Especially unfortunate for a collection on textuality, the essays are marred by typographical errors (“David Scan Kastan”, “feministm”, “Sommer- ville College”, “modem” for “modern”, “arid” for “and”). ;WUMWN \PMÅZ[\[M\WN ¹[MUQVITºM[[Ia[[PW_\PMQZIOMJ]\QV[WUM ways this is one of the pleasures in reading the volume. McGann’s essay from 1985 asks, “What is the relevance of textual and bibliographical stud- ies to literary intepretation?” and asserts “This is not a question that has been posed in a systematic way very often”. These statements would be unthinkable in the recent essays in the collection, a change due in a large part to McGann’s own work over the last two decades. He suggests that, faced by the same textual feature, literary historians and editors ask differ- ent questions. The former ask “what does this mean?” while the latter ask “is this right or wrong?” McGann’s essay is not about early modern texts, TM\ITWVMJa_WUMVJ]\Q\Q[QV\MZM[\QVO\WZMÆMK\WV\PM_Ia[QV_PQKPMLQ- tors of early modern women have almost always been literary historians ÅZ[\LZI_V\WMLQ\QVOQVWZLMZ\WUISMQVIKKM[[QJTM\M`\[I^IQTIJTMWomen Editing/Editing Women is both an essential primer for any would-be editor of early modern women and a stimulating statement of enduring ques- \QWV[IVLKPITTMVOM[QV\PMÅMTL1\[]OOM[\[IÅMTL_PQKPPI[LM^MTWXML rapidly over some forty years, and provides an exciting picture of both the many questions which have been answered, and those which remain for editors in this vibrant area. Elizabeth Scott-Baumann

Stephen Hebron. John Keats: A Poet and His Manuscripts. London: The Brit- ish Library, 2009. 165 pp. ISBN 978-0-7123-4924-6. John Keats: A Poet and His Manuscripts is a beautifully-presented book provid- ing high-quality full page colour images of twenty manuscripts of Keats’s letters and poems. After a brief introduction, Stephen Hebron considers the authorial and post-authorial history of the poet’s manuscripts from the perspective of those caring for and uniting them in a long essay on “Col- lecting John Keats”. The essay gives a thorough account of the history of these valuable materials, from the poet’s own relative carelessness with them — “once a poem had been transcribed, Keats tended to consider his original manuscript redundant and would give it to a friend” — through the transcription and later gathering of his materials in the nineteenth century, culminating in Richard Monkton Milne’s Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats (1848), and on into the activities of H.B. Forman and Reviews 213 James Russell Lowell and the establishment of post-war American collec- tions. Hebron is good at conveying a sense of the changing values of these materials over time and the essay sets up a helpful context for the materials chosen for reproduction from the network of Keats’s friends and family in the second part of the book. Here, he presents various manuscripts with a page or two of commentary, drawing attention to particular details either of its history or of the materiality of the object. Shorter poems are given in full (the most famous odes, “The Eve of St Agnes and “The Eve of St Mark” and others), longer poems (Endymion and “Hyperion”) are given in a selected extract. Nine letters to a range of correspondents are also given in full, with a pleasing sense of their materiality including addresses, seals, folds and so on. At the same time, although he provides a highly informative and detailed history of Keats’s major biographers and collectors, Hebron does not give a clear rationale for this book, nor situate it directly in relation to already existing facsimiles (although they are referenced in full at the back) – most notably volumes III, IV, V and VIII in The Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics; John Keats: Manuscript Poems in the British Library (New York: Garland, 1988) and Jack Stillinger’s John Keats: Poetry Manuscripts at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1990). This is important since I believe that all of the poetic MSS reproduced here (apart from the Chaucer anno- tation) have previously been published in earlier volumes. Hebron’s lack WN KTIZQÅKI\QWVKWV\ZI[\[[PIZXTa_Q\P:MQUIV¼[¹.WZM_WZLºQVManuscripts of the Younger Romantics where he explains the relationship between the prior facsimile volumes in some detail:

I am pleased to note […] that Jack Stillinger, while preparing volumes VII, VI, and V for this series, has also been editing for Harvard University Press a volume of Keats’s poetry holographs […]. That volume which should enjoy a larger circulation than the transcripts, will provide access to Keats’s manuscripts to many individuals who may […] learn to value the study of the poet’s own holographs and, thence, move deeper into the study of all primary textual authorities for his poems. The closest Stephen Hebron comes to explaining the contents and organisation of the book is at the end of the introduction when he asserts that “the importance of the manuscripts does not lie solely in their collec- tive ability to tell the poet’s story” and that “considered individually, each manuscript brings us closer to Keats’s voice”. Again towards the end of his essay he asserts that “[w]hen looked at together Keats’s manuscripts can be seen as linked steps in his personal and literary progress; when considered 214 VARIANTS 8