A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY19 start with S start with S
Sarah Angelina Acland (1849–1930) is one of the most important photographers of the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Born to a preeminent English family, Acland first gained note as a portraitist whose illustrious subjects—among them two prime ministers, the physicist Lord Kelvin, and the noted art critic John Ruskin—were visitors to her family’s Oxford home. Yet it was through her work in the thenfledgling field of color photography that Acland achieved her greatest acclaim. When her color photographs were shown at the Royal Photographic Society in 1905, many considered them to be among the finest work produced in the new medium.
An introduction to Acland’s entire body of work, this volume contains more than two hundred previously unpublished examples of her photographs, spanning portraiture, studies of Oxford architecture, and landscape and garden photographs captured in Madeira, Portugal. Additional images include four unrecorded portraits by Lewis Carroll of Acland and her brothers—shed light on the work of her contemporaries, including acquaintances and artistic influences like Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron. A fascinating look at the earliest days of color photography, this book also offers a glimpse into the lives of an influential English family and its circle of friends.
Throughout World War I, spymasters and their networks of secret agents developed many clever—and sometimes comical—methods of covert communication. Stacks of bread in a bakery window, puffs of smoke from a chimney, and even woolen pullovers were all used to pass on secret messages that were decipherable only to the well-trained eye. Drawing on the memoirs of eight spies, Melanie King divulges these and other tricks of the trade while sharing details from their astonishing stories. Among her informants are British intelligence officers working undercover in Germany and France, including a former Metropolitan police officer who once hunted Jack the Ripper; a German secret service officer codenamed “Agricola;” an American newspaperman; and an Austrian agent who disguised himself during his career as everything from a Jewish peddler to a Russian officer.
A fascinating compendium of clever and long-forgotten ruses—interspersed with the stories of the spies themselves—Secrets in a Dead Fish sheds new light on the shadowy world of Great War espionage.
Exploring the commercial aims of the Ming Dynasty, the port city of Quanzhou and its connections with the voyages of the early traveler Zheng He, this book describes the historical background of the era in which the map was used. It also includes an analysis of the skills and techniques involved in Chinese map-making and the significance of the compass bearings, scale, and ratios found on the map, all of which combine to represent a breakthrough in cartographic techniques.
The enthralling story revealed by this extraordinary artifact sheds light on the long history of China’s relationship with the sea and with the wider world.
A Shakespearean Botanical follows in the tradition of the medieval and Renaissance herbal, touring the Bard’s remarkable knowledge of the fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers of Tudor and Jacobean England through fifty quotations from his plays and verse poems. Each of the entries is beautifully illustrated with hand-colored renderings from the work of Shakespeare’s contemporary, herbalist John Gerard, making an appropriate pairing with his writing, along with a brief text setting the quotation within the context of the medicine, cooking, and gardening of the time.
The book’s many beautifully reproduced images are a pleasure to look at, and Margaret Willes’s well-chosen quotations and expert knowledge of Shakespeare’s England provide readers with a fascinating insight into daily life. The book will make an inspiring addition to the Shakespeare lover’s bookshelf, as well as capitvate anyone with a passion for plants or botanical art.
Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Shakespeare’s Dead documents the many ways Shakespeare’s characters meet their demise, from suicide to murder, from death by workaday dagger to the more creative method of being baked and fed to one’s family in a meat pie. Through these examples, Simon Palfrey and Emma Smith show Shakespeare’s mastery at choreographing death as a means of rediscovery. Some characters refuse to go quietly, dying in stages, as in Nick Bottom’s performance as Pyramus killing himself with much flourish in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Others are remembered in elegies, and still others are resurrected or reappear as ghosts. Shakespeare’s death scenes also often speak to the boundaries between theater and everyday life, with funerals and scenes of mourning that are undercut by their staged inauthenticity.
Extensively illustrated with contemporary drawings and images from stage history, Shakespeare’s Dead takes readers through the playwright’s great death scenes and tragic figures, exploring in them the theme of life in death and delineating the cultural, religious, and social contexts.
It is difficult to think of a family more endowed with literary genius than the Shelley family—from the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife, novelist Mary Shelley, to Mary’s parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft—all were authors in their own right. Using extensive archival material, Shelley’s Ghost explores the making of this remarkable literary family’s reputation.
Drawing on the Bodleian Library’s outstanding collection of letters, poetry manuscripts, rare printed books, portraits, and other personalia—including Shelley’s working notebooks, Keats’s letters to Shelley, William Godwin’s diary, and the original manuscript of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—Stephen Hebron charts the history of this talented yet troubled family. After Percy Bysshe Shelley’s drowning in 1822, Mary published various manuscripts relating to both her husband’s and her father’s lives, and passed this historical legacy to her son, Sir Percy Florence Shelley and his wife, Lady Jane Shelley. As guardians of the archive until they bequeathed it to the Bodleian in 1892, Sir Percy Florence and Lady Jane helped shape the posthumous reputations of these writers. An afterword by Elizabeth Denlinger of the New York Public Library offers an additional perspective, exploring material relating to the Shelley family that slipped beyond the family’s control.
