1000 Years of English Literature: A Treasury of Literary Manuscripts

Virginia Woolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway in purple ink and barely scratched out a word. The old English script is still strikingly clear on the ragged-edged vellum of a 1,000-year-old manuscript of Beowulf. A page from Samuel Johnson's diary--remarkably neat, the lines utterly straight--contrasts with a wildly chaotic page from the notebooks of William Blake. These manuscripts, and many others, are reprinted in this selection from the manuscript collection of the British Library, where Fletcher works as a curator. Each of the volume's subjects is given a two-page spread, with a portrait of the writer, reproductions of his or her manuscripts and a brief description the author's working habits. Fletcher begins his book with a brief overview of the Library's manuscript collections, and poses a crucial question: What is the future of such collections in an age of computers and e-mail? His remarkably sanguine answer:""libraries are already beginning to find ways to preserve the burgeoning riches of the gloriously indiscreet and...wonderfully old-fashioned correspondence of the digital in and out box."" Lovers of English literature will treasure this handsome volume, which offers a fascinating insight into the minds and methods of more than 70 British writers. 200 color illus.