A Selective Bibliography for Textual Criticism of Manuscripts

Caveat lector: This page is under construction. This bibliography is useful only to about 2000 and highly selective till then. (HND)

"If you have a collection of complex verbal artifacts and wish to preserve them intact over a couple of millennia, you would be well advised not to entrust them to repeated manual copying; the experiment has been tried, and the results are not encouraging. From the Renaissance onward scholars have invested untold learning and imagination in the attempt to locate, and if possible to correct, the defects of the manuscript traditions of ancient authors. The industry continues."
Malcolm Heath, "The Corruptions of Copyists and Classicists." TLS (January 11, 1991): 18.

"It would not be true to say that all conservative scholars are stupid, . . . but it is very near the truth to say that all stupid scholars are conservative."
A. E. Housman, Lucanus, xxvii.

• Adams, I. Robert. "Editing Piers Plowman B: The Imperative of an Intermittently Critical Edition." Studies in Bibliography 45 (1992): 31-68.
• --. "Evidence for the Stemma of the Piers Plowman B Manuscripts." SB 53 (2000): 163-72.
• --. The R/F MSS of Piers Plowman and the Pattern of Alpha/Beta Complementary Omissions: Implications for Critical Editing.@ TEXT 14 (2002): 109-37.
• Bédier, Joseph, ed. Le lai de l'ombre par Jean Renart. Paris, 1913.
• --. "La tradition manuscrite de Lai de l'ombre: Réflexions sur l'art d'éditer les anciens textes." Romania 54 (1928): 161-196, 321-356.
• Bévenot, Maurice, S. J. The Transmission of Manuscripts: A Study of the Transmission of St. Cyprian's Treatises. Oxford: Clarendon, 1961.
• Bowers, John M. "Hoccleve's Two Copies of Lerne to Dye: Implications for Textual Critics." Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
  83 (1989): 437-472.
• Brewer, Charlotte. Editing Piers Plowman: The evolution of the text. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 28. Cambridge: U Cambridge P, 1996.
• Doane, Alger N. "Editing Old English Oral/Written Texts: Problems of Method." In The Editing of Old English: Papers from the 1990 Manchester Conference, edited by Donald G. Scragg and Paul E. Szarmach, 125-45. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994.
• Duggan, Hoyt N. "The Electronic Piers Plowman B: A New Diplomatic-Critical Edition." Æestel 1 (1993): 1-21.
• --. "Libertine scribes and maidenly editors: Meditations on textual criticism and metrics." in English Historical Metrics, ed. C. B. McCully and J. J. Anderson. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1996, pp. 219-237.
• --. "Some Unrevolutionary Aspects of Computer Editing." in The Literary Text in the Digital Age. ed. Richard J. Finneran. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1996, pp. 77-98.
• --. "On Constructing Documentary Texts for The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive." in Rationality and the Liberal Spirit: A Festschrift Honoring Ira Lee Morgan, ed. The Centenary College Department of English. Shreveport, LA: Centenary College of Louisiana, 1997, pp. 32-46.
• Finneran, Richard. Ed. The Literary Text in the Digital Age. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1996.
• Foulet, Alfred, and Mary Blakeley Speer, eds. On Editing Old French Texts. Lawrence, Kansas: The Regents Press, 1979.
• Greetham, D. C. Ed. Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research. New York: MLA, 1995.
• --. Textual Scholarship. An Introduction. New York: Garland. 1992.
• --. Theories of the Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Hanna, Ralph, III. "Problems of 'Best Text' Editing and the Hengwrt Manuscript of The Canterbury Tales." in Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English Literature, ed. Derek Pearsall. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987. 87-94.
• --. "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism in All Modes -- with Apologies to A. E. Housman." SB 53 (2000): 163-72. (A vigorous assault on the Electronic Chaucer project)
• --. Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts. Stanford: Stanford U P, 1996.
• Huygens, R. B. C. Ars edendi: A Practical Introduction to Editing Medieval Latin Texts. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000. Reviewed in Speculum 78.2 (2003): 531-3 by Scott Gwara. The latter is a convinced Bedierist, the author a Lachmannian.
• Lapidge, Michael. "On the Emendation of Old English Texts." In The Editing of Old English: Papers from the 1990 Manchester Conference, edited by Donald G. Scragg and Paul E. Szarmach, 53-67. Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 1994.
• Kane, George. Ed. Piers Plowman: The A Version .... London: Athlone P, 1960. 53-172.
• Kane, George, and E. Talbot Donaldson. Eds. Piers Plowman: The B Version, 2nd ed. London: Athlone Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
• Kane, George, and George Russell. Eds. Piers Plowman: The C Version. London: Athlone Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.
• Kenney, E. J. The Classical Text: Aspects of Editing in the Age of the Printed Book. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: U California P, 1974.
• Kleinhenz, Christopher, ed. Medieval Manuscripts and Textual Criticism. Chapel Hill: U North Carolina Department of Romance Languages, 1976.
• Lachmann, Karl. In T. Lucretii Cari De Rerum natura libros commentarius. 4th ed. Berlin, 1882.
• Maas, Paul. Textual Criticism. Trans. Barbara Flower. Oxford: Clarendon, 1958. (original German 1927, trans. of 3rd edition, 1957).
• Machan, Tim William. Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts. Charlottesville, VA: U Virginia P, 1994. See my review in Text 11 (1997): 377-88, and his response, 388-390.
• McCarren, Vincent, and Douglas Moffat. Eds. A Guide to Editing Middle English. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1998.
• Metzger, Bruce M. The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1992. (First ed., 1963).
• Patterson, Lee. "The Logic of Textual Criticism and the Way of Genius: The Kane-Donaldson Piers Plowman in Historical Perspective." in Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature. Madison, Wisconsin: U Wisconsin P, 1987. 77-114. {Reprinted and slightly revised from Textual Criticism and Literary Interpretation. Ed. Jerome McGann. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1985.}
• Pickens, Rupert T. Ed. The Songs of Jaufre Rudel. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978. (Introduction B good for multi-authority lyric texts)
• Quentin, Henri. Essais de critique textuelle. Paris, 1926.
• Rigg, A. G., ed. Editing Medieval Texts. English, French, and Latin Written in England. New York: Garland, 1977.
• Vinaver, Eugene. "Principles of Textual Emendation." in Studies Presented to Mildred K. Pope. Manchester, 1939. 351-369.
• West, M. Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique. Stuttgart, 1972.
• Willis, J. Latin Textual Criticism. Urbana: U Illinois P, 1972.