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A fascinating collection examining the spread of books in Jewish vernacular languages and Hebrew characters. From Cairo Genizah to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, the spread of books in Jewish vernacular languages and Hebrew characters offers an extraordinary insight into the linguistic richness of Jewish life. For over two millennia, Jewish communities have used languages other than Hebrew for daily oral communication, including Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-French, Judeo-Italian, Yiddish, and Ladino. However, they used the Hebrew alphabet to write these languages down and developed sophisticated systems to transmit texts in them. Many of these vernacular languages also became languages of book culture. The Bodleian Libraries' collections host an unparalleled collection of texts in Judeo-languages, giving a picture of how these works were produced and communicated. As some of these languages are now extinct or moribund, these writings are also important testimonies to lost cultures. Generously illustrated and ranging in time from the Middle Ages to the Emancipation, this collection of essays showcases important hallmarks in the intellectual and social history of Jewish culture.

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.

An illumination of writing's mysteries through examining the words and ideas that were edited out of renowned novels, poems, and plays. Imagine looking over your favorite author's shoulder and witnessing the moment they begin writing the opening chapter of their best-loved novel. What you might see is that the author has to write, cut, and rewrite their words--often many times--in order to find the right form. Unearthing what has been jettisoned, moved, or edited can give us valuable insights into the creative process. Editorial decisions are documented in an extraordinary number of literary manuscripts, notebooks, and letters preserved in libraries and archives. What would Frankenstein have looked like if Mary and Percy Shelley had not collaborated on the draft? Would we view The Wind in the Willows differently if its title had remained The Mole & the Water Rat? This highly illustrated book invites you to explore these roads not taken and discover ideas that did not make it into renowned novels, poems, and plays. With insights into the drafting techniques of writers as varied as Jane Austen, Christina Rossetti, Raymond Chandler, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, John le Carré, Barbara Pym, Philip Pullman, and Alice Oswald, this is a fascinating unveiling of the mysteries of writing, cutting, rewriting, and publishing creative works.

A richly illustrated volume, which reproduces one of the finest collections of eighteenth-century ornithological art in its entirety.

"This translation modernizes the language of this comedy and takes the archaic humor and renews it for a contemporary audience"--

A charming guide to potatoes, covering everything from how to grow them to their origins and history. "Everybody who possibly can ought to grow potatoes." First published towards the end of the First World War, this charming little book is a love letter to the potato, from its origins in South America to Sir Francis Drake's travels, the Irish potato famine, and the great potato boom of 1903 when the "El Dorado" changed hands at eye-watering prices. Filled with practical advice much of which still holds true today, The Potato Book was written to advocate growing potatoes as a cheap and effective crop against a background of spiraling costs and food shortages. Chapters cover soil preparation, methods of propagating, chitting, planting, earthing-up, and recommended varieties from King Edward to Kerr's Pink. It also describes, with handy diagrams, how to guard against common pests and diseases. With a witty and wonderful introduction by Kathy Clugston, The Potato Book is a perfect gift for vegetable growers or anyone with enduring affection for the humble spud.

A fascinating exploration of the history of alcohol in Victorian Britain via the 'drink maps' that were produced by the temperance movement to promote sobriety.

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.

Twenty historical journeys, routes and adventures followed through the maps that made them.

A fascinating and authoritative collection of essays examining the varied adaptations of and responses to Chaucer's work.

A celebration of pioneering Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, and the artistic connection between her poetry and her photography.

A compilation of ancient wisdom sourced from ancient and medieval philosophers. Words of wisdom and advice for leading a good life have long been part of society, handed down from one generation to the next. Many of these wise observations originated from the philosophers of Ancient Greece and Rome and went on to circulate widely among the Arabic-speaking communities of the Middle Ages, who added new sayings of their own. Wisdom from the Ancients features over four hundred sayings, riddles, and aphorisms from the ancient and medieval world in English translation. Grouped by themes including medicine, food, politics, and nature, they derive from a range of philosophers and physicians, from Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato to al-Kindī, Ibn Hindū, and al-Rāzī. Packed with timeless advice to contemplate, share, and enjoy, this entertaining book offers readers a gateway to ancient and medieval cultures whose musings on philosophy, health, and life are just as authoritative and relevant today.

A collection of 366 facts about language to enliven each day of the year. In this ingenious and diverse collection of 366 stories, events, and facts about language, David Crystal presents a selection of insights from literary and linguistic writers, poets, and global institutions, together with the weird and wonderful creations of language enthusiasts to enliven each day of the year. This day-by-day treatment illustrates the extraordinary, the weird, and the wonderful creations of language, covering everything from holidays like "Morse Code Day" and "Talk Like William Shatner Day" to the forensic phonetics used to catch serial killers. The book covers writers from many different eras and cultures, including William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, R. K. Narayan, Wole Soyinka, and many more. Some days focus on pronunciation, orthography, grammar, or vocabulary. Others focus on the way language is used in science, religion, politics, broadcasting, publishing, the arts, and the Internet. Some days acknowledge the achievements of language study, such as in language teaching, speech therapy, deaf education, and forensic science, as well as technological progress, from the humble pencil to digital software. Several days celebrate individual languages, including those spoken in small language communities. A celebration of creativity and change, this book will inspire readers to make a daily date with language.

