Description
Book SynopsisPresents an argument that Additional MS 37049, a Carthusian miscellany housed in the British Library closes the gap between group spectatorship and private study in late medieval England. This book addresses the manuscript's texts and illustrations to examine connections between reading and performance within the solitary monk's cell and outside.
Trade Review"Jessica Brantley's Reading in the Wilderness is an impressive, thorough, and thoughtful analysis of one of the most important of all fifteenth-century English manuscripts. In addition to providing a much-needed discussion of a densely illustrated compendium, the book provides a good general discussion of Carthusian patronage of the arts and attitudes towards the visual arts, which has long represented a lacuna in the literature." - Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Harvard University"