The Holywell room.

The Junius Manuscript

The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

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 has selected nearly one hundred treasures with a particularly fascinating story to tell. Rare books, music, manuscripts, ephemera, and maps, many of the treasures photographed and described for this lavish volume are well-loved around the world, from Jane Austen's manuscript of The Watsons to notebooks created by the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a map of Narnia drawn by C. S. Lewis, and the original manuscript of the renowned children's work The Wind in the Willows. Others are known for their beauty or historical significance, including the Gutenberg Bible, Magna Carta, and the extraordinary medieval manuscript the Douce Apocalypse. Still others hold poignant stories like the small handwritten book presented as a New Year's present in 1545 to Katherine Parr by an eleven-year-old stepdaughter who would later become Queen Elizabeth I. Vaisey brings these and other treasures together in chronological order, showcasing the Bodleian Library's renowned collections.

How did a library founded over four hundred years ago grow to become the world-renowned institution it is today, home to over thirteen million items? From its foundation by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1598 to the opening of the Weston Library in 2015, this illustrated account shows how the Library's history has been involved with the British monarchy and political events throughout the centuries. The history of the Library is also a history of collectors and collections, and this book traces the story of major donations and purchases, making use of the Library's own substantial archives to show how it came to house key items such as early confirmations of the Magna Carta, Shakespeare's First Folio, and the manuscript of Jane Austen's earliest writings, among many others. This revised edition brings the history of the Bodleian Library up to the present moment. Beautifully illustrated with prints, portraits, manuscripts, and archival material, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of libraries and collections.

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.