English Paleography (seminar)

For more past programming from the Folger Institute, please see the article Folger Institute scholarly programs archive. This was a 2013 institute seminar sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Heather Wolfe.

Supported by a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this four-week course will provide an intensive introduction to reading and transcribing secretary and italic handwriting in the Tudor-Stuart period. Fifteen participants will also experiment with contemporary writing materials, learn the terminology and conventions for describing and editing early modern manuscripts, and, as time allows, discuss the important and evolving role of handwritten documents within a wider context of print, manuscript, and oral cultures. The institute emphasizes the skills needed for the accurate reading and transcription of texts, but attention may also be given to the instruments of research, codicology, analytical bibliography, and textual editing. Examples will be drawn from the manuscript collections of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

This was a summer 2009 institute seminar sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Heather Wolfe.

Over four weeks, Heather Wolfe, Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library, provided intensive training in the accurate reading and transcription of early modern English handwriting. Selected participants focused primarily on the secretary and italic hands in the Tudor and Jacobean periods. They also experimented with contemporary writing materials; learned the terminology for describing and comparing letter forms; considered the various editorial conventions relating to abbreviations, interlineal insertions, and deleted text; created a “mini-edition” of their own; and discussed the important and evolving role of handwritten documents within a wider context of print, manuscript, and oral cultures. Examples were drawn from the Folger’s collection. Several guest faculty provided their expert views of manuscript culture.

Director: Heather Wolfe is Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She has most recently edited The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary, 1613-1680 (2007) and The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608: A Facsimile Edition of Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.232 (2007). In addition to essays on manuscripts in early modern England, Dr. Wolfe has also edited Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland: Life and Letters (2001); The Pen’s Excellencie: Treasures from the Manuscript Collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library (2002); and, with Alan Stewart, Letterwriting in Renaissance England (2004).