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A concerned author urges the European powers to be wary of the supremacy of Russia. The mind behind this work was Gustav III, King of Sweden, who pursued completely different interests: By expressing concerns about the European balance, he wanted to shake the balance of power in his country.

The Zurich scholar Johann Caspar Lavater argued in his four-volume work “Physiognomic fragments” that it is possible to reveal a person’s character by reading what’s “written all over his face”, as the saying goes. Some scholars mocked him, but he had many followers.

Do you like bibliophile books? Then you have to browse through this work! It shows how complicated printing was before offset printing made publishing books a piece of cake. Gessner’s compendium tells you everything one had to know about creating books in the age of movable type printing.

In the 21st century, marriages result from love matches in large parts of the world. Jane Austen’s popular novels show that this is a relatively recent historical development. After all, their heroines marry not just for love, but usually also for money.

The Reformation had far-reaching implications, also regarding the Catholic Church. The competition of the Protestants pushed the Catholic clergy to do something no saint had ever been able to do before: purifying the Church. In 1566, this reformed Church presented in its catechism what “new believers” were supposed to believe.

Can you imagine the Emperor of China sending Jesuits to the Papal Court to ensure the Catholic mission of China? This happened in the years after 1708. However, the arguments of the Emperor of China were far too reasonable to convince a Pope.

What role does God play in the human conception of the world? Are the natural sciences enough to explain the world’s miracles? That is no new question but a very old one, and also the people of the 18th century were confronted with it. They sought their solution in alchemy.

It’s one of the world’s most performed operas: Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. An artist’s edition draws inspiration from insular illumination, illustrating the text with Celtic motifs.

You could find them everywhere under Christmas trees in Victorian England, even under the Queen’s: ‘gift books,’ published annually in November. On the history of an early book market phenomenon.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) fell victim to his modernity. Why do contemporary philosophers hardly ever talk about his works on political philosophy today? Not because his ideas aren’t good, but, on the contrary, because they are widely accepted! The matter was quite different in his lifetime though.

Hermann Hesse’s biography shows: fame alone does not make you happy. Neither successful books nor the Nobel Prize for Literature saved him from mental illness and broken marriages. But it also demonstrates that the dark sides of our lives can be the greatest source of creativity.

People need rules, written ones and unwritten ones. The latter are of particular importance when it comes to demonstrating whether one is a member of a certain community or not. But how is it possible for newcomers to know these rules? By reading about them. That is to say, someone simply needs to write them down, just as Johann Christian Lünig did in his book on court ceremonial.

A skeleton, as the personification of death, takes people from all the different social classes as dance partners and leads them in a round dance: For centuries, the “Dance of Death” was seen as a reminder that every life must end sometime. In the end, could the ancient Dances of Death still teach us how to lead a good life?

Our image of the Swiss is still strongly influenced by what Friedrich Schiller wrote about William Tell. But how did the German poet know that a noble people lived in the Swiss mountains?

In the past, he was simply called “the” poet: Virgil. But how could someone whose style was so elitist become a figure of folk tales and influence Europe’s literary history like hardly anyone else? In the end, it was all the result of a naive misunderstanding ...

Pierre de Nolhac made Versailles his life’s work. As a conservator, he did everything in his power to thoroughly restore the castle of the French kings. He also wrote numerous books about Versailles. A fine edition of one of these works can be found in our library.

What do cabbages, turnips, strawberries, songbirds and knife grinders have in common? All these things were offered for sale in the streets of London. By singing about them. Today we present to you a collection of the popular verses of 19th century street cries.

Even long before Diana and “Megxit”, scandals and affairs involving the monarchy were a favourite topic of the British. One particularly spectacular case occurred in 1820. A book reports on a trial that was about much more than tabloid gossip.

Jesuit Erasmus Froelich wasn’t just mathematician and curator of the emperor’s coin collection. He also wrote a book, which was way more than a coin catalogue. It was supposed to prove the historical authenticity of one part of the Bible.

There is hardly any other philosopher that is as controversial among the English as Thomas Hobbes. Born as a child prodigy into the chaos of the English Civil War in the 17th century, he fell out with everybody – without disappearing from the picture. Without him, we probably wouldn’t think of ourselves as individuals.

