Overview

This book offers an introduction to medieval English book-history through a sequence of exemplary analyses of commonplace book-historical problems. Rather than focus on bibliographical particulars, the volume considers a variety of ways in which scholars use manuscripts to discuss book culture, and it provides a wide-ranging introductory bibliography to aid in the study. All the essays try to suggest how the study of surviving medieval books might be useful in considering medieval literary culture more generally. Subjects covered include authorship, genre, discontinuous production, scribal individuality and community, the history of libraries and the history of book provenance.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ralph Hanna, III (Keble College (United Kingdom))
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Liverpool University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 17.30cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 24.60cm
Weight:   0.635kg
ISBN:  

9781781381281

ISBN 10:   1781381283
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   24 June 2014
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Illustrations Abbreviations Introduction Acknowledgements On the reproductions 1. Texts and their books: the case of 'Beowulf' 2. Medieval authors and texts: the Middle English 'Benjamin' Appendix: The manuscripts of 'Benjamin' 3. The history of a book: Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C.285 4. Shared exemplars: British Library, MS Cotton Galba E.ix and its relations 5. Scribal oeuvres: ‘Chaucer’s Scribe’ and his 'Canterbury Tales' 6. A book contract and its ‘set text’: John Forbor’s Psalter Appendix: The Slaithwaite indenture: a transcription, translation and notes 7. Provenances: some medieval libraries Appendix: Selections from medieval booklists John Erghome (OESA of York) Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester The lord Welles Index of manuscripts cited Index of scholars cited

Reviews

This is a first-rate book from a scholar at the forefront of palaeographical and bibliographical study; it will have a wide readership. It will be an excellent partner for the recent Owen-Crocker volume 'Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts'. --Series Editors Scholarship in this work is superb. Quotations, translations, bibliography are spot on. Professor Hanna's lifetime of intelligent work in the field glows at all points of discussion. --MS Referee .. . this volume is testament to Hanna's erudition and knowledge as a book-history scholar, and careful, repeated reading will repay the reader with numerous insights into the key questions of book history and how to 'do' it. --Library

Scholarship in this work is superb. Quotations, translations, bibliography are spot on. Professor Hanna's lifetime of intelligent work in the field glows at all points of discussion. This is a first-rate book from a scholar at the forefront of palaeographical and bibliographical study; it will have a wide readership. It will be an excellent partner for the recent Owen-Crocker volume 'Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts' (2009, HB 9780859898409, PB 9780859898416). This handsome volume teaches far more than the facts of book history, manuscript culture, and Middle English Literature. It is a model of how to sleuth, how to think critically, how to enter into a detective mindset 'in which every implicit assumption of knowledge [is] teased out, queried and productively qualified' (p. xi).

Scholarship in this work is superb. Quotations, translations, bibliography are spot on. Professor Hanna's lifetime of intelligent work in the field glows at all points of discussion. -- MS referee This is a first-rate book from a scholar at the forefront of palaeographical and bibliographical study; it will have a wide readership. It will be an excellent partner for the recent Owen-Crocker volume 'Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts' (2009, HB 9780859898409, PB 9780859898416). -- Series Editors This handsome volume teaches far more than the facts of book history, manuscript culture, and Middle English Literature. It is a model of how to sleuth, how to think critically, how to enter into a detective mindset 'in which every implicit assumption of knowledge [is] teased out, queried and productively qualified' (p. xi). Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen

Author Information

Ralph Hanna is Professor of Palaeography (Emeritus) and Emeritus Fellow at Keble College, Oxford. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow, former Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute (Harvard University), and winner of the British Academy Sir Israel Gollancz Prize for English Language 2015. His many books with Liverpool University Press include Robert Holcot, exegete (2021), Malachy the Irishman, On Poison (2020), Richard Rolle: Unprinted Latin Writings (2019) and Editing Medieval Texts (2015).

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