An unparalleled look at one of the most significant families of British Romantic literature, Shelley’s Ghost will be welcomed by scholars and the many fans of this enduring literacy legacy.
Four of the most well-known tales, translated by Laurence Housman, are reproduced in this collector’s edition: “Sindbad the Sailor,” “Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp,” “The Story of the Three Calendars” and “The Sleeper Awakened.” Each is illustrated with exquisite watercolors by the renowned artist Edmund Dulac. The sumptuous illustrations reproduced here capture the beauty and timeless quality of these ever-fascinating stories, made at the zenith of early twentieth-century book illustration.
More than fifty years before the question of slavery launched the United States into the bloody turmoil of the American Civil War, Britain wrestled passionately with the same issues. A flood of pamphlets published by both abolitionists and slavery proponents fueled the debate, and they are now collected here in this fascinating volume in commemoration of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, 1807.
Written during the 1780s and 1790s, the pamphlets confront the issues surrounding slavery, such as the Rights of Man, the economic health of the British colonies, poverty in England, and, most prominently, the economic and moral condition of the African slaves. The authors on both sides of the debate—including such prominent figures as the eventual King William IV, Sir John Gladstone (father of the future Prime Minister William Gladstone), and the leading abolitionist William Wilberforce—draw upon biblical scriptures to justify their positions, providing illuminating insights into the theological debates of the time as well. Also included in the volume are an excerpt of abolitionist James Ramsay’s journal and an informative introduction that places the writings in their historical and social contexts. The Slave Trade Debate is an essential resource for scholars of transatlantic slavery and British history.
Sleepy Book by Charlotte Zolotow invites young readers to explore bedtime in fields, forests, and other places animals make their homes. In the book, children will find many familiar favorites, like a flock of birds huddled for warmth, but they’re also sure to make new friends, from a snowy crane standing on one long leg to a tiny black spider fast asleep in its web. Each facing page contains a beautiful illustration by Vladimir Bobri.
Originally published in 1958, Sleepy Book is one of the most recent additions to the Bodleian Library’s children’s book imprint, and it’s the perfect story to read before saying goodnight.
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
The Owl and the Pussycat is only the most familiar of Edward Lear’s numerous nonsense verses, which have delighted millions worldwide for the last two centuries. Now his beloved verse and drawings are compiled here in a handsomely produced volume of classic material.
Leariana runs rampant in this enchanting treasury; readers encounter such indelible Lear creations as “snail mail,” while drawings of the Stripy Bird and images of the heroic and irrepressible Foss in heraldic poses are scattered throughout. Lear’s zany illustrations are reproduced here in their full vibrancy, and the goofily delightful art, including his illustrated nonsense alphabets, infuses Lear’s fanciful phrases and humorously incomprehensible limericks with their original liveliness and irresistible spirit. Rarely has the powerful charm and timeless appeal of Edward Lear’s work been available in such a beautifully produced edition, and So Much Nonsense is a gift that will unleash the imaginations of young and old alike.
Margaret’s piety, dignity, and compassion made her a beloved figure long after her death. Her illuminated manuscript reveals the depths of her sanctity, opening with a Latin poem relating the one miracle attributed to her, where she preserved this book from damage. Exquisite illustrations transform the script into an arresting treasure, and Rebecca Rushforth uses incisive and comprehensive commentary to explain the story behind the manuscript and set it within Margaret’s historical context. She explores both the creation of the manuscript and its special meaning for Margaret, along with Margaret’s role as a significant figure in British and world history.
A fascinating piece of historical art, St Margaret’s Gospel-Book will be treasured by historians, religious scholars, and classicists alike.
Drawing on copious new research, Staging History reexamines extraordinary theatrical works of the period to show the role they played in shaping popular interpretations of history. Editors Michael Burden, Wendy Heller, Jonathan Hicks, and Ellen Lockhart are joined by other experts in the field in analyzing theatrical documents, including playbills, set designs, and musical scores, as well as paintings, prints, and other illustrations, in order to explore what counted as historical truth for the writers, performers, and audiences of these plays.
Superstitions are surprisingly enduring. From dodging black cats to crossing one’s fingers while making a wish to an aversion to staff meetings on Friday the thirteenth, it is remarkable how many superstitions remain intact—even in this age of rationalism and swift scientific advancement.
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