Article Title
Abstract
The antiquarian Joseph Holland (d. 1605) owned a large, but damaged, Chaucerian manuscript from the early fifteenth century (now Cambridge University Library Gg.4.27). Holland recognized in the manuscript an effort to construct a collection based on Chaucerian authorship, and he repaired and added to it using a copy of the 1598 printed edition of Chaucer's collected Works. From this edition, he took not only the text of Chaucer's poems, but paratextual materials as well, including a glossary, biographical information, and a frontispiece. His activities reveal how a distinctly post-medieval understanding of what the collected works of Chaucer should look like shaped the history of this fifteenth-century manuscript, and underscore impact of later stages of transmission can have on the way medieval books are read and preserved.
Recommended Citation
Cook, Megan L.
(2017)
"Joseph Holland and the Idea of the Chaucerian Book,"
Manuscript Studies: Vol. 1:
Iss.
2, Article 2.
Available at:
https://repository.upenn.edu/mss_sims/vol1/iss2/2
