• W. O. Hassall The Holkham Bible Picture Book 1954 Dropmore Press London signed first printed edition facsimile 14th century English illuminated manuscript medieval art rare book fine press Bodleian Library Holkham Hall Earl of Leicester Geoffrey Chaucer era illustration history religious manuscript rare collector edition limited signed Hassall commentary medieval illumination art history Dropmore Press fine printing collectible rare facsimile British Library acquisition
  • W. O. Hassall The Holkham Bible Picture Book 1954 Dropmore Press London signed first printed edition facsimile 14th century English illuminated manuscript medieval art rare book fine press Bodleian Library Holkham Hall Earl of Leicester Geoffrey Chaucer era illustration history religious manuscript rare collector edition limited signed Hassall commentary medieval illumination art history Dropmore Press fine printing collectible rare facsimile British Library acquisition
  • W. O. Hassall The Holkham Bible Picture Book 1954 Dropmore Press London signed first printed edition facsimile 14th century English illuminated manuscript medieval art rare book fine press Bodleian Library Holkham Hall Earl of Leicester Geoffrey Chaucer era illustration history religious manuscript rare collector edition limited signed Hassall commentary medieval illumination art history Dropmore Press fine printing collectible rare facsimile British Library acquisition
  • W. O. Hassall The Holkham Bible Picture Book 1954 Dropmore Press London signed first printed edition facsimile 14th century English illuminated manuscript medieval art rare book fine press Bodleian Library Holkham Hall Earl of Leicester Geoffrey Chaucer era illustration history religious manuscript rare collector edition limited signed Hassall commentary medieval illumination art history Dropmore Press fine printing collectible rare facsimile British Library acquisition
  • W. O. Hassall The Holkham Bible Picture Book 1954 Dropmore Press London signed first printed edition facsimile 14th century English illuminated manuscript medieval art rare book fine press Bodleian Library Holkham Hall Earl of Leicester Geoffrey Chaucer era illustration history religious manuscript rare collector edition limited signed Hassall commentary medieval illumination art history Dropmore Press fine printing collectible rare facsimile British Library acquisition
  • W. O. Hassall The Holkham Bible Picture Book 1954 Dropmore Press London signed first printed edition facsimile 14th century English illuminated manuscript medieval art rare book fine press Bodleian Library Holkham Hall Earl of Leicester Geoffrey Chaucer era illustration history religious manuscript rare collector edition limited signed Hassall commentary medieval illumination art history Dropmore Press fine printing collectible rare facsimile British Library acquisition
  • W. O. Hassall The Holkham Bible Picture Book 1954 Dropmore Press London signed first printed edition facsimile 14th century English illuminated manuscript medieval art rare book fine press Bodleian Library Holkham Hall Earl of Leicester Geoffrey Chaucer era illustration history religious manuscript rare collector edition limited signed Hassall commentary medieval illumination art history Dropmore Press fine printing collectible rare facsimile British Library acquisition
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W. O. Hassall - The Holkham Bible Picture Book - 1954 (Signed)

W. O. Hassall - The Holkham Bible Picture Book - 1954 (Signed)

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Title

The Holkham Bible Picture Book

Author

W. O. Hassall

Year

1954

Publisher

The Dropmore Press, London

Description

Signed by Hassall. The first time the 14th-century Holkham Bible Picture Book - one of England’s most evocative illuminated manuscripts - was made available in printed form. W. O. Hassall’s introduction and commentary lend both authority and intimacy: as librarian to the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall and assistant librarian at the Bodleian, Hassall was among the few scholars who had long and direct access to the manuscript before its transfer to the British Library in 1952.

William Owen Hassall (1912–1994) was one of the Bodleian Library’s most colourful scholars - a brilliant, chaotic antiquary whose eccentricities became legend in Oxford’s manuscript circles. Educated at Corpus Christi College, he joined the Bodleian in 1938 and simultaneously served as librarian to the Earls of Leicester at Holkham Hall, positions he held for over four decades. His war service was as improbable as his scholarship was precise: beginning as a hapless gunner unable to hit moving targets, he was swiftly reassigned to the Ministry of Economic Warfare, where his encyclopedic grasp of maps and directories proved invaluable to Britain’s intelligence efforts.

Returning to Oxford as Lieutenant-Colonel Hassall, he built one of the world’s first iconographical indexes of medieval illumination and trained generations of county archivists through the Bodleian’s pioneering one-year course. Known for eating lunch while walking through Brasenose Lane, typing without looking at the page, and calling his volunteers “Hassall’s vassals,” he combined deep learning with gentle anarchy. His publications ranged from rigorous editions like The Cartulary of St Mary Clerkenwell (1949) to popular guides such as Who’s Who in History.

vii, 191 pp., [1]

Condition

Pages clean, roughly cut, markings to cover.
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