L. D. Reynolds, N. G. Wilson: Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (1968/1991)

8 December 2014, dusan

“One of the remarkable facts about the history of Western culture is that we are still in a position to read large amounts of the literature produced in classical Greece and Rome despite the fact that for at least a millennium and a half all copies had to be produced by hand and were subject to the hazards of fire, flood, and war. This book explains how the texts survived and gives an account of the reasons why it was thought worthwhile to spend the necessary effort to preserve them for future generations.

In the second edition a section of notes was included, and a new chapter was added to deal with some aspects of scholarship since the Renaissance. In the third edition, the authors responded to the urgent need to take account of the very large number of discoveries in this rapidly advancing field of knowledge by substantially revising or enlarging certain sections.”

Publisher Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968
Third edition, 1991
ISBN 0198721463, 9780198721468
352 pages

Review (of 2nd ed., E. Christian Kopff, The Classical Journal, 1976)
Review (M. Possanza, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1991)

Publisher (4th ed.)
WorldCat

PDF (12 MB)