A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus's First Voyage (review)

258 Short Notices Lardicci, Francesca, ed., A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus's First Voyage (Repertorium Columbianum 6) trans. Cynthia L. Chamberlin and Blair Sullivan, Turnhout, Brepols, 1999; cloth; pp. xiv, 681; R.R.P. EUR88.00; ISBN 2503508731. This international, multi-volume scholarly work, jointly funded by the USA, Spain and Italy, is bringing together all the currently known texts which relate to the four voyages of Christopher Columbus. Carefully edited from the original surviving manuscripts, they will provide for students everywhere an indispensable and reliable source for study of this turning point in world history. The volumes will be an essential part of every institutional collection which makes any claim to be a specialist historical, anthropological, geographical and linguistic library. There are three texts involved in the present volume, two in Spanish and one in Italian. Thefirstis the summary account of thefirstvoyage, presumably derived from Columbus's original logs. The second is the History attributed to Fernand Colomb, originally written in Spanish but surviving only in an Italian publication published in 1571. The third is the account given by Las Casas. Philological expertise has been applied to the interpretation of the language. The texts have also been translated into English with particular attention to precision of use rather than elegance of style. The disappearance of Columbus's original log books and the disputed history, authorship and relationship of the existing texts have givenriseto much academic debate, often acrimonious, about the reliability ofthe evidence and the extent to which Las Casas may have manipulated material he had collected to serve his purpose of reconciling God's providence with his o w n criticism of the cruel treatment of the Indians whose human dignity he was concerned to defend. This volume provides a synoptic edition of the texts which enables an easy comparison of the representation of particular events in the different texts. A succinct introduction gives a clear overview of the present state of historical debate and stemma to illustrate the possible relationship of the different documents. The editor gives evidence derived from the parallel synoptic texts to support the hypothesis that there was a wider 'macro-text' from which both Las Casas and Fernand Colomb derived much of their longer commentary. Their writings are too similar to be the result of independent work, too dissimilar for either to be the original, and too extensive to come from the version of the log as we have it, even though this may be Las Casas' own summary of the material he found useful in Columbus's original logs. Short Notices 259 A brief discussion of the different genres involved, the choice and use of different voices, especially where words are attributed to Columbus himself, and the way in which these differences shape the three works' presentation and choice of content adds considerably to the reader's understanding of the texts which follow. This edition clearly corrects and supersedes any earlier printed versions. Sybil M. Jack Department ofHistory University of Sydney Matthews, David, The Invention of Middle English: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Making the Middle Ages), Turnhout, Brepols, 2000; board; pp. viii, 244; R.R.P. EUR50.00; ISBN 2503507697. David Matthews describes this anthology of writings on Middle English as a ki of sequel to his earlier study, The Making of Middle English, 1765-1910 (1999), though we might rather call it a prequel: it presents extracts, often substantial ones, from many of the sources Matthews used when examining the study of Middle English in its broader institutional and social contexts. The earlier book focussed on the individuals Matthews argues had the most formative influence on Middle English as a discipline (Percy, Ritson, Scott, Madden and Furnivall); but was also particularly concerned with the social and cultural contexts in which they developed their influential agendas for scholarship in thisfield.This anthology can offer less detail about those contexts, but it does frame its carefully selected extracts with briefbiographical notes and suggestions for further reading. Matthews'firstsection is concerned primarily with the various attempts to define and describe Middle English as a philological phenomenon. It is interesting to see how far the discipline has been transformed, now that...