The Bibliotheca Serpentina,
known as the Tenth Library in certain of the more disputable Histories, is a place where things original and spare are remembered and cherished. Founded in the Cambridge fens in the year of the pestilence’s waning (the two thousand and twenty-first Year of Our Lord to some, the four hundred and forty-first year of the Sun’s Division to others), it houses the memories and desires of its founder Winifred, who goes by another name in the daylight, and went by still others before it. It is fecund; mere bookshelves would not contain it; its spores have penetrated the ether, and now its creeping mycelium fans out before you. Slither inside: rare pleasures await.