The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts

by M. R. James

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Pages: 240

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About this book

A name on a flyleaf, an old library catalogue or a distinctive handwriting can reveal how a manuscript travelled between owners. M. R. James uses such clues to trace the making, collection and preservation of books across many centuries. Beginning with volumes at Eton College, he follows their surviving records through gifts, purchases and changes of ownership, showing both what the evidence establishes and where a gap remains.

The discussion moves from individual books to centres of learning such as Corbie in France. James also recounts how Guglielmo Libri removed valuable manuscripts from provincial libraries, altered signs of their origins and sold them to a collector. This short historical study offers readers interested in old books a practical sense of how their histories are reconstructed, and how the survival of literature depends on libraries, scholars and the care of physical pages.

About the author

M. R. James

M. R. James spent his working life inside two institutions, as provost of King's College Cambridge from 1905 and then as provost of Eton from 1918 until his death, and his profession was cataloguing medieval manuscripts, a job he did so thoroughly that the catalogues are still consulted.