The Ownership and Sale of Manuscripts of John Gower’s Confessio Amantis in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the evidence for the circulation and ownership of manuscripts of John Gower’s Middle English poem, Confessio Amantis, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The records of booksellers’ and auction catalogues indicate frequent sales of copies coupled with a generally limited commercial appeal. These records also suggest that some copies were in circulation in this period that cannot be identified with those that now survive. It has also proved possible to add information from sale records about the history of the ownership of individual copies of Gower’s poem.