Illuminated Manuscripts and their Makers.

Rowan Watson's study is both scholarly and rich in anecdote; he brings individual scribes and book dealers vividly to life and throws light on the commercial and religious environments in which they worked, as well as on the cooperative working practices devised for their production. Having looked at the individual elements of the illuminated page, the author then turns his attention to a sequence of splendid leaves from some of the great illuminated masterpieces in the V & A's collection. He also discusses how early books were marketed and sold, and ends with a look at the survival of illumination after the advent of the printing press, and its revival in the nineteenth century at the hands of pioneering designers such as Owen Jones and William Morris; rare.