A scholarly edition of a seventeenth-century anonymous commonplace book in the British Library [introduction]

The study of commonplace books offers an important means for scholars to gather evidence on the history of reading practices in early modern England. A cross between a diary and a notebook, a commonplace book is usually a collection of handwritten notes in which a reader recorded items of particular interest from printed books, manuscripts or from conversations or sermons. A remarkable work that brings to life the reader-reception practices of early modern England, this work provides the original voices of both the author of the published work and of the commonplace author while it remains pure to the idiomatic nuances of the time. A rare glimpse into the history of the book through the eyes of the reader’s notes.