Diplomatic Transcription Research Articles

The Digital Temple: A Preview of Features, Current and Potential

The Digital Temple is an electronic scholarly edition of George Herbert’s English verse. When complete, it will include diplomatic and modern-spelling transcriptions linked to corresponding digital images of three essential artifacts: Williams Manuscript Jones B62, Bodleian Manuscript Tanner 307, and a copy of The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (first edition, 1633). The transcriptions are accompanied by critical annotations and glosses, and all materials – transcriptions, images, and apparatus – are presented through a customized user interface. The transcription files are marked up according to the Text Encoding Initiative P5 standard, a robust encoding protocol rendering the texts susceptible to an array of display and data search-and-retrieval operations. This essay briefly introduces the resource, its principal features and potential, and discusses some of the technical underpinnings that make it a potentially powerful research tool.

“The Tale of Gamelyn” of the Canterbury Tales: An Annotated Edition (review)

Reviewed by: “The Tale of Gamelyn” of the Canterbury Tales: An Annotated Edition A. S. G. Edwards Nila Vázquez, ed. “The Tale of Gamelyn” of the Canterbury Tales: An Annotated Edition. Lewiston, N. Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. Pp. 466. $175.30. The Middle English romance of Gamelyn (902 lines in couplets in its fullest form) survives in twenty-seven manuscripts, far more than for any other such romance. Its survival seems less an indication of its popularity than of the company it keeps: it appears only in manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, generally as a continuation of The Cook's Tale. No [End Page 377] critical edition has ever been published based on the evidence of all the manuscripts. Nila Vázquez's edition does not fill this gap. It contains two main elements. There is what is termed a “Critical Edition” of Gamelyn (294– 332), together with an “Apparatus Criticus” (332–79). This is preceded by a series of what are termed “diplomatic editions” of ten manuscripts. These are the basis for what is termed a “Synoptic Edition,” which, she explains, “is conformed by [sic] the different diplomatic editions of the manuscripts in which the text appears” (37). Vázquez goes on to describe the reasons for the choice of these manuscripts: The manuscripts to be collated against the base text [Corpus] were selected taking into account a combination of significant criteria. On the one hand, their nature as old (i.e. closer to Chaucer's lifetime) and valuable manuscripts. On the other hand, their representativeness within the general classification in the textual tradition of the Canterbury Tales. . . . Bearing all these criteria in mind, a first group of manuscripts, comprising [Harley 7334, Lansdowne 851 and Petworth] was selected. . . . A second group of manuscripts includes [CUL Mm.II.5, Lichfield Cathedral and BL Royal 18.C.II], which together with [Petworth], are some of the best representatives of type d. . . . Thirdly, [Fitzwilliam McClean 181] and [sic] exemplify type d with some variations. Finally [Christ Church 152] was selected on account of its classification as another worthy manuscript and its close relation with the oldest exemplars. (36) Several aspects of these statements of method may be unclear to many students of Middle English manuscripts. What is a “synoptic edition”? Does it differ from a critical edition? Such questions do not receive answers. What is clear is that the grounds on which the majority of surviving manuscripts of Gamelyn are ignored are wholly unsound. The assumption that only “old” manuscripts should be of concern to the editor is wholly without justification. Age does not provide a criterion for ignoring the majority of the manuscripts of Gamelyn: there is no reason why later manuscripts should not preserve forms of the text, or particular readings, that need to be considered by the editor. And to choose to select manuscripts for scrutiny on criteria that may have no bearing on the text of Gamelyn (“some of the best representatives of type d” of the Canterbury Tales and “another ‘worthy’ manuscript”) is simply nonsensical. The only responsible way the textual tradition for Gamelyn [End Page 378] can be established is through collation of all manuscripts and analysis of the evidence from such a collation. These fundamental confusions about method extend into the form of this edition. Why are ten “diplomatic” transcripts of manuscripts actually presented in this volume? Especially since Vázquez has no clear understanding of what a diplomatic transcript is: in hers, the expansion of contractions is silent; and at times (e.g., 262, line 547; 266, line 711), they are not expanded at all; seemingly otiose terminal flourishes are, however, regularly recorded. What is gained by providing “diplomatic” transcriptions of a number of manuscripts rather than collating all of them? No answer presents itself to this question. But what comparison of these transcripts with the “Apparatus Criticus” reveals is that, far from actually recording “all the details regarding different manuscript occurrences” (294), there are a number of substantive readings occurring in the “diplomatic transcripts” that do not appear in this “apparatus.” Space permits only examples from Lansdowne 851 (L) and Harley 7334 (H), lines 1–20; Vázquez's text provides...

