Search

This second series, MANUSCRIPT CONCORDANCES AND COLLECTIONS BY CHARLES CRAWFORD, comprises four boxes (88 through 91), containing ten sub-series (with varying numbers of manuscript volumes in each, for a total of 27 volumes), arranged alphabetically (primarily) by manuscript title: Avisa Series I; Avisa Series II; Belvedere; A Breton Concordance; a Concordance to Ben Jonson's Works; a Concordance to John Lyly's Euphues; an Index to Wits Treasury; a Concordance and Index to "Lines of Poems by Surrey, Wyatt and authors in Tottel's Miscellany"; a Miscellaneous Volume; and a Concordance to The Paradise of Dainty Devices.

The writer of nearly all of these volumes was Charles Crawford, who was a journalist of some kind, as well as a private scholar; he was born in Manchester in 1860 and lived and worked in London. From documents in the OED archives, Crawford was suggested for work on the OED in 1902, and was offered a position, but decided to withdraw because he felt he was not well enough qualified. He did, however, give occasional help and advice to the OED in the years following. As a scholar and critic, Crawford flourished during the last decade of the 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th century. He began publishing articles on Elizabethan writings in the 1890's, chiefly in the journal Notes & Queries, and continued writing articles on related subjects at least through 1929; two volumes of the early articles appeared in his Collectanea in 1906 and 1907. He edited England's Parnassus in 1913 and published concordances of the works of Thomas Kyd (1906-10) and Christopher Marlowe (1911-32). His manuscript volumes and concordances in the EMED materials date from between 1895 and "after 1929," though most were compiled between 1914 and 1929. These volumes, "purchased by the University of Michigan through the Research Fund of the Graduate School" in early 1935 from P.J. and A.E. Dobell Booksellers in London, were "Of the greatest importance," as Fries pointed out in his report on the EMED for 1934-35. Box 88 contains the first sub-series Avisa Series I (four volumes), and the second, Avisa Series II (three volumes). These are collections of English verse (primarily) and some prose of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with pages consecutively numbered within each sub-series.

The third sub-series Belvedere, or The Garden of the Muses, comprises three volumes and is contained in the first half of Box 89. This is a collection of quotations from the compilation entitled Belvedere (1600), edited by John Bodenham, arranged by subject, in three volumes, with pages consecutively numbered.

The second half of Box 89 contains volumes 1 through 4 of the fourth sub-series A Breton Concordance. This is a concordance to the works of Nicholas Breton (1545-1626) and others in eleven volumes and is based on the quotations presented in the seven volumes of Avisa Series I and Avisa Series II in Box 88.

Box 90 contains the remaining seven volumes (5 through 11) of the fourth sub-series A Breton Concordance.

Box 91 contains the fifth through the tenth sub-series. The fifth is "A Concordance to the 1616 Folio edition of Ben Jonson's Works, and the first edition of Every Man in his Humour." This is in fact primarily a word index based on Crawford's own concordance (not here); in his table of "Contents" Crawford refers to it as "A synopsis of the Concordance."

The sixth sub-series contains primarily a concordance to John Lyly's Euphues: The Anatomy of Wyt. Euphues was first published in 1578, but this concordance is based on Edward Arber's edition published in 1868 or, more likely, the later reprint of it in 1895.

The seventh sub-series is an Index to "Wits Treasury, 1598." Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury was written by Francis Meres (1565-1647); Crawford's volume is a combined subject index and concordance, but the primary emphasis is on subjects and proper names.

The eighth sub-series is entitled "Lines of Poems by Surrey, Wyatt and authors in Tottel's Miscellany and other places arranged in alphabetical order"; it is in fact both a separate concordance and an index of words in these authors.

The ninth sub-series is a miscellaneous volume, written by both Crawford and others, containing an edition of a play by Robert Armin, a fragmentary concordance to Hamlet, various subject-indexes to England's Parnassus (1600), and a fragmentary list of English names and writings mentioned in Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

The tenth sub-series is a concordance to various editions between 1576 and 1600 of The Paradise of Dainty Devices. Most of The Paradise of Dainty Devices was probably compiled by Richard Edwards (?1523-66), though poems by other, later writers were included in the editions.