Manuscript Studies and the Eighteenth Century

This essay provides an overview of recent contributions to the field of manuscript studies in the long eighteenth century. Although a number of early (and some contemporary) scholars have read print as the primary written form during the long eighteenth century, most researchers today acknowledge that manuscript traditions persisted despite the advent of print; recent scholarship reads them as complementary, where manuscript is no longer subsumed by print culture. This increased valuation of manuscript culture has shaped our understandings of literary and non-literary genres and even the concept of authorship itself. This essay discusses the foundations and methodologies of manuscript studies of the eighteenth century, which arise out of the fields of bibliography and textual studies and corresponding developments in the early modern period. The latter part of the essay surveys some of the recent developments and directions of the field, including the intersecting disciplines of women's studies, genre theory, and readership and authorship practices.