The Static Shape of the Written Page
Hao Tianhu · 2023
This chapter provides a fresh analysis of Hesperides, or the Muses&s; Garden , a seventeenth-century manuscript English commonplace book compiled by John Evans that carries literary, historical, and cultural significance. Through a collation of the two extant versions and an investigation into the material evidence, much can be established about the production and dating of these manuscripts. On the basis of the appendices, which include transcriptions of the respective catalogs as they appear in the two Folger manuscripts, it can be seen that at least 356 titles are cited in Hesperides . The author proposes that Folger MS V.b.93 is not a duplicate or an enlarged version, but a master draft of Hesperides on which the fragmented version is based. MS V.b.93 was produced c. 1654–1666, and the fragmented version c. 1655–1656. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of the famous publisher Humphrey Moseley, who had initially entered Hesperides in the Stationers&s; Register.