Author: R. E Pritchard
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750952822
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
A collection of some of the best, wittiest and most unusual excerpts from 16th- and 17th-century writing. "Shakespeare's England" brings to life the variety, the energy and the harsh reality of England at this time. Providing a portrait of the age, it includes extracts from a wide variety of writers, taken from books, plays, poems, letters, diaries and pamphlets by and about Shakespeare's contemporaries. These include William Harrison and Fynes Moryson (providing descriptions of England), Nicholas Breton (on country life), Isabella Whitney and Thomas Dekker (on London life), Nashe (on struggling writers), Stubbes (with a Puritan view of Elizabethan enjoyments), Harsnet and Burton (on witches and spirits), John Donne (meditations on prayer and death), King James I (on tobacco) and Shakespeare himself.
Shakespeare's England
Author: R. E Pritchard
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750952822
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
A collection of some of the best, wittiest and most unusual excerpts from 16th- and 17th-century writing. "Shakespeare's England" brings to life the variety, the energy and the harsh reality of England at this time. Providing a portrait of the age, it includes extracts from a wide variety of writers, taken from books, plays, poems, letters, diaries and pamphlets by and about Shakespeare's contemporaries. These include William Harrison and Fynes Moryson (providing descriptions of England), Nicholas Breton (on country life), Isabella Whitney and Thomas Dekker (on London life), Nashe (on struggling writers), Stubbes (with a Puritan view of Elizabethan enjoyments), Harsnet and Burton (on witches and spirits), John Donne (meditations on prayer and death), King James I (on tobacco) and Shakespeare himself.
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750952822
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
A collection of some of the best, wittiest and most unusual excerpts from 16th- and 17th-century writing. "Shakespeare's England" brings to life the variety, the energy and the harsh reality of England at this time. Providing a portrait of the age, it includes extracts from a wide variety of writers, taken from books, plays, poems, letters, diaries and pamphlets by and about Shakespeare's contemporaries. These include William Harrison and Fynes Moryson (providing descriptions of England), Nicholas Breton (on country life), Isabella Whitney and Thomas Dekker (on London life), Nashe (on struggling writers), Stubbes (with a Puritan view of Elizabethan enjoyments), Harsnet and Burton (on witches and spirits), John Donne (meditations on prayer and death), King James I (on tobacco) and Shakespeare himself.
Shakespeare's First Reader
Author: Jason Scott-Warren
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812296346
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Richard Stonley has all but vanished from history, but to his contemporaries he would have been an enviable figure. A clerk of the Exchequer for more than four decades under Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I, he rose from obscure origins to a life of opulence; his job, a secure bureaucratic post with a guaranteed income, was the kind of which many men dreamed. Vast sums of money passed through his hands, some of which he used to engage in moneylending and land speculation. He also bought books, lots of them, amassing one of the largest libraries in early modern London. In 1597, all of this was brought to a halt when Stonley, aged around seventy-seven, was incarcerated in the Fleet Prison, convicted of embezzling the spectacular sum of £13,000 from the Exchequer. His property was sold off, and an inventory was made of his house on Aldersgate Street. This provides our most detailed guide to his lost library. By chance, we also have three handwritten volumes of accounts, in which he earlier itemized his spending on food, clothing, travel, and books. It is here that we learn that on June 12, 1593, he bought "the Venus & Adhonay per Shakspere"—the earliest known record of a purchase of Shakespeare's first publication. In Shakespeare's First Reader, Jason Scott-Warren sets Stonley's journals and inventories of goods alongside a wealth of archival evidence to put his life and library back together again. He shows how Stonley's books were integral to the material worlds he inhabited and the social networks he formed with communities of merchants, printers, recusants, and spies. Through a combination of book history and biography, Shakespeare's First Reader provides a compelling "bio-bibliography"—the story of how one early modern gentleman lived in and through his library.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812296346
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Richard Stonley has all but vanished from history, but to his contemporaries he would have been an enviable figure. A clerk of the Exchequer for more than four decades under Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I, he rose from obscure origins to a life of opulence; his job, a secure bureaucratic post with a guaranteed income, was the kind of which many men dreamed. Vast sums of money passed through his hands, some of which he used to engage in moneylending and land speculation. He also bought books, lots of them, amassing one of the largest libraries in early modern London. In 1597, all of this was brought to a halt when Stonley, aged around seventy-seven, was incarcerated in the Fleet Prison, convicted of embezzling the spectacular sum of £13,000 from the Exchequer. His property was sold off, and an inventory was made of his house on Aldersgate Street. This provides our most detailed guide to his lost library. By chance, we also have three handwritten volumes of accounts, in which he earlier itemized his spending on food, clothing, travel, and books. It is here that we learn that on June 12, 1593, he bought "the Venus & Adhonay per Shakspere"—the earliest known record of a purchase of Shakespeare's first publication. In Shakespeare's First Reader, Jason Scott-Warren sets Stonley's journals and inventories of goods alongside a wealth of archival evidence to put his life and library back together again. He shows how Stonley's books were integral to the material worlds he inhabited and the social networks he formed with communities of merchants, printers, recusants, and spies. Through a combination of book history and biography, Shakespeare's First Reader provides a compelling "bio-bibliography"—the story of how one early modern gentleman lived in and through his library.
