Pioneer Index of Manuscripts: A Review ArticleIndex of English Literary Manuscripts. Vol. 1: 1450-1625. First Vol. of Projected 5-Vol. Set. Peter Beal

Abstract

For first seven hundred years of our literature, commented Arundell Esdaile in 1926, the sources are all manuscript; and written book is as much book as most standardised offspring of steam press [1, p. 14]. He went on to refer to possibility of producing a comprehensive catalogue-or perhaps summary list, with references to full catalogues-of all English literary manuscripts in accessible [1, p. 16]. Much has been done in last fifty years to supplement manuscript catalogs of individual libraries. Seymour de Ricci's Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in United States and Canada [2] surveys holdings by location. The continuing National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections [3] reports holdings of American libraries under specific topical headings. N. R. Ker's Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon [4] and his Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries [5] cover early literature; part 2 of E. A. Lowe's Codices latini antiquiores: A Palaeographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts prior to Ninth Century [6] provides for literary documents in single language; and Margaret Crum's First-Line Index of English Poetry, 1500-1800, in Manuscripts of Bodleian Library, Oxford, indexes manuscripts of single library for single literary form [7]. The compilation American Literary Manuscripts, issued in 1960 and again in 1972 by Modern Language Association of America [8, 9], locates papers in American collections that relate to American authors.