Courting Gentility: Handel at the Bank of England

The discovery that Handel began investing in South Sea Annuities five years earlier than previously believed (1723 rather than 1728) offers important new information about the composer's investment practices and their financial outcomes. Further, renewed examination of the records at the Bank of England has permitted a better understanding of the importance of signed transfer forms as biographical documents and, in particular, provides new information about the distribution of Handel's estate. Included are a diplomatic transcription of the newly identified account from this early period, biographical identification of persons named in the account, a financial accounting of Handel's investments from 1723 to 1732, and photographic images of the account ledger and selected transfer forms.

New copperplate grant of Śrīcandra (no. 8) from Bangladesh

AbstractThis article is the first publication of the Bogra copperplate, the eighth known land-grant inscription issued by Śrīcandra (r.c. 925–975ce), one of the kings of the Candra dynasty of Bengal. A diplomatic transcription is included, together with an annotated English translation and a critically edited text in Devanāgarī. The inscription describes a gift of land to a Brahmin named Śrīkaradatta Śarman, who probably hails from North Bengal (“Hastipada [in the region of] Śrāvasti”). While thepraśasti(praise) portions largely parallel the king's other known inscriptions, the inscription contributes new information about place names and regions associated with the Candra dynasty, as well as attesting the movements of Brahmins associated with the Parāśara Gotra and Chandoga Caraṇa. The article also provides an overview and assessment of research on the inscriptions and history of the Candra dynasty, particularly in light of the discovery and identification of this new inscription.

The 1850 Prelude and the Ethics of Editions

Previous articleNext article No AccessGrasmere Summer Conference 2009The 1850 Prelude and the Ethics of EditionsW. Michael JohnstoneW. Michael Johnstone Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Wordsworth Circle Volume 41, Number 1Winter 2010Grasmere Summer Conference 2009 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/TWC24043686 Views: 3Total views on this site © 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

A Catalogue of the Truly Valuable and Curious Library of Music Late in the Possession of Dr. William Boyce (1779): Transcription and Commentary

The library of William Boyce is one of the most interesting eighteenth-century collections of music to be sold at auction (by James Christie in April 1779). Though only four copies of the sale catalogue survive, that still in the firm's archives provides both the names of the buyers and prices fetched. Among the items sold were a good many manuscripts and rare printed books whose present whereabouts are known; several of these have lot labels still attached to the original bindings. The main purpose of this article is to make this material readily available not only to musicologists, but also to bibliographers and others concerned with the history of libraries. Prefaced by an introductory essay and a section on the buyers, its central core is a diplomatic transcript of the sale catalogue itself together with copious notes on the contents of each lot. An index of composers and of buyers is also provided.

Enter Tagger: Encoding (Reading) The Digital Temple

Some years ago I met with a colleague briefly to discuss my plan to build an electronic edition of George Herbert’s English verse. I broached the topic with some trepidation, for Randy McCloud’s Herbert essays are exercises in un-editing, what he calls a “critique of editorial response” to the manuscripts and early print volumes of The Temple. I described my plans: that The Digital Temple would include high-resolution images of two manuscripts and a copy the first edition (1633) alongside diplomatic transcriptions of all three. There would also be a user interface for viewing these materials in a number of ways: as individual documents; in a variety of frames formats; in modern spelling versions; with links to the digital images; in some user-determined combination of these options. In so far as the project would bring together all of the relevant primary documents, Randy’s (or Randall’s or Random’s) response was encouraging. But I strongly suspect he doubted the claim that my edition would escape falling prey to the mischief of his pseudonymous colleagues.