Shakespeare’s Library
Author: Stuart Kells
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 192562675X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world’s most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare’s library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the bard’s manuscripts, books or letters has ever been found. The search for Shakespeare’s library is much more than a treasure hunt. The library’s fate has profound implications for literature, for national and cultural identity, and for the global Shakespeare industry. It bears upon fundamental principles of art, identity, history, meaning and truth. Unfolding the search like the mystery story that it is, acclaimed author Stuart Kells follows the trail of the hunters, taking us through different conceptions of the library and of the man himself. Entertaining and enlightening, Shakespeare’s Library is a captivating exploration of one of literature’s most enduring enigmas. Stuart Kells is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 book Penguin and the Lane Brothers won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. An authority on rare books, he has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world. Stuart lives in Melbourne with his family. 'Stuart Kells presents a fascinating and persuasive new paradigm that challenges our preconceptions about the Bard’s literary talent.’ Age ‘A delight to read, a wonderful piece of erudition and dazzling detective work.’ David Astle, Evenings on ABC Radio Melbourne ‘An excellent and incredibly fascinating read.’ 3RRR Backstory 'A fascinating examination of a persistent literary mystery.’ Publishers Weekly ‘Kells’s reflections are wonderfully romantic, wryly funny...There’s no doubt we can all learn a lot from the magnificently obsessive and eloquent Kells.’ Australian on The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders ‘Kells is a magnificent guide to the abundant treasures he sets out.’ Mathilda Imlah, Australian Book Review on The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders ‘If you think you know what a library is, this marvellously idiosyncratic book will make you think again. After visiting hundreds of libraries around the world and in the realm of the imagination, bibliophile and rare-book collector Stuart Kells has compiled an enchanting compendium of well-told tales and musings both on the physical and metaphysical dimensions of these multi-storied places.’ Age on The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 192562675X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world’s most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare’s library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the bard’s manuscripts, books or letters has ever been found. The search for Shakespeare’s library is much more than a treasure hunt. The library’s fate has profound implications for literature, for national and cultural identity, and for the global Shakespeare industry. It bears upon fundamental principles of art, identity, history, meaning and truth. Unfolding the search like the mystery story that it is, acclaimed author Stuart Kells follows the trail of the hunters, taking us through different conceptions of the library and of the man himself. Entertaining and enlightening, Shakespeare’s Library is a captivating exploration of one of literature’s most enduring enigmas. Stuart Kells is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 book Penguin and the Lane Brothers won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. An authority on rare books, he has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world. Stuart lives in Melbourne with his family. 'Stuart Kells presents a fascinating and persuasive new paradigm that challenges our preconceptions about the Bard’s literary talent.’ Age ‘A delight to read, a wonderful piece of erudition and dazzling detective work.’ David Astle, Evenings on ABC Radio Melbourne ‘An excellent and incredibly fascinating read.’ 3RRR Backstory 'A fascinating examination of a persistent literary mystery.’ Publishers Weekly ‘Kells’s reflections are wonderfully romantic, wryly funny...There’s no doubt we can all learn a lot from the magnificently obsessive and eloquent Kells.’ Australian on The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders ‘Kells is a magnificent guide to the abundant treasures he sets out.’ Mathilda Imlah, Australian Book Review on The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders ‘If you think you know what a library is, this marvellously idiosyncratic book will make you think again. After visiting hundreds of libraries around the world and in the realm of the imagination, bibliophile and rare-book collector Stuart Kells has compiled an enchanting compendium of well-told tales and musings both on the physical and metaphysical dimensions of these multi-storied places.’ Age on The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Fooles and Fricassees
Author: Joan Thirsk
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
* Contains a fascinating array of manuscript and printed materials documenting not only what people ate but where the food came from, how it was grown, preserved, seasoned, and served, and what people believed about various foods' benefits to their health
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
* Contains a fascinating array of manuscript and printed materials documenting not only what people ate but where the food came from, how it was grown, preserved, seasoned, and served, and what people believed about various foods' benefits to their health
