![]() Mary Wellesley tells us about the authors, but more important, she introduces us to the artists, the ink-makers, vellum preparers and pigment grinders-and all the others who contributed their different gifts to these great communal achievements. To read this book is to meet the makers of the English literary Middle Ages.”- Neil MacGregor, Former Director of the British Museum and author of A History of the World in 100 Objects ![]() Cuthbert Gospel to the Luttrell Psalter, from Beowulf to Chaucer. Here is the chance to meet the women and men who actually made the cathedrals and palaces of medieval English literature, from the St. ![]() ![]() “Authors may write their books, but they don’t make them. This is a sensational debut by a wonderfully gifted historian.”- Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and The Templars 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. “Mary Wellesley is a born storyteller and The Gilded Page is as good as historical writing gets. Mary Wellesley explores the lives of medieval manuscripts, and the men and-importantly-women who made them, with deep learning and unmistakable love.”- Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves “ The Gilded Page is a delight-immersive, conversational, and intensely visual, full of gorgeous illustrations and shimmering description. “Wellesley’s subject matter holds an irresistible hook, for not just historians but anyone who loves reading.”- Library Journal Her taste is not for ‘the sanitised, ordered blandness of the modern edited text.’”- Daily Telegraph “To Wellesley, books are objects, tangible things, a million miles away from Kindles, which are inert. Few people have described the experience so eloquently. The range is remarkable.” - The Spectator “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. “This book is an expression of love… Sublimely conceived and beautifully written…”- Gerard DeGroot, The Times (UK) “Thanks to Wellesley’s expertise and passion for her subject, we practically hear the voices of the scribes and artists who produced these rare relics of the Middle Ages.”- Christian Science Monitor “This history of medieval illuminated manuscripts vividly evokes the corporeality of objects that, in a museum display, can seem almost ethereal… Highlighting instances in which texts about women were radically recentered on men, Wellesley offers a nuanced glimpse of the shifting nature of the written word.”- New Yorker "Exactly the sort of engaging, ambitious works of scholarship that serious readers want to know about.”- Michael Dirda, Washington Post, "12 books I should have reviewed last year: A critic’s lament” “A historian examines the origins and maintenance of famous manuscripts, revealing the pivotal work of binders, scribes and dedicated women in keeping the work of many celebrated writers and thinkers from ruin.”- New York Times This is a sensational debut by a wonderfully gifted historian.” -Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and The Templars “Mary Wellesley is a born storyteller and The Gilded Page is as good as historical writing gets. Rich and surprising, it shows how the most exquisite objects ever made by human hands came from unexpected places. The Gilded Page is the story of the written word in the manuscript age. 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. 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. 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. Medieval manuscripts can tell us much about power and art, knowledge and beauty. “A delight-immersive, conversational, and intensely visual, full of gorgeous illustrations and shimmering description.” –Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves A breathtaking journey into the hidden history of medieval manuscripts, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to the ornate Psalter of Henry VIII
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