The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry

312 Pages·1868·23.868 MB·English

by  Thomas Wright (ed.)

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TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH INTO ENGLISH
IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VI, AND EDITED FOR THE
FIRST TIME FROM THE UNIQUE MANUSCRIPT
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, HARL. 1764, AND
CAXTON'S PRINT, A.D. 1484, WITH AN
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
THOMAS WRIGHT,
Esq., M.A., F.S.A., M.R.S.L. &c. &c.
Corresponding Mewi>er ofthe Imperial Institute ofFrance
{Academie desInscriptions et Belles-Lettres).
[REVISED EDITION, 1906]
LONDON
:
PUBLISHED FOR THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY,
BY KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd.,
DRYDEN HOUSE, 43 GEERARD STREET, SOHO, W.
MDCCCCVI.
(1SG8)
HOV
7 1941
FOREWORD,
BY Dl{. F. J. FUKXIVALL.
When the late Thomas Wright offered to edit tlie following text
for us^ I got Mr. W^m. Rossiter, then of the Working Men^s College,
to copy it, and add the missing bits from Caxton^s print of 1484.
I also offered to have the proofs of the text read with the originals
by a trustworthy man but Mr. Wright said he would read them
;
himself. Later, Mr. Edmund Brock found several mistakes in the
text, and he compiled a list of them, which we issued in a thirteen-
page appendix of ^' Additions and Corrections/^ On my asking
Mr. Wright why he had not carried out his promise to me, to read
his proofs with the MS. and Caxton, he said that he did read the
first sheet with the MS. and found it so correct that he did not
think it necessary to read the rest. This was too bad of him, as
the Society was quite ready to pay a good reader to do this part of
the Editor's work.
The book having run out of print, one of the Clarendon Press
readers made in my old copy of it all the corrections noted by
Mr. Brock and the new proofs to p. 48 were read with the MS. b}-
;
Miss Evelyn Fox, and the rest by me, I adding a few footnotes
from the French. Instead of adding a final e for all the d^, g, h, tl,
ii, of the MS., these letters have been printed as they stand.
In the extracts from Caxton I have had the tagd d^, g-^, h, printed
as they (in his fount) are used in his type No. 4^, which (says
Blades, ii. xxxvii) made its first appearance among Caxton^s types
in the autumn of 1483, when he was printing the ''Confessio
Amantis " and the " Knight of the Tower.^^ In the latter of these
VI KOREWOllD.
''fiig. f introduces the new fount to us; all after, as well as the
—
introductory matter,* being in type No. 4 */' ii. xxxviii.
Though of course some slips are still in the present print, it
IS an improvement on that of the first edition, and will be sent to
all our :\lembers. T have to thank the Oxford Press Reader for
many
valuable suggestions.
British Museum,
May
10, 1905.
My
young friend, Jack Munro, of the Working Men's College
and the Furnivall Sculling Club, has kindly added the much-
needed " Contents '' to this volume, has written many fresh Notes,
and has made a new Glossary, a collection of Phrases and Proverbs
(pp. 254-263), and an Index of Subjects (pp. 264-8), for all
which we are much indebted to him.
Some of the stories told below are also in the interesting
Alphabet of Tales edited for our Society by Mrs. M. M. Banks, and
in Mirk^s Festial in our Extra Series, edited by Dr. Erbe.
3 St. Geoege's Sq., NW.,
March 13, 1906.