"The British Library's collections comprise 150 million items, and rising. Its treasures span 30 centuries, and come from almost every country and language since man stopped building the Tower of Babel. They include many of the most celebrated documents and publications in existence, and countless more that are remarkable but unfamiliar: Magna Carta, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Diamond Sutra and the Codex Sinaiticus; the oldest Buddhist texts, the earliest printed book, the largest atlas, and the first illustrated English news pamphlet; Gutenberg's 42-line Bible, Shakespeare's First Folio, Mozart's catalogue of his own works, and one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks; the original manuscripts for Beowulf, Alice's Adventures Under Ground, Persuasion and Sherlock Holmes; the archives of the British empire, secrets of the Cold War, and historic documents relating to the independence of India, Egypt, Indonesia, and many more countries besides; children's board games; and the books that won the globe's literary prizes last year." "But the Library's treasures consist not just of books, manuscripts, maps and musical scores. They also include Britain's national sound archive and philatelic collections, the world's most comprehensive archive of patents and related material, a unique collection of photographs, and the only large, integrated national newspaper service in the world." "All of the above can be sampled in this new book, written by the writer and journalist Philip Howard. With his characteristic witty approach, he presents 120 different highlights of the Library, organised thematically, and ranging from the legendary to the little known. Featuring illustrations of each work, this is an authoritative guide to the unrivalled holdings of the British Library - truly a treasure house of knowledge."--Jacket.