The Handwriting & Culture of Early Modern English Manuscripts

Course Description

Working from digital images and an online transcription platform, participants will be trained in the accurate reading and transcription of secretary, italic, and mixed hands. We will also experiment with contemporary writing materials (quills, iron gall ink, and paper), learn the terminology for describing and comparing letterforms, decipher abbreviations, numbers, and dates, and discuss the important and evolving role of handwritten documents within a wider context of print, manuscript, and oral cultures. By the end of the week, each participant will create a “mini-edition” of a manuscript.

Faculty

Heather Wolfe

Heather Wolfe is Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Her first book, Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland: Life and Letters (2000), received the first annual Josephine Roberts Scholarly Edition Award from …

Advance Reading List

Preliminary Advices

Please have a preliminary exploration of some of these resources, which will continue to be of use after the course as well. Please bring a laptop for class exercises and homework or notify RBS if you’ll need to borrow one.

James, Kathryn. English Paleography and Manuscript Culture, 1500-1800. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2020.

English Handwriting, 1500–1700: an online course. Faculty of English, University of Cambridge.

Online tuition in the palaeography of Scottish documents, 1500–1750. The Scottish Archive Network, 2003.

Palaeography: reading old handwriting 1500–1800, a practical online tutorial. National Archives, Kew.

James, Kathryn. “Quarantine Reading: Learn to Read Secretary Hand.” Beinecke Library, Yale University.

Wolfe, Heather. Online resources for early modern English paleography.

Course Evaluations

Course History