Library Guides: ENG 401: Chaucer: Material Textuality

The Study of Manuscripts

An Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales
Teaching the Canterbury Tales with online manuscripts/incunabula: a quick intro
Examples of manuscript differences and ways to interpret them.

Nolan, Maura. "Medieval Habit, Modern Sensation: Reading Manuscripts in the Digital Age." The Chaucer Review, vol. 47 no. 4, 2013, p. 465-476. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/503877.

https://login.uportland.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/503877

Fragments and Assemblages: Forming Compilations of Medieval London
Call Number: Available online

Manuscripts

The Hengwrt Manuscript
ca. 1395-1405.
The Ellesmere Manuscript
ca. 1400-1410.
Norman Blake Editions
Compares eight manuscripts, including the Hengwrt and the Ellesmere, ranging in approximate age from 1395-1474
The Takamiya Delamare Manuscript
ca. 1425-1450.
The Takamiya Devonshire Manuscript
ca. 1440-1460.
Oxford, Corpus Christi College ms 198
15th century. The text of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is complete, but in a different order than that encountered in most other manuscripts.
"Chaucer" search in Early English Books Online
Go directly to results containing the word "Chaucer." EEBO covers 1473-1700. Link valid until 2/5/2025.
Caxton's Canterbury Tales
Compare two manuscripts, from 1476 and 1483.
The Oxford Bodleian Douce Printing
1491-1492.
"Chaucer" search in Eighteenth-Century Collections Online
Go directly to results where Geoffrey Chaucer is the author.
The Kelmscott Edition
1896.The Clark Library owns a facsimile edition.