Lost Books

Questions of survival and loss bedevil the study of early printed books. Many early publications are not particularly rare, but many have disappeared altogether. Here leading specialists in the field explore different strategies for recovering this lost world of print.

Collects the lost books of the Bible, sharing stories of Jesus as a child, discussing other miracles of Mary, and other tales not included in the New Testament.

Thoroughly innovative and occasionally irreverent, this book will appeal in equal measure to book historians, Austen fans, and scholars of literary celebrity.

The gripping and elegiac stories of eight lost books, and the mysterious circumstances behind their disappearances. They exist as a rumour or a fading memory. They vanished from history leaving scarcely a trace, lost to fire, censorship, theft, war or deliberate destruction, yet those who seek them are convinced they will find them. This is the story of one man's quest for eight mysterious lost books. Taking us from Florence to Regency London, the Russian Steppe to British Columbia, Giorgio van Straten unearths stories of infamy and tragedy, glimmers of hope and bitter twists of fate. There are, among others, the rediscovered masterpiece that he read but failed to save from destruction; the Hemingway novel that vanished in a suitcase at the Gare du Lyon; the memoirs of Lord Byron, burnt to avoid a scandal; the Magnum Opus of Bruno Schulz, disappeared along with its author in wartime Poland; the mythical Sylvia Plath novel that may one day become reality. As gripping as a detective novel, as moving as an elegy, this is the tale of a love affair with the impossible, of the things that slip away from us but which, sometimes, live again in the stories we tell.

A 12-year-old boy, mourning the death of his mother, takes refuge in the myths and fairytales she always loved--and finds that his reality and a fantasy world start to meld.

A timeless tale of female friendship and past secrets, set in modern-day small-town England and a 1950s finishing school in France—for readers of Joanna Goodman and Santa Montefiore. England, present day. At eighty years old, Florence Carter is content with her life. A widow in her twilight years, she spends her days making intricate lino prints in the company of her dog and cat, and her neighbour’s daughter Alice, a shy young woman troubled by a recent trauma. But when ​Flo learns that a long-lost friend has written a novel based on their time at finishing school, she’s forced to confront a secret from her past... France, 1957. In post-war Lyon, Florence and Lilli meet at a strict finishing school for girls. Florence—or Flo as she’s known—is a demure young Englishwoman who is expected to enter society and make a good marriage. Lilli, meanwhile, is a brash American with an independent spirit and thirst for adventure. Despite their differences, they forge a firm friendship that promises to last a lifetime—until a terrible betrayal tears them apart. Now, as Flo reads Lilli’s book, she struggles to separate fact from fiction. Desperate for answers, she decides to take a road trip to France to find Lilli, and she invites Alice and her mother Carla to join her, in hopes the change of scenery will lift their spirits. But when they reach Lyon, it’s Flo who needs help as the buried truth from long ago threatens to overwhelm her. The Lost Chapter is a poignant novel about the power of friendship and a beautiful reminder that it’s never too late to start writing a different story.

In Lost Books and Printing in London, 1557-1640 Alexandra Hill uses modern digital approaches to bibliography to reveal and analyse the entries of lost books in the Stationers’ Company Register.

Young photographer Kate is reeling from the recent death of her mother, an orphan who became a celebrated ballerina. Grieving and lonely, Kate's only close companion is her ailing adoptive grandmother, Evie. Then Evie reveals a terrible secret, one that prompts Kate to rediscover a family history she had thought lost forever. The story Kate discovers is one tightly interwoven with 20th-century history; from the heady days of the Roaring Twenties, through the economic crash and political tension of the '30s, to the grim reality of the war. But it is also the story of a couple deeply in love, separated by the events that supersede them and the rigid expectations of family. Moving between London, New York, Paris, Venice and Corsica, this is a story of love across borders and generations, and of what might have been.