| The Vanity of Books is a project about the destruction of books, Vanity or “Vanitas” in Spanish can also be interpreted as “emptiness” and can be seen to correspond to the meaninglessness of earthly life and its transient nature. It is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with the European still-life tradition. |
Weather damaged King James Bible found in an abandoned house on the Isle of Benbecula, Scotland
Bomb damaged Register, Cantebury Cathedral Archive, Cantebury, CCA-U3-4/1/4
Three unopened carbonised rolls excavated at Herculanium, 1756 from the villa of the papyri, as buried in AD 79 at the eruption of vesuvius, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS. Gr. Class.f. 25-27 (r)
Weather damaged Bible found in an abandoned house on the Isle of Bernaray, Scotland
Burnt Breviary, Cantebury Cathedral Archive, Cantebury, CCA-AddMs-6
Shelf damaged book, Wellcome Library, London
Fire damaged Court Book, Cantebury Cathedral Archive, Cantebury, CCA-DCc-CR/65
Mould damaged King James Bible found in an abandoned house on the Isle of Benbecula, Scotland
Weather damaged King James Bible and Hymn Book found in an abandoned house on the Isle of Bernaray, Scotland
N. Johnston, collections for Holderness etc. Fore-edge disintegrated through mould and rodent damage, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Top.Yorks. c. 20
Library Records with hole in tail-edge cause by gunshot or other damage, Bodleian Library, Oxford, b.291
“The Bombed Book”, Lambeth Palace Library, Lambeth Palace, London