Ian Willison, whose professional life was spent in the British Museum Library, later the British Library, has played a leading part in the development of book-history studies in the English-speaking world. In the two decades since his retirement from a post that gave him administrative and intellectual oversight of the library's rare-book and English-language programmes, he has, as a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of English Studies of the School of Advanced Study of the University of London, made an enormous contribution to the organization and encouragement of research and publications in a new and expanding field of historical endeavour. Official and deserved recognition of his efforts came in 2005 with his appointment as a Commander in the Order of the British Empire.

The present volume brings together a selection of essays and studies by some of Willison's many friends, colleagues and associates in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Germany. The topics covered-on book history, libraries, archives and scholarship-reflect the breadth of his interests and the scope of his curiosity. From the inside story of the major edition of George Orwell's works to the investigation of New Zealand's print culture a surprising mix of subjects suggests the many ways in which the West's book heritage and desire to order knowledge can be explored and illuminated. The contributors have been and are intimately involved in diverse aspects of the reshaping of our access to means of communication and civilization. As a result, the volume offers, as well as precise studies of the history of textual transmission and of intellectual debates, insights into an evolving discipline and into its attempts to understand our culture in depth.