In a society in which only a fraction of the population was literate and numerate, being one of the few specialists in reading, writing and reckoning meant the

How social and political underdogs, yet literate professionals at the heart of the Roman state, exploited their expertise and influence.

A desperate quest begins in the port of Alexandria: site of the great lighthouse, the famous Library, and the tomb of Alexander the Great. Codes, riddles, anagr

In this detailed overview of the history of the handmade book, Avrin looks at the development of scripts and styles of illumination, the making of manuscripts,

Scribes are paradoxically both central and invisible in most societies before the typographic revolution of the 15th century, witnessed by every manuscript, but