Invented to entertain Alice Liddell on boat-trips down the river Thames in Oxford, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has become one of the most famous and influential works of children's literature of all time. It is hard to imagine "Alice's Advent...

Invented to entertain Alice Liddell on boat-trips down the river Thames in Oxford, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has become one of the most famous and influential works of children's literature of all time. It is hard to imagine "Alice's Advent...

In the seventeenth century, even the most elaborate and fashionable gardens had areas set aside for growing herbs, fruit, vegetables and flowers for domestic use, while those of more modest establishments were vital to the survival of the household....

The first performance of Handel's Messiah in Dublin in 1742 is now legendary. Gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home and ladies to come without hoops in their skirts in order to fit more people into the audience. Why then, did this now fa...

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass" are two of the most famous, translated, and quoted books in the world. But how did a casual tale told by Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), an eccentric Oxford mathematician, to Ali...

Thomas Hardy notes the thrush's "full-hearted evensong of joy illimited", Gilbert White observes how swallows sweep through the air but swifts "dash round in circles" and Rachel Carson watches sanderlings at the ocean's edge, scurrying "across the be...

Representing four centuries of collecting and 1000 years of Jewish history, this book brings together extraordinary Hebrew manuscripts and rare books from the Bodleian Library and Oxford colleges. Highlights of the collections include a fragment of M...

How did the advertisers of the past sell electric corsets, carbolic smoke balls or even the first televisions? Which celebrities endorsed products? How did innovations in printing techniques and packaging design play a part in the evolution of advert...

Advertisers in the nineteenth and early twentieth century pushed the boundaries of printing, manipulated language, inspired a new form of art and exploited many formats, including calendars, bookmarks and games. This collection of essays examines th...