Fonts are everywhere. You may even have a favorite serif or sans serif. But have you ever wondered who took the bold steps to create it? Behind every great font is a great story, and, in this fascinat
The life of Jane Austen has fascinated the millions of readers around the world who cherish her work. A new collection presents an intimate portrait of Austen through her personal possessions, showing
Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. That’s Pliny the Younger, writing to Tacitus
A royal physician and fellow of the Royal Society, Martin Lister was an extraordinarily prolific natural historian with an expertise in shells and mollusks. Disappointed with the work of established a
For a zitty face: take urine eight days old and heat it over the fire; wash your face with it morning and night. In late medieval England, ordinary people, apothecaries, and physicians gathered up pra
Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1815–52), daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron and the highly educated Anne Isabella, is sometimes called the world’s first computer programmer, and she has
There are many things cats can do that children can’t, such as lap up milk, leap double the length of their bodies, and use their tongues as combs. There are also a number of things that cats ca
The adventures of Mole, Ratty, Mr. Toad, and Mr. Badger—and their tangles with the Weasels—have been adored by children for more than a century. Yet, with its oddly bureaucratic town drama
Evelyn Waugh’s Oxford years were so formative that the city never left him, appearing again and again in his novels in various forms. This book explores in rich visual detail the abiding importa
“Invention … does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos”—Mary Shelley In the two hundred years since its first publication, the story of Frankenstein’s c
What can be found in the Vatican’s Secret Archive? How many books did Charles Darwin’s library aboard the Beagle hold? Which library is home to a colony of bats? Bursting with potted histo
Heath Robinson (1872–1944) is Britain’s “Gadget King”—master of the art of creating madcap contraptions that made use of ropes, weights, and pulleys to perform relatively
Ambrose Bierce, journalist and former soldier for the Union army in the Civil War, began writing satirical definitions for the San Francisco Wasp in 1881, and later for the San Francisco Examiner, lau
The (very) hungry goat has a big appetite that gets him into all kinds of adventures. He’ll eat anything, from pig swill to flies, bugs, and bees; from frying pans to barbed wire and the bark of
Since its founding, the Bodleian Library has become home to treasures from throughout history and every corner of the globe. From among this remarkable and historically rich collection, David Vaisey h
