Scholars look beyond the traditional canon in new EEBO Introductions Series
ProQuest is pleased to announce the release of the 'Early English Books Online Introductions Series'. In this innovative new series, early modern scholars are invited to contribute concise commentaries on non-canonical EEBO texts, providing a new forum for the publication of scholarship. This series will allow other scholars to benefit from insights into lesser-known early modern texts in EEBO. Each contribution to the series has been prepared by a specialist in the field of early modern studies and offers insights into a range of contextual, bibliographical and reception-based issues associated with a given EEBO text. The EEBO Introductions series is a free enhancement that is automatically available now to all EEBO users.
The General Editor of the EEBO Introductions Series, Dr. Edward Wilson of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge says that "if anyone should be open minded about the power and potential of a printing revolution, it should be early modern scholars." Speaking about the invitation for early modern scholars to contribute to the Introductions Series, he stated further that, "The heterogenization of interest in early modern literature will, we hope, create a space for vibrant and innovative exchange using the framework provided by this nascent digital resource."
"The first ten contributions to the EEBO Introductions Series really do succeed in bringing their subjects to life" explains Peter White, Senior Product Manager for EEBO. "Edward Wilson’s discussion of A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia by Anne Weamys, for example, presents EEBO users with newly uncovered biographical information about Weamys, and suggests the ways in which her direct experience of the civil war as a child may have informed her responses to Sidney’s work. Similarly, in a commentary on John Frith’s tract A christen sentence, Ruth Ahnert reveals just how incendiary a contribution to the theological controversies of the early 1530s Frith’s pamphlet actually was, and the risks he ran in committing it to paper. The scholars who have contributed to the series so far have provided researchers and undergraduates alike with invaluable contextual information relating to some of the less frequently discussed texts available in EEBO. Their work is a spur to further scholarly engagement with these intriguing and neglected texts."
Scholars will also have heard through a previous announcement of the linking agreement between EEBO and ECCO for mutual customers. ProQuest are delighted to announce that this has been launched in this latest release of EEBO. This connects the two most significant and widely used digital research databases of early modern English books used by researchers today, making it possible to search across essentially the complete printed record of the English-speaking world from 1473 to 1800.
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