The bestselling phenomenon - an enthralling 6 000-year journey through the history of books and
readingA FINANCIAL TIMES ECONOMIST AND MAIL ON SUNDAY BOOK OF THE YEAR'Outstanding universal
and unique' NEW YORK TIMES'A literary phenomenon.' TLS'Masterly.' ECONOMIST'Mindboggling'
TELEGRAPHLong before books were mass-produced scrolls hand copied on reeds pulled from the
Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and Pharaohs were so determined to
possess them that they dispatched emissaries to the edges of the earth to bring them back.In
Papyrus celebrated classicist Irene Vallejo traces the dramatic history of the book and the
fight for its survival. This is the story of the book's journey from oral tradition to scrolls
to codices and how that transition laid the very foundation of Western culture. And it is a
story full of heroic adventures bloodshed and megalomania - from the battlefields of Alexander
the Great and the palaces of Cleopatra to the libraries of war-torn Sarajevo and Oxford.An
international bestseller Papyrus brings the ancient world to life and celebrates the enduring
power of the written word.
