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Margaret Connolly's
Textual Criticism

 

 

Bibliography

Introductory Reading

Greetham, D. C., ed., Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research (New York: MLA, 1995) [the chapter on Middle English Literature by A.S.G. Edwards gives a brief history of the editing of Middle English and a useful bibliography, pp. 184-203]

Hussey, S., 'Editing for the Millenium', Journal of the Early Book Society, 1 (1997), 123-40 [a good survey of modern editorial approaches using four key examples]

McCarren, Vincent P., and Douglas Moffat, eds, A Guide to Editing Middle English (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998) [the best single volume guide aimed at inexperienced editors; discusses basic issues and requirements, and offers lots of practical advice about editing different types of text]

More Specialised Reading

Maas, Paul, Textual Criticism (1958) [not an easy read but the classic statement of the stemmatic theory of textual criticism]

Reynolds, L. D. and N.G. Wilson, eds, Scribes and Scholars (1968; 2nd ed. 1974) [the chapter on 'Textual Criticism' covers the same points as Maas]

G. Kane, Piers Plowman: The A Version (1960) [read pp. 53-64 only] and G. Kane and E.T. Donaldson (eds), Piers Plowman: The B Version (1975) [read pp. 16-20 and 62-69 only] [illustrating the fact that the stemmatic method doesn't work very well with later medieval vernacular texts]

D.C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction (New York: Garland, 1992) [extensive and very specialised account of whole subject; chapters on 'Textual Criticism' and 'Scholarly Editing' are most useful]

A.J. Minnis and C. Brewer, Crux and Controversy in Middle English Textual Criticism (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992) [collection of 8 essays dealing with particular editorial problems]

 

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