Christmas in Shakespeare's England
Author:
Publisher: Sutton Publishing
ISBN: 9780750917193
Category : Christmas
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This anthology recalls Christmas in Shakespeare's day, when it was an expansive festival, dominated by strict religious observance on the day itself, but including a long season of merrymaking, feasting and, most important of all, masques and plays. Also included are little-known delights such as the story of how Elizabeth I interrupted Shakespeare's performance by walking across the stage and dropping a glove at his feet and how the barristers at Inns of Court danced before the judges.
Publisher: Sutton Publishing
ISBN: 9780750917193
Category : Christmas
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This anthology recalls Christmas in Shakespeare's day, when it was an expansive festival, dominated by strict religious observance on the day itself, but including a long season of merrymaking, feasting and, most important of all, masques and plays. Also included are little-known delights such as the story of how Elizabeth I interrupted Shakespeare's performance by walking across the stage and dropping a glove at his feet and how the barristers at Inns of Court danced before the judges.
Illyria in Shakespeare’s England
Author: Lea Puljcan Juric
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1683931777
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Illyria in Shakespeare’s England is the first extended study of the eastern Adriatic region, often referred to in the Renaissance by its Graeco-Roman name “Illyria,” in early modern English writing and political thought. At first glance the absence of earlier studies may not be surprising: that area may seem significant only to critics pursuing certain specialized questions about Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which is set in Illyria. But in fact, it is not only often misrepresented in the discussions of that play but also typically ignored in the critical conversation on English prose romances, poems, and other plays that feature Illyria or its peoples, some rarely read, others well-known, including Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, 2 Henry VI, Measure for Measure, and Cymbeline. Lea Puljcan Juric explores the reasons for such views by engaging with larger questions of interest to many critics who focus on subjects other than geographic regions, such as “othering,” religion, race, and the development of national identity, among other issues. She also broadens the conversation on these familiar problems in the field to include the impact of post-Renaissance notions of the Balkans on the erasure of Illyria from Shakespeare studies. Puljcan Juric studies the encounters of the English with the ancient and early modern Illyrians through their Greek and Roman heritage; geographies, histories, and travelogues, written in a variety of European polities including Illyria itself; religious conflict after the Reformation and the threat of Islam; and international politics and commerce. These considerations show how Illyria’s geopolitical position among the Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Empire and Venice, its “national” struggles as well as its cultural heterogeneity figured in English interests in the eastern Mediterranean, and informed English ideas about ethnicity, nationhood, and religion. In Shakespeare studies, however, critics have consistently cast Twelfth Night’s Illyria as a utopia, an enigma, or a substitute for England, Italy, or Greece. Arguing that twentieth-century politics and negative conceptions of the eastern Adriatic as part of “the Balkans” have underwritten this erasure of Illyria from our perspective on the field, Puljcan Juric shows how entrenched cultural hierarchies tied to elitism and colonial politics still inform our analyses of literature. She invites scholars to recognize that, for Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Illyria is the site of important socio-political and cultural struggles during the period, some shared with neighboring areas, others geographically specific, that invite dynamic historical and literary scrutiny.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1683931777
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Illyria in Shakespeare’s England is the first extended study of the eastern Adriatic region, often referred to in the Renaissance by its Graeco-Roman name “Illyria,” in early modern English writing and political thought. At first glance the absence of earlier studies may not be surprising: that area may seem significant only to critics pursuing certain specialized questions about Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which is set in Illyria. But in fact, it is not only often misrepresented in the discussions of that play but also typically ignored in the critical conversation on English prose romances, poems, and other plays that feature Illyria or its peoples, some rarely read, others well-known, including Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, 2 Henry VI, Measure for Measure, and Cymbeline. Lea Puljcan Juric explores the reasons for such views by engaging with larger questions of interest to many critics who focus on subjects other than geographic regions, such as “othering,” religion, race, and the development of national identity, among other issues. She also broadens the conversation on these familiar problems in the field to include the impact of post-Renaissance notions of the Balkans on the erasure of Illyria from Shakespeare studies. Puljcan Juric studies the encounters