Book of Kells produced the first facsimile of the Book of Kells. The majority of the pages were reproduced in black-and-white photographs, but the edition also featured forty-eight colour reproductions, including all the full-page decorations. Under licence from the Board of Trinity College Dublin, Thames and Hudson produced a second facsimile edition in 1974. This edition included all the full-page illustrations in the manuscript and a representative section of the ornamentation of the text pages, together with some enlarged details of the illustrations. The reproductions were all in full colour, with photography by John Kennedy, Green Studio, Dublin. In 1979, Swiss publisher Faksimile-Verlag
Book of Kells pages for the Gospels is surprisingly consistent in Insular Gospels. Compare, for example, the incipit pages of the Gospel of Matthew and , both of which feature intricate decorative knot work patterns inside the outlines formed by the enlarged initial letters of the text. (For a more complete list of related manuscripts, see: List of Hiberno-Saxon illustrated manuscripts). The Abbey of Kells in Kells, County Meath had been founded, or refounded, from Iona, the building taking from 807 until the consecration of the church in 814. The manuscript's date and place of production have been the subject of considerable debate.