front cover of
Annaclara Cataldi Palau
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2011
This catalogue of forty manuscripts contained in the Meerman collection of medieval and renaissance Greek manuscripts at the Bodleian Library includes an introduction with extensive research on the provenance of the collection, detailed descriptions of each manuscript, and forty illustrations of manuscript pages.
 
The collection of the Dutch bibliophile Gerard Meerman, the manuscripts were bought for the Bodleian Library in 1824 at auction at the Hague. The collection is composed almost exclusively of manuscripts that once belonged to the Jesuits of Clermont in Paris, though the works had several subsequent owners, including English collector Sir Thomas Phillipps and Guillaume Pellicier, a French ambassador to Venice in the first half of the sixteenth century. This catalogue fully demonstrates the importance of these manuscripts and is an essential scholarly resource for each item in the collection.
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A Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts from the Meerman Collection in the Bodleian Library
Annaclara Cataldi Palau
Bodleian Library Publishing

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Shakespeare's Dead
Stages of Death in Shakespeare's Playworlds
Simon Palfrey
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2016
Four hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, his plays live on in theater and popular culture, given new life through countless innovative approaches to their performance and interpretation. Just as our enthusiasm for seeing the plays performed—and transformed—affirms their continued life, death scenes in Shakespeare’s plays tend to mark not an ending but a transformation of life.

Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Shakespeare’s Dead documents the many ways Shakespeare’s characters meet their demise, from suicide to murder, from death by workaday dagger to the more creative method of being baked and fed to one’s family in a meat pie. Through these examples, Simon Palfrey and Emma Smith show Shakespeare’s mastery at choreographing death as a means of rediscovery. Some characters refuse to go quietly, dying in stages, as in Nick Bottom’s performance as Pyramus killing himself with much flourish in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Others are remembered in elegies, and still others are resurrected or reappear as ghosts. Shakespeare’s death scenes also often speak to the boundaries between theater and everyday life, with funerals and scenes of mourning that are undercut by their staged inauthenticity.

Extensively illustrated with contemporary drawings and images from stage history, Shakespeare’s Dead takes readers through the playwright’s great death scenes and tragic figures, exploring in them the theme of life in death and delineating the cultural, religious, and social contexts.
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Aesop's Fables
Agnes Miller Parker
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2020
For twenty-five centuries, the animal stories that go by the name of Aesop's Fables have amused and instructed generations of children and adults alike. The tales are still as fresh and poignant today as they were to the ancient Greeks who composed them. This beautifully illustrated edition contains some of the best-loved fables, including "The Boy who Cried Wolf," "The Lion and the Mouse," "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg," "The Hare and the Tortoise," and "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse," alongside many of the lesser-known tales.  These timeless stories are illustrated with thirty-seven woodcuts by Agnes Miller Parker (1895–1980), one of the greatest British wood engraving artists of the twentieth century. Parker's distinctive work is strikingly stylized and deceptively simple. Commissioned in the 1930s by the fine press publisher Gregynog Press for their edition of the work, these exquisite engravings are among Parker's finest work. 
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Provenance Research in Book History
A Handbook
David Pearson
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2019

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Nicholas Perkins
Bodleian Library Publishing
From chivalrous knights to damsels in distress, fire-breathing dragons, and high-walled towers, the characteristics and expectations we ascribe to stories of love and romance have their origins in some of the most beautiful and intriguing books of the Middle Ages. Encompassing Arthurian legends, Alexander the Great’s global conquests, sudden reversals of fortune, revenge, or enchantment, images and tales of medieval romance still resonate today. This beautifully illustrated history of romance legends explores the conjunctions of chivalric violence, love, sex, and piety that marked these striking and resonant stories.
 
Through a discussion of surviving manuscripts, printed books, and visual art, The Romance of the Middle Ages examines the development of romance as a literary genre, its place in medieval culture, and the scribes and readers who copied, owned, and commented on romance books—from magnificent illuminated manuscripts to personal notebooks. It describes the dangerous pull of desire in works by Dante, Chaucer, Malory, and many others, and traces the influence of these stories through their rewriting in Shakespeare, Spenser, Walter Scott, and Mark Twain, along with the medievalist visions of Morris, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones. The Romance of the Middle Ages then brings the story up to date by showing how later writers and artists have responded to medieval romance, including Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and J. K. Rowling, and the very different knightly casts of Monty Python and Star Wars.
 
