The Book in the Cathedral
The Last Relic of Thomas Becket
- Published: 6 August 2020
- ISBN: 9780141994253
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 64
Readers will delight in de Hamel's passion for his subject, his book's sumptuous illustrations, and above all his virtuoso display of learning
John Guy, Literary Review
De Hamel - author of the wonderful Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts - shows us all the tools of the bibliographer's trade: dating handwriting, identifying pigments, noting the rust marks left by nails from a now-lost ornate binding ... The identification - or rehabilitation - of his psalter, the book he carried with him into exile, possibly held at his death, is a timely and enjoyable tribute.
Dennis Duncan, The Guardian
Christopher de Hamel quotes Sherlock Holmes, as he might, in his latest bit of medieval detective work, showing that a book of the Psalms in a Cambridge college was once a treasured possession of St Thomas Becket ... grippingly told in The Book in the Cathedral.
Christopher Howse, Daily Telegraph