Scholarly Editing

Written by acknowledged experts in literary studies, this collection of twenty-five essays surveys the history of scholarly editing, describes the major research in a variety of disciplines, summarizes the resources available to scholars, and analyzes the issues currently facing textual editions. The book begins with a survey of scholarly editing, following by four essays on the long tradition of editing the Bible and Greek and Latin classics. The next cluster of essays proceeds through the major periods of British and American literature, from medieval to modern, further subdividing the Renaissance and the nineteenth century by genre and including a chapter devoted to Shakespeare. Additional essays cover other European literatures: French (Old French and early modern), Italian, medieval Spanish, German, and Russian. The concluding essays discuss representative non-European literatures - Arabic and Sanskrit - and the "nonliterary" editing of folk literature in various languages. Each chapter includes a history of scholarly editing in the field, a citation of exemplary editions, and an introduction to a recommended list of further readings. This collection will be of considerable interest to both those who are new to scholarly editing and those who have experience editing texts in one period or literature and would like to learn about the practices in other fields.