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Journal of the History of Collections Advance Access originally published online on March 17, 2009
Journal of the History of Collections 2009 21(1):125-142; doi:10.1093/jhc/fhp003
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

A Genizah secret

The Count d'Hulst and letters revealing the race to recover the lost leaves of the original Ecclesiasticus

Rebecca J. W. Jefferson


  Abstract

The discovery of the Cairo Genizah manuscripts (over 200,000 fragmentary texts, mainly written in Hebrew and Arabic) in the late-nineteenth century is an enigmatic tale. The early collectors of this material, unaware of its exact provenance or keen to safeguard their access to it, did not divulge their sources. However, a selection of unpublished letters preserved in the Bodleian Library, in the archives of the Egypt Exploration Society and in the National Archives help piece together more of the story which will be revealed here for the first time. The letters concern the unacknowledged role of the mysterious Count d'Hulst in the recovery of sections of the Oxford Genizah collection; the race between two eminent scholars, Adolf Neubauer and Solomon Schechter, to discover the missing manuscript leaves of the original Hebrew Ecclesiasticus and the unspoken competition between the Libraries of Oxford and Cambridge to expand their Oriental collections.

Address for correspondence Rebecca J. W. Jefferson, Research Associate, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR. rjwj2{at}cam.ac.uk


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