of the English with the ancient and early modern Illyrians through their Greek and Roman heritage; geographies, histories, and travelogues, written in a variety of European polities including Illyria itself; religious conflict after the Reformation and the threat of Islam; and international politics and commerce. These considerations show how Illyria’s geopolitical position among the Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Empire and Venice, its “national” struggles as well as its cultural heterogeneity figured in English interests in the eastern Mediterranean, and informed English ideas about ethnicity, nationhood, and religion. In Shakespeare studies, however, critics have consistently cast Twelfth Night’s Illyria as a utopia, an enigma, or a substitute for England, Italy, or Greece. Arguing that twentieth-century politics and negative conceptions of the eastern Adriatic as part of “the Balkans” have underwritten this erasure of Illyria from our perspective on the field, Puljcan Juric shows how entrenched cultural hierarchies tied to elitism and colonial politics still inform our analyses of literature. She invites scholars to recognize that, for Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Illyria is the site of important socio-political and cultural struggles during the period, some shared with neighboring areas, others geographically specific, that invite dynamic historical and literary scrutiny.
A Will to Believe
Author: David Scott Kastan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199572895
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
A Will to Believe is a revised version of Kastan's 2008 Oxford Wells Shakespeare Lectures, providing a provocative account of the ways in which religion animates Shakespeare's plays.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199572895
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
A Will to Believe is a revised version of Kastan's 2008 Oxford Wells Shakespeare Lectures, providing a provocative account of the ways in which religion animates Shakespeare's plays.
Death By Shakespeare
Author: Kathryn Harkup
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472958241
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
William Shakespeare found dozens of different ways to kill off his characters, and audiences today still enjoy the same reactions – shock, sadness, fear – that they did more than 400 years ago when these plays were first performed. But how realistic are these deaths, and did Shakespeare have the knowledge to back them up? In the Bard's day death was a part of everyday life. Plague, pestilence and public executions were a common occurrence, and the chances of seeing a dead or dying body on the way home from the theatre were high. It was also a time of important scientific progress. Shakespeare kept pace with anatomical and medical advances, and he included the latest scientific discoveries in his work, from blood circulation to treatments for syphilis. He certainly didn't shy away from portraying the reality of death on stage, from the brutal to the mundane, and the spectacular to the silly. Elizabethan London provides the backdrop for Death by Shakespeare, as Kathryn Harkup turns her discerning scientific eye to the Bard and the varied and creative ways his characters die. Was death by snakebite as serene as Shakespeare makes out? Could lack of sleep have killed Lady Macbeth? Can you really murder someone by pouring poison in their ear? Kathryn investigates what actual events may have inspired Shakespeare, what the accepted scientific knowledge of the time was, and how Elizabethan audiences would have responded to these death scenes. Death by Shakespeare will tell you all this and more in a rollercoaster of Elizabethan carnage, poison, swordplay and bloodshed, with an occasional death by bear-mauling for good measure.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472958241
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
William Shakespeare found dozens of different ways to kill off his characters, and audiences today still enjoy the same reactions – shock, sadness, fear – that they did more than 400 years ago when these plays were first performed. But how realistic are these deaths, and did Shakespeare have the knowledge to back them up? In the Bard's day death was a part of everyday life. Plague, pestilence and public executions were a common occurrence, and the chances of seeing a dead or dying body on the way home from the theatre were high. It was also a time of important scientific progress. Shakespeare kept pace with anatomical and medical advances, and he included the latest scientific discoveries in his work, from blood circulation to treatments for syphilis. He certainly didn't shy away from portraying the reality of death on stage, from the brutal to the mundane, and the spectacular to the silly. Elizabethan London provides the backdrop for Death by Shakespeare, as Kathryn Harkup turns her discerning scientific eye to the Bard and the varied and creative ways his characters die. Was death by snakebite as serene as Shakespeare makes out? Could lack of sleep have killed Lady Macbeth? Can you really murder someone by pouring poison in their ear? Kathryn investigates what actual events may have inspired Shakespeare, what the accepted scientific knowledge of the time was, and how Elizabethan audiences would have responded to these death scenes. Death by Shakespeare will tell you all this and more in a rollercoaster of Elizabethan carnage, poison, swordplay and bloodshed, with an occasional death by bear-mauling for good measure.