The Romance of the Middle Ages is an engaging analysis of stories that still have the power to capture our imaginations long after ‘happily ever after’.
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Great Literary Friendships
Janet Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2022
This volume explores twenty-four literary friendships in succinct, structured entries, from William Shakespeare to Elena Ferrante.
 
Close friendships are a heart-warming feature of many of our best-loved works of fiction. From the poignant schoolgirl relationship between Jane Eyre and Helen Burns to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn’s adventures on the Mississippi, fictional friends have supported, guided, comforted—and at times betrayed—the heroes and heroines of our most popular plays and novels.

This book explores twenty-four literary friendships and together with character studies and publication history, describes how each key relationship influences character, determines the plot, or underlines the theme of each literary work. It shows how authors have by turn celebrated, lamented, or transformed friendships throughout the ages. Some friendships—Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Holmes and Watson, and even Bridget Jones and pals—have taken on creative lives beyond the bounds of their original narratives.

Including a broad scope of literature from writers such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, John Steinbeck, Alice Walker, Dona Tartt, and Margaret Atwood, this book is the ideal gift for your literature-loving friend.
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Bicycles
Vintage People on Photo Postcards
Tom Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2011
To celebrate the acquisition of the archive of distinguished artist Tom Phillips, the Bodleian Library 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 purchase their own portraits. These portraits allowed individuals to create and embellish their own self images, presenting themselves as they wished to be seen within the trends and social mores of their time. Each book in the series contains two hundred images chosen from a visually rich vein of social history. Their back covers also feature thematically linked paintings, specially created for each title, from Phillips’s signature work, A Humument.
 
Bicycles, as its title suggests, documents the great age of the safety bicycle, which was welcomed as a technology of emancipation for both women and men.  Also included are portraits of competitive racers and newly pedaling toddlers. 

These unique and visually stunning books offer a rich glimpse of forgotten times and will be greatly valued by art and history lovers alike.
 
 “These images are captivating visual vignettes. We may not know who the subjects are, but the postcards offer us a glimpse of their interests, their time, and their world. Tom Phillips's exceptional collection gives us a fascinating chance to retrieve something of these lives.”—Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London
 
“Picture postcards from a century ago capture unique moments in time and place and are a wonderful social history record. Tom Phillips is adept at seeking out and choosing amazingly evocative postcard images.”—Brian Lund, editor, Picture Postcard Monthly
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Fantasy Travel
Vintage People on Photo Postcards
Tom Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2012
To celebrate the acquisition of the archive of distinguished artist Tom Phillips, the Bodleian Library 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 portraits of themselves. Each of the books in the series contains two hundred images chosen from a visually rich vein of social history. Their covers also feature thematically linked paintings, specially created for each title, from Phillips’s signature work, A Humument.
 
Fantasy Travel compiles postcards of people sitting playfully in studio mock-ups of airplanes, cars, speedboats, and hot air balloons. Such modes of travel were beyond the means of most people at the time, and photographic studios allowed them to indulge their flights of fancy—and take away the resulting postcard.
 
Each of these unique and visually stunning books give a rich glimpse of forgotten times and will be greatly valued by art and history lovers alike.
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Menswear
Vintage People on Photo Postcards
Tom Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2012
To celebrate the acquisition of the archive of distinguished artist Tom Phillips, the Bodleian Library 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 portraits of themselves. Each of the books in the series contains two hundred images chosen from a visually rich vein of social history. Their covers also feature thematically linked paintings, specially created for each title, from Phillips’s signature work, A Humument.
 
Menswear shows men in all manner of outfits. Formal and casual, adorned with ties, gloves, pocket squares, and walking sticks, the men display both their individual style and the fads and fashions of the time. Each of these unique and visually stunning books give a rich glimpse of forgotten times and will be greatly valued by art and history lovers alike.
 
 
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Readers
Vintage People on Photo Postcards
Tom Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2010

To celebrate the acquisition of the archive of distinguished artist Tom Phillips, the Bodleian Library 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 portraits of themselves. Each book in the series contains two hundred images chosen from a visually rich vein of social history. Their covers also feature thematically linked paintings, specially created for each title, from Phillips’s signature work, A Humument.

Readers
, as its title suggests, shows people reading (or pretending to read) a wide variety of material, from the Bible to Film Fun, either in the photographer’s studio, in their own home, or on vacation on the beach. Each of these unique and visually stunning books give a rich glimpse of forgotten times and will be greatly valued by art and history lovers alike.

