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Volume I: The Thorkelin Transcripts of Beowulf
Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile Finding Aid Home
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v.XXVIII and XXIX Other resources
Volume I: The Thorkelin Transcripts of Beowulf
Beowulf, now universally acknowledged to be the greatest surviving masterpiece of Old English literature, was still little known in the eighteenth century. But in 1787 Thorkelin, an Icelandic scholar in the Danish civil service, commissioned an unknown scribe to copy the poem from the only existing manuscript, Cotton Vitellius A.xv.in the British Museum. A little later in the same year he himself made a second copy of the poem direct from the manuscript. These two transcripts are now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen. They supply us with texts of the poem more nearly complete than the one which now survives in the manuscript itself, because over the years the outer edges of the manuscript’s leaves have crumbled as a result of the scorching they sustained in the disastrous fire of 1731 in the Cotton Library.
From the publisher's website: http://www.rosenkilde-bagger.dk/
Title page A and B
Part: 1 Leaves: 1-4
2 5-7
3 7-10
4 10-12
5 12-14
6 14-17
7 17-18
8 18-20
9 20-23
10 23-24
11 24-26
12 26-27
13 27-29
14 30-31
15 31-33
16 33-35
17 35-37
18 37-39
19 39-41
20 41-42
21 42-44
22 44-47
23 47-49
24 49-52
25 52-54
26 54-56
27 56-58
28 58-63
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31 63-65
32 65-68
33 68-70
34 70-71
35 71-75
36 75-77
37 77-79
38 79-81
39 81-83
40 83-84
41 84-86
42 87-88
43 88-90
End page C
Transcript #2
Introduction 1-3
Part: 1 Leaves: 3-6
2 6 -9
3 9-12
4 12-15
5 15-17
6 17-21
7 21-23
8 23-26
9 26 -31
10 31-33
11 33-37
12 37-39
13 39-43
14 43-46
15 46-18
16 48-52
17 52-55
18 55-58
19 58-61
20 61-64
21 64-67
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24 67-74
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22 74-77
23 77-79
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25 79-82
26 82-85
27 85-89
28 89-97
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31 97-101
32 101-105
33 105-109
34 109-112
35 112-118
36 118-122
37 122-124
38 124-127
39 127-130
40 130-132
41 132-136
42 136-139
43 139-140