At the turn of the fifteenth century, private devotionals became a speciality of the renowned Ghent-Bruges illuminators. Wealthy patrons who commissioned work from these artists often spared no expense in the presentation of their personal prayer boo...

"The Bay Psalm Book" was the first book to be printed in North America, twenty years after the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers in Massachusetts. Now extremely rare – only eleven copies survive – it is also the most expensive book in the world, fetchin...

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou..." When Edward Fitzgerald first published his translation of the poetry of Omar Khayyam in 1859 it had little impact on the literary world. But a chance find in a book...

Wilfred Owen is the poet of pity, the voice of the soldier maimed, blinded, traumatised and killed, not just in the Great War, but in all wars since, so resonant has his message become. Although he saw only five of his poems published in his lifetime...

The English poet John Gower (ca. 1340-1408) wrote important Latin poems witnessing the two crucial political events of his day: the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and in 1399 the deposition of Richard II, in the "Visio Anglie" ("A Vision of England") and "...