StKrms ) ¬The¬ Pearl Manuscript, ¬The¬ Pearl Manuscript Facsimile. - o.O.. - [184] S. ( Kollat: [184] S.)(¬The¬ Pearl Manuscript)
The unassuming appearance of the Pearl Manuscript belies its incalculable importance to our knowledge of English literature. Modest in format, written in a small but distinctive hand and decorated with a series of charming if unaccomplished full-page illustrations, the manuscript displays none of the gaudy grandeur of the great illuminated books in the celebrated royal and ducal collections. Instead, it exudes a quiet authority more suited to private study and reflection. In this respect it is, perhaps, curiously appropriate that these pages represent the sole extant source of four poems – two of them undisputed masterpieces of early English literature – which bear witness to a remarkable flowering of literary creativity in the late fourteenth century.
Sign.: e050317/Facs. * Standort: Handschriftenzimmer Regal: 99