In his monumental work „Utopia,” Thomas More imagines a world which functions entirely without money. If you think that this utopia is presented as an ideal world-to-wish-for and want to protest loudly, don’t worry. “Utopia,” is not meant to represent to an ideal world – rather, it is meant to make us think critically about the world we live in now.

When Ubbo Emmo wrote his now little-known work on Greek constitutions in 1600, it was pure dynamite. It was all about freedom – East Frisia’s authorities groaned, the freedom-loving classes rejoiced.

Beheaded, broken on the wheel, pinched with burning irons – these punishments seem to us inhumane. And yet, they had a purpose at their time. A book from 1720 published on the orders of the Prussian King gives us some hints as to why he believed these brutal punishments were necessary: Two officials had stolen from the royal coin cabinet.

Joseph Scaliger was considered one of the greatest scholars of the 16th century. The committed Protestant was a fierce opponent of the Jesuits. While fighting dissidents on paper and on the field, he became the founder of modern textual criticism.

You end up on a lonely island all by yourself. What do you do? An endlessly fascinating question, which Daniel Defoe’s world famous novel puts to its readers and which has also sparked the interest of economists over time. Learn why in this article.

The tobacco industry is a unique example of the triumph of modern marketing. Thanks to effective advertising, millions of people don’t want to give up nicotine despite being fully aware of the consequences. An early example of such advertising is this book.

When Protestants from Salzburg had to leave their home, a king revealed his keen perception and a pastor saw the opportunity for a bestseller.

Charles Mackay’s book about the greatest errors in human history has been a bestseller since the 19th century. Back then, it was thanks to a clever marketing strategy. Now, it’s because we’re hoping to gain insights into modern financial crises.

In the middle of the 19th c., there were more tourists than residents in Paris – says writer Louis Desnoyers. He and his colleagues portrayed foreigners in Paris with sharp words. The supposedly non-political text is an image of Paris society shortly before the revolution.

In the middle of the Ottoman Wars of the 17th century, Venice conquered the Peloponnese in a swift attack. A Venetian book by publisher Girolamo Albrizzi detailed the peninsula’s military and economic state at the time – and did so very much in the interest of the political regime.

What is a human being? A finely tuned machine that perishes once the heart stops beating? Or is there a divine spark in mankind? Will our soul still be there when our bodies fall dead to the ground? In 1767, a book dealt with this very question – and it became the most widely-read book in Germany at that time.

Luther wasn’t the only German critic of the church. Ulrich von Hutten also voiced criticism, however not in the form of academic papers, but with a sharp quill and in form of elegant Latin poetry that no one had mastered like he did.

At the end of the 18th century, the German states increasingly took over the organisation of the education of midwives with the help of doctors. A manual published with the intention of helping women in case there was no doctor present bears witness to this development.

When princes collected coins, they mostly did this for one of two reasons: to enhance prestige or because they were passionate collectors. Anton Günther II, Count of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen-Arnstadt, did it for both reasons. Nevertheless, he sold his spectacular collection to Gotha.

When Lessing brought his Nathan the Wise to the stage, the public immediately knew who the model for his main character was: the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, the most famous German Jew at the time. A Karlsruhe publisher seized the opportunity and printed a pirated edition of his works.

The author of this book wasn’t just anyone: Sylvius Nimrod went to the Thirty Years’ War as a landless nobleman. When the war was over, he had become Duke of Württemberg-Oels. He wrote down everything he learned during the terrifying sieges of the war in this manual of artillery.

Investing money wasn’t exactly his forte. Writing about it was. In his short stories, Mark Twain masterfully pictures American capitalism in the 20th century.

Machiavelli’s works on political philosophy like “The Prince” are still popular and frequently quoted today. Also in late 17th century England his works were in demand – for political considerations.

Whoever published a coin collection used to do so not only for scholarly reasons. Quite the opposite: an extensive coin collection made its owner gain prestige, which could be used for political purposes – that’s what the last members of the Farnese family did.

The almost forgotten civil war epos by Roman prodigy Lucan experienced a renaissance during the Thirty Years’ War. There’s a good reason why Dutchman Hugo Grotius, a pioneer of international law, published an edition of this work.

