Building A Social Edition of the Devonshire Manuscript

A Social Edition of the Devonshire Manuscriptis an unconventional text: it blends traditional scholarly editing practices and standards with comparatively recent digital social media environments. In doing so, the edition aims to reflect both contemporary editorial theory, which recognises the inherently social form and formation of texts, as well as the writerly and readerly practices that shaped the original production of the Devonshire Manuscript (London, British Library, MS Add. 17492). Dating from the 1530s–1540s, the Devonshire Manuscript is a multiauthored verse miscellany compiled by a number of sixteenth-century contributors.¹ As an inherently collaborative document, the manuscript calls for