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Women & Hats
Vintage People on Photo Postcards
Tom Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2010

To celebrate the acquisition of the archive of distinguished artist Tom Phillips, the Bodleian Library 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 portraits of themselves. Each of the books in the series contains two hundred images chosen from a visually rich vein of social history. Their covers also feature thematically linked paintings, specially created for each title, from Phillips’s signature work, A Humument.

            
Women & Hats explores the remarkable range found in the world of millinery, from outrageous Edwardian creations to the inventive austerities of World War II. Each of these unique and visually stunning books give a rich glimpse of forgotten times and will be greatly valued by art and history lovers alike.

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front cover of Weddings
Weddings
Vintage People on Photo Postcards
Tom Phillips
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2011
To celebrate the acquisition of the archive of distinguished artist Tom Phillips, the Bodleian Library 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 purchase their own portraits. These portraits allowed individuals to create and embellish their own self images, presenting themselves as they wished to be seen within the trends and social mores of their time. Each book in the series contains two hundred images chosen from a visually rich vein of social history. Their back covers also feature thematically linked paintings, specially created for each title, from Phillips’s signature work, A Humument.
 
Weddings captures all the excitement and drama of the stages of the ceremony from preparations to wedding vehicles to family and friends in lively scenes in churches and homes.
 
These unique and visually stunning books offer a rich glimpse of forgotten times and will be greatly valued by art and history lovers alike.
 
 “These images are captivating visual vignettes. We may not know who the subjects are, but the postcards offer us a glimpse of their interests, their time, and their world. Tom Phillips's exceptional collection gives us a fascinating chance to retrieve something of these lives.”—Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London
 
“Picture postcards from a century ago capture unique moments in time and place and are a wonderful social history record. Tom Phillips is adept at seeking out and choosing amazingly evocative postcard images.”—Brian Lund, editor, Picture Postcard Monthly
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Petrograd, 1917
Witnesses to the Russian Revolution
John Pinfold
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2017
The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution irrevocably changed the course of history, with consequences still being felt a century later. This book offers a dramatic depiction of the chaotic events of the revolution, drawn from selected firsthand accounts.

Assembling extracts from letters, journals, diaries, and memoirs from a remarkably diverse cast of both Russians and foreign nationals who were there when the revolution broke, Petrograd, 1917 is a strikingly close-up account of these world-shaking events. Each entry is supplemented with a short introductory note that sets it in context, and the book is rounded out with more than seventy illustrations, including photographs of the Romanovs and the violence in the streets as well as propaganda posters, postcards to loved ones, and more. In these pages, the drama and terror of those days comes to life once more, a century on.
 
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The Memoirs of Captain Hugh Crow
The Life and Times of a Slave Trade Captain
John Pinfold
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2007

Numerous documents attest to the horrific conditions endured by African slaves during the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade. Less well known is the perspective of those who wielded power during this dark time in human history. The Bodleian Library fills that gap here with the memoirs of a principal figure in the slave trade, Captain Hugh Crow.

The first-hand account of a man who commanded one of the last legal slave vessels to cross the Atlantic, Life and Times of a Slave Trade Captain offers a revealing if frequently troubling look into the psyche of a slave trader. His chronicle leaves nothing to the imagination, as he recounts the harsh routine of daily life on a slave vessel, where on average a fifth of the crew—let alone the human cargo—never survived the crossing. Crow portrays himself as an “enlightened” slaver, a claim he justifies through the link between his close attention to his “negroes” and his financial success, and the songs composed for him by the slaves. His account also includes commentary on the social propriety of the slave trade and notes about the conditions on West Indian and Caribbean plantations as well as on slave ships. John Pinfold’s illuminating introduction recounts the life of Hugh Crow and sets him in the rich historical context of eighteenth-century mercantilism and its battle with the abolitionist movement. An eye-opening read, Life and Times of a Slave Trade Captain reveals an often overlooked facet in the complicated history of transatlantic slavery.

