'This book is an expression of love... Sublimely conceived and beautifully written' Gerard DeGroot, The Times
'Immersive, conversational and intensely visual' Helen Castor

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Manuscripts teem with life.
They are not only the stuff of history and literature, but they offer some of the only tangible evidence we have of entire lives, long receded.

Hidden Hands tells the stories of the artisans, artists, scribes and readers, patrons and collectors who made and kept the beautiful, fragile objects that have survived the ravages of fire, water and deliberate destruction to form a picture of both English culture and the wider European culture of which it is part.

Without manuscripts, she shows, many historical figures would be lost to us, as well as those of lower social status, women and people of colour, their stories erased, and the remnants of their labours destroyed.

From the Cuthbert Bible, to works including those by the Beowulf poet, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Sir Thomas Malory, Chaucer, the Paston Letters and Shakespeare, Mary Wellesley describes the production and preservation of these priceless objects.

With an insistent emphasis on the early role of women as authors and artists and illustrated with over fifty colour plates, Hidden Hands is an important contribution to our understanding of literature and history.

"Hidden Hands shines with 'bibliophilic feeling.' With care forensic and literary, Wellesley reveals the traces of their history legible in the pores of the page and in the process provides a page-turner of her own." - Amaranth Borsuk, author of The Book

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Hidden Hands is a delight - immersive, conversational, and intensely visual, full of gorgeous illustrations and shimmering description. Mary Wellesley explores the lives of medieval manuscripts, and the men and - importantly - women who made them, with deep learning and unmistakable love.

"Fascinating, well-researched and (pardon the pun) illuminating." - The Countryman Mag

"It is intensely personal. It wears its learning lightly. It chats easily and informally to the reader. It conveys a mass of arcane but fascinating information... Manuscripts establish a personal bond across the centuries between [the author] and the men and women who made them. Few people have described the experience so eloquently. The range is remarkable... wonderful." - The Spectator

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To Wellesley, books are objects, tangible things, a million miles away from Kindles, which are insert. Her taste is not for "the sanitised, ordered blandness of the modern edited text."

"'Highlighting instances in which texts about women were radically recentered on men, Wellesley offers a nuanced glimpse of the shifting nature of the written word'" - New Yorker

"This is a lovely book, beautifully written and brimming with enthusiasm . . . Wonderful." - Sunday Times (History BOTY)

"A georgeously written debut work from a historian of great talent" - BBC History Magazine Books of the Year

"A jaw-dropping account of . . . medieval manuscripts." - The Scotsman