Préludes , and: Balladen = Ballades , and: Ballades Op. 23, Op. 38, Op. 47, Op. 52 (review)

Reviewed by: Préludes, and: Balladen = Ballades, and: Ballades Op. 23, Op. 38, Op. 47, Op. 52 Jonathan D. Bellman Frédéric Chopin. Préludes. Herausgegeben von = edited by Norbert Müllemann. Fingersatz von = Fingering by Hermann Keller. (Urtext.) München: G. Henle Verlag, 2007. [Preface in Eng., Fre., Ger., p. iv–xiv; sigla used in footnotes, p. 1; score, p. 2–59; commentary in Eng., Ger., p. 61–71 (detailed critical commentary in Ger. only at www.henle.de). ISMN M-2018-0882-6; ISBN 979-0-2018-0882-6; pub. no. HN 882 (paper), HN 883 (cloth). $25.95 (paper), $45.95 (cloth).] Frédéric Chopin. Balladen = Ballades. Herausgegeben von = edited by Norbert Müllemann. Fingersatz von = Fingering by Hans-Martin Theopold. (Urtext.) München: G. Henle Verlag, 2008. [Preface in Eng., Fre., Ger., p. v–xvii; sigla used in footnotes, 1 p.; score, p. 1–55; commentary in Eng., Ger., p. 57–74 (detailed critical commentary in Ger. only at www.henle.de). ISMN M-2018-0862-8; ISBN 979-0-2018-0862-8; [End Page 857] pub. no. HN 862 (paper), HN 863 (cloth). $28.95 (paper), $43.95 (cloth).] Fryderyk Chopin. Ballades Op. 23, Op. 38, Op. 47, Op. 52. Edited by = Herausgegeben von = éditée par Jim Samson. (The Complete Chopin: A New Critical Edition.) (Urtext.) London: Edition Peters, 2006. [Frontispiece (facsim.), p. [ii]; preface in Eng., Fre., Ger., p. iii–x; score, p. 1–57; notes on editorial method and practice in Eng., p. 59–60; critical commentary in Eng., p. 61–69. ISMN M-57708-258-5; ISBN 979-0-57708-258-5; pub. no. Edition Peters no. 7531. Paper. $19.95.] One of the standard components of undergraduate- and graduate-level bibliography classes is a unit examining a variety of contrasting editions of music: facsimile, diplomatic transcription, urtext, scholarly edition, performance edition, study score, and editions that seek to combine elements of two or more types. Such a pedagogical exercise underscores the validity of all of these different kinds of editions, depending on user need. One size does not fit all; the needs of a piano student playing her first Chopin prelude, for example, are not the same as those of the Chopin scholar, or the graduate student in musicology reviewing large portions of the repertoire for qualifying examinations. The lesson is that different kinds of editions are conceived with such different purposes in mind. Similarly, each new edition—particularly of Chopin, whose music is not exactly hard to find—should likewise have a reason for being. If there is to be a new performance edition of Chopin’s works, it ought to respond to a specific need, and to offer some improvement over previous editions: improved fingerings and editorial apparatus, better readability, perhaps a deeper-context approach to variants. If it is a new scholarly or scholarly-performance edition, it is reasonable to hope for new information: more up-to-date scholarship, reconsideration of sources or access to new ones, or perhaps a deeper editorial consideration before performance suggestions are made about the relevant historical-notational conventions and performance practices. Consider, for example, the ongoing Complete Chopin: A New Critical Edition of that composer’s works from Peters. As of this writing, four volumes are out: the preludes, edited by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger; the ballades, edited by Jim Samson; the Waltzes, edited by Christophe Grabowski; and the Piano Concerto no. 1, edited by John Rink. Future volumes will appear under the editorship of these same and others such as Anatole Leikin. The only fingerings that are included are those authentic to the composer, such as those he notated in his students’ scores. A philosophical statement (more on this matter shortly) is provided in each volume, and alternate versions of certain works are also included, in appendices. The entire project brings together many of the top names in contemporary Chopin scholarship. (For chopinistes of indefatigable curiosity, mention should also be made of the Chopin Early Editions project of the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago Library, http://chopin.lib.uchicago.edu/ [accessed 18 February 2009]. High-quality digital images of a variety of first and early...

