The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club

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Reading the Posthumous Papers is like taking a walk in excellent company ... an exceptional book, and itself an object worth cherishing. Daniel Brooks, Sunday Telegraph Chapter 23: In which Mr. Samuel Weller begins to devote his Energies to the Return Match between himself and Mr. Trotter In this stunningly beautiful book, Christopher de Hamel constructs an imaginary club of people who adore mediaeval manuscripts; bibliophiles whose obsession he shares. The 12 delightfully eccentric members span eight centuries - de Hamel imagines meeting them, sharing precious discoveries, trading gossip. The illustrations emit a light of their own, but what shines even brighter is the author's boyish enthusiasm for his subject.

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 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. De Hamel imagines meeting his subjects, drawing on surviving places as well as 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. 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. We also meet Rabbi David Oppenheim (1664-1736), many of whose Hebrew manuscripts are now in Oxford’s Bodleian library. The wider significance of Hebrew texts is understated today – indeed, de Hamel writes that “curators are usually astonished and delighted when a gentile shows an interest” – but he is right to do deference to a manuscript tradition that was long held in parallel esteem to Latin or Greek. Henry VIII founded the Regius Professorial chair of Hebrew at Cambridge in 1540, the same year he founded the Greek chair. The earliest member of de Hamel’s notional “Manuscripts Club” is Saint Anselm, an 11th-century Benedictine monk who ran the scriptorium in Bec Abbey in Normandy before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. De Hamel walks us through Bec Abbey, vividly capturing the collegiate culture of lending and copying that allowed European scribes to produce and disseminate learned texts. You don’t need to know your psalters from your breviaries to be swept away by his scholarly but conversational style. Reading the Posthumous Papers is like taking a walk in excellent company.The story of the people who created, saved and collected Europe's most sumptuous manuscripts, it's beautifully illustrated, a rich feast of scarlet and gold. Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Books of the Year Chapter 55: Mr. Solomon Pell, assisted by a Select Committee of Coachmen, arranges the affairs of the elder Mr. Weller Chapter 38: How Mr. Winkle, when he stepped out of the Frying-pan, walked gently and comfortably into the Fire All of our upcoming public events and our St Pancras building tours are going ahead. Read our latest blog post about planned events for more information.

public Wi-Fi - this extends to the majority of our public spaces including the Reading Rooms, as well as our study desks and galleries at St Pancras (you won't require a login) This book is really a series of twelve mini-biographies of people who, through the course of history, have been collectors of manuscripts and who very well may have saved (or at least preserved) many rare manuscripts from destruction. Something that comes across as relatively common is the desire to own a rare item more than owning a specific item due to its significance. What is also common among the people included here is a real joy among the collectors for manuscripts. 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. 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 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. My one complaint about the book is a technical one, and I don't know if it's only on my ARC, or if the published version (printed or digital) would be this way as well. The "Bibliographies and Notes" at the end of the book take up nearly 20% of the book, but the font is roughly half the size of the rest of the book and there are no paragraph indentations. This makes for a very long, tedious notes section and I truly wish that more of this information had been included in the narrative or at the very least used as individual footnotes. Author Christopher de Hamel does a really wonderful job of researching these manuscript collectors (and he gives a lot of credit to others for some of this work) and presenting their lives and collecting rigor in an easy-to-read, conversational tone. Each of these lives was fascinating in unique ways and I'd be interested in learning more about all of them.In passing, De Hamel reveals that one of his Victorian forebears, having come into money, added a “de” to his name to claim a pedigree that was “almost certainly spurious”. Inheriting the pretence, De Hamel outs himself as a fake antique, like the forgeries he exposed during his decades as an appraiser at Sotheby’s. The endearing confession is typical of the man: he speaks of “meeting a beautiful manuscript” rather than reading it and his own book makes you feel you’ve spent time – a very long but absorbing time – in his convivial company. Christopher de Hamel's great gift is to tell life stories without taking anything away from the manuscripts, which remain the star of the show. Thanks to the beautiful illustrations in this wonderful book, we can see for ourselves how spellbinding an encounter with them must have been. Five years ago de Hamel entranced the world with his Meeting with Remarkable Manuscripts. This time the meetings are with remarkable manuscript owners, and the result is equally precious Kathryn Hughes, Sunday Times Regular readers of my review blog might recognize that the last person in the book, Belle de Costa Greene, was the subject of the historical fiction novel I reviewed in 2021, The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. Chapter 44: Treats of divers little Matters which occurred in the Fleet, and of Mr. Winkle’s mysterious Behaviour; and shows how the poor Chancery Prisoner obtained his Release at last

Chapter 20: Showing how Dodson and Fogg were Men of Business, and their Clerks Men of pleasure; and how an affecting Interview took place between Mr. Weller and his long-lost Parent; showing also what Choice Spirits assembled at the Magpie and Stump, and what a Capital Chapter the next one will be gloriously engaging and readable ... De Hamel wears his erudition lightly, and the reader is taken deeply into the worlds of individuals who lived across almost a thousand years of history

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The text is engagingly written, inviting the reader to follow the author on his travels to study these people in their own environments. Throughout his career de Hamel has done an immense amount to make these complex and fascinating artefacts accessible to a wide audience. At times his imaginative leaps demonstrate the gaps between our contemporary questions and the nature of historical records. For example, suggesting medical diagnoses for the people of the past can only ever be extremely speculative. Nevertheless, although the book wears its thorough research lightly, the interested reader will find much valuable information in the endnotes. The epilogue indicates that membership of de Hamel’s club is not restricted to 12; many other characters appear, who may become the subject of a study in their own right. The club is open. Chapter 46: Records a touching Act of delicate Feeling not unmixed with Pleasantry, achieved and performed by Messrs. Dodson and Fogg Chapter 18: Briefly illustrative of two Points; first, the Power of Hysterics, and, secondly, the Force of Circumstances Chapter 15: In which is given a faithful Portraiture of two distinguished Persons; and an accurate Description of a public Breakfast in their House and Grounds/which public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an old Acquaintance, and the Commencement of another Chapter Christopher de Hamel is a bookworm – or, to be more precise, a manuscript weevil for whom “mere printed books” are modish novelties – who has the rare capacity to turn a scholarly specialism into a humane and humorous adventure. In The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscript Club, silent sessions in libraries are enlivened by De Hamel’s imaginary conversations with long-dead collectors and, at the end of a history that extends across a thousand years, he invites medieval monks, Renaissance princes, Florentine merchants and American industrialists to a notional dinner at which they all unstoppably talk about their shared obsession.