On the heels of your wonderful talk on Saturday, thank you Audrie Schell at McMaster Libraries for restoring yet another Book of Hours – this one, a beautiful 1920 novel in pictures, Frans Masereel’s Mein Stundenbuch (My Book of Hours, later titled Passionate Journey) Edition 319/650.

Frans Masereel (Belgian, 1889-1972) was a pacifist, a translator for the International Red Cross in Geneva, and a political cartoonist for the newspaper La Feuille 1917-20. He is widely acknowledged as the father of the wordless novel.

Mein Stundenbuch, arguably his greatest work, comprises 167 woodcuts. The German edition went on to sell over 100,000 copies in Europe and later editions included an introduction by Thomas Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. Two woodblock images, considered scandalous, were removed in later editions.

McMaster’s copy of the book returned to the Museum of Art yesterday and will soon be Alberta bound. The book will be displayed in the exhibition, Living Building Thinking: Art and Expressionism opening at the Art Gallery of Alberta in October and at McMaster Museum of Art in fall 2016.