Peter Beal es un erudito literario cuya obra monumental se centra en la catalogación y el estudio de manuscritos literarios ingleses. Su extenso proyecto, el Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450–1700, proporcionó a los académicos la primera visión general completa de los materiales supervivientes de los autores clave del período. Las meticulosas entradas de Beal detallan una amplia gama de textos, desde verso y drama hasta prosa y correspondencia, ofreciendo valiosas encuestas introductorias sobre los materiales disponibles. Su investigación enriqueció significativamente el estudio de la literatura inglesa, ofreciendo un recurso invaluable para comprender el legado literario del período.
The book serves as a comprehensive glossary, defining approximately 1,500 terms related to English manuscripts. It covers a wide range of topics, including various manuscript types, physical characteristics, writing tools, surfaces, and the roles of scribes. Additionally, it addresses terminology in literature, bibliography, editing, conservation, cartography, commerce, heraldry, law, and military affairs, making it an invaluable resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike.
This latest volume in the British Library's prestigious series on the history of the manuscript in English comprises ten articles on a diverse range of texts and authors, including the "Feathery Scribe," Leicester's Commonwealth, Sir Robert Cotton, Robert Herrick, the Earl of Rochester, and John Locke, as well as two recently discovered plays--The Destruction of Hierusalem and Feniza or The Ingeniouse Mayde. The main topics under discussion are authorship, scribes, provenance, transmission, new manuscript texts, and systematic analyses. The contributors are Peter Anstey, John Burrows, Ruth Connolly, Paul Davis, Nicholas Fisher, Paul Hammond, Christopher Howe, Robert Hume, Grace Ioppolo, Hilton Kelliher, Alan Nelson, and Heather Windram.