English Manuscript Studies: Volume VII (ENGLISH MANUSCRIPT STUDIES, 1100-1700)

by Peter Beal (Editor), Jeremy Griffiths (Editor)

English Manuscript Studies is an annual periodical reflecting the growing level of scholarly interest in manuscript sources for literature and intellectual history from medieval to early modern times. Contributors to Volume 7 include Timothy Raynor, Karl Joseph Holtgen, Julia Griffin, Frances Harris, Nathryn McKinley, Rodney Thompson, and Michael Gullick.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 1998

About the author

In 1966, Peter Beal, a graduate of the University of Leeds, started work on the Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450-1700 (IELM). The first volume of what was originally meant to be a one-year project appeared in 1980. Its two parts covered the years 1450 to 1625 and were followed, in 1987 and 1993, by a further volume in two parts taking the coverage up to 1700. For the first time, English Renaissance scholars had a full catalogue of the manuscripts – autograph and scribal – of the major authors of the period. The Index included writings in verse, prose, dramatic, and miscellaneous works, including letters, documents, books owned, presented, and annotated by the authors, and related items. In 23,000 entries, Peter Beal covered the works of 128 authors – of these two were women: his choice was determined by a decision to base the whole project (further volumes covered the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) around authors with entries in The Concise Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (1974). Each author’s entry begins with a valuable introduction giving an overview of the surviving material.