The fantastical fictional land of Narnia, famously reached via a magical wardrobe, has many connections to the world in which its creator C. S. Lewis lived. The influence of Oxford can be seen not only in medieval buildings and towers but also in the...

Franz Kafka died in 1924, when he was not yet forty. During his life he published only seven small books, but he left behind three unfinished novels and a mass of stories, reflections and personal writings which were published after his death. His no...

Artist Eric Ravilious's stunning illustrative interpretation of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night". Together with a newly commissioned introduction, this book includes a facsimile of one of artist Eric Ravilious's finest illustrated works, William Shakes...

An illumination of writing's mysteries through examining the words and ideas that were edited out of renowned novels, poems, and plays. Imagine looking over your favorite author's shoulder and witnessing the moment they begin writing the opening cha...

The Geoffrey Chaucer of this book is not the Father of English Literature that you think you know. In this wide-ranging collection of essays you will find wartime Chaucer, postcolonial Chaucer, feminist Chaucer, misogynist Chaucer, radical Chaucer an...

The less it is part of everyday life, the more the appeal of handwriting grows. This wonderful selection of treasures from the Bodleian Library introduces remarkable individuals through documents written by their own hands. From the second century BC...

Words of wisdom and advice for leading a good life have long been part of society, handed down from one generation to the next. Plenty of these wise observations originated from the philosophers of Ancient Greece and Rome, and went on to circulate wi...

In late November 1623, Edward Blount finally took delivery to his bookshop at the sign of the Black Bear near St Paul's a book that had been long in the making. Master William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies was the first collected e...

Every individual book has a history which can help us to understand what difference it may have made in the world. Within these pages you will find books damaged by bullets or graffiti, recovered from fire or water, or even disguised as completely di...

The First Folio – the celebrated collected edition of William Shakespeare's plays – was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. It was compiled by John Heminge and Henry Condell, both actors in Shakespeare's company, the King's Men,...