Reliquiae Baxterianae: Richard Baxter's Massive Memoir

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 25; pp. 100 - 107
• Main Author: Kerr, Jason A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2021
• Subjects: 17th century; Autobiographical literature; Autobiographies; Bibliographic literature; Biographies; Editorials
• ISSN: 0954-0970

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, 5 vols. £472.50 UK; $615 US. (Sylvester's reputation as an editor has generally been low; the Oxford editors, having walked in his shoes, incline toward generosity in their estimation of his work.) Furthermore, since the early eighteenth century, many readers have accessed Reliquiae in abridgement or adaptation, whether Edmund Calamy's abridgement and revision (1702), William Orme's influential biography (1830), or J. M. Lloyd Thomas's Everyman edition (1925) - this last an abridgement that did restore some of the manuscript passages. Volume IV contains the documents connected to Part III, in addition to selected biographical records, Sylvester's and Calamy's editorial matter from the 1696 edition, and appendices collecting significant textual differences between 1696 and the manuscript evidence (in other words, a handy key to the parts of Reliquiae that few besides Geoffrey Nuttall had read before now). [...]the edition presents the text(s), followed by textual notes.