Sleuthing in the Stacks

Whilst putting together some posters together to promote the manifold wonders of the Exeter Library Stack (which you can now get to browse yourself! Book here) I came across a volume with a beautiful decorated cover and spine – Moorish designs and lettering in time-faded gilt. Perfect, I thought, and took it from the shelf to take a picture. Something about it felt a little odd, however. Its pages were swollen, as if the book had been left out in the rain at some point in its long life. It soon became apparent that its state arose from far more fascinating factors. Factors which called for some serious stack sleuthing.    The book was originally published by A&C Black in 1904, and describes the journeys made by Samuel Levy Bensusan through Morocco around that time. There are 74 colour plates comprising painted illustrations by A.S.Forrest (that’s A.S. for Archibald Stevenson) which offer a colourfully romanticised (or exoticised ) vision of the country in the years before colonis