Manuscript Miscellanies in Early Modern England

Perhaps more than any other kind of book manuscript miscellanies require a complex and ’material’ reading strategy. This collection of essays engages the renewed and expanding interest in early modern English miscellanies anthologies and other compilations. Manuscript Miscellanies in Early Modern England models and refines the study of these complicated collections. Several of its contributors question and redefine the terms we use to describe miscellanies and anthologies. Two senior scholars correct the misidentification of a scribe and in so doing uncover evidence of a Catholic probably Jesuit priest and community in a trio of manuscripts. Additional contributors show compilers interpreting attributing and arranging texts as well as passively accepting others’ editorial decisions. While manuscript verse miscellanies remain appropriately central to the collection several essays also involve print and prose ranging from letters to sermons and even political prophesies. Using extensive textual and bibliographical evidence the collection offers stimulating new readings of literature politics and religion in the early modern period and promises to make important interventions in academic studies of the history of the book.