"Brilliant Deduction" asks the question "who are the greatest detectives ever" and then attempts to find an answer which doesn't involve fictional characters. The result is nine men whose careers in the 19th and early 20th century represent the heroic years of real-world detection, from the very first full-time professionals to the Prohibition era. Each chapter examines a different detective (or, in one case, a detective partnership) who became a legend in his own time, and in some cases a full-fledged celebrity. At the same time, the larger narrative ties these individual histories together...

"Brilliant Deduction" asks the question "who are the greatest detectives ever" and then attempts to find an answer which doesn't involve fictional characters. The result is nine men whose careers in the 19th and early 20th century represent the heroic years of real-world detection, from the very first full-time professionals to the Prohibition era. Each chapter examines a different detective (or, in one case, a detective partnership) who became a legend in his own time, and in some cases a full-fledged celebrity. At the same time, the larger narrative ties these individual histories together...

""Cotton's Library"" reveals what can happen to a museum-quality collection before it reaches the safety of a museum (and sometimes even after). It is the story of an embryonic British national library assembled more than 400 years ago by Sir Robert Cotton. Boasting masterpieces of medieval illumination, the sole manuscript sources of Beowulf and ""Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,"" and two of four surviving 1215 copies of Magna Carta as well as many priceless historic records, Cotton's library was and is an irreplaceable treasure of the English-speaking world. Cotton and his successors...

""Cotton's Library"" reveals what can happen to a museum-quality collection before it reaches the safety of a museum (and sometimes even after). It is the story of an embryonic British national library assembled more than 400 years ago by Sir Robert Cotton. Boasting masterpieces of medieval illumination, the sole manuscript sources of Beowulf and ""Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,"" and two of four surviving 1215 copies of Magna Carta as well as many priceless historic records, Cotton's library was and is an irreplaceable treasure of the English-speaking world. Cotton and his successors...