Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered

by Christopher de Hamel, Joel Silver

Catalog of an exhibition organized by The Caxton Club. Venues: The Newberry Library, Chicago, Apr. 16-July 16, 2005; The San Francisco Public Library, Nov. 5-Dec. 31, 2005; Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 18-Mar. 19, 2006; The Lilly Library, Bloomington, Indiana University, Apr. 3-May 26, 2006.

152 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Dr Christopher de Hamel is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and is Fellow Librarian of the Parker Library, one of the most important small collections of early manuscripts in Britain. For 25 years from 1975 he was responsible for all sales of medieval manuscripts at Sotheby’s. He has doctorates from Oxford and Cambridge and honorary doctorates from St John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, and Otago University, New Zealand. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a member of the Comité international de paléographie. He is author of numerous books on illuminated manuscripts and book collecting, including Glossed Books of the Bible (1984), The Book, A History of the Bible (2001), and Bibles, An Illustrated History from Papyrus to Print (2011). He was recipient of a festschrift in 2010, The Medieval Book, Glosses from Friends and Colleagues of Christopher de Hamel (ed. J. H. Marrow, R. A. Linenthal and W. Noel)

Reviews

[Marc Joseph]

This is THE reference book on leaf books (books that contain one or more pages from older, sometimes ancient books, often very rare), at least up to the publication date of 2005. It was published by the Caxton Club (a private book collectors society based in Chicago) in conjunction with an exhibition of a number of the books listed in this volume. It was printed as a limited-edition of 1000 copies and is a beautifully produced volume. Unfortunately, it is long out of print and with no second edition, the cost to acquire it is expensive (the best price on via libri at the time of writing this review is $95.00 in very good condition). It is definitely a required purchase if you are a leaf book collector and certainly a good choice for those who are a books-on-books collector. Highly recommended.