A stunningly packaged anthology of writings and artwork by noted wood engraver Clare Leighton, including beautifully reproduced extracts and a detailed introduction to the artist's life and work, reflecting Leighton's lifelong fascination with the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land.

An exquisitely illustrated, luxury collector's edition of Dicken's holiday tale. This beautiful edition of Charles Dickens's perennial seasonal favorite offers exquisite illustrations of Marley's ghost, Bob Cratchit's slide down icy Cornhill, Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig's dance, and Ebenezer Scrooge himself. Arthur Rackham's color wash drawings and silhouettes, first published during the First World War, bring a threatening and haunting atmosphere to Scrooge's ghostly story. Rackham was a leading illustrator in the golden age of book illustration when groundbreaking techniques for color printing were developing fast. He illustrated over sixty books and specialized in children's classics and fairy tales. This landmark edition of A Christmas Carol helped to consolidate the idea of the Dickensian Christmas and the tradition of the Christmas gift book. It is a beautiful version of a classic story, which never ceases to be relevant to our times.

A collection of reproduced images from the Kennicott Bible, a remarkable artifact from the Middle Ages. The Kennicott Bible is one of the most celebrated Hebrew Bibles that survives today, having delighted readers since its creation in 1476. 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 trove of history, culture, devotion, art, and cross-cultural collaboration. This book features reproductions of the decorated pages of the stunning manuscript, accompanied by four chapters authored by experts in the fields of Bible study, book history, and medieval Jewish art. These experts discuss the Bible from several perspectives, explaining the Hebrew text of the Bible, the scribe who created the pages, the layout and paleography, and the illuminator who produced the Bible's decoration and its imagery. This volume also includes an analysis of the early medieval commentary on the Old Testament, the Masorah. Richly illustrated throughout, this beautiful book makes a treasure of Jewish art available for a new audience, alongside the latest scholarship on its origins, provenance, and creation.

A celebration of the art of handwriting, including samples from famous writers, scientists, and historical figures. 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 in 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 on cleaning methods for his sculptures, and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin balancing childcare with discovering the structure of penicillin. Handwritten includes letters, first drafts, autograph books, 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 Raleigh, T.E. Lawrence, and Patrick Leigh Fermor, among many others. Each of these extraordinary figures has passed on a manuscript or document with a fascinating story to tell.

A humorous advice book, offering tips on bedroom manners. Have you ever needed tips on how to sleep next to a snoring spouse? How to convalesce in style? Have you pondered the etiquette of staying in a haunted house? Better Bed Manners, originally published in the 1930s, has the answers you seek. This amusing guide was originally written for married couples, poking fun at both wives and husbands. Better Bed Manners offers a witty glimpse of middle-class life in a bygone era, but it also dispenses some universal advice that still rings true today. "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 goodwill." With sections on hot-water bottles, robes de nuit, breakfast in bed, the best kind of pillow, sneaking home late, and night-time reading, this is the perfect self-improvement gift for your favorite bedfellow.

A series of thought-provoking essays about the nature of the book as a gift. Giving and receiving gifts can be tricky. Gifts may be touching or puzzling, either strengthening bonds of friendship or becoming a burden. This volume explores how books and writing have described gift-giving over the centuries, but also how books became 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, 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.

Medieval England was full of books, many times the number that have survived. The great moment of loss was when the country's religious houses were suppressed by King Henry VIII and their libraries scattered and destroyed. Twentieth-century scholarship has been enterprising in establishing what survives and in discovering what libraries once held. To understand that evidence, and to be able to reconstruct the transmission of culture in the Middle Ages, we need to employ with care the evidence of the surviving books and what medieval library catalogues can tell us about these lost collections. Libraries and Books in Medieval England paints a new picture of the circulation of books, from the totality of the available evidence. It seeks to move away from the modern conceptualization of the monastic library as the only venue for medieval book provision, and to broaden awareness of the wider book economy, including private ownership and the birth of the book trade. The result, by one of the country's leading experts and based on his Lyell Lectures in the University of Oxford, is an unparalleled work offering a new view of the field.