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John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning
William Poole
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2010

John Aubrey (1626–97) was one of the best-connected scholars and antiquaries in the great decades of the British scientific revolution. He is remembered as a pioneer historian and the father of English life-writing, whose Brief Lives remains a lasting portrait of a generation of eminent thinkers and nobles. But Aubrey’s intellectual interests were much broader. He was one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society, and he was acquainted with leading scientists of the generation of Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. Aubrey championed Hooke’s geological theories, radical for the time, that proposed the organic origin of fossils. In addition, Aubrey was a keen mathematician and an early donor to the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology and the Bodleian Library. Extensively illustrated, John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning presents all of Aubrey’s varied interests and pursuits in their intellectual milieu. Published to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, this is the first accessible and illustrated guide to Aubrey’s many diverse achievements as a biographer, natural philosopher and scientist, and antiquary.

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Wilfred Owen
An Illustrated Life
Janet Potter
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2014
Wilfred Owen is the “Poet of Pity,” whose realistic portrayals of war gave voice to the soldier wounded, captured, or killed—not just in the Great War but in every war since, so great is the evocative power of his work. Although he saw only five poems published during his lifetime, Owen left behind a wealth of letters and poetry that together form a powerful legacy.
           
This generously illustrated book tells the story of Owen’s life and work, from his birth in 1893 to his tragic death just one week before the signing of the armistice that would end the war. The shocking realism of poems such as “Strange Meeting” and the angry disillusionment of “Anthem for Doomed Youth” reveal Owen’s transformation from a romantic youth steeped in the poetry of Keats to a mature soldier awakened to the horrors of the Western Front.
           
Drawing on numerous manuscripts, artifacts, and family photographs, this book gives a comprehensive view of the relationship between the poet’s lived experience and his writing that will appeal equally to both those well-versed in Owen’s work and those seeking a well-researched, accessible introduction.
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Historiae Britannicae Defensio / A Defence of the British History
John Prise
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2015

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R. E. Pritchard
Bodleian Library Publishing

Peter Mundy was an English merchant trader of the seventeenth century who spent most of his life traveling the world, including western Europe, Poland, and Istanbul. Fueled by an insatiable curiosity about the world around him, Mundy kept a detailed account of his travels, illustrated throughout with his own lively drawings of the people and animals he encountered.

Drawing on the unique manuscript held by the Bodleian Library, Peter Mundy, Merchant Adventurer collects Mundy’s vivid accounts of the Ottoman, Mughal, Chinese, and Russian Empires, as well as his reports of the first, difficult contact between Britain and China, of exhausting journeys through famine-devastated northern India, and of the troubled times in London following the Restoration of Charles II.
 
Historians and lovers of travel literature will find this extraordinary account of one man’s encounters with very different, early modern cultures an invaluable resource and a compelling read.
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Diane Purkiss
Bodleian Library Publishing
A faun carrying an umbrella. A hobbit who makes his home in a hole in the ground. An ill-treated schoolboy with a secret and a scar. Fantasy is among the most beloved genres in children’s literature— and its offerings are often just as eagerly anticipated by adults. But how is it that writers like J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman are able to create such remarkable images?

Magical Tales
traces the origin of the genre back through Norse mythology, Arthurian legend, and medieval literature. Drawing on manuscripts and rare books in the renowned collection of the Bodleian Library, the essays turn the spotlight on spell books; grimoires, or magical textbooks; and books of legend and myth whose themes writers like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis incorporated into their work, inspiring generations of writers that extend to the present day. In serving as a source of inspiration for later literary works, the contributors show, myths and legends have themselves been altered in interesting ways.

Richly illustrated, Magical Tales offers an enchanting take on the development of this wildly popular genre.
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Volcanoes
Encounters through the Ages
David M. Pyle
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2017
Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood.
 
That’s Pliny the Younger, writing to Tacitus about the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, one of many volcanic eruptions that have become part of the story of human history. We have always, it seems, been simultaneously fascinated and terrified by volcanoes, and this book brings together an unforgettable selection of firsthand accounts from around the world and through the centuries.

In these pages, anonymous seventeenth-century seafarers tell of exploding islands, Alexander Von Humboldt and Charles Darwin show us volcanoes through the eyes of developing science, and artists sketch the spectacular London sunsets created by the eruption of Krakatoa, half the world away. As the years pass, words and paintings give way to the first photograph of an eruption, and eventually to detailed satellite imagery, but the awesome force of volcanoes still comes through, sublime and spectacular.
As we were reminded in 2010 when the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull snarled travel throughout Europe, volcanoes remain powerful and unpredictable even today. In the pages of this book, we can appreciate their majesty from a safe distance.
 
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