How and Why to Do Things with Eighteenth-Century Manuscripts

Demonstrates the rich variety and importance of literary manuscripts—of poems, letters, and fiction—produced between 1730 and 1820.

Michelle Levy (Author), Betty A. Schellenberg (Author)

9781108926133, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 December 2021

75 pages
23 x 15.2 x 0.4 cm, 0.15 kg

'… a very important contribution to reading connections between archival history, library and archive practices, and literary history.' Laura Søvsø Thomasen, Metascience

This Element examines eighteenth-century manuscript forms, their functions in the literary landscape of their time, and the challenges and practices of manuscript study today. Drawing on both literary studies and book history, Levy and Schellenberg offer a guide to the principal forms of literary activity carried out in handwritten manuscripts produced in the first era of print dominance, 1730-1820. After an opening survey of sociable literary culture and its manuscript forms, numerous case studies explore what can be learned from three manuscript types: the verse miscellany, the familiar correspondence, and manuscripts of literary works that were printed. A final section considers issues of manuscript remediation up to the present, focusing particularly on digital remediation. The Element concludes with a brief case study of the movement of Phillis Wheatley's poems between manuscript and print. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Introduction
1. Manuscript Culture and Social Authorship in the Eighteenth Century
2. Manuscript Verse Miscellanies
3. Familiar Correspondences
4. Manuscript Circulation and Print Publication
5. Remediating the Manuscript Record
Coda: Loss, Discovery, and the Importance of Manuscript Studies.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]