The Irish Hand

O'Neill (Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland) transforms the 1984 edition of this book by adding dozens of color photographs and a revised text that brings to life a rich tradition of scribal representation of religious, historical, legal, and imaginative documents. He writes with the authority of decades as one of the most prominent historians of Irish calligraphy and as a highly regarded calligrapher himself. Following a concise survey of the rich Irish manuscript tradition, the work offers a chronological examination of 31 important manuscripts, from the 6th-centuryCathach through the famous Book of Kells to prominent 19th-century works. Color illustrations of exemplary pages are accompanied by thorough commentary, providing details of the creation, content, and provenance of the manuscripts through thefts, sales, disappearances, and reappearances. In the second part, O'Neill examines - in his stated role as practitioner - lines of text from each of these and 21 recent manuscripts, noting stylistic details of the handwriting and providing transcriptions from Irish and Latin and translations into English. The wealth of bibliographical and historical detail makes this the primary resource for scholarship in the field, and the elegant presentation of these beautiful works will attract the interest of general readers. -- W. S. Brockman, Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers and scholars; general readers and practitioners of calligraphy. CHOICE connect A publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries ~CHOICE, W. S. Brockman, Pennsylvania State Univ