‘The Miller’s Tale’, vellum sheet from The Canterbury Tales

1929-31

Special Collections Z250 GL33

Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire: The Golden Cockerel Press

This vellum sheet of an extract from ‘The Miller’s Tale’ in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1929-1931) depicts Eric Gill’s sublime Pan and bacchanalian figures intertwined on thin leafy stems. He decorated each page in the book, which was first published by GCP in 4 volumes between February 1929 and March 1931. This sheet – along with four others – was given to John Harris (1903-1980) by Robert Gibbings when he was visiting Dunedin in 1947. Harris was then the University of Otago Librarian, and later helped compile a bibliography of the works of Robert Gibbings. Harris left for Africa in 1948, and eventually founded two University libraries in Nigeria. In 1978, the University of Otago Council conferred on Harris an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.