Gustav Mahler: "Mein lieber Trotzkopf, meine süße Mohnblume": Briefe an Anna von Mildenburg (review)

Gustav Mahler: Mein lieber Trotzkopf, meine suse Mohnblume: Briefe an Anna von Mildenburg. Edited and with a commentary by Franz Willnauer. Vienna: Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 2006. [509 p. ISBN-10: 3-552-05389-1; ISBN-13: 978-3-552-05389-2. i45.] Bibliographic references, indexes. With the publication of Gustav Mahler: Mein lieber Trotzkopf, meine suse Mohnblume: Briefe an Anna von Mildenburg the last major collection of the composer's letters is now in print. Not entirely unknown, the Mildenburg collection, which includes not only letters, but other materials related to the famous Wagnerian soprano's career, is part of the Theatersammlung of the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Vienna, Austria), an archive physically separated from the Musikabteiling of the same institution. While some of the contents of the letters have been already published, as in Mildenburg's article Aus Briefen Gustav Mahlers (Moderne Welt 3, no. 7 [1921- 1922]: 13-14) and in Alma Mahler's Gustav Mahler: Briefe (Berlin: Paul Zsolnay, 1924), they are printed in their entirety here for the first time. Although some of the previously available letters have been intriguing, the collection as a whole is useful in shedding light on both Mahler's career from his time in Hamburg through the early part of his years in Vienna, and also on his close association with the singer Anna von Mildenburg. The relationship between Gustav Mahler and Anna von Mildenburg is known primarily for the involvement of the young conductor with the talented soprano whom he essentially discovered and promoted in the early part of her career. While director of the Hamburg opera, Mahler was responsible for Mildenburg's professional debut in the role of Brunnhilde in Wagner's Die Walkure on 11 September 1895 in a performance that he himself conducted. Mildenburg was successful from the start, and she became one of the noted Wagnerian performers of the day. As her mentor, Mahler became close to Mildenburg, and the evidence of these letters suggests that their professional association developed into a more personal one. Mildenburg preserved Mahler's letters and, when viewed as the whole presented in this volume, they offer a glimpse of one side of their relationship as well as some perspectives on the culture in which these two musicians were deeply involved. One of the foremost conductors of his day, Mahler was known for the exacting standards that he brought to the opera house, both in the musical and dramatic sense. As a proponent of Wagner's works, he brought integrity to performances in Hamburg. In fact, as documented in these letters, he early on made a gift to Mildenburg of Wagner's writings, a gesture that certainly underscores his intention of giving her even more background for her performances. Mildenburg herself became internationally known for her Wagnerian roles, especially as Brunnhilde and Isolde, and her career extended beyond Hamburg, to Bayreuth and other venues. Later in her career, when she no longer performed, Mildenburg gave master classes, and thus conveyed her experience and training to new generations of singers, among them the noted soprano Sena Jurinac (a photo of the two working together appears on p. 466). This volume contains about 225 letters, mainly by Mahler (with some by Mildenburg), organized in three sections: September 1895 to May 1896, fifty-nine letters from the time when they worked together in Hamburg; June 1896 to April 1897, seventy-eight letters from the period when Mahler left Hamburg to the time he was named director of the Vienna Hofoper; and April 1897 to December 1907, eightyeight letters that cover essentially the entirety of Mahler's period when he led the Hofoper in Vienna. This volume also includes twenty-four of Alma's letters to Mildenburg, an extensive concluding essay (Nachwort ), and several appendices that support the volume. Willnauer has presented each letter in a diplomatic transcription that resembles the style used in Gustav Mahler Briefe, edited by Herta Blaukopf (Vienna: Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1982; rev. …

Un Testimone Glossato In Volgare Toscano Antico Dei Vangeli

The results of recent research display an unequal distribution of early Bible translations in the Italian peninsula with a definite focus on Tuscany. Through the text analysis of a Florentine testimony, Corsiniano 1830 (kept at the Biblioteca Corsiniana in Rome), the present article wishes to sketch the aspects of a presumable Bible translation attitude and style of Italian scriptural texts in the Middle Ages. Diplomatic and interpretative transcriptions form the basis of the linguistic examination of the translation.

