This pioneering volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of loss. Fourteen original contributions, introduced by a major re-evaluative history of lost libraries, offer the first ever comparative discussion of the greatest catastrophes in book history from Mesopotamia and Alexandria to the dispersal of monastic and monarchical book collections, the Nazi destruction of Jewish libraries, and the recent horrifying pillage and burning of books in Tibet, Bosnia and Iraq.

Reproduction of the original: Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama by E. Cobham Brewer

The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 18 is a compendium of articles and notes pertaining to the Museum's permanent collections of antiquities, illuminated manuscripts, paintings, and sculpture and works of art. This volume includes a supplement introduced by John Walsh with a fully illustrated checklist of the Getty’s recent acquisitions. Volume 18 includes articles written by Anthony Cutler, David A. Scott, Maya Elston, Ranee Katzenstein, Ariane can Suchtelen, Klaus Fittschen, Peggy Fogelman, and Catherine Hess.