England and the Jews
Author: Geraldine Heng
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108698182
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
For three centuries, a mixture of religion, violence, and economic conditions created a fertile matrix in Western Europe that racialized an entire diasporic population who lived in the urban centers of the Latin West: Jews. This Element explores how religion and violence, visited on Jewish bodies and Jewish lives, coalesced to create the first racial state in the history of the West. It is an example of how the methods and conceptual frames of postcolonial and race studies, when applied to the study of religion, can be productive of scholarship that rewrites the foundational history of the past.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108698182
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
For three centuries, a mixture of religion, violence, and economic conditions created a fertile matrix in Western Europe that racialized an entire diasporic population who lived in the urban centers of the Latin West: Jews. This Element explores how religion and violence, visited on Jewish bodies and Jewish lives, coalesced to create the first racial state in the history of the West. It is an example of how the methods and conceptual frames of postcolonial and race studies, when applied to the study of religion, can be productive of scholarship that rewrites the foundational history of the past.
The Library
Author: Stuart Kells
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1925410366
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
‘Almost like poetry, a rich ode to all things books and everything we love about them. The enjoyment and engagement is so palpable you can almost taste it and Kells proves to be the perfect guide through the subject matter and history.’ AU Review Libraries are filled with magic. From the Bodleian, the Folger and the Smithsonian to the fabled libraries of Middle-earth, Umberto Eco’s mediaeval library labyrinth and libraries dreamed up by John Donne, Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Stuart Kells explores the bookish places, real and fictitious, that continue to capture our imaginations. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It’s a celebration of books as objects and an account of the deeply personal nature of these hallowed spaces by one of Australia’s leading bibliophiles. Stuart Kells is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 book, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. An authority on rare books, he has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world. Stuart lives in Melbourne with his family. He is writing a book about Shakespeare’s library. ‘Libraries are filled with magic. From the Bodleian, the Folger and the Smithsonian to the fabled libraries of middle earth, Umberto Eco's mediaeval library labyrinth and libraries dreamed up by John Donne, Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Stuart Kells explores the bookish places, real and fictitious, that continue to capture our imaginations. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It's a celebration of books as objects and an account of the deeply personal nature of these hallowed spaces by one of Australia's leading bibliophiles.’ Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2018, Judges' comments ‘If you think you know what a library is, this marvellously idiosyncratic book will make you think again. After visiting hundreds of libraries around the world and in the realm of imagination, bibliophile and rare-book collector Stuart Kells has compiled an enchanting compendium of well-told tales and musings both on the physical and metaphysical dimensions of these multi-storied places.’ Age ‘On a vivid tour of the world’s great libraries, both real and imagined, Kells is a magnificent guide to the abundant treasures he sets out.’ Mathilda Imlah, Australian Book Review, 2017 Publisher Picks ‘The Library charts the transition between formats such as papyrus scrolls, parchment codices, moveable type and ebooks. There are many whimsical detours along the way, and Kells even devotes a chapter to fantasy libraries...Kells translates his stunning depth of research into breezy digestibility.’ Big Issue ‘The Library is a treasure trove and reaching the last page simply prompts an impassioned cry for more of the same.’ Otago Daily Times ‘Rich with gossipy tales of the inspired, crazy, brilliant and terrible people who have founded or encountered libraries through history...Kells’s reflections are wonderfully romantic, wryly funny...There’s no doubt we can all learn a lot from the magnificently obsessive and eloquent Kells.’ Australian ‘With The Library, Stuart Kells has written a deft and involving book that manages to balance the erudite with the accessible...There is, in any given chapter, a dozen odd details or compelling stories a reader can only hope to memorise, with an eye towards future use (perfectly timed and skilfully deployed, naturally).’ Monthly ‘There is so much to learn and enjoy in this book, with the impressive amount of research never weighing down the accessible writing...Kells makes an elegant plea for the future library—one that will resonate with most book lovers.’ Good Reading ‘A sprightly cabinet of bookish curiosities.’ Jane Sullivan, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Kells proves a generous guide, taking us on a whirlwind tour through several thousand years of book history.’ Australian Book Review ‘The Library abounds in fascinating tales of lost codices and found manuscripts, and the sometimes unscrupulous schemes by which people have conspired to obtain or amass valuable volumes.’ New York Times
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1925410366
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
‘Almost like poetry, a rich ode to all things books and everything we love about them. The enjoyment and engagement is so palpable you can almost taste it and Kells proves to be the perfect guide through the subject matter and history.’ AU Review Libraries are filled with magic. From the Bodleian, the Folger and the Smithsonian to the fabled libraries of Middle-earth, Umberto Eco’s mediaeval library labyrinth and libraries dreamed up by John Donne, Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Stuart Kells explores the bookish places, real and fictitious, that continue to capture our imaginations. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It’s a celebration of books as objects and an account of the deeply personal nature of these hallowed spaces by one of Australia’s leading bibliophiles. Stuart Kells is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 book, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. An authority on rare books, he has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world. Stuart lives in Melbourne with his family. He is writing a book about Shakespeare’s library. ‘Libraries are filled with magic. From the Bodleian, the Folger and the Smithsonian to the fabled libraries of middle earth, Umberto Eco's mediaeval library labyrinth and libraries dreamed up by John Donne, Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Stuart Kells explores the bookish places, real and fictitious, that continue to capture our imaginations. The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It's a celebration of books as objects and an account of the deeply personal nature of these hallowed spaces by one of Australia's leading bibliophiles.’ Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2018, Judges' comments ‘If you think you know what a library is, this marvellously idiosyncratic book will make you think again. After visiting hundreds of libraries around the world and in the realm of imagination, bibliophile and rare-book collector Stuart Kells has compiled an enchanting compendium of well-told tales and musings both on the physical and metaphysical dimensions of these multi-storied places.’ Age ‘On a vivid tour of the world’s great libraries, both real and imagined, Kells is a magnificent guide to the abundant treasures he sets out.’ Mathilda Imlah, Australian Book Review, 2017 Publisher Picks ‘The Library charts the transition between formats such as papyrus scrolls, parchment codices, moveable type and ebooks. There are many whimsical detours along the way, and Kells even devotes a chapter to fantasy libraries...Kells translates his stunning depth of research into breezy digestibility.’ Big Issue ‘The Library is a treasure trove and reaching the last page simply prompts an impassioned cry for more of the same.’ Otago Daily Times ‘Rich with gossipy tales of the inspired, crazy, brilliant and terrible people who have founded or encountered libraries through history...Kells’s reflections are wonderfully romantic, wryly funny...There’s no doubt we can all learn a lot from the magnificently obsessive and eloquent Kells.’ Australian ‘With The Library, Stuart Kells has written a deft and involving book that manages to balance the erudite with the accessible...There is, in any given chapter, a dozen odd details or compelling stories a reader can only hope to memorise, with an eye towards future use (perfectly timed and skilfully deployed, naturally).’ Monthly ‘There is so much to learn and enjoy in this book, with the impressive amount of research never weighing down the accessible writing...Kells makes an elegant plea for the future library—one that will resonate with most book lovers.’ Good Reading ‘A sprightly cabinet of bookish curiosities.’ Jane Sullivan, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Kells proves a generous guide, taking us on a whirlwind tour through several thousand years of book history.’ Australian Book Review ‘The Library abounds in fascinating tales of lost codices and found manuscripts, and the sometimes unscrupulous schemes by which people have conspired to obtain or amass valuable volumes.’ New York Times