The author is Helen Gould Sheppard Professor of Art History at New York University , Institute of Fine Arts, and a leading authority on English medieval manuscript illumination.

This volume bring together twenty-six of Professor Sandler's studies, focusing on illustrated manuscripts produced in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, particularly on the illuminated psalters. The marginal illustrations in these psalters are a topic of particular interest, and there are a number of iconographic studies derived from this material. A separate section deals with the illustrated encyclopedias of the period, particularly the Omne bonum.