. The archive enables a nuanced and inclusive view of the complexities of both the ancient burial and the excavation, including often overlooked Egyptian members of the archaeological team. This selection of fifty key items by the staff of the Griffith Institute provides an accessible and authoritative overview of the archive, drawing on new research on the collection and giving an intimate insight into the records of one of the world’s most famous archaeological discoveries.

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Translation is at the centre of Christianity, scripturally, as reflected in the biblical stories of the tower of Babel, or of the apostles’ speaking in tongues after the Ascension, and historically, where arguments about it were dominant in Councils, such as those of Trent or the Second Vatican Council of 1962–64, which, it should be recalled, privileged the use of the vernacular in liturgy. The four texts edited here discuss the legitimacy of using the vernacular language for scriptural citation. This question in England became central to the perception of the followers of John Wyclif (sometimes known as Lollards): between 1409 and 1530 the use of English scriptures was severely impeded by the established church, and an episcopal licence was required for its possession or dissemination. The issue evidently aroused academic interest, especially in Oxford, where the first complete English translation seems to have originated. The three Latin works here survive complete each in a single manuscript: of these texts two, written by a Franciscan, William Butler, and by a Dominican, Thomas Palmer, are wholly hostile to translation. The third, the longest and most perceptive, edited here for the first time, emerges as written by a secular priest of impressive learning, Richard Ullerston; his other writings display his radical, but not unorthodox opinions. The only English work here is a Wycliffite adaptation of Ullerston’s Latin. The volume provides editions and modern translations of these four texts, together with a substantial introduction explaining their context and the implications of their arguments, and encouraging further exploration of the perceptions of the nature of language that are displayed there, many of which, and notably of Ullerston, are in advance of those of his contemporaries.

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Dressy men as a type of celebrity have played a distinctive part in the cultural – and even in the political – life of Britain over several centuries. But unlike the twenty-first-century hipster, the dandies of the British past provoked intense degrees of fascination and horror in their homeland and played an important role in British society from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. This book – illustrated with contemporary prints, portraits and caricatures – explores that social and cultural history through a focus on the macaroni, the dandy and the aesthete. The first was noted for his flamboyance, the second for his austere perfectionism and the third for his sexual perversity. All were highly controversial in their time, pioneering new ways of displaying and performing gender, as demonstrated by the impact of key figures such as Lord Hervey, George ‘Beau’ Brummell and Oscar Wilde. This groundbreaking study tells the scandalous story of fashionable men and their clothes as a reflection of changing attitudes not only to style but also to gender and sexuality.

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From its roots in ancient Greek herbal medicine, the popular spirit we now know as gin was established by the Dutch in the sixteenth century as a juniper-infused tincture to cure fevers. It gained notoriety during the London ‘gin craze’ in the eighteenth century before enjoying a recent resurgence and a profusion of new botanical flavourings. Garnished with sumptuous illustrations depicting the plants that tell the story of this complex and iconic drink, this enticing book delves into the botany of gin from root to branch. A diverse assortment of aromatic plants from around the world have been used in the production of gin over the course of several centuries. Each combination of botanicals yields a unique flavour profile that equates to more than the sum of its parts. Understanding the different types of formulation, and the main groups of plants used therein, is central to appreciating the drink’s complexities and subtleties. As this book’s extraordinary range of featured ingredients shows, gin is a quintessentially botanical beverage with a rich history like no other.

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The punctuation marks, mathematical symbols and glyphs which haunt the edges of our keyboards have evolved over many hundreds of years. They shape our understanding of texts, calculations and online interactions. Without these symbols all texts would run in endless unbroken lines of letters and numbers. Many hands and minds have created, refined and promulgated the symbols which give form to our written communication. Through individual entries discussing the story behind each example, 'Hyphens & Hashtags' reveals the long road many of these special characters have taken on their way into general use. In the digital age of communication, some symbols have gained an additional meaning or a new lease of life – the colon now doubles up as the eyes of a smiling face emoticon and the hashtag has travelled from obscurity to an essential component of social media. Alongside historical roots, this book also considers ever-evolving modern usage and uncovers those symbols which have now fallen out of fashion. 'Hyphens & Hashtags' casts a well-deserved spot-light on these stalwarts of typography whose handy knack for summing up a command or concept in simple shorthand marshals our sentences, clarifies a calculation or adds some much-needed emotion to our online interactions.

