Women bathing in the Voynich manuscript

In Episode 2 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey talk to manuscript scholar Lisa Fagin Davis about three of her favorite manuscripts, all of which happen to be in the collections of the Beinecke Library at Yale University:

The Gottschalk Antiphonary, now a collection of fragments

Epistolary, Cistercian Use, a 15th century manuscript with substantial forged illustrations added in the 19th century

Cypher Manuscript aka The Voynich Manuscript, a fiend of a manuscript that has proven itself impossible to decipher

Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts!

Join our mailing list to receive weekly updates about the IMFM pod!

Below the cut are photos of some of the specific things we discuss in this episode.

Keep reading

Title page for Reuben Rattle, from NYPL

In Episode 6 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot sits down with 18th century literary scholar Emily Friedman to talk about manuscript novels in the long 18th century. We talk about several different books, many written as gifts, and most written by women. You shouldn’t be shocked to hear that our conversation veers into discussions of fan fiction more than once. Our podcast’s first non-medieval manuscript, we hope you enjoy!

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Join our mailing list to receive weekly updates about the IMFM pod!

Below the cut are links to the books discussed in the episode, and further reading.

Keep reading

In Episode 5 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey chat with art historian Sonja Drimmer about British Library Royal MS 12 C iii, an early 16th century manuscript that purports to be a guide for translating Egyptian hieroglyphs but in reality is so much more than that.

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Join our mailing list to receive weekly updates about the IMFM pod!

Below the cut are photos of some of the specific things we discuss in this episode.

Keep reading

Pilgrim portrait of the Monk from CUL MS Gg.4.27.1

In Episode 3 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot sits down with Megan Cook, professor of English and book historian, to talk about Cambridge, University Library MS Gg.4.27.1. GG (as Megan affectionately calls it) is an early effort to bring together Chaucer’s major works outside of London, the writing might indicate something interesting about the person who wrote it, and it had a long and interesting history after it was written around 1425.

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Join our mailing list to receive weekly updates about the IMFM pod!

Below the cut are photos of some of the specific things we discuss in this episode.

Keep reading

Vercelli Book, folio 106v

In Episode 7 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Lindsey and Dot chat with Brandon Hawk about The Vercelli Book, one of the four major surviving manuscripts containing Old English literature. We talk about the sermons, the poetry, Celtic inspiration in what decoration there is, and why it’s called the Vercelli Book.

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Below the cut are more page images from the manuscript, links to the books discussed in the episode, and further reading.

Keep reading

“Profane, & Debaucht Atheists” (Bodleian MS Sancroft 29, p. 1)

In Episode 22 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey talk with Laura Estill about Bodleian MS Sancroft 29. Archbishop of Canterbury William Sancroft (1617-1693) was an avid reader and collector of extracts from various works. MS Sancroft 29 is one of many manuscripts in his hand that survives; it is a dramatic commonplace books, that is, it contains bits and pieces of many plays that Sancroft read most of them from the century before Sancroft lived, including Shakespeare. We learned so much about the reception of drama in the seventeenth century, and we hope you enjoy listening to our conversation.

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts

Below the cut are more images and links relevant to the conversation.

Keep reading