Wonderful Things from 400 Years of Collecting

Taking its title from Howard Carter's famous description of what he saw when he first glimpsed the treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, this book offers a timeless portrait of highlights representing the range of the Bodleian Library's unique collections. The 'wonderful things' here are selected to show the extent, variety and quality of the Library's holdings and how they came to the Bodleian. The items span the range of the Library's collections and are imaginatively arranged, for example, discussing in a single chapter six books from six centuries, from Thomas Moore's Utopia to Ted Hughes' version of Aeschylus' trilogy. Each work is sumptuously displayed in full-page colour, with facing-page descriptions. Collectively, they offer a fascinating glimpse into the principles, history and future of collecting by a world-class institution, from the sixth century Laudian Gospels, a manuscript probably used by Bede himself, and the Oxford Roland, the earliest surviving masterpiece of French literature, to modern treasures, such as one of Tolkien's illustrations for The Hobbit and an early edition Eagle, the 1950s comic which told the story of Dan Dare, pilot of the future.