![]() The members of de Hamel’s fictional club are a deliberately diverse group. The central premise, however, is that these people who lived in very different times and places would find common ground with de Hamel, the reader and each other in their shared love of manuscripts. There is, of course, much more evidence for the more recent subjects, so these imagined meetings become rather less speculative as the book progresses. De Hamel imagines meeting his subjects, drawing on surviving places as well as manuscripts. The subjects have been selected carefully to showcase different kinds of engagements with manuscripts, beginning with the 12th-century monk, Saint Anselm, and the culture of copying and distributing manuscripts that he promoted at the abbey of Le Bec in Normandy and later at Canterbury where he was archbishop. The people selected for de Hamel’s imaginary manuscripts club, inspired by real groups such as the Roxburghe Club and the Grolier Club, are drawn from eight centuries. The book examines the lives of 11 men and one woman whose actions have played a major part in shaping the fates of medieval books and determining both what survives and where the manuscripts are to be found today. In this new book he turns his attention to the important question of how such manuscripts have survived the intervening centuries since they were made. The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club is a logical sequel to Christopher de Hamel’s Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (2016), in which he introduced readers to some of the most famous handmade books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The document’s importance lies in the connections it makes between the author and their life’s work.A scribe (probably Bede) writing, from Life and Miracles of Saint Cuthbert by Bede, 12th century. Once I know what I am dealing with, my next question is, ‘How important is this?’įor instance, it could be a thank you note from Charles Dickens to someone we’ve never heard of, or it might be something he wrote to the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen discussing his first novel. I can be deciphering the text of a medieval papal charter or trying to understand mathematical equations on a PhD thesis from the 1960s. ![]() Unfortunately it's never going to happen - they are all owned by British public collections.Ī huge part of my job is puzzle-solving. There are only four documents in the world with Shakespeare’s signature on them. My dream consignment would be to come across one of them - they are as close as you’ll ever get to a personal connection with one of the greatest and most mysterious figures in literary history. Reading his thoughts as they came into being on paper was like time-travelling to his cabin on board HMS Victory in the months before the battle of Trafalgar. In 2012 we sold an autograph letter signed by Lord Nelson. It was very special.Īutograph documents take you back to a moment in history. My dad came to see it in my office and we listened to the music while turning the pages of Bach’s original score. In 2016 Christie’s consigned a rare manuscript (below) by Bach - the most important figure in organ music by a million miles - which sold for £2.5 million. We lived right next to the cathedral and my parents were organ builders. I grew up in Durham, in the northeast of England. ![]() Working at Christie’s can throw up magical moments. It was a slightly eccentric childhood by today’s standards, and I probably should have got out more. The time I spent reading as a child was great preparation for what I do now. Books were my absolute world. A few years ago, a specialist held up a manuscript at an auction without gloves and someone wrote in afterwards saying, ‘I can think of no quicker way of damaging a manuscript!’ Well, I can think of lots of quicker ways. You shouldn’t wear gloves when handling books and manuscripts.
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