On "Momtanish Inhumanyty" in Sir Thomas More

I N manuscript play of Sir Thomas More, three-page insert now widely believed to be in Shakespeare's hand contains a phrase of disputed meaning: rebels in London insurrection of 1517 are accused of inhumanyty. The play was first published in 1844 as edited by Alexander Dyce, who emended otherwise undocumented word to mountanish.1 When C. F. Tucker Brooke included More in Apocrypha in 1908, he retained original reading, offered gloss Mohammetanish and observed that Dyce's change was unjustifiable.2 The first authoritative text (1911) was edited by W. W Greg; he commented that the interpretation 'mawmtanish, Mahometanish' is unsatisfactory but was noncommittal regarding Dyce's emendation to mountanish.3 In 1923, a volume of papers on More included a modern text of several riot scenes, again edited by Greg. He kept momtanish and noted that none of proposed emendations . . . is at all satisfactory. Appended to his text was a diplomatic transcript of three pages with another comment on crux: the writer's intention is quite obscure.4 In 1958 reprint of his edition of Shakespeare's Works, G. B. Harrison published three pages in an appendix, opting for momtanish

Isaac Newton's alchemical notes in the Royal Society

A substantial 16-folio alchemical manuscript entirely in the hand of Isaac Newton, thought lost since 1936, was recently discovered among the Royal Society's previously uncatalogued Miscellaneous Manuscripts. This paper is intended to supplement a full online diplomatic transcription of this important document with a short account of how the manuscript came to be lost and found again, a summary of its content, evidence about its sources, composition and dating, and suggestions as to the lines on which subsequent research might proceed. Like most of Newton's alchemical writings, the work in question is largely if not wholly derivative, and it may be a conflation of what was originally conceived as two or more distinct documents. A few parts of it, however, may contain elements of Newton's own commentary and/or records of his own laboratory practice. No definitive conclusions are offered about such possibilities: the aim is rather to draw attention to the document's existence and significance and to encourage further, more detailed research on it.

Penny Eley Penny Eley (review)

494 Reviews to focus on particular details so as to make them resonate with wider significance. In early chapters, his detailed attention to tropes of the body in the poetry allows for a wider consideration of America's body politic in the mid-Nineteenth Century. And in later chapters, imagery of wounding, dissolution, and farewells that signals Whitman's decline into death also, Aspiz hints, signals a sad sense of America in a terminal, post-war decline. The eloquent and detailed attention that this book gives to Whitman's poetry of death is ample testament to Whitman's poetic afterlife. University of Glasgow Nick Selby Piramus et Tisbe. Ed. and trans. by Penny Eley. (Liverpool Online Series: Critical Editions of French Texts, 5) Liverpool: University of Liverpool, French De? partment. 2001. 164 pp. Not on general sale. ISBN 0-9533816-4-1. Narcisus et Dane. Ed. and trans. by Penny Eley. (Liverpool Online Series: Critical Editions of French Texts, 6) Liverpool: University of Liverpool, French De? partment. 2002. 94 pp. Not on general sale. ISBN 0-9533816-5-x. These editions are hard-copy replicas of the online versions available in pdf format at http://www.liv.ac.uk/sml/los.The Liverpool Online Series aims to make available critical editions of French texts that are unedited, difficultto obtain, or where a new edition is needed. The two texts considered here fall into the latter two categories, as although both have been edited several times in the last century, these editions have tended to be perhaps unduly interventionist or are lacunary. Penny Eley offers a critical edition of each text based on the most reliable manu? script source, with scrupulously referenced emendations from other manuscripts only in cases of obvious scribal error or omission, and a facing-page English translation. The texts are accompanied by an introduction discussing the manuscript tradition, sources for and retellings of the plot, form, genre, and major themes; notes, principally concerned with departures in Eley's edition from previous editions of the texts; and a bibliography. In Piramus et Tisbe diplomatic transcriptions of the four principal witnesses conclude the volume, thus making available to the scholar a vital tool for comparing the manuscripts and for evaluating the reconstructed versions of the text given in earlier editions. Eley presents Piramus et Tisbe as it appears in MS R (Rouen, Bibliotheque municipale 1044 (0.44)) with limited emendations mainly from MS B (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, fr.19152). Narcisus et Dane is based on the longer version ofthe text found in MS C (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, fr.2168) with conser? vative emendations from the other three manuscripts. Both texts have much in common in terms of date, form, source, and the modifications made to the material by the medieval adaptors, aspects which are thoroughly discussed in Eley's introduction. Both may be dated to the third quarter ofthe twelfth century, when interest in classical sources was especially marked. Eley's comments on how the anonymous authors manipulated the Ovidian tales, particularly in their foregrounding of the female protagonists, lead to an interesting debate on female sexuality, courtly love, and morality. The lyric sequences in Piramus et Tisbe, with their use of disyllables and monorhymed octosyllables, also generate a fascinating, although necessarily speculative, suggestion that this text may hint at the original form of that genre which repeatedly defies definition: the Breton lay. Two criticisms may be made about the user-friendliness of the format. Some in? dication in the critical edition of lines which have accompanying notes would be welcome, particularly in the online version, where the grouping of the notes at the end ofthe edition results in lengthy scrolling between the notes and the relevant lines. MLR, 100.2, 2005 495 A point concerning the online version alone is that, unless the file is downloaded or printed, the reduced magnification needed to display the French and English texts side by side also significantly reduces the readability of the font. This is a pity as Eley has succeeded in producing a translation of the texts which is at once readable and spirited and which remains very close to the lines and structure of the...

