Detail: The Shahnama, or Book of Kings, is the Iranian national epic that relates the glorious and often gory feats of the heroes and kings of pre-Islamic Iran. Derived from the oral history of Iran and compiled in written form in the eleventh century by the poet Firdawsi, the tales of the Shahnama have been popular both within and beyond the borders of Iran for more than a millennium. While many of its tales are steeped in legend and tell of the killing of dragons and divs, others derive from recorded history, such as the stories of Alexander the Great, known to Persians as Iskandar. The Library holds twenty-five complete and fragmentary copies of the Shahnama, produced in both Iran and India between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, and folios from each of these will be on display. The exhibition, which will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, opens in November 2010 and celebrates the 1000th anniversary of the poet Firdawsi’s completion of the text in the year 1010.