Our Books and Their Journeys
From a special literary heirloom, to a hand-me-down picture book, contribute your own stories of books and their journeys to this special online exhibition.
What is this exhibition about?
Cambridge University Library's Medieval Greek manuscripts have travelled thousands of miles and hundreds of years, shifting between people and places. As they journey from physical to digital, the library team are celebrating their life stories. One manuscript travelled from Constantinople to England over 800 years ago, others survived war or were written by scribes in exile. They have been broken apart, remade and transformed; some survive only in fragments. Signs of ownership and use in the books help tell their stories.
We hope the tales of survival, re-use and renewal will inspire you. Whether a book has passed down through many generations, been with you throughout your life, moved with you across borders, or even taken you on a personal journey, we would like to hear about it.
Share your book journeys through videos, short stories or photographs. These will be added together to create a digital exhibition of Books and their Journeys.
This event is part of the Being Human festival, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities, taking place 11 – 20 November 2021. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org
How to Take Part
You can share your book stories with us throughout the duration of the Festival in a variety of ways:
Tweet us @theULSpecColl and @BeingHumanFest with a picture of your book and your story. Remember to add #PolonskyGreek and #BeingHuman2021 in your tweet!
or
Submit your book journey, in the form of a short video (3 minutes max), a photo essay, or a short written piece with a few pictures (200 words max). Use this form to upload your story:
You can also contact the organisers directly.
Our Books and Their Journeys
Travelling Manuscripts:
Stories from the Polonsky Greek Manuscripts Project
From Constantinople to Heidelberg
One of the most fascinating journeys is that of the Heidelberg Palatine Anthology. Made in Constantinople in the 10th century, the manuscript travelled through most of Western Europe between the 17th and 19th centuries, as war ravaged the continent.
A Tale of Two Worlds
My copy of ‘Dispossessed’ by Ursula K. LeGuin, with a colourful cover of two celestial bodies, was drawn from my father’s collection of paperback science fiction novels he had bought over the years in the basement of our home in Virginia. I “borrowed” it in 2017 and read it along with my partner while we were dating long distance, him in Cambridge and me on a year-long stint in Utah. We didn’t end up in too many deep discussions of the book’s themes as the eight hour time distance limited our ability for more than a check-in towards the end of the day.
It was a heart-rending read, as the main character Shevek travels from their anarchic homeland, the desert moon Anarres, to the planet Urras and is separated from their partner, as I was at the time. The book also resonated with me through the descriptions of difficult desert terrain, reminiscent of the dry red landscapes that I traveled through on my solo trips to the many breathtaking national parks. Now that we live together, our two copies of the sci-fi classic sit on a shelf side by side.
Emily Perdue
English Classic in the Polish countryside.
I first read Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’ while on a family holiday in the Masurian Lake District in Poland. The region is full of small villages, forests, cute holiday cottages and of course lakes (around 2000). In short, a countryside very different from that in the book. This (and other books) travelled with me to Poland in quite the modern way of an ebook, rather than a paperback. During the holiday, the ebook travelled with me too.
While my siblings went kayaking and swimming in the lakes, I read ‘Persuasion’. I distinctly remember reading the last chapters in the gardens of the Branicki Palace in Białystok. While my family was admiring the architecture and greenery of our surroundings, I was in Bath with Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth. It was quite strange to be travelling physically, visiting different areas of Poland, and at the same time metaphorically, viewing early 19th century England through Anne’s eyes. I suppose, sometimes when I travel with my family, I need to travel away from them too.
Anonymous
My copies of 'Persuasion'.
My copies of 'Persuasion'.
On a walk in the Masuria Lake District.
On a walk in the Masuria Lake District.
Travelling Digitally
Hundreds of medieval and early modern Greek manuscripts – including classical texts and some of the most important treatises on religion, mathematics, history, drama and philosophy – are to be digitised and made available to anyone with access to the internet.
The Greek Manuscript Collection at Cambridge University Library
Our medieval Greek manuscripts have travelled thousands of miles and hundreds of years, shifting between people and places. They have been broken apart, remade and transformed; some survive only in fragments. We tell trace their stories using signatures, notes and others marks of ownership.
The Greek Manuscript Collection at Cambridge University Library
Our medieval Greek manuscripts have travelled thousands of miles and hundreds of years, shifting between people and places. They have been broken apart, remade and transformed; some survive only in fragments. We tell trace their stories using signatures, notes and others marks of ownership.