Garry Fabian Miller's Dark Room is a photography book unlike any other. At its heart is the artist's description of a life lived making pictures between the dark and the light, a deeply personal account woven against the history of photography from the moment of its birth in the 1830s to its decline, and some would say death, in the digital age almost two hundred years later.It is a memoir that reads at times like a manifesto, at others like a confession; a last testament to the dark room as both a site for the imagination, and a physical space for the alchemy that William Henry Fox Talbot once described as 'a little bit of magic realised'. Dark Room charts Miller's work over five decades, shifting from a camera-based practice in early career to the abstract picture making for which he has become internationally recognised, working without a camera to experiment with the possibilities of light as both medium and subject. At its core is the relationship with nature and place that has so sustained his way of life, and specifically with his home on Dartmoor and the cycle of daily walks that have been at the core of his practice for thirty years.The book also features an essay on Miller's work by his friend the potter and writer Edmund de Waal and technical notes by Martin Barnes, senior photography curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Succulents, especially cacti, are the current focus of serious ecological studies but also the darlings of designers and style influencers. Their endearing, characterful looks have given them the status of trendy 'plant pets'. But succulentomania is not new. While these plants have always been part of the landscape in the dry vastnesses of the Americas, Australia and Africa, curiosities such as furry-flowered stapeliads and euphorbias like snakes were a source of fascination for early European plant collectors - and in eighteenth-century Bavaria a prosperous apothecary grew an 'American aloe' that astounded all who saw it. This apothecary, Johann Wilhelm Weinmann, was the mastermind behind a groundbreaking book in which he aimed to include thousands of plants from all over the world, describing their individual characteristics and commissioning magnificent colour illustrations of each specimen. The succulents he featured are reproduced here in all their splendour. We may no longer look to them to treat gangrene, manufacture glass or disperse kidney stones, but succulents are proving of great interest to modern medicine and agriculture, and we can marvel at them afresh not only as wonders of nature but also as works of art.

A fascinating miscellany of the stories behind our weights and measures. How long is an ell? How big is the largest champagne bottle? How do you measure the heat of a chili pepper? Why is the depth of water measured in fathoms? And what, exactly, 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, baker's dozens, and modern science-based standards such as kilograms and kilometers, this book considers both what sparked the creation of measures and why there were so many efforts to usher in standardization. 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.

"William Henry Fox Talbot is celebrated today as the English inventor of photography. He first made early photographic experiments in the 1830s and released the details of his photogenic drawing process in January 1839. He continued to introduce important innovations to the medium in the 1840s and 1850s. Drawing on archival material in the Bodleian Library, including three albums given by Talbot to his sister, Horatia Feilding, and his illustrated books, Sun Pictures in Scotland and The Pencil of Nature, this volume shows how Talbot was continually inventing photography anew. A selection of eighty full-page plates provides a thematic survey of Talbot's work, reproducing images that document his travels, his home, and his family, as well as his intellectual interests, from science to literature to ancient languages. An illustrated introduction places Talbot's work within the context of a modernizing Britain, as well as within his own social and intellectual milieu, and explores how the competing daguerreotype process spurred Talbot to improve his own techniques and seek new functions and uses for paper-based photographs. This evocative selection is a testament to Talbot's constant quest for new photographic advances, offering a window into the archives of an extraordinarily determined and creative man--

Establishing Parliament as the ultimate source of power in the land and enshrining basic civil rights, this document can justly claim to serve as the origin of Britain's democracy. An introduction by Jonathan Sumption provides historical context and outlines its influence over the centuries, including on recent political events.

Oscar Wilde's children's stories explore timeless themes of good and evil, freedom and responsibility, love and death, beauty and self-sacrifice. This beautiful collectors' edition with original watercolour illustrations and decorative motifs by Charles Robinson and an introduction by Michele Mendelssohn will delight adults and children alike.

This book features 24 of William Henry Fox Talbot's experimental prints. Offered to the reader as enigmatic physical artefacts, an accompanying essay illustrated with comparative images places these photographs in a broad historical context, revealing what relevance Talbot's experiments have to contemporary concepts of the art of photography.

Cats have provided the inspiration for an incredible range of fiction, memoir and poetry, from ancient myths and fables to much-loved children's books, and from classic tales to contemporary novels. A must for all cat-lovers, this book celebrates the inspirational connections between our favourite feline friends and the literary imagination.

"Every individual book has a history which can help us to understand what difference it may have made in the world. Within these pages you will find books damaged by bullets or graffiti, recovered from fire or water, or even disguised as completely different texts for protection in dangerous times. Marks of ownership - be it a rich treasure binding or a humble family inscription - shine a light on social history and literacy, while student doodles from the sixteenth century and a variety of pithy annotations give us a sense of readers through the ages. We increasingly recognise that the cultural and research value of books lies not just in their printed contents, but in the many other things they can tell us about the ways they have been used, read and regarded. Generously illustrated with examples from the early Middle Ages to the present day, Speaking Volumes presents a fascinating selection of books in both public and private collections whose individual histories tell surprising and illuminating stories, encouraging us to look at and appreciate books in new and non-traditional ways"--Publisher's description.

J.R.R. Tolkien's son and literary editor, Christopher Tolkien, published 24 of his father's posthumous works during his own lifetime. This collection of essays by world-renowned scholars, together with family reminiscences, sheds new light on Tolkien's work. This illustrated volume is essential reading for Tolkien scholars, readers and fans.