And make no mistake that “wealth” is impressive. After a tour of the architecturally rich facility dating back to the 13th century and continuing up through the 1950s (sorry for all the parenthetical notes, but it’s worth pointing out that Oxford University has just officially granted the Bodleian £26.9 million to construct a new building to house the continuously growing collection of books — I think someone said they receive up to 3,000 new titles a week and they do not turn anything away), we saw an original copy of the Magna Carta (dated 1217), an original hand-written copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (with annotations from Percy), some artifacts from the Marconi Company library including some of the first heartbreaking wireless transmissions from the Titanic as it struck the iceberg and was sinking, Shakespeare’s original folio from 1623 (the first anthology of all his plays), and a Gutenberg Bible.

These books and manuscripts were presented to us in a private room, each by a different curator.