A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Cloth, gilt cover device, large 8vo, l [ =50], 472 pp. David McKitterick has described the importance of this catalogue when including it in an exhibition celebrating 400 years of printing at Cambridge: "M. R. James's (1862-1936) catalogues of the medieval manuscripts in the Cambridge libraries and elsewhere stand as one of the supreme achievements of palaeography, codicology, and art history. The first five appeared in 1895 of Eton, King's, Jesus, Sidney Sussex, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, and of these the greatest achievement was the last. James had begun to describe the manuscripts there while still an undergraduate at King's, with W. G. Searle's earlier catalogue of 1876 before him, and when the Director of the Museum was Charles Waldstein, Reader in Classical Archaeology. Waldstein was succeeded by John Henry Middleton.and in 1894 by James himself. James responded to the large and important collection of liturgical manuscripts in the Museum with zest, and his introduction remains of value for its exposition of books of hours. It was the beginning of a series which by 1932 not only covered an impressive number of libraries in unprecedented detail, but also set out the history of manuscript illumination and of medieval library provision in this country. " Inscribed to Lloyd Cabot Briggs from his father, 1929, on the front free endpaper. Front board slightly bubbled at foot, some marks to fore-edge of textblock and browning to the last page, otherwise Good.…