In Praise of Scribes Manuscripts and their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England

by Beal, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780198184713
• ISBN10: 0198184719
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-12-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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 ofliterary 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-rangingempirical 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 ofauthorship, and about the complex nature of texts themselves in an evolving society and changing readership.

Table of Contents

List of plates	xii	(9)
List of figures	xxi	(1)
List of abbreviations	xxii
1. In praise of scribes	1	(30)
2. `It shall not therefore kill itself; that is, not bury itself': Donne's Biathanatos and its text	31	(27)
3. The Feathery Scribe	58	(51)
4. `Hoping they shall only come to your merciful eyes': Sidney's Letter to Queen Elizabeth and its transmission	109	(38)
5. `The virtuous Mrs Philips' and `that whore Castlemaine': Orinda and her apotheosis, 1664-1668	147	(45)
Appendices	192	(93)
I. Seventeenth-century characters of clerks and scriveners	192	(19)
II. Manuscripts by the Feathery Scribe	211	(58)
III. Catalogue of papers in Ralph Starkey's study	269	(5)
IV. Manuscript texts of Sidney's Letter to Queen Elizabeth	274	(7)
V. Katherine Philips's letter to Lady Fletcher	281	(1)
VI. John Taylor's verse satire on Katherine Philips	282	(3)
Index of manuscripts cited	285	(7)
Bibliography	292	(15)
General index	307