The Manuscripts Club

Description

The people who made, saved, and sometimes destroyed medieval manuscripts, over a thousand years of history, from the acclaimed author of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

The Manuscripts Club tells of twelve men and women, from the eleventh century to the twentieth, who all share an overwhelming obsession with illuminated manuscripts. The saint, the patron, the bookseller, the artist, the antiquary, the collector, the rabbi, the savant, the librarian, the editor, the forger, and the curator had very different reasons for their passion, but manuscripts animated the lives of them all.

Christopher de Hamel takes us into in their homes and workplaces, from the monasteries and synagogues of Normandy and Moravia to the universities of Germany and the museums of America, to chart a kinship of minds and to peer into these extraordinary lives among manuscripts. In the pages of his book, remarkable manuscripts tumble through the centuries, connecting a French prince and a Greek peasant and a Black curator.

This is a story about society and manuscripts, what manuscripts do for people, and why they mattered and still matter to us. As much as it is a story about transcendent human connection, it is also a story of greed, discovery and disaster. The Manuscripts Club celebrates the most treasured books ever made and their enduring hold on our imaginations.“De Hamel retains an almost lyrical sense of wonder as he unclasps each groaning tome, opens it parched pages and lightly steps into the alternative world painted by its illuminators . . . [his] book makes you feel you’ve spent time, a very long but absorbing time–in his convivial company.” —Peter Conrad, The Observer (UK)
 
“Five years ago de Hamel entranced the world with his Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts. This time the meetings are with remarkable manuscript owners, and the result is equally precious.” —Kathryn Hughes, The Sunday Times (UK)
 
“Like taking a walk in excellent company . . . a robust, sumptuously illustrated hardback which I intend to treat with a bibliophiles reverence.” —Daniel Brooks, The Sunday Telegraph (UK)Christopher de Hamel is the author of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, winner of both the Wolfson History Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. Over the course of a long career at Sotheby’s he catalogued more illuminated manuscripts than any other person alive, and very possibly more than any one individual has ever done. Christopher de Hamel is now a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was the former librarian of Parker Library, which includes many, even most, of the earliest manuscripts in English language and history. De Hamel lives in London and Cambridge.CN