Books!

[Grafster]

This thread will be list of books that are introduced. Obviously it's going to be for books that have some importance in the story (though I'm not above throwing in a red herring or two...). My current thinking is that each work will have one post (so if multiple copies or versions of the same book appear in the game they get added to the existing post for that book).

[Taavi]

I thought this history of various editions of the Necronomicon might be of interest.

[Taavi]

As we have a couple of Aussies amongst our players, I thought I'd mention this exhibition in Canberra. I'm going on the evening of the 23rd of February.

Handwritten
ten centuries of manuscripts from staatsbibliothek zu berlin

This extraordinary exhibition features 100 unique manuscript treasures from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library). Spanning more than 1000 years of history, the exhibition includes exquisite illuminated manuscripts, rare letters, sketches and documents and priceless musical scores, each handwritten by major figures in literature, religion, science, music, exploration and philosophy. Beethoven, Galileo, Goethe, Kafka, Michelangelo and Napoleon are just some of the many names represented in this exhibition.

From Dante’s Divine Comedy and a manuscript by Einstein, to Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore some of the most significant moments in thought and human endeavour.

The exhibition is being shown only in Canberra.

Date: 26 November 2011 - 18 March 2012.
Opening hours: Open daily 10am to 5pm

Extended hours 2012:
Open until 9pm on Thursdays
19 January to 15 March 2012
Open until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays
2 and 3, 9 and 10 March 2012
Location: Exhibition Gallery.
Cost: Free.

They also have music, lectures, german food and things on the open-late evenings.

Update: Now I've been. It was absolutely beautiful, and gave me a much clearer idea of what all those old codexes and other early works actually look like. Go if you can!

[Taavi]

Another interesting Books story: A historian has unearthed 793 boxes of books seized by Customs in Australia between the 1920s and 1970s, almost literally "buried" in the National Archives underground storage: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-23/h ... ks/3908234

[Taavi]

Created by Quinch:

An Investigation into the Oracle of Sidon, by Ludwig von Domenstein, 1843

"Whilst many of his peers and contemporaries dismissed the writings of Méric Casaubon (1599–1671) in "Credulity and Incredulity" as fanciful nonsense, informed more by wine and madness than by science, it has long been the opinion of this author that the Frenchman, whilst somewhat lacking in scientific method, described with accuracy and good intent a valid phenomenon. Having spent many years investigating the legends surrounding the Oracle of Sidon, even visiting that region of the coast where the temple had previously teetered on the edge of a cliff only to fall to its ruin 600 years ago, I now believe it is appropriate to divulge the true extent of my findings. My wife deems me mad, and has taken our children to live with their grandmother, and my peers at the University have frozen me out of their circle. Nonetheless, the truth must be told. Reader, please take your time with my book. It cost me dearly to script and print, and only in reaching the very end will the full total of its truth be available to you."

[Taavi]

The Wooden Book
aka The Cor Family Cookbook
The book is a curious miscellany; a large number of unevenly cut leaves, crudely bound with string and pressed between two hand-carved wooden covers. The front depicts an angel weeping; a small figure below catches the tears in a jug. The back shows some kind of flowering, spiky plant; perhaps a scotch thistle?

Luke's Assessment
"Well, the bad news is, it's not a codex. The good news is, it's got bits of a codex or three in it. I'm not much on latin, but it looks like there's leaves from a herbal and some alchemical bits and bobs, as well as some theology in there, in a late medieval hand, and it's bound together with someone else's, or a bunch of people's, later notes. Also in latin, and in rather bad condition at that. This picture here looks rather like an early still. It reminds me of one of those grandma's cookbooks, y'know, each generation adds their own recipes. Not the sort of thing people toss out. Still, these early leaves might be worth something."

Harwood's Summary
"The not-quite-Codex. It is more like a, a, recipe book for want of a better term. It is a collection, from what looks to be one family, that of one Friar John Cor, ex-monk, Dissolution period. He, well it's complicated, but essentially he wanted to prove Trans- rather than Co-substantiation and attempted to distill Communion wine into the Blood of Christ. He claimed to be acting on the orders of a 'Hidden Pope'. Yes, another Scottish Highland Catholic family with, perhaps, heretical leanings.
Anyway, the book is handed down between members of his family, all of whom are supposedly Heirs to this Hidden Pope's legacy, and who continue the distillation research. There is a lot on alchemy I haven't really got to grips with yet, the Latin is a little archaic. But it culminates in classic Victorian spirtualism. There is a lot on trapping spirits in bottles and then asking questions by means of a pendulum. One can use the trapped spirits to answer questions and so forth."

[Taavi]

Good story on New York's most-stolen books.

[Taavi]

An Account of the Ottoman Kingdom, and select locations in the Holy Land
1911 English translation from the eighteenth-century German edition of a previously unpublished manuscript from the 1580s.
Created by WinstonP

"The author was a Burgundian mercenary who was hired by some vizier or other to train Janissaries to use heavy guns or whatnot. This fellow, de Chaut, was also a student of religion. He spent his time investigating little known sects and denominations in the Ottoman Empire - Dervishes, Zorastrians, Miaphysitians, Rodnovers... those sorts."


Also, a new book I think some of us at least will consider a must-buy:

[Taavi]

News from the rare book world: Shakespeare's personal annotated dictionary has been found.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/boo ... 3707q.html

I bet your antagonists would like to put his soul in a bottle...