Gower from Print to Manuscript: Copying Caxton in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 51.

Author/Editor
Nafde, Aditi.

Title
Gower from Print to Manuscript: Copying Caxton in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 51.

Published
Nafde, Aditi. "Gower from Print to Manuscript: Copying Caxton in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 51." In Martha Driver, Derek Pearsall, and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books. Publications of the John Gower Society, no. 14. Rochester, NY: Brewer, 2020. Pp. 189-200.

Review
Nafde identifies the features of Oxford, Bodleian MS Hatton 51 that derive from its printed exemplar, William Caxton's 1483 edition of the "Confessio Amantis" (STC 12142), exemplifying the interrelations of manuscript and print production in the late fifteenth century. While it is generally recognized that printers sought to imitate the look of manuscript pages, Nafde shows that the imitation could and did run the other way, at times very precisely. She identifies small errors that are obvious blunders in Caxton but reproduced in Hatton nonetheless, and discusses at greater length larger features such as Caxton's innovative table of contents and his Prologue, both reproduced by the Hatton scribe carefully. The table of contents includes locational folio numbers which necessitated that the scribe imitate Caxton's foliation throughout--an unusual feature in manuscripts. In reproducing Caxton's Prologue, Nafde tells us, the Hatton scribe appropriates one of the printer's "primary marketing techniques" (196)--his first-person claim of originality and uniqueness--which the scribe paradoxically reproduces without clarification, eliding the differences between printer and scribe. Tellingly, the scribe altered very few details of Caxton's presentation--slight adjustments to foliation for accuracy--and these alterations actually make the manuscript seem to "outdo its print exemplar" (194), Nafde asserts, in using features of early print. However, the scribe "also took advantage of the possibilities afforded by manuscript production," when he rubricated and decorated as he went along instead of awaiting post-print "hand-finishing" (198) as Caxton's technology required. In these ways, the Hatton manuscript exemplifies that "scribal practices were not just co-existing with print but being altered by it." The scribe, she tells us, "reproduced the look of the printed page . . . in order to bring the styles and practices of print to his manuscript" (190) in "an amalgamation of manuscript and print practices" . . . . that blurs the distinctions between the two forms of books, [and] tak[es] advantage of the shifting market for books" (200). [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2]

Date
2020

Gower Subjects
Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
Confessio Amantis