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Before the advent of commercial transatlantic flights in the early 1950s, the only way to travel between continents was by sea. In the golden age of ocean liners, between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War, shipping companies ensured their vessels were a home away from home, providing entertainment, dining, sleeping quarters and smoking lounges to accommodate passengers of all ages and budgets, for voyages that could last as long as three months. Secrets of the Great Ocean Liners leads the reader through each of the stages – and secrets – of ocean liner travel, from booking a ticket and choosing a cabin to shore excursions, dining, on-board games, social events, romances, and disembarking on arrival. Additional chapters disclose wartime voyages and disasters at sea. The shipping companies produced glamorous brochures, sailing schedules, voyage logs, passenger lists, postcards and menus, all of which help us to savour the challenges, etiquette and luxury of ocean liner travel. Diaries, letters and journals written on board also reveal a host of behind-the-scenes secrets and fascinating insights into the experience of travelling by sea. This book dives into a vast, unique collection to reveal the scandals, glamour, challenges and tragedies of ocean liner travel.

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In the seventeenth century, even the most elaborate and fashionable gardens had areas set aside for growing herbs, fruit, vegetables and flowers for domestic use, while those of more modest establishments were vital to the survival of the household. This was also a period of exciting introductions of plants from overseas. Using manuscript household manuals, recipe books and printed herbals, this book takes the reader on a tour of the productive garden and of the various parts of the house – kitchens and service rooms, living rooms and bedrooms – to show how these plants were used for cooking and brewing, medicines and cosmetics, in the making and care of clothes, and finally to keep rooms fresh, fragrant and decorated. Recipes used by seventeenth-century households for preparations such as flower syrups, snail water and wormwood ale are also included. A brief herbal gives descriptions of plants that are familiar today, others not so well known, such as the herbs used for dyeing and brewing, and those that held a particular cultural importance in the seventeenth century. Featuring exquisite coloured illustrations from John Gerard’s herbal of 1597 as well as prints, archival material and manuscripts, this book provides an intriguing and original focus on the domestic history of Stuart England.

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Every map tells a story. Some provide a narrative for travellers, explorers and surveyors or offer a visual account of changes to people’s lives, places and spaces, while others tell imaginary tales, transporting us to fictional worlds created by writers and artists. In turn, maps generate more stories, taking users on new journeys in search of knowledge and adventure. Drawing on the Bodleian Library’s outstanding map collection and covering almost a thousand years, 'Talking Maps' takes a new approach to map-making by showing how maps and stories have always been intimately entwined. Including such rare treasures as a unique map of the Mediterranean from the eleventh-century Arabic 'Book of Curiosities', al-Sharīf al-Idrīsī’s twelfth-century world map, C.S. Lewis’s map of Narnia, J.R.R. Tolkien’s cosmology of Middle-earth and Grayson Perry’s twenty-first-century tapestry map, this fascinating book analyses maps as objects that enable us to cross sea and land; as windows into alternative and imaginary worlds; as guides to reaching the afterlife; as tools to manage cities, nations, even empires; as images of environmental change; and as digitized visions of the global future. By telling the stories behind the artefacts and those generated by them, 'Talking Maps' reveals how each map is not just a tool for navigation but also a worldly proposal that helps us to understand who we are by describing where we are.

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Since this handbook was first published in 1994, interest in the book as a material object, and in the ways in which books have been owned, read and used, has burgeoned. Now established as a standard reference work, this book has been revised and expanded with a new set of over 200 colour illustrations, updated bibliographies and extended international coverage of libraries and online resources. It covers the history and understanding of inscriptions, bookplates, ink and binding stamps, mottoes and heraldry, and describes how to identify owners and track down books from particular collections via library and sale catalogues. Each section features an evaluated bibliography listing further sources, both online and in print. Illustrated examples of the many kinds of ownership evidence which can be found in books are also shown throughout. Relevant to anyone seeking to identify previous owners of books, or trace private libraries, this title will also support the work of all book historians interested in the history of reading or the use of books and in the book as a material object. An essential handbook for anyone working in provenance research.

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The (very) hungry goat has a big appetite which gets him into all kinds of adventures. He’ll eat anything, from pigs swill to frying pans and even barbed wire. As a result he grows fatter and fatter until one day he gobbles up something that sends him on the biggest adventure of all. Abner Graboff’s timeless illustrations bring this greedy animal to life in a comic rhyming tale for younger children.

