Finishing Touches: Perfecting Manuscripts and Printed Books

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Early Book Society

Organizer Name

Martha W. Driver

Organizer Affiliation

Pace Univ.

Presider Name

Martha W. Driver

Paper Title 1

History and Historiation in Three Prose Brut Manuscripts

Presenter 1 Name

Elizabeth J. Bryan

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Brown Univ.

Paper Title 2

Complaining about the Middle English Text in Early Modern England

Presenter 2 Name

Megan Cook

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Colby College

Paper Title 3

Finishing Touches: Adding Epistolary Book Dedications to Books Given to Prince Arthur Tudor

Presenter 3 Name

Valerie Schutte

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Independent Scholar

Start Date

9-5-2019 1:30 PM

Session Location

Schneider 1235

Description

“Perfecting” means adding to or restoring a MS or early printed book. Examples include manuscripts with pages that are not original or where illuminations have been inserted or restored, as is the case in Cambridge Gg.4.27, which includes Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and in Morgan M. 126, Gower’s Confessio Amantis, among others, or in early printed books filled out with facsimile pages or with leaves from other editions by the same printer (frequent in Caxton editions). Discussion of perfected copies will open to a larger consideration of questions of making and later reception. Martha W. Driver