The most beguiling and acclaimed history book of 2016, now in paperback
The most beguiling and acclaimed history book of 2016, now in paperback
The most beguiling and acclaimed history book of 2016, now in paperbackComing face to face with an important illuminated manuscript in the original is rather like meeting a very famous person. There is an undeniable thrill in actually meeting and talking to a person of world stature. This book is an intimate conversation with a selection of the most famous manuscripts in existence, letting each of those manuscripts illuminate the Middle Ages and sometimes the modern world too. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts invites the reader to accompany the author on exclusive private visits to a dozen very varied collections, in different parts of the world, to discover twelve great manuscripts and to explore their historical and intellectual significance.
Winner of Wolfson History Prize 2017 Short-listed for Waterstones Book of the Year 2016
“Reading is my life, but only about once a decade do I find a book that seems to tilt the world, so afterwards it appears different.”
An extraordinary book, a work of scholarship and history salted with the author's excitement as he conducts us among the great libraries of Western civilization. It is full of delights -- Tom Stoppard
The intellectual expedition of a lifetime ... This is an endlessly fascinating and enjoyable book. -- Neil MacGregor
A book of marvels -- John Banville Financial Times
Entrancing ... De Hamel's learned adventures amid some of the West's greatest manuscript treasures effortlessly outclass Eco's The Name of the Rose in elegance and excitement. They are also much funnier. -- Diarmaid MacCulloch
-- Fiammetta Rocco The Economist '1843'
De Hamel's book, scholarly but unfailingly readable, is the beginning of wisdom in all things scribal and scriptural - Ian Thomson, The Observer Ian Thomson, The Observer
In the course of a long career at Sotheby's and at Cambridge University, Christopher de Hamel has probably seen and catalogued more medieval manuscripts than anyone alive, and his delight and enthusiasm run through all he writes. He is the author of many books, translated into numerous languages, including A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, The Book in the Cathedral, and Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which won both the Duff Cooper Prize and the Wolfson History Prize. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
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