Travelling Digitally
Hundreds of medieval and early modern Greek manuscripts – including classical texts and some of the most important treatises on religion, mathematics, history, drama and philosophy – are to be digitised and made available to anyone with access to the internet.
A hitchhiker in my own life
Look at the state of these books. I used to have ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ too, but it fell apart entirely. I discovered this trilogy when I was about 15 (so, in 1982) and it became a kind of lifeline. I grew up in a family where I felt like an alien – like I couldn’t be myself, and could never make myself seen, heard nor understood. I learned to clam up and keep my thoughts to myself.
Then I read ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ and I realised that there were people like me out there who were clever, and witty, and saw through things, and observed things, and had ideas. It was the first hint that ‘my people’ were out there, waiting for me. And when I got to university – lo and behold, there they were. So I still have these books. I read them over and over, and I shared them with my children, and I treasure them. In doing so, I think I am able to treasure my younger self.
Kris Henley
Local book goes on an adventure.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.
'The Eyre Affair' was recommended to me by an American friend, while we were studying at the University of Glasgow. I consequently got this book from my local library in Shettleston (an area of Glasgow). I needed something to read while visiting family over Christmas. That particular year our family Christmas was at my grandparent's house, in the middle of Poland. This book went with me on a train from Glasgow to London, a plane, and another train to finally reach my grandparent's small town. A few days later it came all the way back to Glasgow and to the library in Shettleston. I wonder what adventures it has been on since.
Anonymous
A Favourite Book from Childhood.
As a child in the 1960s I was given ‘Once Long Ago: Folk & Fairy Tales of the World retold by Roger Lancelyn Green and illustrated by Vojtěch Kubašta’.
In an era when going to the cinema was the only way to see a movie, my first impressions of Cinderella were informed by Lancelyn Green’s retelling and the truly marvellous illustrations. Kubašta’s Fairy Godmother looks as if she would be most unlikely to break into a chorus of ‘bibbidi bobbidi boo’ and all the better for that.
Interestingly, Grimm wasn’t especially grim in ‘Once Long Ago’ but many of the tales did retain enough menace for the young reader. The author and illustrator provided words and pictures to complement a cultural and geographical journey into the, often quite uncomfortable, world of the fairy tale. My favourite things in the book are the double page illustrations and how each tale has a different artistic style.
I still have the book and it takes pride of place on the bookshelves in my dining room.
Elaine Skidmore
“The Small Miracle” by Paul Gallico
Let me introduce you to a book, suitable for all ages, which you may not know - “The Small Miracle “by Paul Gallico. This, my husband and I love for very different reasons.
My husband is “not” a bookworm and takes years (yes years) to read books. Recently, he joined a course requiring a book review so I suggested “The Small Miracle”. It is a short book which suited him totally. Ha ha!
My aunt introduced me to “The Small Miracle” years ago. The story “stars”– Pepino, an Italian orphan boy, and his beloved donkey Violetta who is his world. When Violetta becomes very ill Pepino is determined to get her to the crypt of St Francis of Assisi but it is not that simple! Bureaucracy gets in the way – read on to see what happens but remember you will need tissues!
The story is simple, beautifully told and reduces me to tears every time I read it! Every copy must have a “flying” gene built in because if I lend it out it never returns. Sadly, I no longer have my original copy.
Debbie Millard
Open ticket. Stopovers include India, Connecticut and Surrey.
I have no idea how ‘Two Under the Indian Sun’ ended up in my grandfather’s house to begin with. When he died, the book made its way via my father to the house in Connecticut where I was growing up – I imagine not because he wanted to read it but because someone had to take the books.
There it sat, in his small, untouched and very eclectic book collection. Bored one day, I picked it up and read it – and thus began a lifelong love of and fascination with Rumer Godden and her books.
The book didn’t travel much further for a while, but it led ME on a journey: to my undergraduate dissertation on Godden and an airplane flight to Scotland where she lived, to meet and interview her. This led to a wonderful friendship with Godden herself and an intimate acquaintance with Dumfriesshire.
All her books came with me when I eventually moved from Connecticut to England. I suspect ‘Two Under the Indian Sun’ has big and secret plans for its next destination.
Kris Henley
Our Books and Their Journeys
Tell us what you thought about this online exhibition! Complete the Being Human Audience Survey.
This event is part of the Being Human festival, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities, taking place 11 – 20 November 2021. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org
Title image by Raffaella Losito
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