Shelf Stories: a new series of articles exploring the goings-on at Gladstone's Library. These are available to mailing list members in advance of publication on our website.
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Many volumes in the Gladstone's Library collection are contemporary, but sometimes even those that were printed a century or more ago offer unique insights into current affairs. Author Melissa Harrison witnessed this first-hand when she happened across an anti-vaccination book while drafting a new novel in our Reading Rooms.
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“It’s astonishing,” says Melissa Harrison, turning the blue-bound book over carefully in her hands. On the cover, embossed in gold, is a line taken from Macbeth: “The Earth hath bubbles as the water has and these are of them”, but this is not a Shakespearean work. Instead, the bard’s words have been marshalled for what might seem a very modern debate on the theme of anti-vaccination.
Melissa, an author of fiction (All Among the Barley) and non-fiction works (The Stubborn Light of Things), will be familiar to those who attended her Gladfest and Hearth talks. She recently returned to Gladstone’s Library to work on a new project, which is under wraps for now.
Melissa said: “I am a bit of an old book obsessive. For Christmas this year I bought everyone a secondhand book. I spent a day in an old bookshop picking them out. I find them fascinating; I love that you can read about a part of history in an incredibly direct way. Picking up a book that was contemporary to another time means you encounter the idioms, the language, and an incontrovertible aspect of the past.”
We won’t go far into the pro and anti-vaccine to-and-fro here, although the policy at Gladstone’s Library encourages staff to be fully vaccinated and boosted. The striking thing about Melissa’s find is that a book published in 1885 and glanced at by chance could be so apt today.
She said: “I was sitting at my favourite desk, which is up on the Reading Room gallery, and I spotted the spine and the title, The Story of a Great Delusion by William White, and I just hooked it out.”
The resulting read, Melissa said, was fascinating as many of the anti-vaccination arguments in the book closely paralleled those that are played out on Facebook and Twitter today, from the inclusion of misinformation to hints of rather more understandable distrust of government.
The serendipity of stumbling across just the right book at the right time is something that is difficult to replicate outside libraries and good bookshops; online searches will serve up what Google thinks you want, or whatever is trending highest and hardest. You need shelves to experience the true joy of browsing and that Eureka! moment of sudden and brilliant discovery.
This is why nature writer and novelist Melissa returns to Gladstone’s Library. She said: “When I was writing Rain [an exploration of the landscape-crafting power of wet weather], I did most of my research here. I came to the library to look up glossaries of dialect words for rain, and that kind of research wouldn’t be possible without a collection like this. I also spent some time collecting words for my fellow nature writer Robert Macfarlane; he was working on Landmarks at the time and had asked people to send him local terms to do with landscape. As I was sitting there with a stack of the right books, I made him a big list.
“To be able to just sit here and leaf through these books and look up a local word for a light shower that doesn’t soak you to the skin – it’s unique.”
This marks Melissa’s first visit back to Gladstone’s Library since the building reopened, and more are likely to follow.
She said: “I really missed it. It feels absolutely wonderful to be back. I went to Oxford from comprehensive school and I found it quite difficult. Coming here is like all the things I loved about Oxford but without that feeling I don’t belong. Just being able to spend all day thinking and being looked after while you do it is really special.”
If you like the idea of being able to “spend all day thinking and being looked after”, you can make a booking enquiry via the button on our website. You can find it in the top right corner. You can also call Reception on 01244 532 350. Reception is open from 8am to 8pm. If you call outside those hours, please leave a message with your name, number and preferred dates. We look forward to hearing from you.