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An alternative history of Western civilization told through its most emblematic invention, the book. As well as taking in the well-known titles that have helped shape the world in which we live, The Secret Library brings to light more neglected items among the bookshelves of the world. As well as discussing Darwin's groundbreaking On the Origin of Species, we'll learn why that bestseller was outsold in Darwin's own lifetime by his book on earthworms, and how Edgar Allan Poe's biggest-selling title was a book on molluscs. We'll learn about the forgotten Victorian novelist who outsold Dickens, how Sherlock Holmes's famous illustrator got the job because of a clerical error, and how the word 'trilby' - taken from a Victorian novel - was originally applied to people's feet before it became the name of a hat. The Secret Library brings these little-known stories to light, exploring the intersection between books of all kinds and the history of the Western world over 3,000 years.
About the author
Oliver Tearle is Lecturer in English at Loughborough University (UK), where he completed a PhD (in 2010) and has taught for the last seven years, having also taught at the University of Warwick.
He has run the blog Interesting Literature: A Library of Literary Interestingness since December 2012, as well as its accompanying Twitter feed and Facebook page. The Twitter feed is followed by, among many others, the makers of the television series QI, the Oxford English Dictionary, the British Library, the British Museum, the Times Literary Supplement, and numerous comedians, writers, academics, journalists, politicians, and celebrities.
Oliver is the author of two academic books, Bewilderments of Vision: Hallucination and Literature, 1880-1914 (Sussex, 2013) and T. E. Hulme and Modernism (Bloomsbury, paperback edition 2015), as well as the co-editor of an experimental volume of critical and creative pieces, Crrritic! (Sussex, 2011). His proudest achievement is coining the word 'bibliosmia' to describe the smell of old books.
Summary
An alternative history of Western civilization told through its most emblematic invention, the book. As well as taking in the well-known titles that have helped shape the world in which we live, The Secret Library uncovers more neglected works, exploring the intersection between books of all kinds and the history of the Western world.
Foreword
As well as taking in the well-known titles that have helped shape the world in which we live, The Secret Library brings to light more neglected items among the bookshelves of the world.
