The power of the book

“Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts” will be the cultural bestseller of the season. Fiammetta Rocco meets the man who has examined more medieval manuscripts than anyone in history

By Fiammetta Rocco

Christopher de Hamel’s family came from pre-revolutionary France. A hundred years later they added the posh French particle “de” in an obligatory piece of Victorian bigging-up. Now they are socially secure, and de Hamel is as English as they come. As a boy, his pockets were weighed down by coins and medals; today his olive corduroy trousers are home to the keys of his kingdom – the Parker Library of medieval manuscripts where he is the Donnelley Fellow Librarian and where every book in his care, however rare and valuable, is stamped with the initials C.C.C.C. for Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

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