A true companion to the Corpus iuris hibernici

This is a review of Liam Breatnach’s A companion to the Corpus iuris hibernici (Dublin 2005). His book provides a survey of the content of Binchy’s Corpus iuris hibernici (Dublin 1978). It identifies the surviving materials for individual Brehon law tracts, including the tracts of the Senchas már. It also provides diplomatic transcriptions of texts from legal manuscripts absent from the Corpus. The present article argues that the Senchas már consisted of three tiers of tracts and that these three tiers are so aligned that they form eight groups of six tracts each. Each group focuses on a particular section of the law.

Parallel Views: Multi-level Encoding of Medieval Nordic Primary Sources

This article discusses three principal types of transcription with reference to vernacular Medieval Nordic sources: a facsimile transcription with graphic details, a diplomatic transcription with few graphic details, but with all phonemic distinctions upheld, and a normalized transcription with regularized orthography. The article argues that all three levels of transcription can be accommodated in a single multi-level encoding, using the flexibility of Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines. Special characters and abbreviation marks are encoded using entities and linking these to Unicode characters, partly in the Private Use Area. Words are encoded on one or more levels using specified elements and supplied with lexicographical and grammatical information by way of attributes. Display in various formats such as HTML and PDF is managed by stylesheets. Thus, a single XML file allows for several views of the text, suitable for different user groups, such as linguists, historians, and literary critics.

A Diplomatic Transcription of Hume's "volunteer pamphlet" for Archibald Stewart: Political Whigs, Religious Whigs, and Jacobites

A Diplomatic Transcription of Hume's "volunteer pamphlet" for Archibald Stewart: Political Whigs, Religious Whigs, and Jacobites

Abel L’Angelier et Françoise de Louvain (1574-1620). Suivi du Catalogue des ouvrages publiés par Abel L’Angelier (1574-1610) et la Veuve L’Angelier (1610-1620) by Jean Balsamo, Michel Simonin (review)