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Martin Lister, royal physician and fellow of the Royal Society, was an extraordinarily prolific natural historian with an expertise in shells and molluscs. Disappointed with the work of established artists, Lister decided to teach his daughters, Susanna and Anna, how to illustrate the specimens he studied. The sisters became so skilled at this that Lister entrusted them with his great work, 'Historiæ Conchyliorum', assembled between 1685 and 1692. This first comprehensive study of conchology consisted of over 1,000 copperplates of shells and molluscs collected from around the world. 'Martin Lister and his Remarkable Daughters' reconstructs the creation of this masterwork, from the identification of the original shells to the drawings themselves, and from the engraved copperplates to the draft prints and final books. Susanna and Anna portrayed the shells not only as curious and beautiful objects, but also as specimens of natural history rendered with sensitivity and keen scientific empiricism. Beautiful in their own right, these illustrations and engravings reveal the early techniques behind scientific illustration together with the often unnoticed role of women in the scientific revolution.

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‘Invention … does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos’ – Mary Shelley In the 200 years since its first publication, the story of Frankenstein’s creation during stormy days and nights at Byron’s Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva has become literary legend. In this book, Daisy Hay returns to the objects and manuscripts of the novel’s genesis in order to assemble its story anew. Frankenstein was inspired by the extraordinary people surrounding the eighteen-year-old author and by the places and historical dramas that formed the backdrop of her youth. Featuring manuscripts, portraits, illustrations and artefacts, The Making of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein explores the novel’s time and place, its people, the relics of its long afterlife and the notebooks in which it was created. Hay strips Frankenstein back to its constituent parts revealing an uneven novel written by a young woman deeply engaged in the process of working out what she thought about the pressing issues of her time: science, politics, religion, slavery, maternity, the imagination, creativity and community. This is a compelling and innovative biography of the novel for all those fascinated by its essential, brilliant chaos.

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Pronunciation governs our regional and social identity more powerfully than any other aspect of spoken language. No wonder, then, that it has attracted most attention from satirists. In this intriguing book, David Crystal shows how our feelings about pronunciation today have their origins in the way our Victorian predecessors thought about the subject, as revealed in the pages of the satirical magazine, Punch. In the sixty years between its first issue in 1841 and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, jokes about the fashions affecting English usage provide one of Punch's most fruitful veins of humour, from the dropped aitches of the Cockney accent to the upper-class habit of dropping the final ‘g’ (huntin’ and fishin’). For 'We Are Not Amused', David Crystal has examined all the issues during the reign of Queen Victoria and brought together the cartoons and articles that poked fun at the subject of pronunciation, adding a commentary on the context of the times, explaining why people felt so strongly about accents, and identifying which accents were the main source of jokes. The collection brings to light a society where class distinction ruled, and where the way you pronounced a word was seen as a sometimes damning index of who you were and how you should be treated. It is a fascinating, provocative and highly entertaining insight into our on-going amusement at the subject of how we speak.

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Who has fallen into the rain puddle? Is it plump hen, turkey gobbler, curly sheep or beautiful fat pig? When all the animals peer into the puddle at the same time, they see the entire farmyard underwater. Off they run to get help. Meanwhile, the hot sun shines down and wise owl chuckles to himself. This charming tale – ideal for reading out loud – captures perfectly the wonder of discovering the outside world for the first time.

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Little Jonny ponders the meaning of colours as he explores the landscape. He dips his toes in a blue brook, picks purple flowers, digs brown earth and finds an enormous orange pumpkin. Finally yellow sunlight and the black night show him when it is time to get up and when it is time to go to sleep. The vibrant primary colours of Vladimir Bobri’s illustrations, together with a simple narrative, which follows the natural rhythm of the seasons, make this a stunning and enduring colours book for young children.

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For centuries, volcanic eruptions have captured our imaginations. Whether as signposts to an underworld, beacons to ancient mariners, or as an extraordinary manifestation of the natural world, volcanoes have intrigued many people, who have left records of their encounters in letters, reports and diaries and through sketches and illustrations. This book tells the stories of volcanic eruptions around the world, using original illustrations and first-hand accounts to explore how our understanding of volcanoes has evolved through time. Written accounts include Pliny’s description of the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius, stories recounted by seventeenth-century sea-farers, and reports of expeditions made by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century natural historians, including Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin. Illustrations range from fragments of scrolls, buried in the great eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, to Athanasius Kircher’s extraordinarily detailed sketches, made in the seventeenth century, to the spectacular London sunsets caused by Krakatoa’s eruption in 1883. They also include the first photograph of a volcanic eruption and twenty-first-century imaging of Santorini. These varied and compelling accounts enrich our perspective on current studies of volcanoes and challenge us to think about how we might use our contemporary understanding of volcanology to prepare for the next big eruption.

