Rediscovery of a 17th-century miscellany of Asian scripts

guest post by Dr Katja Triplett (Marburg/Leipzig) Original Manchu and Tibetan manuscripts, the models for two engraved plates in Thomas Hyde’s celebrated History of Religion of the Old Persians (1700), have been rediscovered in the Bodleian Library. The Bodleian Library is home to some of the earliest books printed with a European letter press on … Continue reading “Rediscovery of a 17th-century miscellany of Asian scripts”

Safavid Persian Qur’an: the Bodleian and Tipu Sultan’s library

by Devika ‘Tipu’s Tiger,’ the striking Indian automaton of a tiger mauling a red-coated European man, is now held in the V&A Museum. It was taken from the palace of the ruler of Mysore during the East India Company’s capture of Seringapatam on 4 May 1799. Equally remarkable and valuable was Tipu Sultan’s library, seized … Continue reading “Safavid Persian Qur’an: the Bodleian and Tipu Sultan’s library”

Copper plates in the Bodleian Libraries

The Bodleian Libraries hold several collections of copper plates dating from the 17th to 19th centuries, amounting to approximately 2000 individual pieces of copper. A brief overview and the available handlists can be found in the LibGuide to printing surfaces. The majority of these plates were made for book illustrations connected with published scholarship in … Continue reading “Copper plates in the Bodleian Libraries”

Persian Arts of the Book conference, July 2021, reuniting Bodleian Bahari Fellows

In July 2021 the Bodleian Libraries hosted a virtual reunion of scholars who spoke about their research into the Persian collections of the Bodleian Libraries. Over the past five years, through the Bahari Fellowship programme, scholars have visited the library to examine texts, paper, paintings, bindings, and provenance of manuscripts now in the Bodleian collections. … Continue reading “Persian Arts of the Book conference, July 2021, reuniting Bodleian Bahari Fellows”

Medieval manuscripts: how we are working from home

The Bodleian medieval manuscript specialists have been working from home. Watch this film, and read below, to learn how the online catalogue of medieval manuscripts is being improved, even at a distance from the manuscripts themselves. Take a digital tour of the online resources available to everyone, starting with medieval manuscripts in digital.bodleian, and make … Continue reading “Medieval manuscripts: how we are working from home”

The Bodleian Quarterly Record, Vol. I (1914-16); and Osler’s ‘Illustrations of the book-worm’

The Bodleian Quarterly Record began publication in the first quarter of 1914. The third issue recorded the outbreak of war in August 1914, and each of the following numbers in Volume I, covering 1914 to 1916, included printed lists of staff absent on war duty. Those absent included Miss Frances Underhill, https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley/news/2016/oct-18, one of the … Continue reading “The Bodleian Quarterly Record, Vol. I (1914-16); and Osler’s ‘Illustrations of the book-worm’”

Bodleian Master classes in 2015-16: retrospect

The master classes programme presents scholars discussing materials from Bodleian special collections. In 2015-16 the programme included discussions of the letter forms, musical notation, provenance, and artistic content of Bodleian manuscripts and printed books, including the ’12 millionth book’, acquired in 2015, Shelley’s Poetical Essay. 21 October 2015: Stephen Greenblatt (Harvard/Humanitas Visiting Professor) The rise and fall … Continue reading “Bodleian Master classes in 2015-16: retrospect”

Another princely travelling library: a book bound for Henry, Prince of Wales

Claire Audelan, Rare Books Department Intern, writes: A gift to the Bodleian has led to the recognition of further provenance history, as another book from the 17th-century Prince Henry’s dispersed travelling library has been discovered in the Bodleian stacks. Careful study of the travelling library of Prince Charles, later King Charles I, donated to the … Continue reading “Another princely travelling library: a book bound for Henry, Prince of Wales”

Looking through a binding

Francesca Galligan, Rare Books, writes… The difficulties in reassembling information relating to a particular copy of a printed book were a significant theme during the autumn of last year, in the Rare Books masterclasses on printed books. My search for information about this pierced vellum binding provides a brief illustrated example. Curiosity over this card … Continue reading “Looking through a binding”

Supplico stet cedula : Bod-Inc Online

There’s now online access to the descriptive Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library (Bod-Inc). The printed catalogue was published in 2005 by Oxford University Press. The online resource is accessible at: http://incunables.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/. Bod-Inc Online provides search access to the full text of the main sequence of entries for … Continue reading “Supplico stet cedula : Bod-Inc Online”