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Add MS 10303
- Record Id:
- 032-002108098
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002108098
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000042.0x000217
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100181356303.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 10303
- Title:
-
The Isle of Ladies
- Scope & Content:
-
This volume contains one of only two surviving manuscripts of The Isle of Ladies, a 15th-century Middle English poem in rhyming couplets. The poem takes the form of a dream vision, in which the dreamer awakens to find himself in a beautiful island inhabited only by women. It also includes a copy of The Fairest of Fair, a Middle English poem made up of four stanzas and a refrain that appears at the end of the volume, often interpreted as the 'Envoy' for the preceding work.
This version of the text begins with a title that mistakenly ascribes it to Geoffrey Chaucer (b. c. 1340s, d. 1400): 'The death of Blaunche, the Dutchesse of Lancaster fyrst wief of Jo: of Gaunt iiijth sonne of Edwarde the thyrde, written by that honorable Englyshe Poet Geoffery Chaucer Esqer'. The work was included by Thomas Speght (d. 1621) in his 1598 edition of Chaucer's collected works, where it appeared under the title Chaucer's Dream. The true identity of the author remains unknown.
The other surviving manuscript of The Isle of Ladies, Longleat House MS 256, dates to the mid-16th century.
For an edition of the text, see Pearsall, The Floure and the Leafe (1990).
Contents:
ff. 1v-9r: The Isle of Ladies, beginning, 'When fflora the Quene of pleasaunce…' (DIMEV 6305).
f. 9r: The Fairest of Fair, beginning, 'ffayrest of fayer & goodlieste a lyve...' (DIMEV 1529).
ff. 1r and 9r are ruled but unwritten.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002108098", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 10303: The Isle of Ladies" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002108098
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002108098
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100181356303.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1550
- End Date:
- 1599
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 16th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Paper.
Dimensions: 305 x 205 mm (text space: 270 x 180 mm), written in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 9 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 17 at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. Half-brown leather binding.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Richard Heber (b. 1774, d. 1833), book collector: his sale, February 1836, lot 496; purchased by the British Museum for 17s (see note f. [ii] recto).
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, in the Years 1836-1840 (London: British Museum, 1843), 1836, p. 28.
The Floure and the Leafe, The Assemblie of Ladies, and The Isle of Ladies, ed. by Derek A. Pearsall, TEAMS Middle English Texts Series (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1990).
Kathleen Forni, '"Chaucer's Dreame": A Bibliographer's Nightmare', Huntingdon Library Quarterly, 64 (2001), 139-50.
The Digital Index of Middle English Verse [DIMEV], https://www.dimev.net/Records.php?MSS=BLAdd10303 [accessed on 24 April 2023], nos. 1529, 6305.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)