Edward Wilson-Lee – författare

'Ingenious… a glorious portrait of the great 15th-century prince of learning' Daily Telegraph 'A deeply fascinating, sui generis book by a brilliant scholar-writer, which uses the life story of a Renaissance prodigy to summon an angel-host of ideas, people and stories, all circling the question of language's ability to transcend the mortal realm' Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland________________________________ Does there exist a form of speech so powerful as to allow the speaker to control the listener, taking over their thoughts and even their will? Renaissance prodigy and polymath Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – the uncontested marvel of an age of true wonders – believed that there was. The Grammar of Angels tells how Pico dedicated his short, brilliant life to finding a philosophy that would settle the most important questions about human existence. This philosophy would, he believed, provide tools by which man could transcend his mortal limitations and join the ranks of the angels.At the heart of Pico’s ideas were questions that he traced through the breadth and depth of human thought, from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to the medieval Arabs and Jews. He made use of everything at his disposal from Europe’s broadening horizons and asked primal questions of himself and the world. Why is it that we can be astonished by beauty? That the hairs on the backs of our necks can be made to stand by intoxicating rhythms and harmonies? That we can be provoked to ecstatic experiences by the simple means of an incantation?In 1486, when he was just twenty-three, he declared his intention to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers and for which he wrote a speech that is often deemed the ‘manifesto of the Renaissance, even though the ideas it introduced were subject to an unprecedented ban by the Church. He died mysteriously aged only thirty-one.The implications of his thought were dangerous in the Europe of his day, suggesting as they did that the notion of the individual might be just as much of an illusion as a flat earth or a geocentric universe. Pico’s tempestuous life at the heart of the Renaissance was a testament to intellectual daring, to a human dignity founded in the willingness to think the unthinkable and to peer over the edge of the abyss in search of answers.

Investigating the literary culture of the early interaction between European countries and East Africa, Edward Wilson-Lee uncovers an extraordinary sequence of stories in which explorers, railway labourers, decadent émigrés, freedom fighters, and pioneering African leaders made Shakespeare their own in this alien land. Exploring the unexpected history of Shakespeare’s global legacy, Shakespeare in Swahililand is a breathtaking combination of travel, history, biography and satire. It traces Shakespeare’s influence in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya – where Cambridge lecturer Edward Wilson-Lee was raised.From Victorian expeditions in which the Bard’s works were the sole reading material, Wilson-Lee shows how Shakespeare’s works have been a vital touchstone throughout the region. The Plays were printed by liberated slaves as one of the first texts in Swahili, performed by Indian labourers while they built the Uganda Railway, used to argue for native rights, and translated by intellectuals, revolutionaries and independence leaders. Revealing how great works can provide a key insight into modern history, these stories investigate the astonishing poignancy of beauty out of place.

WINNER OF THE 2019 PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE The fascinating history of Christopher Columbus’s illegitimate son Hernando, guardian of his father’s flame, courtier, bibliophile and catalogue supreme, whose travels took him to the heart of 16th-century Europe’ Honor Clerk, Spectator, Books of the Year This is the scarcely believable – and wholly true – story of Christopher Columbus' bastard son Hernando, who sought to equal and surpass his father's achievements by creating a universal library. His father sailed across the ocean to explore the known boundaries of the world for the glory of God, Spain and himself. His son Hernando sought instead to harness the vast powers of the new printing presses to assemble the world’s knowledge in one place, his library in Seville.Hernando was one of the first and greatest visionaries of the print age, someone who saw how the scale of available information would entirely change the landscape of thought and society.His was an immensely eventual life. As a youth, he spent years travelling in the New World, and spent one living with his father in a shipwreck off Jamaica. He created a dictionary and a geographical encyclopaedia of Spain, helped to create the first modern maps of the world, spent time in almost every major European capital, and associated with many of the great people of his day, from Ferdinand and Isabel to Erasmus, Thomas More, and Dürer. He wrote the first biography of his father, almost single-handedly creating the legend of Columbus that held sway for many hundreds of years, and was highly influential in crafting how Europe saw the world his father reached in 1492. He also amassed the largest collection of printed images and of printed music of the age, started what was perhaps Europe's first botanical garden, and created by far the greatest private library Europe had ever seen, dwarfing with its 15,000 books every other library of the day.Edward Wilson-Lee has written the first major modern biography of Hernando – and the first of any kind available in English. In a work of dazzling scholarship, The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books tells an enthralling tale of the age of print and exploration, a story with striking lessons for our own modern experiences of information revolution and Globalisation.