Our work changes the way we see the world. This essay by Swiss art critic Gotthard Jedlicka is proof of that. When living in Madrid, he did not fall in love with wine and tapas, but with the summer light which set the city ablaze with colors – almost like a painting.

He’s often called the “father of liberalism”: John Locke. His idea about protecting the freedom of the individual as the main duty of the state made its way into the American Declaration of Independence in the form of the famous demand for “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Appenzell calendar of the 18th century was something like a cross between BBC Culture and the Daily Mail: an engaging form of mass media to educate peasant communities. It gave readers easy access to the contemporary events of what was, even back then, an increasingly complicated world.

From a Jewish guerrilla fighter to a propaganda writer for the Romans: Flavius Josephus was a fascinating figure of the Roman imperial period. But his ‘Antiquities of the Jews’ became extremely popular in the modern era, as attested by this careful translation of the work into French.

Goethe’s ‘Italienische Reise’ (‘Italian Journey’) is regarded as the work that sparked Germany’s love of Italy, Tuscany, red wine and the Italians’ zest for life. However, this book was no travel guide, but rather a work of self-expression by the ‘Prince of Poets’, as he was known, and the testimony of a burnout-sufferer in search of himself.

Why would a Protestant scholar translate and publish, at his own expense, a work by a Jewish scholar containing all the most important teachings of the Jewish faith? It’s quite simple: to advance his own career. By doing so, Friedrich Wilhelm Bock hoped to secure a professorship.

The title of Johannes Stumpf’s account would translate to “A chronicle of all cities, cantons, and people of the commendable Confederacy and a description of its impressive deeds“ in today’s English. With this work, Christoph Froschauer gave Protestant Switzerland its own history.

Chivalrousness was fashionable at tournaments – those who wrote about these events, on the other hand, often lacked this virtue. Georg Rüxner for example, a herald of the 16th century, showed a very lax approach to the truth in his famous tournament book. But what is a tournament book in the first place?

They have fallen out of fashion - those old prayer books that accompanied the life of their owners just a few generations ago the way smartphones do today. Even though the word “selfie” was not yet known at the time, some prayer books were, in fact, used to immortalize the most important moments in their owners’ lives.

Throughout cultural history money was often associated with vice: gambling addiction, greed, fraud, vanity, hedonism. In his satirical novel, Thackeray brings these ideas to life.

Would you accept money from a generous donor if you knew it came from a criminal source? Maybe you’d have qualms about it – just like Pip, the protagonist in Dickens’ great novel.

Can you imagine a world where every human being has a specific place in the system assigned to one by God that one cannot and must not leave? In his book, Barthélemy de Chasseneuz describes such a rigid wold order. Even though he was anything but a compulsive person...

Even hard work is not always enough to make a living. In their fight for better wages, the coal miners in Zola’s novel go on strike – not without consequences…

The Swiss lawyer Jacques Godefroy studied the Codex Theodosianus for decades. His edition of this compilation of laws from the late Antiquity was only published in 1665. Our edition of this epoch-making book passed through many illustrious hands, as it tells us itself.

In 1516 Johannes Adler published his book on the legal problems arising from the constant debasement of coins for the understanding of law in early modern times. It might be the case that he indirectly criticised the monetary policies of his sovereign by doing so.

Francis Bacon wanted to control nature by means of scientific experiments and knowledge. In 1605, the visionary compiled all kinds of knowledge and outlined new fields of research. However, he should have refrained from experimenting himself …

Did you know that many members of the 19th century European nobility were tattoo enthusiasts? And did you know that books like Forster's contributed significantly to this? We will tell you why.

You know the trendy so-called “help-yourself” literature on the subject of “happiness” – in just five minutes, without any effort, with money-back guarantee. Fortunately, Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch does not offer superficial light fare such as this. But in 1366, he also wrote a guide to happiness.

Around 1600, war was raging throughout Europe. Happy were those who were blessed with modern fortifications. In 1624 Italian military engineer Francesco Tesini wrote a manual on fortifications and sieges because he knew perfectly what really mattered.

For a long time, Europeans thought that foreign and distant China was absolutely fascinating. Dutchman Joan Nieuhoff was one of the few who actually travelled there. His richly illustrated report about the country became a huge success.

