The core course of the Masters in Research provides students with the skills necessary for scholarly archival research. In the first semester students are introduced to manuscript materials. They learn how to access these documents and how to read, transcribe and interpret them. In the second semester the focus shifts from manuscript archives to the early modern printed book. Students learn how to use research libraries, construct scholarly bibliographies and footnotes, analyse and describe early modern books and finally obtain the skills involved in the critical editing of printed texts. Fieldtrips are a crucial component of this course. Details will be circulated when they have been confirmed, but these will normally take place on Fridays from 2-4 pm. In previous years, fieldtrips have included visits to the British Library's Rare Books, Manuscripts and Maps departments; the National Archives; St Paul's Cathedral Library; the National Portrait Gallery; St Paul's Cathedral, and the St Bride's Printing Library. The course culminates with a field trip to the Netherlands in the Spring Break: the Bibliotheca Thysiana and Museum Boerhaave in Leiden, and the Plantin Moretus Museum in Antwerp.
Reading:
- D.C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction (New York and London: Garland, 1994)
- Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)
- Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book (University of Chicago Press, 1998)
- The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Vol. IV ed by John Barnard, D. F. McKenzie and Maureen Bell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
The course is assessed by examinations in Palaeography and Textual
Bibliography at the end of the first and second semesters respectively, and by a
manuscript project to be submitted in the week beginning 11 January and an
editing project to be submitted in the week beginning 4 May.
