Sir Thomas More in the English Renaissance: An Annotated Catalogue.

Jackson Campbell Boswell. Intro. Anne Lake Prescott. (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 83.) Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1994. xxxiv + 362 pp. $30.

This catalogue, which goes far beyond earlier efforts to identify and survey references and allusions to Thomas More and his works in the Renaissance, will long be an indispensable handbook for studies in and of Thomas More and early modern Britain. It does not wholly supersede the pioneering surveys by R.W. Gibson and the Sullivans, since it rarely reprints material included in those studies. But it makes numerous corrections (Gibson, in particular, proves surprisingly unreliable) and it casts its net more deeply while carefully defining its range and sensibly cautioning readers to check citations in the original sources.

As the title promises, its focus is the English Renaissance -- more specifically, the English Renaissance as represented in the second edition of A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475-1640. This means that the Englishness or Britishness of More, his works, and his reputation is emphasized: to read through this catalogue is to experience how quickly and how complexly the Reformation impacted on any understanding of "More," for example, how controversial "More" became, and how variously he was appropriated. It also means that major aspects of More are played down or absent, since much of More's humanist work was published on the continent in Latin, and, more than many other English Renaissance figures, his reputation was international. Nor are there any references to materials that appeared only in manuscript. There is another gray area as well, when an allusion does not specifically identify More or one of his works. Although there are more than two pages of references under Bacon, for example, there is no reference from the New Atlantis, probably because Bacon's narrator does not refer directly to More or the Utopia, instead speaking of pre-marital inspections as practiced in a feigned commonwealth "by one of your men." This means that this study, like its predecessors, invites corrections and additions.

Boswell himself is well aware of his own parameters, however, and his catalogue offers a multitude of references, far more than the 706 entries, since the numbers are simply a convenience, and a work with multiple references may be represented by one number. Throughout, moreover, Boswell has kept the needs of his readers in mind. A chronological appendix, which begins in 1505, with a reference to John Holt, supplements the alphabetical arrangement, and references are clearly dated and accompanied by STC number. Annotations are helpful; Latin citations are carefully translated, and bibliographical references accompany a particular reference.

Anne Lake Prescott's introduction merits special note. At once witty and substantial, it has done much of a would-be reviewer's work. Situating the catalogue and More (or "More") for us, it asks the all-important question--where (and who) is More, points out just how problematic and contested attitudes towards More and his works were, and brings an incisive discussion of reception theory to bear on representations of both the person and his writing.

In short, this book, which Prescott rightly calls "a way into the imagination of Renaissance Britain" (xi), is an invaluable and modestly priced research aid that offers everyone interested in Thomas More, in the English Renaissance, and more broadly in cultural studies, multiple views of a person whose works continue to be contested in many different areas: political, religious, polemic, pedagogic, linguistic, literary, topographical, and historical.