In praise of scribes : manuscripts and their makers in seventeenth century England
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
In praise of scribes : manuscripts and their makers in seventeenth century England
(Lyell lectures, 1995-1996)
Clarendon Press, 1998
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In Praise of Scribes is a major contribution to the field of manuscript studies in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This profusely illustrated book argues for the significant role played by clerks and scriveners both in contemporary society and in the transmissional history of literary texts. Specific case studies are offered of a remarkably industrious contributor to the ferment of ideas leading to the Civil War (the so-called 'Feathery
Scribe'), as well as of the notorious 'Captain' Robert Julian in the Restoration period. Other case studies exemplify the wide-ranging empirical use which is to be made of material texts, and shed new light on works by Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne, and Katherine Philips, writers who flourished in a manuscript
culture. The book explores questions about the nature of that culture vis a vis print culture, about constructions of authorship, and about the complex nature of texts themselves in an evolving society and changing readership.
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- 1. In praise of scribes
- 2. 'It shall not therefore kill itself
- that is, not bury itself': Donne's Biathanatos and its text
- 3. The Feathery Scribe
- 4. 'Hoping they shall only come to your merciful eyes': Sidney's Letter to Queen Elizabeth and its transmission
- 5. 'The virtuous Mrs Philips' and 'that whore Castlemaine': Orinda and her Apotheosis, 1664-1668
- Appendix I. Seventeenth-century characters of clerks and scriveners
- Appendix II. Manuscripts by the Feathery Scribe
- Appendix III. Catalogue of papers in Ralph Starkey's study
- Appendix IV. Manuscript texts of Sidney's Letter to Queen Elizabeth
- Appendix V. Katherine Philips's letter to Lady Fletcher
- Appendix VI. John Taylor's verse satire on Katherine Philips
- Index of manuscripts cited
- Bibliography
- General Index
by "Nielsen BookData"