Peter Beal est un érudit littéraire dont l'œuvre monumentale se concentre sur la catalogation et l'étude des manuscrits littéraires anglais. Son vaste projet, l'Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450–1700, a fourni aux universitaires un aperçu complet des matériaux survivants des auteurs clés de la période. Les entrées méticuleuses de Beal détaillent un large éventail de textes, de la poésie et du drame à la prose et à la correspondance, offrant de précieuses synthèses introductives sur les matériaux disponibles. Ses recherches ont considérablement enrichi l'étude de la littérature anglaise, offrant une ressource inestimable pour comprendre l'héritage littéraire de la période.
The book serves as a comprehensive glossary, defining approximately 1,500 terms related to English manuscripts. It covers a wide range of topics, including various manuscript types, physical characteristics, writing tools, surfaces, and the roles of scribes. Additionally, it addresses terminology in literature, bibliography, editing, conservation, cartography, commerce, heraldry, law, and military affairs, making it an invaluable resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike.
This latest volume in the British Library's prestigious series on the history of the manuscript in English comprises ten articles on a diverse range of texts and authors, including the "Feathery Scribe," Leicester's Commonwealth, Sir Robert Cotton, Robert Herrick, the Earl of Rochester, and John Locke, as well as two recently discovered plays--The Destruction of Hierusalem and Feniza or The Ingeniouse Mayde. The main topics under discussion are authorship, scribes, provenance, transmission, new manuscript texts, and systematic analyses. The contributors are Peter Anstey, John Burrows, Ruth Connolly, Paul Davis, Nicholas Fisher, Paul Hammond, Christopher Howe, Robert Hume, Grace Ioppolo, Hilton Kelliher, Alan Nelson, and Heather Windram.