Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is an extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts.
Part travel book, part detective story, Christopher de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, collectors and the international community of manuscript scholars, showing us how he pieces together evidence to reach unexpected conclusions.
Reviewed by Alan Bradley in Slightly Foxed Issue 65.
Fabulous Beasts
ALAN BRADLEY
Christopher de Hamel’s Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (2016) is a joy. The binding, the layout and the lavish illustration make it a pleasure to handle before you even turn to the content, which perfectly fulfils its promise. De Hamel’s writing is not academic but vivid and entertaining, while the coloured reproductions are almost as dazzling as the fabulous beasts which so often clamber around their margins. As he says in his introduction, ‘the chapters are not unlike a series of celebrity interviews’ . . .
Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 65, Spring 2020
Fabulous Beasts
Christopher de Hamel’s Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (2016) is a joy. The binding, the layout and the lavish illustration make it a pleasure to handle before you even turn to the content,...
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