984 Reviews revelation of Denisot's orthodox Catholic background (he contributed to a polemic against Marot's Protestant/evangelical tendencies), given his extensive use of St Paul, so favoured by Protestants and evangelicals at this time. However, these questions and queries may be taken up in future research, thanks to this welcome publication of Denisot's thought-provoking text. University of Warwick Cathy Hampton Abel L'Angelier et Francoise de Louvain (i574-1620). Suivi du Catalogue des ouvrages publiespar Abel L'Angelier (1574-1610) et la Veuve L'Angelier (1610-1620). By Jean Balsamo and Michel Simonin (f). (Travaux d'Humanisme et Renais? sance, 358) Geneva: Droz. 2002. 636 pp. SwF 215; ?145.65. ISBN 2-60000632 -x. Abel L'Angelier (c. 1550-1610) came from a family closely allied in every way with the ever-expanding Parisian book trade: his grandfather was a bookbinder, his father, Arnoul, and uncle, Charles, were 'marchands-libraires' in Paris, his mother, Girarde Roffet,was herself the daughter of the publisher Pierre Roffet, sister or sister-in-law of three booksellers, and on Arnoul's death in 1557 she immediately married Lucas I. Breyer, an associate ofthe celebrated ChristophePlantin. Abel consequently married the widow ofthe bookseller Pierre I. Du Pre, Francoise de Louvain (c. 1540-1620), in 1573, and then set up his own bookshop, in 1574, at the prestigiousaddress 'au premier pilier de la grande salle du Palais' once occupied by the Verards, Galliot Du Pre, Janot, and his own uncle Charles. There, forthe next thirty-sixyears, fora large part ofwhich Abel was one ofonly ten dynamic Parisian publishers, more than 500 editions emerged from his shop, the years 1584, 1588, 1600, and 1607 being especially productive. As was common, Abel was succeeded by his widow, who was in turn responsible for a smaller, but respectable, output (some 80 editions) between 1610 and 1620. This superb study of the activity of Abel L'Angelier and his wife, following in the honourable tradition of the exhaustive but rather slowly emerging Imprimeurs et librairesparisiensdu XVF siecle, must be all but definitive,with only the rediscovery of lost editions forming a possible future supplement. Two introductory chapters, by the late Michel Simonin, consider in detail the couple's career, through an early heyday to the thinner years of the Catholic League and their later well-deserved prosperity; and the publishing milieu their firmfrequented, with especial attention being given to the L'Angeliers' editorial policy: they publish Montaigne (both 1588 and 1595 editions), the hugely succesful Vigenere and Pasquier, devotional works, legal and political texts, and above all, in the family tradition, works in French. A minor complaint about these chapters is that the narrative rarely gives catalogue numbers for the multitude of works mentioned. A third chapter, by Jean Balsamo, concerns 'le style L'Angelier': choice of printers, formats, devices, ornaments and other illustrative material, and bindings. Approximately half of the volume is devoted to the catalogue ofpublications itself.Titles are given a full diplomatic transcription wherever possible, with all the now usual publication details, and a considerable efforthas been put into presenting localizations and provenances, including information drawn from booksellers' catalogues. One can quibble about the odd entry: the sole copy of no. 175, forexample, bears only the hand-corrected date ' 1587' and a staple L'Angelier device, and seems most likely to be a 1557 edition by Abel's father; it should in theory be possible to distinguish 'reimpression ou nouvelle emission' (e.g. no. 312); and more generally a signature formula should be distinguished from a gathering formula (thus 'f? K4 v?' and not 'K4 v?'; this latter looks even stranger with an odd number, e.g. 'K3 v?'). It remains that this catalogue will be an indispensable tool for years to come. MLR, 98.4, 2003 985 The third part brings together the multitude of source and documentary materials referred to in the body of the work: almost 500 archive documents for the period 1521-1709, the astonishing'inventaire apres deces' of 8 May 1621, listinga stock-inhand of 36,500 volumes, and a selection of illustrative materials used in L'Angelier editions. A selective bibliography and a list of libraries consulted...

Charles Baudelaire: Mon coeur mis a nu (review)

Claude Pichois's new facsimile edition of the manuscript of Mon cœur mis à nu is an essential and engrossing reference for any Baudelaire scholar. It offers a compelling look at the poetic process in a work of discreet scholarship, attractive presentation and easy access. On facing pages of this large (26 x 36 cm) book, the reader can easily compare the diplomatic transcription of the manuscript (on the left) with its facsimile edition (on the right). This format makes it effortless for the non-specialist reader to decipher Baudelaire's handwriting and, more importantly, it is more fascinating to the scholar interested in Baudelaire's creative process than an analysis of the variants relegated to the back of a standard edition. This facsimile edition is thus a useful complement to the Pléiade edition, in which the annotations for Mon cœur mis à nu under the heading Journaux intimes follow the primary text in the "Notice, Notes et Variantes" section.

