Score

Tried to add the letters of Abelard and Heloise. No go--the "not published this century" rule.

I'm having a very hard time pinning down a publication date on pretty much any of Abelard's work. Not entirely surprising.

Sorry.

Alright. I ventured to edit the (approximate) year of first publication of Abélard's "Story of My Misfortunes," as that text actually WAS made available to a small, select circle shortly after it was first written (estimates vary between 1133 and 1137, with some authors pinpointing either of these years, others 1135 or 1136 -- so I went for 1135, which seems to be the middle ground).

I'm somewhat hesitant on the letters, though, as their textual history is still subject to an enormous amount of scholarly research, inquiry and downright speculation -- even down to the question what group(s) of letters is/are attributable to Abélard and Héloise in the first place -- and in any event, the first parts of what we now believe to constitute the core texts of their correspondence were only published a few centuries after they were actually written. (For those who read French, there is an excellent, albeit brief summary on the state of research in the recent Abélard et Héloise: Correspondance (edited by Edouard Bouyé). So can we actually use any year from the 12th century as "year of first publication," even if there is no certainty that anybody besides the two correspondents themselves even knew about the correspondence at the time in the first place? And what year would one use? Virtually all that is known is that the letters followed the completion of Abélard's "Story of My Misfortunes" -- which we know because Héloise's first letter is a direct response to that text. We also know that Abélard died in 1142, so obviously the letters must have been written between whenever Héloise first read the "Story of My Misfortunes" (at some point between or after 1133-37) and 1142. However, the correspondence both textually and contextually suggests that it stretched over a certain period of time. Taking into account that it was not published at the time of its writing, and that we don't even know for sure when the last letter was written, is it really a fair approach to pick one year within the time span from 1133 to 1142 as "year of first publication" nevertheless? And which year would one pick?

Excellent question. I'd ask it at the Librarians' group.

Good idea. I'll do just that -- and also ask how to tackle some of the other problematic items on the "Best Medieval Literature" list!