Enfilade

Coming soon, with distribution by The University of Chicago Press:

Geoffrey Tyack, with photographs by Dan Paton, Oxford Libraries: Architecture (Oxford: Bodleian Library Publishing, 2025), 336 pages, ISBN: 978-1851246052, £50 / $80.

Curated illustrations of the architectural design and history of the most beautiful libraries in Oxford and a close look at the artistic prowess of the architects responsible.

The libraries of the colleges and the University of Oxford are among the finest, but also among the least-known, buildings in the city. Ranging in date from the thirteenth to the twenty-first centuries, they embody successive changes in internal design and architectural taste. Libraries were originally established as repositories of knowledge in the form of manuscripts and printed books, and until fairly recently, they were used only by scholars. Over time, the University’s libraries, and those of the constituent colleges, attracted wealthy donors, some of whom, like John Radcliffe, gave generously to the provision of impressive and architecturally innovative buildings in which to house the books. These buildings are still among the most impressive features of Oxford’s architectural landscape, helping to define its visual identity. Architectural styles range from medieval wooden stalls to the concrete and glass of twentieth-century Brutalism, and notable architects include Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, James Gibbs, Sir Edwin Lutyens, and Arne Jacobsen. With specially commissioned photography, this profusely illustrated book invites readers through the doors of over fifty beautiful and iconic libraries, revealing how they are steeped in history, learning, and cultural change.

Geoffrey Tyack is an emeritus Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and the Director of Stanford University Centre in Oxford.
Dan Paton is a commercial photographer specialising in architecture, lighting, interiors, and the built environment, as well as portrait, PR, and event photography.

This is a book that I should have noted years ago; David Stern’s review for Mosaic usefully introduces the collectors, many of whom lived in the 18th century. –CH

Distributed by The University of Chicago Press . . .

Rebecca Abrams and César Merchán-Hamann, eds., Jewish Treasures from Oxford Libraries (Oxford: Bodleian Library Publishing, 2020), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-1851245024, $55.

Representing four centuries of collecting and a thousand years of Jewish history, this book brings together Hebrew manuscripts and rare books from the Bodleian Library and Oxford colleges. Highlights of the extraordinary collections include a fragment of Maimonides’ autograph draft of the Mishneh Torah, the earliest dated fragment of the Talmud, exquisitely illuminated manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, stunning festival prayer books, and one of the oldest surviving Jewish seals in England. Lavishly illustrated essays by experts in the field bring these outstanding works to life, exploring the personalities and diverse motivations of their original collectors. Saved for posterity by religious scholarship, intellectual rivalry, and political ambition, these extraordinary collections also detail the consumption and circulation of knowledge across the centuries, forming a social and cultural history of objects moved across borders from person to person. Together, they offer a fascinating journey through Jewish intellectual and social history.

Rebecca Abrams is Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford and author of The Jewish Journey: 4000 Years in 22 Objects.
César Merchán-Hamann is the Victor Blank Hebraica and Judaica curator in the Bodleian Library and director of the Leopold Muller Memorial Library at the University of Oxford.

c o n t e n t s

Librarian’s Foreword — Richard Ovenden
Preface — Martin J. Gross

Introduction to the Bodleian Library and College Collections — César Merchán-Hamann
1  The Laud Collection — Giles Mandelbrote
2  The Pococke Collection — Benjamin Williams
3  The Huntington Collection — Simon Mills and César Merchán-Hamann
4  The Kennicott Collection — Theo Dunkelgrün
5  The Canonici Collection — Dorit Raines
6  The Oppenheim Collection — Joshua Teplitsky
7  The Michael Collection — Saverio Campanini
8  The Genizah Collection — Nadio Vidro
9  The College Library Collections — Rahel Fronda
From Collectors to Readers — Piet van Boxel

Notes
Further Reading
Contributors
Picture Credits
Index