About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherBasic Books

ISBN-101541675088

ISBN-139781541675087

eBay Product ID (ePID)8050096622

Product Key Features

Book TitleGilded Page : the Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts

Number of Pages352 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicMedieval, Europe / Great Britain / Norman Conquest to Late Medieval (1066-1485), Book, History / Medieval, Books & Reading, Europe / Medieval

Publication Year2021

IllustratorYes

GenreLiterary Criticism, Design, Art, History

AuthorMary Wellesley

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.4 in

Item Weight20.8 Oz

Item Length9.6 in

Item Width6.4 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2021-004832

Reviews"Mary Wellesley is a born storyteller and The Gilded Page is as good as historical writing gets. Wellesley draws on her deep scholarly knowledge of medieval manuscripts to weave a captivating tale, told through generations of 'tremulous hands' and forgotten artistic geniuses, whose works inform so much of what we know today about the Middle Ages. This is a sensational debut by a wonderfully gifted historian."-- Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and The Templars, "To Wellesley, books are objects, tangible things, a million miles away from Kindles, which are inert. Her taste is not for 'the sanitised, ordered blandness of the modern edited text.'"-- Daily Telegraph, "This book is an expression of love... Sublimely conceived and beautifully written..."-- Gerard DeGroot, The Times (UK), "Fascinating information... Wellesley writes about creators, authors, scribes and parchment makers. Manuscripts establish a personal bond across the centuries between her and the men and women who made them. Few people have described the experience so eloquently. The range is remarkable." -- The Spectator

TitleLeadingThe

SynopsisA breathtaking journey into the hidden history of medieval manuscripts, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to the ornate Psalter of Henry VIII "A delight--immersive, conversational, and intensely visual, full of gorgeous illustrations and shimmering description." -Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves Medieval manuscripts can tell us much about power and art, knowledge and beauty. Many have survived because of an author's status--part of the reason we have so much of Chaucer's writing, for example, is because he was a London-based government official first and a poet second. Other works by the less influential have narrowly avoided ruin, like the book of illiterate Margery Kempe, found in a country house closet, the cover nibbled on by mice. Scholar Mary Wellesley recounts the amazing origins of these remarkable manuscripts, surfacing the important roles played by women and ordinary people--the grinders, binders, and scribes--in their creation and survival. The Gilded Page is the story of the written word in the manuscript age. Rich and surprising, it shows how the most exquisite objects ever made by human hands came from unexpected places. "Mary Wellesley is a born storyteller and The Gilded Page is as good as historical writing gets. This is a sensational debut by a wonderfully gifted historian." --Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and The Templars

LC Classification NumberZ106.5.G7W45 2021