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In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, historical subjects became some of the most popular topics for stage dramas of all kinds on both sides of the Atlantic. This collection of essays examines a number of extraordinary theatrical works in order to cast light on their role in shaping a popular interpretation of historical events. The medium of drama ensured that the telling of these histories – the French Revolution and the American War of Independence, for example, or the travels of Captain Cook and Christopher Columbus – were brought to life through words, music and spectacle. The scale of the productions was often ambitious: a water tank with model floating ships was deployed at Sadler’s Wells for the staging of the Siege of Gibraltar, and another production on the same theme used live cannons which set fire to the vessels in each performance. This illustrated volume, researched and written by experts in the field, explores contemporary theatrical documents (playbills, set designs, musical scores) and images (paintings, prints and illustrations) in seeking to explain what counted as history and historical truth for the writers, performers and audiences of these plays. In doing so it debates the peculiar contradictions of staging history and re-examines some spectacular box office hits.

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Thames aficionado Robert Gibbings once wrote that ‘the quiet of an age-old river is like the slow turning of the pages of a well-loved book’. Writing the Thames tells a much-loved river’s story through the remarkable prose, poetry and illustration that it has inspired. In eight themed chapters it features historical events such as Julius Caesar’s crossing in 55 BCE and Elizabeth I’s stand against the Spanish at Tilbury, explorations of topographers who mapped, drew and painted the river and the many congenial riverside retreats for authors ranging from Francis Bacon, Thomas More and Alexander Pope to Thomas Love Peacock, William Morris and Henry James. A chapter on messing about in boats tells the story of William Hogarth’s impulsive five-day river trip with four inebriated friends and features satirical novels making fun of frenetic rowers (Zuleika Dobson) and young London men-about-town on camping holidays (Three Men in a Boat). The river has also inspired some of the best children’s literature (The Wind in the Willows) and naturalists such as Richard Jeffries and C.J. Cornish (A Naturalist on the Thames) have recorded the richness of its wildlife. But there are also dark undercurrents: Charles Dickens’s use of its waters as a symbol of death, Sax Rohmer’s Limehouse villain Dr Fu Manchu, and the many fictional criminals who dispose of corpses in its sinister depths in detective novels ranging from Sherlock Holmes to Inspector Morse. Beautifully illustrated, this book celebrates the writers who have helped to make England’s greatest river an enduring legend.

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How does one play bridge in a gas mask? Or enjoy motoring without consuming petrol? Or deal with a nationwide shortage of pea-sticks? For this compact little book Heath Robinson joined forces with writer Cecil Hunt to show civilians ‘how to make the best of things’ during the air raids, rationing, allotment tending and blackouts of the Second World War. The result is a warm celebration of the British population’s ability to ‘make do and mend’.

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In 1944 the British War Office distributed a handbook to British soldiers informing them what to expect and how to behave in a newly-liberated France. Containing candid descriptions of this war-ravaged society (widespread malnourishment, rampant tuberculosis) as well as useful phrases and a pronunciation guide (Bonjewer, commont-allay-voo), it was an indispensable guide to everyday life. This small, unassuming publication had a deeper purpose: to bring together two allies who did not enjoy ideal relations in 1944. The book attempts to reconcile differences by stressing a shared history and the common aim — defeating Hitler. It also tried to dispel misapprehensions: ‘There is a fairly widespread belief among people in Britain that the French are a particularly gay, frivolous people with no morals and few convictions.’ Often unintentionally hilarious in its expression of these false impressions, the book is also a guide for avoiding social embarrassment: ‘If you should happen to imagine that the first pretty French girl who smiles at you intends to dance the can-can or take you to bed, you will risk stirring up a lot of trouble for yourself – and for our relations with the French.’ Many of its observations still ring true today. For example, ‘The French are more polite than most of us. Remember to call them “Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle,” not just “Oy!”’ Others remind us of how we recently we have adopted French customs: ‘Don’t drink yourself silly. If you get the chance to drink wine, learn to “‘take it”.’ Anyone with an interest in Britain, France or World War II will find this an irresistible insight into British attitudes towards the French and an interesting, timeless commentary on Anglo-French relations.

