The Fox and the Bees: The Early Library of Corpus Christi College Oxford

Handsomely produced and illustrated [it] comprises an expert account of the library of Corpus from its conception to the earliest surviving catalogue of 1589. * OXONIENSIA *
The book is handsomely produced and illustrated and will be of great use to all those concerned with the contents and physical structure of late medieval and early modern college libraries, and the spread, or attempted spread, of humanism in English universities. * LIBRARY *
This attractive and informative book makes a substantial contribution not only to the history of a single library, but to the history and contents of college libraries in general at a time of intellectual and religious ferment. It also makes important contributions to the history of the spread of humanism and protestantism. * SEHEPUNKTE *
Thomson's writing has a concise simplicity that makes reading the volume wholly pleasurable; his underlying scholarly rigour is always present. * PARERGON *
Thomson's lectures detail the care with which Corpus's herbarii, from Fox and Claymond to its current librarians and archivist, have nurtured, scrubbed, and tended the library since its foundation. A college account from 1596 serendipitously records outlay "for mending the librarie windowes" alongside "Josephe Scaliger de emendacione temporum" (85). If The Fox and the Bees inspires curiosity rather than sating it, it nonetheless provides rich testimony of a moment when to mend a library was to mend the times. * Speculum *