New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies and Reading Practices : Essays in Honor of Derek Pearsall

This volume gathers the contributions of senior and junior scholars―all indebted to the pathbreaking work of Derek Pearsall―to showcase new research prompted by his rich and ongoing legacy as a literary critic, editor, and seminal founder of Middle English manuscript studies. The contributors aim both to honor Pearsall’s work in the field he established and to introduce the complexities of interdisciplinary manuscript studies to students already familiar with medieval literature.

The contributors explore a range of issues, from the study of medieval literary manuscripts to the history of medieval books, libraries, literacy, censorship, and the social classes who used the books and manuscripts―nobles, children, schoolmasters, priests, merchants, and more. In addressing reading practices, essays provide a wealth of information on marginal commentaries, images and interpretive methods, international transmission, and early print and editorial methods.

Contributors: Sarah Baechle, Julia Boffey, Peter Brown, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, Christopher Cannon, A. I. Doyle, Martha W. Driver, Siân Echard, Nicole Eddy, A. S. G. Edwards, Hilary E. Fox, Karrie Fuller, Maura Giles-Watson, Phillipa Hardman, Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Jill Mann, William Marx, Sarah McNamer, Carol M. Meale, Linne Mooney, Melinda Nielsen, Theresa O’Byrne, Stephen Partridge, Oliver Pickering, Susan Powell, Elizabeth Scala, A. C. Spearing, John J. Thompson, Edward Wheatley, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Hannah Zdansky, Nicolette Zeeman.

Kathryn Kerby-Fulton is Notre Dame Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author and editor of a number of books, including most recently Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), co-edited with Linda Olson.

John J. Thompson is chair of English Textual Cultures and director, Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, at Queen’s University Belfast. He is editor of a number of books, including Imagining the Book: Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe (co-edited with Stephen Kelly).

Sarah Baechle is a post-doctoral fellow in English at the University of Notre Dame.