Castalia Library is very pleased to announce that the March-April subscription book is THE ILLUMINATED BEOWULF illustrated and hand-scripted by our frequent collaborator Joel Trumbo of the Tamburn Bindery.
The Beowulf text will be laid out so the illuminated modern English text will be facing pages with the unadorned Old English (West Saxon) text, which is actually modelled closely on the original Beowulf manuscript of which we only have one surviving copy. This presents a beautiful and visually pleasing layout that is easy to follow whether you want to just read the story straight through or use it to compare and familiarize the Old English verbiage. The modern English text, using the Francis Gummere translation, will be fully illuminated in the Anglo-Saxon style of the Lindisfarne Gospels, with eight full page illuminations and numerous illuminated initials throughout.
For more information and additional pictures of the interior pages being produced for this edition, please visit the Castalia Library substack.