Perhaps no question is more fundamental to the discussion of a written work than that of the provenance and authority of the manuscript on which it is based. In The Study of Modern Manuscripts eminent scholar Donald H. Reiman draws on thirty years of experience in editing the manuscripts of Shelley, Byron, and others to offer new insights into the scholarly use and analysis of postmedieval manuscripts. Reiman begins by distinguishing among the manuscript traditions of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic periods. He ...
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Perhaps no question is more fundamental to the discussion of a written work than that of the provenance and authority of the manuscript on which it is based. In The Study of Modern Manuscripts eminent scholar Donald H. Reiman draws on thirty years of experience in editing the manuscripts of Shelley, Byron, and others to offer new insights into the scholarly use and analysis of postmedieval manuscripts. Reiman begins by distinguishing among the manuscript traditions of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic periods. He then sketches the historical developments that influenced both the changing nature of surviving manuscripts and the growth of interest in preserving the manuscript record. Over the course of the book's next four chapters he discusses in detail the nature and function of three classes of manuscript--the "private" or personal, the "confidential" or corporate, and the "public."
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