‘Why are these under display cases?’ asked Victoire. ‘Seems rather difficult to take them out.’ ‘Because these are the only editions in Oxford,’ said Anthony. ‘There are backups at Cambridge, Edinburgh, and the Foreign Offices in London. Those are updated annually to account for new findings. But these are the only comprehensive, authoritative collections of knowledge of every language that exist. New work is added by hand, you’ll notice – it costs too much to reprint every time new additions are made, and besides, our printing presses can’t handle that many foreign scripts.’
