Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

Publication Title

The Journal of the Early Book Society

Volume

26

Pages

1-15

Publisher Name

Pace University Press

Abstract

New Haven, Beinecke Library, MS Takamiya 23 is a mid sixteenth-century copy of the B Version of Piers Plowman, distinguished by pervasive linguistic modernization. The manuscript derives from a source very similar to that used by Robert Crowley for the editio princeps, a textual affiliation that remains unexplained. In their critical edition, George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson collated Takamiya 23 in full but did not print its unique variant readings and the manuscript has not figured in recent textual scholarship on Piers Plowman. This neglect has led to some conclusions that should be revisited, particularly regarding the place of Crowley’s editions in the B-Version stemma and the extent and character of Crowley’s use of manuscripts other than his principal one. On the basis of textual and material features, we sketch a possible production scenario for the Takamiya manuscript and re-evaluate its relation to Crowley’s sources.

Comments

Author Posting © Pace University Press, 2023. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Pace University Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version has been published in the Journal of the Early Book Society, edited by Martha Driver, Volume 26, 2023. https://press.pace.edu/journal-of-the-early-book-society/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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