Elizabethan Poetry in Manuscript

An Edition of British Library Harley MS 7392(2)

Edited by Jessica Edmondes

Elizabethan Poetry in Manuscript

Edited by Jessica Edmondes

Distributed for Iter Press

Compiled by Humfrey Coningsby
425 pages | 2 color plates, 19 halftones | 6 x 9
Renaissance English Text Society
Cloth $79.95 ISBN: 9781649590206 Will Publish May 2021
This volume presents the first printed edition of a late sixteenth-century poetic miscellany and provides invaluable insight into understanding the literature of the period. Its owner and principal scribe, Humfrey Coningsby, drew on texts circulating in manuscript , predominantly by contemporary writers of the time—including Philip Sidney, Edward Dyer, Arthur Gorges, Walter Ralegh, Elizabeth I, the Earl of Oxford, Nicholas Breton, George Peele, and Thomas Watson. Coningsby also added at least two of his own compositions, along with anonymous poems not found in any other manuscripts or printed books.

This edition preserves the appearance, spelling, and punctuation of the original manuscript while expanding antiquated contractions to provide an easily readable text. Textual notes appear on the page, and in-depth contextual notes and word glosses are provided in the commentary section. The analyses add to our knowledge of early modern manuscript culture and literary manuscript transmission, and a substantial introduction provides context for the compilation of the anthology.
Contents
Abbreviations and conventions
List of illustrations
Introduction
Physical description
The hands: A-G
The identity of the compiler
Oxford University (November 1581 to September 1583)
Inns of Court (ca. 1584)
The travels
Padua and Hungary: April 1594-98
Constantinople: February? 1599-April 1600
Final journeys
Other people associated with Hy
Robert Allott
St Loe Kniveton
Joyce Jeffreys
The poets and scribal communities
Edward Dyer and Philip Sidney
Spenser, Ralegh, and Gorges
The Earl of Oxford and his client-poets
Nicholas Breton
The “Holborn set”: the metropolitan literary milieu
Verse forms and features
Subjects, themes, and genres
Organization and headings
Dating the anthology
Scribal habits
Authorial and other attributions
Entries subscribed with the compiler’s initials
Entries identified as ballets
Correcting and perfecting
Editorial conventions
Note on the collations
Note on the cypher
Text of BL Harl. MS 7392(2)
Commentary
Appendices 1-4
Bibliography of Manuscripts with Poems in Hy
Early Modern Printed Books Cited in Full in This Edition
Works Cited in This Edition by Author-Date System
Index of First Lines Modernized
Author Index
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Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature

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