The Classical Text : Aspects of Editing in the Age of the Printed Book.

Cloth, 8vo, 24 cm, xi, [1], 174 pp. From the blurb: "The invention of printing about the middle of the fifteenth Century signalled a decisive change in the way in which texts were propagated and mediated to readers. For classical texts, transmitted since antiquity in manuscript form and extant in many copies of widely varying age and authenticity, the new invention had far-reaching consequences. These are described in this book, and the implications of the new medium for the development of textual criticism are examined. Current editing of classical! (and many medieval) texts is based on a body of critical doctrine that has evolved slowly and spasmodically over a period of some five centuries. This process is analysed, and it is shown that textual criticism is essentially a histoncal science, in which the achievement of the critic is largely proportional to the quality of the available evidence, i.e. the manuscripts that he has at his disposal. In the discussion are brought together subjects usually investigated in isolation from each other : humanist philology and the history of classical scholarship, the history of printing and publishing, book collecting and the formation and function of libraries, the travels of scholars, textual and descriptive bibliography. The author has drawn on a wide range of up-to-date specialist research in these fields to produce an original synthesis of a kind to which no parallel at present exists." Very Good in a dustwrapper with minor wear to the head of the spine-panel.…