There are so many health benefits associated with reading books, and for your information, not just any books. You’ll want to ensure that the books you feed your mind with are enriching, relative, and expansive. Reading has been shown to help reduce stress, boost cognitive functions, and an overall improvement in your wellness. However, finding[…]
He continued to expand the Harleian Library with thousands of manuscripts. One of the many gems of the British Library is the Harleian collection, founded by Robert Harley, Lord High Treasurer and 1st Earl of Oxford, and his son, Edward (1689–1741), 2nd Earl of Oxford. It’s the largest intact 18th-century manuscript collection in the world,[…]
These deluxe bindings are known as treasure bindings, because of their lavish and high-quality materials and craftsmanship. We tend to focus on the inside of the Library’s collection items, on their varied texts and remarkable illustrations. But the physical outside of a manuscript can be just as intriguing. Most medieval and early modern manuscripts no[…]
A film about the world of New York antiquarian book dealers. By Ella TaylorFilm and Book Critic As we hurtle closer to a time when little kids will look up from their tablets to inquire, “What was a book, Mommy?” much as they now ask, “What’s a record player?,” it may cheer you to learn,[…]
The Bibliophile’s vision of the bookless future is in some ways prescient. This article, Octave Uzanne’s “The End of Books” (1894), was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/legal/ The end of books has been declared many times. Over a century before[…]
Locke’s method built on a long tradition of commonplace note taking, most famously John Milton’s from the middle of the century. This article, John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books (1685), was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/legal/ Popular in the seventeenth[…]
Writing methods and tools are evolved from wood and clay to pen and paper, and then from pen and paper to typewriter and computer. As you can say now, from the days of carving stories on the walls of the cave, this act of writing was part of human culture. With the evolution of human[…]
In the 19th century, more people were reading more publications than ever before. This explains how technological, social and educational change made this possible. Introduction The 19th century saw a massive expansion of the printed word. The sheer volume and diversity of printed matter was unprecedented: from moral and instructional works to crime novels and[…]
Exploring the way Victorians bought, borrowed and read their books, and the impact of the popular literature of the period. Introduction Victorians were great readers of the novel, and the number of novels available for them to read increased enormously during Victoria’s reign. The activity of reading benefited hugely from wider schooling and increased literacy[…]
The early years of printing in Western Europe was a time of astonishing productivity. Originally published by the United States Library of Congress to the public domain.
Throughout his life, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) collected books across a vast spectrum of topics and languages. Introduction Throughout his life, books were vital to Thomas Jefferson’s education and well being. His books provided Jefferson with a broader knowledge of the contemporary and ancient worlds than many of his contemporaries had obtained through personal experience. Jefferson’s[…]
The discovery of lapis lazuli pigment preserved in the dental calculus of a religious woman in Germany radiocarbon-dated to the 11th or early 12th century, a rare pigment used in illuminated manuscripts. By Dr. Anita Radini (et.al.)Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in Medical HumanitiesUniversity of York Abstract During the European Middle Ages, the opening of long-distance[…]
The codex didn’t catch on until surprisingly late in the ancient world. By Benjamin HarnettClassics Scholar A codex is just the Roman name for a book, made of pages, and usually bound on the left. Its predecessor was the scroll or book roll, which was unrolled as you read. The codex is manifestly superior: one[…]
Did you know that a man named “John Gooseflesh” changed the world? Did you know that a man named “John Gooseflesh” changed the world?Johann Gensfleisch, which in English is John Gooseflesh, was born in the city of Mainz, Germany, around 1397 CE. However, by the time Johann started school, he went by the name Gutenberg[…]
In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, reading was a privileged skill available to the upper-class elite. This began to change with publishing and more access to education. The History of Reading In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, reading was a privileged skill available to the upper-class elite. Books were very expensive items and most of[…]