The Last Scroll: A Novel of Alexandria

For centuries, the Library of Alexandria stood as a beacon of human knowledge, a monumental dream to collect every thought ever recorded. But its legacy is one of constant struggle—a breathtaking, perilous dance between creation and destruction, preservation and loss. Journey through a millennium of history, from the ambitious Ptolemies who filled its shelves through ruthless acquisition to the dedicated librarians like Apollodorus, Callimachus, Marcus Fabius, and Helena. These guardians of wisdom battled imperial whims, dwindling resources, the slow decay of papyrus, and the consuming fires of war and zealotry. Witness the ingenious, sometimes morally fraught, methods used to gather humanity's treasures, and the crushing heartbreak as centuries of learning are threatened by the 'beautiful, terrible efficiency' of those who would see it erased. Meet the scholars, scribes, kings, and forgotten heroes—like the monk Thomas, secretly preserving forbidden texts in the face of violent persecution —who, generation after generation, confronted the same eternal question: What is the price of knowledge, and what is the cost of losing it? Echoing into the modern day, Sarah Hassan grapples with digital decay at the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina, revealing that the fight to preserve wisdom is an eternal return —a mission that changes its medium but never its profound urgency. What can endure when empires fall and ideologies clash? Can the most precious scrolls—and the ideas they contain—truly survive the relentless tide of history?