How should a motorist converse with the police? Should you switch off your headlights when another car approaches? What parts of the engine can you fix with a sheet of emery paper, insulating tape and copper wire? The 1920s heralded the age of motori...

A unique style of court painting, combining Persian, Indian and European elements, developed in India under the Mughal emperors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Originally an art of book illustration, it soon gave rise to highly naturalist...

When American troops arrived in Paris to help maintain order at the end of the Second World War they were, at first, received by the local population with a sense of euphoria. However, the French soon began to resent the Americans for their display o...

At which Oxford college does a trumpeter summon you to dinner? What does the appearance of a rose bowl signify? How would you use a grace cup as distinct from a sconce cup? The custom of dining in formal hall at Oxford and Cambridge dates back to the...

The liturgical psalter is one of the most important medieval Christian books and the most frequently and richly illuminated of medieval liturgical manuscripts. In its simplest form the psalter included 150 psalms, preceded by a calendar and followed...

This lavishly illustrated book investigates an outstanding eighteenth-century example of a samut khoi, a type of beautiful folding book found in Southeast Asia, which became particularly popular as a repository for the Buddha's teachings. Written in...

"Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom" – "The Tempest" With Shakespeare as the inspiration for Designer Bookbinders second International Competition, this lavish catalogue feature...

Edward Lear loved birds. Of all the animals that sprang from his quirky imagination, birds held a special place, serving as the animal of choice for his zoomorphosis in self-portraiture. Not only did he draw more birds than any other animal, but he e...

These are the memoirs of a cultural icon. Here, told for the first time, is the story of the formative years of Sir Roy Strong, "a young man from nowhere who went somewhere". For nearly half a century, Roy Strong has been at the forefront of the ar...

This series celebrates the Bodleian Library's acquisition of Tom Phillips's archive of over 50,000 photographic postcards dating from the first half of the twentieth century, a period in which, thanks to the ever cheaper medium of photography, "ordin...