Probable Truth

Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Vincent Gillespie Edited by Anne Hudson

Book cover: Probable Truth

Extent: 563 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Literary Studies, Medieval Studies

Series: Texts and Transitions

Series volume number: 5

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(October 2013)

ISBN: 9782503536835

Price: $200.00

On back order

How do the best editorial procedures of the past get transmitted to the future? In this volume a distinguished line-up of hugely experienced editors, and younger scholars actively grapple with these issues.


Editing as an academic mode of work has had a variable ‘press’ – it is often seen as just plumbing. But without editions no historian of whatever critical persuasion could operate. Texts that are not edited are effectively invisible. The advent of electronic means of text production has also raised new possibilities and new problems that need to be openly considered rather than ignored. The papers in this volume reflect those concerns, and explore the ways forward. How do the best editorial procedures of the past get transmitted to the future? A distinguished line-up of experienced editors and younger scholars actively grappling with these issues reflect on their engagement with the challenges of textual theory and editorial practice. No single solution emerges as applicable to all texts and for all editions; the individual characteristics of each text and its transmission, together with the intended audience of each edition, emerge as primary areas for consideration.

Introduction - Vincent Gillespie and Anne Hudson The Way We Were The Early English Text Society 1930 to 1950: Wartime and Reconstruction - H. L. Spencer From Script to Print to HTML: Electronic Editions Whatever Happened to Electronic Editing? - Bella Millett Editing Electronic Texts - Thorlac Turville-Petre Practices, Habits, Methodologies The Architecture of Old English Editions - Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe Editing Old English Prose and the Challenge of Revision: or, Why It Is Not So Easy to Edit Old English Prose - Malcolm Godden Editing Texts with Extensive Manuscript Traditions - Ralph Hanna Composite Texts: Some Methodological Considerations - William Robins Editing Insular Song across the Disciplines: Worldes blis - Ardis Butterfield and Helen Deeming The Optics of Ps-Grosseteste: Editing Peter of Limoges's Tractatus moralis de oculo - Richard Newhauser In Praise of the Variant: Why Edit Critically? Variants vs Variance - Derek Pearsall When Variants Aren't: Authors as Scribes in Some English Manuscripts - Matthew Fisher Some Measures of Scribal Accuracy in Late Medieval English Manuscripts - Richard Beadle Editing and Correcting - Daniel Wakelin What is Scribal Error, and What Should Editors Do (or Not Do) about It? - Stephen Morrison In Praise of the Variant: Why Edit Critically? A Pragmatic Viewpoint - Susan Powell Assessing Sole Attestation in Selected Middle English Textual Traditions - Rosamund Allen Editing British Texts in Latin, Anglo?Norman, Celtic, and Scots Editing Older Scots Texts - Sally Mapstone Towards an Edition of the Scottish Troy Book - Emily Wingfield Textual Criticism and Baile Binnberlach mac Buain - Michelle Doran A Medieval Welsh Version of the Troy Story: Editing Ystorya Dared - Helen Fulton Editing the Editor: Editorial Policy at the Anglo?Norman Dictionary - Heather Pagan and Geert de Wilde Scientific Texts A Plea for Middle English Botanical Synonyma - David Moreno Olalla New Software Tools for the Analysis of Computerized Historical Corpora: GUL MSS Hunter 509 and 513 in the Light of TexSEn - Laura Esteban-Segura and Teresa Marques-Aguado Editing Alchemical Texts in Middle English: The Final Frontier? - Peter J. Grund Middle English Case Studies Why Edit the Middle English Prose Brut? What's (Still) in It for Us? - John J. Thompson Parallel Texts and a Peculiar Brut: A Case Study - Marie Stansfield New Challenges to the Editing of Chaucer - Orietta Da Rold 'Let Copulation Thrive': Some Varieties of Contamination in the Textual Tradition of Piers Plowman - A. V. C. Schmidt Editing Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection: The Case for a Rhizomorphic Historical Edition - Michael G. Sargent Index of Manuscripts Index of Names, Places, and Texts

  • Edited by Vincent Gillespie
  • Edited by Anne Hudson