Have you ever wondered why the noble ladies and gentlemen of the Baroque period, who are usually arrogantly staring at us from paintings in castles and museums, are wearing huge wigs? It was fashionable, of course. But why did it come into fashion? The disgusting answer is: syphilis.

Schaffhausen entrepreneur Johann Conrad Fischer travelled to England in 1814. He wanted to know how far the British competition had come during the Napoleonic Wars. His diary illustrates vividly how things were going in the centres of industrialisation.

In 1837, Russian national poet Pushkin died from the wounds received in a duel. Not an unusual cause of death in the early 19th century. Ten thousands of students fought duels on a regular basis. Politician Heinrich Stephani campaigned against this foolishness.

The Bastille had already been stormed, the king’s power limited, his execution and the birth of the Republic were to take place two years later: In the middle of the French Revolution, playwright Kotzebue travelled to Paris. He wrote about it. The occasion was a very sad one.

Would you ever take out a loan on the condition that you vouch for it with a pound of your own flesh? With this premise opens the thrilling drama of the “Merchant of Venice”. How it ends? We’ll tell you in this article.

With his Theatrum Machinarium, the Saxon engineer Jacob Leupold wrote an epoch-making textbook series about all kinds of useful machines. Our volume is dedicated to the “Heb-Zeugen” – devices that can be used to lift heavy loads.

There was no connection between the South Sea Company and our South Sea whatsoever. The company’s objective was to shoulder national debt and generate as much profit as possible. The fact that it’s still considered the prime example of a financial bubble today is due to a deadly sin, greed.

Sports Personality of the Year, the Oscars, weekly charts – rarely a domain can do without those popular rankings. They date back to the era of Enlightenment. In 1748, David Herrliberger presented the most important Swiss personalities. Do we still know them today?

Humanists did not have Facebook to maintain their international contacts. They were not in need of “likes” to show someone’s popularity. But they also had their methods...

The French novelist Victor Hugo once wanted to write a biography of Shakespeare. He ended up writing about the great geniuses of literature in general. Among them: Aeschylus, Shakespeare and – himself.

Perhaps you’ll know the heroes of today’s story from Wagner’s opera of the same name: apart from Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde were the most famous couple in the Arthurian legends. Today, we follow their footsteps through Europe...

He became known as the knight who fought the windmills. However, Cervantes’ masterpiece Don Quixote is about much more: about chivalric novels as popular literature, the power of imagination and the danger of reading too much.

Those who discuss must argue logically. Until modern times, the philosopher’s “toolbox” needed for this was the Organon by Aristotle. Royal printer Guillaume Morel presented a neatly edited version of this work in 1562.

If you think that globalisation first started with the Internet, you’re mistaken. Global trade has existed since antiquity and its development accelerated rapidly in the 19th century. This was due to the many international expositions. Today, we’ll be talking about the Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893.

Acta Eruditorum is one of the earliest scientific journals we have. Of course, the research findings it contains have long become obsolete and outdated. It is however a valuable testimony to the beginnings of our modern scientific discussion.

To this day, we still associate the horrors of the Inquisition and the brutal treatment of ‘heretics’ with Spain – forgetting that Spain’s enemies weren’t any better. They simply had better PR, which historians are only gradually starting to realise.

Not having to work, partying every night in the sparkling city, drinking and dancing as if there were no tomorrow. Doesn’t that sound good? F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel about the rich and beautiful of the 1920s shows that, unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as that…

In the 16th century, discussions on how to secure one’s life beyond death were waged just as fiercely as the discussions about secure pensions would be waged today. Jakob Heerbrand’s “New Papal Indulgence” shows how Protestant theologians prepared themselves for these discussions.

In 1670, Charles II granted the East India Company all the rights it needed to become a ‘state within a state’ in the Far East. In 1673, John Ogilby published a book for the benefit of investors wondering whether they should buy shares in the East India Company, describing the kind of profit there was to be made there.

In 1518, Spanish pirates captured a ship carrying a diplomat of the Sultan of Fez. The pirates enslaved him and presented him as a gift to the Pope, in whose service he wrote an account of the countries of Africa. For centuries, this book was the only source of information the Christian world had on inland Africa.

