Although it is generally accepted that More's Richard III initiates
modern historical writing, there has been no scholarly edition of either
the Latin of the English versions. The Yale St. Thomas More Project has
now completed the formidable task of editing this work, and offers it
complete, with parallel English (1557) and Latin (1565) texts, a full
textual apparatus that lists all the major variant readings from
Hardyng's and Halle's Chronicles, a collation of all extant manuscript
versions, and, for the first time in full, the important early draft of
the Latin text, manuscript Arundel 43 in the College of Arms. The
Introduction discusses the development of the text and the circumstances
under which it was composed, and there is a commentary which translates
major passages preserved only in the Latin versions and examines the
relationships between the texts. Richard Sylvester is assistant
professor of English at Yale University and executive editor of the St.
Thomas More Project. (Volume 1 in preparation.) Previously announced.