Recent Books
- Recent Books
This mature and well-presented study is the product of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in Book History at the University of Reading. It is notable for its thorough coverage of English archival sources, though Scottish firms are perhaps somewhat under-represented and in due course these may well provide some additional insights. It is also notably well-grounded in a wide range of Government sources far beyond the usual range of publishing documentation: National Archives classes such as BT (Board of Trade) and INF (Ministry of Information) have been well used, and the whole subject is set in a context of wartime central planning. There are thirty-six well-chosen illustrations.
Edinburgh
Alan Bell
Speculum Vitae is a Middle English verse translation of the pastoral treatise Somme le Roi by Lorens of Orléans. Consisting of 16,100 lines in Yorkshire dialect, it provides an important demonstration of early regional culture. Although the Speculum was an influential and popular work in its day, it has not been easily accessible to the modern reader. This first edition takes account of forty-five extant copies, which are now scattered throughout the world. The earliest copy of the text dates from c. 1375 (British Library, Add. MS 33995) and has been collated with four other manuscripts, all from Yorkshire, to present a reading text. In his editorial approach Hanna acknowledges the work of Venetia Somerset (Nelson) and other scholars. His introduction, which describes all the known copies, provides a detailed account of the issues addressed in establishing the text and its transmission, including questions of date, authorship, dialect, metre, and style. Evidence is provided to correct a number of earlier assumptions about the anonymous work, such as its common ascription to William of Nassington. The wider significance of the Somme le Roi source (c. 1279) as an inspiration for Middle English translators is discussed, with particular reference to the development of the Speculum text.
Nottingham
Dorothy Johnston
Germany
A valuable collection of fifteen essays, richly illustrated, on the subject of women as readers from antiquity to the modern age. [End Page 123]
A study of Renaissance use of concepts deriving from ancient and medieval writings on music and musical theorists’ ideas on the relationship between music and poetry, on the ethical value of music, and on its power to influence human passions.
The proceedings of a most interesting conference held in Vienna dealing with the role played by the book trade in unifying and modernizing the multi-ethnic and multilingual Habsburg Empire in the eighteenth century.
This study of the important Berlin literary and cultural journal Sinn und Form, established in 1949, offers a fascinating perspective on the cultural history of the GDR and post-unification Germany. It...
