Magdalen Libraries & Archives

⚠️🚨New (or, rather, old) book alert. A newly digitised manuscript is now available to view on Digital Bodleian. It is the profoundly influential work ‘De institutione musica’ by the Roman senator, statesman, and philosopher of Late Antiquity Boethius (MS Lat 19).

The book dates from the 12th century, features lots of diagrams and tables, and is decorated with red and green flourished initials at the heads of the chapters. Take a look at the O on folio 1v, where somebody has inked in yet more decoration! View the book in its entirety here:

Blind date with a book is back! And this time, it's right in time for spooky season 👻🎃🍂 Signing up is simple: using the form below, tell us a little bit about what you look for in a book, and get ready to receive your next read, handpicked for you by the librarians!

Did you buy a book today? This book, a copy of Petrarch's De remediis utriusque fortunae, was bought #OnThisDay in 1579! Its first owner, George Briggs (whose name has been inked over, but we can still just about make out) was a clerk in the Magdalen choir 1577-1585.

He took his BA in 1580 and his MA in 1583, and became rector of Mereworth, Kent, in 1588, so we know he would have been an undergraduate when he bought this book.

Oscar Wilde was born #OnThisDay in 1854 and he studied Greats at Magdalen in the 1870s. The College Library collects books written by former students. These three private press editions of Wilde's works were illustrated, typeset, printed, bound and published by London-based artist Jeremy Mason.

Would you go to a party if the dress code was 'slimy and decomposed'?! A recent find in the college archives encourages exactly that!

Law students in 1982 were invited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Donoghue v. Stevenson, a landmark case in which May Donoghue, a shop assistant from Glasgow sued the manufacturer of a ginger beer after finding a dead snail at the bottom of her bottle.

Today is #InternationalDoodleDay Sometimes in our Library and Archives we come across doodles and drawings – particularly in the margins or on the reverse of documents, even ones of an official nature.

This lovely owl was found drawn on the back of a list of presentments to the Manor of Willoughby, Warwickshire, from the 17th century, though it was likely drawn at a later date.

As part of the annual Oxford Open Doors weekend, our Old Library will be open today from 11am to 3pm. Take a look at this historic space, where there's been a library for over 500 years, and take a good sniff of that old-book-smell. There's also a small exhibition on animals in special collections.

It's not often you can trace exactly where and when a book was read. With our first edition copy of Hobbes' Leviathan, we know that its first owner read it at least twice: finishing it in August 1651 in Amsterdam and a second time in January 1659 in London, as they recorded the fact inside the book.

"I red this Booke through ending August 17 - 1651 new Style at Amsterdam in Holland, in the Holy-way-street. I finished the second Reading of this Booke Janurie 22. Anno 1658/9 in White-Cross-Street in London, what time I confind my Selfe to my House to avoid the Practises of that treacherous Snake

It's not often you can trace exactly where and when a book was read. With our first edition copy of Hobbes' Leviathan, we know that its first owner read it at least twice: finishing it in August 1651 in Amsterdam and a second time in January 1659 in London, as they recorded the fact inside the book.

It seems that the reread was in efforts to avoid an acquaintance; they record: "I confind my Selfe to my House to avoid the Practises of that treacherous Snake Mercer."

John Betjeman was born #OnThisDay in 1906. He studied English at Magdalen College from 1925-8. As a Magdalen student, Betjeman’s behaviour was so flamboyant, it inspired his friend and contemporary Evelyn Waugh to create the character of Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited.

T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, was born #OnThisDay in 1888. Lawrence was a postgraduate student here from 1911-1914. He was given a scholarship - a Senior Demyship- which funded him to work on archaeological digs at Carchemish in Syria.

He appears to have used a blank engineering logbook to paste in his clippings, which are annotated with his personal reactions to the contents – including “Ha! Ha!” and "This article is the most complete rubbish."

T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, was born #OnThisDay in 1888. Lawrence was a postgraduate student here from 1911-1914. He was given a scholarship - a Senior Demyship- which funded him to work on archaeological digs at Carchemish in Syria.

Happy #InternationalCatDay🐾 This early printed book is Sophologium, an influential 15th-century compendium of moral, philosophical, and theological wisdom. Written around 1370, the text was designed to provide guidance on virtue, vice, and proper conduct by drawing from both classical and

medieval sources. It has absolutely nothing to do with cats but, as you can see, cats have had something to do with it; there are paw prints across the page. Over the centuries, cats have helped keep mice away from college treasures.

Have you seen Christopher Nolan's latest film, The Odyssey? Can you tell us if the Greek God Eros features in it? Here's an entry in our Senior Common Room betting book. It shows that C. S. Lewis and Ancient History Fellow C. E. Stevens placed a wager over whether Eros appears in Homer’s Odyssey.