books

[Civil War Bugle]

I've been reading about printing and was wondering about Almean book culture.

1. How good is the library at the University of Verduria?
2. How common are books from one continent going to be elsewhere?
3. How common is book collecting?
4. Anything else interesting to say?

Thanks for looking at these silly questions.

[zompist]

Since the invention of printing, well over a million titles have been published in Eretald (including the littoral and the islands). It's fair to say that the library would own about a third of these.

The library has manuscripts too, of course— a few thousand, which is a very impressive collection; in pre-printing days an avidly reading nobleman would be fortunate to own a hundred. Printing greatly changes the dissemination of books.

There would be book collectors; as in any collecting milieu the greatest value would be on rarities, from first editions to manuscripts to rarities such as books published in unexpected countries.

There's a market for Eretald's books in southern Ereláe and Arcél, especially books on technology and science, but merchants can unload just about anything they can get hold of.

The market for any other region's books is lamentably small. Eretald's scholars prize books from all over, but few can read them and few have been translated. (Note that even so basic a work as the Baburkunim has never been fully translated into Verdurian.) You can get some idea of how it is from the article on Hiefae.

[Civil War Bugle]

Thanks. The poor translation of the Baburkunim reminds me of the status of the Quran in the west circa 1500 or so.

[Civil War Bugle]

A new related question if I might beg.

You have a large chunck of Cuzeian religious literature, and varying levels of quotations of other religious books. Do you have extensive written-up bits of all these books (religious texts or otherwise) around or is anything quoted on the website all there is?

[zompist]

You're so optimistic. This is Conworlding Trick #1: make it look as if the things you cite really exist.

The closest you'll get, I'm afraid, is the long-threatened, impending release of Babblers, which is not only a text in itself but has some quotations from other works.

[Civil War Bugle]

That's what I thought, but I figured I'd ask and find out more if there was a positive answer. Thanks for the quick response.