Boccaccio dedicated the 99th chapter of his book about the famous women to “Popess” Joan. But did she really exist? And if not, why has this figure survived to this day?

Imagine spending your childhood in the countryside. You can run around barefoot and play as much as you want, without any grown-ups telling you what to do. Sounds like a dream, right? Rousseau thought so too. Some of his contemporaries weren’t convinced and burned his books.

Zurich didn’t have a standing army, instead, the city had a citizen militia that mastered the difficult discipline of artillery. The so-called “Gesellschaft der Constaffleren und Feuerwerker” (Society of Constables and Ordnance Technicians) was responsible for the militia and issued wonderful single-leaf prints on the occasion of the New Year. These prints tell us what you needed to know in early modern times to be a successful artilleryman.

The first World’s Fair was the first international exhibition showcasing industry and commerce, and a promotional event for international free trade. The German Customs Union commissioned a report on the event covering 2,522 pages.

The figure of Carmen known from the opera is not an invention by Georges Bizet, but Prosper Mérimée. In 1947 the female artist Frey-Surbeck created the illustrations for our luxury edition of his work and shows us how the role of the woman changed in the 100 years since Mérimée.

Who would have thought that the roots of American comic books could be found in Switzerland? The Geneva educationalist Rodolphe Töpffer created picture stories that even fascinated Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The detailed realism of his pictures helps us to catch a true-to-life glimpse of him and his students.

Nowadays, the Suez Canal is a main artery of the global economy. When its construction began, people were fascinated by the project – but there was hardly anyone who wanted to invest money, as today’s book shows.

René Descartes wanted to develop nothing less than ‘a universal method for searching for truth’. His ideas were revolutionary – and shocking. His key philosophical statements are all condensed in this Latin edition from 1685.

Some say that the world would be better without evil. Others say that, if there really were a God, evil couldn’t exist in the world. Leibniz says: God does exist, and we live in the best of all possible worlds. Don’t agree? Just read on...

“The North Star of architecture”, that is how Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called the master builder Palladio. Although he created most of his works in the 16th century, it was not until much later that Palladio turned into a worldwide success. He became a role model for all those who wanted to create democratic architecture.

His life was a battle: a soldier against the enemy, a lawyer against an unjust state, an author against censorship. Johann Gottfried Seume is one of the most famous authors of the German Enlightenment. And he did not mince words in his books.

With its German and French past, Alsace has an exciting history. Johann Daniel Schoepflin, a clever man with a Europe-wide reputation, already thought so, too. In the middle of the 18th century he wrote a comprehensive work about the history of Alsace, which is still quoted today.

Those who want to share their creative works with the world write a blog. But what did writers do in the 18th century? They followed Schiller’s example and published an almanac that was only related to astrology regarding its title.

What happened when written arithmetic with Arabic numerals was introduced? It called for new units of measure and currencies of the decimal system that were perfectly suited for this form of arithmetic. However, humans are creatures of habit...

Does something float on water due to its weight or its shape? And can this be answered sitting in a study? In the 17th century, two schools of thought opposed each other in the matter: Aristotelians and natural scientists. In 1612, Galileo Galilei clarified it once and for all.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is considered a pioneer of the French Revolution, his “Social Contract” a key treatise for the theory of modern democracy. Yet he was convinced that humankind would become evil only through association with others.

Johann Baptist Homann was a highly successful cartographer – even though he did not have remotely the means to keep up with his competitors. His secret to success: scholarly expertise, good customer service… and copying.

There are men who spend a lifetime gaining experience. And there are men who learn how to put their knowledge on paper at universities. And then there are a select few who possess both, experience and university knowledge. The mint master Reiner Budel was one of them. He wrote an influential work on numismatics.

In September 1909, two explorers returned from expeditions to the Arctic that had lasted several years. Both claimed to have been the first human to reach the North Pole. A dirty fight for fame broke out. So, who really was the first man to reach the North Pole?

Who was the first man to reach the North Pole? Not an easy question, since two men claim this honor for themselves. In this article and the next, we introduce you to their books and discuss why reaching the North Pole was such a big deal in the first place.