Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The engraving of Shakespeare on the title page is reportedly one of only two portraits
done during his lifetime. Is this what he really looked like? No one knows. The best an-
swer probably comes from Ben Jonson, in the introduction on the facing page. Jonson
concludes, “Reader, look not on his picture, but his book.”
Look for the wall with a greatest-hits sampling of literature in English, featuring works that
have enlightened and brightened our lives for centuries. The displays rotate frequently, but
there's always a tasty selection of famous works, from Brontë to Kipling to Woolf to Joyce
to Dickens, whose novels were as popular in his time as blockbuster movies are today.
Jane Austen's novels of upper-class young women seeking suitable husbands, though set
in the 19th century, have become enormously popular in the 21st. The original
Alice's Ad-
ventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll created a fantasy world, where grown-up rules
and logic were turned upside down. Also on display are superb works by contemporary
writers, making it clear that Britain continues to be a powerful force in the world of ideas
and imagination.
