The Reader for the 2016-17 series of Sandars Lectures is Toshiyuki Takamiya, Emeritus Professor of Keio University. The title of his Lectures is: 'A Cabinet of English Literary Treasures: Reflections on Fifty Years of Book Collecting'.
Professor Takamiya's connection with Cambridge is long-standing. He first came here in 1975 as a PhD candidate from Keio University. Successively Associate Professor, Professor and, since 2009, Emeritus Professor at Keio University, Toshiyuki Takamiya has published widely in Japanese and English on medieval manuscripts and early printing as well as pioneered the use of digitization in his capacity as Director of the HUMI Project. The first Japanese Fellow elected to the Society of Antiquaries in 1986, he is also renowned as the owner of the largest private collection of medieval English manuscripts. Early printed books associated with English bibliophiles have been a focus of his recent activities as a scholar-collector - and some of these treasures from Professor Takamiya's library will provide the focus for his Sandars Lectures.
The dates and titles for the lectures are as follows:
Monday 6 March
Laurence Nowell and Thomas Cranmer
An introduction to Professor Takamiya’s book collecting career, followed by a focus on the books owned by two distinguished sixteenth-century collectors: Laurence Nowell and Thomas Cranmer.
Wednesday 8 March
An examination of John Dee’s annotated copy of John Hardyng’s Chronicle, printed by Richard Grafton in 1543, placing the book and owner in the wider context of Queen Elizabeth’s scheme for the British Empire.
Thursday 9 March
A Bookshelf of Literary Forgeries
A study of some of the greatest forgeries in English literature, from Charles Bertram’s De Situ Britanniae to William Henry Ireland’s Authentic Account, concluding with Constantine Simonides’ Iliad scroll.
The lectures will take place in the McCrum Lecture Theatre of Corpus Christi College on Bene’t’ Street, and will all start at 5pm. The third lecture on Thursday 9 March will be followed by a drinks reception at the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College. The lectures are free and all are welcome.