The Manuscript of Walt Whitman's "Sunday Evening Lectures"

Introduces and reprints the recently rediscovered manuscript of Whitman's lecture notes on German philosophers including Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, in a reader's transcription by Wihl (110-119) and a diplomatic transcription by Ed Folsom and Matthew Miller (120-133).

The First (1996) edition of the Senatus consultum

The First (1996) Edition of the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: A Review Edward Champlin Werner Eck, Antonio Caballos, and Fernando Fernández, eds. Das Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1996. xiv 1 329 pp. 20 pls. Cloth, DM 142. (Vestigia 48) Can a committee write a report? Yes and no. The question of authorship is relevant as much to the book under review as to the extraordinary text which it presents. The document is a very long Latin inscription (176 lines) recording a decree of the Senate passed late in a.d. 20 after the trial, suicide, and posthumous condemnation of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, the former legate of Syria. Copies began to turn up, all within the boundaries of Roman Baetica, in the late 1980s, one virtually complete, one partial, and fragments of some four or five other versions. Appropriately, their first publication has appeared in two versions, the one under review here in German, the other in Spanish. Most of the material is shared by both volumes, but the German edition adds a concluding chapter on the political importance of the document, while the Spanish version has considerably more on the physical properties of the bronze tablets and on the Spanish historical context—and on it the authors’ names are offered in alphabetical order. The German text scrupulously presents itself throughout as having three authors, and no hint is given as to who was responsible for which section. Let us speculate. The first three chapters, on the origins of the texts, on their physical condition, along with diplomatic transcriptions of each copy, and on the reconstruction and translation of the original text as received in Baetica, may represent the work of a team, but the subsequent chapters (4, prosopographical information; 5, the date of the trial; 6, commentary; 7, the transmission of the text to and within Baetica; and 8, the senatus consultum as political document) all bear the clear imprint of Werner Eck. That is, the prose is lapidary (Eck seems incapable of ambiguity or ellipsis); the erudition is [End Page 117] formidable; the argumentation is thorough, balanced, and imaginative; and the relative rapidity of publication is astonishing. Above all, Eck has made the book a work of truly international collaboration: between 1991 and 1996 he discussed the text at colloquia and at seminars in 38 universities (“among others”); some 60 scholars are thanked for help and criticism; and the notes are replete with specific acknowledgments to these and yet others for written and verbal comments and for reviews of unpublished work. The result is a formidable edition, clearly setting out the terms for future debates. Thus, appropriately for a decree of the Senate, the book is the work of one author, or of three, or of scores: for convenience we will call the author(s) E. As word of the SCPP’s discovery spread, scholarly excitement grew, for two reasons, one historiographical, one historical. Here is a contemporary version of a dramatic crisis familiar from the riveting account in Tacitus (Ann. 2.41–3.19): the bitter enmity between Tiberius’ legate Piso and Tiberius’ nephew and adopted son Germanicus Caesar, the suspicious death of Germanicus in 19, Piso’s trial and suicide, the passions of the plebs, the tensions within the domus Augusta and the Senate, and the brooding ambiguity of the princeps. Hence we can perhaps peer over the shoulder of Rome’s greatest historian in his study as he selects and shapes his material. At the same time, we are also offered a posed, but vivid and detailed, snapshot of power and ideology in the new principate at a time when the roles of the partners in government—that is, the princeps, his colleague (if any), and the Senate—are still being defined and the threat of civil war is still a real terror. And beyond these the document is a trove of information, constitutional, administrative, legal (both private and criminal), economic, linguistic, religious, prosopographical, topographical. To take but one instance, light is cast on several words in the evolving vocabulary of power, for here we find the earliest use of the word donativum in the sense of...