"A Map of Middle-Earth. Drawn and Embellished by Pauline Baynes. Based on the cartography of J.R.R. and C.J.R. Tolkien. First Trade Printing 1970. (c) George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1970. Printed in U.S.A. 345-24944-5-300 $3.00 Pauline Baynes 1969."…
This monumental map follows India's Ganges River and one of its sources, the Alakananda, from the point of view of a Hindu pilgrim travelling from one shrine to the next, following the path of the rivers from left to right. Beginning at Devprayag,…
The first image is the cover of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the second image is the title page of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from 1885 in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.
Photograph of AKM PS24 Robe, focusing on the back bottom-left panel of the robe, depicting a scene with Vamiq and Azra. A story deriving from the eleventh-century Iranian poet, Unṣurī in his work titled, "The Virgin and Her Lover". The story is an…
20th-century Central Asian robe displayed in the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto) in Hidden Stories: Books Along the Silk Roads exhibit (exhibited during 2021-2022). The felted robe features four embroidered stories ranging from different cultures,…
Used for protection against illness, difficult childbirth, and the evil eye, this Ethiopian amulet scroll (Amharic kitab, Arabic for "book") was created by an ordained minister (Amharic debtara) from pieces of parchment tailored to the height of the…
Folio 129 verso of the Beowulf manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius A XV), showing the text of the poem's lines 122-146. The writing is clear Insular minuscule, verses written continuously, without line breaks. The page is…
The contents (Sanskrit text and Hindu iconography), materials (Islamic burnished paper and Indian textiles), and format (Islamic-style binding of this manuscript of the Hindu Bhagavad Gita) all illuminate the fecund encounter of Persian and South…
This is an illuminated capital letter R. Inside the letter is: a seated tonsured scribe with a quill and a loose piece of parchment; a tonsured person with a censer; lots of dragons possibly eating one another; a dog playing a triangular instrument…