In the late 1980s, Laura Light undertook the monumental task of bringing the catalogue descriptions of the Houghton's medieval manuscripts--more than 1,300 in all--up to the standards of modern scholarship. Among the fruits of that project was an exhibition in the Library of twelfth century Biblical manuscripts. Light's catalogue catches the culture of the medieval book at its height, not only in Bibles but in breviaries, lectionaries, commentaries, and works of the Doctors and Fathers of the Church.

Daniel Berkely Updike (1860-1941) founded the Merrymount Press in 1893, which quickly came to represent the flowering of the Arts and Crafts movement in American book arts. At the same time, the quixotic and patrician Updike championed his vision of the "scholar-printer"--an artist whose work mixes a practical understanding of the printing trade with a deep knowledge of and reverence for the history of the book. This catalogue demonstrates the breadth and beauty of the Press's work, and the standard it set for commercial and fine printing.

This work explores the emergence of modern Greek language, thought, and sensibility reflected in Harvard's 80,000-item- strong collection of Greek books and manuscripts, ranging from fifteenth century liturgical manuals to Renaissance translations into modern Greek of Homer and other classical authors to the works and papers of such twentieth-century Greek literary figures as Nikos Kazantzakis, George Seferis, and C. P. Cavafy. With copious illustrations of Greek writing, design, and typography, Evro Layton's catalogue is a visual and intellectual treat for philhellenes.

A unique Smithsonian coloring book featuring the letters of the alphabet from rare illuminated books and manuscripts Abecedarium offers artists of all ages the chance to color the pages of history: it includes two black and white versions of each alphabetical letter for readers to personalize. These letters are drawn from rare illuminated books and manuscripts of science and art of the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. Accompanying each letter is the story of its rare book source, its artist, and its historical context. Part history, part coloring book, and part guide to selected historic books, Abecedarium is a contemplative and inspiring way to experience art, science, and culture from the Renaissance through early modern times.

Rodney Dennis, the Curator of Manuscripts in the Harvard College Library for many years, has solicited 37 brief essays from a group of international scholars to illustrate the evidentiary usefulness of manuscripts as well as their complexities. Early and recent manuscripts from the collections of the Houghton Library illuminate the subject according to a four-fold arrangement: the establishment of text, the creation of text, the history of the manuscript, and the physical nature of the manuscript in relation to its contents.;Richard Tarrant writes about textual principles revealed in three manuscripts of Aristotle's ethical writings. Helen Vendler discusses variants in the manuscript of Keat's "Ode to Autumn" and a Spanish comic strip found in the papers of John Ashbery. Francois Avril calls attention to the signature of Charles V in an illuminated manuscript of the 14th century, washed off in modern times by a thief. Christopher Ricks meditates upon marks and accents written by Elizabeth Bishop over her own poems to help her to read them in public. Among others, David Hughes (on "unheightened" neumes), Bernard Boschenstein (on Trakl), Barbara Johnson (On Mallarme), and Gerald Browne (on a faded pottery shard) help to reveal a variety in the forms of written communication.

Widmungen stellen eine Form von Paratexten des Buches dar, deren historische Aussagekraft bislang nicht ausreichend gewurdigt erscheint. Am Beispiel der deutschsprachigen Druckproduktion der Stadt Mainz im 16. Jahrhundert weist der Autor 178 Dedikationen nach, die er durch eine Kombination bewahrter texthermeneutischer wie auch innovativ-statistischer und netzwerkanalytischer Untersuchungsmethoden auswertet. Die Untersuchung liefert neue Einblicke in die soziale, oekonomische und religioese Struktur der Mainzer Stadtgesellschaft der Fruhen Neuzeit. Sie versteht sich durch Anwendung computergestutzter Analysetechniken als Beitrag zur schrittweisen Entwicklung jener Wissenschaftskonzeption, die weltweit unter dem Stichwort Digital Humanities diskutiert wird.