Explore motives behind gifts and the many hidden meanings of books

WHAT connects the Trojan Horse with a book token from W H Smith? Both are gifts and each features in Gifts and Books, a wide-ranging and absorbing new exhibition at Oxford’s Weston Library curated by Nicholas Perkins.

The Trojans welcomed the wooden horse into their city, little knowing that it contained a bellyful of Greek warriors primed to slip out by night and capture Troy.

The story is represented here by a tiny seal, dating from the second century CE. By contrast, the motive behind that Christmas book token is less likely to be treacherous. Gift-giving — and receiving — is complicated. A present may be designed to please or to impress or placate, to impose an obligation or curry favour or simply to express friendship or love.

Books themselves make ideal presents, as witnessed by the swelling sales around Christmas, but gift-giving isalso a prominent feature of narrative, going back to the Old Testament and beyond. Cain killed Abel out of jealousy because God/Yahweh preferred Abel’s sacrifice of succulent sheep to Cain’s offerings of crops. It was the wrong kind of gift and resulted in the first murder, illustrated here by a page from a medieval manuscript.

Two exhibits connected to Elizabeth I show how the giving of books may echo status and power. As a princess, she gifted a copy of a devotional book to her stepmother Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII.

Elizabeth herself translated the text from French and crafted the intricate needlework on the cover. The gift demonstrated her piety, her learning and her gratitude for Katherine’s protection.

When Queen Elizabeth herself was the recipient of many gifts, including an imposing Bible with an embroidered cover incorporating the Tudor rose. Like many of the exhibits, it is in fine condition.

A section of Gifts and Books is given over to children’s literature and to fairy stories, in which gifts often play a significant, even magical role.

On display are pages from Oscar Wilde’s moving short story The Happy Prince, where gifts become sacrifices, as well as watercolours by J R R Tolkien and hand-written pages from a early draft of Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy. Fans will be delighted to see a replica of the alethiometer, commissioned by Pullman and gleaming under the glass.

Gifts can be re-gifted of course. Even there motives may be mixed. Are you getting rid of something you don’t want? Do you feel virtuous for recycling or want others to share something you’ve enjoyed, or are you looking for that charitable glow of giving freely? Oxfam began in Oxford in the Forties and is given its proper space in the Weston Library with a display of period posters and contemporary commentary.

There are now more than 1,200 Oxfam shops worldwide. This is giving on a grand scale but Gifts and Books also celebrates the small and personal exchanges which, perhaps, matter more in the end.

Supported by a handsomely produced catalogue, this is a very visitable exhibition.

Philip Gooden