British Library

And as any book lover will understand, there is always a perfectly good reason for buying yet another copy, isn't there? But this episode also includes something rather special.

The British Library, wow, was very kind and sent me their beautiful new facsimile, edition of Wuthering Heights including a facsimile of Emily Bronte's personal copy of poems.

So yes there is a slight unboxing section although you'll have to use your imagination for some of that.

If you'd like to watch the original video or explore more of my Bronte adventures you'll find links in the episode description.

So today I thought I would show you just a few of my copies of Wuthering Heights.

And I'm going to talk about why I have them and why apparently one copy of Emily Bronte's novel is never quite enough.

And then at the end, I'm going to show you something rather special because I've recently been sent a copy of a brand new edition of Wuthering Heights from the British Library.

And when I tell you that getting that email nearly caused me to wet myself with excitement, I am not exaggerating.

I also, when I was in Folkestone over the summer, I went into a wonderful cafe whose name I can't remember, which isn't helpful.

but it's also lined with books and all of the books that are below head height are available to buy so like while you're sitting there having your tea or your lunch or whatever and you can just browse the books that are around you and if you like any you can buy them and they're all really like a real variety of books and I picked up a book that looked sort of could be interesting I was thinking oh this could be the kind of thing that Simon would like for the British Library and So it's a book called And the Crying Wind by Simon Dare.

And the first page I was quite intrigued by because it was about a woman who inherits a hotel

and

So it's that one, that one confuses me, uh, because there's just really no unity to what they're doing, except I guess that it's good.

Whereas daunt it's, it's wide, but I can sort of pick to the, if you like one, you'd like one of the others, I guess.

And then of course there's the British Library Women Writers Series or the Crime Classics Series, which British Library is technically an independent publisher, although with more budget behind it than maybe some of them.

And similarly, like when I've been recommending books for that, it's been a real mix of trying to make sure there's good variety, but also there is an identifiable like feel to it.

But...

There exists, British Library, Daniel Defoe's plans or proposals for a trading post in South America, Valparaiso.

And Bowery has similar, in his papers, has similar proposals for the South Sea Islands, South Sea companies.

And if you sit and compare the two, and you do need special permission at the British Library to see these Daniel Defoe documents, because obviously, high risk of people nicking the thing.

They are so similar that Bowers as normal goes into a lot more detail.

But the skeletons are the same, are identical.

So I am very, very lucky because I live in London now.

So I have access to the British Library, which is...

My books could not exist without having access to a library that good and that easy because the value of some of the books I managed to get hold of And especially the Tristan and Isolde book I referenced the most often is a translation of the Italian story.

And there were only, as far as I can tell, about nine copies of it.

A little strange bringing it back.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it is so many British novelists that I've spoken to and even nonfiction writers talk about the British Library.

It is really it's one of the best institutions there is.

Magna Carta, for me, I've seen one of the originals, and my heart beat faster, because I think this is so precious in terms of the legacy it bequeathed.

Yeah, and if anyone listening here has the good fortune of coming to London and to St Pancras Station, then do take some time to go into the British Library alongside St Pancras and you can see one of the copies of the Magna Carta there and a lot of other really interesting stuff as well.

Can we just come back to this idea of ensoulment? Because the idea that we are souls that have bodies, we're not just identikit composites of matter, chance and time in a godless universe.

Can you just unpack this idea of the soul and how it relates to the body and how that makes Christian anthropology different from humanist anthropology?

Hello, welcome to TopMedTalk.

I'm Andy Cumpsty, and I'm here in London at the evidence-based perioperative medicine World Congress, that's the EPOM World Congress, and this year also the first World Congress of Enhanced Post-Operative Care, or EPOM, from the British Library, where we were last year.

It's been a really great, fantastic meeting.

I've got familiar voices and new voices to share with you today, which is great.

That's her only appearance in the usual versions of the Tain, but she also appears in an intriguing fragment of a myth.

This is in a 16th century manuscript held by the British Library, that contains a bunch of different ancient Irish stories and myths.

It's part of a collection of folklore gathered by Robert Harley, the first Earl of Oxford, and his son Edward.

The story in the Harley manuscript gives an alternative version of why the Ulstermen were laid low by a curse during the events of the Tain.