No work has challenged its readers like Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”—by turns iconoclastic, bizarre, and unprecedented—have been employed as the slogans of stude
No work has challenged its readers like Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake's "Proverbs of Hell"--by turns iconoclastic, bizarre, and unprecedented--have been employed as the slogans of st
From diesel to gerrymandering, the English language is rich with eponyms—words that are named after an individual. The many histories behind these words are often mesmerizing—a word named,
Magna Carta, or “Great Charter,” is one of the most important documents in legal history. Originating in 1215 as a peace treaty between King John and a group of rebellious barons at Runnymede, it put
John Aubrey (1626-97) was one of the best-connected scholars and antiquaries in the great decades of the British scientific revolution. Immersed in the intellectual fervour of the era, he is best reme
Most of us are aware that the words for some of our most important concepts stem from ancient Greek roots—words such as geometry, democracy, technology, and aesthetics. But lesser known is the w
At the height of the debate about the slave trade and its abolition in the 1780s and '90s, each side issued pamphlets in support of its position.This essential reader reproduces fourteen representati
The much-loved tales from The Thousand and One Nights first appeared in English translation in the early nineteenth century, based on French translations of versions of the stories found in Syrian and
A royal physician and fellow of the Royal Society, Martin Lister was an extraordinarily prolific natural historian with an expertise in shells and mollusks. Disappointed with the work of established a
This rare, first-hand account by a staunch defender of slavery provides insight into the mind of one of its chief beneficiaries. Crow emerges as a complex, larger-than-life, self-assured, but deeply
This book explores the lives and posthumous reputations of Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary Shelley, and Mary's parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. It tells the story of how Mary Shell
For a zitty face: take urine eight days old and heat it over the fire; wash your face with it morning and night. In late medieval England, ordinary people, apothecaries, and physicians gathered up pra
While Jeu de paume has been played in France for hundreds of years and was associated with the French and English medieval and renaissance courts, the modern game of tennis dates from 1874, when the
The range of J. R. R. Tolkien’s talents is remarkable. Not only was he an accomplished linguist and philologist, as well as a scholar of Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature and Norse folklore, b
Designer Bookbinders is one of the foremost bookbinding societies and its International Bookbinding Competition in association with Mark Getty and the Bodleian Library continues to attract top binders
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
Early manuscripts in the English language included religious works, plays, romances, poetry, and songs, as well as charms, notebooks, and scientific documents. Given this vast array, how did scribes c
From Arthur Conan Doyle to Charles Dickens, Colin Dexter to Kenneth Grahame, writers and artists have often taken inspiration from the River Thames. Gathering poetry, artwork, and short excerpts from
Many beautiful illuminated manuscripts survive from the Middle Ages and can be seen in libraries and museums throughout Europe. But who were the skilled craftsmen who made these exquisite books? What
Since its founding, the Bodleian Library has become home to treasures from throughout history and every corner of the globe. From among this remarkable and historically rich collection, David Vaisey h
Ambrose Bierce, journalist and former soldier for the Union army in the Civil War, began writing satirical definitions for the San Francisco Wasp in 1881, and later for the San Francisco Examiner, lau
The University of Oxford is the third-oldest university in Europe and remains one of the greatest universities in the world. Institutions have waxed and waned over the centuries, but Oxford has always
Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1815–52), daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron and the highly educated Anne Isabella, is sometimes called the world’s first computer programmer, and she has
A niece of Jane Austen and a novelist herself, Catherine Hubback was fifty-two years old when she left England for America. She travelled to California on the Transcontinental Railroad and settled in
