The Holywell room.

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.

A Wolfson History Prize Finalist A New Statesman Book of the Year A Sunday Times Book of the Year “Timely and authoritative...I enjoyed it immensely.” —Philip Pullman “If you care about books, and if you believe we must all stand up to the destruction of knowledge and cultural heritage, this is a brilliant read—both powerful and prescient.” —Elif Shafak Libraries have been attacked since ancient times but they have been especially threatened in the modern era, through war as well as willful neglect. Burning the Books describes the deliberate destruction of the knowledge safeguarded in libraries from Alexandria to Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets to the torching of the Library of Congress. The director of the world-famous Bodleian Libraries, Richard Ovenden, captures the political, religious, and cultural motivations behind these acts. He also shines a light on the librarians and archivists preserving history and memory, often risking their lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries support the rule of law and inspire and inform citizens. Ovenden reminds us of their social and political importance, challenging us to protect and support these essential institutions. “Wonderful...full of good stories and burning with passion.” —Sunday Times “The sound of a warning vibrates through this book.” —The Guardian “Essential reading for anyone concerned with libraries and what Ovenden outlines as their role in ‘the support of democracy, the rule of law and open society.’” —Wall Street Journal “Ovenden emphasizes that attacks on books, archives, and recorded information are the usual practice of authoritarian regimes.” —Michael Dirda, Washington Post

The liturgical psalter is one of the most important medieval Christian books and the most frequently and richly illuminated of medieval liturgical manuscripts. In its simplest form the psalter included 150 psalms, preceded by a calendar and followed by the canticles for the daily offices, the litany of saints and collects. This basic structure was very stable throughout the Middle Ages and is found in an overwhelming majority of psalters from different countries. In spite of the similarity of core content, psalters were very variable in their size, decoration, choice of supplementary texts and style of presentation, reflecting the interests and requirements of a wide range of lay and religious patrons.Latin Liturgical Psalters in the Bodleian Library contains descriptions of 111 psalters from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, ranging in date from the ninth to the sixteenth century. Each entry includes a description of contents, decoration, physical makeup and provenance, together with a bibliography. The entries are supplemented by comparative tables and indices to assist the study of illumination, manuscript presentation and the liturgical use of the psalms. Full colour images of pages from each of the manuscripts are also included, some of which are reproduced here for the first time. This catalogue brings together important information on a stunning selection of manuscripts held in the Bodleian Library, providing an invaluable resource for scholars.

Representing four centuries of collecting and 1000 years of Jewish history, this book brings together extraordinary Hebrew manuscripts and rare books from the Bodleian Library and Oxford colleges. Highlights of the collections include a fragment of Maimonides' autograph draft of the Mishneh Torah; the earliest dated fragment of the Talmud, exquisitely illuminated manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible; stunning festival prayerbooks and one of the oldest surviving Jewish seals in England. Lavishly illustrated essays by experts in the field bring to life the outstanding works contained in the collections, as well as the personalities and diverse motivations of their original collectors, who include Archbishop William Laud, John Selden, Edward Pococke, Robert Huntington, Venetian Jesuit Matteo Canonici, Benjamin Kennicott and Rabbi David Oppenheim. Saved for posterity by religious scholarship, intellectual rivalry and political ambition, these extraordinary collections also detail the consumption and circulation of knowledge across the centuries, forming a social and cultural history of objects moved across borders, from person to person. Together, they offer a fascinating journey through Jewish intellectual and social history from the tenth to the twentieth century.

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.