The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World

An immensely fascinating book if you get past the second chapter. Instead of trying a literary fiction or a pure biography, Mr. Canfora has opted to string together a number of anecdotes from various early sources to tell the story of the Library of Alexandria. Unfortunately as a reader you have to add a lot yourself. An introduction would have been nice or a small paragraph before each chapter that explains why the text is relevant to the famous library.

Even so, I would highly recommend this short book to anyone learning or teaching about the reality behind the legend of both the library and the city of Alexandria.

This is a clever reconstruction of the probable history of the scholarly community that we describe as the "Library at Alexandria" generally regarded as the focus of Hellenistic scholarly activity. There is a historical sketch of its provenance and a reasoned history of its survival until its likely dispersal and destruction. The Author has also provided a lengthy discussion of the various references to the library and the reasons why the various authors recorded the information they have passed to us. It is a clever and informative discussion. there is also discussion of the rivalry with the library at Pergamum. This book is definitely a keeper.

A somewhat unusual history, in that it consists of a series of rather loosely connected episodes relating to the famous library of Alexandria, starting with a visit by Hecataeus of Abdera to the tomb of Rameses II and ending with the caliph Omar's command to burn the contents of the library on the grounds that if the books contradicted the book of the Prophet, they deserved to be destroyed, and if they were in accordance with the book of the Prophet, they were superfluous and therefore deserved to be destroyed. The final episode in the series, "The Dialogue of John Philoponus with the Emir Amrou Ibn el-Ass while Amrou prepared to burn the Library", could easily have been a story written by Borges.

This is history in the form of investigative narrative. The author presents sixteen narratives about the Library of Alexandria constructed from classical sources including Homer, Plutarch and Diogenes. He goes on to present commentaries on sources of information about the Library ranging from Gibbon to a discussion of the archaeologists knowledge of the construction and plan of the library. The combination is both a fascinating and unique approach to the history of one of the wonders of the ancient world.

Fascinating and well researched work on the library in Alexandria. But the lack of chronological arrangement in the chapters is quite confusing and frustrating.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the lost Library at Alexandria. A fascinating read.

The Library of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the Ancient World, has haunted Western culture for over 2,000 years. The Ptolemaic kings of Egypt--successors of Alexander the Great--had a staggering ambition: to house all of the books ever written under one roof, and the story of the universal library and its destruction still has the power to move us.
But what was the library, and where was it? Did it exist at all? Contemporary descriptions are...