The Real Thing
Though less well known than his famous contemporary Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower (1330-1408), is arguably no less significant. A Lover’s Confession, Gower’s longest mature work, is a 33,000-line epic poem commissioned by Richard II. Written in Middle English rather than the Latin or French that was common at the time, the poem is one of the earliest complete works in the history of the English language. The book contains a collection of moralising stories in rhyming couplets, several of which overlap with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The work was begun in 1386, with this manuscript copy dating from around 1470 — just a few years prior to the arrival of Caxton’s printing press in England. Indeed, it has been argued that this very manuscript formed part of Caxton’s model text for the first printed edition of the book, published in 1483. Another interesting feature of this particular copy is the presence of a much later index; positioned at the front of the volume, this has been written in a style to mirror that of the main, original text.
Magdalen College Library, MS Lat. 213. Gower, J. (1470). Confessio Amantis.
A Facsimile
A modern facsimile edition of the Fitzwilliam Book of Hours, a Flemish manuscript from around 1510 that has been in the collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge since 1975. The original manuscript contains more than 300 pages and includes 63 full-page miniature paintings of exceptional quality.
Produced from photographs, this hand-bound facsimile edition is printed on paper chosen to mimic the texture and appearance of the original parchment. The exceptionally high quality of this reproduction highlights the extent to which modern technology can be used to bring the ordinary reader closer to texts that are generally only accessible to a small specialist audience.
Magdalen College Library, McG-A1. On loan from Michael McGowan (Mackinnon Scholar 1982–1987). Panayotova, S. (ed.) (2009). Fitzwilliam Book of Hours (MS 1058-1975). London: The Folio Society.
