Peter Beal è uno studioso letterario la cui opera monumentale si concentra sulla catalogazione e sullo studio dei manoscritti letterari inglesi. Il suo vasto progetto, l'Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 1450–1700, ha fornito agli studiosi la prima panoramica completa dei materiali superstiti degli autori chiave del periodo. Le meticolose voci di Beal dettagliano un'ampia gamma di testi, dalla poesia e dal dramma alla prosa e alla corrispondenza, offrendo preziose sintesi introduttive sui materiali disponibili. La sua ricerca ha arricchito significativamente lo studio della letteratura inglese, offrendo una risorsa inestimabile per la comprensione dell'eredità letteraria del periodo.
The book serves as a comprehensive glossary, defining approximately 1,500 terms related to English manuscripts. It covers a wide range of topics, including various manuscript types, physical characteristics, writing tools, surfaces, and the roles of scribes. Additionally, it addresses terminology in literature, bibliography, editing, conservation, cartography, commerce, heraldry, law, and military affairs, making it an invaluable resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike.
This latest volume in the British Library's prestigious series on the history of the manuscript in English comprises ten articles on a diverse range of texts and authors, including the "Feathery Scribe," Leicester's Commonwealth, Sir Robert Cotton, Robert Herrick, the Earl of Rochester, and John Locke, as well as two recently discovered plays--The Destruction of Hierusalem and Feniza or The Ingeniouse Mayde. The main topics under discussion are authorship, scribes, provenance, transmission, new manuscript texts, and systematic analyses. The contributors are Peter Anstey, John Burrows, Ruth Connolly, Paul Davis, Nicholas Fisher, Paul Hammond, Christopher Howe, Robert Hume, Grace Ioppolo, Hilton Kelliher, Alan Nelson, and Heather Windram.