Save for a small collection of modern reference books on the shelf behind Oscar’s desk, nothing in the room was less than a century old, and many of the books, manuscripts, and furnishings surrounding him were much older. The interior woodwork, from the bookcases to the thick beams overhead, was seventeenth century, having been installed by one of Barchester’s only bibliophile bishops, Bishop Atwater, who had also donated a substantial collection of books to the cathedral.
The wall to Arthur’s left was covered with oak bookcases, reaching high overhead. Most of these still had their original decorated finials above each section—though those at the far end of the room were badly charred from the wartime fire. On the right wall, several narrow windows looked into the cloister, and paneling bore the scratched initials of long-ago readers. In the center of this wall was a case decorated with elaborate carvings and containing the cathedral’s collection of some eighty medieval manuscripts, all, thanks to the events of 1941, lacking their covers.
Down the center of the room was a row of long, wooden trestle tables. One held a few stacks of books Oscar was working with, but most stood empty. In the days when Barchester had been a monastic foundation, long before this space had been constructed, monks would have consulted the cathedral’s books for guidance on everything from agriculture to engineering to medicine. For centuries, clergy of the cathedral used the library often, having no place else to look for historical and theological writing. Even into the nineteenth century, young men of Barchester studying for ordination at Oxford or Cambridge made frequent use of the collection when home for the long vacation. In 1890, parts of the collection were opened as a circulating library for the people of the city—an innovation that lasted until the establishment of a public library in Barchester a few years later. Today, however, Barchester was far from the British centers of scholarship, its library held few items that scholars couldn’t examine much more easily in Oxford or Cambridge or London, and little on the shelves that surrounded Arthur was of interest to the local population. None of this bothered Arthur; it meant he often had this wonderful space to himself.
He stood a moment with his eyes closed and inhaled the smell of antiquity. He could catch a hint of charred wood and a dash of dried mildew. The library smelled substantial; it smelled of both life and death. The air was stale and still and Arthur felt the atmosphere of the place envelop him. He was home.
Despite the ample space on the tables in the center of the room, Arthur preferred to work at a small table under one of the cloister windows. Though the legs had been made in the nineteenth century, the table top was, according to tradition, the oldest piece of furniture in the cathedral—though no one knew exactly how old. It may have once been a piece of an altar, as the words Mensa Christi, or “Table of Christ,” were carved into its front edge in Gothic letters. Its surface was uneven and worn, pitted and gouged. It was much too small for spreading out research papers and entirely unsuitable for writing. Arthur loved it.
He started toward his favorite spot, then paused for a moment, listening. Save for the occasional creaking of beams overhead, all was silent—no turning of the door handle far below, no steps upon the staircase. Arthur walked softly to a case at the far end of the room, stood on tiptoe, and removed a plain-looking, squat volume. Its leather binding was badly worn at the joints and corners, and nearly two inches of the lower spine was lacking. It bore no markings, no indications to a casual observer that it was Arthur’s favorite book in the library. He loved to take it down from its shelf, to caress its covers, to lose himself in the artwork of the frontispiece, and to read from its pages.
The book was the 1634 William Stansby edition of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, or, as the title page called it, The Most Ancient and Famous History of the Renowned Prince Arthur King of Britaine. Malory’s was the first collection in English of many of the King Arthur tales, some of which had begun as medieval French romances. This wasn’t the original printing of Malory—that had been published by England’s first printer, William Caxton, in 1485 and survived in only two copies. Four more editions, nearly as rare as the Caxton, followed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Stansby 1634 edition was the earliest Arthur was ever likely to hold in his own hands. It was also the first to be updated into what Arthur thought of as Shakespearean English, and the text upon which many future editions were based.
—
He had first held this book when he was nine years old, the first time his grandfather had brought him to the cathedral library. Even then, before he had any understanding of bibliography or publishing history, before he knew the difference between paper and vellum or calf and morocco, he had felt the history of this place—a deep sense of almost electric connection to the past. Looking back on it, he supposed his first steps into the room, breathless from following his lanky, loping grandfather up the stairs, had been a spiritual experience. He didn’t feel God in the library, but he felt something beyond himself.
But his grandfather had not brought him to the library to overwhelm him with history, rather to show him a specific book—the Stansby Morte d’Arthur.
“This is a book about your namesake,” said his grandfather.
“My namesake?”
“The person you were named after. I suggested the name myself—the name Arthur—because of this book. And since I was to be your godfather, your parents agreed. This book is about a king named Arthur.”
“What does he do?” asked Arthur.
“He has adventures,” said his grandfather, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Can we check it out and read it?” asked Arthur.
“Not this copy,” said his grandfather with a chuckle, as he took the book from the boy. “But I have another edition at home we can read.”