Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
This collection of 243 letters, only a handful of which have previously appeared in print, illustrates the full range of Humfrey Wanley's interests as Anglo-Saxonist, palaeographer, and the greatest librarian of his age. Covering the years from his arrival in Oxford in 1694 to his death in1726, they show the genesis and growth of Wanley's great Catalogus, his comprehensive account of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts published in 1705. They also chart his formulation of palaeography as a discipline for English scholarship from an immense range of ancient materials, and illustrate the skill andenergy with which Wanley, as library-keeper to Robert Harley, built up the Harleian collection (subsequently one of the foundation collections of the British Museum).