The History of Britannia

The History of Britannia comes with Ultima IV. It is 36 pages long. In-game, Kyle the Younger is the authors of the book, and it is prominent in the intro where the player is told to read it (not often that a game WANTS you to read the manual). In real-life, Dave Albert has written the book.

The following topics are part of the book:
 * History of Britannia
 * Travelling guide
 * The classes
 * Shops
 * Transportation
 * Weapons and armour
 * Bestiary
 * Combat and ethics of war
 * Afterword of Lord British

The book is written from a neutral point of view, and a very good read, as it gives many background information for the at this point new world of Britannia and is quite entertaining for the reader. At this time, magic was still separated from the main book and in a separate one.

A very faithful online version with all illustrations can be found here: The Book