In the C13th, the largest library in Europe contained fewer than 2000 books. Baghdad alone contained five libraries with between 200,000 and a million books.
How did Oxford colleges, chapels, pubs, societies, nooks and crannies inspire Lewis and his friends? By the Professor of English Language and Literature at Magdalen. Some illustrations.
Contacts and connections as the drivers of cultural change: the West was built on far more than the values of ancient Greece and Rome, as per the Victorian paradigm. Erudite and compelling.
A vast array of material is expertly woven together in this illuminating look at embattled authors and their literature: Anne Frank, Orwell, Biggles...