Klencke Atlas - The Largest Book in the World



The British Library has announced that the Klencke Atlas will have its first-ever public showing this summer as part of a map exhibition.
It is almost absurdly huge – 1.75 metres (5ft) tall and 1.9 metres (6ft) wide – and was given to [Charles II] by Dutch merchants and placed in his cabinet of curiosities.

At the time of its creation, it was intended as "an encyclopaedic summary of the world."

Link.  Previously on Neatorama:  The [other] Largest Book in the World

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Amazing that even though it first moved to the British Museum over 180 years ago it has never been publicly displayed with it's pages open. I find it irritating when publicly funded museums keep treasures hidden away. The public own them, the public have a right to see them. Museums do not, or at least should not, exist to store items only for academic study.

BTW while the Grauniad is well known for its typographical errors, however surely their proof readers should have spotted that 1.75m is not 5 feet.
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