- Article
- Article
Book design, dissected
Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.
- Book extract
- Book extract
You know the drill
Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.
- Article
- Article
The fine line between collecting and hoarding
Being ‘a collector’ is often celebrated but being labelled ‘a hoarder’ can be humiliating, at best. Georgie Evans asks what makes one set of objects a collection and another a hoard.
- Article
- Article
Restoring disorder to ‘The Book of Disquiet’
Printer Tim Hopkins explains what making an extraordinary new edition of Fernando Pessoa’s book revealed about both the text and the mind.
- Article
- Article
Ken’s ten: looking back at ten years of Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection founder Ken Arnold picks his favourite exhibits.
- Article
- Article
The unexpected parallels between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wellcome Collection
With the news of a sequel in development, Russell Dornan explores parallels between ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and Wellcome Collection.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Ten favourites from the stores
Books, sex workers’ cards, a bomb... the Retrieval Team gives us a glimpse behind the scenes.
- Article
- Article
Bleeding healthy
For thousands of years, and in many different cultures, people have practised bloodletting for health and medical reasons. Julia Nurse explains where and when bleeding was used, how it was done, and why.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The beautiful language of bookplates
Don’t judge a book only by its cover. Take a look inside, where decorative bookplates reveal stories that cross continents and centuries.
- Article
- Article
Medieval doodles
Fish, lute players and defaced demons: marginal doodles in some of Europe’s first printed books provide a tantalising glimpse into the late-medieval mind.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Bird-spotting from medieval to modern times
What use is ‘twitching’? Exploring materials created over 500 years shows that there’s more to birdwatching than meets the eye.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Going viral
The death of a close friend made David Jesudason want to know more about viruses and the people who first discover them. Here, he puts both under the microscope.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Solving the mystery of how to be happy
Crime writer Sophie Hannah thinks she might be too happy. Worried she’s using her happiness as an excuse to avoid a big work problem, she turns to a life coach for help.
- Article
- Article
Fantastic beasts and unnatural history
Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.
- Article
- Article
Native Americans through the 19th-century lens
The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.
- Article
- Article
A medieval guide to practical magic
With few sources of effective help available when treating an injured patient, the medieval physician could instead stage a healing ceremony using a practical how-to guide he carried with him.
- Article
- Article
Native Americans and the dehumanising force of the photograph
In the second part of Native Americans through the 19th-century lens, we delve deeper into the ambivalent messages within the images.
- Article
- Article
Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze
Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The eyes have it
In 1583, eye specialist Georg Bartisch published a book detailing the treatments he’d developed for various eye disorders. Today his approach seems to mix surprising innovation with entirely contemporary religious judgement.
- Article
- Article
Lovesickness and ‘The Love Thief’
An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.
- Article
- Article
Aphasia and drawing elephants
When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.
- Article
- Article
What our facial hair says about us
Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.
- Article
- Article
Epidemic threats and racist legacies
Epidemiology is the systematic, data-driven study of health and disease in populations. But as historian Jacob Steere-Williams suggests, this most scientific of fields emerged in the 19th century imbued with a doctrine of Western imperialism – a legacy that continues to influence how we talk about disease.
- Article
- Article
Indian botanicals and heritage wars
Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.
- Article
- Article
The healing power of breathing
The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.