The Summer Exhibition, Chetham's Library

The Books of Jonah

Jonah is one of the shorter books of the Bible, consisting of only forty-eight verses in four chapters. Yet the story of Jonah and the whale, or the big fish, is one of the best known and most visual stories in the Bible. Like many other folktales it can be read at different levels. Biblical scholars, poets, playwrights, novelists and artists have interpreted it variously over two millennia.

This exhibition is an eclectic selection from the vast amount of material that constitutes the Book of Jonah's afterlife. It concentrates on literary and artistic responses, and in particular, the way that the story is retold in book form. To accompany the exhibition we have produced our own work, The Books of Jonah, an illustrated essay by David Blamires, privately printed by Incline Press. Copies are available to buy at £15.00.

We would like to record our thanks to the executors of the estate of David Jones for permission to reproduce two wood engravings from Jones's Golden Cockerel Press edition of 1926, Gregynog Press and Colin Paynton for the illustration from Llyfr Ionas (1988), and Hodder & Stoughton for allowing us to reproduce a page from the Manga Bible (2007), which are on display in the library; the small examples here are all from older works due to copyright issues. Our thanks also go to the Whitworth Art Gallery for their kindness in finding us exhibition cases. Above all, we thank David Blamires for conceiving the idea of this exhibition, for lending so many of the exhibits from his own collection, and particularly for his scholarly and illuminating text for The Books of Jonah.