John Shirley: Book Production and the Noble Household in Fifteenth-Century England
- Author / Editor
- Connolly, Margaret.
John Shirley: Book Production and the Noble Household in Fifteenth-Century England
- Published
- Aldershot, Hants; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1998
- Physical Description
- xii, 245 pp.; 17 b&w fig.
- Description
- A biography of John Shirley (d. 1456) that examines available life-records and assesses his scribal output and influence. Shirley was a scribe of several important manuscripts that include works by Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower; a collector and translator; and a servant of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick.
- His life offers a window to the relations between literary activity and social-political activity in the first half of the fifteenth century, and his access to many literary exemplars seem to have resulted from affiliation with the Beauchamp family.
- This study includes codicological analysis of Shirlean manuscripts and assesses his habits as a translator, scribe,and annotator, arguing that his audience was aristocratic. Appendices include a description of Shirley's language and transcription of his verse preface.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies.
- Language and Word Studies.
- Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.