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

Promotional Information

The first book to provide a true introduction to 'book history' as opposed to confining itself to the narrower concerns of palaeographically oriented studies. Combines work on seminal texts, such as Beowulf, with new analyses of less established texts. By suggesting worthwhile research topics to suit a range of book-history interests, Hanna engages constructively with the student-reader.

Promotional Information

The first book to provide a true introduction to 'book history' as opposed to confining itself to the narrower concerns of palaeographically oriented studies. Combines work on seminal texts, such as Beowulf, with new analyses of less established texts. By suggesting worthwhile research topics to suit a range of book-history interests, Hanna engages constructively with the student-reader.

About the Author

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).

Reviews

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).