R. B. C. Huygens

This is an odd little pamphlet that sort of falls between two stools. Its title proclaims it to be an introduction, but Huygens emphasises quite early on that this is not intended for neophytes. You need to be quite proficient in Latin, palaeography, codicology, etc, for this to be even intelligible to you, so probably the phrase "for established medievalists who are only now thinking of producing an edition (and likely of something that exists in multiple manuscript exemplars)". As you can see, this narrows down the prospective readership even further. I think having said all that, if you do fall into that category, Huygens will give you not so much practical tips or workflows as push you to take into account several things that will make your edition successful or not. It might be difficult for the reader to take the advice as intended, though, given that the personality that comes through here could be most charitably as full of exuberant confidence in its own expertise. (It's impressive how many times he manages to refer to the work of others as "rubbish" in such a short space.)… (mehr)