A Times History Book of the Year 2022A TLS Book of the Year 2022‘Exhilarating and whip-smart’ THE SUNDAY TIMES From award-winning writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true historical detective story set in sixteenth-century Portugal. A History of Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across the Renaissance globe. One of them – an aficionado of mermen and Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on water-music – returns home from witnessing the birth of the modern age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim of a grisly and curious murder. The other – a ruffian, vagabond and braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan – ends up as the national poet of Portugal.The stories of Damião de Góis and Luís de Camões capture the extraordinary wonders that awaited Europeans on their arrival in India and China, the challenges these marvels presented to longstanding beliefs, and the vast conspiracy to silence the questions these posed about the nature of history and of human life.Like all good mysteries, everyone has their own version of events.

A Times History Book of the Year 2022A TLS Book of the Year 2022‘Exhilarating and whip-smart’ THE SUNDAY TIMES From award-winning writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true historical detective story set in sixteenth-century Portugal. A History of Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across the Renaissance globe. One of them – an aficionado of mermen and Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on water-music – returns home from witnessing the birth of the modern age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim of a grisly and curious murder. The other – a ruffian, vagabond and braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan – ends up as the national poet of Portugal.The stories of Damião de Góis and Luís de Camões capture the extraordinary wonders that awaited Europeans on their arrival in India and China, the challenges these marvels presented to longstanding beliefs, and the vast conspiracy to silence the questions these posed about the nature of history and of human life.Like all good mysteries, everyone has their own version of events.

'Ingenious… a glorious portrait of the great 15th-century prince of learning' Daily Telegraph 'A deeply fascinating, sui generis book by a brilliant scholar-writer, which uses the life story of a Renaissance prodigy to summon an angel-host of ideas, people and stories, all circling the question of language's ability to transcend the mortal realm' Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland________________________________ Does there exist a form of speech so powerful as to allow the speaker to control the listener, taking over their thoughts and even their will? Renaissance prodigy and polymath Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – the uncontested marvel of an age of true wonders – believed that there was. The Grammar of Angels tells how Pico dedicated his short, brilliant life to finding a philosophy that would settle the most important questions about human existence. This philosophy would, he believed, provide tools by which man could transcend his mortal limitations and join the ranks of the angels.At the heart of Pico’s ideas were questions that he traced through the breadth and depth of human thought, from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to the medieval Arabs and Jews. He made use of everything at his disposal from Europe’s broadening horizons and asked primal questions of himself and the world. Why is it that we can be astonished by beauty? That the hairs on the backs of our necks can be made to stand by intoxicating rhythms and harmonies? That we can be provoked to ecstatic experiences by the simple means of an incantation?In 1486, when he was just twenty-three, he declared his intention to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers and for which he wrote a speech that is often deemed the ‘manifesto of the Renaissance, even though the ideas it introduced were subject to an unprecedented ban by the Church. He died mysteriously aged only thirty-one.The implications of his thought were dangerous in the Europe of his day, suggesting as they did that the notion of the individual might be just as much of an illusion as a flat earth or a geocentric universe. Pico’s tempestuous life at the heart of the Renaissance was a testament to intellectual daring, to a human dignity founded in the willingness to think the unthinkable and to peer over the edge of the abyss in search of answers.

The untold story of the greatest library of the Renaissance and its creator Hernando ColónThis engaging book offers the first comprehensive account of the extraordinary projects of Hernando Colón, son of Christopher Columbus, which culminated in the creation of the greatest library of the Renaissance, with ambitions to be universal––that is, to bring together copies of every book, on every subject and in every language. Pérez Fernández and Wilson‑Lee situate Hernando’s projects within the rapidly changing landscape of early modern knowledge, providing a concise history of the collection of information and the origins of public libraries, examining the challenges he faced and the solutions he devised. The two authors combine “meticulous research with deep and original thought,” shedding light on the history of libraries and the organization of knowledge. The result is an essential reference text for scholars of the early modern period, and for anyone interested in the expansion and dissemination of information and knowledge.

This volume provides the first transnational overview of the relationship between translation and the book trade in early modern Europe. Following an introduction to the theories and practices of translation in early modern Europe, and to the role played by translated books in driving and defining the trade in printed books, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of translated-book history - language learning, audience, printing, marketing, and censorship - across several national traditions. This study touches on a wide range of early modern figures who played myriad roles in the book world; many of them also performed these roles in different countries and languages. Topics treated include printers' sensitivity to audience demand; paratextual and typographical techniques for manipulating perception of translated texts; theories of readership that travelled across borders; and the complex interactions between foreign-language teachers, teaching manuals, immigration, diplomacy, and exile.