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Writing in Their Books: Readers of Elizabethan Hymnals

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Friday, April 20, 2018
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Samantha Arten, Duke University
Paleography Working Group

The final meeting of the year is on Friday April 20, 4:00-5:00 p.m. in Perkins Library 218 (Tarasoff Family Reading Room). Led by Samantha Arten, this session, entitled "Writing in Their Books: Readers of Elizabethan Hymnals," will consider the role of marginal notes in early English print culture.

Manuscript marginalia in printed books blur the boundary between print and manuscript. Such annotations may organize, gloss, correct, respond to, or otherwise engage with the printed text, but even mere "graffiti" such as scribbles, doodles, ownership marks, and birth and death announcements tell us something about reading practices and the place of the printed book in an individual's life and in culture. This talk will explore what marginal notes and other manuscript annotations in early modern printed books can tell us about the actual use of books (as opposed to publisher intentions).