This book is a classic and I am surprised to find that there is no review on either LT nor Amazon . It was published in 1958 by Faber and Faber in London (and not sold in the USA) and hence it came with theconfident assurance of a well made book, the hallmark of this publisher . My copy is a first edition and I consider it to be a collectable book. I see I paid close to $50 when I acquired it a few years ago . My pleasure at purchasing and owning such a book remains . It fits into a collection on illuminated manuscripts or a collection on the history of the book. The subtitle is "the illuminated manuscript and the printed book" . I think there was a second edition in 1969 (well deserved). The author also wrote a book "The Illustration of Books" .

This book is the product of a life time of work and professional research. There are 395 illustrations , made up of reproductions of line drawings within the text, black and white plates , and a further 19 tipped in coloured plates (for example from The Akbar-Nama , Mughal c 1602 a miniature owned by the Victoria and Albert museum - a delight of note). The frontis is from the Rohan book of Hours , French, 15th century and is a tipped in colour plate. The bibliography is substantial but no ovewhelming and includes French, German and Italian source revealing the breadth of scholarship . The sizes or plates and pages have been meticulously listed . The chapters are ordered chronologically .

The first three chapters are about The illuminated manuscript in Byzantium, Europe, Japan, The Islamic World, China and also includes Hebrew illumination . The early years of printing focus on the works produced in Europe and England ... And there is much to guide and assist the librarian in a rare book or incunabula Library . thereafter there are straightforward chapters on each of the centuries with the final chapter on the much close to our own time 20th century . While illustrations from Japan and China feature in the 18th and 19th century sections, they drop out of the 20th century and the United States and Latin America are thinly covered in the final 20th century chapter. Some Folio Society and Limited Editions Club illustrations feature . It is always a personal pleasure when one finds an illustration from a book one owns (the 1950 Anthony Gross illustration for the Heinemann 's Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga a not very rare book ). There is nothing beyond 1950 and you won't find your contemporary illustrators here . Poland and Russia just merit a nod . Overall the book is really about the history of the best of European manuscripts and book illustrations .

A wonderful book which I would rank as a classic rather than dated or outdated . It's scholarship is impressive and confident and the value lies in being able to dip into so many superb books and touches tantalizingly on the work of a spread of talented and enduring illustrators. I recommend it as a work of refeence and an inspiration if you are interested in the history of the book and book illustrators. The binding is red buckram and sadly my copy long since lost its dust wrapper. ( )