Bodleian Rare Books

It's been a hoot, but we've the tough decision to stop updating this account while we focus on other stuff. We'll continue to post all our favourite things over on @bodleianlibs so head over there for #rarebooks #miniaturebooks and of course #CrazyArtistsBooksMadeOutOfFood

Support these future readers!

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Our top candidate for 'books to eat first when the apocalypse finds you trapped in the Bodleian' is Dieet smakelijk - the world's only book made entirely from Sweet Potatoes 🍠🍠🍠 Thanks to Wouter Cornet for a great donation

The ambitious 1481 edition of Dante's La Comedia may have been the first fully illustrated edition of the poem. Join us on Tuesday 4 May for short talks - co-organised with @UCLLibraries - on Botticelli's illustrations, surviving copies and more. visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/dante-14…

The latest @bodleianlibs Maps blog takes us to #Antarctica in the company of #ErnestShackleton's 1907-09 #Nimrod Expedition. #TessaRose tells the story of map and book printing during the long winter months: blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/ @RareBooksOfBod @scottpolar

Good morning to everyone, but especially to this tiny terracotta monkey in our Greece gallery

You know that feeling when you think you know your own collection and then you find out there's a prospectus for #Ulysses downstairs that you had no idea you had AND it's freely available online to everyone in the UK? That. Thanks #WorldBookDay

@bodleianlibs @magnargj OK, not an actual dragon. But some of the stack team can get a bit cantankerous after lunch.

@bodleianlibs @magnargj The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is that we keep this one in a perspex box, which we keep in a small cardboard box, which we keep in a middle-sized cardboard box, which lives on a bookshelf, in a basement, deep underground, guarded by a dragon.

Kicking off #WorldBookDay with our smallest, largest, longest and rarest. This is the 'German ABC' published in 1971. At just 3x2.5 mm it was once the smallest book in the world. It is NOT the smallest in our collection.

Introducing ‘Voices from the Bodleian’ - a new blog series on LinkedIn! Meet our staff members, and learn what makes them tick. First up is Nicole Gilroy, our head of Conservation @BodCons who has been at the library for over 20 years! linkedin.com/pulse/voices-f…

Ever wondered how the #ink for #medieval #manuscripts was made? Tune into @sarajcharles brilliant lecture ‘An introductory talk on iron gall ink’ part of #MaterialWitness @CHASE_DTP 🖋🪶📜 👀🎥 youtu.be/_EuVBSKpdzM

William Peraldus's super popular treatise on the vices has scarcely any evidence of readers in @MertonCollege MS 233. Except for some v discrete marginal dots in the section on remedies for Wrath. 🤔 medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manusc… #MertonMSS

If you're an Oxford student and you collect books you could win yourself £600 by... collecting books. That's it. And best of all you'll get to buy some books for us too. C'mon. Show us what's on your shelves!

Today's the day! The Weston library is OPEN to university staff and students. Book a seat online: bodleian.ox.ac.uk/using/reading-…

'Meet the Manuscripts: judging a book by its cover' This free online workshop will explore the secrets that bookbindings reveal about the uses and histories of medieval manuscripts. 26 February 12.30–1.15pm (GMT) Book your place at: visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/meet-the…

If you were waiting for permission (and really, why would you be?) @book_historia has mustered Alberto Manguel, Thomas Frognall Dibdin and Joseph William Zaehnsdorf to convince you it's OK to arrange your books by colour. So that's Wednesday afternoon sorted