HASSALL, W.O. DROPMORE PRESS. ~ The Holkham Bible Picture Book.
No. 83 of 100 signed copies, pirnted on Arnold & foster hand-made vellum paper. Full facsimile of 42 leaves. Pp. x, 1-52, [2 chapter title leaves and 42 facsimile leaves], 53-193 including colophon. Printed in 14 point Monotype Walbaum. Folio, original full red niger morocco with gothic arch and dove decorations stamped in blind on the covers. An extremely good copy in the original slipcase.
William Hassall was librarian to the Earl of Leicester, who owned the 14th century manuscript before it went to the British Museum in 1952, and adviser to the Western Manuscripts department at the Bodleian Library.
This astonishing Anglo-Norman manuscript appears to have been completed by one artist and is in three main parts concerning Genesis as far as Noah, a Gospel Harmony and the Last Things...ending rather dramatically when Christ comes again in majesty and at the Last Judgement Heaven’s gate receives the blessed and Hell’s mouth heats the cauldrons for the damned.
Exlibris of Sir William Wiggins Cocker.