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The English poet John Gower (ca. 1340–1408) wrote important Latin poems witnessing the two crucial political events of his day: the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and in 1399 the deposition of Richard II, in the Visio Anglie (A Vision of England) and Cronica tripertita (A Chronicle in Three Parts), respectively. Both poems, usually transmitted with Gower’s major Latin work, Vox clamantis, are key primary sources for the historical record, as well as marking culminating points in the development of English literature. The earlier Visio Anglie is verbally derivative of numerous, varied sources, by way of its literary allusions, but is also highly original in its invention and disposition. On the other hand, the Cronica tripertita’s organization, even in details, is highly derivative, and from a single source, but its verbal texture is all invented. This volume includes Latin texts of these poems of Gower, newly established from the manuscripts, with commentary on Gower’s relation with the rest of the contemporary historical record and with his literary forebears and contemporaries, including Ovid, Virgil, Peter Riga, Nigel Witeker, and Godfrey of Viterbo. This volume also includes Modern English verse translations of the two poems, which are at once critically accurate and enjoyably accessible.

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This is the first book-length study of Peter of Cornwall, prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London. His Liber Reuelationum (Lambeth Palace Library, MS 51), dated to the year 1200, is a compilation of over 1,100 chapters, excerpted from some 275 Latin texts, dealing with visions of the otherworld and revelatory appearances of God, Christ, Mary, angels, saints, devils, and revenants. Peter collected the material from saints’ lives, chronicles, and free-standing vision texts from the first century AD through to his own day – for the purpose of providing evidence of the existence of God, the soul, and life after death to unbelievers. Accounts of new visionary experiences circulating in England in the 1190s doubtlessly prompted his collection. Like his other large-scale work, Pantheologus, Peter of Cornwall’s Book of Revelations was intended to assist preachers with propagating the fundamentals of the faith. This volume introduces Peter’s life and writings and presents editions with parallel English translations of those parts of the Lambeth manuscript that Peter composed himself. A detailed description of the manuscript is included, and a Calendar identifies the source for each of Peter’s chapters. A bibliography and indices complete this volume, which provides a marvellous resource for scholars interested in the Latin literature of medieval dreams, visionary experience, and the eschatological concerns of sin, penance, death, the afterlife, and the judgement of the soul.

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An authoritative collection of essays celebrating Kafka's life and work, and examining how his writing has continued to provide inspiration for over a century.

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An examination of the influence of Oxford on the writing of C.S. Lewis, bringing to light new archival discoveries including letters and an unpublished poem.

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Ever needed tips on how to sleep next to a snoring spouse? How to convalesce in style? Or the etiquette of staying in a haunted house? This humorous book was originally published in the 1930s as an amusing guide for married couples. Poking fun at wives and husbands in an even-handed manner, it is both witty and quaint, giving a glimpse of middle-class life of a bygone era, but also offering up some universal advice which still rings true today. For example, ‘Choose bedside books for their soporific qualities’, or, ‘one whisky-and-soda on retiring... makes the average man forget the dullest dinner and sends him to bed in a glow of good will.’ With sections on hot-water bottles, robes de nuit, breakfast in bed, the best kind of pillow, sneaking home late and night-time readers, this is the perfect, self-improving gift for your favourite bedfellow.

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We all know about giving and receiving gifts: they can be touching or puzzling, either strengthening bonds of friendship or becoming a burden. Gifts are an integral part of human societies and this volume explores how, over the centuries, books and writing describe gifts in all their complexity, but also become precious gifts themselves. In a series of thought-provoking essays, richly illustrated from the Bodleian Library’s collections and beyond, the contributors illuminate some of the striking ways in which writing interacts with those fundamental impulses to give, receive and reciprocate. Each chapter draws on a particular perspective, including archaeology and religion, history, literature and anthropology. From an ancient Sumerian tablet recording the founding of a temple to contemporary children’s literature that highlights the pleasures and troubling histories of exchange and inheritance, the dynamics of the gift are at work across space and time. This book features gorgeous medieval manuscripts, gifts made by and for Queen Elizabeth I, Victorian Christmas tales and a mysterious Scottish book sculpture. Stories of sacrifice, love, loyalty and friendship are woven into these books and objects, showing the ongoing power of the gift to shape the stories we tell about ourselves.

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How long is an ell? What is the largest size of champagne bottle? How do you measure the heat of a chilli pepper? Why is the depth of water measured in fathoms? And what is a cubit? The Curious History of Weights & Measures tells the story of how we have come to quantify the world around us. Looking at everything from carats, pecks and pennyweights to firkins and baker’s dozens through to modern science-based standards such as kilograms and kilometres, this book considers both what sparked the creation of myriad measures and why there were so many efforts to usher in standardisation. Full of handy conversion charts and beautiful illustrations The Curious History of Weights & Measures is a treasure trove of fun facts and intriguing stories about the calculations we use every day.

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