Andrew Pettegree

Bookshops are a comforting sight on our high streets, warm and welcoming spaces in which to browse, meet friends and occasionally buy books. They may…

Chairman Mao was a librarian. Stalin was a published poet. Evelyn Waugh served as a commando - before leaving to write Brideshead Revisited. Since the…

Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes…