Editing Piers Plowman
The Evolution of the Text

This 1996 book is an account of the editions of Piers Plowman which have appeared since 1550.

Charlotte Brewer (Author)

9780521024020, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 February 2006

480 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.713 kg

"What Brewer demonstrates...are the ways in which general editorial theories are implicated in historical contexts and, more particularly, in which views on the authorship of Piers Plowman and the number and character of its versions are implicated in one another." An Interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies

The fifty-plus extant manuscripts of Piers Plowman have always posed a puzzle to editors and readers. This 1996 book is an account of the editions of the poem which have appeared since 1550, when it was first published by the protestant reformer Robert Crowley. It examines the circumstances in which the editions were produced, the lives and intellectual motivations of the editors, and the relationship between one edition and the next. Brewer places the work of W. W. Skeat at the centre of Piers Plowman editing, showing how he towered above his predecessors and determined the path subsequently taken by editors of the poem, and presents much new biographical information about this extraordinary man. She uses a wide range of published and previously unpublished material to explain the difficulties of editing and to shed light on attempts to crack one of the major editorial conundrums in medieval studies.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. The Early Phase: 1. Crowley
2. Percy, Warton, Tyrwhitt, Ritson
3. Whitaker and Price
4. Wright
Part II. The Late Nineteenth Century: 5. The early English text society and its editorial context
6. Skeat: Introduction
7. Skeat's A-Text
8. Skeat's B-Text
9. Skeat's C-Text
Part III. The Skeat Aftermath: 10. Manly versus Chambers and Grattan
11. Excursus: Westcott and Hort
Part IV. Chambers Grattan, Knott and Fowler: 12. Chambers 1909–10
13. Chambers versus Knott
14. Chambers' graduate students
15. Chambers 1931
16. Chambers 1935–42
17. The Chambers and Grattan collations
18. Grattan and Kane
19. Knott and Fowler, Donaldson, Mitchell and Russell
Part V. The Athlone Press Edition: 20. The Athlone A-Text
21. The Athlone B-Text
Part VI. Epilogue: The Athlone Aftermath: Schmidt, Pearsall, Rigg-Brewer, et al.
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]