Monday, December 13, 2004
London Calling
Blogging will be a little sporadic this week. I'm away on sales conference to learn about new Phaidon spring titles.
I spent yesterday at the National Gallery of art and took a tour of the British Library. I highly recommend the Library tour. In two hours I saw the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible, a Shakespeare first folio, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Beowulf, birth records from 1700's India, and handwritten manuscripts from James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Charlotte Bronte. Incredible. I went on the 3pm Sunday afternoon tour when the reading rooms are closed. This meant the tour was able to take us through many of the reading rooms that are usually inaccessible without a reader's card.
Seeing these items is a reminder why book collectors are important. The Library's original copy of the Beowulf text was acquired by Sir Robert Cotton in the 17th Century and donated to the nation in 1700. Can you imagine the auction or dealer he purchased it from? Even then it was a rare text, but it's within twenty feet of the Gutenberg bible (1450's) and Shakespeare (1603).
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I spent yesterday at the National Gallery of art and took a tour of the British Library. I highly recommend the Library tour. In two hours I saw the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible, a Shakespeare first folio, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Beowulf, birth records from 1700's India, and handwritten manuscripts from James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Charlotte Bronte. Incredible. I went on the 3pm Sunday afternoon tour when the reading rooms are closed. This meant the tour was able to take us through many of the reading rooms that are usually inaccessible without a reader's card.
Seeing these items is a reminder why book collectors are important. The Library's original copy of the Beowulf text was acquired by Sir Robert Cotton in the 17th Century and donated to the nation in 1700. Can you imagine the auction or dealer he purchased it from? Even then it was a rare text, but it's within twenty feet of the Gutenberg bible (1450's) and Shakespeare (1603).
